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Sparrow Kilaion

"Love, friendship, selfishness. They all go hand in hand, don't they?"

0 · 2,332 views · located in Kirkwall

a character in “The City of Chains”, as played by Yonbibuns

Description

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"Seems like there's still a lot I have to learn."



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Name: Sparrow Kilaion
Pronunciation: Sp-ARE-oh Key-LAY-on
Age: 32 (As of Act Three)
Race: Half-breed Elf
Height: 5'8”
Build: Whip-lean; broad-shouldered.
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Pansexual
Class: Arcane Warrior

Appearance: You might've been expecting a slender representation of Elven lineage, all willowy angles and slender limbs. Sparrow was spared of those beautiful features, she's much rougher. She's not a small wispy thing. She has squared shoulders, built for carrying heavy burdens. Elegant in motion? Perhaps. However unintentionally, Sparrow walks and runs and treads with a harrowing predatory gait. There's a coiled spring in her step that promises immediate action, as if she's holding something back.

Often content to throw about smoldering looks and wretchedly wicked smiles. Hardly anyone is spared from her vivacious expressions. She's the handsomely dressed man idling in the doorway, twining her tapered fingers across the bejeweled bracelets jangling around her wrists. She's the unambiguous woman kicking her feet into the air, balanced across the wooden scaffolding above your head, like a little girl who's just so damn amused at what you're doing. Angled, swarthy features are paired with distinct, serious eyebrows, which shroud murky green eyes. If she were a horse, then Sparrow would have the flesh of a muted-brown bay. Ethnically bronzed: a wayfaring exotic prince. She will tell you that she can be anything and anyone you desire; female, male. It never mattered before, so why should it matter now?

For the most part, Sparrow appears deceivingly human, though you'd be ill-advised to make any note of that in her presence. What with the lack of general leanness and sad-looking ears. You see, they've been sheared halfway down and bear puckered scars along the soft, bowed ridges of cartilage. Crudely sliced off like knuckles of bread. Someone tried to remedy the situation by stitching them up. Now, they're about the size of an extended forefinger. Thin white scars run down her back and a hefty handful of sunspots freckle her shoulders.

Act Two: As of note, Sparrow has lost an alarming amount of weight, rendering her little more than a flighty bag-of-bones with sallow cheeks and sunken eyes. Battling an internal war with Rapture, who could care less about her vessel's well-being and health, Sparrow's struggled to keep herself from withering away to nothing. With her companions constant encouragement and support, she's managed well enough. Numerous scars and markings have appeared on her body, including a variety of burns on her inner thigh from Rapture's brief bouts of boredom. Her smiles seem a little forced, if not subdued. Glance her way, and that shit-eating grin will blossom like a weed. Her misadventure in the Deep Roads, however, have served her well. No longer does she wear tattered, mismatched outfits seemingly compiled by Kirkwall's sailors and street-dwellers. She dresses as well as she can afford to (in the conventional sense): but tends to be simplistic in it all, not one for great grandeur (because it isn't safe) though she does appreciate the boldness of colour. Her cloaks are always fastened by a cast-iron bird in flight. Unfortunately, her plates of armour have ceased fitting properly.

Act Three: With the help of her companions, Sparrow has regained her health and no longer looks like a shambling corpse. She's been given back what was hers. However slow her progress may be, she's come to accept that the persona she created is not, and cannot be, everything she is now. She is smaller than she was before, but still vibrates with an irrefutable strength. Given the weight she's lost, Sparrow's eyes appear larger and her face much sharper. Ironically, perhaps now that she's less masculine, she appears more Elven than human. Recently fitted with handmade Dragonhide armour, crafted by none other then Amalia... partially out of pity, she supposed, but nonetheless, she's found it surprisingly comfortable. She's allowed her hair to grow somewhat longer and has begun dressing in a less androgynous manner. She's still somewhat handsome, and definitely less alarming (and confusing) because of the frame she'd once had. She supposes that she's satisfied with how she looks, but it's still jarring whenever she passes by reflective surfaces. Looking so unlike herself.



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Demeanour:

Obnoxious little birds hardly perch for longer than a few moments, and Sparrow is no different. She walks a fine line between flightiness and a complete disregard for serious circumstances. Things that may shake up normal people may not affect her much at all. Her recklessness knows no bounds. She treads lightly on no one's feet. She stomps (and sometimes apologizes). While she generally lacks common sense in situations that call for it, she behaves as if she's always lived on the streets. Particularly if said situation involves planning beforehand. And what a loudmouth she is! Nearly unmatched when flapping her gums: her tongue is as sharp as a warrior's whetted blade. As thick-skinned as an elephant, she's capable of sloughing off insults with ease. Her retributions are often far more hurtful. She's a fighter. She's a survivor. She's an inventor, a dreamer, a creature who's muses never crumble.

The woman, not-woman is, and will always be, incredibly flawed.

She's a lofty grenade thrown through the gap of your car window, as you desperately try to wind it closed, landing squarely in your lap. She's a thundering concussive blast. She's collapsing buildings and debris falling from the sky like comets. She's a paroxysm. She's outbursts. She's the frothing bubbles shaking a pot's lid clear off, straight across the kitchen floor. She's fingernails digging straight through the ridges of your spine: shaking shaking shaking. She's unsymmetrical tiles driving your obsessive compulsive tendencies insane. She's a muddy, stick-infested nest huddled between the lining of your home that drives you absolutely nutters because they won't shut the hell up but there's something preventing you from knocking it down. In a way, it's beautiful. She's rusty nails being beaten, crookedly, into the knots of a wooden plank. She doesn't fit correctly. She's not a proper puzzle piece. She's a challenge to everything and everyone—mostly to herself.

Sparrow relies on her natural charisma to capture sympathy and praise. She's perfectly capable of acting pathetic or clowning around in a bid to get what she wants. It's not obvious that she does this and only the most perceptive spirits could catch onto her wily games. She's not giving anything up, so even if you did confront her, she'd probably lie straight through her teeth. Her independence is contagious, glorious, admirable. It might even appear a little sad if she weren't so goddamn cheeky all the time, so evidently not lonely. She wants to splash a little limelight across your feet and she will willingly open her world to you: all you need to do is grab her hand and cross whatever fears you've been idling with. She says that she's discarded hers across the ocean like ash, which isn't exactly true. Her fears are many, though she would admit to none.

Act Two: Over the span of Rapture's presence, Sparrow's brightly-colored, hefty personality has lost its girth. There are no more rainbows. She's grown bitter. Very, very bitter. She's become quite the little actor, as well. Divulging her unhappiness to others would be beyond selfish, even for her. Living with an unwelcome guest scrapping its talons through her thoughts like it was pea soup has been increasingly difficult. Without her companions, she's sure she would've been done for long ago. Ever so, it feels as if her life means less and less as the days pass. She's become a danger to those she cares about and the mistakes she's made have been piling behind her. In her most personal times, she's prone to extreme mood-swings. A weepy, crying mess, and as soon as Rapture grapples the reigns from her fingers: frigid, cool and mercilessly cruel. She has distanced herself from her friends as best as she's able to. For now, that's all she's capable of doing for them.

Act Three: Much has changed since losing Sparrow's toxic sycophant. At the cost of Rilien's last prospect to retrieve everything he'd lost, Rapture was extracted from her person and killed by her own hands. Surrounded by her companions: faces she's come to know as friends, she did not have to face any of her sufferings alone. This has been a reoccurring theme in her life, as of recent. She is not alone, as she'd once believed herself to be. With each passing day, she grows physically and mentally stronger and given far more chances to right her wrongs. It's possibly the most difficult thing she's had to face—moving on and accepting things as they are, including herself. For once in her life, she's swamped by experiences she has no clue how to deal with.

Fears: What Sparrow fears most of all is losing the things she's come to care about: including people. Once you've acquired important things, friends, people you love. They become weaknesses, and tie anchors to your feet. Her companions has become a perch she does not wish to fly from. She wishes that things would remain the same: it's a cloying, childish feeling that she hates. Change, loss, abandonment.

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Opinions:
    The Chantry: Even if she has no solid reason to hate them, Sparrow simply does. If not for Rilien's sake, and what they've done to him. But she suspects it's truly because her own guilty conscience is screaming that she's done the same to him. Even so, it is easier to blame them.
  • Mages: There's not much to say. They are now a part of her she's chosen to embrace. Primarily because of Aurora and her lessons, Sparrow has come to accept her abilities, and made many friends in the process. Her opinion of them is rather high.
  • Templars: She has too much to say about them. Dirty blighters, skulking through the Gallows. She dislikes hiding from them, but understands the consequences of confronting them.
  • Elves: Pointy ears, pointy elbows, pointy everything. As far as she's concerned, they're pretty creatures who often have no sense of humor. Certainly not the kind she's used to—dark, and full of sneering snarks. The Alienage, and all of it's inhabitants have taught her more than she's cared to know about Dalish culture. She still feels no kinship towards them.
  • Dwarves: Honestly, the only Dwarves she's been exposed to was Varric and his associates. She likes him well enough and if they're all like him, she supposes she'd like them too.
  • Humans: If they have sticks shoved up their arses, she doesn't like them. If they're like Ashton, Sophia, Aurora, Amalia, and Lucien, then they're alright. She's choosey about the people she likes, and it's no different with humans. Shorter ears, is all.
  • Qunari: She has mixed feelings about them. Part of her wishes that things could have ended differently in Kirkwall, but she knows better than to delve on what could have been.
  • Kirkwall: Nice sometimes and awful in other instances. If it weren't for her chosen anchors, her companions, she would have left long ago.



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Weapon of Choice: Sparrow prefers weapons used for brutality and savage strength. Something that could crush skulls, dent armour and rend arms limp and useless. Even if her movements are impaired with it's sheer size, Sparrow has found her lady-love in a large mace. It's particularly useful when affording direction to mighty blows capable of tearing through armour during combat: the flanged mace she uses has an eight-pronged steel head. The bottom of the shaft is wrapped in black leather for to improve her grip: it is also decorated with sea shells and various kinds of feathers.

Armor/Apparel:

Act One and Two: If we're not talking about her Qunari-crafted armaments, Sparrow appreciates metals and gems of all kinds, but her special fondness for gold shows in the many baubles wrapped around her wrists. She wears mismatched clothes belonging to gypsies and pirates and wayfaring travelers in her downtime, when she's not expecting to bloody herself up in combat. Her armour is something entirely different. It makes her appear larger, more imposing: frightening. It had been gifted to her by her Qunari kinsmen upon returning from her first battle, and it became her tool. Without it, they said, she would be soulless. It's steel had been folded several times over, giving it an opaque sheen. She wears a pair of loose-fitting navy trousers underneath. Her helmet is reminiscent of a Qunari's horns.

Act Three: No longer does she cling to her old Qunari-remnants, not that it would fit anyhow. Whether or not Amalia did it out of kinship or pity, she crafted her a set of armour unlike anything she's ever worn. Dragonhide leathers. Like segmented scales, light and flexible, and startlingly effective against errant blades and deflecting blows. Not to mention it fits her perfectly. She's thanked her before, but she can't imagine simple words will ever describe how many times the thing has saved her from certain death.

Combat Overview: How much damage does Sparrow inflict? You'd be surprised to know that she doesn't just bumble around, swinging her mace around like a drunk man totting a broken bench. She knows exactly where to optimize her brutality: to crush lungs, to burst livers, to suffocate you within your own armour. In close combat, Sparrow can be terrifying. Her speed derives from her physical structure. Her nimbleness comes from her elegant lineage and harsh upbringing. Her strength comes from within. Now that she's unbound by the Qun and it's regulations, Sparrow has become increasingly foolhardy when utilizing her magic, heedless of whose eyes watch her.



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Place of Birth, Nation of Origin: Elven Alienage, Tevinter Imperium
Social Status: Previously, among the Qunari, Sparrow was a basalit-an "honored thing." A warrior specializing in infiltration, her unit name is "undisclosed." Now, she's little more than a gifted thief, smooth-talker and residential trouble-maker. Slowly but surely, she's been making a name for herself in Kirkwall. Those who seek a warm-eyed companion, a hardy bodyguard or a substantially knowing information-hoarder need not travel far to find her tailing you.

Personal History:

If you haven't already guessed, Sparrow had never been her true name. It's unambiguous, unsuspecting, and prevalently androgynous in its origins. Sparrow could belong to a traveling man who's fluttering eyelashes could make women swoon after him. Sparrow could belong to a snarly woman kneading bread between her knuckles. Her name, originally, had been Papyrus. Named after an exotic blend of parchment paper from the furthest reaches of Rivain. So, even if Sparrow does not remember living in Tevinter's Alienage: she remembers her name. It is important to her.

She will not speak it to anyone and refuses to buy into conversations begging to know of her true origins. To anyone curious enough to ask, she was a traveler, a gypsy, a mystery, a beggar, a lover, a man, a woman, a person who came from nowhere. Her parents are alive and well, though she hasn't contacted them in ages. She can't recall why they had left the Alienage initially, but she can guess why. The threatening blanket of oppression had finally grown too heavy, too wearisome to carry. Their knees were buckling and the community was faltering under the weight as well. It was too difficult to carry on living in a cramped house, too hard to slither their way out of sight. She understood.

The years spent with the Dalish were magical. They treated them well enough. Though she still remembers feeling like a stray dog. It was in the way they were looked at. Pity bled there, in their eyes. Almost as if they were tiptoeing across eggshells Impish and naturally curious, Sparrow's insatiable appetite for the unknown took her into the woods past the Dalish encampment she'd come to know as home. Without her father's protective eyes roving over her, making sure she was present to wash up her hands for lunch. And without her mother's twinkling gaze, bright as the summer skies, willing proud butterflies through her stomach. Only the buzzing insects and anxious creatures scuffling in the underbrush accompanied her fastidious steps.

And they were her only companions in the dark, offering her consolation when she suffered. Silently, quietly. Hadn't it been for her owlish eyes peering from within the shrubs, she might have been overlooked. Luck hadn't been on her side that particular night. The humans, those dirty shemlen with their clubs and swords and leathers. They pulled her from the forest like they were extracting a tick from the back of their heels. Grasping thick swirls of her hair and pulling until she squealed and begged and cried—they didn't let her go. For the longest time, Sparrow would never speak of what happened in those woods, and if silence could somehow swipe her memory of what occurred, she sorely wished it would.

Fate would have it that a band of Qunari stumbled onto their path. Or so Sparrow had thought at the time. She would never know whether or not they had been stalking the caravan—if they even cared that raggedy bandits were traipsing around in the woods, but they had blood on their minds and apparent intentions as to what they would do with them. With an ease that shook her to the core, the Qunari slaughtered half of the band and scattered the rest off. They moved as one: moving cogs all belonging to the same machine, eyes like the pieces of steel they held. Why they took her along with them remains yet another mystery she will never know. Even now, she doubted it was from sympathy. Perhaps, they saw something there. In any case, she was brought to the glades and given a new name: Meravas. Apparently it meant so it shall be. The irony would only strike her as she got older.

After years of molding a suitable persona, Sparrow became increasingly good at something intangible: lying. She possessed magical abilities. More so then that, an insatiable wanderlust. She tired of the Qun. It threatened to box her in. It placed limits on where she might go and even though she owed them everything and how come to know a new family—it wasn't enough to keep her there. With a heavy heart, Sparrow left in the dead of night. Knowing that they would seek her out and paint her off as a traitor, expecting her to face execution with honor and dignity. That was something she would never do. Sparrow fled into the belly of Kirkwall, into a place called Darktown.

Act Two: The past three years have been interesting for her. She's made more friends in Kirkwall and somehow even managed to maintain them. In the same breath, she was boarded by the most dreadful, sadistic, super-bitch because of a mistake she made while hunting down a group of apostates. A small slip of the tongue that she can't seem to undo. It isn't something she cannot run from. For once in her life, Sparrow is unable to flee the country, flee until everything settles again so that she can start over. And she isn't so sure she'd want to given the choice. In the sordid city she's come to call home, Sparrow finally had finally been given the chance to renew an old friendship, and grow closer to the ones she's just made. Not to mention the fact that she's received news from Viscount's daughter, Sophia, that her childhood defilers are in the vicinity. Her monsters. Vengeance is tangible now. Dancing a jig in her palm. She can see it, it's close enough to touch. Somehow, she believes that it will make her problems disappear, and possibly dampen Rapture's hold on her.

Act Three: For someone as flighty as Sparrow, it surprises even herself that she hasn't flown the coop. With all of its flaws, Kirkwall, and it's residents, have become the closest thing she's been able to call home. The bonds she's made, retained and gained back are stiflingly complex. She's gone through great changes. Developed into a much better person. As small as her world is, it's growing at a startling rate. Her sights are on the horizons, though for once in her life, she's hesitant to leave the one's she's formed those bonds with.




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| Amalia |

TEXT

Esmeralda
Glassy Sky
Obstacles



Image| Ashton |

TEXT

Sunshine
Take Yours, and I'll Take Mine



Image| Aurora |

TEXT

My Boots
Mountains



Image| Ithilian |

TEXT

Take Us Back
I Am Mine



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| Lucien |

TEXT

I've Seen It All
My Favorite Things



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| Nostariel |

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I Know You Love to Fall
[url]Song[/url]



Image| Rilien |

TEXT

The Wolf
Go
How You Remind Me



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| Sophia |

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Bandida
Winter Solstice


So begins...

Sparrow Kilaion's Story

Setting

Characters Present

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting

Characters Present

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Where do we start?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting

Characters Present

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting

Characters Present

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn't like it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He
 disliked it.

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

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

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

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

"It isn't an illusion," she responded, perhaps as though trying to convince herself, "sometimes change has to be forced. The Templars will only outlive us if we let them. We've found a way to sow chaos in their ranks like never before. We could destroy them utterly if only our own kind would quit helping the enemy!" She followed with her eyes as his hand drifted to the knife hilt. "There can't be peace with the Templars. Some people just can't see that yet. But... I cannot fight you."

And with that, the aura was dispelled from the room, and the perceptions of Rilien's companions would return to normal. Idunna stood, looking perhaps frightened by the Tranquil's cold manner, and she averted her eyes, for the most part. "There, they're released, and I am at your mercy. If I tell you what you want to know, will you let me go?"

"So... No fun time is it? Suddenly, that sounds okay. Surely there are others who won't kill me for it," Ashton said, now of his own free will once again. He took the following moments to quickly step backwards-- particularly behin the two mages, Rilien in particular.

Rilien did not desire to have to raise his voice to be heard over another person, and so he waited for Ashton to regain his bearings, though his fingers did loosen from their grip on the weapon at his back. He tracked the human's movement with his eyes until the tall archer was behind him, and resisted the sudden urge to roll them skyward. The magic had ceased, so this was no longer particularly difficult, though he could still sense the ambient Fade in the area. "If you tell us everything you know about the situation, I will no longer have any reason to harm you," he replied honestly. He, after all, was not a Templar. It was certainly none of his business whether mages consorted with demons or ran about freely in Kirkwall, nor indeed if they had particular kinds of liasons with Fade-blind recruits.

He did glance sideways though, to make sure Sparrow was still with them, so to speak, before he allowed himself to make that statement. It would not do to lose either of his companions, to this blood mage or to their own startling lack of self-control.

Everything seemed to fall back into place, like puzzle pieces shifting in the correct order. The room's details brightened, contrasted, and appeared less hazy. Sparrow glanced at Rilien, sucking back an impatient, if not annoyed, breath. How hadn't been she been able to clear her head, or at least, break the mage's seductive spell? Something in her mouth tasted bitter – the Fade, no doubt. Her chest heaved, as if trying to expel what had just occurred. The serpentine whore had been trying to harm them. Her enticing beauty fell away like pockmarked curtains, heaping around her bare feet like a snake who'd finished shedding it's skin, revealing an ugliness she could not ignore. Just as bad as any abomination. Her mouth twitched, and her expression transformed. She did not have her companions lenience, nor did she have any of Rilien's controlled impassivity. Her fingers imperceptibly flicked, once empty, now occupied with a jagged, ornately decorated, dagger. Ironically enough, it'd been one of Rilien's offhanded gifts, probably given out of sheer necessity. The distance closed immediately between them. Sparrow snatched a handful of the woman's flowing hair, close to the scalp, and dragged her forward, tipping her chin with the blade's tip.

“You heard him, didn't you? Answers, now.”

Idunna's breathing quickened as Sparrow grabbed a fistul of her hair and dragged her closer, the knife sliding up under her chin. She swallowed, eyes averting her intense gaze. "Yes, of course, everything I know... you're looking for a woman named Tarohne, she's the one that recruited me and taught me the spell which I used upon you. It's blood magic, given to her by a demon of desire, which she in turn taught to me." She realized that they had probably already figured out she was a blood mage, but it seemed worth mentioning. She didn't want to seem dishonest in the slightest anymore, not with the tip of a blade pressed up against her throat.

"Her goal has been to create chaos among the Order, from within. She found a way to allow demons to possess nonmages, and we've been using it on Templar recruits. I've been directing them to her, enthralling them with blood magic, and then sending them to our sanctuary in Darktown. There's a secret entrance near the western staircase, a door marked with an amulet like the one I wear." It was rather nondescript, a silver pendant with a small, ruby colored gem set into the center. "That's all I know, I swear. I don't how she does it, I just send her the recruits. The Order would collapse from within if cases like these continued to pop up. Abominations within their own ranks... they wouldn't even be able to trust themselves! Please, don't kill me, don't turn me in to the Templars. I only want my freedom."

Ashton's fingers intertwined and rested on top of Rilien's snow-like head as his chin rested upon his fingers, peering at the blood mage from the relative safety behind the tranquil. He listened quite intently to the Exotic Wonder's words, looking for any more hints of bewitching or anything even remotely that smelled like magic. Despite his distance from the blood mage, and the fact that his bow stood unstrung in the quiver on his back, he wasn't completely defenseless. If she expressed anything but repentance or a willingness to talk, then one of Rilien's knives would find her heart.

However, such violence wasn't necessary as she squealed like a nug in heat-- At least he imagined nugs squealed. He never actually laid eyes on one before. Either way, she gave up the information with relative ease. The knife under her chin probably had something to do with that. "Right. Well. Now we have our heading. Let's go and get this over with. Blood magic tends to sour my appetite as it were," Ashton spoke, head bobbing above Rilien's.

"A shame really. A blood mage has such potential in a brothel-- if you know what I mean," Ashton teased as he playfully tugged at one of Rilien's pointed ears, "Alas, if only she used her powers for the good of man instead of evil. That is one of the tenants, no? Magic must be used to serve man?" He said, chuckling. Sure, she might have just tried to ensnare him, but Ashton was nothing if not curious. He couldn't help but wonder what a... Sampling of a blood mage would be like.

"Sparrow." The two syllables, dully-spoken as they were, may have carried many connotations. They might have been an admonishment, a caution, a warning, and, if his fellow elf listened closely enough, almost strangely affectionate. Of course, perhaps that was only the case if one read too far into the situation. Perhaps it was only a fancy of the imagination that would make Rilien into a caretaker, a guardian, and something vaguely protective. He was, after all, supposed to be a creature without feeling. But Sparrow, he understood, was given to flights of fancy and capricious whim, so she might well understand some or all of these things by his singular word.

He was aware of the archer looming behind him, and though he did not expect to be touched, neither did he react to it, the flattening of his smooth-textured hair, and his carriage remained entirely vertical even with the additional weight of Ashton's leaning on him. His face did not change for the duration of the undignified incident, not even when the human manhandled his ears. Rilien did not understand the reasons for it, but as he had no particular claim to discomfort from it, so he saw no need to correct it. It was, as so many things are, simply what it was. He folded both arms into his sleeves again, and the thought crossed his mind that this probably only added to the absurdity of the image.

Without futher prompting, Rilien walked out from under Ashton, heedless of whatever damage he might do to the archer's balance in the process, and headed for the door. "Then we are headed to Darktown. I doubt I need remind anyone what will happen if this Tarohne is prepared for us." The answer was simple, and one or the other of his companions was sure to punctuate it anyway. He doubted this Idunna was brave enough to attempt to warn her fellow blood mage, besides; not when she gave so easily under the limited pressure they'd applied. Thereafter, he drifted out of the brothel, though the motion was perhaps with too much purpose to be given such an errant label. He expected that the other two would follow; surely they also could feel that their task neared its end.

Had it been Rilien's admonishment, or his quiet suggestion, that idled the blade's tip a little lower, a hair's breath from the woman's quivering chin. It might've been something else. Either way, Sparrow's sooty eyes narrowed ever so slightly, reflecting two shady mirrors: the Exotic Wonder's dismay, spilling out. Where was her confidence now? Where was her bravery? Big doe-like eyes, soft skin, pouty lips – as if those things would warrant any sympathy from her, as if what she'd nearly done was worth forgiving. Where Sparrow screamed and hissed, Rilien merely cocked his head to the side, and where Sparrow was filled with a reckless courage, Rilien was calm-collected common sense. Surely, Ashton agreed that this woman wasn't worth another moment of their time, regardless of any fleeting fancy involving her long eyelashes fluttering against their collarbones. She sang like a bird hanging from a cat's mouth, dangling between teeth and a lolling tongue and a hungry stomach. “Lucky girl, you are.” If he hadn't been here, would things have ended differently? Probably. Sparrow finally released her grip on the woman's scalp, tapping that blade's tip against her cheek before sighing softly. The half-breed squared her shoulders and rubbed at the jewel hanging at her earlobe, regarding Ashton silently, then down at Rilien. They'd be good friends. She could already tell. The anger she'd felt at being so easily tricked melted away, sifted through her fingers like sand.

Sparrow pointed her dagger in Ashton's direction, laughing, and motioning in a quick circle before replacing it back in it's hidden sheath. “Much more fun when you're a willing participant.” She added with a cluck of her tongue. Things hadn't panned out accordingly, but at least they'd seen the Blooming Rose's wares before things went sour. She didn't need to tack on her own threat. It was unnecessary. If Idunna did not think her capable of hunting her down, crawling around Kirkwall like a bloody bilge-rat, then she did not know her at all. Unspoken promises lingered. She offered one more lingering glower before following suit, hot on Rilien's heels with Ashton following close behind.

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Home away from home. Darktown signified many things to Sparrow, all of which were positive – it was a welcome sanctuary, her personal hidey-hole, and possibly the only place in Kirkwall she felt completely safe. It was a welcome incongruous repartee, truly ironic. In more ways then one, it's downright filthy. The streets were paved with violence, leading into dark corners filled with grubby-fingered, greedy-eyed men and women who'd just love to make a meal out of you, figuratively, and perhaps, more literally. All the world's scrubbing would not clean it's avenues of filth, of corruption, of poverty. It hung in the air like a heavy blanket. Hardly-stable establishments jostled their elbows against brick walls and discarded rubbish, sheltering knock-toothed orphans underneath canvas tarps and sewn cloaks. Everything leans inwards, as if trying to support itself on something else. There's something that can be said about Darktown, there's no emptiness, no place that hasn't already been occupied by someone else; every inch of the street, of the ramshackle buildings, of the alleys, is filled. They each had interesting stories. She thanked her lucky stars for this place.

Idunna spoke the truth about the location of her group's sanctuary. The door was nondescript, what appeared to be an entrance to a hovel like any of the others in Darktown, the amulet she spoke of the only thing setting it apart. The trinket itself was covered in dirt, but still recognizable. It seemed likely that there was some kind of spell cast on the amulet, perhaps to make those not searching for it to simply not see it, as such a thing would no doubt be stolen rather quickly in a place like Darktown, where even the slightest amount of personal possessions were considered luxuries.

The group passed through the door unchallenged, and laid their eyes upon a normal looking hovel, a makeshift shelter with only the barest amount of furniture. There was a trap door, however, in a corner of the room, and voices could faintly be heard from beyond, though it could have simply been passerby from outside the hovel. What they perhaps wouldn't see, however, was the pressure plate buried just under the dirt in front of the trap door, something only the keenest of eyes would pick up upon.

The trip into the slums of Darktown were relatively uneventful. Of course, Ashton witnessed a mugging or two-- but that happened every day or so, so it really wasn't that much of a surprise. He couldn't help but pity those who had to suffer though the day-to-day in that pit of hell. A lot of refugees from Feralden inhabited Darktown, and it only reminded him how lucky he was that he had managed to snatch a shop in Lowtown, where the muggings weren't as common. Once inside the hovel, Ashton went ahead and strung his bow and had it at the ready. For once, they knew what they were getting themselves into. There would be little if no surprises this time, like a Templar going demon, or a whore being a blood mage. No, this time they were after maleficarum.
As his companions moved forward, he reached out and hooked Sparrow's neck with the bow, reeling her in like a fisherman would a fish. "Easy, Sparrow sweetheart" he murmured. His eyes weren't on her, but on the ground in front of her. Something in those eyes had hardened to fit the seriousness of the situation. He released Sparrow from his bow and then took the steps forward himself, before kneeling "They've got traps set up.." He said, gingerly brushing the dirt off of the plate. "Shoddy traps, the plate's raised up too high from the surrounding ground. It would fool ordinary people," He said, throwing a grin back to Sparrow and Rilien, "But not the best hunter in Kirkwall." He said, rising and stepping over the trap. "Careful. I don't want to figure out what any of these traps do. Probably end up with a Shade or two up our asses."

Sparrow eyeballed the plain door critically, smoothing her fingertips across the knotted wood as if it would somehow tell her it's history, or it's inhabitant's. She was the first to move forward, pushing the door slowly, while peering inside, before crossing it's threshold. Her stunted ears twitched. She swore she could hear voices further in. The voices sounded shallow, hushed, and slightly hasty. These voices promised secrets. Her dancing eyes – so usually trained to detect traps, treasures, and tomfoolery alike – were solely focused on the next door, and what it held inside. With the exuberance of a leg-swinging child, Sparrow's footsteps bounced across the cracked rocks, hardly considering what she was getting her, and her companions, into. She wasn't exactly known for her caution. Then, the half-breed jerked backwards, huffing like a dog who'd just abruptly found that it's leash only went so far. Her fingers immediately flew to the bow wrapped around neck, slipping underneath it to regain her composure. Though she was already backtracking towards Ashton, and soon after, released. “Whu—” Sparrow began to say, shuffling her feet awkwardly, and following Ashton's line of sight to a small pile of dirt, shoddily scuffled around the presumed trap. It was a raised plate – and one that she would've missed if it hadn't been for her companion. How hadn't she noticed, again? “How can I ever thank you, oh, greatest hunter of Kirkwall? Might'n I buy you a lovely dance after all this.”

Then, Sparrow gracefully stepped over the elevated plate, quickly moving ahead of Ashton. Too late. She'd noticed the second trap only as her foot was descending – it seemed like it took forever to actually press down, to actually apply weight to the plate. Her foot fell in slow motion, stepping into the emplacement on the ground. From the looks of it, it wasn't very well made, either. The dirt around it was lazily chuffed around. Though, they'd at least placed the damn thing on more even ground. To her credit, it was a little less noticeable. Of all the times not to listen to Ashton, this was the worst. Her eyes widened, two pinpricks of light reflecting against the backdrop of her pupils.

Ashton could do nothing but level a dull glare on Sparrow. Of course. Why did he even dare to expect any different?

She glanced back apologetically, though some would've thought she was secretly pleased with the current prospect of bloodying her flanged mace. "They can't say I don't show a lady a good time." It might've been the Qunari in her – the mysterious facet within her that roared in defiance, expressing that this is how it was meant to be, so it must be. Her leather boot immediately extracted itself from the compressed plate, far more quickly then she'd actually stepped on it. It was baffling.

The muted click of a mechanism locking into place reached his ears, and Rilien blinked. More the fools he and Ashton, for assuming that a mere warning would make Sparrow sufficiently cautious. She was many things, and he found but few of them unpleasant, but discretion had never been her stong suit. If one needed a hammer, a blunt mallet to swing at a problem and crack through it with force alone, she was better than anyone he knew. Finesse, though... finesse was assuredly his area, and he exhaled quietly, the merest of sighs. He'd still never think less of her for it.

The trap seemed to do little, at first, but his ears tracked the sounds of shuffling a distance further off, beyond the door, and he decided that they'd just warned the blood mages of their approach. It seemed indeed a suspicion confirmed, when he also heard (and felt) the rise of demons and shades aplenty back there, and Rilien's knives rang free of their sheaths before another second passed. "A blood mage that summons demons... how novel." There would be absolutely no mistaking him for serious when he said that, but as the only people around to hear were Sparrow and Ashton, he didn't mind. Sparrow would never give up his identity, and he supposed that if Ashton tried, he'd be thought a liar. Why believe a lowtown rogue rather than the obvious brand on his forehead. But no, really, he tells jokes! Hardly.

Ashton raised his eyebrow from the surprising burst of sarcasm from the Trainquil and then curiously tilted his head like a puppy would. He then gave the Tranquil an applause with an approving nod. "I know right. If only they'd summon other things. Nicer things. Cuter things... Like kittens. How could you hate a mage who summons kittens?" Ashton rambled, but shut his trap as Rilien approached the door. Now was serious time.

Advancing towards the door, he waited until both of his companions indicated that they were ready, then shouldered it open, stepping through soundlessly, which was useless considering that every eye in the room rested on the three of them. Nothing was attacking... yet.

The room wasn't particularly large, but it did consist of lower and upper sections, and looked to be perhaps a meeting place, where a speaker could hold a group's attention from a raised platform at the end of the room. The blood mages were currently in this position, guarded by what was perhaps an eight foot elevation and a railing on top of that, the stairs on the left that led up to them currently blocked by a group of four shades.
The blood mages themselves, four in number, were all hooded and masked, though only one of them was female, and it could be assumed that this was the Tarohne that Idunna had spoken of. Their staves looked to be of Circle-make; no doubt they had fled from one Circle or another before seeking revenge against those they saw as their jailors. At their side they had summoned a desire demon, her hands bristling with entropic energy, preparing a first spell. "Kill them," the woman commanded, "they will not make for suitable vessels."

Perhaps what was most interesting was the human form floating in the back of the room, behind the mages, seemingly caged by some kind of magic that was creating a golden aura around him. He was a young, strong man, but looked significantly worse off in his current state, stripped down to his underwear and covered in bruises and cuts. They wouldn't have much time to think about it, however, as the shades moved forward to attack, two more assuming their place at the foot of the stairs, while the desire demon and the blood mages launched their first spells from their elevated and protected position.

Rilien's mentality, devoid of things like delay for surprise, presented to him immediately several logical solutions to their predicament, but he was nobody's commander, and so he said nothing. Zipping forward, he veered to the right even as a fireball crashed into the wall behind him. He'd have been obliterated if he remained still, and it was obvious that diplomacy was not an option here. He couldn't be sure, but he might actually like it better that way. Conversations tended to produce multiple possibilities, ones that he had to weigh against each other with probabilities and behaviour patterns and observation. Interesting, sometimes, but also often tedious. A fight was simple: kill until nothing but you and yours remained standing.

An elegantly-simple directive. Darting between two of the four shades, he flipped his knives so that they lay back against the outside of his forearms, edge out, and in this manner sliced the arm of one and the abdomen of the other on his way past. This drew the attention of the two, and caused them to leave the cluster. Before they had much chance to do anything else, however, he disappeared, reappearing behind the first and stabbing with his left-hand knife. The right-hand one, still laid for maximum leverage against his arm, blocked an incoming strike from the one with the gimped arm, biting into its good hand. Drawing the other knife out of its flesh-sheath, he kicked that shade away, sending it forward perhaps a bit more than it would have intended and whipped the newly-freed knife across the throat of the other, dropping it in the time it took its partner to turn around.

What should have been a rather simple manoeuvre to dispatch his remaining shade was interrupted when his muscles locked up, freezing him in place. A glance to the mages atop the platform revealed the likely culprit: the female blood mage had sliced into herself and was presently holding her hands outward, fingers hooked into claws, clearly struggling to puppet the Tranquil's body. Rilien jerked forward most ungracefully, as though pulled forward by something in the center of his chest cavity. He registered that he was in pain, but discarded the sense-data as irrelevant. Even if this mage was unable to control him fully, she was still making it incredibly difficult for the elf to move, and the second shade was approaching fast. His breath hissed between his teeth in a frustrated exhalation, and Rilien flexed his grip on one of his knives. It would do.

He relaxed, causing the mage to overcompensate and hurl him towards the shade with too much speed. They were bound to collide, and Rilien counted on it, focusing all his effort on angling his right-handed dagger just so. As expected, he smacked bodily into the creature, and his blade slid into its heart like a hot knife through butter. Apparently spent, the mage's hold on him slackened, and the Tranquil stood with much more dignity, eyeing the woman with something oddly approaching hostility. He did not, as a rule, enjoy killing, but he knew how to make a death very slow indeed.

With a battle cry, Sparrow unleashed her flanged mace from her hip, whirling it in a lazy circle, before slicing through shadow stuff in wild arcs. Undistinguished black ink sloughed through the air, spattering the walls in what she could only assume was the shades blood, or gooey body parts. Several noises assaulted her – from the grating shrieks of shades dragging themselves from the cobblestones, branch-like fingers clutching the lip of whatever abyss they'd come from, and the irritating squeals coming from the dying, banished back into whatever realm they belonged. She did not fear shadows, even as they whispered pleasantly between their orchestra of squawks. It was the Fade-promises that called to her, willing her to lay down her weapons and simply allow them to rake their ephemeral claws across her face. The devilish spirits descended on her in droves, as she willingly stepped forward but she preferred it that way, it was her fighting style; more for her to hack and bludgeon, and more freedom for her friends who were undoubtedly dealing with their own pair of nasties.

"What, no pillow talk first?" Ashton mumbled. Despite his enthusiatic upbeat nature, all of the recent blood magic and subsequent demons trying to kill him seemed to begin to wear at the silly Archer. He was sick of all of the mages playing with the very fabric of nature like a cat would a ball of yarn. Making just as big of a mess as one too. One that somehow he'd ended up having to clean. His eyes, once bright with boundless humor, once again sharpened into the hunter's gleam. Just a couple more nasties and the day would be won, they could deliver the boy-- or news of the boy-- to his sister, the he forget about the blood mage business. Finally, then he could go bury his face in a bottle of something with a kick.

But first thing was first. The nasties sitting in front of him. Without a word of encouragement or direction (not that he expected one from the Tranquil) Rilien darted off with the guile of the aforementioned cat and likewise Ashton too departed from the targeted area. The racket of a fireball colliding with something filled his ears, though he was grateful that he wasn't that something. While Rilien darted to the left and engaged two of the four shades near the stairs, he took off to the right, hoping to divide and conquer the mages. Ashton grabbed a handful of arrows out of his quiver and nocking all of them simultaneously. Pulling back the mass of arrows he aimed up and gauged the angle at which to fire. With his mind now firmly in the hunt instead of finding a joke to crack or a pun to make, the calculation was easy thanks to the allocation of more of his grey matter. He drew back and released, causing a hail of arrows to fall from the skies and rain down upon those who stood on the platform.

The arrows would be only mere annoyances as they lost most of their power during the ascent, but he hoped that the act would draw attention away from the quickly approaching Tranquil rogue and if he was extremely lucky, would cause the mages to vacate the platform entirely. He drew his next arrow and kept light on his feet in case the need arose for either quick footwork, or quick fingers.

Sparrow took a deep breath, allowing the power of the magic to flow through her body. Her fatigue stretched, moulding itself into energy. It flowed outward like a channel, swirling through her veins and wiggling out her fingertips like a pleasant shudder. She could feel its tingling in her mind, and her heart soared at the pleasure it bestowed – something like heavy-petting, or a particularly good kiss. Sometimes, Sparrow agreed that it was no wonder that some mages fell into the abomination category, voluntarily accepting a demon's heady promises because it felt like the Fade, the magic, and everything it entailed, would simply carry you away to paradise. It was a sickness. Her hands twisted in the air, casting quickly, and soon enough Ashton's many arrows were engulfed in flames as they pelted the platform. Instead of lobbing arcane bolts at the remaining blood mages, Sparrow stepped underneath the platform and swung her mace, striking the wooden stilt until it splintered and shook. She struck it again, and again, until the damned thing buckled and tipped precariously forward. If the mages didn't want to become living pincushions, or fall flat on their faces, they'd be forced to move away.

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The air a fair distance in front of him, atop the platform, was rent by the passage of a dozen or more arrows, the wooden shafts forming vertical bars by a trick of the eye, imprisoning the mages and the Desire demon under their pinning hostility. Behind them, faces, expressions, flickered in and out of visibility, all worn with a mixture of surprise and grim determination until the faint whistling was overlaid by the slower, much more powerful sound of muscle and steel banding together against a support beam. Rilien's gemstone eyes were turned from the spectacle of Ashton's hail of projectiles to the most unusual sight of Sparrow, attacking the platform itself with gusto. It shivered under the assault, then buckled with a splitting crack, and finally, just as she hauled herself out of the way, it crashed to the ground, pitching those atop it forward to stand on even ground with their assailiants. Just like Sparrow, he thought. Was she aware of the symbolic nature of her justice? Probably. She was much smarter than most people gave her credit for, including, on occasion, himself. The symbolism did right fly over Ashton's head however, as he was too busy yelling "Timber!" on the other side of the platform.

The Desire demon maintained its uprightness, though the rest were pitched to the ground, scrambling to their feet with various degrees of efficacy. It didn't matter: he had his sights set on only one, and though this did not blind him to the others, it certainly made them less relevant to him. A kindness, in one way, though it wouldn't save them from his companions, so a completely useless mercy at that.

Tarohne was behind one of her cohorts, still prone on her stomach, but Rilien did not subscribe to notions like fair play and honor or mercy. They might have been in his nature, a very long time ago, but any shred of them that would have survived his imperfect Rite was stamped out entirely by the Bard's trade. Applying his speed to his advantage, he shot right into the middle of the group of them. The one foolish enough to distract him in his path by raising a staff to fight close-up was swiftly reminded of exactly why mages were generally considered safer at range. His clumsy swing was simply leaped over, and a glimmering knife greeted his gut with a wet sliding sound, exiting in much the same way before the elf was at last brought face-to-face with the woman who'd thought to puppet him like a marionette.

Nobody had that right. Not the Chantry, not their Templars, not even his Bard-master. He'd seen to these things in the only ways he knew how, exactly as he would see to it now.

Tarohne had used the delay to regain her feet and lobbed a winter's grasp spell for Rilien, who translated his momentum into a swift roll, feeling the chill of the ice spell zip by just above him. Unbroken in movement, he reached her before she could lob another spell, abruptly vanishing from sight.

Now that the playing field was even, he'd no longer need to adjust his angle and trajectory in order to even have decent accurarcy. Physics was never a favorite of Ashton's and only comprised of basic elements such as: Things fall down and fast things hurt. Seemingly too enthralled by the speeding Tranquil dancing towards their leader, that left all four-- three, seeing how Rilien had just gutted one with little fanfare. Sucking out all of one's emotions would logically dictate that once one's mind was set to it, they would only become a killing machine. Not for the first time, Ashton noted not to get on Rilien's bad side and only tease him as far as a Tranquil's limits allow. Though first, he'd have to gauge those limits... An experiment for another day perhaps.

As it stood, Ashton drew a bead on a single mage who thought himself clever as he weaved a spell no doubt aimed towards Rilien. He decided to do the roguish tranquil a solid and fired. The arrow flew through the air and struck right where Ashton aimed-- the right asscheek. Ashton cackled madly as the intial strike jarred the mage about four feet into the air before he commenced running around in circles trying his damnedest to rip the bloody arrow out of his ass. A puff ceased Ashton's laughter as he realized that Rilien was no longer among the mages. Which meant that there was no one else to target... Which meant that he drew all of the heat from the Mages, due mostly in part to the vehement swearing and pointing by the mage with a recent additional assholes.

His grin was wiped off of his face as three mages turned their sights on him and readied their spells. "Well shit. Y'alls can go to hell," Ashton said before flipping them the bird and promptly vanishing from sight as well. Just in time as the spot he was just standing in erupted in a symphony of magic. Surely there were better vantage points than right bloody across from them. Perhaps the highest point of the wrecked stage would provide a better view?

The uncanny symbolism feltright. She did not have Rilien's finesse, nor his easy grace with any blade. The man's swift fatalities were to be admired, and were nearly impossible to mimic. The same could be said about Ashton's deft fingers, plucking arrows and scoring hits on his targets, or purposefully missing to attract the attention of his opponents. With each mighty blow to the wobbling pillars, superseded by grunting cuss words and the cracks of splintering wood, tremors rippled down her forearms and threatened to disarm her mottle-white fingers from her mace. She did not falter. Her dark eyes shone brightly whenever the wood buckled in, then out, then back in, leaning a little farther each time she heaved herself towards the precariously leaning mass. There was no doubt in her mind that the mages who'd been so confidentially casting towards her companion, safely planted on the platform above them, were now scrambling to gain a better foothold and trying desperately not to pitch forward across the jagged rocks, jutting up from the ground like stalagmite-stakes. It was almost beautiful. The last sound of the platform's last creaking breath, followed by hasty shouts of retreat, announced that it was now time to get the hell out of the way, lest she be crushed under the pillars she was so lovingly destroying. She threw herself forward, tucking herself into a somersault before springing back to her feet. Her mace clanged clumsily behind her, though it was already thrown out wide to face her new combatant.

She glanced towards the Desire Demon, eyes flitting to half-mast, and took a withering breath through her nostrils. Those damned things deserved no quarter. They'd steal your soul blind with offers of your greatest desires, of wealth, of ambition, of fixing something that plagued your thoughts. They alwaysknew what you wanted, whether or not you were aware of it yourself. Already, Rilien's light footed steps were weaving an astonishingly complex path through the cohorts, who were doing a pretty bad job of protecting Tarohne, if that was their intention, since the Tranquil easily sidestepped away from their gawking faces, and even vaulted over a staff before planting his knife between the man's organs. It shimmered through the air, glimmering moment's before it slipped through the man's exposed gut. The man seemed trapped in time, unaware, or unable to process, that he was dying. Blood sputtered from his lips as he tipped forward, catching feebly at the air. The other mages spun away, as if they were shuttering the curtains on something they didn't want to see behind them, and focused solely on the grinning archer. Rilien would not need help dealing with that bloody woman. She'd seen him battling many a foe one-on-one, and it'd be terrifyingly quick depending on his mood. She backpedalled towards the mages, madly rushing towards the one who was hysterically holding his asscheek, shrieking like a banshee. The arrow jutting from the man's rump indicated the perpetrator. Her grip loosened until she held the very end of her mace in one hand, while she threw the other in front of her and nearly sang another incantation.

When Sparrow got close enough, and when the mage had finally turned away from Ashton to regard the flash of dark flesh barrelling towards him, it'd been to late for the poor bludger. She swung her mace like a baseball bat, striking the man's open face, and nearly lopping it off, if she could so proudly say, before spinning away. If it'd been any other situation, and if the time permitted, she might've stopped to examine the damage. The ugly crack was enough. Her wild run hadn't stopped. She barely slowed before she wound her arm around the second mage's shoulders, successfully pulling him down and swinging her in the opposite direction. Sparrow's puffing steps took her towards the splintered wreck, still inhabited by the Desire Demon, though it's attention was drawn towards Rilien. She'd have none of that. Peddlers of lust. Disgusting wretches. She leapt across a fallen beam of wood, landed solidly on the slanted platform and continued running until she was able to swing her mace. Unfortunately, the damned thing was quick. Her swing seemed almost clumsy, or sluggish. It whipped past the demon's wicked face as it bent backwards, fingers brushing the ground, before it merely back flipped back to it's feet and away from imminent danger. She cursed, then swung again, and again. Each swing was met with wily, impossibly flexible evasions. The half-breed finally stepped forward, dropping her weapon and throwing out her arm to clutch the creature's thin throat – enticingly thin, sensuous even as it's tendons strained against it's assailant.

It smiled even as Sparrow squeezed, digging her fingernails into it's skin. Then, an unforeseen tremor shivered down her spine, numbing her fingers, and draining her of energy. Beads of sweat trailed down her forehead, strangely reminiscent of serpents. She nearly slumped forward into the creature's breast, but kept her feet firmly planted. Inquisitive claws tipped her head backwards, then gently guided her chin so that she'd be forced to stare into it's spinning eyes.

Make a deal, sweet?

Within seconds of his disappearance into faint wisps of smoke, Rilien was at Tarohne's back. The mage had the presence of mind to anticipate this by just a moment, and there was enough time for her breath to halfway fill her lungs in what might have been either a gasp or an incantation, it was hard to say. The passage of air was forcibly stopped when the rogue appeared behind her, his right hand firmly blocking her mouth and nose in a familiar motion. His left drove a dagger between two carefully-chosen ribs, rupturing her spleen and spilling bile with blood. The knife twisted, the mage's cries muffled by the expanse of his callused palm. Rilien blinked, slowly, timing the damage, then removed the blade with steady, agonizing slowness.

Tarohne's knees buckled, but Rilien was hardly concerned, simply adjusting his grip to brace the woman's back against his chest. Inclining his head forward just slightly, he spoke softly enough that only she'd be able to catch the words, murmuring his admonishment into her ear. "I," he pronounced deliberately, still without anything resembling feeling, "am not a tool for your use." Abruptly, he removed all support from her, stepping back and letting her drop as though vaguely disgusted, though only the speed of the motion gave that impression. Her wound was very intentionally nonlethal, and he watched with cold disinterest as she struggled to pull air once more into her body, coughing weakly and bracing her hands on her knees. The fight to regain her feet was fought valiantly, and she met the flat stare of the elf with hatred and vehemence, summoning fire to her fingertips and thrusting her hands outwards at him, scorching the floor between them with flames that flew true, right for-

-nothing. Rilien was already gone, and in his passage, he scored a shallow cut into Tarohne's arm, aimed to cause bleeding and pain without too much inhibition to her movement. The process repeated itself several more times, and with each new injury, Tarohne's aim and reaction time grew worse, until the danger she presented was clearly more to her fellow blood mages than her expressionless tormentor. By contrast, Rilien was as calm and unruffled as ever, a marked counterpoint to her mussed hair, red-rimmed eyes, heaved breaths and dozens of small cuts. She'd even tried blood magic again, but found that she simply didn't have the needed reserves to puppet his body and drive one of those agonizing knives into his heart. He placed one index finger beneath his chin and let his head list sideways, as if her battle to stay upright was merely an object of intellectual curiosity. "Is there a problem? My understanding of blood magic is that it requires lacerations in order to function. This number is sufficient, is it not? By all means, then. If it is powerful enough to justify all manner of sins, surely the slaying of one Tranquil should not prove so difficult?"

Tarohne screeched, a somewhat-inhuman sound that more than likely came just as much from the demon she'd contracted with as from herself, and drew upon all the resources remaining to her. Her own blood rose in thin tendrils from where it had pooled on the floor, undulating like the boneless limbs of some sea-creature, and her eyes flashed with malevolent red energy. Hooking her fingers into claws, she charged him bodily in her desparation, her blood turned into acidic, stinging whips. The technique was one he'd never seen before, nor even heard of, and he looked at the new hole in his sleeve and the corresponding caustic mark burned into his forearm with genuine curiosity. Glancing back up, his eyes zeroed in on something happening beyond the charging woman, and narrowed considerably. That required his attention, which meant that this farcical charade would end now. The thrust of her first arm was caught by the wrist on the sharp edge of one blade, and he used it to lift the offending limb up, opening her virtually nonexistent guard to his second weapon, which found her throat with little ceremony. Tarohne fell, finally dead, and Rilien scythed through one of the other extras, attention fixed on Sparrow.

Fast as he was, it wouldn't be enough to reach her in time. A deal could be made in an instant, and though he was not lacking surety in Sparrow's mental fortitude, everyone was vulnerable to something. If his physicality could not reach her, then something of the rest of him still might. And so he sang, the normal tonelessness of his voice melting away, replaced with a honey-smooth bard's tenor. He was not as a rule one for the Chant, but it was a reminder in this case, infused with strength and resolve as only bardsong or magic could be. "They watched/ And grew jealous of the life/ They could not feel, could not touch./ In blackest envy were the demons born."

During all of this, Ashton was busy of work scaling the fallen platform. The nimbleness of the hunter came into play as the vertical plane may as well had been horizontal for all the good it was doing at delaying Ashton and his goal. Even despite one hand clutching at his bow, he made short work of the incline, using powerful leg muscles to lunge himself up and latch on to a hand hold with his free hand. It would be an intricate and interesting sight if he hadn't been invisible the entire time. The showman in him mourned the loss of a audience, but the hunter in him applauded the lack of eyes directed at him. The only trick that needed to be seen was the first arrow tearing into the first unfortunate target he could find.

Before long, Ashton's grace brought him to his chosen perch, the top of the ruined platform. The footing was awkward and unstable, but proved firm enough for the agile and surefooted archer. He looked over the battlefield with hawkeyes trying to discern his first choice of prey. That was when he first heard Rilien's song. It wasn't the lyrics of the song that caught him first, but the fact that a Tranquil could muster the emotion to sing a song to begin with. Tones other than tonelessness flew from Rilien's mouth, and for a moment Ashton wanted nothing more than to sate his curiosity and listen to the entirity of his song. He could not do that, not right now. The hunter had to hunt his prey first. Afterward, if he still feels up to it, he'd ask the Tranquil for the song. But now was business.

From the sound of the chosen verses, it seemed like a bit of the Chant. Part of the Chant directed at demons. What dem- Oh shit, Ashton just remembered the Desire demon floating around earlier. How could he miss a sight like that with her... Bits with hardly a napkin convering them. Stupid, stupid Ashton. His eyes scanned the area in search of the forgotten prey, and soon he came upon his target... And Sparrow. Ashton was split, he was jealous of Sparrow's position inside the demon's bosom, but worried about the danger she was in. It was only exacerbated by the fact that she was a mage. Quickly, Ashton knocked an arrow and fired the shot off, right into the heel of the creature, pinning it. With the shot, the cover of shadows he was enveloped in shuddered and dissipated, leaving one irritated looking archer.

Hearing that Rilien's song was finished, he added a verse of his own, "So don't give that bitch a damn thing!" Still, the deal could be made, and then they would be in even more trouble.

The demon closed it's spinning eyes, shuttering them to half-mast so only a sliver of her yellow irises were peeping through, and she actually purred – full of seductive, full-blown promises. She was smiling smugly, like a cat who'd just pulled a rat from it's hovel by it's fat tail. Far too pleased for it's own good. Her clawed fingertips tugged Sparrow's chin up, imploringly. She laughed at her feeble attempts to shudder away. If Sparrow had been in the right state of mind, then she would have admired the demon's state of undress; the way the creature's bosom was completely bare save for two squares of golden cloth, hardly concealing her naughty bits, the way her hips swayed to a secret beat she could only hear, the way her claws tenderly flitted across tendons meant for pumping blood. Her voice resonated beautifully in the hollow of her ears, though her mouth hadn't even opened to speak; four very different intonations that managed to sound sultry and elegant all at once. Sibilant, hypnotic, irresistible. The sweat beading on her forehead and neck were sending wisps of steam billowing around her head, slithering into misty puffs. Around them, the room flickered and destabilized, colours and shapes shifting sickeningly. Backdrops sloughed off like thrown sheets or discarded curtains, revealing hazy sepia tones. In the distance, as it'd always been, lied the smoggy silhouette of the Black City. The Fade. Surreal ships sailed past, while lengths of rope-bridge swung between floating islands. Colour bled from each object, leaving it lifeless and dull. Familiar objects hung limp against the background of things she did not quite recognize. Everything was wrong.

So, what is it you'd like, sweet? I can give you anything. The demon's presence was too close, close, like morning mist, like a shadow across her soul, as if it could take one step further and disappear through her chest like an open doorway. Sparrow's eyes widened, desperately flickering on the unfamiliar environment. These things could conjure unfortunate encounters. Things that were best left buried and forgotten, safely hidden away in holes she'd dug long ago. She'd planted them deep enough. I can take it away, you know. That pain, all of it. I can find them for you. Wouldn't that please you? Not woman, not man. I can take your weakness away, all of it. Poor little girl, sweet thing.It's whispers echoed in her very being, ricocheting through her thick skull. Perhaps, they were being imprinted on her mind, because he thoughts were broken, desperate things that answered without consulting her. Her mouth quivered with all the no's she wanted to scream, but they'd already stuck their tiny hands against her oesophagus and refused to meet her lips to form anything besides a pathetic mewl. There were iron pellets anchored in her mouth and acid spreading sickness through her stomach, but she couldn't even bring herself to focus on those things. She felt out of place, as if her skin didn't fit the same way it did when she was awake. As if it belonged to someone less foolish. From the very corner of her peripheral vision, Sparrow spotted the inevitable. Desire Demons dipped through your thoughts, your memories, and always plucked the most unpleasant things to dismantle your already trembling will.

There's one thing to be said about the younger, more palpable, version of Sparrow – of the young girl who dipped her fingers in ponds to scatter the tadpoles. She'd had a pure, unblemished outlook on the world she could no longer claim to have. It was taken away in those very moments. The little girl who had sticks in her hair instead of flowers, with words that weren't pretty nor wise, and rosebush thorns stuck in the pads of her feet, lost something important: her identity, her trust, her gentility. The demon's taloned fingers guided her chin, keeping it in place, so that she would be forced to watch the spectacle reenacting itself in the clearing. She smirked, forked tongue tracing Sparrow's jawline and clawed hand gliding over her curves. It disgusted her with every form of the word disgust. It'd been the tiny fireflies fluttering from the ramparts that'd drawn her way from the camp in the first place, skittering across blades of grass and billowing branches. Sparrow watched, wide-eyed, as her much smaller self thrashed her bird-boned legs and gnashed her teeth at her assailants; bawdy men with calloused hands, black eyes, and flashing teeth. The Fade had a funny, not-so-funny way of making everything incredibly, horrifyingly real, right down to the small speckling of freckles on her left shoulder. Skin variegated by bruises. It was sick. It was sick. “No! No!” Her voice sounded distorted, a sheep's cowardly bleat, hardly her own.

I can fix this, if you'll let me. I can take that away.

Had she even agreed? Her mind flung itself wildly, and already, the Desire Demon knew how well she'd done in swaying this one's heart, this one's soul. It was fetching itself against a fence, destroying itself. Sparrow felt nothing. Nothing like it'd been described. The Desire Demon's ethereal fingers released her chin and dipped low across her chest, idly plucking fabric, before resting below her sternum. Sparrow's mouth gaped open to sputter anything to rid herself of the heavy blanket of Fade, though she only managed a sharp intake of breath. Sharp talons parted her ribs, plunging into chambers she didn't know existed. It is done, sweets. Darkness fell like a blanket over her head. But, she could hear, from the distance, a familiar voice: singing. Or shouting something vulgar. Like a child, Sparrow reached towards it.

In reality, or to those who had been watching their bodies, it appeared as if Sparrow was knocked unconscious, rolling off the Desire Demon's shoulder and tumbling back down the leaning platform. The demon hissed when Ashton's arrow sliced through it's ankle, successfully pinning it to the wooden platform, though it seemed nonplussed by such violence. Now that she'd found a host, it didn't matter what happened to her body. It'd turn into ash, and she'd return to the Fade: to wait. “Oh, look at that, you've put her to sleep.” She teased wryly, slowly bending to wrench the arrow from her foot. She offered Ashton a sidelong wink, tittering long enough to showcase her assets. “Ah, and you're certainly a strange one. Tranquil – you poor, unfortunate man. You could fix most of your mistakes with those abilities, couldn't you? Do you even remember what it was like, or has the Rite already addled your brain? You must miss it. I certainly would. Practically half a man, now.” Her slow, methodical steps found herself back in front of Sparrow, where she nonchalantly toed her shoulder blades. Her eyes were solely on Rilien, as if she were flipping pages of a book. Her smile faltered, twisting into a feigned pout. “I know it wasn't your fault... One has to wonder what happened to the girl.”

Setting

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The taut bowstring holding Ashton’s next arrow suddenly slacked as he watched what transpired. To him, it all happened in mere moments. Sparrow just up and
 Fell unconscious. Seeing the normally solid Sparrow just give in that easily caused him twitch in his skin. Worry was the first sensation to work its way into his thickhead, then anger, then caution. What could he do? Risk hopping down from his vantage point and running to her aid? What’s to keep that demon from doing the same thing to him? No, no, a clear and level head was only thing that would ensure that they would all leave her alive
 If Sparrow was even

Dammit, there was no point in thinking like that! Fight, live, survive, then worry. In an instant, the bowstring became taut again and the bead was drawn up on the demon again. The piercing arrow seemed to do little more than annoy her—what effect would his next arrow have on it? Ashton grimaced as doubt crossed his mind. Would petty arrows really be able to hurt this thing? And what about Sparrow? How was she. The hunter’s mind was serious for the first time in a long while.

While Ashton was busy being mentally conflicted, the damnedable beast opened it’s mouth and began to speak to Rilien. Surely the Tranquil could resist the false promises
 Right? There wasn't enough emotion in the man to even consider being tempted by the harlot demon. Though... Ashton did observe enough emotion from the man during the day to render that thought wrong... He desparately hoped that the man was tranquil enough to resist. Even from his distance Ashton heard the uttered promises. His eyes grew wide as saucers as it became a very real possibility that he might be playing field might soon just consist of him and a demon. Then the demon played with Sparrow's unmoving body like a toy. Somewhere deep in Ashton, a vein of long unused anger was struck. The bowstring gave a loud twang as the arrow hurtled towards the demon, followed by a very serious shout from Ashton, “I’ll see my boot on your neck first!”

Rilien's eyes narrowed precipitously; his irises were nothing more than bright slivers of color peeking out from beneath snowy lashes. He didn't need to see it clearly- he could feel what was done to his live-in companion, his feckless bird, sitting at his window and trilling her song to anyone who would listen. The Fade had wrapped around her like a wet blanket, seeping into her skin, dampening her lungs and stifling her song. Everything felt damp, heavy, ponderous, as though it were pressing against him, too. It prickled his flesh, sending ripples of feeling along his arms, down his spine, teasing at his scalp, the tips of his pointed ears. His breath hitched in his throat; it was as though the fog that had fallen over his every feeling was lifting, carrying that feeling of sodden linen with it, and he knew without asking that this was what she promised.

Everything he had once held dear, returned to him, if only he were willing to make the bargain, to trade to her what Sparrow had traded. Sparrow, lying unconscious on the floor, was this thing's new, truer vessel. What they did to the disgusting, pitiful form before them was of no consequence. If they were to kill the creature forsooth, they would have to run blade or arrow through the prone mage's heart. It was a precise, logical formulation of the facts. It made sense. It was necessary; this one had shown no compunction about harming them, and bearing its black burden upon her soul would kill Sparrow slowly, but surely. Doing the deed himself, quickly, would be a mercy upon her.

So why couldn't he? He ignored the seductress' purr, senses fixed firmly on the erstwhile gambler and vagabond who'd taken up residence in his home and his life as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though exchanges like theirs were commonplace, everyday, easy. As though he were nothing to be reviled, to be feared, to be wary of or avoided. She knew he didn't have sentiments. She knew he allowed her to stay because he saw no reason not to, and with no other justification. She knew he killed that which he judged it most expedient and efficient to kill.

Were she awake, would she have expected it?

What had she done to him, that he hesitated now to do what was obviously rational?

He couldn't look at her any longer. The demon was still speaking, but he was even now coming to grips with what he was feeling, or rather that he was feeling at all. It was the Fade-presence here, there was little doubt of that. It connected again what had been severed, and the horned beguiler offered him a permanent return. His magic... he'd felt so acutely the absence of that thrilling power, sparks of raw energy racing to his fingertips. His had been force and finesse in equal measure, when he'd had it, a talent that rarely went unacknowledged by peer or senior. He'd had not only the skill to manipulate the world to his will, but the flair to do it well, to create flickering mirages in the air, to make the flames dance and form shapes as he desired, fickle and capricious as his smiles and quixotic mannerisms. He'd been dazzling grins and quick-steps, hoodwinking the Templars with no real malice, but frightening alacrity. He could be all of that again, if he accepted the bargain.

The bird on the windowsill wasn't the first he'd failed to save. If anything, it was the mention of that, his oldest guilt, that put the final nail in the demon's coffin. She'd never really had him, but at least he'd been distracted. That though, that was a mistake on her part, to assume that he'd react like an ordinary man, accept sympathy as his due and power as his right. That he'd take it as a way to rectify a wrong, to make up for what he'd been too weak to realize before. She was probably incapable of understanding just how far off she was. He caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye- Ashton's arrows accompanied by a shout.

"Then you do not understand this half of a man," he replied. His voice was glacier-cold, not quite the normal tonality. Then again, he wasn't much himself at the moment, and he didn't much care, taking advantage of the precision of Ashton's arrows and sweeping low, swiping a dirtied blade across the backs of the demon's knees. This combined with the projectiles brought her low, and Rilien did not hesitate- his next slash was precise, angled just so as to cut through the delicate neck like so much meat. The resulting gore spattered his face and darkly-clothed chest, the first time he'd actually stained anything but his steel in months, at least.

The feeling of the Fade's presence at hand subsided somewhat, and the Tranquil easily reined in his emotions. Granted, even just then, they'd hardly been what a normal man would call outrageous, but for him the matter was another thing entirely. Something still clenched tight, wrapping cold fingers around his heart and lungs, settling there in a way that convinced him it would not be easily banished. Their foes were slain, but at what cost? He inclined his head towards Ashton, an acknowledgement of demonstrated skill and a thanks besides, but he knelt beside Sparrow, a dark shadow flitting behind his eyes before vanishing. Turning her over, he noted that she appeared to simply be unconscious, but he could still sense it- the demon.

Glancing askance at the archer, he spoke. "She has been possessed." Rilien said nothing more, instead waiting for the other man's reaction. If Ashton was observant, he probably would have noticed that the elf had positioned himself in such a way as to block Sparrow's prone form from immediate attack by the hunter. It was as clearly as Rilien was ever going to communicate on the matter. He would not attempt to rationalize for her, or excuse what she had done, but if Ashton chose to attempt the mercy he himself could not perform, the ex-Bard would act to stop him- violently.

Rilien proved him right, something deep within the fibers of the man refused the demon's seduction. Relief filled him to know that he wouldn't have to watch another ally fall to this demon's foul promises. Ashton followed up his single arrow with another, and another, doing everything in his power to aid Rilien in banishing the creature. The deadly tranquil accomplished the deed, and once again, they were alone, victorious in the face of their enemies... Victorious? It didn't feel like much a victory to Ashton. Pyrric or otherwise. He slowly lowered his bow and scanned the area for anything else that dared him to raise his bow again. Satisfied that nothing would interupt them, he slung it across his back and began to descend the wreckage. As he picked his way down-- which proved much more difficult than the ascent-- his mind wandered. His chest was heavy and his breathing erratic.

Now that the danger was over with, all the caution and anger Ashton felt suddenly turned itself into worry. Was Sparrow okay? What happened to her? Will she survive? Has she changed? All the questions sucked the cheer out of his soul until his lips set into a grim frown and his eyes lost the ever-present "Ashton cheer". He was worried, afraid, and it was written as plain as day on his face. There would be no more jokes, no more humor, or anything of the sort for Ashton. For first time in ever, Ashton was solemnly somber. He had never felt this way before, not that he could remember. He always had a strong sense of optmisim, like everything would turn out for the best. He never had a care in the world except for what kind of meat would be for dinner that day.

Now that was all he thought about. When he fled Ferelden away from the blight, he wasn't worried. He'd rebuild in Kirkwall. The Blight could never reach that far without the Grey Wardens ending it. He had never even seen a darkspawn, much less had to worry about them. But this. This he saw in front of his own eyes. The demon beckoned to her, and she fell. He didn't know what happened... He wasn't sure he wanted to. As he approached Sparrow and Rilien, his fears was confirmed. She was possessed. He grimaced as he covered his hand with his face. "How can you be so sure? She could have just fainted from the pressure. That doesn't mean she's possessed," He argued. Futilely. He knew it was the truth, Rilien wasn't the sort of man to just lie about that. He had an odd habit of sensing magic and knowing what to do. He had to know what to do now. Rilien simply looked at him, allowing the hunter to read the answer in the Tranquil's silence.

"Is there nothing you can do for her?" he asked with dread in his voice. Sparrow seemed like she was stronger than that. A few poisonous promises could corrupt her... Obviously that ideal was dashed against the wall. Perhaps... Perhaps she was weaker than Ashton gave her credit for-- No, not weak. Sparrow was not weak. Sensitive perhaps. Fragile. Like a rock, if one presses on a weak spot, it will all come crumbling apart. Ashton looked past his hand, past Rilien, and to the woman laying on the floor in front of them. He took a step forward, closer to the defensive tranquil, and he too knelt. He pushed a hand past Rilien, uncaring what the tranquil thought of the action and simply brushed a couple of hairs out of his friend's closed eyes.

Even if he didn't know whether she was a man or woman, Sparrow always seemed so solid. Yet in her current position, she didn't look nearly so. It was breaking his heart. "What do we do Rilien?" he asked in a somber tone. He wished the Tranquil had an answer, for he had none. All he wanted to do was to leave that place, leave it far behind. Yet he would not do so without Sparrow.

Rilien's posture relaxed, just infinitesimally, when the archer moved not to attack, but to crouch beside him. That was fortunate. He hadn't desired yet another conflict to arise from this. Placing his arms beneath Sparrow, the Tranquil hefted her onto his shoulder in a rescue carry, picking up her mace in his other hand. "There is no known way to separate a demon from a person once a possession has taken place, but demons are also individually variant in the frequency and.... severity of their vessel's usage." He answered blandly. What he did not say was that he was almost certain there was more to it than that. He could, perhaps, recall reading something on the subject, but it was long ago and not exactly Chantry-sanctioned subject matter, so he may be remembering imperfectly.

Still, if it were true, then there might be some kind of serum or tincture that could produce the necessary effect. As it happened, Rilien was quite talented in the preparation of such substances, but he was not going to do something as futile as hope, and it would be counterproductive for Ashton to do so as well, and thus the elf remained silent on the matter. It was presently no better than rumor and legend, but it would not go unexplored. "For now, we should see to that Templar, and return her home." He paused, the nature of the hitch in his speech almost deliberative, and stared hard at the hunter for a long moment. "Also, we should behave as though little has changed. Demon or no demon, she is Sparrow." She would doubtless be in need of emotional support, and this was something Rilien knew he could not provide. In this sense, Ashton was necessary, and bound to be more useful than he himself could ever be. The thought brought him no relief, but he would have to trust the man with her secrets, and perhaps one or two of his own, in time.

"Of course." Ashton answered blandly. No cheerful undertone, no humorious inflection, just a flat answer. She was still Sparrow... Just Sparrow plus one, and that plus one was what worried him. Still, like Rilien said, there was little else they could do besides provide support. Ashton tilted his head and looked towards the Templar hanging suspended in his magical cage. "You... Don't think he's possessed either?" Ashton asked more to himself than Rilien. Though, there was still a poignant hint of worry in his voice. One he just couldn't quite shake, and perhaps wouldn't until Sparrow woke up and personally told him she was alright. Without his novel jokes, Ashton picked his way around the crumbled platform and towards the caged Templar.

The cage was a strange thing, it looked more like bars of light than bars of iron. Plus the bit that he was floating an entire Rilien off of the ground managed to add to the effect. Again, Ashton found himself at a loss of what to do. He stared at the contraption for a bit before taking an arrow and poking it. "How... Do we get him down from there? You seem to know more about magic than I do. I would've thought it would have released Keran when we killed the blood mages," he said, tilting his head again as a puppy might. All he wanted to do was get the man down, get him out, and go home. It may be boring there, but at least the threat of getting possessed is zero.

Rilien, apparently not much bothered by the burden of the woman over his shoulder, followed the hunter up to the configuration with the Templar inside, unconsciously mirroring the inquisitive head-tilt. He'd never seen the like of this before, but then that didn't surprise him. Despite his brief span of time in a Circle and the fact that he'd passed his Harrowing, he knew relatively little compared to proper mages, and most of his knowledge was from books and theory rather than successful spell-casting. "He is not," the Tranquil elf asserted, completely void of doubt. Aside from this suspension, there was no magic hovering about the youth at all- he was even willing to bet that the young man's personality was scarcely more dynamic than his own, if it came to that.

As for the second question, well... lifting his free shoulder slightly, Rilien swung Sparrow's mace, the steel passing through the light without resistance. Whatever the reason, that seemed to do the trick, and there was a warping sound as the magic faded, depositing the young recruit on the floor of the underground passage with little ceremony. "Keran, I presume." It wasn't inflected as a question.

Clearly still trying to collect himself, the young Templar, who had been stripped down to his underpants for reasons unknown, struggled for a moment to move, the imprisonment clearly having taken some toll on his body. He did, however, understand that he had been spoken to. "Yes, that's my name... Oh, thank the Maker. I thought He had abandoned me." His voice was weak, and he was clearly parched from a lack of water. He looked rather beat up, but no injuries were very serious. "And you freed me. Thank Andraste, and thank you. Who are you? How did you find me?"

Putting up a false facade, Ashton looked down at the Templar with what could best said as a nonchalant manner. He didn't want this man to know about Sparrow and her... Issues. He was still a Templar, and despite just saving his life, Ashton didn't know how he would react to someone in her condition. Instead, Ashton tried to play it off cooly-- which managed to seem more serious than previously. "We're just a group of people fufilling a favor. Your sister's worried you know? Asked my associate here to find you," he said, nodding towards Rilien. "I'd say mission accomplished, wouldn't you?" He asked hypothetically. "As for finding you? Don't you know you are talking to Kirkwall's best hunter? How couldn't I find you? Killed a couple mages, exorcised some demons, you know. The usual." Ashton said, crossing his arms and taking on a bored stance.

Keran rubbed his hands along his temples, perhaps trying to deal with a headache caused by the imprisonment. "My sister asked you to find me? In that case, you have my sincerest gratitude. I had assumed the Templars had sent or hired you. I hope your friend there will be all right." It was genuine concern, as he could safely deduce that if these people were helping his sister, they were doing so with little thought of reward, as there was not much that Macha could offer them. "Speaking of Templars, I will be needing to return to them. Could you lead me out of here? I'm... not exactly sure where we are, to be honest."

Rilien was not much inclined to speaking. Indeed, at present, his focus- intense as it could be when one was able to exclude everything else, seemed to be (mercifully) fixed on neither Keran nor Ashton, nor even Sparrow over his shoulder. For once, it had turned inward, and though his eyes found some point over Keran's shoulder and lingered there, they were lacking their usual clarity. His thoughts were moving with rapidity, which was nothing so odd, but they seemed currently to be unable to leave a certain eddying circle, a pattern that simply cycled itself on repeat endlessly. His jaw tightened, and though he moved off towards the exit at around the same time as Keran spoke about leaving, it would have been impossible to say whether or not he'd actually heard the words at all or just met with lucky timing. As though he were ever lucky at all.

He was tempted to split off from the others when they emerged back in Darktown and carry Sparrow to their home, but he justified his continuing tread towards the Gallows with the thought that a) Sparrow would heal much faster if a trained mage saw to her and b) that Cullen would probably need him to confirm that the young man was not possessed, which would probably secure him that beneficial service that he would otherwise have to ask for, a thing that might seem odd for a Tranquil to do. So instead, he led the others to the old slave barracks, ignoring the obvious stares that their party accrued and making straight for Cullen. A Tranquil carrying a mace in one and and an injured person over the other shoulder, accompanied by a bloodied, scarecrow-tall hunter and a half-naked Templar recruit was bound to be a once-in-a-lifetime sight, after all.

Indeed there were quite a few eyes on them as they entered the main courtyard of the Gallows. The Templars displayed a variety of responses, many of the recruits nervously whispering to one another out of earshot, some of the older veterans simply crossing their arms, staring at the developing scene from behind the slits of their helmets. Cullen himself took front and center among the gathering watchers, perhaps hoping to head this off before it got out of hand and the entirety of the Order learned of it. It was probably too late for that already.

Keran's sister Macha emerged from the crowd with a shout of her brother's name, and he staggered backwards momentarily as she flung herself onto him in a hug. In the meantime, Cullen approached the two coherent members of the party, the Tranquil and the hunter. "I admit, I did not expect you to bring our recruit back at all. Well done. The mages can see to your friend's injuries, if you like. Tell me, what did you learn? Has the threat passed?" He spoke in a low voice, so that his words would not echo about the Gallows. Still, there would be some that could hear him.

Rilien nodded slowly, catching the eye of an elderly woman he knew to be a healer, but otherwise refusing to budge. She correctly interpreted this as an indication of the fact that Sparrow was not leaving his sight, and so she approached the group to begin her work instead. The Tranquil set his friend down carefully immediately beside him, and spoke to Cullen without seeming to divert much of his attentions from the goings-on there. The Fade was being opened up again, and it was distracting, but he let no indication of this fact slip. "There were blood mages kidnapping Templar recruits to allow demons to possess them. The boy is clean. The mages are dead." He gave some consideration to volume, and it was probably only Ashton, Cullen, and the working healer that had heard him.

"Explains the deal with Wilmod," Ashton mused, Eyes firmly on the healer working on Sparrow. He hoped that the woman would be able to feel the... Other presense in her. Though, he wasn't sure it was a thing that one could feel-- Except Rilien. He was a special case though, with his tranquility. Though, he kept a watch over the healer, even as he spoke. "I'd keep an eye on some of your recruits Ser Templar. Don't want the Order getting a nasty surprise, now do we?" Because that would be a bloody shame. Though there was sarcasm in his tone, he was serious. No one should have to go through that. Much like Rilien, when he spoke, he too kept his volume down. He didn't want to spook the Templars assembled.

"Sweet blood of Andraste..." Cullen whispered to himself upon hearing Rilien's report. "But you say the mages are dead, and that Keran here is not as Wilmod was. There's that, at least. And the Order will compensate you for your work, as I believe the boy and his sister will have a difficult time as it is. If he does not show signs of demonic possession in ten years time, he'll be eiligible for a full-knighthood. You have done the Order a great service. We will not forget it." With that, the Knight-Captain took his leave.

She could not taste, or touch, or feel anything. Her being ebbed and flowed somewhere between an ocean and river, drifting against the rocks and slowly, perhaps even gently, began eroding itself away. Moulded like beach-combed glass. If anything, it felt like she was drowning without the unpleasant effects; of water surging up her nostrils, into her mouth, of her lungs beating in a lagoon of liquid, of her heart beginning to slow. She was floating... up, or down, she couldn't really discern the direction. Through the thick of wherever she was, Sparrow could feel something plucking at her, as if it was a particularly bothersome child pulling at her sleeves, wanting her attention, trying to tell her something important even though all she wanted was to be left alone. She couldn't pinpoint the feeling. It felt like a vague throbbing behind her eye sockets, or an awkward leaden weight in the pit of her stomach. A tightness in her chest, in her throat, that felt awfully like she was about to cry – but she didn't, and couldn't, and instead reached her fingers in front of her, grabbing for the faint disturbance above her. She reached and reached and reached.

Kitten.

Sparrow's entire body jerked forward, struggling in the old woman's arms, as if she was spluttering out a mouthful of water or heaving her first breath in a long time. Her eyelids shot back, opening fully. Nothing could erase the shame and regret that came with the pain. It was immediate. It was quick, and dirty, and unforgiving. In lieu of awakening, she wished she'd forgotten that she was a mewling mess, a coward, and a weakling. As quickly as she'd sat up, Sparrow's shoulders bunched together and she fell back against the woman's lap, staring up into her wrinkled eyes. Did she know? Could she tell? The look that was returned was sincerely worried, insisting that the healer had no ill-intentions. Better yet, Sparrow wasn't sure where she was. Her dark eyes, red-rimmed from forced sleep, skittered across the cobblestones, up the familiar statues, and towards the back of Ashton and Rilien's legs. She spotted an unfamiliar man retreating in the background. She wasn't sure why, but her breath hitched in the back of her throat, troubling itself into tight knots. Her hands lifted to her face and she exhaled through her fingers, past her knuckles, temporarily blocking out the world.

Surely, Ashton would jest about having her head nestled in an old woman's lap.

She dropped her hands away, then took another deep breath to steady herself. Still, Sparrow made no move to stand. She laughed weakly, then glanced at her companions long enough to see that they were alright. “We save the day, and I miss the best part. He paid, right?”

"Mm," Rilien confirmed with an even hum, though exactly which of her sentences this was supposed to verify was not immediately clear. He offered his hand to help Sparrow pull herself to her feet. Glancing at Ashton, he would have almost shrugged, except such a gesture wasn't really in his repertoire. To the healer, he inclined his head, but his next words were for his companions. "I think it's time to go home. You are welcome if you wish to be, Ashton." Ashton nodded and provided his own hand for Sparrow. Between the two of them, surely Sparrow could make it to her feet and stand proud once more. "I suppose I'm welcome then," He said, flashing that old cocksure smile of his. "Let's get out of here then. Templars give me the heebie-jeebies."


The Chanter's Board has been updated. Enemies Among Us has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Immediately upon entering the Hanged Man, Sparrow was forced to quickstep away from a stumbling miner who'd obviously had too much to drink, successfully dodging his flailing elbows and ducking casually underneath his arm to reach the bar stools, half-accidentally bumping into a barmaid in the process. She offered a sly grin and an equally questionable wink before snatching up her proffered hand, that might've just been trapped midair just in case she had to push someone away. She twirled the barmaid around her as if they were in a dance, finally releasing her by the fingertips, and gracefully lowering herself into a bow, murmuring a soft: “Fancy meeting you here, Darcy.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously, as if it hadn't done so in a long time. She was long overdue for a drink at her favourite institution. From her peripherals, Sparrow could already see that a sizable crowd was gathering – or else, an interesting cluster of patrons gathered off to the side, cheering loudly, stomping their feet, and clanking their goblets together as if they hadn't a care in the world. Must've been nice to feel that way.

The woman hadn't missed a single beat, quipped with her own: “'Get off it. Yer' always here, Sparrow.” The lithe man in question merely shrugged her shoulders, smiling all the while, and slipped into her designated stool. A moment later and a mug swilling to the brim with ale swept in front of her, speckling droplets across her knuckles with it's unceremonious halt at her extended fingertips. She cupped it in her hand and hunkered over it. How many times had she lied in the past two weeks? Too many times. Far too many to even begin counting. It left a sour taste in her mouth, and certainly didn't feel right. Her tongue felt thick, swollen, and her elbows ached. Nothing felt certain. She'd lied to Rilien, even though she had an inkling that he'd known all along, each and every time she'd told him she was feeling fine, that he shouldn't worry about her because she could take care of herself, and why-the-hell-was-he-looking-at-her-like-that-anyway? Those taboo words hadn't even been spoken, and already, Sparrow was desperately trying to cover her tracks and make it seem like nothing had happened: Desire Demon, possession, dirty apostate. If Ashton had asked her anything, would she have lied to him, too? Most likely. It was less painful that way. She was swallowing her spine, but at least they didn't have to feel wrong when they looked at her. As if she'd suddenly grow wings, talons, blue skin, or needle-point teeth and rip them
apart: an abomination – ugly things, really.

Her lies were like soft footfalls, tiptoeing across eggshells. Pretty much innocent. Like pebbles clicking against someone's window. Like her frequent assertions that she wasn't that drunk. She didn't want to paint herself a monster, or even acknowledge the fact that she'd made a mistake – didn't want Ashton, or Rilien, or anyone else painting her that way, either. She brought the iron cup to her lips, tipped her head, and chugged it down until the last drop slithered down her gullet, then gingerly placed it where it'd first appeared, softly, gently; with none of her usual clattering gusto. She traced the cup's rim with a finger, letting her head list to the side. Had Rilien seen her the past few nights, while she thought he slept? Her arm's felt as if they acted on their own, twitching to life at her sides, filling her with thoughts that turned her stomach; to hurt, to kill, to tear.

In her present frame of vision, Nostariel could see only the table in front of her, her tankard, the identical one across from it, and a single, blood-red gauntlet. It was a surprisingly-ornate thing, considering who it belonged to. Lucien was... unusual, by even her reckoning of normalcy, which was admittedly rather skewed. A self-professed Lowtown stomper, he nevertheless managed to carry himself with such dignity she was sure he would comport just as well with courtly knights and ladies as with the assorted rabble, riffraff, and vagrants one found here, in this tavern.

The worst part was that she was certain the suggestion would gently offend him, that he would still be the consummate gentleman and inform her that her company and that of those around her was no less desirable (or mayhaps more so) than that of the Queen of Antiva herself. It was... disconcerting. To be treated so much like some precious thing, to be in the company of someone who treated everyone like they really mattered, no matter who they were or what they'd done. She found that, most days, she was unable to muster the courage to even look someone like that in the eye. The other sinners, the others who make mistakes and wore them on hunched shoulders or in troubled eyes, these folk at least she could understand, could bring herself to know without too much guilt festering in her insides for it. But this man was another matter. For all his scars and the battered testaments to experience and bloodshed etched into that gauntlet (they were on the rest of his armor, too, she'd discovered on a braver day), he was still so untouched by those things that muddied her at every turn that she almost didn't know what to do with herself when he was present.

Yet it was impossible to begrudge him this, and she still managed a smile when he sat across from her, mug in hand, and told her that there was someone he wanted her to meet. Their lives had not really intersected in such a way before, and though she could guess at the reason, she wondered if all was as it seemed. In the end, did even he want something from Nostariel the Grey Warden? (What could she even offer?) Was nobody content with Nostariel the person? Not when she's like this, they aren't. At least the title means something. The melancholy thought had dropped her gaze to its current position, but it was dragged back up and over by a slight commotion at the door, which soon evolved into a full-fledged showman's entrance. There were at least three of those a night, though, so it was not her first instinct to pay attention, at least not until she saw who it was.

"Sparrow?" Her musing was soft, just a bit surprised. It had been an uncharacteristically long time since she'd seen the slight man inside the bar; she'd almost begun to suspect that he'd simply left town without a word. He seemed free enough to do that kind of thing, and it was a freedom she at once coveted and feared. Nostariel had no real idea what she'd do with it if ever she won it, but the idea seemed rather enticing all the same.

Would Rilien have told her even if he had? The dreary thought settled like a stone, heedless of any damage it did on everything else that flowed through the river; her mind. Remaining in Darktown, safe and tucked way, hadn't seemed like an option. She wanted to distance herself from her companions for their protection. They wouldn't understand, so she casually tossed her grins, heckled with winks, and announced that she'd rather be spending her hard-earned coin at the Hanged Man. Rilien had only looked at her, all too knowingly, and said he would be visiting Ashton. She balanced her goblet, tipped over, barely on it's lip, before settling it back down and pushing it towards Darcy, only to have it filled again. Her growing loneliness – her self-inflicted sentiments – was a bleeding wound, only festering with dark thoughts and a near-constant purr whispering just behind her ear, blowing soft kisses and promises and things she'd rather shut her ears against. It was enough to drive a lesser person mad, but she'd already decided that she would fight tooth and nail, before that creature, that thing, that demon, would control her. She was afraid of herself; afraid of what she might do if she let her guard down. Gloomy ideas were becoming a bad habit, uncontrollable, unwelcome. She didn't have a paperback spine, addled with burdens, because she was free, wasn't she? She'd always been free in her mind. Apostate-chains, Qunari regulations, and Elven racism hadn't slowed her progress. It'd been a long time since she'd cast her chains, shaking them off like the last remnants of rain.

It was a familiar thought that drew her away from her somber musings. She'd been mid-gulp when she stopped, eyeing the woman over the brim of the cup, nearly snorting into the frothing liquid – it wasn't a pretty sight, but at least it was amusing. Sparrow finished her second drink and pushed it away, casually leaning on her elbows so that she could better talk to the Grey Warden. “Bella-luna! It's nice to see you. It's been awhile, hasn't it?” She mooned thoughtfully, scratching at her beardless chin. They both drank like they were always thirsty, for vastly different reasons, but in the end, it all boiled down to their own sad stories and how much they wished to change things. For Nostariel, Sparrow had shared the hardships she faced as a runaway apostate, as an erstwhile Qunari warrior, as a misunderstood half-breed, as a race who'd never been treated properly. However, she hadn't told her what had happened that day in the woods, all those years ago; the day she'd become Sparrow. It was too early, far too premature. Perhaps, someday, she'd be as frank with Nostariel as she'd been with Rilien. “Aye. You look like you've had a few more adventures since last I saw you.” Her eyes, like two cesspits eating away at the stars, shone willfully. They couldn't hold themselves together, but they could still find comfort, if only a little, in relaying their stories. Then, just like that, the not-man, hardly a woman slipped from her stool, as slippery as a gentlemanly eel, and joined Nostariel at her table.

A marked contrast to Nostariel, Lucien was the very image of relaxed ease in the Warden's company. Well, perhaps not relaxed in the sense that most people would picture it. His posture was flawless and his manner genteel, even in a place where most of the more 'relaxed' patrons were slouching over benches and tables, yelling or laughing at great volumes, filling the entire establishment with the clamor of voices and the clinking and thunks of money and tankards changing hands, of fists banging tables to emphasize a particularly evidential point in some grandiose tale or another. Varric might well be able to hold attention with his voice modulation alone, but not everyone was quite so fortunate or skilled.

She wasn't looking at him again. She rarely ever did, and at first he'd thought it a rather amusing symptom of the vast difference in their height. He had to be a foot or so taller than the elf, and this sort of thing really wasn't all that unusual for him. The few times he had made eye contact with the lady Warden, however, he'd been quite certain she wore an inexplicably-guilty face. So he'd talked to her of inconsequential things and people he used to know, switching names and omitting titles so that the yarns were about ordinary Olesians doing normal (outrageous) Orlesian things, and he'd felt a small spur of satisfaction when a few of those anecdotes had chased away her apparent misery for just long enough that she'd smile or laugh. This was the way of things for them.

When Sophia had spoken to him about making a difference in Kirkwall, however, he'd had the thought that it would be beneficial for her to meet Nostariel, just as much for the Warden's sake as for the future Viscountess'. No, that wasn't quite correct. Just as much for Nostariel's sake as Sophia's. He may well address them by titles when the situation called for it, but it was best to think of them differently. He was almost certain that the both of them had a desire to do good things here (even if Nostariel was not yet aware of hers), and they would be of mutual assistance to each other, probably a great deal more than he'd ever be to either of them. So, here they were, waiting for the lady to make her appearance, even if he'd divulged to neither who the other party was. He was Orlesian after all, and a little suspense was just one of life's many rich flavors.

He did not suspect that the loud entrance belonged to Sophia, though he looked up anyway just to confirm. It was indeed not, though he was quite certain he'd seen this patron before. Androgyny was common and sometimes even fashionable in Celene's court, and so most of the time, Lucien didn't even bother assigning gender to such individuals unless they did so first, but he was also pretty good at guessing. His initial suspicion had been that his immediate instinct towards 'female' had been some lingering and unfortunate enculturated bias towards thinking that elves were delicate and women were too, but when he'd considered it the second time, he'd been relieved to discover that this was not the case and he really simply did surmise that the patron was female. It was good to know that even the notions brought into prominence by your childhood could be overcome with sufficient time and practice.

Nostariel's utterance brought his attention back to her, and he was finally supplied with a name for the person he'd never yet spoken to. "Friend of yours?" He asked mildly, raising his good eyebrow just slightly.

It was only then, looking at Nostariel, and glancing over her left shoulder, that Sparrow noticed another peculiar individual. How unusual. The man looked as if he'd fit in a ballroom just as well as he did in the Hanged man; with all of his gentlemanly posturing – but, not the rooster sort of posturing with it's tail feathers splayed, because he seemed modest. Her eyebrow raised, inquiringly, with a dash of a feline's curiosity. “Strange companions who bond over ale, more like. I still don't know how she puts up with me.” As she always did, Sparrow was teasing. Lilting her words like poetry. Dragging them out with veiled intentions. She folded her fingers over each other, twining her index and middle across her knuckles. Her smile simpered, then faltered. “Any friend of hers is a friend of mine. My name's Sparrow.” She would've held out her hand to shake, but it would've required reaching over Nostariel – and for the moment, she had enough control to resist such actions.

Sophia had to admit, she'd been hoping to hear from Lucien again, but was actually surprised to hear from him so soon. She had quite quickly accepted his invitation to meet someone in the Hanged Man, certainly believing that Lucien's connections in Lowtown would serve to be beneficial to her. What she hadn't quite thought over was the fact that meeting someone in the Hanged Man required actually going to the Hanged Man...

The few hours before she was due to leave, she had discovered how sadly little time she'd spent in the lower parts of Kirkwall. At least, time spent there as just a denizen of the city, and now in her capacity as the Viscount's daughter. Quite frankly, she had no idea what to expect in a place like the Hanged Man; she'd heard stories, some of which fascinated her, others which were more of the mortifying sort, and she really had no idea how to pick the truths from the falsehoods. Perhaps it would simply have to be a case of leaping before she looked.

After far too much internal debate, she'd settled on wearing the plainest dress she owned, one of a pale green color, skirts flowing about her ankles, elbow-length sleeves. Slightly more low-cut than she would have preferred, but she was willing to wager that there'd be more than a few women in Lowtown that would outdo her in that regard. She chose a pair of worn leather boots, which she had used more for traveling with her brother or her father than for social calls, but they were more fitting here than a pair of her more expensive shoes meant for court would be. Because she did not consider herself a fool, she slipped a knife into the right boot, and had assured Bran that she was fully capable of using it. The Seneschal had, as usual, sniffed out her plans, and she had, as usual, enforced her will over him, convincing him that an escort of two city guards was wholly unnecessary, and would just attract more attention than she wanted.

In the end, Sophia figured she looked more or less like the poorest woman in Hightown, meaning she still looked far better off than all of Lowtown. If she wanted to truly fit in down there, she would probably have to starve herself until she was mildly emaciated, and refuse to bathe for several days (or weeks? She wasn't sure, and didn't really want to ponder). Aware of the several eyes that followed her as she left the Vicount's Keep, but not really caring, Sophia set off towards the steps down to Lowtown.

She moved quickly. She fully expected word of her visits to Lowtown to spread quicker than a wildfire, but to be honest, didn't really mind. If she kept her composure, and did what she set out to do, it would probably only improve her standing with the lower orders. The nobles would perhaps raise an eyebrow or two at her, but she could handle them. She'd been handling them since she was but a young teenager. As she approached the Hanged Man at last, however, her thoughts left the bickering nobles and their greed, and fell to Lucien and whomever this person was he wanted her to meet.

She'd been about to open the door when it figuratively exploded in front of her, causing her to jump back slightly as an absurdly drunk man stumbled forth, not even seeing her as he shambled past. She stood rather still for a moment, aware that her heart was beating nearly as fast as when she'd had to defend her brother from the Winters. She would have to think on that later. Her second attempt at opening the door was successful, and she carefully slid inside, using her spatial awareness as though she were maneuvering through a melee.

Lucien was easy enough to spot, in his armor as he had been on both occasions she had met him previously. She made her way through the varying levels of chaos to his table, noting midway the garb of the woman he was seated with: a Grey Warden. Indeed, she had known Lucien would not have brought her down here for nothing. She'd met a few Grey Wardens some years ago, when she'd been much smaller, and had always valued the chance at meeting another. And to not do so in the environment of the Viscount's Keep was especially enticing. The prospect helped her overcome much of her uncomfortability at being in such a den as the Hanged Man.

"Good evening," she said, arriving at the table and curtsying slightly to the Warden. She wasn't sure to what degree the elven woman expected, or wanted, formality, and meeting in a place like this seemed to give Sophia the answer, but it never hurt to be safe. "My name is Sophia Dumar." She wasn't sure if it was necessary to add anything else, admittedly expecting the Warden to recognize the name, and so she gently seated herself in an unoccupied chair, curious as to where this would lead.

There were strange tides today, it seemed. Sparrow's flint-like eyes flit past Nostariel and Lucien, focusing solely on the newcomer. The kindliness and good manners were almost stifling. She'd never been one to hold her tongue or display unusual amounts of etiquette – she'd rather stomp on eggshells than tiptoe past them, and if anyone was offended, then she'd clear the air with crude jokes. She chuckled softly and leaned back in her stool. No doubt, Sparrow hadn't been noticed, so casually looking about as if she didn't truly belong anywhere, and all at once: everywhere. She had to peek over Nostariel's shoulder to catch a better look. “Now you look like you need a drink.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Sophia hadn't been aware that Lucien wanted to introduce her to two people, and to be quite honest, she wasn't quite sure how to answer the elven... half-elven... the second person's greeting, which consisted solely of a recommendation: drink. Truth be told, that was one thing Sophia hadn't come to the Hanged Man to do, both because she had heard less than ideal things about the tavern's refreshments, and also because she wasn't much of a drinker in the first place, and figured a unusual trip to a potentially dangerous part of town for her a poor time to start.

She did note that the Warden and this other had certainly come here to drink, but made no mention of it. "I'm... thank you, but I'll pass. Not drinking tonight." Was her face reddening? Maker, she hoped not. It certainly didn't help that she couldn't tell what she was talking to, neither race nor gender. Her eyes darted away from the... man, she had to go with man, and towards Lucien and the Warden.

Nostariel was prone to gentle head-shakes whenever Sparrow was present, and now was no exception. Taking pity on Sophia, she backhanded her fellow mage (gently) on the arm and tsk'ed softly. "You leave the lass alone, you rake," she admonished, but there were faint traces of amusement clinging to the words. There was the head-shake, and she turned slightly to face the Viscount's daughter. "Don't mind Sparrow; that's just the way he is. My name is Nostariel Turtega. It's nice to meet you as well. I must say, if Lucien here had told me I'd be meeting yourself, I would have chosen a slightly less... harrowing location." Her glance focused briefly over Sophia's shoulder, where a pair of men (both completely pissed, by the looks of it), tried to support each other on the way out of the tavern. Nostariel's brows furrowed; those two worked at the Bone Pit, she was sure of it, and while they were quite often inebriated, she didn't think it was so bad usually.

She tucked the thought away, having more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. "Another friend of mine is essentially Kirkwall's rumor mill, so I'd heard whispers of the Viscount's daughter out and about in the city. May I ask the purpose of such ventures?" Nostariel raised her tankard to her lips and took a draught, setting it back down with perhaps more grace than a drunk properly deserved.

Sophia was quite certain she'd reddened more once the Grey Warden, Nostariel Turtega, as she introduced herself, stepped in to rescue her from Sparrow. An excellent first impression, no doubt. She'd probably looked more confident the last time she had met a Warden, and that was when she had been twelve. Of course, that was also in the Viscount's Keep and not the Hanged Man, but still. She might have agreed with Nostariel's sentiment about the location, but showed no sign of it. "It's quite alright. It's an interesting change of pace, I'll give it that."

And apparently rumor traveled faster than she herself did. Were her daily affairs such common knowledge? She supposed they would be, given her future as Viscountess. She sensed genuine curiosity in Nostariel's question however, which was far preferable to the accusatory tones she would no doubt get from Father the next morning, when he found out about this. "If I may be frank," and Sophia actually felt like it would be strange not to be frank with someone in a place like this, "there's a good deal about the city that doesn't sit right with me, and I want to fix that. It's hard just to know what the problems are, let alone fix them, when you spend every waking moment concerned only with the affairs of Hightown. So... I guess I'm branching out, and seeing what I can do to help. I don't have much actual authority over anything quite yet, but... I'm capable of helping people, so I think I should."

She hoped her ideal would resonate with the Warden, although she was aware that joining that particular Order was not always by choice. Her gut told her that Nostariel was a good person, though. Lucien wouldn't have introduced them otherwise.

“Much simpler to feel at ease with a warm belly.” She added flippantly, arching an inquisitive eyebrow. It was only when Nostariel playfully thwacked her arm, hardly knocking the simpering look off her outlandish features, that Sparrow mouthed a silent apology and dropped her hands from her chin, gesturing with one as if she were waving a white flag – surrendering neatly, politely. It wouldn't do to disobey a pretty lady. Surely, Ashton would agree. Her smile widened, ever so slightly, with her teeth peeping between her lips. This woman, who's name rang like seashells and bells, was adorable. Sparrow feigned an affronted pout, dipping her chin into her upturned hand, elbows already finding purchase on the table's chipped contour. She waggled her fingers. Her eyes rolled back towards her fellow mage. This was just the distraction she needed to keep her head out of the water, to keep herself from drowning. It would be enough for now.

“Sunshine – the Viscount's daughter?” It came as a soft whisper; a breathy intonation of surprise. She'd already given Sophia a fitting nickname: Sunshine. There was something pleasant, almost unscathed, in the woman's eyes. As if it hadn't been touched by outside influences. As if it hadn't been torn apart in the most unpleasant ways. It was refreshing and uncomfortable, all at once. Honestly, Sparrow wasn't used to anyone who wasn't remotely broken, or injured, or battered from earlier experiences. Her hands sidled at the table's edge, gently drumming to an invisible beat. This conversation was better left to those who's goals extended far beyond living day-to-day, drivelling in hovels and scurrying in the comfort of darkness. Hadn't she helped a group of Templars only weeks ago? A group so hellbent on stripping her freedom away. It was almost funny, and perhaps it would have been if it hadn't turned out so badly. Her hand was beginning to ache, interrupting the steady rhythm of her fingers. She couldn't stay. So, finally, Sparrow scrapped the wooden chair back, tipped a ghostly hat at Nostariel, Lucien, and Sophia.

“Good to see someone's trying t' change things.” Her voiced dropped to a conspiring whisper. “If it were me, I'd start at the bottom. Help the one's that don't have the coin to help themselves.” The Elves, the poor, the apostates. When did Hightown need for anything? Without another word, Sparrow threw Sophia a wink and swept past her, shouting her goodbye's to the barkeep and it's servers.

Almost as soon as she'd appeared, the rambunctious woman was gone, leaving Lucien blinking his good eye slowly, as if to make sure it was working correctly. He needed it to, given the state of his other one. There had been something uneasy in her demeanor, though subtle, and covered rather well by the flapping, strutting flashiness of a peacock proud of his feathers. If that hadn't been entirely standard where he came from, he probably wouldn't have noticed it. Still, it was none of his business, and he did not inquire after it, returning his focus intead to the two women that still remained.

Of course, he was hoping that Sophia's frank mannerisms and obvious good intentions would earn her some help from Nostariel, because the woman was undeniably a good ally to have; a hell of a healer, not to mention someone with real (and very unfortunate) experince in achieving what seemed to be impossible. While the elf didn't necessarily know it, he'd wager she was close to the ideal voice for city eles, mages, and large groups of other unfortunates who may or may not recieve due attention elsewhere. At the very least, she knew a great deal more than he about all of those things, and it was infomation Sophia needed to have if she was to succeed. Conversely, well... it was fair to say that if his initial estimation of the Viscount's daughter was correct, then nobility was not to be given up on quite yet, and his Warden friend could use some reassurance of that.

He understood, however, that it was not for him to baldly assert any of these things, no matter how certain of them he was. Some things would only ever show their value when unearthed one step at a time. So Lucien faded into the background of the conversation, present if he was needed but otherwise as unobtrusive as a six-and-a-half foot man in plate armor could be.

Sparrow had a way of making the atmosphere around him lighter, as though some of the oppressive, miasmic weight of it cleared for just a little while. His childish expressiveness and silly gestures were welcome interruptions to the monotony of her misery, just as Lucien's unfailing politeness and gentle, coaxing manner of conversation and Aurora's stubborn optimism were. Too soon, the lanky man was gone, and she was left to face something she wasn't quite sure how to answer.

This woman, Sophia Dumar, reminded her quite acutely of Lucien, only... well, the fact that she was dressed more richly wasn't important, but she was blunter, in a way. The same feeling of essential goodness was there, though, and it was easy to see why the two got along well enough that he'd invite someone from Hightown down here, and why she'd acquiesce and appear without visible armament. (Not, of course, that Nostariel believed she was unarmed). The Warden appraised the Viscount's daughter with genuine curiosity. "I know the feeling well," she demurred, propping her elbows on the table and clasping one fist in the opposite palm. Setting her chin atop both, she sighed softly.

"Our mutual friend is no fool; I may very well be able to assist you. But... I would ask one thing in return. There will come a time when what you want to do seems impossibly difficult, when the right choice isn't clear to you. When everything you've been raised or taught to think pulls you in one direction, but some little part of yourself that wasn't there before makes you unsure. When that time comes..." The Warden trailed off and swallowed, her voice thickening with something not quite nameable. "Well, I won't tell you what to do, but I'd ask you to listen to that small thing. Its power is not indicative of its truth." Blinking rapidly several times, Nostariel straightened her posture slightly, tilting her lips in a self-effacing smile.

"My apologies; I may have just convinced you of my strangeness rather than anything else. But I would ask it of you all the same. By the nature of our world, the decisions of some matter a great deal more than those of others, and I have a feeling that yours will mean a great deal, Sophia."

Sophia had been quite absorbed in the words of the elven Warden, enough so to forget that she had just felt a fool from the encounter with Sparrow, enough to forget Lucien was silently observing their conversation, enough even to forget that she was in a place like the Hanged Man, noisy and chaotic as it was. Her words made her feel... strangely uncomfortable, though. The idea that what she had been taught, or led to believe, could possibly be... not false, but not true either. Grand Cleric Elthina came to mind. There was perhaps no one who had taught her more in her life. She couldn't see herself ever going against the Grand Cleric.

"Strange? No... I find the lack of any caring among many nobles to be strange, not this. But... I've had teachers that I have always aspired to, Andraste and the Maker above all. I haven't felt doubt in..." Not so long ago, she had to remind herself, brought on by that troublesome criminal and the man sitting right next to her. Sophia became aware that she was looking at him, or his gauntlets, rather, and pulled her eyes back up to meet Nostariel's.

"I can speak only for myself, of course, but I have to believe in the rightness of many of those who have taught me. I'm certain I'll be tested far more in the future than I ever have, but their guidance has not led me astray yet, nor do I believe that it will." Quite suddenly, she found herself wishing she'd worn her armor, or at least some kind of armor. She felt rather small compared to Lucien next to her, and even the Warden, who she was certain had seen far more than the little Hightown Sophia had grown up in.

Oh, the things I could tell you, Nostariel thought to herself, but she recognized that assurance, that confidence, well enough to know that nothing she said would make a difference. So instead of asserting herself, she backed off without a fight. "I used to think much the same. I suppose I can only ask that you trust yourself as well as trusting them. At any rate, perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume. I will offer my assistance when you require it, provided I am not occupied with anything for the Wardens. I can also keep my ear to the ground, so to speak. You might be surprised what one can learn in a place like this."

"I would greatly appreciate it," Sophia said, nodding her head in thanks. She was also grateful Nostariel did not choose to push her point further. Perhaps it was unwise to discard advice from a Warden, but Sophia thought it far more dangerous to discard advice from Elthina, a woman she had known far longer, the wisest soul she had had the privelege of being taught by. Pleased, however, with at least making the acquaintance of a Warden, and the possibility of future cooperation, Sophia stood, and bowed once more, though it felt unnecessary. "I should probably return to the Keep, lest Bran send out a search party," she said, smiling slightly at Lucien. "Thank you for inviting me here. It was a pleasure to meet you, Nostariel."

She then made her way cautiously from the tavern once more, careful to avoid more stumbling drunks and other assorted dangers of Lowtown at night. Yes, she definitely would be wearing some armor next time she came here.

"Likewise," Nostariel murmured politely, but she wasn't sure there was much truth in it. It was not that she disliked Sophia, or even that she thought the woman was doomed to fail. It was just... taking on such a burden, no matter how apt her allies, was going to bring her much pain and sorrow, and some of it probably self-caused, if she was unwilling to veer from dogma and really see the things that her eyes would show her, if she spent long enough in places similar to those Nostariel had dwelt. Looking morosely into her cup, she took several deep swallows and glanced at the large man across from her. She made it to one of his ears this time, though eye contact was still impossible.

"I hope she winds up more like you than me," she said simply. They'd both suffered, but his had made him better, and hers had only sunk her, like a swimmer weighted with too many stones, drowning, drowning.

There was an underlying current to this conversation, one that was almost enough to cause Lucien to break into it. With what, exactly, he couldn't have said. The line of tension was relatively easily identified. Sophia was devout, Nostariel was a mage. He had thought the similarity in their intentions would have made it less of an issue, and to a certain degree, perhaps it had. The problems, however, had not simply vanished into thin air. He liked to think that he was in some way privileged, to know a fair deal more of Nostariel's woeful history than most, but there was still something there, underneath the general air of melancholy, that wasn't quite explainable with what he knew. She did not fight Sophia's assertions spitting like an alley cat (and he knew quite a few who would), but neither did she roll over and demur.

In time, the conversation itself was over, and their guest was departing. Lucien offered a nod, making sure Sophia successfully maneuvered her way out the door before glancing back to the Warden. He didn't exactly flinch at the amount of ale she was intaking, but the inward sentiment was about the same. He hadn't meant to depress her further; that had actually been the opposite of his aim.

When she spoke, he sighed, unheard over the din of the bar, and leaned his head into one hand, the drop in his height quite effectively forcing eye contact for at least a moment. "You shouldn't," he replied seriously. "There is nothing wrong with you, Nostariel."

The woman stilled, looking for a moment much like a doe staring down some form of very large predator. It wasn't that Lucien frightened her, but the sentiment was so... something. Surprising, perhaps. She shook her head slightly and swallowed, looking back down at the table. "...it's generous of you to say so." She replied at last.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The contrast was striking. From Hightown to Lowtown, one would be surprised to learn that it was one city-- if she didn't already live there, Aurora would have been surprised herself. Even then, when she went on her walks around Hightown it felt like she was walking somewhere else entirely. Lowtown was, well, as the name put it, Low. Dusty streets and grungy alleyways, unsavory sorts staring as people walked by. Muggings and thugs were rampant. Though all of the negatives were there, there were a couple of positives. A silver lining of sorts that those optmisitic enough to look would find.. It felt real. There were no facades, no gilt to hide the dirt and grime. It was all out in the open, written plainly on every person who lived there. They were real. Their intentions were clear.

Hightown however did not have the decency to hang it's dirty laundry out in the open. It was hidden, under layers of gilt and gold. Still, Aurora had to admit, Hightown was pretty. Large mansions, immaculate stonework, wide open areas, and even the grim statues had a certain majesty about them. Plus, she didn't have to worry about getting mugged near about much as she would in Lowtown. The people living in Hightown however... Left something to be desired. Sneering nobility, entitled men, pompous women, and pride just because someones great-great-ancestor made their fortune in the city. She became used to a noble sneering at her like she didn't belong, she certainly looked like she didn't belong. A farcry from the robes and silks of the Nobles, she wore a pink shirt and leather pants with her red scarf. The majestic city hiding the ugly within the people's hearts. Much like Lowtown's dirt hiding the pride of her people.

But who was she to condemn and parade those she didn't know? There had to be real people in Hightown, kind people looking to just make their city that much better. The same for Lowtown, people who look for more than just to survive, but to live and thrive. Eh. Perhaps she was just that optimistic. Aurora tilted her head as she pondered the mysteries that were Hightown and it's sister, Lowtown. She had found a bench in one of the open areas and sat about meditating. She looked around, reflecting on what Amalia had said. All that she saw was the Truth. She could touch it, feel it, and know it. Everything else was an illusion. She had been pondering those words ever since Amalia presented this to her. In a way, she understood, yet she did not. She did understand one part of what Amalia had said. One word, which meant something to her. Keep it close to her heart and repeat it when all else fails. That, she understood. "Rosaline," she murmured to herself. To remind her of where she came from, somewhere far away in Antiva. A name she remembers from her childhood, and if the need arises, the name that would save her.

She shook her head and arched her back, stretching. A number of pops told her that she had been stationary for far too long and demanded that she move somewhere, anyway. Anything to get the blood flowing. So she stood from the bench and began to walk. The destination didn't matter, it never mattered. Only the journey counted. And her journey was bound to lead to some strange places yet. Something caught her eye as she walked through an arch. A poster of sorts, with the words "Help Wanted" printed in large letters at the top. The sudden appearance of the poster caused her to stop Aurora in her tracks and draw her in. She was a curious sort, and always helpful. Pity that it tended to get her into trouble.

Reading the poster, it seemed that one Ghyslain de Carrac, was the one looking the help. She chewed on her lip for moment before shrugging. She had nothing else planned, and all this meditating was dull. Perhaps a good deed would help with that. So Aurora spun on her heel and headed towards where the poster pointed.

Rilien, impeccably (if not richly) dressed as always, led their lightfooted path through Hightown. It was something at which he'd had much practice, the ability to shift back and forth from unobtrusive to downright distracting. It was something Sparrow could stand to learn, especially given the new development in their lives that he did not much appreciate. That morning, he'd simply handed her a parcel of his wares and taken up the other two himself, leading the way out the door. Any hand-flapping or flighty prostestations were silenced with a single flat look, one that telegraphed, plainly as day, it's not as though you have something better to be doing. Truth be told, this sort of presumptuous, overbearing (but subtly so, if indeed such a thing was possible) behavior was the direct result of the fact that he was both worried and protective, two things which he never had been before where she was concerned. This, he put down to the presence of the demon itself. The disturbance its presence caused, the ripple in the Fade that he could feel as acutely as water on his skin, was opening him to a (slightly, but even so) wider range of emotion that that to which he was accustomed.

It was, in short, uncomfortable. His understanding of the phenomena did nothing to diminish it, and things that most others would have dismissed as slight disturbances or errant thoughts were for him consuming to the point of a mild fixation. He needed to find a way to exorcise the demon from his friend, else he might never return to his state of equanimity. And if he was ever to feel emotions properly again, it would not be until he had flung the door to the Fade wide open and regained his magic along with it. For now, he tolerated his worry and his unbidden hunting-cat awareness of her predicament as unavoidable, and acted accordingly. Less disruptive was the concern when she was nearby and he could observe that she was not getting herself into trouble, and so for today, she was accompanying him to business and making herself useful in the process. He would not, could not smother her, and this would not be a matter of new routine, but for his own peace of mind, it would have to happen at least occasionally.

He wondered if Sparrow understoof this. It seemed unlikely; even he only comprehended it in the most abstract sense.

His present lack of focus meant that his orders were coming along more slowly than they used to, and he found himself often unmotivated to make the lesser potions and balms people came to him for. Motivation was not something he'd ever needed before, but now he felt its lack distinctly. The Tranquil huffed a breath silently through his nose. There was rent to be paid, and Coterie racket dues, and what was more, he was saving as much as he could for rare ingredients he'd need for experimentation if he was to ever develop his (formerly one, now two) most vital concoctions at all. He was very good at what he did, but nothing paid quite that well when you were working below peak efficiency and had a friend's stacking gambling debts to deal with also.

Which was perhaps why when he overheard a voice thick with the tones of his homeland, apparently arguing with someone in a position of authority, he stopped abruptly, listening acutely to the confrontation. From it, he gathered that there appeared to be a missing person, and the City Guard were refusing to deal with it. Given their present location, it was perhaps likely that the complainant would be willing to pay for something not given for free. Turning to Sparrow, Rilien simply raised one frost-hued eyebrow. Thoughts? From the corner of his eye, the Tranquil caught a flash of red, and his eyes flickered in that direction for just a moment- mage, female, auburn hair- before he returned them to Sparrow.

On the other hand, Sparrow hadn't bothered dressing any differently, meaning she looked very much like she'd stepped off the docks; a dishevelled, exotic mess of bright fabrics, elusively strong cottons, and pastel knee patches. Always appearing as if she'd just stepped out of the brothel or a particularly rowdy bar, which starkly contrasted against her well-dressed companion. Hightown would not steal any of her bluster, nor force her to dress any differently. What would she wear? Coattails, frilled hats and petticoats? They'd have to drag her kicking and screaming into those contraptions. Hopefully, and it wouldn't have been hard to imagine, Sparrow looked as if she were accompanying her master as a mocha-skinned apprentice who was aiding him in carrying his wares. Or at the very least an unusual hireling. There had been slight disharmony between the two – though she would never have admitted to noticing. Ever since returning from the Gallow's that day, from that rickety shed searching for that damned Templar, she'd had trouble looking Rilien, straight-faced. He'd always known. She couldn't figure out what was worse: not speaking of it, at all, or him looking at her in such a construed way, murmuring through his eyes that there wasn't a thing she could do to bury her mistake; to sweep it under the rug and simply forget that it existed. It would've been easier, and much kinder. The ghouls and monsters and demons had their talons slung over her shoulder like a cape, exuding the Fade as if it'd become a thin, translucent layer of skin. Imperceptible to those without magical intuitions – and to people like Rilien, no doubt it carried its own stench, its own sting, its own uncomfortable weight.

She'd wanted to put as much distance between them as possible, but with one levelled look, Sparrow couldn't have denied him. What else did she have to do today? Nothing besides wandering Darktown, clenching her hands into ineffectual fists so that she could still feel like it belonged to her alone. She'd tucked Rilien's parcel neatly under her armpit and followed him without a word, occasionally lagging behind to peer into neighbouring shops. Her cheeks puffed, then blew out in a long, exaggerated sigh. Would he kill her if she turned into an abomination? It was a nagging thought that frequently rested on the harried premise of her mind, never dissolving long enough to be completely forgotten. They didn't last long enough before they were replaced, slapped away like insignificant gnats: unproductive to the vessel. Her voice was soft, and soothing and beautiful. It's own orchestrated melody filled spine-chilling suggestions, coated to appear sweet and tempting. It beckoned with clawed fingers, a smile that boasts fangs. She'd dredged up enough strength to resist, to remain in control, and to leave everyone in the dark. These were her problems to face and defeat and solve, even if it meant clubbing it, viciously, with her mace. Cleverly puzzling the pieces out, shifting them in analytical order had never been her style; that belonged to silver-tongued Ashton and Rilien. The expression that simpered on her face was one of pure, unadulterated tedium, as if Rilien were dragging a child around by the scruff of the neck, minus dragging her feet and wailing like siren.

She did not walk in tandem with her companion, preferring to lag a little behind. It was easier to avoid his gaze that way. The weight of the responsibility he carried was too much to share, grinding down on brittle bones that threatened to give way beneath her – she was stubborn, so instead of whimpering like a sopping wet kitten, she picked a spot in the horizon, above the indelicately decorated balconies, and stared. “Some nancy from Hightown this time? Bludgers hardly appreciate anything.” She scoffed sourly, squinting in the sun. “Bet it's some lass who's sick of her husband.” She added as an afterthought, rattling the parcel under her arm. Before Rilien could flatly remind her that those things were fragile, Sparrow balanced it on shoulder, tucked into the curve of her collarbone. “Unless it's not actually what I think it is.” With an inconspicuous twitch of her ears, she'd already skipped ahead of Rilien. “Coin, Ril. Good, honest coin.” The remark was shaded with sarcasm, because she didn't really mind dancing around questionable lines to fill her pockets. To certain degrees, she was still Darktown-minded. Survival of the fittest. Clanging pockets by any means – almost. She'd almost missed the brief flash of auburn hair in her peripherals, and if hadn't been for the equally vibrant scarf flung around her neck. A half-whispered coo later and Sparrow's attention was directed elsewhere.

“Ah, yes. Good honest coin, right?” She repeated, softly. The light, which was infrequently present these days, danced in the dark pits of her eyes, before she snatched up Rilien's sleeve and tugged him along until she was sure that he'd follow her. They still had the parcels to deliver, too. Her free hand clutched the corner of the poster, quickly peeling it off before tittering forward. “Interested, ducky? I'd say it'd be much easier looking with a group of three. Wouldn't you, Ril?”

His amnesiatic dreamer was a full-blown gypsy dancer again, if only for a moment, and he wouldn't have denied her whim, however absurd it was. This was the push and pull between them, the tidal forces of her exuberance and his stillness. She gave, effusively and without direction, and he simply let it wash over him without damage, a reminder of what he was and what he once had been instead. This exchange, which had shaken her in some odd way from whatever somnolent half-parade she'd been putting on, still dressed like a flighty exotic bird or festival token, all flash and no fire, brought that familiar pattern to the fore once again, and for all it was bizarre and odd and fantastically strange, for them - these two friends, unlikely as they may be- it was normal, and Rilien could not deny that he had missed it.

Unsurprisingly, her renewed enthusiasm, the dampening in that foreign influence and his own return to something more like himself, was brought on by a complete stranger and an opportunity. She was embedded in the world that he stood apart from, and the rising and falling of their collectives tides was as much a matter of her reation to what occurred around her as it was anything else. He, as ever, was affected only vicariously, through that transferrance of dynamism that denied him any kind of permanent inertia. What happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object? Sparrow and Rilien knew. They were what happened, in a way.

And so he deftly plucked the package from underneath her arm, stacking it on top of the one he still carried, and handed both off to the Hightown clothier, who'd asked for an infusion of dyes. Not the Tranquil's usual stock and trade, but a simple-enough thing to know. He was deliberate, in the time it took him to secure the man's payment, and he finessed the silvers into a smaller, separate coin-purse, the drawstring of which he drew tight, pinching the satchel closed. With an equiniminous nod to his customer, he tossed the little bag to Sparrow. "If you wish." His tonelessness betrayed none of the difficulty he had in maintaining it. He was, as ever, the consummate actor, and he would be whatever it was he needed to be. Besides, it would be of no good end to him if she understood the degree to which her whim could presently shake his footing. That would lead to questions he could not answer without blame, whatever his intent.

The capricious bird was already off again, flitting in the direction of something new, which in this case turned out to be a young woman- the same one he'd briefly noted a short time before- and she was making presumptuous suggestions before he could get a word in, not that he tried that earnestly. Walking up behind her, he blinked slowly at the woman and continued his friend's thread of conversation in perhaps more sensible terms. "What Sparrow means to say is that she believes you are about to go talk to that man-" here he briefly indicated with a gesture the raised terrace above them- "and that is our intention as well. We seek employment. If it is not objectionable to you, it may be of benefit to go together." He made no indication of his own opinion on the matter, and fell silent immediately afterwards, clearly waiting for some form of response.

"Eh... What?" Aurora asked the fellow. Or was it a fellow? His broad shoulders suggested yes, but there was something feminine about him... Was it because he was an elf perhaps? Perhaps not, he did not look the part of the elf, he was much thicker, much more... Filled out. Strange, his words and his appearance had already seemed to throw Aurora off. If given the inclination, she would have probably taken the time to ponder on what and who this man was. Hmm... Perhaps meditating would be the better word-- No, she was not going to meditate again. She was done with that. She would go with her gut instinct and consider this being a male. And if she could help it, she'd try to keep pronouns out of the equation. She had had enough of meditation under Amalia's tutalege, she would not find herself navel gazing on her free time.

Helpfully, another fellow-- for this one was clearly a man, if elven-- interjected and clearified what his partner meant. Though she found herself dwelling more on the delivery of words than the contents thereof. The tone he used was... Flat. Aside from that, he looked like a bright man-- literally. Snow white hair, tangerine eyes, sun-kissed face, and a nifty little sunburst tattoo on his brow-- Oh... Oh! Oh... Poor fellow. That explains his delivery. The man was a Tranquil. Though, something wasn't quite right with this one. He seemed to possess a great deal more free-will than the Tranquils she knew back in the Antivian Circle. Not to mention that he was out gallavanting about without an Enchanter. Unless the other man was an Enchanter, though she doubted that. He certainly didn't look the part. And she didn't know of Tranquils forming attachments with others as he seemed to have done with this... Sparrow. Great. Even his name wasn't indictive of his gender.

However, she did find herself suddenly not the only oddity in Hightown this afternoon. Sweet serendipity perhaps. Plus, it seemed like this pair was looking to assist de Carrac as well. Though from what she gathered from Sparrow's words they were in it more for the coin than the good deed itself. Still, she couldn't fault them for that, they all had to make a living somehow and apparently delivering parcels didn't tend to make enough to put the food on their tables. So where was the harm in assisting this pair if their goal was the same? Many hands make light work as they say. Besides, perhaps it would give her enough time to... Study this Tranquil and the walking question mark that was his partner. She was a curious sort after all.

With her mental calculations done she nodded in agreement. "Sure, why not? I'm up for it. Another pair of eyes would make the work easier after all. My name is Aurora Rose," she said with a mock curtsey and a wry grin on her face. Of course, only Sparrow would find the humor in this, the Tranquil being, well, Tranquil.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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A pair of Kirkwall city guards had come to see the man asking for help, Ghyslain de Carrac, outside of his manor in Hightown. In appearance, he was not uncommon for the richest part of Kirkwall's society, nor was his home. In his current state, however, he did not look nearly so composed as an Orlesian-born nobleman would aspire to. The guards themselves looked somewhat tired through their body language, appearing eager to leave.

"What do you mean you can't help me?" Ghyslain asked with no small amount of incredulity. His tone carried urgency as well as distress, but the lead guard returned none of it with his reply. "This is a domestic matter, serah. If your wife has chosen to leave you, there's nothing we can do." The nobleman scoffed at that.

"Ninette is my wife! She's legally bound to me. Bring her back!" To this, the guardsman just shook his head, gesturing for his partner to follow. "We're done here." Ghyslain watched them go for a moment, before throwing his arms up into the air in frustration. "Useless! Why are we still paying those sluggards?" he shouted, asking no one in particular.

Rilien, hands folded demurely into his sleeves, passed the city guards on their way down the stairs, but did not pause. Reaching the top with a whisper of sound, he glanced dismissively at Ghyslain and approached. A poor nobleman he would have made in Orlais, to wear his true intentions so openly. His attitude was not uncommon, but in Val Royeaux it would have been expressed in saccharine, poetic declarations of love and suffering, meant to move crowds and inspire sympathy. Equally pointless, but aesthetically much more acceptable than bare possession and fret.

The former bard knew a thing or two about wordplay. "Perhaps it would be more fiscally responsible to pay us instead," he asserted blandly, indicating the two women behind him with a slight tilt of his head. "It will doubtless run you more, but surely this is a small thing compared to the future well-being of your dear wife?" The Tranquil's tone might have been tinged with sardonic irony, and in fact he was well-aware of his exaggeration of the man's concern for the lady herself, but as usual, he was not overt enough for most to catch, and plausible deniability was the name of his game, so to speak.

Ghyslain looked to initially think the elf was mocking him or something of the sort, but when he at last digested his words, he looked nearly overwhelmed with relief. "Finally! Someone who's willing to do something. I assure you, I will pay well for my wife's return. That foolish woman has caused me nothing but embarrassment. She needs to be dragged home. Ah... but dragged home quietly, I should say. Her family is getting suspicious. They think I might have... done something to her. Even if -- well, I just want to make sure they know I didn't do it!"

He looked at least somewhat aware that what he was saying might not go over well with most people, but that was mostly wiped out by his sheer enthusiasm for getting these three to bring his wife home quietly.

She inclined her head a little, conceding the point that, perhaps, Sparrow was indeed of the avian variety. Full of flighty, colourful feathers, and puffed up peacock tails, and iridescent plumage that nearly blinded you; in many ways, it was almost like staring full-faced into the sun. An ardent disposition fanning out to attract, or at the very least, confuse the hell out of anyone who chanced a look in her direction. It was the reticence of birds, the very essence of carelessness and riding along the overturning breeze; she regretted nothing. Well, until that fateful day. Rilien held their torch and she remained impassively perched on his shoulder, digging her talons and constantly on the verge of flight. The correlative connection they shared was astonishing. Her head bobbed in agreement. Of course, Rilien was far more sensible with his words, as if it were a dance he practised often. Her two right-footed steps found themselves, repeatedly, treading over toes, stumbling into buckets, and generally making more trouble than it was worth. Stark differences that made them irrefutable companions.

Her sleep-bowed eyes, glossy, and as black as a raven's underbelly, watched Aurora expectantly. This woman with hair like peonies and roses and a mixture of paint swirled across a painter's board; green eyes like moss, amassed in curtains of fire. She'd always liked red hair – there was something about it, something familiar. Sparrow resisted the urge to snatch up the woman's hands when she accepted their proffered suggestion. Instead, Sparrow offered her own flourish-of-a-bow with waggling fingertips, mockingly throwing an imaginary cape over her shoulder as a snobbish denouement. She wasn't overly fond of Hightown's residents, particularly because they didn't seem to give a bloody damn about anyone outside of their small circles. As if nothing occurred beyond their sights, which tarried no farther than the border between Hightown and Lowtown. She clapped her hands together, then slid them casually behind her head, extending her elbows. “This'll be a lot more fun now that we've got a pretty lady with us.” She casually mused, rolling her eyes towards the sky, before glancing sidelong at her companion. If it'd been anyone else, other than Rilien, other than Ashton, then they might've been embarrassed at such outspoken forthrightness. Her left hand slipped down, purposely dropping on the Tranquil's shoulder. “And this is Rilien. That's not the stink eye he's giving you, so don't worry.”

Painfully frank.

Sometimes, it was as if it didn't occur to Sparrow that Rilien was Tranquil. She certainly treated him no different. Her gregarious temperament sidled to a standstill, perking it's ears at the event unfolding above them. Any attempts at keeping their affairs private was hardly enacted. The man, who she presumed to be Ghyslain, was shouting at the guardsman, obviously distraught that they'd chosen not to do anything. She brought the flapping piece of paper back to her face, studying the poster. This was all about some petty marital concern? Certainly not a gallant rescue, snatching this woman away from this creature. She folded the paper and slipped it into one of her many pockets. It was only when Sparrow followed closely behind Rilien that she felt the first tendrils of anger trembling down her spine, warming her ears, throwing it's macabre beat against her heart. Everything felt much too tight. Her ribs, her chest, her throat. Legally bound to him? As you were to them. Isn't it the same, sweets? Her muscles tightened, clenched, tensed across the shoulders. Errant tendons contracted near her jawbone, thrumming it's own rhythm.

“Cerass Va!” It came out unintentionally, a vibrating yawl. Even if it wasn't understood, it's intonation was clear – Sparrow thought this was man was a wretch, hardly worth having any dealings with. If it hadn't been for the missing woman, this man's wife, then she would have walked away without any misgivings. Usually, coin would, or could, have swayed her, but this was different. Women weren't objects. They couldn't be owned, or bought, or possessed; not in her eyes. An overwhelming sense of disgust twitched across her fingertips, which dawdled dangerously close to the weapon swaying at her hip – one strike, one well-placed swing would finish him. He wouldn't suspect it. Then, at least, his wife would have a chance. “Your wife deserves better.” Sparrow prodded him in the chest, hard. “She deserves to be treated like a queen, you wretch. We're finding her, but not for you. We'll take her back here so yer' names cleared.” Another harsh prod.

Sparrow and Rilien. An odd pair to be sure, a flittery man and a Tranquil. A pool of emotion and a dry riverbed. Perhaps that was the reason they were together. They evened each other out. The fact that Sparrow was just full of emotion as his body language suggested was further proved when he took a deep bow in front of her. Aurora had to stifle a laugh. Apparently she wasn't the only one who found humor in the noblity's pompous ways. Of course, she managed to blush when Sparrow called her pretty. It wasn't that she was shy, it's just that she didn't hear it all that often in Lowtown. In fact, compliments were rare in that park of Kirkwall. Just as well, seeing how she was currently trying her best to keep a low profile.

Then the party's attentions were turned to the point of this temporary partnership. Ghyslain and his missing wife. Or rather his property. Aurora furrowed her bow and gave the man a tight-lipped frown. While she wasn't an especially hateful or confrontive person, Aurora hated the way the man talked about his wife like she was some kind of furniture. The reason why his wife went missing became suddenly became crystal clear and she even contemplated not even returning the woman back to her husband if they found her. Though her own anger and irritation was bottled up inside her in order to be let free elsewhere and not into the face of the mind via her fist, Sparrow seemed to take it even worse than she did. This first word out of his mouth-- even if it was a word. She couldn't honestly tell if it was, or if it was in another language. It certainly wasn't Antivan, that much she knew. Curious, she could tell this little venture would be extremely... Interesting.

Sparrow continued to give the man a tongue lashing, putting to words what Aurora felt. She gave him her approval by simply nodding along. It was unlikely that anything she said would be taken serious by the misogynistic man. Luckily Sparrow managed to chew him out before she had to. Aurora found herself liking this Sparrow, despite only meeting him mere moments ago. Sweet serendipity indeed.
"Give us a name and a lead so we can get this over with," She added behind Sparrow. The faster they could find this man's wife, the faster they could get it over with, and the faster Aurora could help the woman.

Ghyslain looked extremely offended at this point, and moderately furious, but it was rather apparent that Sparrow had intimidated him somewhat. He prodded back with words rather than jabs. "A queen? This is her own doing, gallivanting about with men half her age." He looked about to spit in disgust, before deciding that would likely be too low an action for someone of his status. "Bah. She's just trying to show me I'm tied to her purse-strings."

He shrugged then, obviously tired of this ordeal. "It wasn't always like this, you know. We were in love once. She defied her parents to marry me. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed those years." He managed to shake off the reminiscing quickly enough however, at Aurora's mention of a name. "Jethann, at the Blooming Rose. You should speak with him. I didn't know she visited whores, not until Jethann sent a letter, to our house, no less! He even sent her flowers once. Lilies -- her favorite." The thought made him throw up his arms in anger again. "Bah! Talking about it makes my head hurt. Good luck to you. I will meet you here when you return."

Rilien recognized the hissing syllables of Qunlat, expelled from Sparrow's mouth like the spat invectives he assumed they were (Qunari, she'd told him, had almost as many oaths as Orlesians). He did absolutely nothing to stop her tirade, mostly because he didn't care but also partially because she was at least somewhat right. He had no time for sentiments about queens and love, but that did not mean he was inclined to agree with Ghyslain's assertion that anyone could belong to anyone else. The Chantry had once thought he belonged to them, and he'd wasted little time disabusing them of the notion. Then, his teacher had thought it, and she too was corrected. It was rather a recurring theme in his life, actually.

The young mage- Aurora, she had called herself- was apparently equally-incensed, but more subtle and direct about it; two things which he appreciated. The combined heckling earned them a name and a location, along with a few other miscellaneous tidbits of information that Rilien filed away for potential later use. The thought that he would be going to the brothel again produced a small flare of irritation, but he suppressed it quickly. What he should be more concerned about was how someone possessed by a desire demon was going to manage another trip into that particular den. Perhaps the matter would be important enough this time that diversions would be less likely; they were, after all, looking for a woman and not a missing Templar recruit, which would probably (and perhaps should probably) inspire more generosity.

"The trail seems cold already," Rilien pointed out mildly, "We should not let it ice over entirely." That was as much a warning as he was going to give, and abruptly, the Tranquil turned on his heel, descending the stairs and heading for the Red Light District. Not that he particularly wanted to go, mind.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Blooming Rose, indeed. He was fairly certain that the only things blooming in the place were the bruises on the boy's face when one of the whores smacked him a good one for getting underfoot. He'd seen similar displays a million places, been subject to more than a few, before he was of appropriate size and skill to hit back. That he was to find himself here again after the passage of such a short time irked him, though it was manifested only in the steady pace of his march, breezing through the entranceway as he did, moving right past all the men and women on display to the second level. He'd read the name 'Jethann' on the brass nameplate on a door next to Idunna's room the last time he was here, which saved him the indignity of needing to stop and ask for the man's location.

The sooner they left this place, the better, and not just because the smell of it irritated his nose, either.

Rilien did the courtesy of knocking, but only once. Frankly he didn't care if he happened to intrude upon a conjugal visitation- it would be nothing he hadn't interrupted before, usually for much less pleasant reasons even than seeking out a missing woman. After that, he simply opened the door and strode directly in. "Jethann," he inquired (though to be fair, there was so little rising intonation to it it may well be mistaken for a declarative).

Perhaps luckily, Rilien did not interrupt anything he shouldn't have. Jethann was alone in his room, and for the most part, didn't even look annoyed at having unexpected visitors. In fact, a grin revealing a rather inappropriate line of thought spread across his face when he laid eyes on the trio, giving each of them a look over, and seemingly approving of each one. There was some recognition in his eyes at seeing Sparrow; the two likely knew each other to some extent, though if they knew each other was not readily apparent.

"I'm afraid today's my rest day," the elf said, before giving the Tranquil a more thorough inspection with his eyes, "but I'll make an exception for you. What do you say, want to see if we can make you feel something again?" His grin perhaps doubled in size as he shrugged. "What can I say? Why work if you're not working hard?"

The look Rilien gave Jethann was perhaps something Ashton would have described as 'priceless.' The usual flat stare took on the barest edge of incredulity, and he crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight slightly. "If I had the desire to feel anything at all, I would not ask you," he deadpanned pointedly, blinking once, slowly. He was planning on asking directly where Ninette was, but there was a rather perspicuous danger of being misinterpreted if there were not some form of transition, and while he didn't care, exactly, he also didn't want to deal with the extra superfluous commentary.

"As it turns out, we are here to work, unlike yourself. We seek Ninette de Carac, who has gone missing. I understand she was a customer of yours."

Jethann looked disappointed for only the slightest of moments at Rilien's rock solid rejection of his offer, but seemed intent on remaining lewd with his visitors. It was also possible that that was just his personality. "Ninette? Why yes, she is a customer of mine, but I haven't seen her for several weeks. A shame, really. I enjoy her company. I heard that she finally left her worthless husband. Good for her, right? She's probably out of the city by now. I just wish she'd said goodbye."

He turned towards Aurora, perhaps because he thought she would be more pleasing to speak with, now that the Tranquil had proven unsurprisingly cold. "Did you meet him? Surely no one can blame poor Ninette for freeing herself from that awful man."

Unlike Rilien, Sparrow wasn't displeased at the thought of returning to the Blooming Rose – it would've been an atrocity if she had been, and very unlike her. There was a certain wariness riding on her shoulders, tickling her earlobes. She was uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Exposed flesh made her fingers twitch, drumming tunelessly against the pommel of her mace. For once, Sparrow didn't want to be here.

“Bloody bastard, more like. Wouldn't be worried – she won't be with him again, once we find her.” Sparrow interrupted, crossing her arms across her chest. She couldn't hide the slight grin from her lips, tentatively pulling it's corners at the horrible attempt to seduce her companion. She'd often wondered what Rilien's type was, before he'd been affected by the Rite of Tranquillity. Surely, there'd been someone in his life: the apple of his eye. It was difficult imagining him alone, though she'd heard of the restrictions tendered on all individuals of the Circle. They weren't allowed to have relationships. They weren't allowed to do much of anything. Anchored by the wrists, and by the ankles, to something much more restrictive and cruel. They weren't allowed to live proper lives because everyone feared them. She understood that more than anyone, unless one was to compare him to other confined mages. Freedom was the only fortunate thing she was allowed to have as long as she turned tail and ran, as long as she was willing to part with her stubborn pride, jabbing it's fingers into her ribs because it was displeased at the thought of bowing out.

When she woke up that morning, Aurora surely hadn't expected to end up at the Blooming Rose of all places, looking for a man's (if one could call that a man) wife. When she entered, her eyes darted around, a little bit wary, but entirely curious. However, the Tranquil seemed to know where he was going as if he'd been there before. That of course raised an entire slew of questions. Mostly why. As he led the way, Aurora couldn't help but stare at the back of the man's white mane and just wonder what went on under that hair? What was it like being a Tranquil, to be cut from not only the Fade, but all of one's emotions as well. She winced inwardly as she thought about it. It wasn't the cheeriest thought, and one she tried her entire life to avoid. That and becoming an abomination.

She followed him right into Jethann's room. The elf was... Cheeky but then again what did she expect from someone working in a place such as the Blooming Rose? That kind of attitude came with the... job probably. Still, despite herself she couldn't help but chuckle at Rilien's frankness. Then the elf turned his attention's on her. At first, she was at a lost, the sudden change being so... Well, sudden. She opened her mouth to answer, but before the first syllable left her mouth, Sparrow answered for her. Aurora nodded right along and added, "He's not... Pleasant, to put it lightly," she said, agreeing to an extent with Sparrow's words, though not so vulgar.

"Do you know anything that could help us find her? Not for Serah Carac's sake of course, but ours. We'd like to make sure she's okay," She said, putting emphasis on the word. Sarcastic emphasis.

"Okay? But... who would want to hurt Ninette?" the elf asked, as though the idea simply made no sense to him. He suddenly seemed to get a bright idea, however, and another lewd smile made its way onto his face. "Everyone loves Ninette. Sometimes twice a night." He chuckled a bit at his own joke, before becoming significantly more serious. "Ghyslain's the only one who might hurt her, and he doesn't have the balls for it. He came here and yelled at me when he found out Ninette had been seeing me, called me a dirty knife ear, among other things, and accused me of corrupting his wife. We had him thrown out."

Finally getting around to the point of answering Aurora's question, Jethann continued. "There was, uh... one other person looking for Ninette. A Templar, I believe his name was Emeric. He wouldn't sleep with me, either. I can't see why a Templar would be interested in anyone who isn't a mage."

Templars. Again. If Rilien had been the kind to entertain such useless conspiratorial fancies, he would have sworn the world was out to get him. Out to get them, really, because he was in a much better position to be dealing with Templars then either of the two women with him. How was it that in recent weeks, he'd been sent twice to Templars, and twice to this den of... well, filth was too strong a word. There was a decided lack of cleanliness, though, and he a rather fastidious sort who did not revel in that in the slightest.

Choosing not to comment on Jethann's implied question, Rilien instead took it upon himself to hurry the matter along. "One final question. Did you ever send Ninette anything? Flowers or a letter?" He asked largely because that detail had seemed odd to him. Arguably, it was indeed a whore's job to keep his or her customers coming back, but from the sounds of things, Ninette was already a regular, and such measures were thus firmly in the category of 'excessive.' Perhaps the absence of any of his own had turned Rilien into a poor judge of emotion, but he didn't think so, and Jethann wasn't showing enough distress at Ninette's vanishing for the Tranquil to suppose that he'd done something so foolhardy as to actually love the woman, so something about the entire situation was off.

That said, he wasn't at all certain he'd be chasing down the lead anyway. In the end, he needed the funds, but he did not relish the thought of accompanying two apostates, one of them a maleficarum, no less, into the Gallows. If ever he decided he needed a compelling reason to flee the city and never come back, doing so might put enough Templars on his tail to ensure he made it all the way to Anderfels.

Marvelous. Templars. Just what she wanted to see that day. Despite herself, Aurora couldn't hide the displeasure written on her face. A twitch of nose there, a wrinkle of the eye brow here, and the flittering of a green iris spelled it out to anyone keen enough to be watching. Even as careful as she was, she didn't like the idea of being thrown in front of another Templar... However, this wasn't for her, but for another woman. Which brought to mind a myriad of interesting questions. What did a Templar wish with Ninette? Ghyslain, jerk that he was, didn't make it sound like his wife communed with the fade. Nor did this Jethann offer any suspicions otherwise. Indeed, this woman sounded completely normal, if burdened with a venomous husband. The wrinkle in Aurora's eyebrow found itself raised as she considered these... Questions.

Sparrow mouthed a silent apology for getting ahead of herself, nodding her head to Aurora's question. It was hard enough trying to keep her sailor's mouth in check, but more often than not, she'd forget who's company she was in – presumably, this was what made Ashton so desirable compared to herself. He was all sweeping bows, and chivalrous actions. Chock-full of gentleman flattery that would make the shyest lass blush. In comparison, Sparrow wasn't much of a catch unless they liked brusque men with theatrical movements, and straightforward tactics that involved wringing her arms around their waists and nearly mopping their hair against the floor in an undaunted act of passion. She didn't feel bold, right now. Her nerves were skittering like insects, bereft of anything that made her feel comfortable. Nerves overtaken, overwhelmed by demons. Or one, in particular. Her whispers were feverish against her neck, her earlobes, in the sensitive cavities of her mind, while Aurora and Rilien bartered for information.

She frowned ever so slightly, arching an eyebrow. She refused the urge to reach forward and tug the man's ears, reprimanding him for such a poor joke. Instead, Sparrow's foot tapped impatiently, indicating that he'd better get to the point. Her rhythmic footfalls finally stopped at his next words. They were dealing with Templars, again? From her recent experiences, and awry exploits, they only brought more trouble than they were worth. The crease between her eyebrows softened when Rilien asked whether or not he'd ever sent her flowers, or letters, or anything of the sort that might indicated that his relationship with her went beyond portly business arrangements. There was nothing indicating that he was genuinely upset at Ninette's disappearance. He was nonchalant, and a little more concerned about why none of his recent acquaintances would sleep with him. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. For some reason, or another, they were in agreeance.

Discarded just – like – that.

"Flowers?" Jethann said, as though it was a strange question. "I mean, apostate or no, Ninette certainly cast a spell on me, but the thought never crossed my mind to do something like that. It's not as if I wanted Ghyslain to come here and shout at me." He shrugged before returning to the subject of the Templar. "Anyway, Emeric said he'd continue his investigation in Darktown. He wasn't moving too quickly, though. You might still be able to catch him before he disappears down there, if you're quick enough."

Rilien's eyes narrowed, lids half-masted over his irises and sclera, and he simply nodded curtly. There was something to this, but if the investigation was to proceed in a logical manner, he would have to leave that thread alone for now. Darktown. That would be less troublesome than the Gallows. One Templar did not a Chantry army make. One Templar, he could kill without excessive difficulty if he needed to, and furthermore, he would not likely need to worry about retribution for it. Walking into Darktown anything less than fully prepared for confrontation was practically suicide anyway.

That in mind, he decided that, at least for himself, finding this Emeric would not constitute any excessive risk. Sparrow and Aurora were, as ever, free to make their own decisions regarding that. "Then I am headed for Darktown. Thank you." He inclined his head reasonably politely in Jethann's direction, since that was relatively ordinary Tranquil behavior anyway, and then took his leave.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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A Templar wandering alone towards Darktown was not a very common sight, and the old man in shining armor acted as something of a beacon as he descended down a suitably dark road. A beacon for those who dwelled in the Undercity, to be specific. Typically, Templars did not dare to travel down so deep into the underbelly of the city, and certainly not alone, and Emeric was currently proving why. He hadn't made it far before a small group of common thugs beset him from behind, four in number, armed with makeshift weaponry, and certainly not warrior-like in their carriage. The first struck him from behind, a blow that took the old Templar to a knee.

It was this sight that Rilien, Sparrow, and Aurora came upon as they hurried after him. The common criminals would no doubt be easy prey for them, if they chose to respond in a wholly violent manner. It may be necessary, as one of the thugs was currently sizing them up, clearly seeing only Sparrow as a potential threat. They were bigger, but simply had no idea what kind of individuals had just come upon them, and so they continued their work of restraining the Templar and forcefully searching him for valuables.

Rilien decided several things upon coming to the scene of the mugging: one, these criminals were entirely amateur. Two, this Templar was incredibly stupid for coming here in the first place. Three: Aurora should probably sit this one out. Given the fact that he and Sparrow both had nonmagical means by which to deal with this problem, it wasn't going to be an issue. Four unseasoned fools were not going to pose them any real threat. Rilien made a peculiar shrugging motion, a bit of sleight-of-hand producing a glass vial with a cork stopper from somewhere in his billowing sleeve. This, he pressed into Aurora's small hand until her fingers closed around it, jerking his head towards the Templar even as he drew his knives.

Clearing his throat just loudly enough to be heard, Rilien made directly for the nearest mugger, the amount of effort needed to draw the sharpened edge of his knife across one carelessly-exposed throat truly pitiful. It had, of course, occurred to him that it was not strictly necessary to kill the criminals, but this was Darktown. If you showed anyone a hint of softness, you'd be hounded by too many ne'er-do-wells for the rest of your days. Besides that, he really didn't much care. The second actually showed some initiative, attempting to use the first as cover for a motion to attack from the side. A Rilien from many years in the past would have rolled his eyes, certainly, and perhaps even sighed dramatically. The person he was now didn't waste the time, disappearing in a puff of smoke only to reappear from behind, both knives stuck in the fellow's back.

Sparrow was sure to be done with the other two in short order as well. He trusted that it was obvious that she shouldn't use her magic, of course. She was far from helpless without it.

Christmas lights exploded in the depths of her eyes, dancing along like thrown confetti, like bright streamers, like children scrambling to open up their presents. There was always something happening in Darktown, whether or not it was a fight to be had, or an unfortunate lesson to be taught. It was alive, and thriving, and free. Fighting was subjectively better than gambling her money away and drinking herself under the table – it was the only thing that required no giving. She always told Rilien that she could smell discord from miles away, and even though she'd remained quiet the entire walk, occasionally throwing quips Aurora's way, Sparrow could've told him that their merry little mission would start, or end this way. She took another breath, letting it out slowly again, feeling more centred, more in control. But, slightly less. Her energies felt different, amalgamated in her core, releasing like poisoned mushroom spores. Like the toxic wastes inhabiting Darktown, corrupting those who were unfortunate enough to cough and wheeze and hack in the alleyways, waiting for poor fops like Emeric to stumble down into them. Serah Templar.

Sparrow didn't need to be told twice – it wouldn't do her any good to allow two Templar's to know what she was, who she was, or where to find her. She offered Aurora a quick wink. Then, she threw herself forward, solely focused on the thug who sized her up earlier. Her flanged maces remained swinging, unsheathed, at her hips. What use were they against petty muggers? She closed the distance, quickly, and spun into a series of gut-busting punches. Small parts, indescribably formed, sifted away, eroded with her dogged focus. Shesmiled. She gripped her talons on her mind, squeezed. She punched and spun and kicked and blocked. Taking their hits and returning them ten-fold, relishing the baritone beats of her heart hammering in her ears. Rilien was precise, methodical in his killings. He wasted no time. Sparrow had always done things the hard way, recovering pieces of her that were best forgotten. If it gained her relief, then she would fight. Pain was temporary. She swayed as the last man fell, bruised, but revitalized, listing her head back, with her eyes closed.

It was only when her eyes opened that she truly felt herself, as if the talons had released, as if she was satisfied by the results. Her mouth pursed, then softened into a rattled frown. “Emeric. Templar Emeric? Are you still breathing?” Sparrow enquired, seeking a response, as she approached. Hopefully, the muggers hadn't just finished him off in the process of dealing with two nosey Elves.

His first response was a cough that had interrupted any words that may have come out. At a glance, anyone could see that he was old for an actively serving Templar, his gray hair growing slightly wispy, his face drawn and tired from years of hard service. After taking a moment to collect himself, he managed to rise. There were no bleeding wounds on him, merely a dozen places that would be extremely sore the next morning from the beating he'd received.

"I am, thanks to you. It's good you came along when you did." He took a moment to take in the slaughtered thugs, who had clearly not understood what they had been getting into, before he looked back to Rilien, Sparrow, and Aurora, who he couldn't be sure was part of the group, or simply a bystander. "I'm not sure it was necessary to kill them, but regardless, I'm in your debt. I am Emeric, Knight Templar." He regarded the Tranquil with some amount of interest, as though he had perhaps heard of him already, but he made no mention of it. "Might I have your names? I could see to it that the Order rewards you for saving my life."

Aurora looked at the vial in her hands and then followed the Tranquil's nod to the Templar. It didn't take a much to get what he was getting at. Sure, they were only bandits, and she could probably handle them easily... If there wasn't a Templar watching over the whole ordeal. She was wary enough about using her magic in front of strangers, using in front of Templars was just stupid. She nodded at Rilien and accepted the vial, and made her way around the oncoming melee. And a quick melee at that, by the time she reached the injured Templar, the two men had finished with the bandits, which gave Sparrow the chance to address the Templar. Aurora herself sighed, feeling a bit useless as she handed the Templar the red vial. "My name? It's Maria." she said nodding, before shooting a glance at Sparrow and Rilien. She wasn't comfortable about giving the name she used to Templars. She was either paranoid or careful. Probably both.

Rilien didn't even flinch when Aurora gave a different name. He assumed that this one was false, though that could easily be true of her first as well. Sparrow had not been born a Sparrow, either, from what he'd gathered. Of much more interest than a birth name was what one chose to call oneself. Naturally, his were one and the same, and he had no fear in saying so, though he doubted the utility of the act. "Rilien." Sparrow merely shrugged her shoulders, offering no name, and no other response beyond a flinty gaze. Surely, the Templar didn't need to know her name. Safety came in the lack of knowledge. It was something Rilien stood strongly for, and what she'd learnt from living with him. She was not as subtle, or graceful, as her companion in the ability to simply disappear. Thankfully, it was Aurora who saved her from Emeric's patient expectance.

"You can reward us now Serah Emeric," Aurora began,"We've come looking for you in order to ask about Ninette. We had heard that you were looking for her as well. If I may be so forward, may I ask why?" she asked.

Emeric gave his thanks as he accepted Aurora's, or Maria's as she would have it, healing potion. After drinking it, he seemed significantly more... well, energetic was not the word for it, since he did not seem the sort to ever be energetic, but more alert. "Ah... Ghyslain de Carrac's wife. Her disappearance interested me, and so I tried looking into it. The investigation, however, has been a waste of time thus far."

He sighed tiredly. "Most people just say she left her husband. Forgive me, I should explain... this all started when Mharen -- one of our Circle mages -- disappeared. I found it odd. She was a bit older and hardly adventurous. Then I heard about Ninette and two other missing women. I think the disappearances are connected, and I suspect foul play is involved."

Rather than simply assume that the Templar was operating on suspicion and inadequate evidence, Rilien pondered the comment for a beat before picking up the obviously-dangling conversational thread. "Why? Their ages may be similar, and their genders, but does anything else link them?" He held his tongue about the flowers for the moment- if Emeric had not come to that conclusion independently, it wouldn't have figured in his suspicions. If he had, he'd mention it with the open question anyway. One thing the Tranquil had learned long ago was never to tip one's hand before it was strictly necessary. If this man went away with the impression that they were looking for Ninette with no more reason than personal inclination, it was certainly of no concern to the elf.

Absently, Rilien flicked his blades to rid them of excess blood, though there wasn't much there. He'd slashed rather than stabbed, for the most part, and they both slid back into their sheaths without a sound or difficulty. He was perhaps fortunate that those like him were occasionally trained as bodyguards as well as merchants, enchanters, and personal assistants. The thought of ever being the latter was mildly replusive to him, but of course the average Tranquil would feel neither here nor there about it.

"The manner in which they disappeared is too similar, I believe. The guards tell me there's no proof they're connected, that these women simply left home, that it happens all the time. But all of them have simply vanished, not a single one leaving evidence behind as to their whereabouts. At first, I was merely tracking down Mharen, or at least attempting to. I had heard there were mage sympathizers in Darktown who sometimes transport mages from the city, and so I thought to bring my search here."

His gaze fell slightly, a tinge of sorrow coloring his voice. "But as you can see, my inquiries have made me unpopular. But I do believe the disappearances are connected. Mharen had received lillies from a suitor a few days before her disappearance. We thought she had perhaps gone to meet him. I then heard that at least one of the other missing women also received flowers before disappearing. We tracked Mharen's phylactery to a foundry in Lowtown, but it proved to be a dead end."

He shrugged tiredly, looking dejected. "You may investigate if you wish. Perhaps you can find something I could not. I need to give up this investigation. I'm getting too old to being doing this kind of work."

Sparrow took a backseat to the conversation, idling on the sidelines. She had to admit that Aurora had an uncanny, much appreciated ability to gain information in gentler ways. As a person made of rough hands, callous words, and frothing emotions, it wasn't difficult to see that there were different, much more prudent ways of handling situations. She licked her lips, and absently wiped her bloody knuckles on the back of her sleeves, smearing the fabric. She'd clean it later, when it was convenient. She didn't even bat an eye when Aurora offered an alternate alias – for she was Sparrow, as much as Aurora was any other name she chose to give to anyone she didn't trust. For vastly different reasons, all the other parts of her, along with her feminine name, died in the woods, tucked against moss and twisted vines. She listened, intently. If the Templar could give them any leads, then perhaps they could actually find Ghyslain's wife, Ninette. Perhaps, then, they could right a small, significant wrong. “A killer of women?” She mouthed softly, as if she were chewing bitter herbs. Her inclination towards men hadn't changed, hadn't been salved or calmed by reason or experience. Her shadows were far too long, strung up like gloomy curtains on her windows. It might've been the extra inhabitant chewing at her thoughts, dragging her fingers across her spine, but she still hated them. She still blamed them.

The information was disheartening. No longer were they chasing a woman who'd willingly ran from her bastard husband, but now they were facing a possible, if not probable, homicide. A particular killing focused on an innocent, soft-skinned individual. Her eyes immediately sought Rilien out, attempting to steal some sort of secret sign that he was piecing everything together while they spoke to the Templar, or at least something that would give her peace of mind. If this wasn't just a case of a missing person, then it might turn into something much more grave. Something similar to hunting apostates, blood mages, demons and sickly cultists. The measly hope that these seemingly unconnected murders were just that were violently quashed, buried into the back of someone's heel when the Templar mentioned lilies – flowers, flowers, flowers. This wouldn't be an easy job. This wouldn't be anything like they thought they'd been walking into. “We'll do just that. Might'n be better for your health if you find some place to rest, and avoid any treks down here.” She implored, gesturing wide towards the alleyways. As if remembering her manners, Sparrow tipped her head and mumbled a curt, “Thank you, Serah Emeric.”

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Lowtown’s foundry district always smelled of sulfur. It hung there, thick and toxic, in the air, and Rilien’s nostrils flared, his nose crinkling just slightly in distaste. For someone sensitive to changes in his olfactory sensation, it was not at all pleasant. He imagined it wasn’t much better for people who usually didn’t bother paying attention to what they were smelling. It was overpowering that way.

The buildings here were run down, plaster and stone chipped, peeling from the facades of buildings like the skin could from an orange, or the papery outside of an onion. None lived here, for what foundries were still working operated day and night, and even Darktown was preferable to living in one of the derelict, hollowed-out shells that had died here. Their passage kicked up a fine layer of dust, mixture of chalk, crushed stone, and ash, he was willing to bet. The building Emeric had indicated as the endpoint of Mharen’s phylactery’s trail appeared to be one of the old shells from a time long past, but unsurprisingly, the dust on the way up the stairs to the door was disturbed considerably.

The Tranquil’s eyes narrowed. From the patterns in the dust, something heavy and reasonably-sized had been dragged through here, recently. Shooting a glance behind him, he made sure both of his companions were still present and alert before padding up the stairs. His knives made no more than a raspy whisper of sound as he drew them from their sheaths, putting his back to the wall and approaching the door. It was just slightly ajar, but there was no way any of them would be able to get through without moving it still further. A quick scan of the area indicated no other acceptable method of entrance, and so the Tranquil bit the arrowhead and nudged the door open with his foot, entering as soundlessly as he was able.

Not soundlessly enough, it seemed. The metal door gave a squeak as it was nudged further, only a small thing, but enough to give them away. The three of them would be able to get a glimpse of a human presence within the foundry, a robed man fleeing their sight on the second level of the interior, towards the back, leaving naught but a small bag behind him. Not long after, the entire foundry began to rumble beneath their feet, a blinding flash of light erupting from the center of the ground floor.

A pride demon was left in its wake, a massive creature of thickened flesh and claws, beady eyes gazing down at the intruders, clearly with hostile intentions. It was safe to say that Emeric had not encountered this on his trip into the foundry.

For once in her life, and perhaps the only time in it, as well, Sparrow decided to lag behind, watching Rilien's movements, and acting accordingly, to direct whether or not she should continue moving forward or remain where she was. She'd learnt her lesson the last time she bumbled into an apostate's clumsy traps, strewn across the cobblestones as apparent, and noticeable, as a prostitute's exposed bosom. It might've seemed unusual, but she did learn, sometimes. Her collected weaknesses were small, insubstantial things, that pushed her to greater, reckless heights. Or else, it might have been the asserting voice whispering against her collarbone, or into the contours of her earlobes, that kept her impulses in check, as if it was protecting her property from any further compromise. It would do her no good if she had to fight another needy demon's promises, scrambling for a better hold on Sparrow's body, on her mind, on her thoughts. Her fingers finally conceded to holding the flanged mace in her grip, tightening with each step closer to whatever it was they were going to face. Someone had obviously been through the Foundry before them. Sparrow glanced towards the doorway, slightly unlatched, then towards Aurora, who she shared a capacious smile with, mouthing a silent ready? Ready.

A recently prepared mantra repeated in her thick skull, resounding against her temples, trying to drown out the singing of her blood. The loud, echoing drumbeat of her heart, impatiently waiting for Rilien to signal them. She must be patient. She must be disciplined. She must be hopeful, shedding off whatever weary thoughts that might hamper her ability to protect, to fight. Sparrow was none of those things, and so she watched intently as Rilien's foot slowly lifted towards the door, easing it open with a rusty, unexpected squeak. She inwardly cringed, stepping forward. Through squinted eyes, Sparrow spotted a departing man with his robes flapping behind him, quickly scrambling up the stairs to the second level of the foundry. “You! Stop running, fool—” She called after him, gritting her teeth and slamming the door open with an open, ball-faced kick. She hadn't even noticed the small bag he'd dropped in the wake of his haste. Instead, Sparrow's hands pinwheeled from the sudden quakes, flinging down onto the wooden railing to keep herself from stumbling into her companions.

“Always with the demons.” She cursed loudly, eyeing the creature who'd erupted from the centre of the foundry. It was quite clear what kind of individual they were dealing with – a cowardly mage who wasn't so keen on letting them walk away unscathed, and this particular mage was running instead of facing them himself. They'd have to give chase after dealing with his lackey. She whispered again, pressing her to move. She looked over her shoulder, towards her companions, and added a quick, “No need to hold ourselves back, now.” Directed towards Aurora, because she needn't hide her abilities when not in the presence of any Templars. Sparrow threw herself down the rampart to her right, nearly hopping down the entire case of stairs, while ripples of rock created a thick protective structure, more akin to armour, that enveloped her chest and joints. If she needed to, then she would distract the creature while Aurora cast her spells, and while Rilien sunk his daggers from the shadows. Her arms tensed, and then she closed the distance between her and the pride demon, swinging her mace towards its midsection.

The first thing Aurora did instead of berating the fleeing mage or quip about the pride demon was stumble backwards in surprise. First abominations then straight to Pride demons? No middle ground? No hunger demons, no desire demons, just a pride demon. Marvelous. At least it was only one of them right? And three of them? Though, the thing was big enough to count as much as three of them... Her breath hitched as the creature looked at them with disdain, as if they were trash. There was no positioning or bravery from Aurora, as the creature was easily thrice her size. Instead, now backed up against the wall, she crossed her hands in front of her breast and dipped into the fade, drawing a sheath of ethereal rock armor around herself. She mentally steeled herself as she repeated the oft recited name in her head once more. Rosaline.

So intent she was on the chosen word and the hulking pride demon, she nearly missed Sparrow's words. She offered no reply in her own words, just a curt nod. It seemed like these people already knew she was a mage. Strange. She thought she was very careful about that. Though with Sparrow's own rock armor spreading across his chest and joints, she figured that her secret was safe with him. Now it made sense why he was so stand-offish with the Templar. As Sparrow darted towards the pride demon, Aurora couldn't help but be impressed and envious of the man's bravery. Head first into battle, mace in hand ready to fell all that stand in his way. So sure, he was, it even gave Aurora strength to step forward, and ready her repertoire of spells. A sidelong glance at the Tranquil Rilien and she strode up to the railing and readied a spell.

She called to the fade with her hands, drawing upon the natural forces of the world. The air around her hands shimmered as the warmth was sucked out and replaced with cold, the skin of her hands taking on an icy texture. Then she pushed into the air with her frigid hands, casting out a cone of cold and caused a fine layer of frost to build up on the demon's head and shoulders. Pride always was a hot-headed emotion, so why not cool it down?

Sizing up the Pride demon with a cool, appraising stare, Rilien was perhaps the only one in the room who could have matched it for haughtiness. Not, perhaps, in the same way, but he appeared as unimpressed and unruffled as ever upon the conclusion of his inspection, and possessed neither the apprehension that belonged to Aurora nor Sparrow's drive to attack as quickly as possible. Flipping one of his blades so that it lay parallel to his forearm, he kept the other as it was and calculated his attack. Unimpressed with the result, he shifted his tactics, and instead chose to part his lips and sing. An Orlesian ditty, translated into Ferelden for the sake of a wider audience. It was a lively thing, and the way the words rushed over his tongue, infused with that certain something that only a bard could manage, he was quite certain that his allies would benefit from it.

"And she shall bring the birds in spring, and dance among the flowers. In summer's heat her kisses sweet, they fall from leafy bowers." The result was immediate to his own reckoning, his reflexes and strength enlivened, and the next verse shifted, focused instead on slowing and befuddling the demon itself. "She cuts the grain and harvests corn, the chill of fall surrounds her. The days grow old and winter cold, she draws her cloak around her." If the Tranquil had still smiled, he would have done so when the mighty demon seemed to hitch in its stride just a bit, as though its body were no longer to move perfectly-aligned with its thoughts. As it was, he chose the moment to join the fray, heedless of the light coating of frost that fell from above like snow, dusting his head and shoulders. Sparrow's blow connected with the creature's midsection, forcing it to a temporary standstill, and Rilien took full advantage of that, ducking in towards its other side and drawing his knives over the skin of its arms and legs, angling and applying pressure so that the blades bit deep into tendon and muscle, leaving eerily-precise, bloody lines in their wake.

Before the demon could so much as raise one of its massive arms to crush him in retaliation, he simply vanished, forcing it to redirect and try to bat simultaneously at Sparrow and Aurora, both of whom would by now be well aware of its intent.

Had it been Aurora's choice words, or her elusive fib towards the Templar? It might've been Rilien's subtle exclusion in Darktown, but if anyone asked, then Sparrow would have shrugged her shoulders, professing that she just knew. The Fade did not taste as bitter as Rilien described and she wasn't as compellingly in tuned as he was, but still, there were quiet whisperings, and a heaviness that pressed against her skin. She'd whispered to her, nudging her in the proper direction, indicating that she wasn't alone. Her methods were mysterious, unknown to her. It burned pleasantly on the back of her tongue, leaving no compromise. The last remaining bits of rock-ribbed armour encased her cheekbones, head and mouth area, appearing uncannily like a horned mask. Perhaps, if one looked close enough, a lapidarian Qunari. Her eyes were nothing more than two nebulous slits within the craggy crown, occasionally catching glints of Aurora's glacial stream and quick flashes of Sparrow's gritted teeth, bared like a beast.

It had always been his voice – her Tranquil companion who seemed more alive, more animated than anyone else she'd ever known while singing. Unusual, unexplainable. Like long forgotten memories of violins howling through the night, painting temporary pictures across boulders with damp fingertips, dipped in water. Watercolour paintings made up of oyster tones, washed away by the sunlight. He was a shadow with a morning dove's voice. Even now, Sparrow's breath hitched in her throat, momentarily struck by how he sounded. Rekindled spurts of energy wound it's way across her arms, warmed her fingers, and tightened the muscles corded in her shoulders. She was able to pull back her mace and strike again, slightly lower than her initial swing. This was not a song of hushed lullabies and codling whimsy – it breathed fire in her belly, extorted it into something wild and uncontrollable. His voice was copper. Utilizing the Pride Demon's disjointed movements, Sparrow swung again, and again, before careening to the left to gain a better vantage.

Rather than exert itself moving towards the mage that had cast ice all over its upper body, or struggle to locate the vanished bard, the pride demon instead called upon arcane magic that would affect a large area around, enough to encompass all three of them, and likely hit the bard as well, invisible as he was. Its hands lit with magical energy, shimmering airwaves twisting around its feet as the spell activated, an altered form of the crushing prison spell. In addition to inflicting considerable pain on the joints, the spell also carried with it a powerful pull, a strong force to bring the pride demon's enemies into very close range. Regardless of any damage suffered, the demon laughed as though enjoying itself, a deep, rumbling, throaty sound echoing about the interior of the foundry.

When the spell was complete and the magic released, the pride demon immediately lashed out with backhanded strikes towards both Aurora and Sparrow, the two that it could still easily locate, and the two most visible threats.

The spell caught Aurora by surprise. The day was just chock full of surprises. Aurora hated surprises. One doesn't normally expect a creature the girth of a pride demon to also be able to cast spells, and she paid the price for her ignorance. At first, she tried resist the spell by grabbing on the railing in front of her and holding on for dear life. That helped her from diving off the edge and to a painful drop below, but it did nothing to the screaming pain in her joints. Her elbows, knees, ankles, and even fingers felt like they were being poked repeatedly by red hot needles. It was an annoying, and painful experience, she tried to push it out of her mind. It was all an illusion. There was no pain, no real pain. It was just an illusion of pain. Rosaline.

Her heart was not docile. It did not slow, or stutter in fear when the Pride Demon conjured arcane magic, alighting it's proffered claws with raw, unholy energy. She had never been frightened every time a blade came too close to ending her life, leeching her lifeblood. She merely laughed and moved on to face and conquer another danger or obstacle in her way, heedless of how reckless she was becoming. This was another battle, another fight to be won. Weren't they all equally dauntless when facing such disgusting creatures? Creatures better off left in whatever damned hole they'd crawled out of. She disagreed.The Fade felt heavier, much more potent. With a war cry springing from her lips, she suddenly lunged towards the Pride Demon with her mace ready to batter flesh and spill blood. However, Sparrow didn't exactly follow through her wild swing – instead, faltering when her joints seized, as if they were tying themselves into awkward knots. The creature's rumbling laugh echoed in her chest, hollow as an empty chamber. It rang through her ears, temporarily muzzling her unwanted occupant. Her teeth chattered noisily, grinding against the sweltering pain prickling across her skin.

Her mind thrashed against the disillusioned agony. Deep fissures crackled down her armour, rattling her concentration. Fear clung to her skin, coalesced to her being. Unfortunately, Sparrow was already in close vicinity, digging her heels in the dirt to keep herself from falling face-forward. She still felt the uncomfortable pull.The throbbing in her joints beat in time with her heart, rising to a crescendo, then to a low roar. Two seconds of hovering in a borderland between triumph and despair. And while immeasurable agony spread from a point just below her ribcage through her whole body, into shoulders, arms, hands, fingertips; hips, legs. toes; into her scalp, into the tips of her hairs even in her fingernails. It was the remnants of Rilien's song that kept her from tumbling straight against the Pride Demon's knobby knees, and forced her limbs back into movement.

Then the railing began to creak. Then it began to creak again, although louder. Aurora wasn't even able to coax a single complete Antivan curse out of her lips before the railing gave away and dropping her to the ground below. She landed with a hard thump, and though no cracks or pops resulting from broken bones were heard, it still hurt. She felt every single stone that comprised the back of her rock armor in her back, and it was uncomfortable, if not painful. Even if the pain she had experienced before was an illusion, this pain, illusion or not, felt very real. She laid on the ground breathing deep and hard trying to force the air that had escaped her lungs back. It was not the time to be lounging around, not while a pride demon still stomped around. There was an urgency, but she just couldn't find her way back perpendicular to the ground. She lay, unawares of the demon's back hand strike, scabbling about trying to force the ground beneath her feet once more.

Rilien grit his teeth as his feet left the ground, drawn towards the manifestation of Pride like a moth to flame, entirely against his own will, and inexorably. The situation, and all others like it, was one of a scarce few things that managed to stir the Tranquil's irritation, and even as he went still, not bothering to fight the gravatic force pulling him in, his eyes narrowed to slits, his hands tightening around the hilts of his knives until his knuckles were pale. Pain was inconsequential like everything else, and he bore scant thought for the pressure inflicted upon elbows, knees, fingers, vertebrae, too intently focused on his whirring thoughts.

It was a funny thing, what people thought about the Tranquil. It must seem, on the face of it, that his stillness of emotion was somehow reflective of a stillness of mind, as though he didn't think just as he didn't feel. On the contrary, it was as if the cognitive capacity required to feel anything was now free for his use, and he at least put it towards thought. Constant calculation, the ticking away of some inevitable time-bomb, the explosion of which was action. Always decisive, always focused. Nothing was extraneous, nothing went to waste. Which was why, even now as he was thrown unceremoniously to the ground, he was observing, thinking, planning. The noisy protests of the stair railings alerted him to Aurora's predicament, and even as he picked himself up off the floor, still invisible and unnoticed by the demon, he observed that she was having considerably more difficulty doing the same.

His next sequence of thought was quick, which was just as well, for her anyway. Even as the demon's arm headed towards the mage-girl, Rilien applied a burst of speed, made all the easier by his own quasi-magical bardsong, to stand a good few meters in front of her downed person. His arms, he crossed in an 'x' over his chest, the points of both knives upside-down but outwards, blades facing the ceiling. The creature paid the price for ignoring what it could not see, and even as the massive hand swept towards the redheaded woman, it was forced to a paintful halt, the momentum from its swing now working against it and forcing it further onto the Tranquil's weapons. Rilien dug his feet into the ground as well as he was able, trying to preserve his traction as he wavered into view again, but the effort was about as useless as he would have expected it to be, and his boots tore furrows in the ground as he was lifted, effectively tossed from the area as the Pride demon snarled at great volume, sending the elf flipping end-over end and into the nearest wall of the foundry, only one of his blades still in his grip. The other remained staked in the creature's hand, both wounds now oozing ichor at an impressive rate, and it aborted its attack on Aurora, that hand now dangling more or less uselessly by its side, clearly a source of considerable agony.

Perhaps the pain it was under approximated something like the amount he was feeling now, slammed bodily into stone and mortar, the breath leaving his lungs as he slid to the ground. He'd avoided hitting headfirst only with some tricky midair acrobatics, which accounted for his present state of, well... life. Even so, he heard with a distant sort of antipathy the sound of one of his own ribs snapping, then another, then a third, in a quick succession of popping cracks. He landed with uncharacteristic heaviness in a crouch, pulling breath into his lungs evenly, minimizing the pain as much as he was able. Pushing off with his free hand, Rilien regained his feet with a wobble, his perfect composure for once disappeared. For all that, he still looked as though nothing was wrong, at least if his expression was anything to go by.

The blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth spun a different yarn, perhaps.

Her head whipped around to see where her companions had wound up, and whether or not the Pride Demon's magic was effecting them too. Drawing them in like mice pulled unceremoniously by their tails, except they weren't scuffling into holes to hide. It was the Pride Demon's greatest folly. Even though she couldn't see him, Sparrow imagined Rilien gravitating towards the creature, daggers held tightly in his hands, irrefutably poised to rip the creature's advancing legs into something less than limbs, and a little more like skewed beef. It was almost like tugging a wild animal's chain towards you, instead of back-peddling away, with its killing intent clear as day. Surely, the Pride Demon underestimated them. Pride, the deadliest sin, in her opinion, was going to be his downfall. It was predictable, ironic. This was nothing like the sweet promises the Desire Demon relayed, near constantly, reaching out to her with promises and waving it's propositions in her face like a banner that couldn't be denied. Where was Rilien? Probably whirring possibilities and probabilities and possible solutions through his mind. In these moments, even in the midst of pain tingling through their limbs, it was difficult to imagine that Rilien felt nothing at all. He felt nothing, and it wouldn't scare him because she didn't think he remembered fear. In his world, there were no emotions, no wrath, no loss of control. Nothing to dampen his concentration. He was unhampered by tedious responses, unaware of the startling acidity that crawled it's way from her throat, throttling her with violence.

The penetrating shriek of metal, as if a force were pushing against it, snapped Sparrow from her thoughts. Her eyes flew away from Rilien, and caught sight of Aurora as she was falling from the first level of the Foundry, toppling along with the broken railing like a sack of potatoes – certainly not like a monarch butterfly, because she hadn't landed on her feet, or rolled away from the Pride Demon's scaly limbs. Her mouth hung open like a hinge, as if ready to call out. Sparrow's reflexes were stunted, riddled with energy she couldn't seem to harness. She'd been too far away, hadn't she? It still didn't stop the quick pang of guilt, tasting coppery in her mouth. There was a brief thought of splintered bones and empty sockets before Sparrow's entire body was swept from underneath her.She caught a quick glimpse, already listing to the side, of Rilien appearing in front of Aurora, arms crossed, and both knives glinting like two pieces of transposed objects. Like quicksand, like a sucking swamp, like damp dirt, Sparrow's vision blossomed, then contracted in a spray of pinpricks and slithering worms. The Pride Demon's scaly fingers, knobby knuckles, had felt like anythingbut a hand hitting her – it was a brick wall, or a horse trampling her. She was ungracefully thrown across the chamber, past Rilien and Aurora, and past the initial stairway she'd hurdled down. It'd been her stoney-armour that kept her mobile, kept her from suffering the same fate Rilien had experienced. She flipped over backwards, into an awkward somersault, and teetered to a stop when her shale-like plates shlepped off like snake skin, pebbling across her feet. Her mace clattered on the ground.

The Pride Demon's guttural snarl jarred her back to her senses, as did the horrific scene of Rilien slamming against the furthest wall, slithering down the brickwork like a broken puppet. “Ril!” It came out like a nervous, crackling croak. She had already regained her composure, revelling in the fact that her limbs no longer hurt as they did before. The needles had stopped. Rilien was shallow-breathed, and sluggishly moving. Obviously, something was wrong. He was hurt. It seemed an impossibility, as if he were an impenetrable force – but, he wasn't immortal. It was certainly something that Sparrow needed to constantly remind herself of. The slight wobble awakened her voice, her anger, her weaknesses. The dribble of blood threading down his chin, starkly contrasting against his temperate repose. Unbeknownst to her, Sparrow's mace was back in her hands.It felt as if molten lava was spilling from her lips, bubbling past her clamped teeth. Like a hurricane swirling in the midst of an ocean. She erupted. Shedid not try to brush the crags away, or push her impulses back into a sea shell. She did not pacify as Rilien could. Inhale, exhale. Her heart paced, erratically. Her pupils dilated. Shereleased the reigns, whispering lies. Her awareness expanded. Sparrow darted forward, and threw herself around the creature's knurled elbows, only to come back up swinging her mace, utilizing her momentum, straight into the creature's jaw.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Aurora wheezed a heavy cough as the needles in her joints subsided and the world around her ground to a halt. She had managed to come out of her daze sore, but alive. She could still feel the pebbles and rocks that comprised her armor still digging into her skin, but they provided her the protection that perhaps shaved her bones splintering from falling at the upper levels. She rolled over on to her hands and knees and coughed again, as the shattered railing and awkward landing lifted up a fine layer of dust around her. But something was off. During all the time that she spent immobile on the ground, the demon could have easily taken the opportunity to crush her. What stopped it. She shot a wayward look to her side, and there her answer lay. Rilien was on his feet, yes, but something about him was off. The dribble of blood at the corner of his mouth and the way that he no longer possessed a feline agility told her something was wrong.

She shoved herself to her knees and looked for Sparrow. He too was apparently knocked away, though he seemed to have suffered less though than the Tranquil. Perhaps due to his own stone armor, or perhaps because he hadn't hit suddenly decellarated against a wall, he seemed to be alright. That was good. At least they were all still alive. She couldn't help but resent the fact that a demon was getting the better of them. It was a pride demon, but a demon still. A perversion of nature, of a mage. Rosaline she steeled herself once more. With that, she rose to her feet once more and dipped right back into the fade, allowing it to envelop her like an old friend. She began to look for a weakness, and almost immediately, she came upon one.

Something in the creature's hand glinted, something metallic and sharp. It was Rilien's blade, probably stuck him when he lashed out, throwing Rilien into the wall. The thought brought her eyes to the man himself and realized he would probably need healing... Eventually. Aurora was not as well-versed in the healing arts as Nostariel, though she was satisfactory enough. She would need time to concentrate and will the bone, blood, and sinew to knit back together, not something she could do in the midst of a fight with a large demon. As much as it made her feel guilty, she would have to make Rilien wait until the demon was dealt with. All that much more reason to kill it quickly.

Her eyes darted back to the demon with purpose in her eyes. The blade would provide the perfect conduit for what she had in mind. While She summoned the natural energies in the air, weaving them between her hand like a true artist. As she weaved, sparks arced between her hands and fingers, dancing a mesmerizing ballet. She couldn't help but think how marvelous and graceful lightning was as it flew from her fingertips and struck Rilien's shining blade. The lightning arced from the blade and ran rampant through the interior of the beast, causing internal damage and frying the nerves in its hands. The voltage of the lightning would stun the creature, allowing one of the others the perfect opportunity for a follow-up.

It was an opportunity that Rilien would not let go to waste. Seeing Sparrow making a running jump, followed by a swing for the right shoulder, he went left, darting by Aurora even as the lightning left her hands. It was a motion that his body violently protested, but Rilien showed it exactly the same regard as he paid other inconsequential difficulties: absolutely none. Mind over matter was a much easier affair when you no longer possessed things like pain aversion. The glistening bolts of electricity homed in on his already-planted blade, and there was a flicker of something like appreciation for the cleverness of that tactic, one which he ignored in the same fashion. Sparrow's mace dug furrows in the Pride demon's shoulder thereafter, and the creature gave a great howl of rage, shaking itself in an attempt to rid its limbs of the offending half-blood.

Rilien was having none of that. Aware that he was currently severely lacking in upper-body strength, he decided that his remaining blade would need to go somewhere with little resistance, and he knew exactly where. Taking advantage of its inability to move much and its preoccupation with his cohabitator, the ex-Bard gathered his legs beneath him, bunching his muscles and launching himself into the air, sailing forward and landing in the crook of one simian elbow. The force was enough for the creature to pitch forward slightly, but he did not linger, pushing off again. This time, he focused on his arms, and found that, with the proper calculation, his remaining knife slid home into the Pride demon's left eye socket with little resistance. Letting it remain there, the Tranquil flipped over the massive monster's shoulder and landed, harder than he would have normally, but otherwise still as unruffled as he'd ever been.

"Lightning to the brain will do much more damage than to the hand," he pointed out blandly, his glance flickering from Sparrow to Aurora. Something warm and wet filled his nose, and he brushed one callused thumb over the smooth skin between his nose and his lips, apparently undisturbed when the digit came back smeared with red. He'd expected a maneuver like that would make the damage worse. Assuming the battle ended with the next pass (which it surely would if they did as he'd suggested), he'd be able to remain conscious long enough to take the requisite potions, though his ribcage and lungs would be at suboptimal capacity for several days.

The half-blood's absolute, unmitigated focus was centred in swinging the bulk of her mace in savage arcs, allowing her momentum to be thrown in the direction of her swing to avoid any of the Pride Demon's flying elbows, or whipping horns. It was doubtful that Sparrow even noticed the supreme conduit, Rilien's glistening dagger, anchored in the creature's hand. Her thoughts were elsewhere, so hellbent on barbaric, unrestrained destruction, which might've worked in Aurora's favour, anyway. He would have to face her, or she'd constantly assuage him with blows until he was forced to deal with her. There was a quivering tension set in her square shoulders, shadowed bruises beneath dulled eyes, a reckless soul striking out with abandon, without acknowledging that she had companions that could help her fell the beast. Her magical abilities seemed a moot point, as if they'd suddenly been forgotten, as if it weren't even a possibility in such a maddening state. The Fade, it seemed, had momentarily abandoned her. Left her to her own devices as she darted to the left, then the right, only to dive under the Pride Demon's extended elbow – an irritating gnat buzzing around the creature's eyelids, unrelenting in it's assault.

She wouldn't even have noticed Aurora's plan, electrocuting Rilien's dagger, if it hadn't been for the Pride Demon's spontaneously sluggish movements, as if he'd been dunked into a vat of molasses. Sparrow did not slow, did not stop to wonder at the creature's puzzling posture, frizzling and twitching. Flecks of something spattered her cheek. It wasn't raining, was it? The thought had no foundation, so it shook apart with her mounting acrimony. An ear-shattering roar came from the Pride Demon, and Sparrow squeezed her eyes shut, willing the sound to be blocked from her senses, but to no avail. She backpedalled enough to avoid the swinging arm, momentarily receptive of the wind kicking through her hair, pushing white locks out of her eyes. It did nothing to rattle her nerves. The Pride Demon was desperate to dislodge her from bombarding his limbs, in impetuously futile attempts,from another mindless onslaught, which she achieved with renewed vigour, or vicious stubbornness. It was a perpetual rage that could not be quailed, or extinguished, until the creature was nothing more than a sifting pile of ash, and they were free to leave the foundry alive. Brief flashes of another figure blinked in her peripherals, launching into the air, at considerable speed.

Sparrow did not falter in her steps, or relent her ferocious swings; one high, one low, then another sweeping across as if she were brandishing an axe rather than a blunt weapon with it's star-flanged knobs. She demanded it's attention. She issued another battle cry, grunting with the effort it took to swing the bulk of her two-handed mace. Her muscles twitched with each impact, rattling straight through to her bones. Another speckle of blood rained down across her forehead – not her blood, she wasn't bleeding. Each time the Pride Demon manoeuvred away, possibly towards Aurora, Sparrow stepped in it's path. Lightning to the brain... Rilien's voice.

When had she stopped hearing them? When had she stopped whispering?

Mage as he was, Sparrow didn't seem to rely as much on the fade as Aurora did. Sparrow seemed rather inclined to hammer the demon with relentless blows from his deadly mace, looking to make the creature bow in the face of martial prowess over magical arts. Not that Aurora found fault in it. Everyone was different in the way they did things. She actually envied the man, having the strength to protect himself with only physical power. Yes, she was well versed in the art of the fade, but that counted for nothing out in the day, where one ill-timed spell could send to the Gallows for the rest of her life. This man did not have to worry about that. She did. She was small compared to these men-- even if they were elves. She didn't have the aclarity that the Tranquil had nor the strength that Sparrow possessed. All she had was magic, which was both a blessing and a curse.

However, that did reveal one thing. She wasn't going to count on Sparrow halting his assault in order to fling a lightning bolt the demon's way. That was seemingly left up to her. Sparrow did give the demon enough of a hassle to draw attention away from her as she prepared her second lightning bolt. Strange it was, how the Tranquil calmly implied her next course of action, despite him not being in the best of shape himself. It always surprised her how calm and... well.. Tranquil the Tranquil were. It only made sense that that mindset should carry over into combat. Though, to be honest, she had never seen a Tranquil fight before... It was a learning experience. One she could analyze after the demon had fallen.

Lightning cracked the air as it began to dance around her arms once more. The air around her became dry as the lightning evaporated all moisture around her immediate vicinity. The time it took her to prepare this spell was longer than the other, thanks to the time afforded by Sparrow. It was with that bolt that she was going to end it. She didn't want to risk just mildly damaging it with a weak spell, no, she was going to ensure the demon fell. The cracks and pops around her arms sang a dangerous symphony, begging to be released. Which she did with a forceful throw of both arms.

The lightning ripped through the air as it streaked towards the blade lodged in the creature's eye. The air ruptured with the heavy thump of thunder as it struck the blade and fried the brain and nervous system of the Pride Demon. The beast uncontrollably convulsed for a few moments, foam spewing from it's mouth, before it went limp and fell to its knees. Smoke rose from the husk of the demon as it's glazed eyes rolled to the back of it's head. It fell forward, issuing forth a tremor as it landed and nearly causing Aurora to topple from the force. But the creature lay dead, and the battle was won. Which left one more issue to be addressed. Aurora ran to the Tranquil, already working on her next spell. A Healing Spell.

"Where does it hurt?" She asked between pants.

Only when the Pride Demon had toppled did Sparrow regain her senses, shaking her head as if she'd suddenly awoken from a particularly nasty dream. The Fade seemed more prevalent, thrown across her shoulders like a cold bucket of water. It was strange how she hadn't relied on her magic this time around – as if it weren't so important, though she knew she would've been better off using both her physical prowess, and her array of spells. Sparrow scrutinized the sizzling demon at her feet, splayed across the ground with it's tongue lolling out. Her gaze didn't linger long. She found herself looking back over her shoulder at the smaller, unassuming magelet, Aurora. Underestimating her would surely be someone's downfall if they so chose to judge her weak, for she was anything but. There was a cleverness there, more akin to her wayward companion, Rilien. “You're strong, you are.” She mouthed softly, more to herself than anyone else, though she'd stated it loud enough for both of her companions to hear. Her smile soon faded, replaced with an expression of singular concern. She nearly dropped her mace, though it only slid in her palm, dragging against the ground as she half-jogged, half-ran towards her companions.

The flecks of blood. The wetness against her cheek, her forehead. She quickly swiped her fingers across her face, eyeballing the sticky smears on her fingertips. His blood. How hadn't she noticed? Her mouth hardened. Any childish thought that her friend was invincible, or beyond any afflictions, was quickly swept away, hidden under a metaphorical rug. She was pleased. For her, it would be easier if the nosey, troublesome Tranquil was injured, less likely to present any offers to distract her husk, her vessel. “You're bleeding?” She queried stupidly, resisting the urge to swipe away the blood from his chin. When Aurora enquired about his injuries, and where exactly did it hurt, Sparrow sat back on her heels, resolutely focused on Rilien's feet. It hadn't even occurred to her to stop and help him – all that mattered, at the time, was destroying her opponent.

Rilien blinked slowly, then moved off to retrieve his second knife from the Pride demon's hand. With a sharp gesture, he cleared it of most of the blood and grime, then resheathed both, returning to his companions, both of whom were regarding him with some concern, which he took to be sentimental and rather unnecessary. All the same, he lifted a hand and prodded carefully at his ribcage through his leathers. "The second and fourth ribs on my right side are broken, and the third on the left is shattered," he reported blandly. Before he could say anything else, he was forced to turn on his heel, a wracking cough spattering a significant quantity of blood onto the ground beside the fallen corpse. Pausing to catch his breath, the Tranquil dabbed at his bloody lips and chin with one long, flowing sleeve.

"It would appear that one of them managed to puncture or abrade my left lung," he concluded. He was more concerned with the shadow of a person they had seen disappearing deeper into the foundry, but realistically, he knew there would be little chance of being effective against the mage that had summoned this demon unless he could move about properly, and so he would simply have to spend the time. More properly, he supposed Aurora would, as he had never seen Sparrow to use a lick of healing magic. He'd never been terribly interested, either, in his prior life. An odd shrugging motion produced several vials of liquid from his sleeve, one of which he immediately held out to Sparrow, who'd also taken something of a fall. One, he left aside for Aurora, as her injuries were not as severe as his own and could probably be attended to afterwards, and one, he drank himself, to assist her healing process.

Truthfully, he was not fond of having magic worked upon him, as it tended to draw the Fade into close proximity. In this case, that meant the pain was going to get much worse before it got better, and admittedly the potion was partially an attempt to mitigate that somewhat. If the situation were any less dire, he probably would not have allowed the assistance. As it was, he still could not say Aurora had the full measure of his trust, but he was willing to allow her this much, which was startlingly-fast acceptance for him. If Ashton had been a mage, Rilien would have put off any such attempt. Logic had its own rules, however, and he did make an attempt to conform to them. Loosening his muscles, he half-closed his eyes and set his jaw into place, as close to a signal as the mage with the healing spells was ever going to get from him.

Aurora felt the caress of the Fade once more, though this time not for a bolt of lightning or a dusting of frost. Rather, she dug into the little used area of herself that held the power to knit flesh and bone. It had been a while since she had performed a healing spell on something so severe. Recently, it'd only been used for a stubbed toe or a mere flesh wound. As she rooted around, grasping for that knowledge, the rock armor she had summoned around herself cracked and crumbled around her, the hardened defenses no longer needed. It freed up a bit of reserves to better cast the magics.

The way she healed wasn't the same as Nostariel's, hers required a bit more effort and time. A mage, her mentor, in the Antivan Circle once likened her skill "Rapid natural healing". In essence, she used the body's natural drive to heal itself and enticing the process to do it faster. It fit in with her own inclinations to use the magics of the natural world like ice and lightning, only this time it applied to the body. She lightly placed her hands on the left side of his ribcage, targetting the most damaged rib first. Her hands began to a light bright green aura enveloped her hands as she set about willing the rib back together.

Aurora had never had to fix a rib in this manner before, so she didn't know what it felt like. Her guess was a ticklish, itchy feeling sparces by brief pinches of pain. That's the way her toes always felt when she stubbed them-- minus the pinches of pain. That was an educated guess. Knitting bone couldn't be comfortable. At least with this he could breathe. Such as it went for the next couple of ribs, and then finally stitching the lung back together. She stopped and took a step back. Drained was the word, she felt drained. Never before had she needed to call upon her healing arts so intensively, and the lack of practise left her winded. Even then, she believed that Rilien was still tender.

"Let's... See if the mage is still here, yes?" She said, hints of her Antivan accent slipping between pants.

There was an uncomfortable grinding sound as Rilein's bones rearranged themselves, trying to fit back into place to accord with the will of the mage. This was considerably more difficult with the shattered one on his left side, and Aurora's estimation of the amount of pain this caused was quite considerably under-done, especially since the presence of magic so near to him was disturbing his Tranquility. It didn't amplify the sensations themselves, but it did make them harder to ignore. A muscle in Rilien's jaw jumped as he clenched his jaw, still stubbornly refusing to make his discomfort evident.

With time, she finished, and he repeated the process of checking his ribcage, satisfied that though they were considerably weaker than normal, they were now simply bruised rather than broken. Since the block was sliding over his emotions again, it was nearly completely inconsequential to him. Turning the last vial about in his fingers a few times, he offered it to Aurora. The liquid inside was blue rather than red, with a strange pearlescent quality to it that marked its potency for those who knew to look. "My thanks," he said simply. Rilien did not leave debts unpaid, and this time would be no different.

After that, he shot Sparrow a glance, double-checking that she was in passable condition, then headed up the stairs to where they'd seen the mage disappear. As he'd suspected, there was nobody still present and visible, and a slightly-ajar door leading out a back exit explained that well enough. What he did find, however, was far from nothing.

It didn't take too much guessing to figure out what was in the smallish sack, judging from the way it was seeping blood. Rilien sniffed the air quietly. Oh yes, that was most certainly blood, and though his nose could do no such thing as differentiate between species, logic provided him the conclusion that it was probably human. Withdrawing a much smaller knife from his boot, the Tranquil knelt beside the sack and deftly cut the twine holding it closed. The bag fell away, and his eyes narrowed as he stowed the knife again.

Inside the burlap lay a severed human hand amid several older-looking bones, an ornate-looking ring still attached to one finger. From the make of it, he'd hazard that it was from the same location he was; Monrenny was famous for producing fine jewelry from the nearby diamond mines. He did not move to touch the hand or the ring, instead rising to his feet and folding his hands into his sleeves. "Mharen was unmarried. It would seem this belonged to Ninette."

He was so methodical, so precise, when numbering off his injuries, that Sparrow winced, lowering her head as if to examine the offending ribs. As if they were laid open, spread open like puzzle pieces. She very nearly sprang forward, hands extended, when Rilien coughed off to the side, flecking the dirt with bloody constellations. Her knuckles dug into the ground, halting her forward momentum.Again, Sparrow needed to remind herself that even though he couldn't feel distraught, or upset, over his bodily nuisances, that he could still feel pain all the same, right? She wasn't so sure. It did nothing to dampen the worry blossoming in her chest, spilling over like an overflowing sieve. He was just a man made up of cells and muscle tissue and nerves wrapped around bones – broken bones, shattered bones, cracked bones. This Tranquil didn't need any emotional balms, or comforting words, needn't be asked whether or not he was okay, because his responses would come out levelled, assured. He didn't need to be glued back together.

Sparrow followed Rilien's gaze, settling where they'd last seen the mage, robes a'flapping. It was typical that he wanted to give chase, follow the man until they solved this increasingly challenging mission. It suddenly struck her as strange, and perhaps a little more to Aurora, then to herself, that she wasn't making any movement to offer any healing spells. She may have been a mage, too, but she could never heal. She'd tried before—everything between closing a paper cut to trying to mend a blistered sunburn. Instead, Sparrow was anything but a healer: she was a devastating killer, she could make things freeze and burn, or harden her defences so that her opponents' swords rang off as if they'd struck a brick wall, much like the one her companion had ricocheted off. She was a barbaric warrior, a wily thief, a woman, a man. An apostate, on all accounts. She accepted the proffered vial of whatever-it-was-that-Rilien-created and gulped it down. How many times had Rilien created some sort of potion, or vile concoction, that had helped her survive in Darktown, in the less pleasant parts of Kirkwall? Far too many times. How many times could he have poisoned her, done off with an inconsequential nuisance? Far too many times.

She watched as Aurora's hand gleamed anew, pressing with a light tenderness she could only admire. An accomplished herbalist, and a noteworthy healer. She'd only prove useful when it came to breaking things, not setting things back together. Sparrow settled her hand on Aurora's back, thinking she were about to topple over, then dropped it as soon as it was apparent that she was fine, if not a little tired. It appeared as if she were about to say something. Forming her own words of thanks seemed appropriate, on both their behalves, but she concerted with a sly grin. “You're amazing. You know that, right?” She glanced sidelong at her companion, flitting gaze meeting her own, before pushing herself to her feet, hands planted on her knees. They weren't finished yet, so they'd continue on their way. Neither Rilien, nor Sparrow, were particularly inclined to leaving anything unfinished. It was an unspoken acquisition between them. More likely than not, and without even truly knowing for sure, Sparrow felt that Aurora shared the same dedication. There was a certain goodness in her that she hadn't encountered in a long time.

Aurora looked at Sparrow gratefully before shrugging skeptically to her compliment. "Not that amazing, there are others who could do so much more than me," she stated, gaze lingering on Sparrow. The warrior-mage was bold, bolder than she was. To streak straight for the demon without a moment's hesitation, gleaming bravery the entire way. And to top it all off, he was a mage too, yet, he seemed unfettered by that fact. While her true identity hung over her head like a dark cloud, Sparrow accepted his strength seemingly with the same boldness and bravery exhibited. No, there were others more amazing than she was. It was sweet serendipity though that she had the chance to meet them.

Following closely behind, nearly double-hopping the steps, Sparrow let out a puff of disappointment. The likelihood of the caped gentleman sticking around to meet them face-on had been next to nothing. But even still, she couldn't help but feel as if they'd just missed him by a hair's breath. She'd almost stepped on the bloody sack Rilien had been scrutinizing, drawn towards the exit-door, which had been thrown wide open. It was Rilien's kneeling, in close proximity, reaching underneath her foot, held aloft, that caused her to move backwards. Her nose crinkled. “Uh—gross. What was that mage doing with those?” When Rilien rose to his feet, unmoved by such disgusting things, all gathered up in a neat pile, Sparrow took his place and stooped down to inspect the slim fingers. A soft sigh escaped her lips, “I was hoping she'd escaped. Not this. We'll have to report back, in any case.”

Upon finding the hand, Aurora did neither what the Tranquil nor what Sparrow did, inspecting it and acting nonchalant about the whole thing. It was to be expected from the Tranquil of course, but still seeing the way he acted when faced with the bloody stump was disconcerting. However, for her part, Aurora gasped loudly and took a step back. A hand was not was what she was expecting. Truth be told, the ever smiling optimist in her believed that she would find Ninette alive and no worse for wear at the end of the excursion. Instead, she was reminded of the harsh reality of the world. There were no fairy-tale endings, and the truth of the world was a bloody thing. She quickly averted her gaze and began to study a loose brick on the wall.

"We-we should go... We should bring the news to... Ghyslain," she stammered, still shaken up.

"...Indeed," the Tranquil replied, stooping to slip the ring from the clammy finger it rested upon. He took perhaps more care with the action than would be expected of one so unmoved, and he couldn't exactly say why he'd even bothered in the first place. He reasoned that the article would help them confirm that the hand belonged to Ninette, and that was the sole motive for his retrieval of it. Sentiment fit ill upon him, like a cloak made for a man much smaller. Or perhaps, one much broader, who wore his armor like it weighed nothing and spoke always of honor and dignity.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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Everywhere Sparrow turned, it seemed as if there were Shades and Pride Demons and particularly relentless baddies who were just waiting in Darktown's dingy corners, whispering foul things, stringing her along like a badly-wound puppet. Fallible noises transformed into approaching footsteps, always encroaching on her privacy, nipping at her heels. Scrummy elbows belonging to Darktown's denizens appeared pronged, fabled with growths reserved for Fade-beasts. Only for a moment before her eyes adjusted, blinking away the delusions. It didn't help that Rapture seemed hellbent on perusing her most intimate thoughts, sorting through them with circumscribed boredom. There was an undeniable curiosity in the way she was scrutinized, as if she were a flickering candle cupped in the hands of a naughty child. It was all she could do to distract herself by wandering outside of Rilien's safe-haven, shake her head like a dog with fleas. Sitting still for long periods of time pained her, filled her with an itching anxiety – if that wasn't enough, it took her down an unfamiliar path, sending her into bouts of teeth-gritting mood-swings. Her companion didn't deserve to bear the brunt of her affliction.

She was tromping on her chest, playing fiddle on her heart, squeezing her lungs, and generally making everything incredibly uncomfortable. Sparrow ground her molars, murmuring soft-spoken curses between set teeth. Instead of collapsing against the wall, clutching at her head like some kind of abomination, she decidedly rolled back her shoulders, straightened her spine, and climbed up the steps, heading towards Darktown's rickety lift. If she didn't leave the hovel, with it's dark streets and vulnerable wretches, then she'd end up doing something that would get herself in trouble. She doubted that Rilien would want to clean any of her messes, or smooth out any ruffled feathers for her sake. She breathed deeply through her nose, in controlled breaths, as if the smoggy clutches of chokedamp could strengthen her foundations, and filter out her unease. She'd found out the hard way that no amount of intoxication, or merry dancing, could silence that kitten. If she wanted something, then she made it clear as diamond.

With a wayward, resigned sigh, Sparrow huffed strands of streaked hair from her eyes, trailing her fingers across cobblestones, iron railings, and whatever inanimate object she walked along. It helped a little. She felt grounded touching something that wasn't moving or capable of anything beyond a little give, a little push. Her eyes closed, then creased when her fingers brushed against air, clear of it's craggy touch. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she'd taken a wrong turn. Nowhere near the Hanged Man, Sparrow found herself blinking up at the gnarled tree, bridled with twirling colours, mainly in rich reds and soft whites, painted carefully along roots. The Tree of the People, so it was called. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once – it baffled her more than anything that something beautiful and green could grow in the heart of Kirkwall; a city renown for it's oppressive weight, it's shackles and chains.

Even if it was mysterious, and even if she didn't really feel acquainted to the Dalish ways anymore, Sparrow felt an unforeseen quiet; a strange reprieve from her systematic cleaving. As if a sopping wet blanket had been plucked from her shoulders. No more prattling. Her relentless promises were silenced. Her insistent warbling temporarily muted. She stepped forward, feeling lighter than she had for days, and pressed her hands against the trunk, nearly bumbling into it. Her eyes focused on the drying leaves, curled into themselves, and then, onto the rustling leaves, still vibrantly green, hanging overhead. This was alive, and real, and natural. Not cold stone pressing into her back, clipping her shoulders whenever she was too drunk to make it home. If she could sink into the earth, grab handfuls of grass, then maybe she'd be able to take back her one mistake. Saying yes, being too weak, giving in.

On just the other side of the tree, the laughter of small children was obvious, trilling as it did like windchimes, moved to tumbing sounds with the slightest stirring of some unseen breeze, something in their childish psyches or innocent hearts. Amalia was not accustomed to being the focus of such attentions, nor indeed their cause. To be fair, she dealt with children on a fairly-regular basis, and though she was no Tamassran and did not raise them, many of her viddethari were children like these.

None of them had ever derived such delight from her hair. And yet here she was, seated in her spot under the painted tree, harp currently held loosely in her hands, and several girl-children had taken it upon themselves to unwind her plait, leaving the honey-colored mass of it to pool on the stone. One of them was putting tiny braids in it, which seemed to amuse the other greatly, and the slightly-uncomfortable look on the Qunari's usually-stoic face was enough to draw in a few others, who more or less gathered at her knees and feet as they always did and entreated her to play something. Despite the irregularity of the ministrations to her scalp, she accepted them as a matter of course. No harm was being done to her person, and she conceded that there were certain things she would have to endure of she wished to be a proper denizen of this place, as her role demanded.

It was far from the most unpleasant thing she'd ever endured, and she endeavored to keep her head more or less still so that the thin, deft fingers of the elf-girl could proceed uninterrupted, and the others would have their song as well. Her left thumb flicked a string, producing a soft, warbling note, sustained alone until just before it faded, whereupon it was replaced by another. Somehow, this reminded her of a time a number of years ago, in her own childhood, when the silly, pointless things children did were not so far beyond her that she almost forgot how to understand. There was a time when she'd lain awake in the night, exchanging whispers with a friend, demure phrases allowed their release only when the reality of the world, of her impending committment to duty, was temporarily suspended. Magic, she'd called that time, before she'd learned what that word truly implied. Illusions danced freely in front of the eyes of children, things that adults were not allowed to see.

Amalia had been made an adult before most, and in her unguarded moments, she sometimes wondered if she'd lost something in so becoming.

The slow progression of notes evolved into something much more complex; it was a melody she'd written to bring him sleep, on those nights when the quiet murmurs were not enough. She'd known, even then, that his nightmares were somehow worse than hers, but she'd not understood why, and devised him a lullaby for the purpose, she'd asserted matter-of-factly, of making them more pleasant. He'd always told her it worked, and requested it of her periodically, but she knew now that the effect, if any, had likely been negligible. Why then, had he asked? It was illogical, and she no longer comprehended what had been so simple for her childhood self. Sometimes, she wondered what had happened to him. He was Vashoth, now, if he yet lived. The notes, her fingers, the harpstrings, her memories; these were all that remained to her of that time. Perhaps it was best she shared them.

There were no birds tittering in the branches, scratching absently under outstretched wings, flashing their colours for all to see. Several scores, like scars peeled across her knees, were torn across bark, stippled over roots like ruddy birthmarks. Sparrow paused, slowly pulling her hands away from the tree, when she heard small sniggers of laughter, obviously belonging to small children. Though, she hadn't spent enough time in the Alienage to know any of the children, or even realize that she might've not been as alone as she felt – so caught up in her own thoughts, she'd been. She whispered softly to turn about, stalk in the opposite direction because something didn't feel right, as if nasties lurked around the corner. Sparrow sighed a long sigh, blinked and slowly, gingerly, circled around the tree, careful not to kick over the boxes and candles settled around her. A tree in a cage did not stand as tall as a tree in the forest, even if it was as revered as this.

Unwilling to reveal who indeed was laughing, Sparrow suddenly stopped walking, only glimpsing a brief tumble of honeyed hair being released from a braid before back-peddling a couple steps. Her mouth remained resolutely closed, opposed to the idea of interrupting whatever they were doing. It hadn't been, after all, only a few children playing behind the great tree, but rather a small army of the gathered at the feet of some woman. From what she'd glimpsed, anyway. Instead of revealing herself, and explaining why she was wondering around like a sneak-thief, Sparrow pressed her back against the tree, and half-sat down, straining her stunted ears to hear any bits of conversation. Apparently, there was none to be had. The children crowed in amusement, giggling requests for songs to be sung. Her hand was loosely curled, like a child's fist, with her neck bent forward. She was completely lost to this. These willow-dipped, sharp-eared fledgelings lived in such indigent hovels, still regarded as wayward toilers, and still, they laughed loudly, without apology.

How long had it been since she'd laughed like that? Far too long. Perhaps, as long ago as when she'd been adopted by the Qunari clansmen, in the woods, miles from her own clansmen. The unlikeliest kith and kin she could've come across, sallying her in as one of their own. Whether it was pity, or mere duty on their part, Sparrow would never know. The days had long passed where she would've whittled small animals into long slats of wood, describing stories that she could hardly remember to make herself feel a little better. She could spring through the meadows unfettered, as if there weren't stubby-eared shemlen sheltered in the treeline, waiting to clutch at her shoulders again. Where the soft braying of her breathing and the erratic drumming of her heart wasn't dependant on survival, or striking first. Things were much simpler then. Even with the deep-rooted beliefs all Qunari shared, heavy-handed and strict, yet somehow effortless. Everyone had their own place, chosen since birth, but still, they weren't painted as outsiders concluded – as barbarians without music, without art, without beauty. They weren't savages and they laughed loudly, recklessly.

She leaned the back of her head against the Tree of Life, listing her head to the side. Familiar notes plucked skillfully, only three or four feet around the tree's trunk, tightened it's ghostly fingers around her lungs, tickling tendrils of cold down her spine. It was a harp. Those warbling notes, so unlike anything she'd ever heard as a child, were unmistakable, nearly sanctioned in her memory. The instrument needed no accompaniment. It never did. The music sounded so familiar, like Sparrow had heard it once before. Her eyebrow knit, eyes closed in concentration. Most of all, she supposed it reminded her of her first friend among the horned-ones, her silent brethren. Perhaps, she'd been the only one who ever accepted Sparrow, without any further enquiries, and dutifully ignored the ripped remains of Papyrus. Scrawny-armed, bruise-lipped, with knobby, ineffectual elbows. It reminded her of all the nights spent in the valley, arms tucked behind their heads like chickens, leaving behind grassy impressions like imprints left in the snow. The notes, with the wind, curved across the small alcove, like colossal chimes jingling with each pull. It transformed; became something much more complicated, much more intimate. The awareness snapped her eyes open.

It was her song. Sparrow was sure of it. Her heartbeat quickened, thumping loudly in her ears. It was almost too much to take in all at once, far too much to subdue. She cooed softly, urging her to turn away, necessitating the need to make herself scarce, for wasn't Amalia still very much apart of the Qun, willing to strip away her freedom for abandoning the way? In one swift movement, Sparrow pushed away from the tree, quickly circled around until she made herself known. Her eyes flit from the woman's honeycomb hair, plaited in several small braids, but still pooling around her shoulders, to the harp sitting in her lap. Her eyes stung. “Amalia...” It came as a choppy exhale of disbelief, bereft of her usual assurance.

Amalia had taken note of the presence just on the other side of the tree, but initially thought nothing of it. Occasionally, one of the children was too shy or timid to approach her, and this she took as a matter of course. She was aware that she had not the most... tender of visages, and she had cultivated herself to withstand, to endure. It did not, as a rule, dovetail well with softness in demeanor, and she generally relied upon other people to overcome their natural aversions to her if they had them, or otherwise leave her be. Such things were not her decisions to make, and she didn't concern herself with attempting to be other than she was for the sake of others' comfort.

A flicker of movement from the corner of her eye drew her two-toned gaze upwards, and both irises were soon surrounded by white sclera. A small, but sharp intake of breath was the only other sound of her registered surprise, and for anyone else it would perhaps have been quite a scene. For her, it was already too much a lapse of ironclad control, and she smoothed out her face immediately, turning back to her music and finishing the song with a few last tremulous notes before she placed it onto the knee of a small boy and guided his fingers to the strings. He plucked at one experimentally, and the Qunari nodded her approval. That small thing seemed to inspire an entire bout of confidene, because it was not long before he was trilling sequences of them, discordant but getting better as he gained a bit more of an ear for what each strong produced. The others immediately gathered around the new source of entertainment, and Amalia stood, for the moment forgotten.

"Venak hol" she replied, and the words were scarcely more than a soft whisper. There was much in them. Literally, it was something of an insult, but between these two particular people, that was the least of it. A "wearying one:" one who causes vexation or concern, worry. This person, this being before her had had many names, but Amalia had called him ever and only this. A simple enough statement, and one she used to refer to her viddethari when they frustrated her in one way or another, and yet... it was never the soul-rooted worry of their childood, when she'd watched him flit about from this place to that, unwilling or unable to settle as the Qun demanded, one layer of deception laying beneath another. She knew his secrets, inside and out, and always they had worried her. Worry was, for people such as herself, a pointless emotion. It achieved nothing but lowering the efficiency of the one who worried, and it was something she'd near-wholly eliminated from her person.

It was only this, the subject of so many old memories, of sprawling in the desert sands of Par Vollen and laughing at something the Tamassran had said, or else linking pinky fingers quietly before they slept, so that they might be connected even bereft of conscious notice (she'd thought herself guarding his dreams, that way), that could still cause her anxiety in this way. Qunlat had no word for "brother." Sometimes, in her most deridable moments of weakness, she found this to be a failing.

"Why now?" Why appear before her now? It had been years. She'd believed him dead or else so far moved beyond her and her kith that she'd never encounter him again either way. He'd always been capricious, that way, the fluttering breeze to her steady, still pond. He could sweep about, gestures overexaggerated and words careless, and he'd even so only ripple her surface. It was more than she'd ever allowed anyone else to do, if she'd allowed it all. Perhaps it had simply happened, like a happenstance, a coincidence, luck. It was too bad that she'd never believed in those things the way he had.

She knew her friend well enough not to expect any fierce embraces, tender moments, or anything of the sort, but still, Sparrow was shocked at the expression on Amalia's face, a brief wink of surprise – so astutely different from the calm, collected child she remembered, wiggling daisies between her toes, while remaining completely tranquil. There had always been an almost laughable contrast to her gregarious personality, though, she believed, they still complimented each other. How long had she been without her anchor? It was Amalia who'd dutifully dug in her heels whenever Sparrow chose to flit about as breezy as the wind, halfheartedly reprimanding her for not acting accordingly, for not falling subserviently into her chosen role within the Qun. The feelings swelling in her gut was overwhelming. Small smiles, simple handshakes, and simple greetings. They'd never done that, either, so she stood, expecting something for certain, but unaware how she would react to seeing her after all this time. This woman's thoughts were composed of complicated things, whirring in directions she couldn't follow, much like trying to decipher Rilien's frame of mind – impossible, like scrawled hieroglyphics. How much had she changed?

Her heart dropped when Amalia's mismatched eyes fell away from her own. She turned back towards the gawking children and resumed her song with steely determination, plucking at the resounding strings to end her lullaby. A few of the children turned to regard her, eyeing her with inhibited interest before swarming around the boy who'd been handed the harp, already begging for another song that the boy could not possibly play. Even without knowing what Amalia had been up to, or where she'd been, Sparrow could already tell what role she'd adopted from the manner she treated the fledgelings, as tenderhearted as the ones who rehabilitated, or re-educated, new converts and those who stubbornly went against their established roles. For her, it'd been different. Her days had always been heavy with the shrieks of terrified people, heavy with the smell of smoke, heavy with blood. It had certainly become a simple way to live when one was living by the sword, or by her mace, as it was. Her days had slowly drifted away from her companion. She hadn't had any time to warn her, to tell her of her plans to escape and live her own life freely. Chains, it seemed, did not suit her well.

Venak hol. That was something she could not forget, and wouldn't have chosen to forget even if she had the choice. There were many things in the Qun, in the oppressive way of life they managed to live, that Sparrow disagreed with, but her days among the Qunari were some of the best, especially with Amalia's endearing nickname. She was, after all, the only one who knew her true name. When Sparrow had initially come to the Qun, as bedraggled as a ruffled bird, they were the ones who had picked another, more suitable, title to begin anew, to create something out of nothing. In more ways than one, Amalia had aided in putting her back together. She had puzzled out her pieces, struck out the old and strengthened her foundations so that she didn't shake so much anymore. It was one of the reasons she pestered her to play her harp when the nights were far too dark, or when her hands refused to cease trembling, even if it didn't truly still her nightmares. Her mouth wouldn't peel back into a smile. Another sharp intake of breath whisked through her lips. She was speechless. Speechless and vulnerable, stupidly mute.

She offhandedly observed that those two-toned eyes had hardened. They didn't properly belong to the one she'd linked pinkies with, nor did they seem intent on welcoming her with open arms, as if they were merely wayward companions who'd traded letters from afar. Sparrow had always known that Amalia was alive, for the Qunari had always been great protectors of their own, solid walls that were almost impenetrable. It hadn't occurred to her that Amalia might've thought she'd perished. Her mouth felt parched, nearly like the sands of Par Vollen. It took a few seconds for those two individual words to sink in – why? Why now? Why hadn't she come to find her before? Why had she left in the first place? Why here in Kirkwall, in the strangest of places? So many unanswered questions bellying between two simple idioms. Her feverish tales of exploits and adventures, of freedom and excitement, suddenly tasted bitter in her throat, hardly capable of rationalizing her decisions, her choices. Time had never stopped, time never waited. She'd chosen something else without Amalia, her greatest friend.

Any witticisms she'd planned beforehand had already withered and died. They were far too inappropriate at a time like this. She hadn't thought this through. Had she been thinking at all? She didn't know what to say, how to react. There were gaps spun between them like disagreeable spiderwebs, mitigating an unexpected tension. She remained unhelpfully quiet for once. The question had caught of her guard. There was somebody precious standing there, a woman (once a small girl), frowning at him, not holding her hands out towards her to reconcile any hurts or worries, but standing at a regulated distance. No amount of hand-flapping or sweeping bows could placate any wrongs she'd done by running away, by leaving everyone behind who'd ever meant anything to her. “I never meant—,” she began awkwardly, taking an uneasy step forward. She hadn't cared back then, if she disappointed anyone, if she hurt anyone because being free had taken priority. Now though, after coming to Kirkwall, after letting down her guard and letting people in, things hurt a lot more. “I would've told you...”

"Your tongue is as unhelpful as it has always been, Venak hol," Amalia replied, tilting her head to one side. A forearm slid just behind her neck, catching the hair that had spilled over her shoulder and tossing it behind to lay flatly against her back. Despite herself, her lips just barely turned upwards at the corners. For all he lamented of being caged, it would seem that, in his own way, her friend was still playing the same role as he always had- he was certainly dancing to the same tune. The Qunari had a catch-all idiom: Merevas. 'So shall it be.' The phrase, like everything the Qunari said, was meant to encapsulate many things. Inlcuded in it was the notion that nothing ever truly changed. New facets of things were revealed to the world, and new forms of being could come to take prominence, but everything was at its core the same, forever and always.

Perhaps this made it simpler for Amalia to accept that what was not now was again. Venak hol had left, but he had never been truly gone, by one reckoning of things. She would not lie; the girl she had been had felt quite betrayed at her best friend's disappearance, nearly inconsolable for some months afterwards. This had, eventually, manifested a stronger will to see the Qun's promise fulfilled, it's directives spread to all corners of Thedas. When there was nowhere without the Qun, she had thought, there would be no chance that he would remain gone, beyond her reach. That selfish thought had been tempered, and while she would not deny that she was surprised to see him, she would not begrudge his past absence. This was to be the way of things- then, and now.

Merevas.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia
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Since his work at the Bone Pit was still paying his way for the moment, the Alienage's resident Dalish hunter saw no reason to overly stress himself with mundane matters this morning. Lia's father had required her to stay within the city walls, and more specifically the alienage, since their little run-in with the human hunter in the woods. No doubt she had spoken of the encounter with him, and Elren had been displeased. Rather than confront the elven warrior with the two vicious scars running down one side of his face, he simply demanded his daughter stay away from the man.

It bothered him somewhat. That he would coop her up within these dreary walls, when she so clearly desired more, but also that he himself now felt different kinds of uncomfortability when either with the girl, or away from her. He was still naturally averse to the reminders of his former clan, and his own history, for the pain that it brought, and yet, he was beginning to think it was necessary for him to move forward. Confront the past in order to move on. Something like that. Perhaps it was something a knife could solve.

Deciding to test that line of thought, Ithilian grabbed one of his shorter knives, resting next to his bed, and slipped it under his belt. He threw on a simple tunic of a dark green color, before sliding over to a bucket of water in the corner, sinking his hands into it. He ran them through a shaggy mess of black hair, pushed back away from his face, reaching the base of his neck. It wasn't every day he left the cap inside the house, but seeing as he wasn't planning on leaving the city, or the alienage, for the day, he saw no reason to wear it. Grabbing the antlers taken from the hunt, Ithilian pushed out the door.

His eyes usually went to the great tree upon first exiting, as did anyone who entered the elven part of Lowtown, and so he immediately noticed the crowd of children, the one attempting to play the now familiar harp, and Amalia herself, risen from her usual spot and speaking with an unfamiliar elf. Well... half-elf, judging from the ears and general body type. Ithilian had previously thought he was already acquainted with mostly everyone who came to the Alienage seeking out the Qunari woman, but perhaps he was wrong. Setting the antlers down outside his door, he made his way towards them, surveying the half-elf with the eye that was cleaved through by a claw. "Friend of yours?" he said somewhat lightly, bare feet padding to a stop near them.

Amalia's glance flitted sideways, and she found herself interestingly-positioned. It was almost like looking at a figment of her past alongside a representation of her present. She found it... humorous, in a way, and nodded gently, her reply a reflection of his address in tenor. "So it seems. Sataareth, this is Venak hol, and Vashoth." The last word was tinged with something unusual for Amalia, what would be characterized in a human as regret. Nevertheless, she did not linger over it as humans were so wont, and continued without effort. "Venak hol, this is Basra Sataareth, Basalit-an," the extra edifications were certainly far too long to use in informal address, but to her old friend, they would say something important about her new one.

She did not provide anything further, however, as she found herself rather without anything else to say. It was one of those situations in which there were so many things that could be said that the tongue choked on all of them. Where would she even begin? Perhaps it was simply better to let them decide for themselves. She held no illusions that they were all that similar, but even so, there was nothing about either of them that would, to her knowledge, offend the other's sensibilities, a rare enough thing, especially in Ithilian's case, she was certain.

Ithilian knew not what the first name Amalia had given to the stranger meant, but the term Vashoth he was familiar with, at least to a basic understanding. This was someone who had once been a part of her Qun, and had since left it behind, for whatever reason. He had not had cause to deal with them, but Ithilian was aware of the bandits that preyed in the cliffs along the Wounded Coast. The Tal-Vashoth. No doubt the extension to the word was meaningful, and thus the Dalish could confirm that this half-elf was not one of them. He found himself viewing... her, with a similar feeling that he had for Feynriel. There was no place for a half-blood, certainly not in a society such as Kirkwall. Apart from her unfortunate blood, there was nothing inherently wrong with her, at least as far as his eye could tell.

"If you prefer to no longer use Qunari words, Vashoth, then you can call me Ithilian. I see to it that these elves are not trod on as they have been in the past, that they might remember some part of the strength that is our race." Perhaps there was no reason to explain what exactly his intent was, but Ithilian was not yet sure how to treat the half-elf, and would have it known that threats to the elves did not last long under his watch.

Sparrow couldn't possibly recreate the meaning of things already gone past, and even if she floundered with her words, was Amalia actually expecting anything more from her, or anything less? Wasn't that what “so shall it be” meant in the first place, whatever she so chose to be had already been written, almost expected by the Qun and its kith. Perhaps, that had been the reason they hadn't stopped her from leaving. It would've been all too easy to identify her unease, her unwillingness to encompass the Qun's teachings as if it were as easy as breathing. Those shackles, however imagined, were strangling things that pulled her back into the clutches of rough-handed men. Or maybe she was, after all, just an unrealistic dreamer, a liar, and a traitor. She hadn't changed much, aside from the fact that she'd let down her guard more than once, allowed herself a little reprieve from her loneliness. Her tangled thoughts were interrupted when another man, presumably one of Amalia's acquaintances, or friends (it came as a surprisingly bitter thought), approached from around the tree, moving away from a crooked set of antlers. Dalish? Tired, lined eyes told her different stories altogether, as well as his bare feet, bereft of leather boots. Grizzled and raw, scarred. Reasonably more Dalish then she'd ever had the opportunity of being.

The temporarily abated tension between them was a welcome thing, briefly disengaged with something as simple as a question. Still, Sparrow was somewhat disappointed at the fact that she couldn't solve her own problems with long stories or fabulous fables or a mouthful of cheap ale, hunched over the Hanged Man's dirty counter. Somehow, she'd imagined something like that, rather than this. Ever the optimistic blighter, Sparrow turned towards the stranger, dipped her head slightly and flashed a welcoming smile that felt awkward and forced given the current situation. Inadvertently, Sparrow might've bowed a little lower when the introductions were made, because being an honored one demanded respect. Her Qunlat was not so rusty that she didn't understand the meaning of the titles, and why Amalia so chose to introduce him this way. It was almost humorous how those titles could still evoke, still stir, something within her, when she thought she'd already sloughed off those teachings long ago. Apparently not. Venak hol brought on a small smile, simpering, one that mirrored her childhood self, while vashoth slowly pulled her expression apart, curling into an unaccustomed frown. The truth, however honest, had ways of needling itself into the chinks of her armor.

“My respects, Ithilian,” Sparrow greeted breezily, eyeing him as if for the first time, with renewed understanding. Old habits died hard, but she was thankful that he wasn't opposed to being called something that was less of a mouthful, less of a reminder of her own failings within the Qun. Somehow, it didn't surprise her that Amalia had befriended such a rugged individual, for she'd never been adverse to necessary violence or severe personalities. “And you may call me anything you wish. Maker knows I have many names. Vashoth, Sparrow, wearying one.” The half-elf counted them off her fingertips, curling them in towards her palm when each was named off, though with only a small spoonful of joviality. It seemed the rest had already scrambled away with her useless tongue. It came as a surprise when Ithilian mentioned the elves in Kirkwall, and of protecting them. There was a flicker of recognition, of mutual agreement. Dirty, useless shemlen. Amalia had always been the exception – in her opinion, disregarding her biological race, she was not human, but Qunari. “You're a guardian, then? A protector. In the city of chains, we're all in a little need of strength, seems to me. I hope that goal is met.”

Rilien had not expected his tracking of Sparrow to lead him to the Alienage. Perhaps the singular practical benefit to her present condition was the fact that she lit up in his senses the way a campfire did in the night, or perhaps more accurately the way a Tevinter Candle exploded in the sky, scattering multicolored incendiary sparks everywhere. A piece of technology invented for sheer decadence, stolen from something the Qunari had thought of, no doubt. He was surprised the Orlesians hadn't done it first. They were certainly the primary market for anything unncessary and frivolously beautiful. He would know.

Of course, he hadn't been able to sense her from all the way in Darktown. No matter how familiar she was to him, that was an impossible feat. There was simply too much magic in this place to differentiate from that distance. Even the Veil itself was weak here, one of a few reasons he'd intially chosen to settle in this area. But once he'd led the other two to the Hanged Man, she'd been close enough to recognize, and it was only a few more winding turns before they were descending the steps towards the elven ghetto. The sounds of quiet conversation and the occasional oddly-struck harp note did not produce any change in his expression, nor did the fact that the air was a little fresher here for the tree's presence. Sparrow was not too far off, visible from this distance. The party or parties she was speaking to were not, and he approached cautiously, quietly.

She seemed... melancholy, and that did not often happen. If someone was trying to shake her down for coin again... He rounded the tree and observed that in addition to several children, happily distracted and oblivious to what was going on, there were present a Dalish man with heavy scarring on one side of his face and a woman, human from the looks of it, with the air of someone more accustomed to moving through the dark without sound than standing in the middle of a sun-dappled patch of stone. There was a lapse in the conversation, and Rilien slipped his own word into it. "Sparrow." He said nothing else. Sparrow, in turn, whipped her head around to face the caller of her name, though in all technicality, she already knew who it was by the monotonous tone. Her name. Perhaps, she preferred Sparrow most of all. It didn't stop her from gawking like she'd been caught with her trousers down. In the Alienage of all places. He wasn't alone, either.

Nostariel had been following behind the Tranquil, still faintly uneasy in his presence, but walking next to the overtly-cheerful Ashton was probably the zero-sum of a balanced life in this respect. She would not have supposed that Sparrow spent much time in the Alienage, but Rilien had led them here without hesitation, and that in itself was strange. He'd not given the impression that Sparrow had been lingering somewhere, which suggested that he was on the move. Yet, he'd known exactly where to find him. The Warden recognized all three parties at the gathering, and while she might have supposed that running into Ithilian in the Alienage was a live possibility, Amalia's presence here was... unexpected. Both of them were somehow different than she'd recalled, too. They seemed more... at ease. Ithilian wasn't scowling for once, and seemed to be without his cap, and Amalia, though her face was harder to read than just about anyone's, appeared as much at home as Nostariel could imagine her to be, and there were fanciful little braids in her loose hair.

"Amalia, Ithilian," she greeted, looking from one to the other. They also seemed more relaxed around one another, or at least Ithilian wasn't glaring at her sideways like she could have sworn he'd been doing when they rescued Feynriel. "It's good to see you. Our mutual acquaintance is doing well, and passes his greetings to both of you." She hadn't really expected to get the opportunity to convey that to them, as they did not cross paths, usually.

"The Alienage is a busy place, today," Amalia commented dryly, shooting Ithilian an aside glance. She recognized the Warden among them, and inclined her head in acknowledgement of Nostariel's presence, and her comment regarding Feynriel. The male elf, she was certain she would have remembered, had they ever had cause to meet before. One did not regularly encounter beings shaded with such a palette. His movements and tone were immediately evocative of iron control, without losing a certain capacity for grace. This in itself was admirable. The other man was tall, and stood out sorely from the others because of this and also the fact that he was clearly the only human in the gaggle of people. There was something loose about his posture, the set of his elongated limbs. It was the opposite impression from the one the elf gave, and something much more like Venak hol, for all their physical differences.

“I wouldn't know – first time I've been here myself.” Sparrow put in, knowing full well that the statement wasn't exactly directed at her. However, it was only the truth. A moment of weakness, of faltering reflection, had brought her down here. If she hadn't wandered into the Alienage, then she wouldn't have been reunited with her childhood friend. Fancy coincidences, lady luck flipping her coin, and spiralling turns of events had always been her cup of tea – or ale, actually, but it still surprised her that after all this time, if Amalia had been in Kirkwall for that long, she hadn't bumped into her in other parts of Kirkwall. Did she have anything to do with the Qunari occupants inhabiting the ports? Somehow, Sparrow doubted this. She looked sideways, regarding her companions. It was almost as if pieces of her past were directly colliding with her future, with what she'd become over time, with gentle, intrusive prodding. Freedom had a funny way of shaping someone. Funnier yet was how friendship had shaped her.

"I presume these people are here for your sake, Venak hol," she ventured without much risk. It seemed that he was calling himself Sparrow these days- fitting enough, as names in this tongue went, for what was he but a flightly little bird? He, or whomever had named him thus, was not without awareness. She wondered if the jewel-eyed elf had done so, and if he had assumed her role with regard to him as he was now. The Bas-Ashaad surely had not. "Perhaps it is best if you depart." She was aware of his oversensitive nature, and it struck her that she should say something further. Where he was transparent, she was opaque, and it was in his nature to flit about and cause himself undue stress. Were it anyone else, this would not be her concern. But it was not anyone else, it was Venak hol.

“Ah, yes. Rilien, Ashton. Bella-luna.” She rattled off, much like she'd done when recounting her many names. If they wanted to specify who they were exactly, then they were free to do so. Sparrow had never been in the habit of revealing too much, too quickly. Like a magician or a particularly nasty swindler with predisposed deceptions, her life thrived on people not knowing who she was, or where she'd come from, or where, exactly, she was headed. There were too many in Kirkwall, particularly Templars, who would be all too glad drag her off to the Circle or simply lop her head off to forgo the troubles of bringing her in. Likewise with Rilien. She realized long ago that she was willing to cheat, lie, and kill to keep both of their secrets under guard, under iron-clad protection. Sparrow looked around at the sandy walls, at the children still hunkered by the great tree. So, this was where Amalia stayed. The reason was not immediately apparent, though she'd already guessed that she had initially been sent here to do something other than look after fledgelings. Perhaps, they were to be new converts? Rescued from a bleak, unforgiving environment. They had no future within the gates of Kirkwall, anyway. When Amalia suggested that she take her leave, Sparrow blinked, then flicked her gaze away from the amalgamation of stacked boxes, of unlit candles. Her shoulders sagged momentarily, stricken by such an immediate disuniting. “Uh, I see. If that's best, I guess I should.”

"If you wish it, I shall visit your dwelling-place next time." Even so, she could not say that the current volume of strangers in the Alienage was amenable to her, and she perhaps betrayed herself when she turned her head the barest fraction to make sure the children were still busy. A few had glanced up, but immediately turned back to what they were doing when they became aware that she had noticed. She was not... territorial about this place, but... the Qunari crossed her arms, hands grasping her biceps. Perhaps she was, just a little.

She recovered in slivers, small bits, when Amalia offered to visit her. Like the flighty bird she was, it didn't take much to smooth out the ruffles in her feathers, calming whatever harried thoughts she had in her brief moment of distress. “I'd like that. That better be a promise.” How strange it would've been to offer her pinky finger, waggling it like she always did before making an impossible agreement. It was symbolic of their friendship, locked between fingers. Locked with a thousand promises and wishes and dreams, beheld by the Qun and the night sky. She looked back up at her friend, as if waiting for some kind of affirmation. She didn't raise her hand, because she couldn't. There was a moment where her hand twitched, before the movement snapped up to clap Ashton on the shoulder, pulling him closer into the circle they made of acquaintances, old friends, and new, alike. "Now, I'm guessing that we're not all here for several rounds of ale at the Hanged Man, eh?"

Ashton's eyes, instead of turned to the percularity of how Sparrow and the woman apparently knew each other, were turned to something familar and yet just as strange. He leaned forward, hovering over Rilien (Whose shoulder he used to prop up his elbow) and looked at the elf. A badly scarred elf. One could never forget that face, even if half of it had been hidden the last time they met. And apparently, from what Nostariel had said, he gathered that they were all acquainted. How quaint. "Ithilian, hmm?" He said, "Funny seeing you down here with our little birdy," he followed with a bright-- stupid grin directed towards his Sparrow. The fact that the woman had called Sparrow Venak hol merely rolled off of his mind. If he didn't understand, might as well not bother oneself. He could always ask later.

"How's your daughter doing? Becoming quite the little huntress I'm betting," he said, easily making small talk with the intimidating figure. "Which reminds me. You still haven't come into my shop for your share of the deer," he finished.

Ithilian had been rather neutrally approving of this Sparrow's response, save for her mention of the Maker, when others arrived, apparently looking for her. An odd looking group, led to the Alienage by a white-haired elf, a Tranquil. He was the only one Ithilian did not recognize of the three, and the only one for whom the Dalish had no real thoughts. His experience in dealing with the Tranquil was minimal, considering that it was a Chantry practice and that the Dalish would never consider doing such a thing to their own mages. More than that, he did not know why he should care, at least until the elf showed himself an ally or an enemy of the Alienage.

The other two he knew somewhat. The Warden Nostariel was among them, and he offered her a respectful nod of greeting. The news she delivered, that the boy Feynriel was doing well, had little effect on him. The half-elf had not really been his concern so much as helping Arianni had been. If Ithilian had had his way, the boy never would have joined the Dalish. The elves needed less human blood among them, not more. But of course Marethari's decision had been hers to make, and there was little Ithilian was willing or capable of doing to influence the choices of a clan that was not his own.

The third was the human hunter he and Lia had run into, and that alone was enough to make Ithilian feel significantly more uncomfortable about all of this. Amalia had suggested that if they had come for Sparrow, they should leave with her immediately, and Ithilian found himself agreeing. The human did not belong here. Sparrow and the Tranquil likely did not belong here. Nostariel had seemingly chosen not to belong here. This shem's voice had an instantly irritating effect on Ithilian. It was the sound of what was most likely arrogance or stupidity. Either he thought himself invulnerable, or he simply wasn't aware that his words could easily be construed as a twisting threat, given what many city elves had experienced under human oppression. His hand twitched, resisting the urge to rest on the hilt of his knife.

"The deer is yours. You made the kill," Ithilian said, voice tinged with irritation, "and we're more than capable of feeding ourselves. You should remove yourself from our home now, before you say something that gets you into trouble." It was as kindly as he was willing to put it. He would get no response about Lia, as Ithilian was not in the habit of delving into personal affairs with strangers, shemlen no less.

Nostariel cleared her throat, discreetly tugging on Ashton's sleeve to indicate that perhaps he should take Ithilian's advice and stop talking. She wasn't sure exactly how they knew each other, and the fact that the former had a child was definitely news to her, but obviously not something she had any right to inquire after. Not really sure what to do, she spoke to the most neutral party in the group, fixing her gaze on Amalia, perhaps just because she wasn't really sure that she felt entirely comfortable looking at anyone else. Large social gatherings were hardly her forte, and she needed to center herself and attempt to be diplomatic. Whatever the reason, it seemed like the Qunari of all people was the best choice for that. Nostariel wasn't sure if that said something about Amalia or the incredibly-strange combination of people present. "Ah, actually, yes. There's something I would like to request your help with, Sparrow, and your friends have already generously agreed to assist."

Actually, she had no idea if Rilien had ever agreed to anything, but the point was to get them all out of the Alienage (and consequently Ithilian and Amalia's hair), not to be technically accurate, so she continued. "It's perhaps best discussed elsewhere, if you would be so kind?" The Warden had to admit that she really had no idea what was going on, so hopefully that wasn't rude. Edging away from the gathering slowly, she maintained her gentle grip on the archer's sleeve, assuming that his gregarious (and apparently also oblivious) nature would make him the hardest to convince otherwise. "Good day to you, Amalia, Ithilian."

Rilien, for his part, seemed completely uninterested in any of the goings-on, though he would have had to be an idiot not to notice the tension infusing not one, but two of the threads of conversation being exchanged. The Tranquil was many things, but he did not consider himself an idiot by any means. Of course, knowing a thing and taking it into consideration were entirely different, and had he been inclined to stay, he would have stayed, regardless. Perhaps fortunately for the tense truce that seemed to be occurring here, he was not inclined to stay, and so when the tall woman, the scarred man and the Warden-mage all suggested that the group leave, he left. Catching Sparrow's eye, he gave a miniscule lift of one brow, tilting his head towards the stairs. The message, subtle as it was, would be to her obvious. You are coming, aren't you? Sparrow followed Rilien's gaze to the stairway, inclining her head in a curt head-bob of acknowlegement. Perhaps, her past wasn't ready to meet her future, but she still hoped that things would pan out and become more agreeable. She quickly offered Ithilian a nod, affirming that they would be leaving, though she made no promises that she wouldn't return to the Alienage just because he was uncomfortable with her, or her intentions. If she wanted to see Amalia again, then nothing, not even the threat of Ithilian's knives, would stop her. Turning to go, she glanced once more over her shoulder, trying to piece out where exactly the innocent conversation had gone sour. She had her guesses, even if the details remained unknown. When they finally reached a safer distance, where none save the one's being shooed could hear, Sparrow arched an inquistive eyebrow at her companion - the one who was just as prone to snuffling out trouble as she was, and scoffed softly, pursing her lips. "Seems like you've been making friends. Don't tell me you slept with his daughter or something."

"If I had, I doubt I'd made it out of there alive," Ashton answered. Though he played the part of the fool expertly, even he felt the sudden air of hostility. In the woods, he misconstrued this Ithilian's attitude as simple caution and irritation, though now back in the city, it was clear that there was more to it than simple irritation over a stolen kill. Though whatever it was, Ashton had nary a clue. He had not seen the man before the evening in the woods, and he felt that there had been no slight made between the hunters. Just him speaking to his child like... Well, a child. What was stranger still, was that he didn't see the child, even among the children playing behind the woman, this Amalia. His eyes were sharper than he let on, and when pressed, could notice even small details... When he wanted to.

The keen instincts of the hunter told him that he was to blame for the sudden change of tone in the conversation, in what he thought was innocent enough small talk. Was it some subtle accidental insinuation that the elf had picked up on? Curious. Perhaps it was by some blessing that he had arrived in the company of friends, else he feared that thing would have turned sour. He also posted a mental note in his head. Do not head into the Alienage alone-- at least without one of his elven companions. Ashton wished to attempt to smooth things over by admitting that he meant no offense-- from one hunter to another-- and that his shop was open to any and all. It was by Nostariel's hand that the words died in his throat. whereas he allowed her to lead him away. Perhaps that was a good thing-- else it may not had been the only thing that died.

Well, at least the powder keg of a situation was defused and they were all alive. That was good. That was always good. "Besides, she was like... twelve or something," he said furrowing his brows. "I was just hunting, and I accidently shot this deer who they were hunting too. Though I never thought it would delve into murderous eyes-- eye rather," Ashton said, scratching his chin. He then shrugged, putting it all past him. He never was the one to hold grudges. "Anyway. Disaster averted and such," he said slipping behind Nostariel. Obviously the next whiplash subject change would focus on her. "Now on to current business. Miss Nostie here has a mage issue-- of sorts. I guess," he began as he rubbed her elongated ears from behind. "Something, something, mages, threat of violence, something. Apparently a Templar fellow needs help defusing a situation," He said, shrugging, hands never leaving Nostariel's ears.

Nostariel was mostly minding her own business, halfway through a sigh of relief and quite content to allow Ashton to... sort of... explain their business to Sparrow, when she was subjected to a rather tremendous shock. Apparently, someone- and there was no way it was the Tranquil and Sparrow was too far away- touched her ears. To say that this was a matter of some surprise was to do a disservice to the startling nature of the incident, and she let out a strangled sound that sounded vaguely like a meep, jumping no less than a foot and some in the air, an unwelcome shudder coursing down her spine and prickling the flesh of her arms. This was apparently insufficient to dissuade the culprit from his actions, and as she regained her bearing, attempting to slow her rapid and shallow breaths, an obvious flush of embarrassment heated her face and neck, turning her ordinarily rather pale complexion a dark shade of red.

The Warden was entirely out of her element and not at all sure what to do. Should she be offended? Angry? Amused? All she could really manage in this state was bewildered, well, aside from the embarassment. It seemed like a rather... personal place to be casually touching someone, but here her knowledge of how people conducted their everyday business was just completely lacking, and for all she knew, she could be reading far too much into this. Or not enough. Swallowing thickly, she decided to be direct. "Um, Asht-ton... w-what are you d-doing?"

If it were possible for Rilien to look wearied, he probably would have chosen that moment to arrange his features in the suitable fashion. Instead, he shook his head minutely, floding his hands into his distended sleeves and picking up where the explanation left off, for Sparrow's benefit if nothing else. "More Templars," he elaborated flatly, given that Nostariel seemed presently unable to do so. He wasn't sure exactly why she appeared so flustered by this; certainly it wasn't normal human behavior, but she had to have discovered by this point that Ashton was hardly what one would describe as a normal human. Perhaps she was a tad slow? It was unlikely they'd have made her a Warden if so, so he chalked it up instead to some kind of staggering naievety. "Apparently one of them actually prefers to avoid bloodshed, and has requested assistance."

The idea that anyone would look to them to prevent a gory mess was incredibly ironic, and that fact was not lost upon him. He doubted the Warden had any idea what she'd just gotten herself into.

The reaction Nostariel had wasn't surprising, but rather cuter than what he had expected. A small victory in turning the recent terse situation into a rather light-hearted and humorous one. The fact that Rilien wore a unsurprised look on his face was only the icing on the cake. For his part, Ashton too wore and unplussed expression to further sell his antics. When Nostariel asked quite reasonably what was he doing, he merely shrugged and said, "Your ears looked stressed so I decided to give them a massage," he said. The expression on his face positively screamed What else would I be doing?

Nostariel found that she didn't really have a response for that.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The letter had asked her to show up at the city gates, and so it was there that Nostariel led the oddest group of misfits she'd ever had the... fortune to encounter. If anyone had told her that morning that she'd be spending her day with a Tranquil, a cheery, androgynous half-elf and an incredibly confusing (and touchy) hunter, she probably would have thought them drunk or insane. Yet here she was, approaching the portcullis that led out onto the Wounded Coast, that warren of sand and caves and long stretches of beach over aquamarine water. If there weren't bandits and raiders and Tal-Vashoth and now apparently Templars crawling all about, it might have been a scenic sort of locale. Now, though, she was trying her best to be as businesslike as she could, as if to make up for the lack of it in her companions.

Well, all right, the Tranquil probably couldn't have been more efficient and solemn if he'd tried, but Ashton and Sparrow were quite the opposite.

The scuff of her leather boots on flagstones would have tipped off Thrask to her approach of the general ambient chatter of the others had not, and she drew up to a stop a polite distance from him, staff in hand. It was a subtle thing, but it would not do for either of them to forget that he was dealing with a mage here. It was a line that had been firmly drawn in her perception from the moment she'd started her lessons, and though she had once labored with fervor to blur it, she was no longer sure this was possible. Whether that was tragic or all for the best, she had yet to decide. "Good morning, Ser Thrask," she greeted politely, inclining her head.

Even if she'd been opposed to running face-first into another confrontation with Templars, who seemed duly incapable of dealing with their own problems as of yet, or magical baddies and particularly nasty demons who had a penchant for appearing whenever she rounded the corner, Sparrow had always been unable to turn down a pretty lady in need of aid. She busied herself by throwing quips Ashton's way, ricocheting them into something that involved Nostariel, quickly ascertaining that Ashton touched her ears because he liked her – it was in his nature, if they wiggled, then they'd be pressed into the folds of his palms regardless of how she reacted. Her own were nothing to throw a stone at, as they were stunted, half-formed things that barely reached halfway to any elven normal ears, compared to Nostariel's elegantly shaped ears, or Rilien's, for that matter. Still pointed, but indubitably significant when singling her out as a half, as something that didn't quite belong here, nor there. It had probably been the main reason why Ithilian was so wary of her presence, or why he'd even allowed her into the Alienage in the first place. A fusion of disconcerting thoughts; of whether he should hate, or tolerate, her...

Her hands slowly stretched above her head, accompanied by a cat-like yawn, before resting at the nape of her neck, fingers intertwined. The Wounded Coast, in all it's barren glory, with it's expanse of ocean and gritty terrain, homed the ones who called themselves tal-vashoth. Those who rejected the Qun, much like herself, albeit in a more congregated, specific way. They sawed off their horns, terrorized the countryside and adopted a role more suited to petty mercenaries than proud Qunari. If she weren't in such a cheery mood, in good company, then she might've been disgusted at the thought of chancing an encounter with them – though, she'd do what any arvaarad would do and cut them down without any forethought, or hesitation. She found herself in step with Rilien, though her heavy, horse-clopping gait certainly did not exude his effortless grace. If one looked at them, they'd notice that they couldn't have been more different. He moved with the shadows, as light as a feather. She stomped, scuffed pebbles, and was, generally, the loudest of the group.

Nostariel had explained Thrask's intent beforehand, so that Sparrow did not jump to any conclusions regarding his objective. A Templar who supported mages? It seemed, for lack of a better word, questionable. A Templar who wasn't sniffing at Meredith's boots like a faithful hound? That seemed even stranger. She stood at a reasonable distance, though she was far less cautious than Nostariel, crossing her arms over her chest as if to scrutinize him – how would the Templar even know whether or not any of them were mages, with the exception of their wayward Grey Warden and her staff, and Rilien, with his sunburst marking. She'd always passed off as a brute swinging a mace. This time, it was no different.

Thrask surveyed the group with a look that was hard to read. It was possible that he was confused at the assortment or Tranquil, human, elf, and half-elf, and the glance he gave to the mark on Rilien's forehead implied he had perhaps heard of him from a certain Knight-Captain the Tranquil had run into. Regardless of what he knew, he revealed little, greeting Nostariel in return instead.

"Thank you for coming, and for bringing others. This would be a difficult task for any one man or woman. Please, if you'll follow me, I will take you to them, and explain on the way. I'm afraid haste is important in this matter." He immediately led them through the gate and out towards the coast. "Before you ask, the Templars no longer directly seek the boy Feynriel. We regret that he could not be returned to safety at the Circle, and we are aware of his presence with the Dalish. It is obvious to us that any attempt to extract him from there would be pointless, and thus we leave it in the elves' hands to ensure the boy is taught properly. I contacted you because I thought perhaps you and friends would be willing to show mages another kindness."

After some time it became apparent they were not heading directly towards the coastline, but rather up into the cliffs above it, where a number of caverns and old mines were located. Their trek was notably simple, and notably free of Qunari outlaws. "There are a number of apostates hiding in one of the caverns up ahead," Thrask explained. "I was hoping you might speak to the group, and convince them to surrender peacefully before my fellow templars arrive."

Nostariel caught on to Thrask's urgency, as well as a near-palpable undercurrent of worry in his demeanor. Her mouth turned down at the corners, and she gripped her staff a little tighter, but she did not speak until he was through. Whether that was mere politeness or a more insidious reminder that some habits were hard to break was indeterminate, and she hardly gave it passing thought. When the group came to a stop, she shifted her weight uneasily. This had the ring of something very clandestine about it, and she wasn't exactly sure why.

"I am given to understand that the usual practice is for the Templars to enter these negotiations themselves," she enunciated slowly, cautiously. "Is there a reason the matter must be settled before they arrive?" Of course there was; there was always a reason. She simply wanted to know what it was. The automatic assumption was too easy, too commonplace, and she wanted to hear it confirmed from his own tongue before she allowed herself to mourn the moderateness that had been the hallmark of the Templars in her childhood, lost to the extremism of blood magic and Andrastean zealotry.

The fault lay with both sides, but there was no mistaking who suffered more as a consequence, and this situation was looking to be no different.

"Isn't it obvious my little magelet? Ashton began, tearing himself from the various quips thrown between himself and Sparrow. He had just the one too! About Templars no less. But alas, his tongue got ahead of him, "This Templar's grown a heart while we weren't looking and he'd like us to shepherd his lost lambs for him, before his fellows come around and lead them to the slaughter," While the analogy was certainly... colorful, it did it's job of explaining what he had born witness to. The treatment of the mages in the city wasn't very... nice, to put it mildly. His fine white-haired friend at his side spoke of what would happen to mages who do not comform. True, it seemed that he had slaughtered his own share of mages recently-- but they did start it. Bloodmages and their crazy demony rituals... He then turned back to Sparrow in order to throw the joke at her, but found that he had forgotten it. Dammit.

"Templars are not without hearts, Ashton," Nostariel replied quietly, each syllable drawn a little longer with something almost unidentifiable to those who hadn't heard it from their own lips. A faint tremble in the words, weighted down by gravity and the deep blue melancholy only the past seemed capable of producing. It was, to those who knew it, the barely-perceptible razor edge of grief.

Rilien ignored it, rather more interested in discovering if Ashton's conjecture was indeed the case. "You fear the mages will be killed if the other Templars are forced to extract them," he concluded, much less sarcastically than Ashton had. "Why?" That was not, as far as he was aware, Kirkwall Chantry policy, though he had little doubt that if it did happen, it would be properly excused and apologized, changing nothing. What were a few more dead people in a city like this? Much less a few dead mages. In this, they and peasants were alike; if there was nobody important to miss you when you were gone, you simply didn't matter. This was a lesson he'd learned the hard way, long ago, and it had merely been repeated to him in different guises ever since. Only one person had ever given him reason to believe that it could ever change, and even that was a vain hope in which he did not often allow himself to indulge.

"Why?" Thrask repeated, seeming slightly offended by the question. "Because I do not revel in the deaths of mages. That is not what my order stands for, what it was built upon. True, there are zealots among us, and a zealot leads us, but many Templars still desire a relationship of cooperation with the mages." He had expected a certain level of antagonism from the help Nostariel had brought, considering that he expected them to be favorable to the cause of mages. The realization of just how much some despised his order was still something of a shock.

"Though your wording was less than eloquent," he said towards Ashton, "I suppose you have the truth of it. A knight-lieutenant of the Templars by the name of Ser Karras leads the Templars on their way here. He is a great crony of Meredith. Should he find apostates hiding from pursuit, Meredith will consider him justified in murdering the lot of them. Since these mages escaped following the destruction of the Starkhaven Circle, they have been known to attack Templars on sight. There will be a massacre here if Karras is the one to meet them. I'm hoping a group more kind to the mages might be able to make them see reason."

Ashton merely uplifted a palm in order to wordlessly indicate that he, in fact, told them so. Though quite unlike him he did not punctuate that with a rambling series of words, instead keeping his tongue within its pearly white cage. He felt that he hit upon a sore spot with pretty little Nostariel, and it wouldn't do to exacerbate that. However, he would thoroughly investigate the matter at a later time. Perhaps somewhere where the ale flowed like a river. And a grotty, pissy river at that.

Sparrow's fingers drummed soundlessly against her forearm, as she weighed the possibilities that this Templar wasn't just jerking them around for his own amusement. Or trying to lure said mages, including herself, in the group to some sort of sick slaughter on Templar holy-ground. Her mouth pursed slightly, then drew itself into a tight-lipped scowl. Why were they dealing with these blighters again? Couldn't they deal with things themselves? It seemed like every corner they turned down, or every mission they partook in, had heavy involvement with runaway apostates, grisly details, and Templars who couldn't keep any semblance of order themselves. It was obvious that Thrask wanted them to be on their way without explaining much of anything. If they needed to scamper along in the darkness, in the wake of another danger, then she wanted to damn well know about it. As if to accentuate her unvoiced opinions, Sparrow threw her arms out wide, shrugging her shoulders in exasperation. He might've wanted to help whatever mages lied below-ground but he still spoke as if they needed the Circle's help to maintain their twisted methodologies; as if they were wayward beasts turned out to another pasture. The Dalish took care of their own without oppressive measures.

Her patience was waning. Like a string pulled taut until it couldn't stretch out any longer. He sought to remedy the situation with words before the Templars came to take them away like dogs. What kind of person would be convinced back into shackles? She had been hearing about these things ever since entering Kirkwall. Apostates were never to be treated like you and I – they were creatures that went bump in the night and if they weren't smothered with a justly pillow then they were better off dead. Hadn't that always been their opinion on the matter? Anger flashed in her eyes for a moment, before being wrestled into submission. These days her composure was a sickly, wavering thing. Prone to brief bouts of insecurities, of helplessness and relinquished power. It seemed as if she was in accordance as well. She agreed with Ashton. Perhaps, if given enough thought, she'd proposition the fact that she hated the Templars nearly as much as she hated the shemlen who'd ruined her in the first place – no, no, Papyrus. Not Sparrow, but Papyrus. The analogy was sound enough. She didn't trust Thrask because he was a Templar and he'd probably done things to innocent people while serving Knight-Commander Meredith. Things that couldn't just be swept or washed away. Things that stained his hands indefinitely.

Even as Ashton turned to look at her, Sparrow found that all the merriness, all of the elbow-jesting they'd done earlier had filtered from her toes. All she felt was a lean, sour anger. "It's a choice being a Templar." She said through her teeth, eyeing Thrask. They were heartless. Or worse, yet. How could someone continue doing what they knew was wrong? If Thrask actually wanted to help runaway mages, then he'd deal with these things himself or simply leave the Templar Order to do some good with his life. Sparrow understood that her own hands were no cleaner, but at least she knew that she hadn't hounded a disconsolate people for simply being born with abilities they couldn't control. They needed guidance, not chains and shackles and promises of death if they didn't obey. Her fingers twitched at her sides, then clenched into her palms. She'd heard Nostariel and it almost sounded as if she were defending the Order. It made no sense to her. “One Templar with a heart – one sot who cares? If Templars desired cooperation with mages, then they'd leave them the hell alone. What would you have us do?” Her hand opened, then flashed upward, palm towards the sky. “Talk them down, and they'll be arrested. Punished?” Again, Sparrow opened her other hand as if weighing the outcomes. “Or allow them to be slaughtered.” They certainly weren't doing this for him. To her, it was always for them.

Kill the Templars.

"I'd rather not discuss the entirety of the magic issue here and now, as we do not have the time and I do not have the patience," Thrask said, looking tired. "I can only ask you to judge the situation as it stands: if any Templar goes in that cave there will be blood and death until all of these mages are slain. You are the only ones who can prevent their deaths now. Regardless of how any of you feel about me or my order, surely you can see the good that can be done here. I will say no more."

"And you need not, Ser Thrask," Nostariel cut in, for once sounding every bit the authority figure she could be. "I will go. Whether my companions choose to follow me is their business, but the longer we wait, the worse the chances will be for the mages in the cave." The look she shot Sparrow might have been reproachful, but if so, it was only that way in the gentlest of manners, as a mother might look at a child which has spoken out of turn but done no real harm. If she'd realized she was wearing it, she would have been a little bit abashed at herself, but it was not a face she knew she had in her repertoire. Gripping her staff firmly in her right hand, the Warden approached the cave entrance, ducking into it without anything further. She hadn't always been able to be as good as her word, but she was going to be now, if she had any choice in the matter.

Ashton propped an elbow as he usually did to his elven friends, right on top of Sparrow's head. A simple hook around her neck, all buddy-buddy like would have also sufficed, but he felt that it didn't have his brand of nonchalance about it. Though the move seemed to be typical Ashton fare, perhaps there was another intended effect. Perhaps playing his silliness to diffuse the suddenly tense situation. Or perhaps more likely the situation completely flew over his head and he was merely acting as Ashton would, silly, out-of-touch, oblivious to all that surrounds him. He leaned his walnut shaped head on the propped arm and issued a large sigh. Maybe this conversation was getting old for him. Maybe not. Ashton was either a man of many mysteries and enigmas, or he was merely a simple fool. Chances were, the second. Though who knew but the silly fool himself?

"So, mages, Templars, Tranquils, so on, and so forth," he issued rather boredly for himself conducting the list with his free hand, "Tis an adventure and since we walked all the way out here why not see this errand to it's eventual end?" Ashton said, upraising his other palm in a shrug. "I'm in. I love mages after all-- Wait! I said I was coming too! Don't leave me like that! Come on now!" Ashton whined behind Nostariel as her distance between them lengthened. "I'm supposed to be the one to jump headfirst into these things!" He wailed as he jumped into the cave behind the pretty little mage.

Perhaps, it'd be best if Sparrow started with this Templar. Her approaching footsteps had an ungainly spring to them, completely unlike her usual graceless gait. Her lidded eyes seemed glassy, beaming uncharacteristically. Even her joints felt wooden, as if they were attached to swinging ball-joints – with distinctive decorum, without any jostling elbows or wriggling gestures. Bereft of anything but a prodigious poise that did not belong to her. The mages-in-hiding would not be free unless the Templar's were dealt with. Why would they wish to have shackles and chains slapped on their wrists? Would they prefer a life endured beneath a heavy blanket of oppression or a chance to fight for their freedom? She knew what she would've chosen in their position, even if the chances in her favour were slim to none. Her shoulders straightened, ceased the nervous energy that buzzed angrily in her chest. Justice would be served today. Compromise? How could they. She wondered idly what Thrask would do if the Templar's simply refused to accept their interference, if they simply accounted the mages as too dangerous and decided to prematurely end their lives. Execute them in a cave. What would Thrask do if they fought in their honour, slaughtering their captors? Sheushered her encouragement with a smile, sidling a ghostly hand at the small of her back.

It was Nostariel's reproachful expression that caused her to pause in her steps, halting completely – it might've made her laugh if it didn't stop her in her tracks, so entirely was she taken aback by her words, her look. The expression was one that was reserved for a mother she no longer remembered. It was almost as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her, ending her anger far too early. She was not satisfied, hissing in her ears as if someone had tried to take her pet away. She knuckled her eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted. What had she wanted to do, anyway? Drive her blade through the Templar's heart. The notion seemed alien to her, as if appearing from nowhere in particular. As flighty and unreal a thought as diving headfirst into a cave in order to pacify terrified apostates, to watch as they're lead back to the Circle where they would be watched and possibly prosecuted for defending themselves against monstrous shemlen. An awkward silence stretched between them, until Nostariel resolutely turned away and ducked beneath the cave's lip.

Some sought forgiveness through their actions, while others made excuses for what they'd done in the first place. Sparrow believed that this was the case with Thrask. Hadn't he already killed mages in their Harrowing? Something force-fed unto fledgelings to control them. Her hands were no cleaner, but at least she had the comfort of knowing that she wasn't ruining any innocent lives. Her thoughts ended abruptly when she felt Ashton's elbow prop atop her head, wriggling fingers obscuring her view. In one simple motion, Sparrow's anger sieved through her fingertips, hollowed out her toes and anchored her. A switch had been pulled. Her frigid expression had already been replaced by something much like herself; a curtain had been dropped. She flapped her hands at him, ducking underneath his armpit with a breathless grin, inquisitive eyebrows raised. “Fine, fine. Let's get this done. Never leave a job unfinished.” Sparrow chirped brightly. She'd never been very good at lying. If it came down to it, and either parties were threatened, or the opportunity presented itself, she would hurtle into the only option that felt right.

She automatically kept pace with Rilien, watching absently as Ashton scampered after Nostariel. She felt none of their determination, only an adamant cold that extended up her forearms. There was impending danger nipping at their heels, and a difficult decision that had to be made that went far beyond simply calming down mages, or making a deal, or trying to convince them that it was better to lower their heads and give in. She felt justified in her anger, but still, even so, she felt as if she needed to apologize. To who – Nostariel? Why had she defended them? Because one sot felt as if he were finally responsible? In passing, Sparrow regarded Thrask, “You might've grown guilty for what you've done, but we will always hate what you stand for.” It came curtly, soft enough for none to hear but her taciturn companion.

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The cave reminded Nostariel of the one they'd found the Tal-Vashoth in, and she wondered if perhaps all bandits had the same interior designer. Presumably it had been a bandit stronghold at one point or another, since it was dubitable that runaway mages would have bothered to construct all these wooden platforms. It was coming to be a dangerous time to be a bandit outside Kirkwall, she supposed, what with the Qunari and the apostates around to run you out of your damp caves and suchlike. Then again, maybe they were just old mines. The smell was just as unpleasant either way, though she couldn't identify exactly why.

Rilien could, and he was quite aware that the stench of rotten eggs was due to sulfur, which meant that either one of these mages was using a very crude flame-based staff or there were natural pits about somewhere. These platforms were also of dubious structural integrity, and his eyebrows drew together nearly imperceptibly. "Watch your step," he said aloud, though he did not bother elaborating the reasons for this, instead picking his way carefully through debris and loose stone as a housecat might avoid puddles of water, minus the verbal indications of displeasure. The ground gradually sloped downwards, and without being asked, Rilien overtook the Warden, treading at the front of the group both to look for traps and because he was conscious that he and Sparrow were the most equipped for dealing with confrontation up close. Ashton was more than capable of guarding the rear against ambush.

That particular precaution turned out to be unnecessary, admittedly. They soon approached a more cavernous space, and as they did, the predominant odor transitioned from rotten eggs to putrid, decaying flesh. More than a few weeks dead, if the smell was already hitting them. Indeed, as they emerged into the opening, they quickly found themselves surrounded by fetid corpses, and in the presence of one very nervous-looking mage. The man (though perhaps he was closer to a boy, all told) appeared to be eyeing his surroundings with great trepidation and that was enough to put Rilien on edge. One of his knives slid from its place on his back with a quiet hiss, causing Nostarial to turn to him immediately.

"What are you doing?" the Warden hissed softly, reaching for the wrist that clasped the weapon. "We're here to avoid bloodshed. Don't you think that pulling a knife might just goad them to needless violence?" She'd seen too many mages resort to awful things when they felt threatened, and if she could forestall that here, she would.

Unperturbed, Rilien neatly avoided her reaching hand and drew his other knife, flicking his eyes to the corpse nearest the group. Confused, Nostariel gave up trying to speak to the obviously-reticent Tranquil and followed his gaze. Her own landed in the same place just as an unearthly howl filled the cavern, startling the poor mage standing by himself, but growing far too loud for her to hear anything he might have been saying. The air shifted, the stench growing only worse, and slowly, the corpses rose from the ground, taking up arms and apparently intent on the small group. Whatever words left her then were thick with her brogue and indesciperable over the fel sound of necromancy. Gritting her teeth, Nostariel summoned ice to her hands and threw it at the first three corpses she could see, falling back behind the Tranquil, who had already taken the hint and decapitated the first frozen body and moved on to the next, more mobile one.

Ashton for his part was relegated to the rear of the retinue, despite being second into the cave. T'was his lot in life, he supposed, always behind the ladies. Chivalry was not dead, no matter how many people said that it was. Seeing as caves weren't virtuous escapes from the danger that seemingly lingered all around Kirkwall, he had drawn his bow and nocked an arrow, but he left the string slack and carried it nonchalantly. The sulfur smell didn't seem to perturb Ashton, though as the scent shifted from that to something of a... darker flavor, his nose wrinkled in protest. This was not going to end up as any old simple meet and greet, he could have seen (or smelled rather) that right then.

However the party proved to be no longer alone in the caverns with a mage seemingly fidgeting nearby. The poor guy drew pity from Ashton and almost made him put up his bow... At least until Rilien drew his knife. While there wasn't much Ashton knew about the man for a fact, he seemed to have a penchant for sensing things like that. So instead of putting his weapon away, he drew the arrow back and awaited whatever the Tranquil had sensed. The scuffle between Nostariel and Rilien would have normally been turned into the subject of a joke for Ashton, but his own hunter's instincts had been ignited by the tranquil's wary ways. Instead he issued a calm, level, "Nostariel," devoid of any hint of jolly or silliness that was like him.

Right then, whatever had set off Rilien was made aware as a howl echoed throughout the caves and the corpses made their way to their feet. His arrow shot through the air, impaling one of the corpses with a dusting of ice in the chest with enough force to throw it down-- but it remained to be seen if that simple shot would be enough to finish off a creature that was already dead. He settled into his stance, knees bent, legs loose as he drew his next arrow and targeted the same, downed corpse and planted another one in it. If that did not outright kill it, then it certainly wasn't getting up, what with it being pinned to the ground.

What the hell was that smell? Sparrow's nose wrinkled receptively, though she fought the overwhelming urge to pinch her nostrils closed against the peculiar smell emanating from whatever was lurking in the cave. More like, rotting. If there weren't hidden copses filled to the brim with corpses and maggots and writhing insects, then she would've been surprised. She hadn't recognized the sizzling stench of sulphur, but rather bunged it down to animals dragging their prey back to their dens, where the mages also hid. Perhaps, this was some type of bear-cave they'd stumbled into. The wooden platforms appeared questionable at best – it certainly wouldn't take her mace to send one of those things tumbling down. They'd have to avoid walking across those treacherous things if they could help it. Sparrow's mace had been slung languidly across her shoulder, gripped in her hands all the same. It wasn't an issue of thinking that the mages would attack them, rather than simple forethought if they so stumbled onto something dangerous. She would not attack those mages.

She, too, overtook the Warden, but couldn't help glancing sidelong in the process. Had she been angry at her outburst? But, hadn't Sparrow been justified in forming her own opinion? Templars were ruthless individuals, and heartless in every sense she could think of. If Thrask was the exception, then it still couldn't account for all the others who stomped towards their destination in the cultivated hopes of extermination all of the hapless escapees huddled in a stinking grotto. Why didn't she, as a fellow mage, think the same way? Her mouth formed a soft line, fundamentally confused, before she looked ahead, picking her way through the scattered rubbish, much like Rilien had, though without any of his rhythmic dignity. Rather, she stomped, while he danced. He might've been a housecat, while she was an encroaching Mabari hound. Her footfalls slowed. The entire chamber was crowded with rotting corpses, with their arms twisted this way and that, and crumbling jowls hinged permanently open. “I knew it—uh,” She began to say, eyeing her surroundings, letting her mace drop onto the ground. As if the scene hadn't been stranger, there in the middle of the cavern, among all those corpses, stood a trembling boy-man. The familiar hum of Rilien's blades being freed from their hidden scabbards caught her intention, whirring her head around to catch the unusual sight of Nostariel trying to still his blades.

Sparrow hadn't had time to warn her against that, for if Rilien thought something to be wrong then something was assuredly afoot. Ashton beat her to it, murmuring her name. The dreadful howl rang in her ears. Her head whipped back, surveying whether or not it was the lonely mage's doing. Certainly not. The man-boy looked downright terrified. By the time Rilien moved around Nostariel, she'd already thrown herself into action by swinging her mace into a mass of animated ribs, cracking several in turn before throwing it bodily into the nearest corpse. Unadulterated energy pulsed through her fingertips, quickening her heartbeat, and searing hot through her lungs. There was a swift whooshing sound as electrifying pulses zipped from her upturned palm, breaking through bony arms and exposed jugulars – hanging loose from their fleshy cages – with phantasmal bars of heated energy. Just as quickly, Sparrow switched avenues, dropping her hand back to her mace and heaving it into another approaching moving-carcass like a swinging pendulum.

The corpses seemed now to be emerging from the ground itself, buried longer than any of the initial foes, perhaps. It was not of much consequence to Rilien, pivoting from one neat decapitation to the next. It was hard to say what would put them down for good, seeing as they were already dead in the first place, but that seemed to be working. Nostariel had settled back, usually tracking Ashton's arrows with magic, so that each hit with the force of fire or ice behind it as well. She hadn't the time to be concerned with her mistake, though she considered the very real possibility of being placed in a situation wherein she'd be apologizing to a Tranquil. Leaving aside the matter of whether Rilien would even have any feelings about that whatsoever, it seemed like something she should do.

Nostariel's pale eyebrows knit together, and the next corpse she hit incinerated entirely. Exhaling as calmly as she could, she tried to get her emotions back in line. It wasn't the simple matter of misunderstanding Rilien; it was the complex backgrounding collage of issues that underscored this whole venture. Her next blow was considerably more measured, and she could tell that the presence of the living dead was thinning considerably. She did not notice the one rising up behind her until a thin whistle rent the air, and Nostariel whirled in time to see the rotting head, some hair still dangling in greasy tendrils from one side of it, fly past her. She locked eyes with Rilien for a crystalline moment, nodding her thanks, but he turned right back around without any gesture in return.

There were a pair of archers homing shots in on him, but it was a problem he could solve with one word. "Ashton." It was all he needed. He trusted that the archer's sharp eyes would pick out the target he was about to leave behind. Rilien himself disappeared, taking out the target Ashton didn't choose from behind.

The archer had dug his heels in for the long haul and had planted a half dozen arrows at his feet for quick access. Sure and steady the arrows flew, striking each target true, though the effect of simple wood on rotten flesh and decaying bone was still questionable. The way the second body fell to pieces under his pointed assault told him that the arrows were doing something.. Or maybe it was Nostariel's chaser of magic that did it. He'd like to think that it was his arrows, painting a picture of machismo in his head. Or not. Who knew what went on in that warped head. The whole issue of Nostariel and Rilien seemed to be an afterthought to the hunter. It mattered little in the long run, and less in current circumstance as he saw it. She was already in an unusual state, what with being placed with so many of differing ideals. A bit of doubt in such circumstances was expected. But it wouldn't matter if they all ended up dead because of some soon-to-be fertilizer's lucky shot.

He was down to two arrows in the ground when Rilien spoke up with his name. His eyes shot to the Tranquil (his white hair making the acquistion all that much easier) and then they darted to the pair of archers that had eyes only for him. Pity. He'd have to help his buddy rectify that. There were two of them after all. "Left-- My left," Ashton answered, quickly adding an addendum to the answer. As soon as the words left his mouth, his own arrow left his bow, lancing through the air and into the empty chest cavity of the living corpse with a pinning shot-- rather, it would have been a pinning one, had he anything to pin it too. As such pinnable objects were missing, it just meant that the arrow carried an extra "umph", snapping the vertibrae of the undead creature and folding it in half like a piece of paper.

"Next customer?" Ashton called in a bored tone and nocking the next arrow.

Fortunately for Ashton, there were no more 'customers' to be had, as his companions obliterated the remaining skeletons. That left just the mage boy who had seemingly been hiding behind the corpse warriors. As the last fell, however, he came forth, clearly relieved. "Maker's blessing! I thought I was going to die down here in this... this tomb!" He took in the appearance of his rescuers, clearly not immediately placing them, and for good reason. "Are you with the Templars? Please, I need to go back the Circle. I never wanted to get involved in this." He gestured around him to the smashed skeletal warriors. "Not when he started making those... those things!"

"Ah... Necromancy. And here I was thinking that this job was going to be an easy one," Ashton said in a mirthless tone best described as "Rilien" in nature. After his little comment, he refrained from further gracing the conversation with any more of his wittisms, allowing his companions to do all the talky parts.

Nostariel was almost glad that the young man sounded so panicked; it was probably the right reaction to have to this sort of situation, even if she couldn't muster it in herself. Her companions seemed likewise jaded to the horrors of rising corpses and foul magic, sad as that was. "Be still, my friend. Ser Thrask is waiting outside. He will take you back. Before you go, though, I must ask..." The Warden cast a glance about herself at the pile of once again unmoving corpses, several missing heads, arms, or legs from the handiwork of the others. The piles of ash were probably her doing, though. "Who is he? Who is responsible for this, and what are we to expect if we should cross paths with him?"

"Sorry," he said, "I thought you would have known. Decimus... it was his decision. He kept saying the Templars would label us blood mages if we fled, and that in that case we should just use it. He slit his wrist, and the magic... it rose from the blood and woke the skeletons in the cave. I ran." He still seemed unsure of their intentions, even though he was clearly grateful for having been saved.

Decimus is wrong--blood magic is a work of evil, not just a power the Templars keep from us for spite. He's crazy. I think he was the one who started the destruction back at Starkhaven, thinking we would just be free with our phylacteries destroyed. I... I think there might be a demon working through him. No normal man would profane the dead like this, right?"

"Oh, blood magic. Great. Didn't get enough of that stuff the first time." Ashton quipped, sounding rather dejected. There was only the briefest hint of his gaze stuttering between the boy mage and Sparrow and then to Nostariel. Last time Blood magic and demons were involved, things didn't pan out too well for their merry little party. He didn't want to see another friend go through that again. He'd make sure that they'd escape this place, all in one piece. A lingering glance at Rilien made him wonder what was going on inside his own head. Ashton then turned back to the boy and spoke once again, "Think we can... Talk to this fellow? Talk him down or something? Blood magic bodes ill for all involved," and that was one of the more serious statements he had made in a long while.

"Decimus burned down a Circle tower to get away from the Templars," the mage said, "I'm not sure there's any force that could make him go back. But... you're not Templars. That's something, at least."

"I doubt we are to expect much quarter," Rilien concluded flatly. He was aware of Ashton's glance, but knew not what the archer was seeking. "Still, one blood mage does not make a coven." That was probably as close as he was ever going to get to something like mercy, all things considered. "If the rest do not fight, I will do as the Templar asks." That part was directed at Nostariel, who nodded solemnly. Perhaps she had moved too quickly to the wrong conclusion about the Tranquil, but even as she was opening her mouth to apologize, he shook his head.

"Such words are unnecessary. I do not act for the approval of others, and I do not require their assurances." Ah, well. Still quite cold, then. Even so, she nodded and turned at last to the boy.

"We have kept you here far too long. Please, do not hesitate to leave and find Ser Thrask. The way out is clear."

"Thank you," he said, "I never wanted anything to do with blood magic. Decimus has gone mad. I fear he'd kill us all just to take down a few Templars at this point." He departed, making his way towards the mouth of cave, and the Templar that awaited him outside.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The tunnels grew narrower and more constricted as they went, tightening around them until the group was forced to progress in single file. For the most part, it was also completely silent, save the occasional dripping sound as some liquid- Nostariel could only hope it was water- dripped from the ceiling down to the stone floor beneath. The tunnels were only moderately lit, and she imagined that the mages fleeing in here must have been quite afraid, the spooky ambiance of the place only adding to that heart-pounding fear of being pursued. It was a feeling she knew, though the creatures who had followed in her tread were not Templars but Darkspawn, and their method of tracking her more infallible than any phylactery could be.

It was not something she envied, and even as the tunnels widened again, gradually sloping upwards to more mining platforms, she thought to herself that perhaps, for some at least, the reality of 'freedom' away from the Circle was as jarring and terrifying as it had been for her. The fact that they had burned her Circle was not lost on Nostariel, and she wondered how many of her old friends and teachers had been hurt in the event. Her teeth clenched in her jaw. Harming those who pursued you was one thing- and even that seemed so wrong to her- but harming the inocent so that you could escape? Did that not make them into the very monsters everyone simply assumed they were? Did they not realize how much damage they were doing, embracing their power so irresponsibly?

She was no fool; mages were set up in lose-lose situations all the time. But even so, there were ways to handle that better than killing people. After a while, it became little more than selfishness, still cast only by the players as a brave bid for liberation. Stone changed to wood beneath her feet, and the murmur of voices became audible some distance away.

They were close.

The voices belonged to a man and a woman, the woman a young, pretty thing, dark brown hair tied back into a bun, a notable black tattoo snaking around her right eye. The man was middle-aged, and looked somewhat ragged, his dirty blonde hair grown long and unkempt, a beard reaching down towards his chest. Their Circle robes were tattered and worn from overuse, and so were their bodies. The mages gathered about the cave seemed extremely weary, though a brave few were staying alert, hovering near their leader's side.

It was likely that the party triggered some form of magical wards as they entered, as Decimus was almost immediately alerted to their presence. "They're here! The Templars have come to take us back to the Circle!" he shouted, rousing the boldest of his followers from their stupors. The woman at his side, however, grabbed hold of his arm upon seeing the intruders for herself. "Decimus, no! Stay your hand. These are no Templars." The mage leader seemed conflicted for the briefest of moments, recognizing the Warden's sigil, the Tranquil's brand, the presence of magic. But the blood of his followers was hot, and he needed to direct their aggression now, lest it be lost to him. "What do I care what shield they carry?" he shouted. "If they challenge us, the dead themselves will meet the call!"

He conjured forth more of his dark magic, the power of his own blood, and likely some of his allies, to summon more dead from the ground. They set upon the group from behind, while the mages willing to fight these strangers followed Decimus' lead, attacking from the front. More than half, however, chose not to fight, instead pushing themselves towards the corners, hoping to avoid being caught in the battle.

Another slaughter this was to be then, and for him it was simply passe. Not one to forget, the Tranquil made a beeline directly for Decimus, well-aware what had happened the last time he'd let a blood mage remain too long on a battlefield. Control was essential to someone with Rilien's mental makeup; he existed in a state of perpetual fine-tuning of his control over himself, his environment, and his craft. When one could or would not be able to waste time in more sympathetic pursuits, it was sometimes all that remained. He would be content playing puppet to no one, least of all some spineless mage who had already resorted to the desperate.

Of course, it wasn't so simple as all of that. Not every enemy present was simply going to let him waltz up to their leader and stab him in the eye. In fact, they seemed rather keen on putting more warm bodies in his way. He spent a moment deciding if it would be better to leave them in too much pain to move, but alive, or simply dead. Given that these had sided with a blood mage, he concluded that if he didn't kill them, the Templars would, and decided to save the time. Lethality was a much simpler choice than its opposite, actually, though not even he was so crass as to factor simple ease into his choices. A slight flash; a mage dropped with a stump where his arm used to be. Another hurled an orb of fire at the Tranquil, who ducked in time to recieve nothing but a few singed hairs, though he wasn't sure of the status of anyone behind him. He was in need of a haircut, perhaps.

In fact, the progression forward was the hardest part; these were not physical fighters, and after the first few had tried to be just that and failed miserably, the rest had wisely decided to stick to pelting the group with projectiles. It had been years since Rilien had shot a bow, and he certainly didn't make a habit of it, meaning that he'd simply have to find a way through the barrage and to Decimus. The next conflagration caught his sleeve; he ripped it off at the shoulder seam before it could burn its way to his skin. Ice gathered at his feet, but he skated across it, failing to lose his balance. The hissing of mixing elements was accompanied by a thick cloud of steam and debris- finding his target in this mess was going to be difficult.

"We just wanted to talk!" Ashton cried as he settled into an archer's stance. Even though he'd rather not fight these people, if the choice was the between the safety of the mages over the safety of his companions, he'd choose his friends every time. "Are you so blood drunk that you'd deny even that?!" he pleaded, though based on his recent experiences with blood mages he doubted that mere words would sway their demon addled minds. Speaking of demons, Ashton kept an especially open eye out for anything from beyond the veil, and those such creatures would become priority targets. He would not let another Sparrow happen.

His first shot connected with the shinbone of a mage, thoroughly tossing the man to the ground and interrupting whatever spell he had aimed at them. The next shot he fired cut deep into the outstretched arm of another mage, sending the frost spewing from his hand in a wide arc away from it's intended target-- The tranquil. Ever the efficent one, Rilien had opted to wade directly in towards the leader, and cut the head off of the problem. Ashton wouldn't be surprised to see Sparrow wade in directly behind him either flailing that mace about and casting whatever spells she had in her repertoire either, considering her brusque nature and had began to account for her in the plan that was beginning to fall into place in his mind. What they needed was to stop Decimus, else be subject to what he could summon from the fade, or worse, while at the same time reduce the number of casualities of the other mages. While he may not have been the biggest fan of the Templars on principle, the one outside the mouth of the cave had the right idea about saving these mages. No one's life should just be tossed away like trash.

"Remember where Decimus stands Rilien, Sparrow, I'll cover your approach!" Ashton called, withdrawing the fat shafted arrow that released smoke upon impact. He nocked it and let it fire, directly into the middle of the fray. He trusted them both to take full advantage of the situation. The impact was punctuated with a solid pop, and an obscuring white smoke was beginning to fill the cave and hide their presence. Ashton, however, would not be able to do much more as a large Spirit Bolt cut through the smoke and slammed directly into his chest. It was enough force to take him off of his feet and fling him a good couple feet back, landing ungracefully on his back, trying desparately to get air back into his lungs.

"Ouch... That stung. I think it broke something..." Ashton weezed, coughing a thick gobule of blood out. "Yep... Definitely broke something... Man down. Medic?" He whined, his deadpan tone belying the seriousness of the injury. Looks like he'd have to trust Rilien and Sparrow to this. Though truth be told, he wouldn't trust anyone else more.

Shlepping off the remnants of goo from her fingers, promptly smeared across a snippet of cloth she'd ripped off one of the animated corpses, Sparrow seemed intent on not showing how discontented she was at diving deeper into the cave. It wasn't enough that the caves tunnels were constricting like a snake's belly, forcing them to walk in a straight line. She'd taken the rear, glancing over her shoulder on occasion and gripping her mace all the tighter. Each sound of skittering rocks, disturbed by nocturnal creatures, screwed up her eyes in consternation. She might've been foolhardy enough to appear brave in the face of stumbling corpses, but she wasn't fond of darkness, of not being able to see what was in front of her, or more importantly, behind her. It wasn't her strongest suit. She couldn't help but imagine long-fingered hands slithering from hidden alcoves, ready to pull her in. No amount of squinting could adjust her eyes to the dim lights. The incessant itch demanding to look behind her shoulder – just to be sure, only grew with each step forward.

The flickering lanterns, barely illuminated, cast weaving shadows against the craggy walls. Distorted masses of tantamount-duplications, familiar in their shapes, but terrifying all the same. It was as if the darkness whispered do you fear, do you? And she was afraid. The darkness was all-encompassing, enveloping; an omnipresent thing that promised monsters and deeds she'd rather not carry out, immeasurably vast and unrestricted in its limitless infinity. It was a dreadful, malevolent thing. Whatever happened in the darkness, usually remained gloomy, forgotten-things. She resolutely resisted the urge to grip Rilien's flapping sleeve, ordering her hands to still themselves. Weakness would not do in a place like this. She seemed absent from her thoughts, as if she'd taken a break from her ceaseless barrage of snippy opinions, settling herself on some faraway bench. And somehow, this unsettled Sparrow. She did not search for her, did not reach out her arms like a frightened child, but instead lowered her head and trailed her empty fingers across the nearest wall, allowing her mace to dip low to the ground.

Sparrow breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the tunnels branched out, extending into a much larger chamber. Much like the one they'd found the walking-corpses in. It rattled through her bones, breathed through her lungs, drooped her eyelids a little lower. She didn't need to look behind her shoulder anymore, at least, not unless they'd have to squirm through another tunnel, which didn't seem likely, because they could hear a faint conversation going on in the distance. As soon as they rounded the corner, Decimus and his merry crew of less-than-pleased mages were already moving to intercept them, staves brandished and eyes thrown wide open, wildly alert. Her mouth went dry, hoping wryly that the woman could convince him that they weren't Templar-bastards after-all. “Stop that, idiot.” She snarled, eyes darting to Decimus' fingers, swirling in intricate circles, spewing his own blood force to raise more dead enemies around them. It was Sparrow who first hesitated. She was shaking. She could feel it. “We don't need to do this! We're just trying to help.” Said with little conviction, dying off into a strangled sound when Rilien unerringly amputated one of the mages arms, continuing his way through the throe of warm-bodied people.

She barely dodged the fireball, skittering backwards. Slight fumes of her burnt boot wafted unpleasantly to her nostrils, though she quickly kicked it through the dirt so that she wasn't another ambling corpse, afire, trying to pacify her opponents. Sparrow was not behind Rilien – she hadn't moved, aside from scrambling away from the nearest projectile that'd singed her companions hair. It was Ashton's voice that'd broken her out of her conflicted thoughts, reminding her where she ought to have been and where she needed to go if she wanted to keep her companions alive and well. “R-Right! And watch yourself, no heroics!” Her heart was not in this. How could it be? It'd been left on the precipice that she'd be able to convince them to lay down their weapons and flee from the Templars before they'd even stepped foot into the cave to retrieve them. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Instead of hammering through the mages, Sparrow took another more indirect approach, squaring off with the ambling-dead and smashing through, swinging her mace, and inefficiently weaving around those who were still consistently throwing projectiles.

For once, she wasn't directly behind Rilien, but she was coming up beside him, throwing energy-blasts to parry icy-cones and balls of flame, scattering frigid pellets and sparks around them. Sparrow would turn her hesitation, her anger, her despair onto the forerunner of attack.

While Rilien and Sparrow seemed inclined to rush the enemy, Nostariel hung back with Ashton, the group's other ranged combatant.There were enough fierce foes this tme around that she could not afford to simply choose her targets as he chose his, though, and doubtless, the efficiency they produced would suffer for it, but the important thing right now was to keep these mages off the Tranquil while Sparrow smashed through the corpses directly in front of them. All told, it was a sound strategy for such a hastily-devised one, and everything seemed to be going about as well as could be expected until a spirit bolt whizzed by her only to catch the archer full in the chest, throwing him backwards an immoderate distance.

Nostariel had switched tactics before he even made the request. Healing and damage-dealing required completely different mindsets, and it was hard to swap quickly from one to the other. It was a rare mage indeed that could manage both in any kind of swift succession. Nostariel was not yet such a mage, if she would ever be, and it took her a moment to adjust. With a couple of deep breaths, though, she was able to summon the energy to herself, and then direct it towards her fallen comrade. If there was one thing she was good at, it was trauma healing. She was passable with illnesses, but the battlefield was where she shone. Ironic, considering how little she liked them, and how often she had failed at this very job.

Not today.

Rilien, much further afield, had only dim awareness that someone behind him had been hit. What he had noticed was that Ashton's arrow had added to the fog already present, obscuring his target even further. It was more than worth the inconvenience, however, as the mages were no longer firing upon him with anything even resembling accuracy, and he was a much more mobile fighter than they. He would find his quarry, even if he had to stalk it. It was not terribly often that he vanished under the cloak of stealth, though he was capable of it. Mostly, he relied on complete silence to achieve the same result, and this instance was no different. Footfalls normally only incidentally soft lost all noise whatsoever, and he threaded his way carefully in the general direction of Decimus. More than once, he ran into a different mage, but he was much quicker on the uptake, and as a result, each of the three died before they could so much as choke out a warning.

At last, he found what he was looking for. The shroud of smoke was starting to thin, just a little, and the Blood Mage could see him, too, evidenced by the expected half-mad, half panicked ramblings that ensued upon sight of the sunburst resting so obviously over his brow. It was an unusual mage that was not unnerved by it, especially outside a Circle. After a while, it grew repetitive, actually. That Sparrow had not paid it much mind at all was one of the reasons they got along as well as they did. Decimus was nothing even resembling Sparrow, and Rilien had little conscience to delay his action. Surprisingly, his first hit was blocked by a desperate staff maneuver, the metal blades biting deep into the wood of the thing. Ripping them free with exactly no change in facial expression, the Tranquil moved again, this time catching a few shards of stone in his exposed arm for his trouble. Considering that the mage's arm now ended at the elbow, he wasn't very concerned by this.

Predictably, Decimus failed to control his reaction and dropped his stave, clutching at his stump with his still-whole hand and doing quite a lot of screaming. At this point, Rilien was forced away from what would have been the finisher by an incoming jet of flames; the others around them were regaining full visibility, and apparently would defend their leader to the death. He supposed that could be arranged.

Whatever amount of hatred she'd harvested from wheedling out the animated corpses had not been enough to weave into the fray and clock Decimus in the head – which would have been quite easy, since he was already distracted by Rilien's merciless assault, desperately attempting to block the Tranquil's impossibly quick hands with his staff. It was numbingly obvious how the situation would end. Instead, Sparrow stepped in while the fog cleared and slammed her mace into one of the mages stomach. Certainly not hard enough to bust all of his ribs, but enough to debilitate him, to discourage him from throwing any more funnels of flame at her companions. She whipped to the side to engage another, busying her mace against a creaking wooden staff. "Kill him first!" Perhaps, then, the others would lose face. They would give up. They wouldn't need to die. Then, Rilien could stop killing the others.

On the other side of the cavern, after Nostariel's burst of healing magic, Ashton had managed to drag his sore corpse over to one of the many stalagmites that littered the cave and leaned his back against it. Sure the immediate pain was gone thanks to the pretty little mage, but he still felt as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. What little blood that had remained floating around freely in his system was still interfering with his breathing, but all things considered, he could be worse. He could be dead. And not being dead was always a plus in Ashton's book. The hunter did look worse for wear though, left over blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. He looked a lot worse off than he was. He'd try to milk it for all the pity that it was worth.

He wasn't of the strongest constitution, to say the least. He wasn't a strongbacked, rough and tumble individual, like Sparrow. He couldn't take punches, hell, he probably couldn't even take a stiff breeze. Even Rilien, with his Tranquil stoicism, was more hardy than the Archer. At the very most, he put himself on Nostariel's level, and that was if she didn't have that Wardened hardening training whatevers. He knew what he was, and that was why he put himself in the back of the fight, flickering in and out of visibility. Though, he'd not allow a simple magical bolt to hold him back. He wasn't quite out of the fight yet, he wasn't quite done.

Ashton had nocked an arrow, and was beginning to draw before he paused. His sitting position would not allow him to fire his bow upright. He sighed and angled the bow horizontally and drew once again. "That was the plan..." Ashton murmured behind Sparrow's command. At that, Ashton let the arrow slip, and like a bolt of lightning it streaked forward towards it's intended target. Luckily, for those mages that had saw Ashton get hit by the Spirit Bolt, they thought him out of the fight. They didn't expect him to crawl back into the thing. That oversight allowed the arrow fly unmolested, right into the head of Decimus. Well. At least the chance of possession by Blood Mage was down. "Yaaay... Can we go home now?" Ashton whined, his arms dropping limply.

The arrow struck Decimus's forehead at about the same time as Sparrow downed her last one and Rilien disemboweled the remaining antagonist. All those that remained were cowering at the corners, and one flinched noticeably when the Tranquil leveled a dead-eyed stare at him. That was largely a normal occurrence, however, and he paid it no heed. His part of this enterprise was concluded, and frankly, it would have been impossible for him to care any less about what happened to the rest of them. For someone who had been a mage, their so-called plight was of precious little consequence to him, except as it occasionally pertained to what few people ever managed to bumble their way into mattering to him.

He picked up his discarded sleeve on the way back to the back of the ranks, using the deep red fabric to clean his knives before he resheathed them. Blood still dripped in rivulets down his bare arm, and he busied himself removing what chunks of stone he could from the wounds, tossing them onto the ground with apparent disregard for any pain it caused. There were still a few in there, and those would have to wait until he could make his way home and use a smaller instrument to dig them from his flesh. After that, it would be a simple matter of alcohol, bandages, and potions. It would not be the first time he'd gone through that particular routine, and it would doubtless not be the last.

"Not quite yet," Nostariel replied to Ashton. "We have to talk to the rest yet, and see if any more bloodshed might be avoided. I can take better care of that later, too," she added, noting the obvious fatigue under which he still operated. The Tranquil's bloody arm also concerned her, but it did not appear to be bothering him in the slightest, and she wasn't quite brave enough to ask him if he wanted any help. That left Sparrow, who looked fine, and the other mages, who were apparently looking upon them with more fear now that the violent among them were dead.

"Please," Nostariel entreated them, gripping her staff as firmly as she could muster and taking tentative steps forward, "do not be afraid. This is not what we intended, and a peaceful resolution to this affair is still possible." She shifted her posture just a little, so that the insignias of her station were easily-visible, and hopefully that would help. The Wardens were not harbingers of needless violence, and they were also not in the back pocket of the Chantry, which she hoped would lend her pleas some weight. "Ser Thrask of Kirkwall led us here to you. He wishes for you to return to the Circle, peacefully and without anymore needless death, but that window of opportunity will be brief." She waited then, for one of them to speak, or do anything at all, really.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The woman who had attempted to stop Decimus from attacking the group fell to her knees by his body now that the violently resisting mages had been dealt with. "You killed him!" she shouted, dismayed. "Oh, Decimus, you should have listened to me, love..." She gazed up at the four that had killed the blood mage. "Decimus gave us the courage to face the Templars. Without him, we would be prisoners still. He was our future... Until he came, we never thought to fight back. I told Decimus he was going too far, but he said it was the only way to protect us. To protect me." 

She stood, clearly desiring to look upon the maimed corpse no longer. "Please, we only want our freedom. Without your help, the Templars will execute us all for Decimus' crimes." 

Nostariel's expression tightened, the frown playing at the edges of her mouth and eyes clear evidence of her sympathy, though to the statement itself, she said nothing, at least not until the woman spoke her plea. At that, the elf shook her head, though whether this was from straightforward disagreement or resignation was not precisely clear. "Thrask will not. He sent us here to prevent just that, but you must understand something. He will not be alone for long, and if you are not with him when the others arrive, it... will not end well. Surely, you can see the need to protect yourselves from that. For the sake of those of you that still remain, please, return to the Circle." The words tasted bitterly on her tongue, and something in them weighed tangibly upon her, slumping her shoulders, but... she had seen too much of the world to believe that they were really better off just running away for the rest of their lives. The Circle was a cage, but compared to the fear and perpetual danger of an apostate's life, it was a gilded one. 

With their phylacteries still operational, they didn't stand a chance of remaining hidden for long, and then they really would be executed, or made Tranquil. The latter shouldn't be the case, but anyone with even a shred of realistic undersanding knew that what was supposed to be and what was differed substantially when mages and Templars were involved, and that went both ways.

“We must not.” Again, it was Sparrow who piped in, rolling her shoulders to rid herself of the growing cramps. She lowered her head when she caught sight of Ashton's appearance, blood welling down from his lips. It would do no one any good if they engaged another, tougher, foe in his state – not that she doubted his abilities, but he, for one, would not outright want to do battle with Templars. Her lip stiffened, and her posture straightened. “There has to be another way. Escape through another tunnel.” She added bitterly, whipping her head around to the other apostates. Hadn't they noticed a way out? Or was this cavern doomed to dead ends and disgusting smells? It was by the coast, wasn't it? She spread her hands out wide, then snapped them down. “Lie, or cheat if we must. Rilien can say that we've killed them. Slaughtered all of them because we had to. Thrask might be upset, but, but then they'll be able to go on their way. Leave the Free Marches and go to Ferelden – if not, expect injustice. You've committed crimes, and you're considered dangerous. They will kill you.”

Sparrow made a grunting noise, throwing her hands wide, as if to appease the Maker. She did not want to disobey her companion. She did not want to go against what she was saying. Hadn't Nostariel suffered at the hands of the Circle? But, because she'd been in one, did she think they would be merciful to their crimes? Not all Templars were as forgiving or compassionate as Thrask. There would be Templars within the Circles order who'd want to seek retribution, who'd pull on their own tethers to see these mages burn. Chains and cages were only so good if they were being compared to execution. If they hadn't a say in the matter, then wasn't this all pointless? “The Circle will not accept them anymore. They aren't runaway birds. They've killed Templars, Nos. We're leading them to the Gallows.” However metaphorical that might've been, Sparrow did not want to wring nooses around their necks. Had it been years prior to her arriving in Kirkwall, upon first meeting Rilien, then she would not have cared. Efficiency ran nearly as thick in her blood as it did in her Tranquilian companion. She'd spent years cultivating her nonchalance, her ability to walk away from the poorest souls when she might've been able to help; without a heavy heart. It's kept her alive thus far.

"Nostariel. Please..."

She was silent. She was smiling. 

"Yes," the mage woman said, clearly liking the sound of Sparrow's plan far more than Nostariel's, "We have found no other ways out of the cave apart from the way we came in, but if this Templar can be fooled, then lie to him, say you had to kill us all. You've enough blood on you to prove it. We can escape when they're gone. I hear there are places, outside the Free Marches, where the Templars are not so vigilant. With our phylacteries destroyed in our escape, we could make a go of it." 

She took on a different look then, a hardness in her eyes that hadn't been there before. "If he can't be fooled... surely the death of one Templar is preferable than the deaths of so many mages. Kill him so that we can escape before the others arrive. Please, if you want to help us, then help us."

Rilien, entirely uninterested in the discussion taking place, stepped over several corpses and partial corpses to where Ashton was still half-laying on the ground. With his back turned to the rest of the group, it was safe to assume that the slight lift to his eyebrow was intended for the archer alone, as if to ask what he was doing wasting time on the ground when he was perfectly capable of standing. The Tranquil offered the archer his good arm and helped him pull himself to his feet, figuring that even if he didn't care a whit whether these mages or any Templars lived or died, the loudmouthed hunter was bound to have an opinion of some sort. Furthermore, he wasn't a complete idiot, so it might actually be a worthwhile one, which was clearly not a guarantee where some of these mages were concerned.

Nostariel, meanwhile, had been about to say something to Sparrow when the woman spoke. The Warden's was not a face that appeared as if it could host any expression describable as 'thunderous,' but it soon became clear that appearances were misleading. Her stare matched and surpassed the tattooed woman's in its coldness, and for once, it wasn't hard to guess that Nostariel's favored element was ice. The bladed end of her staff slammed into the ground with uncharacteristic force, and she straightened, every line betraying her utter disgust. "How dare you," she hissed, tones low and glacial. It might have been the imagination, but the temperature in her immediate proximity seemed to drop by a good ten or so degrees, her irises hardening to chips of frost set into a stern face. 

"I understand what it is to feel trapped, but that does not excuse the very suggestion that we murder the man who called us, strangers to him and people far outside of the Circle, for the express purpose of saving your lives. How dare you suggest that his life is so insignificant. He is exactly what the Circle needs, and exactly the reason you will not be killed. Just how do you think he found you at all? Your phylacteries were saved from the Circle you burned. If not him, another Templar will find you, and you would be lucky indeed if that one is half as merciful as Ser Thrask. If you want the attitude the world has toward us to change, then you must be better than this. Better than his blood magic, and much better than the idea that the death of a good man means nothing. I will not lie for you, and I will definitely not murder for you. How you choose to take that is a measure of your own character." She left it unsaid that she already found it to be wanting. That much was clearly obvious.

Ashton accepted Rilien's hand with a nod of approval and thanks, before he put his hand on his back and thrusted, popping a number of bones. Now that Nostariel's magic had enough time to sink in, he was feeling better, if tired. That and the left over blood from his internal wounds was still clogging up his breathing and such. In the long run though, he'll be fine. He patted Rilien's shoulder for an extra show of thanks and then approached the brewing storm that was Sparrow, Nostariel, and the mages. If only he truly knew the depth of the murky waters he was wading in to. Or perhaps he did, and just didn't care or understood. He knew, a blow like that could scramble even the sanest minds, and Ashton's wasn't the sanist to begin with.

"Yeah, we're definitely not going to kill Thrask," Ashton backed Nostariel up, [/color]"Templar or not, he's too good a man to just off like that. So now that that option's off the table,"[/color] he mimed the action of cleaning off a table, "That leaves either letting them go, or bringing them back to the Circle," Now that the options were stated, next came the muddy job of siding on one. Great. Just what he woke up wanting to do today, side on the matters of mages. He pinched the bridge of his nose, still totally unaware of the drying streak of blood dribbling down the corner of his mouth. It gave him a rather serious appearance, more serious than he'd like.

"My kneejerk reaction tells me to let 'em go," Ashton said, again mimicking the kneejerking part. "Though considering that their leader had just tried to kill us and they already show no qualms about killing to get what they want... Maybe the best route is the Circle after all," Ashton said, offering an apologetic look for Sparrow. "Who's to say that they just won't cause more trouble, attack more Templars if we just let them go. Though the lot are machines, some do have hearts inside that armor like Thrask. Some are good people. And who's to say that they won't kill more good people just to keep their freedom?" Ashton said, clearly not enjoying the words coming off of his tongue. "At least it's safe there," He finished, rubbing his head. Then he shrugged, turned his back on the whole quarrel and went to stand beside Rilien. The Tranquil had the right idea.

"I don't care what either of you decide. I've said my piece. I'm not a mage, so I can't pretend this gobble-gook applies to me, do what you will and I'll be right behind you," Ashton said, settling in beside Rilien. "Besides, I just really want to go home now," he murmurred.

Oh great, now the mage was insinuating that Sparrow was on board with killing everyone else in her path to free them. That wasn't what she had in mind, after all. Her doubts about Thrask's ingenuity had been cleared as soon as she'd met him, for he could've taken a different route if he'd wanted the runaway apostates slaughtered. Whatever qualms she possessed against Templars could be momentarily set aside. She wouldn't kill Thrask just because she was asked to. The other Templars were an entirely different matter because they carried chains, false promises, and a nasty tendency to provoke their captives into coercive, inappropriate knee-jerks. Such things could be easily dealt with their blades because the mages were simply too dangerous to bring back to the Circle. If they walked away, and then the Templars rounded the corner to do away with them, without Thrask to oversee their journey, they wasn't it the same thing as signing their death sentences. This would be difficult.

She was slightly taken aback when Nostariel slammed her staff in the ground, galvanizing with unadulterated anger. Nearly bristling and bursting at the seams – if she were that little mage, however beautifulNostariel might've been while staring her down, she would've been shaking in her boots, as well. If she were in the mage's position, fighting for her own freedom, and if she was backed into a corner, then wouldn't she, too, want to kill everyone trying to strip her of her freedoms? She knew she would. Even if it meant destroying someone innocent like Thrask. They didn't honestly know who this Thrask was. He was just another Templar idling outside, waiting for them to convince the mages to lower their weapons and give up before they faced inevitable execution at the hands of more Templars. However stifling, and utterly frigid, Nostariel's disgust was, Sparrow couldn't help feel her heart go out to them, fluttering from her fingertips like two flighty things searching for another, much more pleasant way to end this. They wanted to live freely, much like she did. Would Nostariel have denied her if she had known what she was willing to do in the face of imprisonment?

Sparrow abruptly whipped forward, grabbing a handful of the apostate's robes before shaking her wildly, drawing her near so that she could look her in the eyes. Two pieces of flint meeting rusted copper, dark and darker. “Don't mince my words. Just because I don't want your sorry carcass to rot in the Circle, doesn't mean that we're dirty mercenaries willing to swing our swords around for just anyone. If it hadn't been for Thrask, then we'd be stumbling onto a pile of ash and bones, remember that.” She did not relinquish her grip, only tightened and spun her around to face her companions, her terrified fledgelings that had been lugged along with them. They clung to each other, as if letting go would mean they'd fall. They'd stumble, they'd be finished. Some of them might have had hands as bloody and stained as their leader, Decimus, but some even still might have been entirely innocent in any acts they partook in as they absconded from their Circle, only faltering when it came to the aspect of freedom, fleeing along with the rest of them. They would suffer. She looked at Nostariel, then to Ashton. Her tongue tied into knots, stuck to the back of her teeth to keep herself from saying things they wouldn't want to hear. She eyed the smear of blood on Ashton's lips. He should not have to suffer her pride.

“Condemn them all for the possible actions of a few?” It sounded familiar enough. Her argument was weakening already, like wobbling knees ready to buckle. Sparrow's grip loosened, allowing the material to slither away from her fingers. But, still, her heart felt heavy. It settle down to her heels like silt in the ocean, and no amount of well-wishing could dilute the impending shame. She might have hated blood mages for what they'd done to her, bringing a demon into her mindscape (even if it had been her own doing) but she felt disgusted at the very idea of marching a troupe of runaway mages into their grimy hands. She knuckled her eyelids, averting the sigh bubbling in her throat. “If you think this is right.” It was fine. Let them be done with it. She would drink for them later.

The mage seemed defeated. They certainly would not kill Thrask, and the Warden would put an end to any attempts to lie to him, which had been slim at best. Templars were easier to kill than fool, after all, that she knew. When faced with the choice between the Circle and death, Decimus had chosen death. But she... could not do it. She couldn't make the others do it. "You've made your point," she gave in. "I won't have all of us die down here in this cave. We'll go back to the Circle." 

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Act of Mercy has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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It was perhaps the strangest assortment of individuals Varric Tethras had ever seen in one room. He wouldn't have had it any other way. Off to the side there was sulking Dalish elf Ithilian who he'd tricked into coming, something about a mandatory information session for all the hirelings on the expedition. They had a Tranquil in the room of all things, someone Varric was very interested in seeing after a few mugs of ale. There was the Warden, a regular to the Hanged Man and a friend of his at this point, he felt he could call her such. The lanky hunter Varric had gotten to invest and come along was present... perhaps the most normal of the bunch, which definitely said something about them. Near Nostariel was the redheaded girl Varric had seen in here a few times now, who he always sent a friendly smile, and there was Sparrow as well, who Varric was also familiar with to an extent. Standing over the rest a ways was the mercenary Lucien whom Varric was very glad to have along, for his obvious size and skill. Then there was the two other human women, the one with the mismatched eyes whom Varric actually wasn't sure he'd seen in the tavern before, a Qunari as he'd heard... and to top it all off, the Viscount's daughter herself was in attendance, the increasingly famous Sophia Dumar. Not to mention all the other, less notable hirelings the Tehtras brothers had paid for. In all, the Hanged Man was pretty much packed tonight.

He'd have to have an utter moron not to see that there was tension between some of them; such personalities as their were bound to clash once in a while. It was, of course, none of his business so long as it didn't drag down he and his brother's expedition. Speaking of the devil, Bartrand was nowhere to be found, no doubt stressing over their finances yet again, which Varric had already assured him were in order, to no avail. It was good that he wasn't here, Bartrand had never been good for the life of a party anyway. Considering that their party was already consisting of a Tranquil, the angriest elf he'd ever met, a Qunari, and Nostariel, who he wasn't sure had ever had a drink to celebrate something. Well, there was a first time for everything, wasn't there?

Once the storyteller had their attention, he smiled broadly, situated near the top of the stairs that led to the rooms behind the tavern. "Thank you all for coming and celebrating the fact that when next we drink here, we'll all be filthy rich!" A general cheer went up from the crowd of hirelings, though notably more than one of the more interesting ones didn't react so cheerily. Tough crowd. "Tomorrow we'll be setting out for the Deep Roads. Our destination has been picked out carefully, due to the most helpful maps the dear Warden Nostariel Turtega provided me with," he said, bowing his thanks to her before continuing, "but that's for the next day. Tonight is for celebrating the wealth on our horizons! The drinks are all on Varric Tethras tonight! Enjoy!" The cheer that got was just as loud, and with that, the hirelings got to work.




If there was one thing Ithilian didn't like, it was being lied to, and Varric Tethras had lied to him.

Well, alright, there were quite a few other things Ithilian disliked just as much as being lied to, and to be honest, he'd wanted to get out of the Alienage anyway. His first choice of destination wouldn't have been the Hanged Man on what was undoubtedly its most crowded night of the year, however. The forest would have served better. Less... people, less shemlen. He was getting looks already, hirelings staring at the currently uncovered pair of scars that ran from the right side of his forehead, through his right eye, and all the way down past the corner of his mouth to his chin. At the vallaslin etched into the skin of his neck and shoulder, the long knives sheathed at his belt. His bow was absent if only because it was uncomfortable to sit with, and the tactical value of a longbow in a crowded tavern was limited.

It was an interesting gathering of people here. He'd convinced Amalia to come along if only to prevent him from being completely alone among the shem, an argument he hadn't actually expected to work. There was still the matter of whatever she was planning on giving him, though. The elven Warden Nostariel was here, apparently a key piece of the expedition. He couldn't be sure, but she looked somewhat... different. No doubt she would be surprised to hear he would be joining them on their trip underground, but then again, she understood Ithilian about as much as he understood her. That was to say not very much. They were elves from two very different worlds, and each had never really had a chance to live the other's.

The human apostate that was Amalia's pupil was here, as was the shem that he'd run into in the woods with Lia. For his sake, he hoped he kept his distance, lest his mouth get him into trouble yet again. Ithilian was aware that he would be coming along on the Expedition. He was also aware that jobs could often be completed without speaking. Among the others, the half-breed elf was about somewhere, as was the len'alas, the noble who knew so little of the people she sat atop. Ithilian doubted he would need to try very hard to keep his distance from her.

Amalia had been near him, and so he turned to her. "I'm going to need a drink or ten to get through this." He immediately put his plan into action, pushing his way to the bar to acquire a mug of ale, before retreating back away from the tightest concentration of people and finding his way towards a corner table, dropping rather heavily into a chair and getting to work on the ale. A foul taste, but it would do the trick, surely.

When Ithilian had appeared in front of her that afternoon, she had not expected this. In fact, it was probably safe to say that, the truly absurd possibilities excepted, this was the last place she would have expected him to go, much less with her in tow. It was loud beyond all good sense, smelled like stale... something, and was presently packed to capacity with exactly the kinds of people she was fairly sure he hated the most. Which was to say, boisterous, careless, half-drunk humans. Which in turn was perhaps why the comment went unanswered and she moved over to his table without a word, seating herself with her back to the wall. Qunari did not imbibe except ceremonially, and she was not about to taint her body and mind both with whatever they served here, so she ignored the possibility of ordering anything and instead reached into the smallish rucksack beside her, withdrawing a bundle wrapped in burlap and string.

It was probably best to give it to him now, while there was still no danger of someone accidentally cutting themselves. What happened on purpose was hardly her concern. There was a hilt quite visibly protruding from the wrapping, itself wound with a mixture of a fine silver wiring and black leather cord. She tugged at the twine, unwrapping the parcel and setting it on the table between them. "It was to be one of two, but time was short. I had it enchanted to burn at will." In sharp contrast to the dark hilt, the blade itself was stark white, fitting since it was constructed primarily of the bones of a dragon, reinforced with the Tranquil's lyrium. She'd managed to get ahold of a Dalish dagger for comparison, and had constructed it to have a similar shape and heft. Something was carved into the base of it, a few terse lines of the peculiar Qunlat script.

"It's yours, if you want it."

Ithilian was vaguely aware that he was currently imitating the posture he'd seen Nostariel hold while in the Hanged Man; he held his mug in both hands, leaning relatively forward against the table for support, head angled above the cup's rim so as to limit vision to only the contents. His one remaining eye he kept more or less fixed on the tabletop, where eventually he was able to see Amalia's hands presenting him with the gift she had planned. Deciding he'd certainly not had enough ale as of yet, he downright gulped the remainder of the first mug, turned his head and burped, and then signaled for another, which he began to work on as well.

It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, that much was certain. Surely on par with Dalish work, and better than most everything he could find in the rest of this city. He recognized the dragonbone, though it looked little like what he had seen the day he'd put out its eye and len'alas had cut it open from beneath. Like the dragon it would burn... he took his right hand off the mug and grasped the hilt, pulling it towards him. He tested the weight, the balance. It felt much like the blades he'd used all his life, though most of those had been borne of ironbark and not dragonbone.

Examining the weapon closer, he spotted the small carvings, in the Qunari tongue, of which he was not familiar. "What does it say?" he asked. He expected the choice of words to be few, and to have far greater meaning than was obvious.

"Parshaara.," Amalia replied. "For the Qunari, it is customary for the craftsperson to name the weapon. It is her way of imparting it with an intention, a purpose, which the wielder may choose to interpret as he likes. It means 'enough.'" She had considered naming it many different things. Shok, Kata, even Ataashi, which would have been unusually literal. But in the end, she had settled on this. "Of course, it need not be of concern to you if you are otherwise inclined. You may call it as you wish." Crossing one leg over the other, she folded her arms as well and leaned until her back hit the wall, ignoring entirely the noisy surroundings. As mental exercises went, it was not a particularly difficult one.

Enough. He looked at the etched letters and said the word in his mind. Ithilian then smiled. He leaned back away from the table, ran his left hand through his mess of hair, and smiled. It was a rather hideous thing, the scars cutting through his mouth preventing the right side from smiling as the left did, giving his face a mismatched appearance, the left side smiling, the right side appearing as it always did: maimed, immovable.

Enough. There were two possibilities: either Amalia could not for once see through him, could not understand the thoughts he tried to forcibly remove from his head every day as he rose from his bed and stepped into the dusty, smoky air of the Alienage... or she understood him perfectly. He doubted the latter, as the number of people he felt had truly understood him could be easily counted on one hand. The number of those people that were still living could be counted by a man with no hands.

He looked at the blade again, tested different grips. Unlike Amalia, he knew not how to drown the chaos of his surroundings with naught but his mind. Alcohol was all he had for that, and so he drank deeply once more, slapping the mug back down to the table and shaking his head when he could take no more in one go. His smile had gone by this point, and he took a brief moment to try and counter the already building headache, closing his eye and taking his head in his free hand, massaging the temples. Enough.

"I can't take this," he murmured, placing the blade back on the table, pushing it slowly back in Amalia's direction. He removed his hand from it, and took another long, deep drink. At this point, it was fairly obvious that he was making a conscious effort to not look at her, as his eyes had remained either at his drink, on the blade, or closed, since she had taken a seat at his table. "It's fine work, fine as any Dalish smith. You'll have more use for it than I will at this point, anyway." He went to take another drink, only to find that he was empty once more. "Shem! Another."

He may have been avoiding eye contact, but there was no mistake that Amalia's eyes were practically boring holes in the side of his head. She made no move to take the blade, nor to do anything else. In fact, for a few moments, it seemed that she might be content to simply sit there and behave as though he still hadn't spoken. Such was not the case, however: a Qunari could selectively ignore many things, she better than most. This was not one of those things. She took the more circuitous route to her point, however. "I will not. Only weapons intended for warriors are named. I could not use it, and it was not given that title for my benefit." She paused, pulling her braid over her shoulder to ease the discomfort of leaning.

"If it does not find its purpose by your hand, it will find none at all, and then it will be merely one more piece of refuse. That is the very nature of it." The obvious question, and the one she deliberately did not ask was why he was refusing. This was partially because she felt she might just understand the reason, and so it simply made more sense to skip to the part where she implied quite heavily that she thought the reason was inadequate. "The choice is yours." Truthfully, what he'd just done was rather insulting to her, but that was not the way it was intended, and she could not expect that Ithilian would understand that. For all that she called him Sataareth, he was not Qunari. This was something that she occasionally managed to forget.

She had given of her time and the labor of her hands to produce something, intended solely for his use. His refusal was tatamount to the invalidation of that effort, because it could not go to another. Unlike a tool she might craft for herself, or for Aurora, that was actually a hard-and-fast rule. She had offered a piece of her culture, and of herself, but perhaps she had offered too much. If anyone beyond the bounds of the Qun could understand or deserve that, she knew it was him. But perhaps it was simply the case that none could.

"The Dread Wolf can take its purpose," he spat, before drinking again. "I am no Qunari, I am no Sataareth, and my choice is to say that I have had enough." He shook slightly in his seat, his hand wavering as he wiped sweat from his brow. He was fully aware that he was being unfair and downright rude, but due to either the ale or the anguish, he didn't care.

He was quiet for some time, the voices and the noises and the madness swirling about him like a horde of darkspawn hounding him through the woods. "I'm not coming back," he at last admitted, still refusing to meet her eyes. "I'm taking the gold from this job and leaving. I don't know where I'm going, and I don't care. It will be far away from here." He sat back, his back thudding tiredly against the rear of the chair, and he sighed before taking another long drink. "You may watch over mine as if they were yours if you feel it is part of your role," he said, the last word falling slowly off his tongue. "I have had enough for one life."

"No," she agreed, "You are certainly no Qunari." The words were quiet, but they managed to sound more like an insult than any that had ever passed between them. "You are a coward." Gritting her teeth, Amalia uncrossed her legs and leaned forward even as he leaned back. "You haven't had enough, you simply believe that you'll never be enough, and with such fearful words, you make yourself right." She shook her head, a muscle in her jaw ticking. "If these are your colors, than I have made a grave error in judgement." Reaching across the table, Amalia took up the knife, examining it with an air of what seemed like intense concentration.

"But I do not think I have, even now. Not once. I name you Sataareth, one who is a foundation, a defender. I name you Basalit-an, an outsider worthy of the respect of all Qunari. From my soul to yours, I give Parshaara, and in doing so, I tell you that I believe otherwise, that what you are is enough. If you cannot believe yourself, you may believe me in the meantime." With an abrupt motion, she flipped the knife and brought her arm down hard, stabbing the weapon into the table with a solid thunk and a clatter of tableware. "Go on your expedition, take your coin, and then decide if that is really enough. If you can really leave them to their fate and run from it yourself. If the things they say about your people, that they are weak, worthy only of yesterday and not tomorrow, are true of they and you alike. If they are, do not return, and I will know." She stood, glaring at him and quite clearly exerting effort to remain as composed as she was.

"I will watch over them because I want to, but I am not you, and I will not be enough." Without so much as a farewell, Amalia turned on her heel, ducking in and out of the crowd with the expertise of long practice, and found her way to the door.

He didn't watch her go, nor did he react overmuch as she spoke. Ithilian just stared at the dagger she'd plunged into the table, watching it sway slightly in his vision. In a better state of mind, he might have realized the honor she had given him, realized the significance of the gift, the weapon made for him and him alone. But he wasn't in a good state of mind, and all he could think of was how there was nothing left for him to defend, how the respect of all the Qunari in the world couldn't change what was done, and wouldn't help him take anything back.

He didn't know Amalia, not really. He didn't know her past, he didn't know if she had endured what he had, and if she simply was stronger than him, better than him, more than him. But as he sat with his head swimming in a storm of noise, the dragonbone dagger serving as his anchor, all he could think about was a forest on fire behind him, and a people around him that could run no longer. He could only think about those he had grown up with and fought alongside as they were cut down or dragged off. His world fell away bit by bit, piece by piece broken off from the whole. His sa'lath they dragged off in the night when their legs could carry them no further, her screams the only thing that woke him. Trying to explain to his da'vhenan what had happened, why she was simply gone in the morning.

One by one they disappeared. The horde, the fires, the Taint, one by one they fell while shemlen nobles betrayed and murdered one another for the chance to rule the land once they were gone. They fought civil war while Ithilian drove a knife into his eleven year old da'vhenan as a mercy, for the Taint had claimed her by then. And when only his legs remained, somehow they carried him further, they carried him through, and away.

The merest spark of that memory in the form of a little girl that did not and would not belong to him had been sufficient to cut the last thread he hung by. Whatever force had guided him out of that forest, bleeding and delirious, while every last one of his kin was slaughtered, he cursed. So while he did not know Amalia's past, he did know what he felt, and he felt like enough was enough. He couldn't see the knife very much anymore...

But when Ithilian left the Hanged Man, it was no longer stuck into the table.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Nostariel was smiling as her friend the dwarf delivered his speech, so very typical of Varric it was. She leaned her chin on one hand, resting her elbow on the table, the fingers of the other curled loosely around the handle of her tankard. For once, she wasn't clutching it as though her life depended on whatever could be found within, and though there was still a tightness in her chest, it was for the moment banished by the lightness of the atmosphere. So many familiar faces crowded the tavern, and somehow it was reminding her that even if everything had been lost to her- thrice, in fact- there was still more to be found. It was... nice, and she nodded graciously at the mention of her name, mirth dancing lightly behind her eyes. No, the Deep Roads were not exactly where she wanted to be, but surely these were the most bearable circumstances for her return.

The partygoers slowly split off into groups, but Nostariel, perpetual wallflower that she was, remained in her seat. Conveniently enough, she was nearby Aurora, with whom she had not spoken in a while. "Good evening, Aurora. It's good to see you." Those words, usually relegated to the realm of mere small talk, carried something of an extra meaning when the person you were speaking to was an apostate. I can see you, which means you're still safe. It might have seemed hypocritical of Nostariel to insist that Grace and her companions return to the Circle while never even hinting that it was the good thing for Aurora to do, but she had her reasons. Aurora possessed a certain strength of character that was absent in the others, and that was just a fact.

"What have you been up to these days?"

Aurora smiled at the question. What had she been up to? Frankly, a lot. A whole lot. Something that maybe one night wouldn't be enough to cover it. Though, she'd have to try her best to do it. Good news though, that Nostariel was in her usual place that night. As was Lucien it appeared, whom she nodded to. Surprisingly Amalia was even there. Even more surprising, Ithilian was with her. She took a seat at Nostariel's table and shrugged, wondering where to begin. "I would say the usual, but we both know that would be a lie," she said, crossing her arms, a smile on her lips. The days were trying, yes, but after every ordeal she felt as if she'd grown a little. Or perhaps that was the optimism talking. It sounded a lot better than getting nothing but a head ache out of the ordeal.

"Let's see... Noble asses, Qunari, Qunari mages, bandits, thugs, homesickness and even a pride demon. Where do you even begin?" That was without mentioning the soul searching she'd been doing recently, though that was a private matter. An ongoing private matter at that. Her head bobbed with a stifled laugh, as from her mouth it sounded like it was an exciting life. A lot more than a trader's daughter from a coastal town ever expected at anyway. Though she waved all of that away as if it was really no big deal. "Never a dull moment, it feels like. Someone somewhere always needs help, and it's never as easy as you'd expect."

"How about you? Do anything special lately?" Aurora asked, continuing the small talk.

"It seems quite the list," the Warden replied, though perhaps not with the amazement it was really due. To be fair, she hadn't exactly been resting on her laurels, either, and perhaps people like them were just meant to be doing things. Taking a draught from her tankard, Nostariel considered how best to explain it, then shrugged and gave a smile. "I had a run-in with the Qunari, too, but mostly the Tal-Vashoth. Oh, but I did meet the Arishok. A rather intimidating fellow, I must say. Other than that... greedy dwarven merchants, Templars, mages, and expeditions, mostly."

The Warden shook her head, dislodging a small braid from behind her ear. Folding it back, she offered a hypothesis. "I'm beginning to think there's much more to this place than I'd thought. I've met some... interesting people, too," she said, glancing over at Rilien and Lucien, then Ashton and Sparrow. Sophia was around somewhere, too, she was fairly sure, and she had thought Ithilian and Amalia were present, though she could not spot them now.

"Interesting is the polite word," Aurora agreed, her own glance following Nostariel's to the Tranquil and the Chevalier. A pang of remembrance struck her at the appearance of Lucien, but the feeling was caught like a piece of paper just floating away, where she then folded it and stored away to be read later. Tonight was a mood of happiness and joy, not melancholy. She wouldn't be the one to sour the mood with such doubts or thoughts. Instead of lingering on Lucien, her gaze shifted to Sparrow and the lanky man that he was with. Both of them seemed happy, joyful, crazy almost. It was infectious and made her laugh. That was better. She had also seen Ithilian and Amalia, and though she saw Amalia leave earlier, she couldn't say the same for the elf, the slippery one he was.

"I think you're right. There is something more to this place. It's... Something else. There's been a lot more... Soul searching and learning that I imagined when I got here.... When I got here, that seems so long ago now," Aurora chuckled before her eyes went alight with realization, "Oh! I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to listen to me drone on like that," she finished.

Nostariel waved a hand back and forth in front of her face, a curious little affectation that she'd picked up from a comrade, some years ago. "No need for apologies. This is a bar. When you're not drinking and making merry like a fool, you're talking about things that you probably shouldn't. It's just the atmosphere." She followed the directionality of Aurora's glance, and again when it switched. "I think some of those interesting people might be mutual acquaintances. I'd be surprised, but this is Kirkwall, city of chains. It seems fitting that we bind ourselves together, does it not?"

The Warden didn't seem saddened by this; on the contrary, she was regarding the others with a mix of gentle affection and slight wonderment. She couldn't say that she had much in common with most of them, but then, having too many things in common with herself was not something she'd wish on any of them. She'd not have picked Lucien and Rilien to know one another, but the Chevalier looked at ease, and the Tranquil seemed less... wooden than usual. Even if she hadn't already known Sparrow and Ashton were friends, she would have definitely picked that one. Their effusive demeanors and common love of fun were similar in the best of ways, and she imagined they got on like two peas in a pod, or however that colloquialism was supposed to go.




"I'm telling you Sparrow, if this expedition goes well, I'm going to be filthy rich. Like, swimming in gold rich," Ashton not-so-subtly exaggerated. He wouldn't be swimming in a bath full of gold anytime soon, but if it was successful, then he wouldn't have to worry about money for a while, at least. He tried to not think about what would happen if the venture wasn't successful. That was a lot more depressing than he could handle at the moment. He could possibly lose his shop, his home, and everything he worked for. Hell, Rilien might even find that he has another stowaway if the thing doesn't pan out. Maybe that's why he was nose deep in whatever swill the Hanged Man slung. If the fact that he was draped over Sparrow's shoulder was any indication, he already had a good start.

He had ran by Sparrow's-- Rilien's hovel earlier and collected the lass with promises of good will, cheer, mirth, and as much ale as she could hold without dying. Before he told her was the celebrations were for. He had told her that he was going on an expedition to the Deep Roads to find his fortune, and he tried to entice her to come along. A lot of words were slung, gold, adventure, fun, adventure, danger, and most importantly adventure. Ashton liked to think he was very persuasive when he needed to be... Besides, he felt like he needed to take Sparrow to the Hanged Man. There was the promise to Rilien he had to fulfill. Well, while not directly stated, it was an understanding for him. He'd watch out for Sparrow as well. For some reason, he felt like... He was partially to blame for her predictament.

Now was not the time for such dour outlooks though. It was a party! One Ashton fully intended to enjoy. There were a lot of people in the bar again, though this time there were a lot of familar faces as well. Nostariel in her corner-- he had offered her a wave and a wink upon his entrance, Rilien, who was playing his role as a bard very well, the mercenary Lucien, Sparrow's friend Amalia, and even Ithilian. He made note to stay a ways from the man at all times. It would sour the mood if he managed to get stabbed after all. Besides, as he understood, the man was tagging along on the expedition as well... So that left plenty of time for his eventual stabbing. He turned his gaze back around to the bar and finally unlatched his arm from around Sparrow's neck. He raised his tankard to her and offered a toast.

"To fun and adventure, wherever we can find it!"

Ashton couldn't have gone to a more willing participant in his endeavours. Like the flighty bird she was, clicking her metaphorical talons across the prospects of filling her pockets with coins (if her companion didn't dump her share into a massive tub to swim in), Sparrow was all but entirely apt to listen to his tantalizing pitch, nearly frothing at the mouth if it hadn't been for the goblet already occupying that area. She swilled the mucky-looking ale in her mouth, swallowed, then slapped her goblet back across the table, splattering it's contents. With a least a small portion of those savings, she'd be able to drink at more reputable locations until she gambled it all away – though, she really didn't mind going to the Hanged Man because there were less chances of bumping into wayward Templars. Her eyebrows raised ardently, as if in wait for more incentives. He'd already secured her attention, hook, line and sinker. It was amusing to play off that she wasn't actually interested, toying with the rim of her goblet before nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders, laden with Ashton's arm. Still, it was her giddiness that won her over and she seemed as excited as her friend was.

“Alright, alright. Let me get this straight.” She began softly, clicking her tongue. She moved several coins, in the effort of exhibiting each party-member, pushed beneath her fingertips, and dragged them forward. She made a tunnel with her free hand. “We're all going to the Deep Roads, where there'll be nasty Darkspawn and who-knows-what-else to get filthy stinking rich. Is there a chamber of gold down there I wasn't aware of, or do we have to dig through stomachs like we're panhandling?” Sparrow mimicked holding a pan, shaking it up, then threw her hands to the sides as if gold was raining down on them. She'd certainly picked up his habit of being overly dramatic, pantomiming each ridiculous sentence as if it were happening right that instant. Did he not forget what said Darkspawn carried on them? She, too, was not of the Grey Wardens. They would have to tread carefully and avoid having the creatures blood splatter on them if they encountered them. She did not know much about them, but she did know that they were horrid things capable of overcoming the most plucky adventurers. “If you're going filthy rich, then you best remember me when I save you from getting eaten down there.”

It was strange how full the tavern seemed at that time, as if her past, present and future had all collided into one inseparable thing. She, too, had offered a much meeker greeting to Nostariel, who was sitting in her own corner – one that she'd shared on many occasions, when things like mages and politics and all of that hadn't even been touched on. She still felt a small pang of guilt for trying to supersede her intentions. Immediately following that little adventure, she'd drunk herself silly in the Hanged Man, only to be bodily assisted, nearly hauled, home by her all-knowing Tranquil-friend. She noticed Amalia and Ithilian conversing a couple tables away. Sparrow's shoulders straightened, then hunched forward. The subtle weight of gravity, of all the things she wanted to talk about, weighed her down. Her friends nonattendance in Darktown had meant the obvious. She hadn't wanted to visit, or at least, not anytime soon. Rilien, as ever, was in the background. She would always recognize his voice.

Sparrow laughed loudly, broadly, and raised her goblet alongside his own. “To following good friends into the darkness!”

Ashton banged his tankard with Sparrow's goblet and downed the liquid in one fell gulp. It was better that way, he didn't have to taste the bitter liquid snaking it's way down his gullet. He slammed the tankard on the bar and belched, followed closely by a fit of giggling. "You can panhandle through their guts, I fully intend to keep my distance. I had to leave Ferelden because of the ugly bastards," he said, the alcohol in his blood beginning to take effect. He chuckled at the thought and brought his fingers to his mouth, mocking the fangs he believed the things had. Another fit of giggling had him leaning over the bar, unable to suck the air back into his lungs. As soon as the fit passed and he brushed the tears back he nodded and continued, "Still, I fully believe that there are riches untold in those dank tunnels," he said, placing his arm around Sparrow and waved the other in front of him, trying his best to paint the picture for them.

"You know how greedy the dwarves are? They'd rather cut you than give you your winnings in a card game. Now, imagine that, but hundreds of them. Now imagine all of those dwarves-- hold your nose though, I can't imagine that many beards in one place would smell nice-- now imagine all of them in one place. Now imagine all of their riches in that place. I'd be surprise if we don't get a tub full of soveriegns each," of course, the other option would leave him broke and most likely homeless. "That being said, I fully intend to not get eaten," he added, wagging a finger in front of Sparrow's face. "It'd be hard to spend my share of the money when I'm dead after all. Besides, I don't intend to give them the chance to gnaw on my legs. Pew, pew, pew," He mimicked the action of firing off a bow. "It's you that should remember me after I save your butt," Ashton said, poking her in the collarbone.

He took another dangerously large gulp from his fresh tankard before turning around at the bar and beholding what was happening around him. Good news, Ithilian didn't seem to be around any more, so his chances of getting stabbed were drastically reduced. Rilien and his Chevalier friend seemed to be making friends of the female variety. That would have been considered strange if Ashton had the brain cells to devote to the thought. Even Nostariel seemed to have a friend with her... Another lady. He waved to the table for a second as the gears began to turn in his head. Once again, his arm found itself horse-collaring Sparrow, his other hand gripping his tankard. "Come Sparrow, there are pretty ladies that need our company," he said, dragging Sparrow to Nostariel's table.

As he passed Rilien and his friends, he whistled recognition at him and held up his tankard.

The resounding clang of their swill-filled concoctions rattled through her head like a wobbly tambourine, though she still brought the goblet to her lips, tipping her head back to guzzle whatever she had left. Anyone who knew better, and who'd been frequenting the Hanged Man for any amount of time, would know that it was best to finish your drinks quickly, rather than savour the dirty-sock, spicy-whatever they managed to squeeze in underneath the counter. She did not belch, but she knuckled her sternum, squinting her eyes as if that particular gulp had pained her, then laughed. His laughter was contagious. She'd always been a heavy drinker, knocking back whatever-she-could-get-her-hands on with anyone willing to suffer her company, if only for a few hours before her companions were very much inebriated and desperately trying to claw themselves from under the stools. The only one who didn't seem to be entirely affected was Rilien. She does not drink for absolution, for the hopeless effort of forgetting all she's done or all that's happened to her, like Nostariel, but she still understands the enigmatic pull of momentary drawing a blank. She didn't drink like that, at least, anymore.

She knuckled her eye-socket, then threw them out wide, hooking her arms behind her chair. “Then you've already seen the blighters. I've no wish to dance with them. No thanks, no thanks. I'll be keeping my hands safely on my lady at all times.” Sparrow waggled her fingertips upwards, as if she were plucking them from a Darkspawn's stomach, then she settled them gingerly across her maces length, secured at her waistline. She, too, would be staying far away from those disgusting wretches, all pointy needle-teeth and flaps composed of boils. Unlike Ashton, or their pretty little Grey Warden, she'd never really seen any of them up close and personal and she did not wish to – they were frightening enough in stories, even the monochrome, colourless tales the Qunari had told her as a fledgeling: of what they were capable of doing. Her chuckles sifted into hardly-contained chortles, eyebrows arched incredulously at her companions efforts to try and describe how, exactly, the Darkspawn looked. Now, whenever she'd imagine those wretches, she'd think of several Ashton's running about, fingers wriggling from his mouth, hissing. “Y'know, the smell alone is going to be worse than that little cave we took a stroll through. But, if you say so—”

Sparrow's head lilted to the side, as if she were actually analyzing the pretty picture her archer-friend was describing. Her free hand opened and closed across the counter like a reaching child until the barkeeper smiled, shaking his head, and refilled her empty goblet. Dwarves were pretty damn greedy. If any large assemblage of those stubby, bearded-folk were headed down into the Deep Roads, then there was most assuredly something to be found down there – even if they so chose not to share any information until they were good and already down there. It was a tantalizing prospect. Her mouth pursed, then broke into a wide, charmed grin. “A tub full of sovereigns.” Each syllable was tested on her tongue, stretched out into one sensual sentence. How could she turn this down, anyway? It didn't occur to her what would happen if they found nothing or if they somehow got trapped in some small pocket of the Deep Roads never to return again becausethere was a small, or grandiose chance, that they'd all walk out of there chirping a happy song with their pockets overflowing with gold bits and pieces.

“Ashton Rivera – mighty and powerful God-archer, stopping one cavalry charge at a time.”
She bustled loudly, announcing it to the rest of the nonplussed customers and trying her very best to imitate knocking a clumsy arrow with Ashton's arm wrestling around her neck. She felt a finger prod her collarbone, laughed again. In more ways than one, with he and Rilien both sharing her company, they'd already saved her countless times. Not that she'd ever say so.

She, too, gulped briskly from her goblet, leaning backwards so that Ashton didn't unintentionally drag her from her chair while gawking around the establishment. Sparrow seemed interested in what was happening a few tables over, occupied by Rilien and the familiar-looking knight she'd talked to for at least a few moments. What had been his name again? Er, Lucien. That was it. He'd been mighty proper. For some reason, it wasn't difficult to see how they knew each other, and how at ease they both seemed in each other's company. A small smile, conspiratorially tugged at her lips. She would need to ask Rilien about that someday, if he so chose to share any of his stories involving that particular gentleman. Then, Sparrow was nearly bodily drug away from her stool, though she had enough sense to grip her goblet all the tighter, allowing her legs to work underneath her. Pretty ladies – was certainly enough to coerce her cooperation. She, too, dipped her head at Rilien, offering no such whistling-greeting. She still mock-shivered beside Ashton, attempting to stifle a snorting-giggle at her Tranquil-friends refusal to respond to such a tittering reception. “Brrr, that was cold.”

Then, they were suddenly in front of Nostariel's table and the tickling warmth of alcohol had lent her enough strength to place her goblet on the table, with her hands immediately pressed against the wooden-knots winding across the surface. Her chest puffed inwards, then she leaned forward, far enough in order to not be too intrusive, but close enough so that she wasn't screeching her entire conversation across the Hanged Man. “Bella-luna. I never got the chance to apologize for stepping on your toes the last we were together and I thought I should, but I couldn't seem to find any time that wasn't just... out of place, and I—” The onrush of words, however breathy, slowed down when she noticed Aurora to the Grey Warden's right. Anyone with any sense would have known that the Hanged Man certainly was out of place for such a peculiar apology, “Think we should just start over.” This was, as always, accompanied by a sterling smile, and an animated movement that drug both she, and Ashton, into adjacent seats.

She tipped her head, then grinned. “It's mighty nice to see both of you.”

Apologies were always done best when they were accompanied by even more ale.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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Nostariel was only too happy to wave off Sparrow's apology and turn the conversation to happier things. Frankly, thinking about it right now was likely to give her a headache, and while unburdening herself on Ashton had doubtless helped, she still wasn't too comfortable lingering there. "Then start over we shall. Please, take a seat, both of you." From Sparrow's words, the Warden took it that he and Aurora were acquainted, but she wasn't sure if the same was true of the other two. So, feeling for once like a proper host or at least a proper friend, she made the introductions.

"Aurora, this is Messere Ashton Riviera, hunter and expedition investor." She'd intentionally paused just minutely between the man's first and family names, as if to tease him with the possibility of sliding Cuthbert in there somewhere. Still, private joke or not, she was as good as her word, and kept mum on the subject. "Ashton, this is Miss Aurora Rose, a friend of mine, if that's not too forward to say." Nostariel thought it was a bit appropriate, but then it'd been a while since she really had friends, so in a way, she wondered if it was maybe too much to hope for, that these people were her friends. "I see you managed to get your half a circus after all, Ashton." She hadn't been sure what he'd meant by that at the time, but now she could guess, and it didn't seem a bad choice to have made. Sparrow was boisterous and opinionated and a little bit lacking on social grace, but then, who among them wasn't at least a little like that? His mace was keen and his magic powerful, and she knew Varric certainly wouldn't care that he was an apostate. Not in the slightest.

"Messere Lord Ashton Riviera," he corrected, tongue firmly in cheek. His eyes went big at the pause between first and surname, as Cuthbert wasn't the most dashing of names. For it to be dropped in the midst of a lovely lady (and Sparrow), Ashton just didn't think his frail ol' heart could take it. Though the incident passed without calamity and he quickly regain his cheer, sliding a chair out and plopping himself in it. Harkening back to when he first met Nostariel, he took the redheaded girl's hand in his own, bowed slightly (as much as sitting in a chair would allow at any rate) and offered, "At your service Milady."

Aurora found this man to be... Rather forward. She twitched when he took her hand, though she was not so rude as to jerk it away. "Er... Right," she said, clearly suspect of the man. Surely the tankard in his hand had something to do with his brazen display. Though, if he was a friend of Nostariel's, then he couldn't be all bad, right? He finally allowed her hand to go and leaned back in his seat, allowing Aurora the chance to reply to Nostariel. "Not forward at all," she shook her head. They were friends after all, fighting through the underbelly of Dark Town looking for a wayward elf tends to do that to people... Though she couldn't say that she was really friends with Ithilian... Acquantiances, more like.

Still, she considered Sparrow a friend as well. Pride demons have the same aforementioned effect as well, as it turned out. "I take it that you know Nostariel as well," she said, the edge of her lips curling up. City of Chains indeed. "How has life been treating you, Sparrow?" she offered, much to the chuckling of the man beside him. Apparently, he was in on a joke that she was not, and caused her eyebrow to raise, though she did not venture to inquire what the punchline was.

The little blighter had already obliged Nostariel's invitation to seat herself. Even if she'd wanted her to mosey-on out the door, and away from her, it wasn't likely that she was willing to accept that suggestion. Sparrow, quite pleased that the conversation had taken a better turn, hooked her arms behind her chair, leaning backwards, as if she were some sort of lounging animal, of the feline variety. Her apology had been successful. She wouldn't have known what to do if Nostariel had openly rejected it – but, it might've involved heavy amounts of liquor and sulking until she finally crawled out of the Hanged Man. Her smile seemed shades brighter, though she'd been having a good time prior to wandering over. A slight burden, however light, had been lifted from her shoulders. Companions, it seemed, meant a lot more to her than they ever did – she wanted to keep them as her own, shelter them under her arms. She did not want to lose any of them.

Sparrow couldn't help but bark out a laugh, quickly burying it into the heel of her palm. “Serrah, Lord Ashton. Mighty, powerful God of arrows, wooing women all over the glade.” Then, she grinned. She was always teasing him, elbowing his ribs as if he were some sort of awkward-brother. His ability to brush things off his shoulders was uncanny, as if it were actually made out of rock armor, without any chinks or weaknesses. Sparrow was sure he'd seen his share of things, and the fact that he was still fighting and doing business in Kirkwall meant that he wasn't willing to settle down as Lord and live a comfy, pompous life. It was humble. Would she have done the same in his position? She wasn't so sure. Already giddy with optimism, and a little more ale than she should've drank, Sparrow slumped forward and listed on her elbows, hands cupping her chin. “Yes, yes. I had to introduce myself when I first spotted her.” Another smile, carelessly tipping up. Ashton's chuckling moved her to jostle him with her shoulder, then sidle backwards, hands intertwined behind her head.

“It's been fine—quiet, but fine.” Her response was purposefully nonchalant, indicating nothing of her internal struggles, or all of that Templar-business. “And how have you been? Keeping out of trouble?”

Rilien, for reasons unknown perhaps except to himself, chose this moment to shift his playing, taking up a tune with a rather merry cadence, all things considered, one that the bar patrons would be surprised to find could equally-well be waltzed to or utilized for less-formal purposes, including but not limited to jigging, cavorting, and generally being ridiculous.

Aurora chuckled at the man's question, just in time to punctuate the merry shift of the tune. "If I said yes, I'd be lying," she said, before adding, "Nothing huge though, I don't expect the Temp--" She caught herself, quickly throwing her gaze at Ashton. This man didn't know she was a mage. Sparrow and Nostariel did, but not this man. She didn't know how he would react, she was too comfortable with these friends (and fellow mages) to even think about it. She hesitated for a moment, her mouth hanging agape, wanting to spill the last syllable, though common sense fought her the entire way. She had thought she had learned to be careful about her powers. It didn't occur to her that maybe the man wouldn't care, considering the friends he kept.

Ashton merely smiled and took a drink from his tankard, and then finished the word for her, " --plars? Don't worry sweetheart, your secret's safe with me," he said winking. He then threw his arm over shoulder and hinted, "I'm good at these kind of secrets after all," He laughed then retracted his arm. "Also, she's lying. Things have not been quiet for us. Though things are never really quiet with that one around," he said, smiling to himself. Ashton too noticed the tune, and had began to tap his foot along with the melody. He looked over in time to see the Chevelier sweep a young woman off of her feet. Always the jovial type, Ashton gifted Lucien with a muted applause before tuning back to his own table, but the seed was sown.

The tempo in his foot never stopped and before he knew it he had a hand extended to Nostariel. "Looks like fun, doesn't it? Come on, join me?" He said, with his ever-present half-joking serious smile.

Nostariel hesitated for a second, unsure that she should really be dancing. She'd never learned how, though one glance at the floor was enough to convince her that most of its occupants hadn't either. With a small sigh, she shrugged, smiling up at her friend. "I hope you're wearing metal shoes," she joked, standing with him and allowing herself to be led into a more-or-less empty spot. "Seriously. I have no idea what I'm doing." She wasn't even sure what to do now that she was standing there. She'd seen people do this before, but whether they'd been doing it properly was a much more contentious question.

"Umm... I don't suppose nobles just inherently know this sort of thing, do they?" The look she gave him was nonplussed, but morphed swiftly into a full-on smile as she processed the absurdity of the situation. Here she was, Grey Warden Captain, healer, mage, erstwhile adventurer, and now expedition guide, and yet so utterly perplexed by something that should have been so simple.

The half-breed's hooded eyes found themselves flitting across the way, noting the shift in Rilien's song and how his fingers expertly plucked away at his instrument. It solicited a small smile on her lips, drumming her fingers along with the beat, tapping away against the wooden knots spiralling across the table. How many times had she badgered him to play her cheerful songs in their hovel? Too many to count, honestly. She wondered if anyone had approached him, wondering whether or not they could have a jollier tune, or if he'd chosen it on his known. Even if he was Tranquil, she had to admit that her companion had a better sense for puzzling out situations, and adapting to them, then anyone else she was acquainted to. Aurora's momentary fumble, and Ashton's easy recovery, brought another soft chuckle sifting through her lips – if it hadn't been for his personality, or his acceptance of others, then they might've never been able to get along. If she were to say that she was secretly some sort of spawn from the deepest, darkest recesses of the Deep Roads, she was sure that Ashton would've taken it in stride, regaling her with tales twice as bewildering.

She snorted, eyeing Ashton balefully. Had she been missing an arm, or soulless, then she would have announced, quite loudly, that things hadn't been quiet. Her life, it seemed, was teeming with horrible missions, and prospects of money, at the expense of her working alongside Templars, fluctuating from condemning mages, to trying to help them in incomprehensible ways. How could she explain that, anyway? Instead, Sparrow was far more content bobbing her head like the flighty little bird she was, indicating that her life had been rather uneventful save for the occasional trip to the Hanged Man. She laughed again when Ashton offered Nostariel his hand, obviously taken with Lucien's graceful dancing – and she, too, accepted his casual suggestion before moving off to dance beside them. Her steps, however clumsy, were charming. “Good company often accepts even the darkest secrets. It's hard to come by.” Such a small musing seemed innocent enough, spoken over top of her goblet – it was the truth of it, for if Ashton, or Rilien, had been anyone different, Sparrow would have been dead long ago or forcibly brought to the Circle. Her wings would not be clipped for anyone.

"I'll let you on to a bit of a secret... Nope. I have no idea what I'm doing," he said. He looked nonplussed about it, though really, who was going to disapprove? Sparrow? Aurora? Rilien? Even if they did judge, Ashton was never the one to care about what others thought. If he did, the he certainly wouldn't act the way he did. Either way, the whole dancing bit wasn't too hard, was it? Just step back and forth while slowly going in a circle, right? He wasn't aiming to dance in an Orlesian ball like the Chevalier after all. He had good enough control over his feet, so he wasn't worried.

"Right. One hand here, the other here..." He said, adjusting his grip on her hand. He then took her other hand an placed it on his shoulder, while his own went to her hip. "Now... Dance." he said with a coy grin. He began to step to the side, followed by a step back, and then a step to the other side all the while slowly turning in a circle. He took... Some ideas from Lucien, but a knight he was not, and form was not the idea. His grip was soft, almost as if the callouses on his hands weren't even there. His own feet were light, airy, as they danced. Once again, the technique of the hunter found itself bleeding into everyday life. He found himself enjoying the moment, like there were no one else but them. It was... Nice. The Tranquil's song, the mages at the table, the pair dancing beside them, they all melted away. If he died right then, he felt like it would have been okay. Everything would be alright. He found himself laughing at the thought.

"Erm... okay..." Nostariel wasn't really sure how dance explained anything, and for the first few steps, she tripped more than anything. Eventually, she thought she was getting the hang of it a little bit, but maybe that was just because she'd given up on trying to decide what direction she should go in and fell into his pattern as well as she could. Lightfooted or not, she did manage to step on his toes once or twice, and winced each time, offering hasty apologies. With a little time, she actually started listening to what was playing, and then maybe things made a little more sense. Still, it was a little unnerving. She hadn't been this cose to another person since... well, honestly probably never. Dancing wasn't exactly something that happened in the Circle, at least not with the person she would have wanted to dance with...

Frowning, she shoved the wayward thought away. That was years ago. This was today, and she should be happy about it. Then he started laughing, and for a second, she thought to be offended, only she realized it wasn't directed at her. How she knew that, she couldn't say, but she did. "What's so funny?" she asked, genuinely curious. Her brows gathered together on her forehead, and she looked at him skeptically. "Or is the ale just catching up with you?"

"Maybe that's it," Ashton said, stringing her along. Moments passed without him answering the question truthfully and when he felt like he'd kept his mouth shut for long enough, he clarified. "It's just funny is all. When I woke up this morning, I didn't expect that I'd end up here-- well, not here. Of course I knew I was gonna end up at the Hanged Man, but... Here... And the twirl... he offered unhelpfully as he lifted her hand and spun her around. Another laugh and he attempted to clear it up, his smile never leaving his face. "Life is funny like that, it's always an adventure, and you never know where it'll lead you. I just enjoy these small things," he said. "Or the likeliest answer is the ale is making it much more funny than it is. At least it hadn't taken my ability to dance yet, right?" He half expected fate to kick in right there and throw him to the floor.

Perhaps, it might've been while watching Ashton and Nostariel spin around, venturing to find their own beat, that Sparrow began to feel strange... Sparrow blamed her ale, mutely accessing whether or not they'd made her a bad batch. The world felt as if it were spinning, painted in a patina of confusion. From how hard she's clenching her jaw, settling the goblet down as if it were actually poison, she certainly felt like her her teeth were crackling against one another. Inwardly, it felt as if someone was letting out a puff of air that would have sounded embarrassed coming from anyone else – to her, it felt like impatience. Like someone had finally riddled their fingers across her squirming spine, shlepping off an uncomfortable coat to step into another. It was every kind of wrong. And then, stranger yet, Sparrow felt separated from herself, like someone had reached into her chest, taken her out and placed her into a metal cage, ruefully patting her head like a hound who'd destroyed the furniture. Rapture brought her own hand across her forehead, knuckling her eyes, and set her sights across the other magelet.

Ah, the music. Her ears were all her own, now. Her eyes nearly closed, lidded in appeased content – very cat-like, very unusual. It had been a long time since she'd felt at home, canoodling amidst living-breathing sacks. She missed the food, she missed the feeling of her fingertips, she missed feeling her own movements. Her eyes swept open once again. She, too, had risen to her feet, offering her hand to the little magelet. “Why aren't we dancing?” It was an offer, a soft suggestion to enjoy themselves. She was already feeding off her own ecstasy, entirely tickled pink with how she'd bullied Sparrow out of her mindscape, commandeering her nervous system. This coat was much more comfortable. The mischievous grin splitting across her face masked any ill-intentions hidden in her hollow chest – and Sparrow watched in horror, throwing herself against those bars and calling after them. The Fade around her was subdued, easily mistaken for her natural abilities as a runaway apostate.

Unnoticed to anyone who wasn't paying very close attention to the music, Rilien's fingers faltered, playing too hastily over the strings of his lute as something in the air spiked. In a way, this facet of his imperfection was the one that intrigued him the most: that sense he'd gained, vague but never wrong, exactly, for rippling disturbances in the Fade. It was how he knew a mage when he encountered one, but it was also how he knew when that thing was troubling Sparrow overmuch. This, though... he'd never felt this. It was as though his companion had receded, somehow, leaving the tang of the thing's presence nearly palpable, like something on his tongue or in his ear. His hesitation did not last long, however, and he resumed right on playing, though it would not be inaccurate to say he watched her motions like a cat watching a mouse. If things went wrong, he would be there in a mere second, ready to pin down the demon and drag her bodily from the crowd, and let people think what they may. It was all he could do for her-- ensure that her choice did not inadvertantly, unwillingly lead her to hurt somebody else.

Nostariel? Dancing? Aurora might not have known the Warden as much as she would like, but dancing seemed like a stretch for her. She could understand Lucien and Sophia, it seemed like something a Chevalier and a Noble would learn in their life. But a Warden mage and a goofy hunter? That was a different story. Aurora watching them for a moment in silence, noting the difference between their styles. She laughed softly to herself. She never imagined the Hanged Man becoming an impromptu ballroom in any stretch of the imagination. Her attentions were brought back around at the man across from her and his outstretched hand. Aurora had never been meek but at the offer she couldn't help but to blush wildly and retreat into her shoulders.

Still, there was no way she would decline and be one of the only ones to sit out. She took his hand and allowed Sparrow to lead her to the dance floor. She had no idea what was going through his head, though that didn't stop her from trying... "You lead?" Aurora asked.

Sparrow's offer was unwavering, entirely assured in the way her proffered fingers curled – as if, in the instance that Aurora refused to dance with her, it wouldn't have bothered her in the slightest. Her voice had an unintended lilt that might've brushed off from her better parts. She moved without her unusually clumsy gait, all full of clomping bluster and cheeky elbows. One might wonder whether or not she'd been drinking at all. She dipped low, arching an eyebrow as Aurora's shoulders raised, clearly surprised by her unexpected offer. Why would they not dance, indeed? Her dance was one of trickery, of lies, of deceit, of promises and of an expected paradise, twinkling in her eyes. This might've not been her body, yet, but that certainly didn't mean she couldn't have her fun. She wasn't necessarily ruthless, just unbridled and relentless in her pursuits.

She would cut them twice, and kiss them once. She would show them how it was done. The lights were low and matched her mood, soft and heady with the steady, rhythmic strumming belonging solely to the bard's merry twill’s. As soon as Aurora's fingers settled into her palm, she lead them both to the dance floor, smiling wryly. As pleased as a kitten with it's paws dipped in milk. “Of course, unless you'd prefer to lead.” Her response was intoned low, scaled sultry. Her hand came up to grasp her own, boldly raising it to shoulder level as she spread her fingers and entwined them into hers. She moved her other hand automatically, extending her arm to encircle her back. Sparrow's inner protests seemed a distant thing now; merely an annoying buzz against a brazen barrier that could not be broken with her weak complaints. Her movements, now, were imploringly gentle but insistent, as if she knew where they ought to be next. Her hands, however calloused, seemed minutely more feminine, and aware of where they were being placed.

On occasion, Sparrow – Rapture looked over Aurora's shoulder, observing their bard-companion. The one who'd so rudely turned down her offer. The Tranquil-man. Hardly a man, after all. She was aware that he was staring at her, and most assuredly conscious of how he probably knew whom, exactly, was in charge for the time being. His ability to taste the Fade had proven uncanny. Even so, her look was one of satisfaction. Tonight, she had won. Her hand dropped from Aurora's fingers, slipping to her waist, while the other guided her into a twirl – and even if she'd stumbled, her hand had already snapped up to capture her hand back in hers.

Aurora was taken by surprise. She had no idea that Sparrow was this good of a dancer. She had never danced before in her life-- except for childish things when she was a girl. Flowing dresses, flower wreaths, spinning in a circle with her brothers and sisters. The dance brought those memories back, from back before the circle. She remembered dancing with her brothers, her sisters watching and clapping along. It was a silly thing, memories of a young girl, but it was nice to relive them, even for just a second. She found herself guided by Sparrow's soft, but sure hands. Then she was spun, and though she felt as if she was falling, Sparrow caught her again. "You're pretty good at this," Aurora said.

Ashton quickly became aware of how full the so-called "Dance floor" was becoming, and though he wasn't surprised that Sparrow had managed to snatch up the other mage, he was surprised that at the skill with which Sparrow dance. He never knew she danced so well. Then again, whenever they danced, they both were drunk and it couldn't even be called dancing at that point... Flopping about more like. He'd have to remember to ask Sparrow where she learned to dance like that. But that was for later, what mattered was his own dance. His own feet (even if Nostariel had managed to step on them a couple of times) had found their way to Lucien and his partner. He tried to catch the Cheveliar's eye and nodded acknowledgement, though another idea quickly popped into his head.

He leaned down into Nostariel's ear and said, "How would you like to dance with a real knight?" loud enough for both her and Lucien to hear. Before he could explain what he meant looked up to Lucien and smiled a cockeyed smile. He gently spun Nostariel towards the Cheveliar and cried, "Switch," as he awaited for his new partner.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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Lucien was quite conscious of the other parties on the floor, as several of them were to some degree inebriated, and as a result, he and his friend found themselves forced to navigate around them, but that was not to say he was at all suspecting what Ashton suggested. Well, suggested was perhaps a kind word for it, as the Chevalier scarcely had time to think before Nostariel was more-or-less tossed in his direction, and he wasn't sure she could be relied upon to catch herself. Trepidation and wryness fought a battle for dominant facial expression, but in the spirit of the evening, the latter won by a fair margin, and he shook his head minutely. From where it was lightly resting at Sophia's back, he brought his hand to circle around Nostariel's upper arm, so as to support her if she did in fact stumble.

"My apologies," he told the young noble, rolling his visible eye, "but it seems my friend over there would very much like to dance with you. I hope you don't mind? He's largely harmless, though... well, I won't spoil the surprise." The slight twitch to his mouth sealed the tone as 'dryly amused' rather than simply resigned, as it might otherwise have seemed. Though the gesture was a smidge awkward, he still managed to pull off a rather decent bow, as was custom at the conclusion of such things.

Sophia wore a wry smile as well, taking a look at the pair of dancers that had approached them. She had of course met Nostariel before, but upon their first meeting, she'd hadn't guessed the Warden to be the dancing type. It wouldn't have been the first time her initial impressions had mistaken her, but still, Sophia hadn't thought Nostariel would dance. It was nice to see that she was wrong. The man she dance with Sophia did not know, but apparently Lucien and he were acquainted to some extent. He was not so tall as Lucien, but still a good half foot taller than Nostariel, probably more. Lucien's bow was returned with a brief curtsy. "I'm sure he's nothing I can't handle." She was getting pretty experienced with Lowtown folk, after all.

She flashed a warm smile to Nostariel as they passed on her way to her new partner, taking his hand and resuming the dance. "Might I know your name, serah? I don't believe we've met," she asked with a raised eyebrow. She could only assume he knew who she was, given his initiative in the little partner switch that just occurred.

Ashton chortled deep down in his throat at being called "Serah." That was a new one. Still, he took the new lady's hand as he had done before when introducing himself, cocked a bow and spoke, his words very neatly hiding the slur that waited beneath the surface. Or so her thought. It was hard to tell through the buzz he had going on after all. "Serah? No serahs here milady, only Ashton. Ashton Riviera, at your service," he said, taking a sweeping bow and then engaging in the dance. His mind wandered off for a second as he wondered how his own rudimentry skills stacked up with a full-fledged Chevelier. Oh well, he was about to find out.

"So my lovely lady, what is your name," he asked in almost a purr. The idea that this woman would somebody of import was ridiculous. What self-respecting noble would found themselves in the Hanged Man? Discarded nobles (like himself) aside, of course.

Sophia found herself smiling in a lightly amused manner. It could have been attributed to three things, the first being the man's flattery, which was having a little more effect on her than it would have had she not been slightly intoxicated. The second possible cause was that this Ashton Riviera did not in fact know who she was, or at least claimed not to. It was utterly refreshing to not be recognized, especially so when one was not looking to be the center of attention for a night. It could have also just been the wine, the warm feeling that was most certainly not the heat of the packed tavern.

"I'm Sophia," she said, quite deliberately leaving out the family name. If he wasn't too far gone he would have a chance of figuring the rest out, assuming he opened his ears to local gossip at all. Her dress was no glittering Orlesian creation, but it was slightly too fine to be of Lowtown, and she looked a little too clean, her hair a little too well done. No, she still very much had the Hightown look about her. It wasn't something that could simply be taken off in a day. Not to mention that she seemed able to dance without so much as thinking about it, even while speaking to him and having been drinking. Beyond that, her name had been on more than a few lips lately. "So, Ashton, what is it you do? Besides flattering and dancing with women in taverns, that is."

"Ah, but milady, if I told you that, then that would kill any mystery I may possessed," Ashton teased. If he seemed to recollect Sophia's title based on a first name basis, he certainly didn't show it. Her names might have been on the tongues of common rabble, but then again Ashton wasn't quite the normal rabble. He never did have an ear for loose-lipped gossip. Not to say he didn't sling his share of mouth nonsense, but it was more of nonsense nothings. Anything of substance would roll down his shoulder. He did have his ear to the ground. The hunter never really got out much. He smiled though and looked down at the woman, dipping her.

"I'll tell you for a smile," he said, the phrase returning to glory. Smile or not, he continued and explained what exactly he did. "Oh, well, you know. I'm a hunter. I hunt. I sell the meat and skins that I don't use. It's not this fine," He said picking at a bit of fabric at her shoulder, "But I digress. If I say so myself, I'm still a damn fine tailor. Or something. How about you milady? What do you do in life-- aside from entertaining dashing rogues like myself?" Ashton said. He'd made the realization that she was of obvious higher class.

“Of late, I’ve been battling brigands, bandits, and dragons beyond the walls of the city,” Sophia said rather honestly, since it was entirely true, regardless of how unlikely it may have currently looked. “A woman can wield a blade as well as any man if she puts her mind to it. Better, even. Many men lack a certain
 finesse.” Ashton didn’t, she could see. He was not so elegant a dancer as Lucien, but he was clearly not clumsy, though she had no knowledge of whether or not he could handle a blade. He was obviously no brute, something that could not be said for many in the tavern at the moment, and perhaps she would even consider his use of the word dashing as accurate.

“But really, most of what I do on a day to day basis is trying to keep my younger brother out of trouble and my father out of the stress his work puts on him.” She gave him the smile he was looking for on the other side of a twirl, golden locks whipping about momentarily. “Truth be told, I think I don’t get nearly enough opportunities to just enjoy a night among good company. But
 we do the best we can with what we’re given, right?”

"Dragons? Sounds like an adventure. Hate I missed that," Ashton said, tone ambigious to whether it was a tease or geniune belief. Still, there had been weird going-ons recently, and he wouldn't put the idea down. Though, they were talking about work while dancing, and Ashton found it incredibly dull-- even if dragons were mentioned. Had the story included griffins, she'd have his rapt attention. "Ah, keeping your family out of trouble. So you're a family lass. That's good. Family's always good," he rattled off, though family wasn't terribly interesting either. It might have been if he had actually known who the girl's family was. Or maybe he did and just really didn't have an opinion either way. Ashton liked to think of himself as a mystery. Ladies loved mysterious men.

To her last statement, Ashton shrugged and responded plainly, "Nope." Now he was just being oblique. He gave her a dashing smile and put kept his lips sealed for a time, leaving her in suspense about his meaning. Ladies loved suspense too. Feeling that he had let her stew enough, he answered, chuckling. His answer was as nonsensical as usual. "Never settle only for best, take everything you are given, and then some and then stake your claim. Only settle for perfect, and never stop working to that end," he said, mischief and something else glinting in his eye. The something else, of course, was the alcohol. It had a delay effect apparently.

"Sounds like you need to make a little bit more you time sweetheart. Make every night you own one you can enjoy."

Sophia had known that Ashton wasn't presenting her with enough for her to get a good sense of him, but she still hadn't expected that. Maybe he was speaking more freely because he didn't know who she was? Or maybe he did know who he was, and simply didn't care all that much. To be honest, that would have been a refreshing change of pace. Alas, it seemed neither of them were willing to really speak to each other, which was not a surprise considering that this was their first meeting. "Perhaps if I can find a way to add more hours into the day I will find more time for myself, but that doesn't look like it will happen any time soon."

Seeing that the dancing was starting to slow in terms of numbers, Sophia gracefully came around to a stop without forcing it. "What I do think I need, however, is just a little more wine."

"Who doesn't?"




Nostariel was spun away from Ashton, probably only prevented from falling by Lucien's foresight and steadying hand. Coming to a rather more abrupt stop than she'd planned, her hair stung her cheek slightly as it was whipped over her shoulder. Shaking it back, she returned Sophia's smile and then turned her own up at Lucien. "Well, fancy that. I have been rescued by a knight after all," she deadpanned, just barely drunk enough that looking someone so good in the face wasn't going to cause her physical anxiety or pain. It was a nice face, as faces went, she decided, though she wondered how he'd damaged the eye. Still, it was awfully high up. "Have you always been this tall?" she asked blithely, blinking up at him. She was quite certain that the majority of people would suffer neck cramps if they had to make eye contact with him for too long.

Lucien, she knew, was a safe sort of person to be around. Docile as a lamb, really, and just as gentle in the handling of delicate things-- people, situations, objects. So, reserved as she was, she trusted him, and that was rather saying something. That thought firmly at the forefront of her mind, she decided she might just go ahead and keep dancing, though had it been nearly anyone else she'd been passed to, she might have pleaded fatigue. You get the same warning I gave him," she said, gesturing vaguely in Ashton's direction, "I'm really no good at this at all. You seem to be wearing the right shoes for that, though." Was the man ever not wearing armor? She hadn't ever observed him without it. Always wears armor, but never carries a sword-- there had to be something in that. Or maybe she was just used to looking for things like that, and was stating to see meaning where there was none.

"Assuredly not," Lucien replied. "Actually, until I was around sixteen or so, I was only slightly taller than yourself, and probably just as slender," he admitted wryly. The first few months at the Academie had been absolute hell, needless to say. Readjusting their positions so that one of his hands clasped hers and the other splayed without hint of impropriety at the middle of her back, he offered a reassuring smile. It was not as though he expected all of his acquaintances to be well-versed in the waltz. That was simply an idiosyncracy of his upbringing, and this was for fun, not formality.

"You needn't worry," he pointed out mildly. "I have danced with far clumsier people, and my feet are still very much functional. Just listen to Rilien; he has everything you need to know at the tips of his fingers, as a good musician should. If you're still unsure, you need only follow me. And do try to enjoy it, my friend; 'tis not a subtle form of torture." He paused thoughtfully, though their motion did not cease. "Well, at least not most of the time." It was true that she was considerably smaller than he, but then, so were most people, particularly most women, and compensating for the difference in height was a learned skill like everything else.

Cocking his head to one side, Lucien looked down at the Grey Warden, and noted that, for once, she was actually speaking to him, rather than to the air in his general proximity. He'd not known her to maintain eye contact before, and indeed, he'd not even been certain of the color of hers, so rare was it for her to lift them from the ground. "You seem to be in rather good spirits, Nostariel. May I inquire as to the circumstances?"

Nostariel had to admit, that was a little hard to believe. She had difficulty imagining Lucien as anything but the towering presence he was now, for all he seemed to try and tone it down with unassuming mannerisms. There were just some things you couldn't hide, and a height like that was one of them. Of course, it only made sense that he had to have been short at some point; he had been a child, after all, though honestly, that was even more difficult to envision. He was one of those people that just seemed timeless, like he'd always been as he was and always would be. One of her teachers had been like that, too, and she supposed the thought was as silly now as it had been then. Still, the motions he shifted them into were complex enough that she couldn't really muster the concentration necessary for a response, putting most of her focus on their collective feet and trying very hard not to trip. He obviously wouldn't let her fall, but that didn't mean she wanted to endure the abject humiliation of needing to be saved from her own clumsiness.

His words were encouraging, though, and she realized she hadn't really been listening to the music at all. Which was a shame, because she remembered now that she'd heard the Tranquil play before and had always liked it. So she cocked an ear to the delicate strains of sound and gave up trying to calculate precisely what she was doing, and everything was suddenly considerably easier. Not exactly elegant, perhaps, but passable, she thought. She had no doubt he was making it look effortless on both their parts, and the realization brought a small smile to her face, which for some reason only grew wider at his question.

"You know, I guess I just figured out for myself that you've been right all along. Sharing my burdens-- even just telling them to someone-- makes them easier to bear." She shot a look at Ashton, just passing with Sophia on their left, and shook her head minutely as a few snippets of conversation reached her over the din. "And knowing people, being friends with them again... it's nice. It hasn't fixed everything, of course, but..." she trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish the sentence. She settled on a shrug, figuring it expressed the point well enough. Truth be told, she owed the Chevalier a lot. Had it not been for his patient ear and gentle questions over the months she'd known him, his unobtrusive insistence in keeping her company, she might not have been able to open up to anyone at all--- not to Ashton, or Aurora, or him. In the three of them, she'd found friends she'd never expected, and though the realization had caught her off-guard, it was unmistakably warming. Though the hunter kept her most miserable secret, the Chevalier knew her darkest, and her fellow mage shared in a pain of placelessness that the others could never quite understand.

It was... at once unfortunate and a blessing, perhaps, that people could share these things with her. She'd wish none of it upon any of them, but at least they had each other. She understood, now, that this counted for something. And came to a sudden realization. "You seem to know much about overcoming suffering, Lucien..." the implication was obvious. For all his encouragement of the people around him, she hadn't known him to ever really share his own sorrow, and it was suddenly embarrassingly obvious that he had to have some. Whether he shared with her or not was his business, but it seemed imporant that she make the offer, just in case.

Ah, so it had been as he'd hoped then. It was an imperceptible hint of relief that slackened the last vestige of unneeded tension in the line of Lucien's shoulders, and his smile, unobtrusive as it was, could only be genuine. He might have had his guess as to how she'd come to such a realization, but it wasn't really his business, important as it might be, and so he didn't entertain the idle speculation without need. He did, however, make a mental note to buy Ashton a drink at some point in the future, preferably for what seemed like no reason at all.

Fairly enough, the topic of conversation circled back to him, and he considered the implicated question for a moment in silence, suddenly entranced with the flickering shadows of the dancers on the walls. Their movements were more erratic than their flesh-made counterparts, disturbed by the unsteadiness of fire-light, or by another passing in front of their source to make his or her way to the bar proper. His entire life had been staring at shadows, once-- he'd known the general shape of the world outside his experience, but not its colors, or it's flavors, nor even the myriad ways it smelled. The realization that not everything was the way he'd envisioned was a bitter one, but it was not he that suffered for it, really, or at least not he in greatest measure.

"More than some," he admitted, returning his focus to his friend. "Less than most, I expect. My trials have a nasty habit of ending up public knowledge, but I can hardly complain, I think." He injected a little light humor into his tone, and truly, even that was honest. Though he was, like everyone, not done growing and changing, he generally tended to think the worst of that was behind him, and likely, it was only that that gave him whatever small amount of wisdom he could claim. The music slowed to a halt, fading away on a few echoing chords, and he carefully escorted his friend back to her seat, surprised to find that so many candlemarks had disappeared since Varric's speech at the advent of the evening's festivities.

"Pleasure as always, Nostariel."




Sparrow, in turn, seemed to transform Rilien's merry jig into something else entirely. Metered, planned, controlled, but with wild tendencies in the way she slipped her hands away from Aurora's waist, sending her into another spin, only to tuck her back against her chest. The look in her eyes was entirely her own, enticingly new, and eerily misplaced. Slow, slow, quick, slow, turn, dip, repeat. The music playing here wasn't entirely dramatic and it wasn't similar to anything that thumped in her head like wild drumbeats that often paralleled her wicked thoughts. How boring. She silently wished that Rilien could play a more sultry rhythm – one that could mirror how she felt at that very moment, unbridled and reckless in her new coat. The new awareness of muscle, nearly masculine, taut across her shoulder-blades, her arms, her back. If she'd been any crueler, then she would have laughed at the very absurdity of Sparrow's gender-indecision.

She plucked through her memories as if she were leafing through an old, tattered book, for a proper response. Why would Sparrow be a good dancer? Well, she was of the Dalish variety. Privacy was hardly a matter in this. Even with Sparrow's dying squabbles echoing in the darkest corners of her own head, it wasn't difficult pick apart what she needed to carry a semi-normal conversation with her companions. Only those closest to her, perhaps, would pick up the subtle differences. The way she carried herself, or maybe that unusual glimmer in her eye – that bard, as well, was a troublesome whelp, ogling her as if she'd slaughter everyone in the Hanged Man. Were his hands poised against his blades, mere breaths away from the strings of his instrument? She inwardly shrugged. It would be interesting to see how far he could push him. Sparrow turned her attention back towards her dance partner, pulling her flush against her chest before craning her neck over her shoulder. “I grew up with the Dalish, and they were fond of dancing.” It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't something Sparrow could remember herself. “And you aren't bad, either.” She, too, could see slivers of Aurora's past flitting away like flashing heels, skipping hearbeats, and flower petals in tow. Secrets were little more than leaflets in an accessible booklet. She'd continue licking her thumb, flicking through them, until she got what she wanted.

"It's nothing," Aurora replied, trying her best to hide the creeping blush. Instead of trying to stubbornly fight the redness, she found that redirection would best serve the course. Her voice was muted for the first bit then resumed normal volume for the rest of the conversation, "In the circle, I learned-- well. Not learned. Picked up how to carry my feet without falling on my face. Maybe the one good thing that came out of that ordeal," and instead of simply redirecting the conversation, she managed to steer it directly into muddy waters. Magnificent. Instead of letting the conversation stew where it was, she tried to steer the conversation one more time.

Instead of talking about herself however, she'd ask about Sparrow, "The Dalish... I never would have picked you as a Dalish. My experiences weren't... the best, shall we say." There was Ithilian, and he wasn't quite an overabundance of cheer and goodwill. There was also that whole Feynriel incident. Having bows trained on your first visit to the Dalish encampment wasn't the best of first impressions. Still, she was an outsider, and some of it was expected. She wondered what they really were like, when the eyes of the Shem were turned away. "What are the Dalish like? My firsthand impressions haven't entirely been of the happy sort... You know, staring down the point of an arrow tend to sour those."

Sparrow-Rapture had never been one to let comments sit idle, never had been and never would be, so she tsked softly, shaking her head as if to say: no, no, you're a splendid dancer, isn't that what I just said?Had there been no musician, and no expertly plucked notes coming from their resident bard, then she could have still danced. The music was there, in her empty chest, playing in her mind. The beating of this woman's heart was the pattern and the rhythm. And here she was, pressed up against a little magelet, still in close proximity to the Fade – it almost made her laugh at how ironic it was, how she orbited closer and closer to her own boundaries, her own birdcage. Each of her movements resounded something strikingly peculiar, two-folds darker than her merry counterpart. She was not shy. She would not move away and dance as a knight did, paying particular attention not to make anyone feel uncomfortable, for that wasn't who she was.

When Sparrow-Rapture spun them around, she'd momentarily close her eyes, as if she were the one skimming bare, tickling toes across marbled flooring and spreading petals through her fingertips. Her eyes were heavy lidded and half closed, inward looking and there was a small, secret smile on her face, laced with lazy pleasure and a bittersweet edge. Aurora's movements might've been best described as belonging to a child who'd been locked away, left to spin in circles by herself when no one was watching; airy, effortless. The loneliness, the yearning, and the pain. The expression dipped a little bit, as if she were about to make a comment on the matter – though, it quickly slipped away. What would she have said to that? The circle was filled with prissy, self-righteous people, always dipping their fingers into someone else' pie. Templar's had never been kind to her, neither had anyone else who'd been directly involved in stamping their foot down on anyone's chest who even mildly had a gift in the arcane arts. She, too, could fathom that hate.

Again, Rapture perused Sparrow's memories with the precision of a studious bookkeeper, careful to keep her expression arranged into one of thoughtfulness. Interestingly enough, and unbeknownst to her until this meticulous search, her own little mage hadn't even spent very long amongst them. Even if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't be able to unlock those particular truths. They were too muddied. Far too blurry to see straight, anyway. She tipped her head back, pulling Aurora slightly forward, and shot her a grin. “Alright, alright. You caught me.” She began to say, arching an eyebrow. “I was born in Tevinter – mum was Antivan, and my dad was of the Dalish variety, I fancy he fell in love with her and they ran away, eloped, y'know? Far more romantic then what probably happened.” Sparrow-Rapture nodded knowingly, leaving out the small bits she'd use for leverage on a rainy day.

“Sour sort if you judge them how they act around everyone else who isn't Dalish,” the half-breed responded, dipping her low, then pulling her back up. It was true enough, but from her memories, she knew that there'd been a great deal of kindness and acceptance for all Elves who so chose to run away from their captors, from the oppression they had to endure under rulers and masters. “If you're not staring down an arrow, then they can be beautiful. When they move, you move. They're the bow, you're the arrow.” Her laugh was not out of place when she added, “And they love loudly, dance carelessly.” These were her secrets, and she could give them away as she pleased.

"Sounds... Pretty," Sounded like the freedom she tirelessly hunted. They sounded freer than she did. Though she could in no way imagine their plight. Living apart from the cities as they did, secluded from the world around them while at the same time being attuned to it. She sighed as she closed her eyes during the dip, trying to think like they would, to no avail. She wondered how they treated their own kind, and trying to imagine who had held her up at bowpoint dancing and laughing. She even tried to imagine someone like Ithilian laughing. Once perhaps, but certainly not now. She couldn't even conjure a smile to his face, much less laughing.

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and opened her eyes again. "I was never afforded the chance to be careless," she admitted. She was watched like a hawk in the Circle, the Templar's just waiting for her to become possessed. "You understand, right?" she asked. They were both mages after all, surely Sparrow had the dangers of demons and the fade beaten into her head like she had. "A demon lurking under every fold of the fade, just waiting for their chance to strike the moment you let your guard down," she sighed again, a bit melancholy this time. "Though, you do not strike me as a Circle runaway..." she added.

Rapture-Sparrow bobbed her head demurely, resisting the urge to tut her tongue like a clucking mother-hen. Of course it sounded pretty. It was the breeding ground of magic, and wherever there was magic, there was a possibility for her, or those of her own ilk, to lurk and wait and wriggle their taloned fingers in anticipation. She tilted her head when Aurora snapped her eyes shut, as if reminiscing of something or possibly trying to imagine those straight-stiffs dancing around a wild fire, wringing their hands and fingers together in harmony. Sometimes, it wasn't so, but other times, they were beautiful creatures in the throes of an equally wondrous dance, and with their intricate ceremonies, it wasn't difficult to imagine. Perhaps, with stingier creatures of the Dalish variety lingering in Kirkwall, Aurora's images would prove to be too difficult to behold.

She pulled them into a lazy circle, gazing – perhaps, uncomfortably – into the magelet's eyes. Her own were not red any longer, but a dark, muddy colour that did not give away much. In a sense, it was perfect. Only Rilien could taste her presence in the air, carefully plucking his notes and stealing glimpses of her over Aurora's slender shoulders. Perhaps, wishing mightily that he could simply skewer her with his eyes, and steal his companion, now completely wrung of energy, back to her own body. Again, Rapture-Sparrow nodded. She understood well enough. These questions tickled her pink, vibrating down her spine at how very close Aurora was to the truth. “No, not the Circle—but, I've done my share of running.” She began to say and gave her a twirl, tugging her neatly back into her arms when it was finished. She halted their movement, suddenly twining her fingers in the magelets short locks; a shock of red. “Little reason to fear demons, when you've got good friends.”

This she said loud enough, as if she were calling a toast. This she said while looking at Rilien, expectantly. This she said with a smile that was not her own.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The expedition was gathered in the Merchant's quarter of Hightown, in front of the two great statues of bearded dwarves marking the Dwarven Merchants Guild. Bartrand Tethras stood before them, his disposition not the sunniest they'd seen, possibly due to the fact that a number of the hirelings were significantly hungover from the previous night. His brother Varric was among them, standing at the side of Nostariel, awaiting Bartrand's words.

"We've chosen one of the hidden entrances," Bartrand began in a loud, commanding tone, creating silence among the gathered group. "The Deep Roads there will be nice and virginal, ready for a good deflowering." He spat out a laugh. Varric managed one as well, though it was likely directed more at Bartrand himself than at his words. "Now there's an interesting image," he murmered to Nostariel, who cringed. Ashton, with all of his tact, laughed quite heartily. He didn't expect to hear that analogy.

"It'll take a week for us to get to the depth we need, and there are bound to be leftover darkspawn from the Blight. Big risks, big rewards. But this isn't a foolish endeavor. This will work! Now, if there's nothing else, let's get underway!" Varric moved to his brother's side as they began their departure, the hirelings hefting packs onto their backs, ensuring the last of their gear was packed. "Been a long time coming, eh, brother?" Bartrand actually managed a smile, though it was kept to himself. "That it has. The Deep Roads await!"




Two weeks later, they had almost reached the depth they needed. Their entrance into the Deep Roads had gone as planned, but very quickly they ran into roadblocks and collapses they hadn't been expecting. Bartrand had occasionally directed anger at the Grey Warden, claiming her maps were leading them into dead ends, but Varric was always quick to correct him and calm him down as best he could, keeping a level head. Though the going was slow, the expedition eventually managed to come out into a more open area, with ruins beginning to appear in place of rocky caverns and tunnels. The signs of life, and more importantly, potential treasure, helped to inject life into the hirelings.

On the fifteenth day of the expedition, they came upon a large bridge extending out of a tunnel. Ithilian, who had taken up the role of scouting for the group, came striding back, adjusting the wrap around his head. He had been apart from the group for the majority of the trip, scouting ahead and reporting back to Bartrand, before he departed again. It was obvious he was avoiding speaking with other members of the team, given his body language. He looked more volatile than usual, and yet his shoulders were more drawn, his gaze lower than usual. Perhaps it was the higher than usual number of dwarves around.

"There's another collapse ahead," he said, gesturing over his shoulder as he finished fussing with his headscarf. "The bridge cannot be crossed." Bartrand stewed, the vaguely orange light of the underground accenting his anger at yet another setback. "What? Is there some way around?" Ithilian crossed his arms. "There is a side passage. Darkspawn have moved in." Bartrand looked as though the next part was quite obvious to him.

"Then I'm sure you'll be more than happy to clear them out for us, won't you?" The look Ithilian gave him seemed inspired by the molten lava that sometimes flowed beneath their feet, but he said nothing, instead moving past him and back through the group. Bartrand turned back to the group. "Set camp!"




For those not accustomed to the Deep Roads, it would be difficult to tell what time it had reached when they had the camp set up in a relatively secure, shallow side cave, but it was roughly midday. Bartrand was exchanging words with the dwarven merchant that had come along with the expedition when Varric approached him from behind. "Problems, brother?" Bartrand turned and threw his hands into the air in frustration. "Sodding Deep Roads! Who knows how long it'll take to clear a path?" Varric, as usual, allowed his brother's anger to wash over him like the sea on a large rock. "You have too little faith in our help, brother. They'll find a way around in no time."

He huffed. "We'll see. Facing a few stragglers of darkspawn isn't the same as facing the ones that have set up defenses. How many of these mercenaries you've bought have fought hordes of darkspawn, I wonder?" From the edge of the camp, Ithilian gave a light sigh, unheard by his employer. Varric chose not to argue with his brother on that point, perhaps believing it to be a waste of time, but pressed on all the same. "Then I'll go with them, and we'll take a look. If we come running back, screaming, you'll know trying to find a way around was the wrong decision." Bartrand shook his head. "Fine, fine, just get going!" And he stormed off.

The dwarven merchant Bartrand had been conversing with tentatively stepped forward once he was gone, rubbing his forehead. "Er... I hate to add to your burdens, Ser Varric, but I fear I must. I fear my boy, Sandal, wandered off. He's somewhere in those passages, right now! I beg you, keep an eye out for him. He just... doesn't understand danger like he should."

Nostariel, who'd been unusually restless of late, had been pacing the camp in relentless strides, stopping occasionally to help out with some task or chore, but otherwise ceaseless in her movement. It was clear that she was at once familiar with and uncomfortable in the Deep Roads, and from time to time, she'd murmur something as if to herself and shake her head. Each new sound produced a twitch in her ears, though she knew better than anyone when Darkspawn were present. Still, they were not the only potential danger down here. Had she been more focused on the people around her and less upon what might lay beyond, she would have noted Ithilian's behavior as antisocial even for him, but as it was, she had herself occupied just trying not to think too much about what had happened last time she was in this Maker-forsaken place.

Forcing herself to avoid drawing the comparison between then and now was no easy task, but she tried valiantly to content herself with the fact that the numbers were better this time around. She didn't know about the skill; Wardens knew these locations better than anyone else, and it was difficult to find warriors better-trained than they. Still, if any group of people from Kirkwall could handle it, 'twas this one, and that was a comfort, at least.

Her overactive feet carried her past where Varric and Bartrand were arguing, and while she would be volunteering herself to go along with the scouting group, she wasn't going to say anything about it until the merchant stepped forward. Blinking, she wondered just how it was that someone could wander off in the Deep Roads, but then perhaps if the boy was a curious sort, and unaware of danger as his father suggested... "We'll look for him, serah. I can figure out where the Darkspawn are and bring him back myself, if necessary." Her words were firm, unyielding. How many people had she seen lost to these unholy places? Too many, and not one more if there was anything she could do to prevent it. Lucien, who'd been walking by with an armload of tent poles (for some reason, he'd ended up doing quite a lot of the expedition's heavy lifting, not that he minded), deposited them in the designated area and approached from behind the Warden, his silent agreement clear in the way he adjusted the strapping of his weapon and armor.

Varric nodded his agreement. "When did you last see him, Bodahn?" He turned back to Varric. "Not a half hour ago. I turned my back to hand out rations, and he was gone! He gets so easily distracted. Ah, I should have been harsher with my warnings!" Bodahn then bowed his thanks to Nostariel. "But thank you, my lady Warden. If he has one of his enchantments with him, he'll survive. He's burned down the house twice by accident. I'm more worried about him getting lost, the poor boy!"

Ashton, the ever malleable fellow that he was, seemed to be taking the whole expedition in lackadaisical stride. Sure, he missed the sun. And the trees. Grass and flowers would have been nice too. But the prize! The prize was worth it. It'd better be worth it anyway. Else he'd have to strangle Bartrand and Varric with their beard and chest hair-- respectively. Still, the lack of fresh air and open greenery had put the Archer in a melancholy mood, and in this certain clarity of mind, had decided that opening his big lips anywhere near the Dalish elf would only serve to get them cut off. Not to say that the two or so weeks on the expedition wasn't chock full of stupid jokes and silly puns-- just that they weren't muttered when the elf was around.

Once the camp was set up, Ashton had found himself sitting atop one of the barrels they had brought to hold their water. Of course, his ass being on top of their water drew some glares from a couple of the hirelings, but Ashton played the oblivious fool and set about picking his teeth with another one of his arrows, as he was wont to do. A nearby conversation between the dwarves and their lovely guide reeled his ears in to listen. Something about someones kids getting lost in the deep roads. Hmm. He didn't know that could even be a possibility, who in their right minds would wander off in the deep roads. There were tons of nasty creepy crawlies down there. Should have brought a leash...

At the insistance of Nostariel though, it looked like they were going to be playing nurse maid for a bit. It was fine with in, really, it'd give him more chances to eye the magnificent displays of rock. Either way, it looked like they were going to be the expeditionary force of the expedition, sent out to find a path around their intended path. With that, he decided to stop polluting their stores of water with his ass and hopped from the barrel, walking over to their merry little group. "Right. Find a path. Find your boy. Would you like some milk and eggs while we are out as well?" Ashton said, smiling. His tone was a jovial one, and he meant no harm by the words. As if to further prove this point, he continued. "Don't worry about it. You've got one of the finest trackers in all of Kirkwall," And Ithilian. "We'll find your boy, then we'll find the path, then we'll find the haul. No problems," Ashton said.

"Should we be going then Master Dwarf?" Ashton asked Varric, "The path may not have legs, but the boy does-- stubby as they are-- and they could be carrying him farther away as we speak," He finished. Varric nodded. "Let's move quickly, then."

Before they left, Lucien made his way quickly to one of the storage units containing extra equipment, rummaging through it until he came up with what he was looking for: a moderately-sized roundshield. Though he was quite firm in his insistence that he would not lift a sword, he wasn't sure how well his scythe would stand up against Darkspawn. Or, more to the point, how many more of them it would stand up to. He took good care of it, but weapons with wooden components could only withstand so much pressure, and he didn't want to be completely without options if the worst occurred. This, he slung over his back for the moment, then swiftly rejoined the others as they moved out.

Rapture had not relinquished her hold on Sparrow's body, but kept unusually quiet. Her words, however choice, were irrefutably odd. Her actions were even stranger. She did not walk as she did, with her stupid, often lumbering steps, but instead resumed her nonplussed gait, so much more languid than her barbaric counterpart. She was still there, very much so, but her cries, her echoing wails, her beating fists had grown less frequent and a helluva lot more quiet – for that, she whispered a solemn curse to the Maker. She'd taken refuge amongst the smelly dwarves, occasionally throwing quips and questioning their motives; where they were headed, what they were searching for. Her questions were offhanded, hardly worth noting. She, did, however, occasionally watch Rilien with her lidded-eyes, effortlessly challenging him with the way she smiled. If he did not take any notice, then it might've been with some effort.

Ithilian wordlessly led the group out of the camp, pulling his bow from its sheath and drawing an arrow. He was not nearly so accustomed to the underground as a Grey Warden would be, but already he was developing a sense for how to move about the place quietly and efficiently. His footfalls were carefully placed so as to avoid loose rock or threats to his ankles, his remaining eye scanning the gaps in the walls, places where creatures dark and terrible might hide. Varric's gait in comparison was easy and relaxed, his unique crossbow held with care in his gloved hands.

The elf led the scouting party to just before the crushed bridge they'd encountered, and showed them the entrance to the side passage he'd spoken of, a hole in the rock wall big enough for all of them to pass through side by side. He stopped at its entrance, holding out a hand to signal that the others were to go first. "This is our side passage. The darkspawn are within, though I can't say their numbers. It's unlikely the merchant's boy still lives." "I've seen stranger things happen," Ashton added shrugging.

Rilien didn't much care either way, and the entire argument wasn't getting them anywhere. He was alive or he was not, and they would discover which only by proceeding further in. Sliding his curved knives from their sheaths, he dipped a small nod to Ithilian, their guide, and decided that he wasn't going to waste any more time, entering the passage in loping strides. He could not sense Darkspawn after the manner of a Warden, but he'd learned long ago that when one was close enough, that made precious little difference. They were noisy, and smelled awful, and died like anything else. These very blades had been christened in the black blood that pumped sluggishly through the engorged veins under sickly flesh.

A passing glance in citrine was flicked towards the Chevalier, a small acknowledgement of the familiarity he felt. Their last trials had been fought under sky, not stone, but that was hardly the important point. Padding over the broken stone, he noted that she Warden was quick to follow, sighing and shaking her head, though apparently unwilling to offer her own opinion on the matter. "Careful," Nostariel murmured to the group at large, "They are near. Perhaps two dozen, give or take a few, and at least one's an emissary, I think." Her hands tightened on her staff, and she took a shaky breath. Darkspawn were nothing to be feared, not really. Especially not in numbers like that. This wasn't a year ago. It wouldn't be. She was different now, and so were the people she was with.

The Tranquil's look was answered with a wry smile; for once, what Rilien was thinking was crystalline in its clarity to Lucien. It was almost like the old days, save that they were no longer fighting a Blight, just the Blighters, so to speak. His old friend's wariness drew the scythe from the Chevalier's back even before Nostariel uttered her warning, but he nodded his comprehension to her all the same. He'd discovered rather early on that few in the expedition guards were feeling too sociable, Ashton and Sparrow perhaps excepted. He spent most of his time walking either with they and Rilien, or guarding the rear and making small-talk with the laborers instead.

Within a few minutes of walking down the winding corridor, it became quite clear that the Warden was correct. The stench was the first thing to register. None of the surrounding area smelled pleasant, but this was the odor of rotting flesh and bile, which was different from simple stagnance and old blood. Before long, the sounds of shuffling feet and loud, wet breaths reached their ears, and it was clear that the 'Spawn sensed the presence of one of the hated Wardens, for the dull scrape of steel on stone registered, presumably as they picked up weapons off the ground. This was going to be interesting; the hallway was narrow at best, with enough room for maybe two across, though honestly, Lucien could probably fill the space by himself if he made an effort to do so.

Either way, the first hurlock rounded the corner then, and Rilien demonstrated once more that he had no time to waste, disappearing and crossing the distance remaining in an eyeblink, shoving the point of a Dalish knife into the back of a Darkspawn neck before flickering and disappearing again. The fight was on.

Nostariel hung back, casting a range of beneficial spells, giving every weapon in her range elemental properties, save any that already had one. An arcane shield and heroic offense followed, but she didn't cast offensively; the space was too narrow and she didn't want to risk hitting someone, plus this way, her energy was conserved in the event healing became necessary.

Almost rolling his eyes, Lucien followed on Rilien's heels, at least until the Tranquil disappeared. It had used to be he that charged headlong into battles, but of course the reasoning was completely different. Rilien acted ever as he did for the sake of simplicity and efficiency-- Lucien had just been reckless. Sometimes, he reflected as the first knot of Darkspawn tried to squeeze through and get at Nostariel and the others in the back, he still was. A straightforward vertical swing buried the point of the scythe in the head of one of those incoming, and until such time as someone else decided to cohabitate the frontlines, he kept himself to diversionary tactics, drawing those that would be taunted to him and keeping the line more or less clear with great horizontal swipes of the farmer's implement, freeing up the others to choose their tactics with impunity.

Her nose twitched, then wrinkled in disgust. If there was something she was not accustomed to, it was her ability to smell the most unpleasant things. The twisting tunnels were now emitting the foulest smells – something caught between a festering corpse, and a fistful of writhing maggots, perhaps, even shit. Even with her arcane, if not biased knowledge, of Darkpawn, Rapture-Sparrow certainly did not like the bloody things, so she would fight them if they so challenged them. The likelihood of the dirty-things making appearance was inevitable, as they were drawn to their resident Grey Warden like moths fluttering around a flame. She glanced in Nostariel's direction, noting her caution. The Dalish-man had undertaken the role of scout, flitting ahead like an animal, whilst signalling them forward, or back, or wherever he wanted them to halt and decide the best course of action. She was only to happy to oblige.

Rapture-Sparrow was expected to do something. From what she'd gathered, Sparrow was rather hot-headed with her mace, preferring to steal into the fray and swing that bloody thing around like a lumberman. She fingered the weapon curiously, clutching it in her hands as if she'd never seen the thing before. Of course – it'd been used against her, but could she even use it? Her speciality had always been in subterfuge, in deceit, in rallying her magical prowess. Would that not stick out like a sore thumb? She stood there, momentarily defeated by her own musings, while Rilien blinked away from her peripherals, already engaged with the oncoming 'Spawn. Nostariel, too, had begun casting her own spells. She'd tasted the Fade, and the woman's magic, before any spells had erupted from her staff. A soft whistle sifted through her lips, derisive in it's sound. She would not embarrass herself swinging that thing around. Instead, she'd dropped the weapon (much to Sparrow's internal dismay) on the ground and moved off to the side, hands aglow with energy, and began firing off sizzling spears of lightning.

The sight of the normally headstrong Sparrow dropping her mace to persue a more arcane approached struck Ashton as odd, but then again, it was not the time to question such trivalities-- at least while those reeking creatures still lived. Ashton was glad that he had specialized in the bow instead of more forthcoming weapons like the sword or mace, as that would put him in close proximity to the nasties. He was not a fearless man unlike most of his companions. Unlike Nostariel who had fought the creatures as Wardens are wont, he actively fled Ferelden because of the blighters. The sight of the creatures managed to strike a chord and he shuddered at the sight of them. Still, he would not be rendered useless because of some lousy Darkspawn...

Perhaps the number of bodies between him and the critters had something to do with his sudden stalwart bravery. If all else failed, he could always poof away like Rilien did, only in the opposite direction. An option to consider later perhaps, for now he was expected to take part in the battle and he would not disappoint. At least, he'd try not to disappoint. There was an issue though, as the previously mentioned bodies also had the effect of obscuring his aim. He'd rather not draw anyone's ire for a mistakenly placed arrow to the back. His head whipped back and forth as he searched for options. The most obvious answer would be up but the trench they found themselves in was sorely lacking in any stable platform. Anyone with a lick of sense would have allowed the frontline take out the 'Spawn for him.

Luckily, Ashton was blessed with the lack thereof. He pressed up against the side of one wall in order to get a running start on the other. A sane person would view him as running head long, though he had a plan. He ran and jumped, planting his feet on the wall a good couple of feet from the ground. Then he pushed off, giving him a couple more feet of clearance, enough so that he could fire without hitting friendlies. Still, it wouldn't do any good if he couldn't sustain the height. Fortunately, there was a step two to his brilliant plan. As he began to fall, he fell back toward the other wall, lengthing the entirety of his frame. Now was perhaps not the best time for him to realize that he had forgotten to measure his height to that of the width of the tunnel. Still, as he fell, he felt just what he needed to. His upper back caught the other wall, if only by a hair. There he lay, a couple of feet off of the ground, his feet and shoulders pushing against each other and the wall keeping him aloft. It was... Quite the display of dexterity. He couldn't help but laugh as he nocked an arrow and began to fire down upon the darkspawn.

If he had been just a tad bit shorter, this would never had worked. It probably shouldn't had worked for a sane man anyway. Ignorance is bliss however.

Ithilian might have noted Ashton's ridiculous display of dexterity and responded with a scowl or an eye roll, he might have cared that the no longer mace wielding half-elf was a lightning-throwing mage, or that the battlefield they found themselves in was far more confined than he was used to, but he did none of these things. One of his Dalish blades was in his strong hand, the dagger Amalia had gifted to him gripped firmly in the other, his face dead set with the expression of unbridled hate.

He kept a different kind of contempt in his heart for the darkspawn, one that rivaled, and perhaps surpassed, that of the shemlen. Here, at last, in these dank, dark tunnels and underground caverns, did he have the advantage. He was the hunter, and they were now the prey. As far as he was concerned, there was no one else here other than the darkspawn. He pushed forward and through, keeping his head low, his stance tight and coiled, predatory. He did not disappear as the Tranquil was able to, but rather used the distractions the warrior and the mages provided to cut through the first ranks, getting out ahead of any of them, and getting to work.

The first one he sliced lit with flames that immediately caused it to flail with the pain. He let it burn. He attacked the others more to maim than instantly kill, avoiding the throat and instead slicing and stabbing vulnerable areas, removing limbs, sending the beasts sprawling to the ground in sprays of blood, howling their anguish. How long had he waited to do this?

Far, far too long.

Amidst it all he was cautious to keep from opening his mouth, lest he swallow any amount of the blood splashing about. His face was stone cold and murderous, even if inside he was a storm of vengeance, his blades acting as messengers of Elgar'nan, each stroke exacting the revenge of one of his fallen kin. All too soon it seemed the fight was over, this cluster of them fallen, all the while the fallen still called out for their vengeance. The Dalish elf huffed through his nose, dripping with blood for a moment, before wordlessly moving on. More would be ahead.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Hindsight was a pain in the ass. During the entirety of his climb and even during the hail of arrows, not once did Ashton think about how he was going to get down. The realization hit just as the last Darkspawn fell under the vengeful elf's barrage. And vengeful it was. Ashton didn't know whether to be more frightened of the Darkspawn, or the elf. However, the elf was the least of his troubles currently. He looked down on both sides of him, noticing that was quite a drop for him to just land on his back on the cold unforgiving rock beneath. Even worse still, time was not in his favor, as every minute he stood wedged between the two walls felt like a year to his back. He needed down, without shattering what was left of his back.

He just decided to fall, and hope that the rock seemed a lot softer than it looked like. Really, what else was he going to do? Float down? He tossed his bow off to the side, his quiver close behind. He'd hate for them to break his fall. Now free of his possessions, he pulled his feet and shoulders away from the wall and the sudden sensation of falling took over. He braced himself for the impact to come.

--Only to find that it didn't. Lucien, who had only been somewhat aware of the archer's incredibly-odd maneuver during the battle, found himself more or less beneath Ashton when he let go, and reflexively, the Chevalier sidestepped and put out his arms to catch the falling person, determining that how exactly this situation had come about was something he could figure out later. Needless to say, when he staggered backwards a step, he was quite surprised to find himself looking down at the hunter. Glancing back up at the ceiling of the hall, he shook his head, setting the man down on his feet. "I'm sure I don't want to know," he decided with some amusement.

It was at this point that Nostariel was finally pulled from her vaguely-horrified musings about the way that battle had turned out. She had good reason to detest Darkspawn, but she'd never dream of doing that to them-- of essentially torturing them before they died. She supposed there must be something deeply-painful there, but all the same, she couldn't help but be somewhat upset about it, if for no other reason than the pragmatic: when you left something to die, it wasn't dead, and that meant there was always a chance it could get back up again and hurt someone. The clatter of wood on stone stirred her to action, though, and she glanced over to see what appeared to be Ashton's bow and quiver on the ground some distance from herself. Trotting over, she retrieved these, sure that he would want them again, though not without testing the weight of the bow in her hands.

It was clearly too heavy, but there was something about it that drew her even still. Shaking her head ruefully, she gathered up the loose arrows and replaced them in the quiver, slinging that over her shoulder and padding to where Lucien was setting the man on the ground. The Warden suppressed a giggle at the incongruous sight; it really did say something about the both of them-- the kindness of one and creativity (and small dose of silliness) in the other, maybe.

"My hero," Ashton said, clasping his hands and looking at the chevalier with mock longing. All the jokes aside, the man had just saved him from being a hunter flavored mound on the ground. So there was a hint of genuine thanks in his jest, buried somewhere deep in it. Still didn't make it any less awkward though. "Fair enough," Ashton admitted, "Not sure how I managed to get up there either." Ashton arched his back and pushed, trying to exercise the cramps that had built up while he was in his predictament. With one problem solved, that left the collection of his personal items. He believed his arrows to be all over the place when he turned and saw that Nostariel had collected them.

"Always happy to assist a damsel in distress," Lucien replied, rolling his good eye to the roof of the cave. Shaking his head somewhat, he moved on, following after the Tranquil and the Dalish man who was anything but. More danger yet awaited them, if he had his guess, and he did still manage to enjoy that, most of the time.

A smile formed on the Archer's face, and a teasing was inevitible. "Look at you, already the spitting image of an archer. Bow's a bit large for ya though," He said. He laughed and nodded, accepting the items from the mage before leaning over to whisper in her ear, "As thanks, I'll make you a special one at a time that I deem you ready," He said with a wink, alluding the promise he had made to her earlier. While it may not have been promise in words, Ashton felt as if it was one, and he wasn't the one to go back on promises to friends.

Nostariel coughed slightly, a smidge embarrassed at being caught in her idle little daydreams, but he really did seem serious about the whole thing, and that made her happier than she'd had cause to be in a while. Still, it wouldn't do to forget that they were in the Deep Roads, with a bunch of Darkspawn and some unhappy allies. So she smiled, nodded once, and trailed off after the Chevalier, intent on not being left behind. Not that they would, probably; they did sort of require her presence, at least for now. She wasn't sure if that made things worse or better. Once again, the archer found himself behind the procession. Fair enough, farther away he was from the blighters, the better. As he walked, he dipped low to pick up Sparrow's mace, looking to return it to its rightful owner.

Sparrow, in turn,shrugged her shoulders and retrieved the dreadful hammer-stick from Ashton's proffered hands, with a simpering smile. That Chevalier was interesting enough – how hadn't she noticed him before? Bound by things like honour, nobleness, duty and tightly-knit friendships. Her gaze lingered over his shoulder for a moment, before she offered the archer a demure thanks and strapped the mace back to her hip, following the group at a much leisurely pace.

Varric had gone off ahead after giving a hearty laugh at the scene with Ashton and Lucien, trying to catch up with the Dalish elf who'd gone off ahead of the group. A few scattered darkspawn were found butchered along the way through the winding tunnels, the walls occasionally lined with glowing blue lyrium crystals that lit entire walls a light blue color. After some trek further, the dwarf came upon him, standing at the top of a staircase leading down to a cliffside dropping off into an angry looking lake of lava. His blades were still out, dripping with darkspawn blood. Varric had been about to remind him of the usefulness of caution in a situation like this when he came up beside him, and saw what he was looking at.

At the bottom of the staircase lay perhaps a dozen or more dead darkspawn scattered about in a bloody heap, including one darkspawn ogre who was quite literally frozen in mid charge, glowing white with the magical ice encasing it. At the edge of the cliffside stood a blonde-haired dwarven boy, covered from head to toe in blood, and it didn't look like any of it was his own. Varric looked to Ithilian in surprise. "Did you...?" he began, but Ithilian just shook his head. "Well I'll be a nug's uncle..." Sandal was idly scratching himself in a rather awkward place as Varric began his descent down the stairs. We he noticed the crossbow wielding dwarf and the rest of the group, he gave a bright eyed smile and a simple "'Ello."

Rilien paused for the span of a breath when he came upon the scene Ithilian and Varric were looking at, but no longer. Instead, he continued forward, treading gracefully down the staircase. When he reached the bottom, he stilled, crouching so as to be at eye-level with the dwarf, elbows on his knees, forearms draped at a downward angle. He blinked, just the once, and nodded. "Sandal. Your father is looking for you." Raising one arm, he pointed back in the direction they had come. "You remember how to get back, do you not?" It was hardly a question; Rilien was sure the boy did, in that strange way that he was sure of many things, like precisely when to fold solidifying lyrium or when to reduce the heat on his mana restoratives to give them that pearl-silver tint distinctive to only the ones he made, his maker's mark, as it were.

It didn't mean he understood why, only that. Unlike most people, this was often enough to content him. Rising, Rilien folded his arms into his sleeves, glancing back at the rest briefly, but he would not move until they seemed inclined to it once again.

"How on earth...?" Nostariel was substantially more confused, looking between the dead Darkspawn, the petrified ogre, and the unassuming dwarven lad. Something wasn't adding up here; she'd never seen the like of this situation. Sandal was unarmed and apparently quite docile. How could he have possibly survived an attack of this magnitude?

Sandal ignored Nostariel for the moment, instead looking at the Tranquil elf with a happy smile, holding out one blood spattered arm, which held a small stone engraved with some kind of rune. His fingers grasped only the edge of it, implying that he wished the elf to take it. "Enchantment. Boom!" was all he said.

As if to try and answer Nostariel's confusion, he gestured up at the petrified ogre. "Not enchantment." Seeming content with his own explanation, he started off, heading back the way the group came, and returning to camp. Varric watched him go with an incredulous and very amused face. "Smart boy." Ithilian was perhaps the least affected by the scene, apart from the Tranquil, and was the first to move onwards. "We've still a job to do," he growled.

"Now. I'm not an expert on dwarves or magic..." Ashton began, standing in front of the orge, his arms crossed contemplative. The thing was frozen in its dire charge and looked absolutely terrifying. If it even moved an inch, Ashton wasn't sure if he could reliably contain his bladder. It didn't look like it was moving any time soon, so the evening's water was safe within the confines of his belly. Still, the whole thing was quite curious. "But aren't dwarves incapable of magic? I mean, I've never seen one waddle around weaving spells." Though the novelty the idea was rather fun. "If this was not enchantment, then what was it?" Ashton posed. Alas, it seemed he wouldn't get his answer, and their frontman in the elf apparently had somewhere else to be. Ashton gave the frozen orge one last look over and then trailed behind the elf (at a good distance, of course).

Rilien took the rune curiously, which was to say that he picked it up gingerly and rotated it a few times, inspecting the surface, before tucking it away up one of his sleeves. "Thank you," he told the boy, falling in next to Ashton, he watched blandly as the Warden quickened her stride to surpass them, something akin to determination on her face, until she drew apace with the Dalish. She spoke in tones too low for him to hear, but it sounded vaguely concerned. The Tranquil wasn't sure why she bothered; it seemed much more intelligent to just let him do what he wanted. If he died, that was his own fault, and if not, it was less work for the rest of them. As the Tranquil trotted up beside Ashton, the archer nonchalantly tossed an arm over Rilien's shoulder in a gesture that would have been awkward for anyone else. The Tranquil seemed content to ignore it, and proceeded as though it were not even there.

Nostariel wasn't exactly sure how to ask what she wanted to ask, and the fact that she had to ask Ithilian was only making matters worse. But the fact was, the things he was doing were just as likely to get all of them killed as help anything, and she wasn't about to allow that. "Ithilian," she said quietly, "Is something bothering you? Er, well, aside from..." she waved a hand vaguely behind them, as if to encompass the most salient possibilities: chatter, humans, Ashton specifically... She'd start with that. Command had taught her never to say too much too soon. It ran the risk of wrongly interpreting something, which could inadvertantly shut down the conversation. Still... if she had to pry, she would. The lives of those behind them were worth antagonizing him if she had to.

"I've learned to ignore his voice specifically," Ithilian said, and it was more or less true, as he had to look back to see the shem's arm over the Tranquil elf in order to pick up any part of their stress-inducing conversation. He trusted Nostariel would know who he was talking about. "Other than that, I've a score to settle with the darkspawn, though I'm afraid no amount of physical torment I can inflict upon them will satisfy Elgar'nan. Or me."

His eyes continuously scanned the dark corners, the shadowy halls that could possibly hold more targets for his rage, but none presented themselves to him. He was disappointed. "I've waited some time to obtain some form of vengeance. So yes, something is bothering me."

Nostariel closed her eyes against the images that threatened. She didn't have to know the specifics to understand what he was talking about; the story was all too common. How many people had she met who had lost everything to the Blight? How many more would she meet before they took her, too? Would she... would she ever be the reason someone grew to hold this much hate inside themselves? No, nobody loved her that much anymore, and for that, she supposed she should be glad. Perhaps, perhaps it was this that allowed her to undersand both sides of that particularly-gruesome equation. "Whom did they take from you?" she asked, and her voice, suppressed as it was, still managed to contain within itself a microcosm of raw, hoarse, whispered pain that she expected he'd understand.

She wasn't even sure what prompted the question. His grief was his own, truly, but... maybe not. Maybe it was hers, too, in virtue of something common to them. Maybe it was meant to be shared. Maybe she had no idea, but all she could really remember was that speaking it aloud had helped her, even if just enough. It wasn't just about getting him to exercise caution anymore, whatever else might be the case.

He took a deep breath through his nose, unsure as to why he was sharing this with her. Her status as a Warden didn't demand he relate his life's misery to her, but maybe he wanted her to understand, or maybe he wanted to know if she already understood. "They took my Keeper, Felaris, and Maro, his First" he began. "They took Ariana, Ashallo, Melori, Paivan, Serann, Dagan, and the rest of the hunters. They took those that had not yet earned their vallaslin, and those who were too old to still hunt. They took the craftsmen, the weak and the sick, the warriors strong and swift. They took Adahlen, my wife. And I took Mithra, my daughter."

He hadn't said the names in a long time. It angered him how few of them he could remember. Few names, fewer faces. Two that would never fade. "Butchering the 'Spawn in another country won't bring them back, I know, but the Gods know I have wanted this vengeance. There may not be another chance."

"So many lives," Nostariel murmured. "And so many more, past and future." She kept her eyes fixed resolutely on the path in front of her, unwilling to look elsewhere for the moment. She was no more comfortable speaking of these things than he was, really, perhaps even less. "Of all the people I have ever loved, only one was not taken from me by the Darkspawn, that only because she is prisoner in a Circle. I suppose my family was not mine by blood, but they were by choice, and I was supposed to lead them. The man I loved was taken by their foul blood at the joining, the team I captained by these very pits." She waved a hand, indicating that she spoke of the Deep Roads generally, not this spot specifically.

"They're still buried there, all ten of them. Because I wasn't strong enough to save them, because my magic ran dry and the foul things didn't. The Horde is endless, and when my time comes, I shall have my fill of their deaths. But here, and now, I can only try and keep the people here alive. I promise you, there will be no shortage of chances to kill Darkspawn, but I'm asking you to remember that this need not be your Calling, nor mine, nor anyone else's. I can't make the same mistake twice. A selfish thing, but one I will not give up, all the same." She trusted him to understand what she was asking him to do, but by no means did she have any idea whether he would.

"My life is not your responsibility," he said. He supposed he should have felt... something, at her losses, but it only made him feel like she should understand, and let him do as he wished. "None of those that you lost meant to die. But me? I heard my Calling during the Blight, and only delirium and blood loss let me ignore it. I have wasted away in my anger since then, using anything as an outlet, but I have had enough. I refuse to let my life fade into drink and misery. I will not become that."

His anger was rising, and it was causing him to lose some focus on their surroundings. "I see visions of my daughter in a girl I rescued with Amalia. I can't look at her anymore." At last he decided to stop watching the sides, and turned to look at Nostariel. "All I want is to see them again. I never should have left them."

The pronounced tic in Nostariel's tightly-clenched jaw was perhaps the only giveaway to her reaction, at least at first. Of all the people she'd known to have dealings with Ithilian, Amalia seemed to understand him the best, and so she'd thought to try and handle things as she guessed the Qunari might have, which was calmly, rationally, but not without the bite of exasperation when it was effective. That all sort of evaporated when he successfully managed to say about three of the worst possible things he could ever have said to her, so instead she slapped him.

To her credit, it wasn't particularly forceful, as some still-reasonable part of herself reminded her that she didn't actually want to hurt him. It was quick, though, and sudden, her free hand drawing back and smacking the unscarred side of his face. "So you mean to die, then?" she snapped, her volume drastically increased from a few moments before. "Because you don't want to live as what, me? You're already not me, Ithilian, because you don't even respect their sacrifice enough to live. You think she'd want you to die? To turn away from the things right in front of your face and give up?" Both hands found her staff, and she gripped it white-knuckled, more for the feeling of security than anything else, as it was just beginning to sink in, what she'd done, and she couldn't discount the possibility that he would (perhaps reasonably) retaliate somehow.

"You say you see your daughter somewhere. Why turn from her? I... I only wish I could know what that was like, even for a little while. You failed. I understand, I do. But don't let yourself fail again. See what's in front of you, and take it, and let it be enough, for as long as it can be. I... I'm sorry." She shook herself, tone having lowered to about what it was when she started, and she appeared to be shaking, though not from fear.

Ithilian took the slap without much of a reaction; truth be told, he was starting to get used to people being furious at him for his most recent choices. His lip twitched on the good side as he straightened his head again, using his half-foot or so height advantage to not really look at the Warden. Had he failed? To be honest, he felt as though he didn't. He felt as though there was nothing he could have done. He knew there was nothing he could have done. There were too many of them, for too long, for one elf to make a difference. They hadn't sacrificed themselves for him, they just died... and he should have died there with them.

But he did still draw breath. Maybe... maybe it was worth a look. Maybe he needed more time. His life had been so constructed, so complete, that to have it all torn down... how did one just start again? When it didn't seem that anything could ever be as perfect?

Lucien, who had been watching the discussion with concern, given the distinct body language of both parties, grimaced noticeably when Nostariel's hand drew back. That was... not what he would have expected of her. She was usually very peaceable and calm, if too melancholy. Having heard the story of her lost subordinates on a separate occasion, he knew this place could not be one of any but the foulest memories, but that alone should not have prompted such a reaction, and he was left to assume it was something the man had said. Of course, when she started yelling, he could guess at bits and pieces, and he was beginning to question whether or not he should intervene when things fell relatively quiet again, and he relaxed for all of three seconds before something in the distance caught his attention.

Was that...? Yes, yes, he was quite certain it was. Drawing the scythe from his back, he strapped the shield firmly to his off-hand and ran forward. "Sorry to interrupt," he called as he brushed past them, "But that's a dragon. Rilien?" He automatically turned his head to check his blind side for the Tranquil, a practiced gesture that he'd fallen back into without so much as needing to consider it. He need not have looked, for Rilien was already there, blades drawn and keeping pace with the Chevalier easily.

"I am here," he said simply.

Surprisingly, Ashton flanked the Tranquils other side, arrow already nocked. As he passed Nostariel and Ithilian, his offer was less polite and more curt, "Eyes up, company." While Darkspawn and ogres managed to send shivers down his spine, the sight of the dragon managed to draw out the hunter like nothing else could. The grandest of prey, the most legendary of hunts, a dragon stood before him. No hunter without his pride would pass up a chance to hunt such a magnficent beast. He only wished his uncle could see him now. A grin plastered his face as he thought of all the things he could do with the hide and bones of a dragon. But first, he'd have to survive the fight, and to do that, he'd have to kill the thing. A fair trade if there ever was one.

His pace suddenly slacked, dropping back behind the Chevalier and the Tranquil, and he darted to the right, slipping out of view in a gout of Shadow's smoke.

Ithilian noted the dragon before returning his gaze to Nostariel. He clearly wanted to say something, but there was simply no time. Perhaps the anger in his eye when he sheathed his blade and Parshaara in favor of his bow would say what he wanted.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The dragon didn't come alone. It floated to the ground atop a raised pavilion flanked by stairs on either side, wings draping over the edges. Its neck extended out over the edge, taking a brief moment to survey the group that had stumbled into its lair, before the mouth opened, revealing wickedly sharp and deadly fangs. More importantly, it unleashed a gout of flame in a thick cone in front of it, hoping to either separate the party to the left and right, or otherwise cook them alive. To the sides, small hordes of dragonlings descended upon them, monsters the size of mabari war hounds, with just as powerful a bite.

Ithilian experienced an immediate internal battle, a direct result of the words Nostariel had stung him with. Whatever his reasoning, his blades were sheathed, his bow in his hands instead, a swift roll carrying out of the way of the fire and off to the right of the room instead. No sooner had he returned to his feet than an arrow was drawn and loosed, aimed for the dragon's mouth. The fact that the beast's fire attack was cut short and the head recoiled back spoke to his accuracy. If he had wanted to die, then this was a pretty poor start.

If anyone appeared to be suicidal in this mad rush, it was probably Lucien, he who ducked to one side of the gout of dragonflame and propelled himself further forward still, of a mind to keep it quite focused on him. He'd had to, as he always did, resist the urge to either give or wait for orders, but if any part of his reckless abandon remained, it was this: present him with a challenge, and he'd not leave it unanswered. He was pretty sure challenges didn't get much bigger than this. Maybe some other varieties of dragon, but that was really it.

And damn it all, the fire was in his bones already, searing along his skin almost as though the dragon had hit him instead of missing. But of course, this was something less painful and more galvanizing, though admittedly sometimes the difference still became hard to distinguish. A shout and a lunge, and he shouldered into the thing's foreleg with all the momentum he had. It didn't do much damage, but it certainly earned him the beast's attention, and for now, at least, it left off the attempts at cooking the lot of them and swiped at him with the other front paw, a blow which he just managed to block in time, throwing up his shield and bending at the knees. The force of it took him almost to the ground, but his sense of balance and innate sturdiness kept him upright, and he smiled, pushing off the rebound in his legs and swiping at its head with the scythe, catching it a glancing blow on the snout as the crude blade skittered off the scales there.

If it was going to pierce anything, it would have to be the underbelly, an eye, or the inside of its mouth. For now, though, he was freeing up the rest to act as they would.

Rilien faithfully tracked Lucien's shadow until the Chevalier drew within range of the dragon, then veered sharply off to the left. While the opportunity was presented, he fully intended to cut down the small ones. They could be fatal enough if they wound up underfoot, and the dragon itself would take time to slay. He had no care for what was more glorious or made for a better story; his only concern was with keeping himself and a certain subset of this group alive.

Two fell to a brutal double-attack, his blades held out to each side as he tore past them, slipping between and successfully decapitating the pair. Their necks were thin things, and their scales had not the resistance of the larger one. This, he would captialize upon, and he took the left side of the dragon, leaving the right for now, aware that whatever his skills might be, he was most effective when focusing his attention. Reversing grip on both knives, he plunged them with a dull thunk into the spine of the next, tearing them free and stepping away as several more surrounded him. Wide arcs of brilliant red spattered from the ends of the steel, creating whip-lines blood upon the stone. Inside a small circle of dragonlings, Rilien vanished, reappearing behind the largest of these, stepping upon its arched back with one foot and cutting off the shrill mewling sound with a slash to the back of the neck. One tried to jump for him, and he gutted it, opening a line from clavicle to pelvis, shaking the next off his foot with a well-placed kick. Its teeth had dug into his ankle, but that was of no concern. Unlike a wyvern, there was nothing poisonous about these.

In fact, compared to a wyvern hunt, this was of little concern at all. Unfortunate that the same could not be said for the creature the others dealt with at present.

Varric was the last one into the room, and as such the initial burst of fire had dissipated by the time he entered the fight proper. His crossbow firmly in hand he darted to the right, following the path of the Dalish hunter, albeit slightly behind him. The dragon was a pressing threat, yes, but others were more properly equipped to handle it for the moment, or perhaps simply just to distract it, which was really what they needed so that they could deal with these smaller ones first. To that end, Varric ran by Ithilian and tapped him lightly on the shoulder, before pointing clearly towards the rushing group of dragonlings on the right side. "Go. Bianca and I will set them up for you."

Ithilian had almost asked who Bianca was, before deciding that there was really no time for the dwarf to answer. He obeyed, putting his bow away and drawing his Dalish blades. Parshaara would likely not be as useful here, considering a dragon's natural resistance to fire. His own weapons would suffice. Deciding to give the dwarf a chance, he charged headlong towards the cluster of creatures. Just in time a crossbow bolt shot past his side and exploded in the middle of the group, killing the one that it had hit in a most gruesome fashion, and stunning the others briefly, which was the opening Ithilian needed.

His anger was something different, his attack merciless and unrelenting, swift and brutal. The first two he simply removed of their heads, but some of the others had almost returned to their senses, and he adjusted, sidestepping the first lunging, snapping jaw and plunging both blades into the chest of another, ripping them from not a moment later when he was certain he'd punctured the heart, and turning on the one that had attacked him. It made a second jump at him, and he put both blades up in an X, catching the neck in the middle and stopping the teeth inches from his throat. A simple slice later it too had no head.

They were coming together as a group now, a dragonling attaching its teeth into his left bicep while another jumped at him from the front. He impaled the frontal attacker as it came in, using a foot to shove it off the blade, before lifting his left arm, and the dragonling with it, at least enough to expose the underside of its body. He drove his right blade just under the chin and cut down, opening it from throat to belly and dropping it to the floor before he jumped back to put some space between him and the remaining dragonlings.

Rapture-Sparrow had once again abandoned her mace by the entrance of the den, preferring to throw her lot in with Nostariel and send jagged ice-bolts through the air with unaccountable precision, impaling her first target straight through it's reptilian skull. It's brain matter, scales and blood, splattered backwards, on a nearby rock, where the ice-bolt had shattered in a floe of hail. Her aim was impeccable, but she still managed to hurl them disconcertingly close her companions. It wouldn't have surprised her if errant strands of hair were blown askew from the momentum of her projectiles, embedding themselves into their targets before she flit off to the side, gracefully ducking behind larger rocks and concentrating on whichever opponents were closest – but some idea had come to her as icicles accumulated in her palms, one that was much more entertaining than simply aiding and playing her part in this tiddly group. Her footsteps slowed to a halt and she smiled demurely, concentrating her now-empty hand behind her back, where it swirled with darker, malicious energy.

This energy did not belong to Sparrow – she had no gifts in the darker arts, nor had she ever tried her hand at it. It was the same as her mediocre abilities in healing; non-existent by all accounts. Her eyes trailed after Rilien and Lucien taking up the front, falling into a comfortable rhythm that could only mean that they'd done this before. Ithilian was elsewhere, tying up the dragon by firing arrow's into its gaping mouth. The human apostate, alone against the world, and she can feel it inside her, the darkness, the familiar pulling from the other side of the Veil. Her scars are razor-thin, like careful cuts that haven't had time to heal. Her uncertainty tells her many things. Deep cuts, whip cuts. She would make her remember. For her, Rapture-Sparrow cast a potent Waking Nightmare. She was sure to duck behind large boulders to hide her intent as the inky energy left her fingers, spiralling through a nearby dragonlings fire and dipping around it to reach Nostariel. She danced away with an unbounding giddiness, throwing the occasional bolts of ice before slipping away from sight. For the angry one, the one who shook with rage and vengeance, Rapture-Sparrow cast Disorient. If she was lucky, it would cause him to stumble, to make mistakes he wouldn't make under normal circumstances.

None of her little tricks would work on Rilien, but she could apply Weakness to his legs, which she did in quick succession. Sparrow, annoyingly enough, had begun to pound loudly on her walls, on her mindscape's birdcage. How deep were the Chevalier's scars? Did they run jagged and crooked, tangled with knots? Her voice whispered soothingly in her mind, reminding Sparrow that it had been her decision after all. It's easy, it's just a little more, she'll protect her. It won't hurt. Of course, it wouldn't. She was her mother, her sister, her lover, her friend; someone she knew, someone she could trust. Her voice was bright, clear, almost familiar. Those ineffectual fists ignored her soothing words, unmasking her hate, her fear. She promptly ignored it and added Ashton and Lucien to the list of Waking Nightmare recipients. Again, she skipped away behind the rocks, hands once again brought in front of her so she could resume her glacial assault on the remaining dragonlings. She remained dutifully ineffective, watching expectantly; jubilant.

Adrenaline flooded his system, the exhilarition puckering his skin. Ashton had never felt more alive, more in tune with himself than he did while he hunted. And, well, there was no greater hunt than that of a dragon. when he tore off from the flanks of Rilien and Lucien, he darted to the right and ran along the side of the wall. So intent was he on the prize in front of his eyes, he had forgotten that perhaps the scaley fellow brought along a couple of his friends. It came as a shocking surprise when his hunt shifted from the big dragon, to a smaller dragon. Even so, neither his himself nor his heart skipped a beat. He was still concealed by the shadows, and as such the dragonling didn't notice Ashton until the man vaulted over the reptile. A stutter in his step paused him as he swung his bow around and drilled an arrow into the base of it's skull.

Another shot of adrenaline coarsed through his system at the knowledge of a clean kill, but the hunter is a careful being, and another arrow punched right next to it's sister. He had never hunted dragon before, and it was better safe than sorry, plus he did not want to chance leaving the creature in undue pain. For all of the hunter's precaution and attention to detail in the hunt, the dragonling was not in the center of his mind, but rather the big scaley one currently engaged in close-quarters combat with the Chevalier. Say what he would about the man's astounding sense of honor, Ashton had to admit the man had the bravery befitting the title of knight.

Still, if there was a fire in the Chevalier's bones, then Ashton's entire skeleton was an incinerating inferno. Deer, wolves, bear, none of them had anything over a dragon. A marvelous hunter in it's own right. The only thing was that they didn't have the honor to fight it out one on one, though with the dragon's friends and his own, Ashton figured they'd even out somewhat. A powerful kick sent him propelling out of his stutter and into another run. Though he was no longer hidden by the shadows, he could easily dodge what he had too. He just had to think of the dragonlings as trees and he'd be able to slip right around them.

A spiral around one gaping maw and a swift kick to another put him past the Dragonlings and into a direct line of sight with his prey. He was in no better position either, broadside of the dragon, with ample opportunity to pick and choose his spots. A wide, wild grin spread across. First, along the neck, then around the heart, then he'd finish it off with a volley to the head. Ashton would have to be careful, else he risk hitting the Chevalier. But he was an archer, a hunter rivalling even the Dalish with them. He wouldn't miss. How could he? He drew back to enact this plan before something tugged at his mind at the back of his mind, draining all enthusiam he had. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that the arrow flew wide of it's intended mark and fell toward Lucien.

The world around him drained in color as everything slowed down. The dragon and it's ilk shifted into something more sinister, unexplainable monsters. It was no longer a dragon hunt, a dream for the hunter, but rather a waking nightmare. He was alone now, a child once more, facing down scores of these faceless monsters. Darkspawn, demons, unnatural things, and even Qunari bared down on him. He was alone to face the coming darkness again. It was only the ingrained instincts learned over many years that kept him on his feet. "No, no, no, no!" He cried, frozen in his spot, unable to escape his nightmare.

At around the same time as Ashton's shot veered wide, Rilien experienced what he considered to be even more surprising (in that dull way that he was capable of feeling surprise at all). Mid-step, on his way over to reinforce Lucien by pestering the dragon's flanks, his left leg gave out from underneath him, sending him spilling to the ground. Tucking into a neat roll, the Tranquil nevertheless had to struggle to regain his footing, and there was no immediately-obvious cause for it, which meant of course that there could only be one cause. But dragons, fearsome as they might have been, were not the kind of beings who could cast magic, and Rilien surveyed his surroundings with new attention. Ashton, Lucien and Nostariel, all of whom were within his line of sight, seemed frozen in place by something, and though he could not tell what had happened to the dwarf or the Dalish man, it didn't matter. With the Warden out of the running, there was only one party who could possibly be responsible for this.

He was too far away to stop the arcing arrow, and that alone was enough to cause a bubble of frustration to rise to the surface. Setting his teeth, he was making for that thing that inhabited Sparrow's body when several shrieks from behind him alerted him to the presence of more dragons. And not simple dragonlings, either: these were a bit more grown, somewhere between infants and drakes. With the state the others were in now, he had no choice, and though the slightest of unfriendly sneers lifted his upper lip in Rapture's direction, he turned anyway, treading with a studied, careful lightness back into the fray. He was no puppet, no thrall, no matter how wilful the puppeteer. His weakness would be ignored, compensated for, mastered, made irrelevant.

But even as his knife flayed into the toughened scales of the first to approach, he knew this was not something he could accomplish alone.

Though Nostariel was not, whatever she might seem, generally a weak-minded individual, it was not difficult for the waking nightmare to overtake her senses. What had been before was already so close to the visions that haunted her dreams, that the changes required to bespell her were only slight. The setting was exactly the same, and the reinforcements that arrived to aid the dragon were plausible if unreal. The difficult part was convincing her that the people around her were falling to it, and that, she'd seen before.

The Tranquil, Rilien, was the first to fall, blindsided by a mighty sweep of the dragon's tail, which plastered him to a cavern wall, from which he fell into a knot of Darkspawn, the likes of which tore him apart limb by limb. Ithilian was overcome by a wave of them, and she turned from that, unable to watch. Sparrow beside her caught an arrow in the neck, and try as she might, Nostariel could dredge up no more healing magic. She felt drained dry, exhausted as she'd only been once before. To her right some distance, Varric swore softly under his breath, catching a bolt of lightning from an emissary for his trouble. Lucien, valiant Lucien, fell next, opening up a grievous wound in the dragon only to be crushed between its jaws, shaken like rags in that maw of a mabari. Nostariel lost her footing, crashing to her knees and looking about for the only other person still alive.

Only to wish she hadn't. The angered beast fell upon the hunter last of all, biting down on his arm with a sickening crunch and tearing the limb from its socket. Its forepaw pinned the bleeding hunter to the stone, and slowly, too slowly, it repeated the process with his other arm, then a leg. It was small comfort that he must have been dead by that point, but if it was, she didn't feel it. All she felt was raw, bare pain, because this was exactly what some part of her had always known would happen. She wasn't strong enough to stop it then, and what had she accomplished since? Nothing, unless one counted an addiction and a sorry attempt at forgiving herself. No, they'd died then, and they died now, and if her luck held, she'd somehow survive this too, even though the Maker knew she didn't deserve it.

Lucien, still in front of the dragon, had been carefully-focused on it, concentrating on blocking or moving around its blows as much as possible. It didn't seem keen to use its flames where it may yet scorch its weaker kin, even if they would be more resistant than the average human. This, he could not decide about. On the one hand, he knew he should be counting his blessings. On the other... it was almost a little disappointing. If he was to dance with a dragon, he wanted it to be with a real dragon, a dragon using everything it had.

When the spell hit Lucien, his vision swam for a moment, and the Chevalier blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. At the corner of his eye, he could see whispers of fabric, gossamer and silk, but a quick turn of his head proved that there was no matching image to be seen. Clenching his teeth, he resolved to ignore it, rotating his field of vision to face the dragon again, only to find that there was now another person standing between it and him. The silk proved to belong to a deep blue dress, edged in silver, adorning the thin (too thin) figure of a lovely woman. Auburn curls fell about her shoulders and spilled down her back, her lips tilted upwards in a gentle smile. The lady held her hands clasped in front of her, looking at him with steady eyes with a hint of sadness to them.

"Oh Lucien," she sighed, the words tinged with melancholy, "Is he all that lives in you now? Have I been so swiftly forgotten?"

"What on earth?" the mercenary muttered, transfixed. There was no way the vision was real- of that he was certain. But what dragon could show him such a true likeness of his mother? It was sorcery, surely. Lucien's nightmares had never been of things that occurred on the field of battle. Combat was not just his occupation, it was his very lifestyle, and to it, he had been born, bred, and reared, in a way that few have the opportunity to replicate. Certainly, this came with downsides, but a weak will was not one of them, and he shook himself again. "Begone, mirage; I've not the patience to tarry here." He'd been doing something important, he knew he had. Something that he'd been enjoying, no less. Why couldn't he quite remember?

The figment opened it's mouth to speak again, but he was done listening, and advanced forward, straight through it, causing the apparition to disappear with a pained cry. This, he did flinch at, and scowled when it triggered a memory, but he knew that for what it was, and did not drown in it. He would have, once, but no longer. His pause left him vulnerable, though, and Ashton's wayward arrow struck him, by sheer bad luck catching in the relatively-unarmored spot between his collarbone and shoulder muscle. Lucien's breath left him in a hissed exhale, and his shield arm slackened involuntarily, giving the dragon the opening it had been seeking. A great forepaw slipped under his guard and pinned him, dragging the knight to the ground in a great clatter of steel plates.

Well, that certainly explained what he'd been doing, and the knight smiled sardonically despite himself. The dragon loomed over him, its great gusts of breath hot and sticky. Still, the unfortunate predicament drew only a breathy chuckle from the Chevalier. If his father could see him now, he'd be shouting at him not to be such an easily-distracted idiot. It was all right, though, because he was far from helpless, even like this. Tightening his hold on his scythe, Lucien waited, regulating his breathing as much as possible so that the beast would not simply crush the air out of him with its great weight. It seemed disinclined to do so, though the large inhale it took told him he was finally going to get that fire he wanted. Its jaws parted, mouth gaping wide.

Maybe now was a good time to give this a shot, then. Heaving with both arms, Lucien flung his scythe with all his strength, hurling it and pushing up against the clawed arm holding him simultaneously. The dragon reflexively pressed down harder, and so his attempt to free himself failed, but the more important half of this plan didn't, and the polearm found its way into the reptilian's throat, choking off the flow of flames. Unfortunately, the reflex to close its mouth was much less useful, and the thing roared with pain when the scythe-blade embedded itself into its soft palate. The resultant gout of hot blood spilled over its teeth, a good portion of the fluid landing on the knight, who felt about two of his ribs snap when the dragon stepped on him to push off, taking again to the air and wheeling erratically.

"Ouch," Lucien muttered, slowly pushing himself to his feet. Gathering his legs beneath him, he shifted his shield to his good arm and took hold of the arrow, tearing it from his flesh as quickly as he was able. That was no Darkspawn implement, if indeed any were even around. He honestly had no idea how someone with aim like Ashton's had shot him unless intentionally, but he didn't have much time to contemplate. That dragon was going to land sooner or later, and as the majority of the group seemed to be... indisposed, he needed to be there when it landed. Rilien seemed to be fine, though, and Ithilian at least was moving, as was Varric. Nostariel was on the ground, and Ashton not really moving, though. "Can you keep the smaller ones off her?" he asked of Varric regarding the Warden. He had a feeling more than a few of them (himself definitely included), were going to need her help when this was all over. With confirmation, Lucien jogged off after the dragon, albeit with considerably less speed than he'd had at first charge. Battles were often long; this one seemed little different.

Nostariel's vision of Ithilian falling was not far flung from reality; the Dalish elf was about the cut down another when he struck with a powerful bout of dizziness, and his attack veered right, missing entirely. The dragonling jumped freely onto his chest, teeth snapping at his face as claws tried to dig into leather for purchase. He tumbled over backwards, managing to keep the roll going and push the dragon off of him, but his brain was having difficulty working at the capacity needed, and at some point he lost hold of his blades, clattering somewhere among the reptilian bodies. The world was more or less upside down (or perhaps he was upside down), when he was attacked from behind, a larger one seizing the opportunity.

He struggled over, snatching Parshaara and driving it into dragon flesh as close as he could find it. That took care of one claw, but the other raked across his face, thankfully on the side already maimed. His cap fell away, blood leaking down to the empty eye socket. The dragon snapped down with teeth towards his neck, but even spinning as the world was, Ithilian could not miss this strike. Rage allowed him to push through, see clearly when it counted. Dragons did not work magic, and so this had come from another source. He'd seen no darkspawn about, so he was left to suspect one of their own. He'd made up his mind that the Warden was right. This was not the time, nor the place. He would not fall here. Not while there were still things within his power to set right.

The drake lunged down with an open mouth, right on top of Parshaara, the dagger sinking into the soft flesh of the throat, from which Ithilian twisted the blade and ripped upwards towards the brain. A long pair of claws sank into his side as he did so, and Ithilian roared in response, ending the beast's life and shoving it off of him, taking the claws with it. He sucked in a breath, turned to face the next dragon that would attack him, only to find it impaled by a crossbow bolt. He turned to see Varric giving a small salute, before turning and firing another bolt off to the left.

"Can do," the dwarf replied to the Chevalier, the majority of his cheer gone, which was not surprising considering the current state of the party. His eyes and hands were set to the task, unloading bolt after bolt into any dragonlings that approached.

Ithilian had shakily made his way to his feet, resisting the remaining effects of the spell. The dragonlings were being taken care of as best as they could be, at least on his side. Perhaps there were more elsewhere. Still, it seemed there were more pressing concerns. He looked to the state of their healer, cowering on her knees towards the rear, the dwarf keeping guard. It took all his attention to do so. The Keeper Ithilian had been raised under, Felaris, had employed Entropic magic on many occasions, it being his preferred school, and as such it did not take Ithilian long to recognize the effects. How many shemlen had he seen cower under the terror of their own nightmares?

He half-jogged, half stumbled until his stood in front of her, at which point he went to a knee, one hand clutching his side, while the other bloody hand took a firm grip of Nostariel's jaw, forcing her to look at him. He meant for his voice to be steady and clear, but there was no doubt that his anger seeped into it. "Warden!" he shouted to her, trying to command her attention. "Nostariel, listen to me. I have decided that I am not dying here. That was your doing. But so help me, if I bleed to death now, the Dread Wolf and I will hunt you to the ends of the earth!" He ended by backhanding her with his free hand, hard enough to be painful. He'd observed that the best method for helping those under Entropic magic was to simply shock them out. "Now get up!"

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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A sudden, stinging pain cleared some of the fog from Nostariel's mind, and the Warden blinked rapidly, trying to see properly. Ithilian's face, bloody and haggard but very much alive was the first thing she saw, and she quickly held up a hand to prevent another blow. "I... probably deserved that. Or at least needed it. Right." Pushing herself unsteadily to her feet, the elf tested her newly-regained senses on her surroundings, trying to figure out what was going on. Judging from the state of things, Ithilian wasn't the only injured party, as Lucien appeared to be so as well, even from this distance. Unless she was mistaken, he was also unarmed, and heading towards the dragon, which had taken flight for some reason. For a moment, she entertained the thought that he was currently as delusional as she had been, but then maybe not.

Ashton certainly was, if his current state was anything to go by. Rilien was still carving his way through a knot of dragonlings and a drake, if with a little more care than she would have expected. "Okay," she said, as much to herself as Ithilian. "I'm going to start healing, but I can't do anything about the entropic spells. Can you... will you go snap Ashton out of it, please? I'd prefer not to be shot." Calling the blue-green light of a group heal to her hands, she spared that idea the thought it deserved and winced. "Please don't break anything if you can avoid it." Where those two were involved, it was probably best to err on the side of caution, right?

Rilien, for his part, shook off the lingering effects of the weakness spell even as he was healed of what injuries he'd managed to accumulate, which wasn't many yet. Still, everything helped, even if he'd always be somewhat uncomfortable being healed by such means as these. The last dragonling in his way, he kicked several meters into the air, feeling its ribcage snap under the pressure, but he didn't waste the time necessary to end it any more quickly than that, instead darting off after the Chevalier and the dragon, which appeared to now be searching for the best angle from which to maul the man. Drawing up alongside the much taller man, Rilien wordlessly offered one of his Dalish knives, reaching into his boot to pull out a replacement for himself. Not nearly as long, and straight-bladed rather than curved, it nevertheless would prove a decent compliment due to the ice-enchanment on it.

Glad to see his own method of treatment had worked, Ithilian stood with the Warden and nodded his understanding of what she'd just asked him to do. Normally he would have avoided the human hunter entirely, but he supposed if he had to interact with him, this was his preferred method of doing so. Keeping his head down so as to avoid drawing attention, either from any dragons or from Ashton himself, the Dalish hunter made his way over to him, coming at him from the side, only coming to full height when he was within arm's reach. With his left hand he snatched the hunter's bow arm, pulling the weapon down and away from threatening anyone else, while his right hand cocked back. He slammed a fist across Ashton's jaw, probably not hard enough to break it. "Shem! Pull yourself together, or the next one will hurt much worse." Oh, and it would. "And don't whine to the Warden. She ordered it."

The screaming emptyness of nothing echoed through his mind. He was a child again, all alone, and all around him the faces of monsters stared down at him, featureless lips snarling in cruel delight of his suffering. Ashton couldn't move, and even if he could, where would he go? There was nothing, only darkness around him. He felt the life leave his legs as the trembled, his skin prickled no in excitement this time, but fear. His nightmares were of loneliness and of monsters, and it opressed him. Though, even in this nightmare, a fire still burned. The fear could not take that away from him. Ashton was not weak of mind, nor weak of will. He didn't have walls set up in his mind to protect him, he wore his emotions raw. A nightmare may have taken ahold of these emotions, but he could fight out of it. The hunter would have his hunt.

He tried to force his legs to move, if only to run. But they were stuck, unresponsive. His muscles strained in protest at the unwanted action. He wasn't going to win this battle physically, that much was blaringly obvious. But he needed to move, to get away. To run. Some part of him was disgusted by this, by his desire to run. It felt like all he'd done in his entire life, was run. He ran from home, he ran away then, and he'd try to run away now. Somewhere that spark lit something inside the hunter. No, not to run. He couldn't run. He didn't know why, but it didn't feel right. Something was keeping him tethered. He'd have to face the monsters, and this loneliness.

Loneliness... Was he truly alone any more? Wasn't there someone else? Weren't there others with him? Where were they now? They were somewhere in the darkness. He needed to go find them. If he was alone, then it was by his own choice. No longer, he needed to move. With that, his legs finally began to move of their own accord. At least they were, until a rough hook to the jaw brought him completely out of it. The shadows and monstrous faces melted away until Ithilian and he remained. The dragon still lived, and that brought back the earlier excitement, but this time tempered with a bit of anger. Was he truly so weak as to fall for something like that? Whatever the hell it was. His lip quivered in irritation as his eyes darted between the Dalish and the dragon.

Ashton's eye then went to the Dalish's one. "What are you still standing around for? There's prey to be hunted." He stated, what jovial tone usually in his tone freshly bled dry. With that, he darted past the Dalish, drawing an arrow and planned to enact the series of steps he had practiced before the whole nightmare deal. They'd deal with the dragon, then wonder what the hell happened, though Ashton already had a couple of suspicions. A conversation with Rilien was in the near future.

But for now, the dragon. He would not miss again.

Ithilian turned to watch him go, honestly a little disappointed. If the shem was still feeling any effects of the spell after the fight, the Dalish hunter would be more than willing to knock them out of his head. For now, he contented himself with adding arrows to the cause of helping bring down the dragon.

Meanwhile, Lucien was keeping a careful eye on the dragon, aided now by a powerful wave of energy that washed over him like warm ocean water, repairing his broken ribs and closing the wound created by the arrowhead. Nostariel. Clearly the Warden was back in working order, and for that, he was most grateful indeed. He was preoccupied enough that he almost didn't notice Rilien appear beside him, quiet and businesslike as ever. The offer was not one the Tranquil would make lightly, extra knife or not, and Lucien found himself honored by it, accepting the dagger with an incline of his head. "I daresay it's much larger than an ogre, but I think a similar principle applies, do you not?" he asked of his friend, testing the balance of the steel in his hand.

It was considerably lighter than the weapons he was used to hefting, though sturdy enough as far as daggers went, and he had no doubt that Rilien kept his steel deadly-sharp. A cry overhead alerted them to the impending landing of the dragon, and Lucien inhaled deeply, tightening his grip and readying his shield. This, despite the unfortunate circumstances which surrounded it, was still exactly where he wanted to be just now, and he flashed a half-cocked smile at the Tranquil. "What say you, Rilien? Once more, for old times' sake?" He referred to a type of strategy the two of them had often employed in tandem, and surely it would be a worthy trial to test it against such a creature as this.

Rilien's eyes tracked the dragon's progress, ducking slightly as it swooped by overhead, banking sharply and coming in to land. Tlting his head to one side, the Tranquil pondered the question. His answer, such as it was, was to disappear, sticking fast to the Chevalier's shadow, an invisible friend that flitted through the dark to emerge only when it became necessary. This was something at which they were long practiced, and so when Lucien moved forward to meet the dragon, Rilien followed, matching pace automatically so as to remain unseen, not even an odd flicker in the darkened alter-self the nobleman cast upon the stone.

There was something at once eerie and reassuring, knowing that your shadow was just as deadly as you were. On the one hand, he feared no attack from behind, but on the other... one learned to be perhaps too cautius when one knew what people like Rilien were capable of. He'd thought himself a wary man before he ever met the elf. Now, he was more inclined to laugh at the fool he'd been then, and all the different ways he could have gotten himself killed in his folly. Well, not today, at any rate. The dragon raked a forepaw horizontally over the ground, and the knight jumped, clearing the passing limb with surprising room to spare. Landing solidly, he slashed with the dagger, scoring a thin line in the exposed elbow-joint, but the creature recovered far too quickly for more than that, withdrawing the limb and snapping at him.

Lucien bashed it in the snout with his shield, fending off the sharpened ivory teeth. It was clearly cautious of staying too close to him for too long, perhaps because his last weapon was still stuck in the roof of its mouth. Either way, he pressed it to his advantage, managing to push the dragon back a step and onto the defensive as, bolstered by the confidence that he was well-protected from behind, Lucien went on the offensive.

With Lucien fully engaging the beast, it was left to Rilien only to wait, biding his time with a patience that perhaps represented a distinct advantage of his condition. Other people were of dispositions emotional enough that they would act as soon as they saw a friend in danger, or an opening to attack. The Tranquil knew it was best to trust that Lucien would take care of himself, and pass up inconsequantial opportunities to wait for the larger one, the one that would end things most fatally for the opponent.

He was back into the fight, and this time, Ashton would not let his prey escape. As soon as he pushed past Ithilian, he hid in the shadows once again. This time around though, instead of the protective feeling he normally got, the cloak of darkness felt heavy and oppressive. The memory of his waking nightmare was still fresh, but he wouldn't allow it to drive his hands in legs. As the dragon landed and resumed the assault on both Lucien and Rilien, it revealed an opening for him to take. He stopped his dead sprint and cut to the side, attempting to get behind the dragon. He knew the Chevalier and the Tranquil enough to know they could take whatever the dragon dished out. Even so, he wouldn't allow just them to have all the fun. This was just as much his hunt as it was theirs.

Ashton approached the dragon at an angle, the space between the length of its tail and its hind leg his target. Instead of pelting the spot with arrows though, he did something else. He jumped, kicking off some of its scales and bringing him along its back. He pointed his bow at his feet and drew, sending the arrow point blank into it's spine. At a range, the arrow wouldn't do near as much damage as it would if he was mere feet away. Trusting Lucien to take enough heat for him to finish his run, he began to move along the dragon's spine, firing as many arrows as fast as he could, adding a line of fletching to go along nicely with it's spiney scale.

The run took all of a few seconds, but the damage was done. As he approached the base of it's serpintine neck, he pegged it a trio of times before jumping off of it's neck and be subject to it bucking him off. He landed less than gracefully, sprawling out for a moment before snatching his bow up and flipping on to his back. While his run was done, the onslaught was not. Arrow after arrow flew over the heads of Lucien and Rilien, perhaps helping the duo in bringing the creature down. "When this is over... I'm taking one of its bones as a... trophy," Ashton stated between arrows.

Rapture's efforts proved quite fruitless, as she watched them, one-by-one, shake themselves out of the nightmarish, weakened stupor she'd deceptively cast over them, only briefly returning Rilien's baleful glare with one of her own coquettish smirks before she danced away from them, away from the dragons and dragonlings to gather her bearings. Her vision was already blinking out like extinguished lights, blown out candles. She would not be able to hold this husk as long as she hoped, but this was enough, she thought. Sparrow's bard-companion understood what she was capable of doing and of whom she was capable of hurting. Would he hurt the shell she inhabited to save his friends? A wracking cough spluttered from her chest, in which she hunched over, coughing into her hand until it passed. She admired the fine speckling of blood webbing constellations across her opened palms. Sparrow's hooting howls grew more fluent, louder and more insistent. She'd found a small chink in whatever barrier, in whatever corner of the Fade she'd been bound and she was hammering wildly at it, as if she still held her mace.

She traced Ithilian's movements with her narrowed eyes, watched as his fist collided with Ashton's jawline and couldn't help laugh. That one was interesting enough – though hardly manipulable given his temperament, she'd have no luck swaying him to any of his desires unless she promised to wipe nearly all humans off the planet, or perhaps offer revenge. Vengeance, it seemed, was one of the most potent things she could offer. Rapture licked her lips, then jumped once more into the fray, utilizing her ice-bolts and weaving around the adolescent-dragons, slipping between their clumsy, thick legs and hopping over their swinging tails. It was only when she reached Lucien and Rilien's flank that her footsteps slowed, suddenly wooden and awkward. Her limbs were going numb, spreading down her knees, ankles, elbows and fingers. The mass of ice she'd been holding slipped awkwardly from her bloody palms, crashing around her feet. With one final strain of exertion, as if she were gripping a craggy ledge, Rapture stumbled away from the fight and slipped behind a small nook of rocks where she wouldn't readily be crushed by any wayward dragons.

She still needed this body, after all. Having her be squished underneath such an unintelligent creature's foot would've been insulting. She slumped unceremoniously against the rocks, hardly feeling the boulder dig into her shoulders, her spine. Her back arched, sending her sprawling on the ground – and even then, Rapture was satisfied. She'd done more than she thought she could in such a short span of time. Her grip released, though she relished the brief glimpses of the cave fizz away in an array of wriggling worms. Sparrow had escaped her Fade-prison, and was pushing her way back, called by the sounds of battle, by the guilt of what she'd done in her absence. Her muscles quivered in protest, stuck in momentary stasis; elbows and legs propped up at weird angles, before they plopped back down. Sparrow was breathing now, could feel her chest rising and falling – could feel her fingers grating against the rocks, she was back.

Nostariel, occupied mostly with flinging ice at the dragon from behind the main line, noted Sparrow's erratic behavior with some confusion. It wasn't lost on her that the only other being around here capable of casting any kind of entropic magic would have to be him, but she did not want to jump to conclusions about what had happened, or almost happened. Instead, she flung a separate healing spell at the slender man, hoping that whatever was going on was something he would be able to resolve in time.

Rilien felt the shift in the magic surrounding his cohabitant with an imperceptible slackening of some tension across the line of his shoulders, and refocused quite quickly on the matters before him. Ashton's antics along the dragon's spine had not taken it down by any means, but they had clearly hurt it, and the same could be said of the magic, arrows, and crossbow bolts flying from beind. Lucien was actually forcing it to retreat with the aggression of his advance, and Rilien moved forward with him, still awaiting the perfect opportunity.

It came, as fate would have it, when a well-placed arrow struck the creature in the side of the head, embedding itself in the snout. The dragon roared and thrashed, lowering its head to its paw and forcing the head of the thing from its face. As though he'd known how to do it all his life, Rilien shifted, tapping Lucien on the shoulder with the pommel of his knife, signaling the impending maneuver. Lucien felt it, and smiled, readjusting himself so that he fell into a crouch, shield held just over his head, planting himself solidly upon the ground so as not to come off-balance. The Tranquil backed up a few paces, then darted forward, planting a foot first on the Chevalier's hunched back, and then landing square in the center of the shield.

Once he felt the burden of the elf's weight shift, Lucien propelled himself upwards with all the strength in his legs, boosting Rilien considerably higher than he would have been able to jump in his own, and the Tranquil, light on his feet as always, was free to steer his jump from there. With the dragon's muzzle lowered from its usual height, it was not too difficult to catch onto one of the spikes protruding from its crown, and this he did, swinging himself around so that he was astride the crest of its neck, driving his knife through the left eye, scaly lid and all. The beast thrashed, trying to dislodge him, but the arrows Ashton had buried at the base of its neck weakened it, and instead, Rilien's weight forced its head further downward, right into Lucien's range.

Nostariel, catching on, shifted tactics for a moment and cast elemental weapons, imbuing the dagger in the knight's hand with lightning effects, which would hopefully aid in the effort more than another couple shots of ice would. The crackling energy surrounded the blade, and Lucien wasted little time, throwing his torso into a shield bash which successfully stunned the dragon and allowed Rilien the opportunity to leap off, which he did, landing on the creature's now blind side and taking his knife with him, though not before twisting it in the eyesocket. The Chevalier had no desire to prolong the suffering the dragon was underging at the moment, and at first opportunity (namely, the dragon opening its mouth to snarl), he shoved his arm as far into the beast's gullet as far as it would go and, finding the soft palate, drove the knife upwards and into the brain from there, stilling it almost instantaneously.

Towards the rear of the group, Ithilian and Varric put the finishing touches on the battle, launching arrows and crossbow bolts into the last remaining dragonlings, both of them breathing a sigh when the large room suddenly fell quiet of the sounds of battle and death. Varric gave Bianca and loving pat, retracting the arms of the weapon and slinging it back across his back. After looking about to ensure there were no casualties among them, he gave a single laugh, as if he was having trouble believing what they'd just pulled off.

"I hope you all don't mind being in a story... because I'm telling this one to everyone."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The last few dragons and dragonlings fell to an efficient hail of arrows, but Rilien couldn't be bothered to even feign interest in that. Not now that the main threat was gone and he'd felt a substantial shift in the ambient magic around Sparrow. The Tranquil advanced to where the half-elf was still clutching at stones on the ground. Crouching, he brought his eyes to a level with where hers would be if she was looking at anything aside from the ground beneath her. His forearms hung loosely from his knees, and though he appeared just as unruffled as ever, he certainly did not feel so-- and a large part of himself hated that. "Sparrow," he said, loud enough to demand attention, but not so loud that everyone else had to hear. Much to his displeasure, his voice cracked slightly on the second syllable, like ill-maintained leather, a far cry from the usual velvet monotone or the silken slithers of song he preferred. Swallowing, he ignored it, shifting slightly in his spot.

Quietly, he took hold of one of her wrists, prizing it away from the stones she clutched, lest she tear her fingernails bloody. "Sparrow," he repeated, with more certainty this time, mouth turning down almost imperceptbly at the corners. He should not have let these things esclalate so far, and this, he did consider his fault. It became his fault when he'd tacitly offered his support months ago, said without words that all she needed to do was be as she wished, and he would take care of the rest. Rapture, demon that she was, would never understand that, logical as he preferred to be, there were still imperfections in his Tranquility, and this was what he wrought with them. She suffered, and he had allowed it, presuming that her strong will and desire to live her own way would eventually subdue the malicious presence, before things became a hindrance to others.

But why had he believed that? There was no logic in it; one did not throw fire at a house one wished to save from burning. One did not fight Desire with desire, whatever it may be. Her longing for freedom had likely built the bars of her cage. This, too, he should have acted against, somehow. Sooner, maybe. He should not be here, but back in his shop, working out the details of what was even now merely a rough sketch in his mind. He watched her drown when he should have been recusitating her, and for the first time in more years than he remembered properly, Rilien felt the coiling of a particular feeling deep in his stomach, reaching up his spine and playing havoc-riddled chords on his lungs.

Guilt. He felt guilty, and it ate at him with a fierceness he hadn't recollected.

On days like this, when Rapture had satisfied her curiosities, or nights (who could tell when you were traipsing down in the Deep Roads), Sparrow felt as if her bones were shrivelling in her body, encased by paralysed tendons and tissue, hardly responsive, skin pulled taut until her spine seemed as if it were splintering and grinding against their adjacent neighbours. Her breathing felt as if it were being syphoned through two leather sacks, hollowed and bereft of moisture, where two healthy lungs should've been; all dried and narrowed. Icy fingers trickled down her shoulder blades, digging their fingernails into the tenderest parts until she gained some sort of awareness of herself. Her lips felt as cold as the ice-bolts Nostariel had been throwing and she half expected hoarfrost to slip from them. Filigree's of numbness spirited over her extremities, spreading through her stupefied limbs. Nothing felt like it belonged to her. Her body was not her own, anymore.

Sparrow's arched back, nearly crackling at it's unusual angle, finally dropped back on the ground. Her hands continued to clutch at the rocks, fingernails scraping. The familiar voice caused her to flinch. She glanced up, just briefly, but she couldn't see anything except the outline of him, blocked by shadows and looming stalagmites. There was some blood, on the floor, but not a lot of it. She could feel it sticking to the back of her palate, nearly choking her. Her mouth had clamped shut, molars grinding against a pain she could not account for. The calling of her name – it hadn't been an angry sound; no, it was worse than that. Was it disappointment? She couldn't tell. Her thoughts swam in a murky lake, scattering the ripples in every direction. She couldn't tell whether or not her eyes were closed, or if they were opened. Darkness had fallen over her eyelids, clicking slits of gloomy light through it's pin-pricked holes.

When Rilien moved, Sparrow stopped. His hands were warm, ringing around her wrists. The rocks had fallen from her palms, clinking unceremoniously against her breastplate. She blinked her eyes opened, wide. Her dark eyes were hollow-looking, but dry. This time her name was said differently, succinctly more assured. She swallowed hard, desperately burying her own heart somewhere deep down. They would have to move on from this, even if Rilien had been aware of what had just occurred. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck. She did not trust her voice enough, felt it's hoarseness threatening to ruin her words – and what could she have said, what could she do to excuse what she'd nearly allowed to happen? Any excuses now would've been blatantly ignorant. Too human, perhaps. Only human – even, if she was only half. Too often it was used as an excuse for failure, used to offer comfort in the face of some manner of shortcoming. It was an insult. She'd failed, again.

Her eyes focused, then refocused, trailing up Rilien's features. His nose, his down-turned mouth. There had always been a risk, toying with her freedom and blithely believing that everything would turn out well if she really believed in herself. She was a marked risk – dangerous to her companions, dangerous to herself. Worse yet, Sparrow hadn't told anyone else save Ashton and Rilien (and in the most peculiar ways that involved ignoring the subject entirely). In an instant, in a hail of arrows, things weren't panning out. This was her fault. She hadn't been strong enough and she hated herself for it. So, Sparrow camouflaged her fears, her thoughts, her worries with courage, however feigned, and weakly smiled, forcing a chuckle that might've been scrapped from the rocks she'd held moments ago, “What's with that look? I—I'm fine.”

The Tranquil's features smoothed out, his eyes lowering to half-mast, and he released her wrists. "Is that so?" he replied, well aware that she was not telling him the truth and still just barely out of his usual mindset to be irritated about it. "Then you ought stand. We delay further progress by remaining here." Taking his own advice, Rilien rose easily to his feet, all stubborn traces of the weakness spell gone. It was perhaps unusually cold, even for him, that he did not offer to assist her, but if she did not want yet to acknowledge what had happened, he would not either. Still, he left one of his hanging sleeves in easy reach if she really needed the help, and stood so that any difficulty she'd have righting herself would not be obvious to the others.

"The matter might be left for now," he deadpanned, fixing her with a calculating stare, "but not forever."

Sparrow wasn't entirely sure if Rilien's easy reversal, and his ability to so completely repossess his imperturbable countenance, was comforting or disconcerting. Either way, she couldn't fault him for that. Her mouth formed a hard line, then simpered into her usual expression. There was something missing there, lacking its normal lustre. There was nothing amusing about what had just happened and no jokes sprung from her lips, nor any comment or apology. Quips, witticisms, or any sarcastic remarks said in the hopes of smoothing the wrinkles out of the damage she'd done, ignoring the nightmarish things that had come from her fingertips, clearly didn't belong in the conversation. She did not repeat herself – couldn't bring herself to say that she was fine when she was not, conjuring an assurance she did not feel. Her bloodstream ran cold, thick as molasses. When Rilien rose to his feet, Sparrow learned forward, forearms hanging loose across her knees.

He was right. Any delays would only bring up questions she didn't want to answer – they were here for a reason, anyway. Sparrow was not one to stubbornly refuse help (when it came to balancing herself, anyway) and her jellied legs hardly guaranteed that they wouldn't give out if she tried to stand on her own. Tentatively reaching her hand out, Sparrow gripped Rilien's sleeve and hauled herself up, tensing her shoulders. Everything felt new again. Her limbs were colt-born, clumsy. Her nose felt sensitive to the musty, coppery stench of the dragon's under dwelling; unpleasant, to say the least. It took her a moment to gather her wits about her, steadying herself on Rilien's shoulder before she tucked her hands back against her sides, reflecting for a moment, before ruefully rubbing her arms, her elbows, her wrists. The numbness was receding to whatever corner they'd materialized from.

She returned his stare, though her eyebrows scrunched up and she lowered her gaze, fixing it on her plated boots. “After this is done with. I just don't... want to bring it up down here,” Sparrow whispered softly, looking up. It was a silent request and a promise. Why ruin the entire adventure with such gloomy tidings? She would talk about it after they emerged from the Dead Roads. For now, though, she was back and she would contribute as she always did. Rilien simply nodded. It would do, and whatever trace of ruffled feathers remained smoothed out entirely, as though they'd never been present at all. Her fingers drifted over her hip, faltered when they didn't find what they'd been searching for – bloody she-bitch. A small sound escaped her lips. With another experimental step, Sparrow moved around Rilien and half-jogged, half-stumbled over to her prized possession, disrespectfully tossed over an outcrop of rocks. With the tenderness reserved only for pretty lasses, she clasped it into her hands and fastened it back where it belonged.

On the other side of the chamber, Nostariel was taking hurried steps towards the dragon's corpse and the majority of the rest of the group. She'd seen Rilien's beeline for Sparrow, and just sort of assumed he was doing whatever was necessary to figure things out. She didn't pretend to understand those two, nor whatever bound they and Ashton together. Well, maybe Sparrow and Ashton weren't too hard to figure out-- they both seemed to love fun and drink and so on. At any rate, whatever had happened there really wasn't any of her business, and in the end it had done no harm, so... as long as it wasn't going to be a problem, she was willing to let it go. Stepping up next to Ashton and Lucien, she took a closer look at the dragon and shook her head.

"I've seen a lot of things in the Deep Roads, but never did I expect a dragon would be among them."

Once the dragon had fallen, Ashton sidled up beside the loom Chevalier, looking down at their work. Well, his and Rilien's work if he was going to be brutally honest. The fact that his arrows only seemed in inconvience the creature while Lucien wrapped it's brains around his little knife. At the moment, he was feeling inferior to the man beside him. He wish he would have done more, been more involved in the hunt. He sighed, drew back his bow and let one last arrow thump into it's skull plate. It wasn't a killing blow, seeing as it was already dead but one could never be too careful. That and it made him feel a little better. "Next time, I get to kill it," Ashton mumbled as he knelt down by the creature and rubbed it's head, almost fondly.

He threw a glance over to Rilien, who was on his way to Sparrow. Ashton wisely allowed the Tranquil to persue that business by himself. He'd take a number and have his own little chat with the man later. Until then, he'd play everything off. The bruise arising on his chin was going to be hard to explain. He was coming too on his own, sure, but the Dalish' calloused knuckles seemed to expediate that process. It was going to be tough to play the incident like nothing happened, but then again, he was Ashton, the best of liars. It'd be no problem.

Ashton had sidled around the dragon until he hovered over one of it's arms. He lifted the apendage into the air and then allowed it fall back to the ground. Lighter than he'd imagined. If he had his guess, then the bones were hollow to aid in flight. He crossed his arms and bit into his thumb as he went through useful purposes of a dragon arm in his mind. He shrugged then rose, he'd have plenty of time to figure that out later. "What's not to expect? All kinds of monsters live in the deep roads, why not dragons too?" He simply said. The other option it had was to fly about outside, and people like him would hunt the creature down. Dragons were intelligent creatures, after all.

"How about you lovely? You alright? And you Ser Knight? Noticed you didn't ask it to yield this time," Ashton quipped as he took a seat on its shoulder. He then looked down at the corpse he sat on and back to Lucien. He was lost that goofy aspect and became somewhat serious as he spoke again, "By all rights, this is your kill. Maybe next time I'll have that honor. But dragons are few and far between, so can I ask for a favor? Can I have its arm? I have plans for it," He wasn't quite sure what those plans were, but he'd figure it out eventually.

"What creature of the sky would choose to live under the ground?" she answered by way of reply, shaking her head. Still, the point was fair enough. "I am... well, enough, all things considered." Turning back slightly and leaving Lucien to provide Ashton with whatever answer he chose, she located Ithilian and Varric. "And the two of you? Nothing broken, I hope?" The joke, subtle as it was, was made from weariness, mostly, giving it a kind of gallows necessity. She managed a half-smile, largely for the dwarf, who she suspected was more likely to care whether she did or not. Though, she did likely owe the Dalish her thanks for bringing her around, else her nightmare might well have made unfortunate reality of itself.

Ithilian's headscarf had been torn through by a dragon's claw, and was now rather useless; he shoved it in a pocket. Nostariel's healing spell had closed his wounds well enough. Now that the fight was over, his scowl had set back in, his eye drifting towards Sparrow and the Tranquil. He didn't manage a smile at Nostariel's words, and indeed Varric was the only one of the pair to even see the Warden's own smile. He dusted himself off. "I think I got lucky this time. That, or Bianca and I are just that good." He seemed relatively unperturbed by the implications that were becoming more clear now. Ithilian had yet to sheathe his bow, and at this point he probably wouldn't at all. He didn't know what was wrong with the half-elven mage, but there were only so many things it could be. The way things had worked in his former clan, most of them led to rather dire consequences for her. It was probably safe to assume that the Dalish hunter would be watchful of her, and more than willing to train an arrow on her should things get out of hand again.

Lucien, having retrieved his friend's dagger from the mouth of the dragon, was somewhat surprised to see that it hadn't suffered any damage, much unlike his scythe. Then again, it was considerably more well-made, and no portion of it was wooden, either. At Ashton's piece of commentary, he smiled, still coming down from the battle-high that the creature had provided him with. "Personally, I think she should have given me the opportunity to surrender. It's usually done for the benefit of a weaker opponent, after all." Still, the fact that they were alive and the dragon was not spoke at greater volume than he would have any desire to, regardless of the unstated nature of it.

Unlike most of the rest, Lucien was suffereing from no greater wariness than usual, and the Deep Roads seemed to bother him not at all, if his demeanor was anything to go by. It was much easier to kill Darkspawn than men, he thought, not as a matter of their strength, but as one of the state of mind required. Darkspawn were irrevocably Tainted; their deaths were mercies. People were a little different in this regard. Dragons... well, he'd be lying if he said he'd never wished to slay a dragon, but he could understand the nobility of the creature all the same, and would not have attacked it without cause. The archer's next query had him a bit perplexed, and his eyebrows decended his forehead as though with puzzlement. "'Twas the work of many, not one. I'd say you're welcome to it, my opinion notwithstanding. If it were somehow my decision to make, the answer would be the same." He shrugged, not having much use for any of the parts himself, though he presumed Rilien also might.

As for the matter of the fell magic which had somehow been cast upon them, well... he knew Rilien was much more talented with such things than he, and the Tranquil appeared to be doing something about the matter. Whatever his judgement was, Lucien trusted that it would be the right one. A distinction he had learned to make long ago due to his friend was that between one who had no qualms about killing and one who killed without reason. Though he was neither, the important thing was that was that Rilien was not the second, and this Sparrow lass seemed to be of some importance to him.

Even now, Sparrow felt awkward approaching the group. It'd been Rapture, after all, who'd been following them all along. Her hands busied themselves behind her head, scratching idly at the nape of her neck as she made her way over. Fancy those dragons, she could've said, but she hadn't really done anything besides nearly run them all down with spells she couldn't actually recall being able to perform. Even if it was uncharacteristic of her, and she might've been better off trading quips with Ashton, or clapping Lucien on the back for having performed so well, Sparrow remained quiet.

Perfectly content with that, Lucien glanced around. "Well, it seems we've found Bartrand his way around the block in the road. Perhaps we salvage what we can and return to tell him as much?" This was largely directed at Varric, though of course anyone was free to give their opinion on the matter.

The dwarf gave a nod of agreement. "Sounds like a plan. We'll see how much Bartrand doubts your abilities now."

"Can I stroke his beard with these claws?" Ashton posited, as he began work to saw off the dragon's arm. It would make a fine beard-comb yes, but an even better bow. Lucien snorted softly, shaking his head and moving to help. He'd give the dagger back to Ril as soon as the arm was gone. Varric shrugged in response. "As much as I'd like to see that, let's not and I'll say we did."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Varric was at the head of the triumphant returning party as they made their way back to the camp, and Bartrand. Even Ithilian had not elected to scout ahead of the group, but he still placed himself a short ways off to the side, and remained utterly silent. "Bartrand!" Varric called, getting his brother's attention. "We found a way around your damned cave-in!" The elder brother's response was simply to turn back to the rest of the group. "It's about time! Let's move out!"

They packed up quickly, hauling everything off along the path the party had cut for them, most of the hirelings stepping gingerly over the bodies of dismembered darkspawn, and staring in confused awe at the frozen and petrified ogre, which they likely assumed had been the work of their Warden guide, and Sandal made no attempt to correct them, instead looking around the caverns with innocent curiosity, Bodahn's hand on the boy's shoulder most of the way. When they arrived at the dragon's corpse, picked clean as it was by those of the party that had wanted some piece of it, even Bartrand looked a little taken aback, but he did well to contain it behind his usual stony glare. They did not linger long, and Varric's smug grin seemed to be the only thing Bartrand needed to satisfy his curiosity about what happened here.

Not long after the dragon's den they came upon an opening, a sight coming into view that caused both of the dwarves leading them to halt in their tracks. "Holy shit..." Varric said, hands going to his hips as he admired the surroundings. Bartrand raised his eyebrows. "I thought... an abandoned thaig, something old, but... what is this?" Something old was perhaps the best way to describe it, as the architecture they had stumbled across was unlike anything seen in Orzammar or even the other thaigs that had been taken by the darkspawn. Glowing blue lyrium crystals lined many of the walls, and some of the structures seem to glow a faint crimson color. Bartrand took a step forward, heading towards it.

"We heard old scavenger tales," he explained to the group. "After the Third Blight. A week below the surface, they said, but nobody believed them..." Varric shrugged, a faint smile on his face. "Looks like they were right." Bartrand turned to the rest of the group. "Make camp here! We need to look around."




A heavy clawed hand descended and perched on the top of Rilien's white mane. Next to the Tranquil stood the Archer, wearing the dragon's arm like some sort of extravagant fashion statement and tried his best to look regal as possible. He let the claw linger on Rilien's head for a moment before speaking in true Ashton style, "I've got to hand it to you Rilsie, you and Lucy make a good team. What with him throwing you at a dragon and what not. Wish the hunt was a bit more... pure though," He let the implication linger for a minute, manually tapping one of the dragon's claw on top of the Tranquil's head. Rilien endured all of this in a way that was by now quite easily guessed of him: in placid silence, and largely unmoving.

Then Ashton stopped and his tone grew serious. "There's only one person I know that could cast those kind of spells... Is she alright?" He asked, "I've noticed she's been acting different, but I didn't put it together until now. I'm worried," He said, looking down at the man waiting for the answer. He spoke softly and slowly so that the others wouldn't overhear, but at this point they had to have some suspicions. out of all of them, it was only Rilien and himself who knew Sparrow's plight, who knew of the demon pact. He'd like to keep it that way and keep her safe. He only wished that there was more that he could do...

"She can't, actually," was Rilien's initial reply, and he cast orange eyes askance at the archer. "Entropy is not part of Sparrow's skill-set." The emphasis he placed on the name was light, but by now, Ashton would be accustomed enough to his normal tone to pick up on the subtle difference. It was the most careful way Rilien had to describe exactly what had happened: Sparrow had not been in control of her own body, the demon had. He knew not how long she would maintain it this time, either.

"I expect that if she tried right now to reproduce the effects, she would be unsuccessful, but her behavior is erratic as it has ever been." And in that, he conveyed that the temporary possession was over, at least for now, but that it would perhaps be pertinent for the both of them to stay wary. If she interfered again, he was unsure that certain members of the rest of their party would be content to allow her to live. Rilien would not hesitate to slay anyone that attempted to put an end to her, not normally. But doing so here might well prevent them from reaching the surface alive and intact, a conundrum if ever there was one.

"Hmm. That's good," Ashton hummed contently, relinquishing the dragon's claw from atop the tranquil's snowy head. He had followed Rilien's words like a map, drawing all of the information he could from the change in tone from his emotionless voice. Something he had picked up a while ago now, everything the tranquil said had merit and held no wasted words. Ashton tossed a glance to wherever Sparrow was presently. Shrugging (the dragon arm rising and falling with the motion), he added "Perhaps next time it happens, can I get a simple 'hey Ash'?" The tranquil had an uncanny ability to sense the shifts in the veil, kinda like a warning light. He only wished the tranquil had the ability to tell him when it happened too.

Rilien appeared to consider this, then nodded. It seemed a reasonable-enough request, though there would be precious little either of them would be able to do if the events did repeat themselves. No, the answer most likely lay outside of Ashton's capabilities, and his as well, but those only for now. The matter would require more research, but the funds from this expedition would hopefully allow him the opportunity to procure several rare books he recalled from the Circle library in Orlais, old texts written in older languages which he had only begun to decipher when he was taken from that place. Still, if he remembered properly (and he did, always), then there was something in there worth examining further.

For her, he would, even if it would be easier to end her and the demon too.

Ashton then puckered his lips and racked his mind, searching to see if there was anything else he wanted to either tell or ask of him, but nothing immediately came to mind. They both would obviously be looking over Sparrow now that he current ordeal was over, so that didn't need mentioning. Despite their differences, Ashton believed that they were much alike in that regard. He didn't need words to confirm it. With that, Ashton nodded, "Alright then. Good talk Ril. I'm going to see if can't go lend a hand somewhere," he said, a wisp of a smile hiding behind a waving dragon claw.

"Do not lend it to Bartrand," Rilien advised sagely. "It would be a shame to be beaten to death with your own helping hand, though you might deserve it for the folly such a move would demonstrate." And that was most assuredly a joke, even if his face gave away absolutely nothing of the kind. "He'd have to reach it first," Ashton said, holding the arm over his head before dropping it back to his shoulders. That was a short joke if there ever was one. At this point, Ashton came to expect little gems of dry wit from the Tranquil.

As it would be, Sparrow waited for the opportune time to slither over to her secretively-whispering companions, ignoring the fact that she'd noticed them glancing in her direction only moments ago, and noticing, warily, that Rilien seemed to be in the process of leaving. However, she quickened her strides, snatched up Rilien's flowing sleeve and ducked underneath it, unceremoniously holding it aloft before gingerly placing it back at his side, unfettered by her, often unwanted, touch. Then, Sparrow slipped beside Ashton, hooking her arm around his, propping up his elbow with her free hand and moving it in front of her mouth so that his prize dragon-claw bobbed in front – and she had pseudo-fangs in the form of elongated talons, jauntily moving with her greeting of, “What long faces you've got. You've just slayed a dragon. A dragon. When we get back to Kirkwall, do you know how many lovely lasses you'll have flocking to your shop to see this thing?” The claw flapped indignantly with her hand-jerks, as if offended to be called a thing. She released her companion's arms, and elbow, before curiously poking at the claw's zeniths with her fingertips. Funny thing, how friends worked. They'd protect her even if it meant putting the others at risk, they'd defend her if the question ever arose, and she almost cursed those particular traits. She almost wanted them to end it here, and now, because it'd only be more difficult if things got worse. What would they do then, she wondered.

“Bet the rest of the journey down here won't be much more interesting. What beats a dragon? Asides from gryphon-riding Grey Wardens?” She added as an afterthought, glancing in Nostariel's direction with a smile. It was better not to mention what she'd done. It was better to pretend as if nothing had happened. The task itself, feigning ignorance, was surprisingly simple, so easy compared to spilling her heart out and crying and stomping her foot at the injustices of her predicament. It was easier this way, as always. Her burdens would remain on her shoulders until they were forcibly removed, until she had no other choice but to share it with her friends. She chuckled in her Fadespace, where she'd been locked up during the battle with the dragon (which she childishly regretted missing if only for the fact that she hadn't participated in bringing such a creature down), clearly amused, evidently delighted with herself. Her smile faltered a moment, then drew up again in full effect. The alcohol she'd drink after this merry escapade, as far as she was concerned, was more than a necessity. This had transformed itself into a nightmare — no, this went far beyond a nightmare, straight into something so awful that it could only be reality; the mind couldn't have conjured up this situation.

If things were reversed, she knew she'd do the same. Until her last breath, or the end of her days. She'd protect them, too.

"They won't have long to fawn over it, I've got plans for this baby," he said, twitching it to jingle the claws. He had big plans for it. "Might need to change the shop's name to reflect my grand accomplishments," he said with a reserved look and tone. He wasn't so far up his own ass to believe that it'd been solely his doing that had brought the dragon down, but it never hurt to make it seem that way. Beside, the others didn't seem like the bragging sort, and someone would have to spread the message, why not him? He grinned and plopped the dragon hand on top of her head, much like he did to the Tranquil not long ago. "What do you think, my fine, feathered, friend? The Dragon's Arrow? Wyrmhunt? Ashton's kickass shop of victuals?" The last was a playful joke, but the first two were honest ideas.

It was easier. To pretend nothing was wrong, to act like she was the same Sparrow through and through. He wished that he didn't have to pretend. People like them never got what they wanted though, so he'd bend along with the wind. He'd act like everything was good and dandy. He'd keep an ear to the ground, and play off everything with that goofy little grin and a stupid joke. He'd never let on how seriously worried he was about her. Why show it when there was nothing he could do about it? All he could do was wait and watch, and hope for a miracle.

"Tell ya what, I'll make you a necklace out of one of the claws."




Nostariel had chosen this moment to take something of a break, and was currently seated on the stone ground in front of a small fire she'd lit, warming her hands and trying not to let the faint echoes of her uncanny waking dream stir her any further. She was not a particularly stoic soul, however; she'd always felt with a kind of focused depth that belied her training. Mages often needed to be able to pay attention to one thing to the exclusion of all else, and when Nostariel felt something particularly strongly, she could often ignore broader implications or common sense in favor of that singularity of purpose. She supposed that, in the end, this was why she was unable to just let go of what haunted her. Or maybe that was just something that everyone struggled with, she honestly had no idea.

Sighing, the Warden crossed her legs and closed her eyes, trying to pretend for a moment that she was anywhere but in the Deep Roads. But of course, her imagination rarely did her any favors, and so she frowned tightly and ran a hand through her hair. Intimidating as the woman was, maybe she needed to seek out Amalia and ask just how it was that she'd managed such a preternatural calm all the time. Nostariel didn't wish to give up on feeling, but... a little of that surety was awfully tempting. If it was something inherent in the Qun itself, she may well have dismissed it far too soon.

Their arrival at this ancient thaig gave Ithilian some time to properly think things over, and in the end he came to a result that left him feeling angry with himself, and a little ashamed. It was no abnormal or abhorrent thing for someone to mourn the loss of a loved one, or in his case, his entire family, but he had allowed himself to give in to his worst fear: that were was no hope, and that there was nothing for him to hold on to here any longer. Grief and loss had done to him what no shem ever could. He wouldn't let it happen again. So long as he still drew breath, all was not lost.

He supposed the best place to start was with an apology. To that end, the Dalish elf made his way over to where Nostariel had lit her little fire, taking a crosslegged seat himself and for the moment, saying nothing. As the Warden had just proven to him, words were powerful tools when wielded correctly, and he wanted to be sure this was said correctly. "I must apologize for my words earlier," he began, his voice low so as to not echo about the caverns. "My... pain, has overcome me of late. It has caused me to say things and to do things that I now regret. You did not deserve the words I threw at you, and... I must admit I have wholly misjudged you. You do not outwardly convey the strength you possess, but it is there all the same, and I failed to see it before. I am sorry."

He gazed into the fire for a moment, before looking around him with something approaching disdain. "I should never have come here, to these Deep Roads. But I needed to go somewhere. I do not think I can return to Kirkwall just yet."

To say that Nostariel was surprised was an understatement; she'd hardly expected that anything she would have said would resonate at all with Ithilian; she'd simply had to say them, for the sake of those they journeyed with. But then, perhaps it was the simple fact that she knew pain a little like his, though she'd be the first to admit that for all she'd suffered, she could not imagine what it must be like to lose a child. The love of her life, yes. Her comrades and family, yes. But not a child. She wasn't sure what that would have done to her, honestly, and she hoped she'd never have to know. She digested his words for a moment, mulling over them carefully. In the end, she smiled, a little sadly, and nodded. "It's all right," she said, equally softly, though she was almost certain that Lucien at least was close enough to hear them. That was fine, though, she trusted his discretion, at least, and she was mentioning nothing he had not heard already. "I... could have been kinder in my speech as well."

She turned her eyes back to the fire then, head tilted slightly to one side. "So, don't go back yet." She suggested mildly, shrugging her shoulders. "For me, Kirkwall was a place I went because the Wardens put me there, but I think in a way, it's been what I needed. Maybe what you need isn't a reminder of all you still have to do. Maybe it'll never be the right time to go back, but you won't know unless you go away first. The things you want to do, the problems you want to solve... they'll still be there if ever you return, I'm sure." And that was the sad truth of it, really. Still, there was no point in losing hope when there was still effort to be expended in the attempt. That was something Tristan had always believed, and something she was slowly relearning. She'd never been able to give up completely, and that was perhaps why she still wore the crest and the armband, even on the days when she was such a wreck that she couldn't leave the Hanged Man. It was why she couldnt stop helping, even when she resented being asked.

"Where would you go instead, if you could go anywhere?" she asked, partly to keep the conversation going, partly from curiosity, and partly out of a hope that she might be assisting at least a little.

"Back home, I think," he said, unable to keep the longing from his voice. "To Ferelden, and the Brecilian Forest. My old life has been taken from me, but I have yet to let go of it. I think, if I am to move forward, I need to first return there, and find some way to put the past to rest. It needs to be my choice to leave that place, made by a clear mind, not one plagued by delirium and fresh grief."

It seemed as good a plan as any. The Blight had passed for more than a year now, and the darkspawn would be routed at this point, beginning to fall back into the Deep Roads, certainly not the organized horde they had been before. Much of the forest was no doubt ravaged, but the Brecilian had a way of dealing with intruders, and darkspawn were no exception. It could be wounded, yes, but never killed. His memories of the time were fragmented, disjointed, a massive slur of emotions, torment, grief and loss, and maybe he wouldn't be able to find an exact place where something had happened, the exact spot where he had hastily buried his child, but he knew that if he just returned there, he would be able to feel them again.

It remained to be seen if he would be able to let go, but it was a trial he would need to pass all the same if he wanted to move forward.

"Perhaps a clan has moved back into the area, or avoided the Blight," he speculated, but for some reason the thought didn't seem as appealing he thought it would. He would have been lying if he'd said the elves of the Alienage hadn't become at least a little important to him, and the thought of permanently leaving to join another clan did not sit well with him. There was also Amalia. He did not wish for their last conversation to be the one she remembered him by. He wanted to prove to them that he was more than that, prove it to Amalia, prove it to Nostariel, and prove it to all those struggling to live under the shadow of the shemlen in Kirkwall. Yes, he would return. He just needed time.

Lucien had been busying himself helping a few of the hands organize supplies for the further ventures they would doubtless be undertaking soon, sorting digging and appraisal tools, occasionally asking a question of the foreman with low tones. This kind of labor, he knew little about, and so he inquired and he learned until he could do the tasks properly himself. There was something... nice about that, simple and untainted with expectation of any kind. Perhaps that was why he did it.

Occasionally, bits and pieces of the fireside conversation drifted over to him, though he endeavored not to pay them much mind. He expected there was some need of reconciliation, there, after what had occurred before the dragon showed up. He hoped it went well; lingering bitterness was difficult to swallow on the best of days, and tended to fester in the heart if not excised properly. He was walking past the two with a few mallets and chisels in hand, intent on moving them to the next cart over, when he caught the Dalish man's last sentence. Aware that the conversation was about Ferelden if not much else, he knew he could provide something of an answer. "Your pardon," he broke in mildly, pausing in his steps, "but if you seek Dalish in Ferelden, I believe the Relaferin Clan intended to return to the Brecilian forest after the Blight was ended. They were near the Frostback Mountains a year and some months ago, and I do think they survived, for the most part."

He had run into them on his journey to Denerim, and though they had been at first reluctant to speak with him, circumstances had shoved aside any reticence that might have lingered. Funny thing about mortal danger; it tended to alleviate wariness for long enough to be dealt with, at the very least. In the end, it hadn't turned out poorly at all.

Relaferin. Ithilian, like many of the others in his clan, had always thought them a bit soft. Then again, they thought a majority of the clans had gone soft. And yet, apparently the Relaferin lived on, while the Mordallis had been caught by the Blight. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel at that. Anger? That another clan had survived the Blight without that same fatal losses his own had suffered? No, he did not feel anger. Perhaps it was enough for now to simply know that they were alive.

Ithilian peered up at the large shem, the firelight casting dancing shadows over the elf's disfigured features. "That is... good to know. Ma serannas." He supposed the thanks should have come with some barbed insult involving the word shem, riddled with suspicion as to why this human mercenary knew of them, and what his business with them had been, but at the moment, Ithilian was feeling more or less out of hate, at least to the point where he couldn't lash out at every single shem that spoke to him.

"Perhaps I will seek them out, then."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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"I don't get it," Bartrand grunted, walking alongside his brother. "Nothing in this thaig makes sense." Varric was taking in the sights as they moved, scratching his stubbled face. "Tell me about it." They stopped at the base of a flight of stairs, the elder brother beginning to pace back and forth, thinking aloud. "We're well below the Deep Roads. Whatever dwarves lived here, they came long before the First Blight." He threw up his hands as if to point out how horribly off everything was. "But where are the statues of Paragons? I don't recognize these markings on the wall or anything in the rubble."

"Unlikely, I know," Varric offered, "but it's possible this thaig is from an age in which dwarves weren't mired in tradition." Bartrand nodded, seeming agreeable to the idea. "These dwarves might have been unique. If so, I hope they kept their valuables close at hand." They continued on, up the stairs and past where a few of the expedition were gathered, including the boy Sandal and the merchant Bodahn, the latter of which was still keeping a hand on his boy's shoulder as if to ensure he would remain in sight for the remainder of the trip. Sandal had wandered rather close to Rilien for much of the journey since the group had found him among the darkspawn, and he was close to the Tranquil now. Bodahn seemed to be content just being wherever Sandal was.

"I need to thank you again," Bodahn said to the Tranquil, for perhaps the third time, "I still can't believe you found him." Sandal offered a tentative "'Ello!" to Rilien as well, as he seemed wont to do when Bodahn began speaking to anyone. "I owe you a great debt," Bodahn continued, "I will repay it somehow--I swear my life on it!"

"Unnecessary," Rilien replied, shaking his head. He wasn't much in the habit of taking coin for things he had not agreed to do for coin, and if the distinction made sense only to him, well... it wouldn't be the only thing. He wasn't in need of anything, at least not anything Bodahn could provide him with, though there was the matter of Sandal. Blinking languidly, Rilien cast a glance in the boy's direction at his greeting, and nodded one in return. It was obvious that the lad was talented, but he did not imagine that the life of a travelling merchant gave him much opportunity to refine his craft, and that seemed suboptimal at best.

"What do you intend to do after the expedition concludes?" the Tranquil asked, in the same placid tones he used for everything. He, of course, had plans upon plans, for several contingencies, besides. It was simply the way his mind worked, and factoring in several new variables was yielding better results than even he had expected. Of course, there were a number of contingencies at work, but if it were the case that the dwarf and his son would not be leaving the vicinity of Kirkwall, all three of them might benefit in some measure.

"Depending on how the expedition pans out," Bodahn explained, "we'll probably remain in Kirkwall for a time. We've already been contacted by a number of individuals interested in my boy's enchanting services, some very high up in the city indeed. As for myself, I think some time settled down is much needed, after my years on the road. Yes, I think we'll stay around for a while."

Rilien let a few more steps pass in silence before he spoke, tilting his head to the side so as to glance between father and son. "I plan to purchase a storefront in Kirkwall. I enchant and fabricate alchemical mixtures, myself. I think that Sandal could make use of an opportunity to grow in his craft, and I expect that any such place as I buy could make good use of a person with the social skills to work the counter. Oftentimes, people are disinclined to speak with me. I would not object to you continuing to do your own business on the premises, either, if you should find that arrangement satisfactory. Any work Sandal does, he would be free to profit from. Likewise with yourself." He let the offer hang there, apparently not feeling the need to press for an answer at that moment.

Rilien, while quite sure that there were yet things he could teach Sandal, was also interested in what he might learn, but in the end, he would have enough things to occupy him even if they refused. Still, the idea of having someone else to run both aspects of such an enterprise should he need to be absent for days at a time was a good one, and might well help the lot of them maintain steady clientele, something he was certain would appeal to the dwarf's business sense. Even so, he was not one to insist.

Bodahn considered for a moment. "That sounds like a very interesting opportunity, if I do say so myself. We will certainly consider it, though of course such a decision is not to be made immediately. I would very much like to speak further about that upon our return to Kirkwall, once we know just what we'll find down here." The Tranquil nodded, content with the answer.




Eventually, the scouting party that had cleared their way here was gathered once more, Bartrand accompanying them this time as well. Though the entrance to the thaig had been fascinating and extremely confusing, a more organized push into the thaig was necessary in order to find something valuable. Thus the group pushed onwards, deeper into the thaig, Varric and his elder brother leading the way. "Hmm," Varric mused to the party. "Whatever's through here, it seems still intact. I wonder if we'll find anything..." Ithilian had his bow drawn already, experience teaching him that there was little point sheathing weapons when in the Deep Roads. He was thinking something more along the lines of I wonder if anything will find us, but refrained from putting words to it. Varric shrugged. "Hmph. I suppose we'll need to go down there to find out." That earned a small sigh from Nostariel, but she was otherwise silent on the matter.

Sparrow whistled soft and low, squinting her eyes. Her mace bounced leisurely across her shoulder, loosely held in her hand. How long have they been down here already? The thaig was an endless maze of twists and turns, thick with darkness. She would've been lying if she said she didn't miss the fresh air, or the scorching sun on her back. Everything felt heavy, as if a substantial cloud of smog was pressing against her shoulders. She jostled towards the front, idling beside Nostariel, but only remained still for a moment. Her confidence had always been staggeringly reckless, and so Sparrow was the first to step forward, heedless of danger, clutching perilously off Varric's words – they may find something down there, they might. Much in the same mindset as Sparrow, Ashton too missed the sun. Plus the grass, trees, birds. Really, he missed everything but dirt and rock. Still, he was right beside her as she recklessly strode forward. He wasn't a coward... Most of the time, but he needed somebody's bravery to latch on to and push himself forward. Rightly so that it had been Sparrow's. He covered her side with a drawn bow as they stepped forward into the forgotten thaig.

Lucien, for his part, seemed to bear the monotony of the landscape with an easy sort of nonchalance, and seemed content to linger somewhere in the middle of the group, which given his height did nothing to impede his monocular view of what was going on. From somewhere in the caravan or perhaps from Bodahn, he'd procured a one-handed axe to compliment his shield, which now hung from a loop in his belt, though the metal disc remained strapped to his left forearm. It wasn't what he'd prefer to be bringing into battle, but it would do nicely for present purposes. He'd returned Rilien's knife to the Tranquil, quite insistent that the man have it back. Lucien could use it well enough, but where Rilien was concerned, the blade was simply an extension of his arm. He'd rather walk into another fight with nothing but a shield to his name and a fully-armed Rilien, if it had come down to that. It had happened similarly before.

The group moved forward on their guard, but for the moment it appeared unnecessary, for nothing seemed to stir this far beneath the surface. And yet, despite how silent the walls were, the sounds of their feet echoing throughout the chambers they passed through, the entire thaig felt remarkably alive, like the stone itself had taken note of their trespass, and disapproved. Bartrand didn't notice, or didn't care, and led them onward, picking up the pace slightly as he went.

After some time they passed through a single heavy stone door and entered a large room glowing with red light seemingly emanating from the walls. The centerpiece of the room was a rectangular altar set upon a raised platform towards the rear, a set of stairs flanked by imposing columns guiding them to it. The party filtered into the room, Varric pushing forward towards the altar the quickest, Bartrand remaining by the door, taking in the ominous feeling the room naturally gave off.

Varric slowed to a stop before the altar once he'd reached the top, his head barely reaching over it enough to see what was placed upon it. "Are you... seeing what I'm seeing?" he asked of Nostariel next to him.

"I think so," the Warden murmured by way of reply, eyes fixed on the object on the altar. Was it just her, or was that malificient feeling in the room emanating from that... thing? She didn't know properly what to call it, but it seemed to be at once magnetic and repulsive to her, like something particularly grotesque from which she even so could not tear her gaze. The insidious feeling in the room seemed to thrum at her feet and creep in wispy tendrils up her spine, chilling her without cold.

"Lyrium," the Tranquil pronounced, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. He shook his head, just slightly, and glanced over the other faces in the room. "Be cautious with it." He, too, felt the faint unease it exuded, and knew that it was no natural lyrium. The normal substance, he worked with nearly daily, and it was nothing like that. Which certainly meant that some form of magic was at work here, and hardly the benevolent sort.

"Lyrium? Looks like treasure to me," came Sparrow's response, closely behind Rilien's shoulder. Even still, like she'd done when they peered into the thaig's spinning darkness, she nearly bounded up the staircase, up the platform, and finally idling next to the altar. She, too, could feel something tickling across her skin, sending unpleasant jolts of electricity down her forearms. There was a wrongness that she couldn't place her finger on - so, she chopped it down to a stomach ache, or Rapture's emphereal talons scrapping down her subconscious, salivating at the unusual find. Her fingers twitched impatiently at her sides, though she had enough sense not to try and pluck it from it's perch. What the hell was it, anyway? The chamber itself seemed as if it was breathing a heavy sigh at their impertenent existence. Unlike Rilien, Sparrow wasn't nearly as knowledgeable about unnatural substances. Whatever elements he was familiar with, she'd hardly touched on. His work-station remained his own.

"Doesn't look like any kind of lyrium I've ever seen," Varric said, shaking his head at the object. He then turned to where Bartrand stood, at the base of the steps. "Look at this, Bartrand. An idol made out of pure lyrium, I think. Could be worth a fortune." The elder brother just whistled in response. Varric turned back to the idol, snatching it off the altar without much heed to any caution. "Hm," he said, feeling the weight of it, "not bad. Let's take a look around, see if there's anything further in." He then promptly tossed the idol back to Bartrand, who caught it reflexively. Varric moved to carry on.

He'd taken about four steps when there was a solid thud behind him indicating that the stone door and only entrance into the room had shut. "What the?" Varric said, running down the steps to it and trying to open it, but it was no use. Bartrand was nowhere in sight. "Bartrand, are you there? The door's shut behind you!" There was the sound of a faint chuckle from beyond the door. "You always did notice everything, Varric."

It took Varric a second or two to comprehend, but when he did, he was furious, pounding on the stone with a fist. "Are you joking? You're going to screw over your own brother for a lousy idol?" Bartrand shot back. "It's not just the idol. The location of this thaig alone is worth a fortune, and I'm not splitting it with all of you." The sound of his voice grew steadily fainter. "Sorry, Brother." Varric pounded on the door a few more times. "Bartrand!" He eventually gave up, turning back to the party, fuming.

"I swear I will find that son of a bitch, sorry mother, and I'll kill him!" Ithilian was... hardly surprised. The way this trip was going so far, he was starting to think that seeking death had been entirely unnecessary. He nocked an arrow, imagining that things were bound to get even more ugly pretty soon. "The only way out now seems to be further in. Let's cut our way out of this place, and teach that dwarf the meaning of vengeance."

Nostariel lamented their fortunes, but she did so purely internally, her face setting itself into grim lines. It wasn't only their chances of survival that were reduced this was; she had the maps, after all, and if they managed to get far enough towards the surface, she should be able to figure out where they were. But if all the expedition's muscle was in here, she didn't much like the odds for anyone out there if any Darkspawn managed to flank. Perhaps best that the Roads were largely empty right now; give it another year, and matters would be considerably more difficult. Taking her staff from her back, the Warden clasped it loosely in a hand and planted the bottom end into the patch of earth at her feet. "We don't have much choice, do we?" she asked, largely rhetorically, before she pushed off using the metal pole of the staff and set forward.

"Treachery's like that," Lucien replied in what seemed a rather offhand manner, but if the look he gave the sealed door was any indication, he was just as upset as the rest of them, only... more quietly.

At least the Thaig had interesting things to look at, she supposed.

"Well, I never. A greedy drawf. How rare-- no offense of course," Ashton deadpanned, firing off a glance at Varric. The sarcasm dripping in his voice was almost tangible, and if it was, he'd most likely pack it away and save it for later. Better to strangle Bartrand with it. He let the bowstring in his fingers go slack as he approached the locked door. If the dwarf pounding on the door was any indication and cussing at his own brother, then it was in fact locked. Eyelids slid lazily over his tired oculars. He wondered whose oatmeal he pissed in to garner such horrid luck. Then his eyes widened as a bolt of realization struck him. He surged forward, lanky legs carried through the party and to the door, leaving him towering over the dwarf as he added his own knocking at the door.

"The bastard has my dragon bones! In the cart with the workers. I swear, if they say they killed it, I'll skin them, and make a bow out of their bones!" He said, punctuating with frantic thumps. He wasn't getting anywhere, and he knew it. The door was there a long time before him, and probably will still be there a long time after. Which satisfied that his punching the door wasn't getting him anywhere fast, he spun on his heels and immediately set out to find another exit. "Right. Let's go. I'm not gonna dawdle here while my dragon bones get hocked at the nearest pawn shop."

He ascended the stairs two at a time, and shot a look at the Dalish man. Caution had long since abandoned him, along with his dragon arm. "I couldn't agree more," he agreed with Ithilian.

Past the altar that the idol had been resting upon was an open door, the group's only remaining option. Ithilian and Varric led the way, taking the group into a series of long, stretching corridors. The lyrium down this far had turned from a glowing blue to a rather malevolent bright red, snaking up and around the walls like vines, exploding out of cracks in the walls and appearing to constrict the passageways like fingers wrapped tightly around a throat. As they moved on from the halls and into a series of more natural looking cave formations, Ithilian was having conflicted feelings. On the one hand, nothing had attacked them so far. On the other, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, or followed.

He found his feelings to be justified once the group wandered down into a spacious cave, a narrow path through the middle flanked by lyrium crystals sprouting from the ground as though they were trees. Rocks that were formerly just lying upon the ground rearranged themselves as they approached, glowing yellows cores igniting in their centers in the shape of ribcages as they formed themselves into rough approximations of bodies. Ithilian wondered if whatever spirits these were weren't just imitating those that they saw. It seemed the kind of thing a demon would do.

Though they did not immediately move to attack that did not stop Ithilian from raising his bow, the arrow aimed for center mass, that yellowish core of theirs. If there was a weak point in a creature otherwise made entirely of rock, it was that. "That is far enough," the center rock creature, of the five present, said, his voice deep and suitably gravely. It wasn't apparent what he spoke from, but the sound was there all the same. "We have watched you for a time, and you appear very capable. I would not see these creatures harmed without need." He must have spoken of the others flanking him, though they looked no less threatening than he, only slightly smaller.

"Well, would you look at that," Varric said, his tone remaining light. "We finally found something down here that didn't attack us on sight." The rock formation eyed the dwarf, if that was possible, for a moment, before responding, his tone remaining calm. "The others will not assault you, not without my permission." Varric seemed content to continue speaking about them as if they weren't there. "What are these things? They seem like rock wraiths, but..."

The rock wraith answered for him. "They hunger. The profane have lingered in this place for ages beyond memory, feeding on the magic stones until the need is all they know. I am not as they are. I am... a visitor." Ithilian's arrow did not waver. "Do not veil your words, demon." After waiting long enough to be sure the elf wasn't going to shoot him right then and there, the rock wraith spoke once more. "I would not see my feast end. I sense your desire. You seek to leave this place, but you will need my aid to do so."

No. Rilien was quite done with demons for the time being, and this one warranted absolutely none of his attention. It would just be another temptation for people who were not as he was, and frankly, he was not feeling at all charitable towards the notion of dealing with another possessed person at the moment. One was quite enough. He caught Lucien's eye, his own flicking subtly towards the other creatures, but turned his focus forward again as Varric began to speak. The Chevalier understood well enough what was meant, and rolled his shoulders, as if to loosen them, though his hand strayed yet not to his axe. The Warden was already shaking her head, looking as though she were about to deny its words, but this too was pointless. Why parley with a creature that would only attack once you had refused? It was entirely pointless, and he was not one to waste his time so.

As the last words were leaving it, the Tranquil moved, breaking into a dead run that had more the appearance of floating than anything, an impression only reinforced by the ease with which he left the ground, his feet passing over his head at about the same time as he passed over the demon's, the first of his blades finding the glowing ghost-light that formed what appeared to be its single eye. The perfect arc of his motion completed lightly, and he landed back-to-back with it, wrenching his second dagger backward, past the stones that comprised its torso and into the yellowish core of magic that served to hold it together.

The result was instantaneous; the light sputtered and died, the stones collapsing back into a heap upon the ground, and the other creatures sprang forth, free of whatever force had held them at bay. "I think not," he said flatly, mostly in response to its last assertion. Capable they were, and they would make it out of these roads quite independently of any such barbed, poisonous assistance. He stooped to gather his knives from amidst the rubble, pleased to discover that his aim had been true and they'd scraped no stone in the process.

At the same time that Rilien sprang into action like the predator he was, Ashton had taken his time to select the perfect arrow to ram up the demon's ass. As he went about this process, he was continually shaking his head, muttering under his breath No, nope, nope, hell no, the entire time. By the time Rilien had moved, Ashton had nocked his arrow and taken a step forward, taking aim at the foul creature. He would not have another Sparrow. No deal was to be made today, and he would see the demon fall for such an insult. Anger danced across his eyes as he awaited Rilien to finish his maneuver so that he would have a free shot. What would he do if another one of them fell to the allure of a demon? Though he tried to play it off, Sparrow's plight hurt him. He would not see the same thing done to Nostariel.

As the heels of Rilien's head cleared what he believed to be the face of the creature (and slamming his knife in it, good ol' Rilien) Ashton released his own arrow. It shot through the air, and stuck the front glowing mass of the demon, forcing it further into Rilien's other knife. One again, he realized just how like minded he and the tranquil were. Whether that spoke measures about Rilien or himself, he wasn't sure. Still, they weren't out of the pot yet. His next motion was as fluid as Rilien's, as only the mouthpiece had been destroyed, and left enough of it's ilk for everyone. He pivotted on his right foot, taking him in an arc ninety degrees, dropping his sight on the first Rock Wraith. Arrow drawn and bow taut, he took aim at the creature.

"Glad you stabbed it in its lying face Ril," Ashton said, releasing his arrow, "Let's clean up his friends and never talk about this, yeah?"

When Ashton and Rilien had turned to the large one at the center, Lucien had selected a target to one of the sides, pulling his axe from the loop at his belt and hurling it in one smooth motion. The weapon flew end over end, whistling through the air and embedding itself in the center of one of the other rock-constructions, but he was hardly going to wait to see if that was enough, and Lucien was off after it immediately thereafter, bearing down upon the creature with his right side, the shield connecting with a violent clang, surely sufficient to stun. It did the job, giving him enough time to take the axe by the haft, draw it up, and swing in a wood-chopping arc, landing it right in the same spot. That was enough, and like the other two, it lost that internal light and crumbled back into the loose collection of stones it had been at the start.

He had to admit, he was not used to demons, but if this was what they all were like, then he had difficulty understanding how they could hold such sway over people. Nothing it had said appealed to him in the least; he had every confidence that he and the others would find the surface again, aided or not. Perhaps others of its kind were more persuasive? He was admittedly curious, though he could not say that the feeling extended to wishing to meet more of them, particularly.

Ithilian put a well-placed shot into the core of the first wraith on the left, while Varric unleashed a trio of shots directly into the face of the one beside it, the pair of them crumbling into dust and rubble beside the others. "Right," Varric said lightly, "now that that's done with, let's get moving."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Perhaps the hunger demon thought the group would more seriously consider its offer, as it had failed to bring all of its followers to the fore to protect it. These profane, as they had been called, were encountered by the group almost immediately after moving on from the current room and into more stony corridors. They cut through these as they had the others, leaving a trail of dust and loose stone behind them. The halls eventually began to constrict slightly, narrowing in width as if they were inside a throat in the midst of being choked, trying to capture them inside.

Just as it seemed it would choke off into a dead end there was a sharp ninety degree turn into a winding staircase to led them upwards for the first time in a while. They ascended several floors worth until it ended, opening up into a large square chamber, the centerpiece of which was four strudy stone pillars wrapped in red lyrium twisting and constricting up their lengths. "I think..." Varric mused, taking a look around. Ethereal light shined through cracks in the wall on the far side. "this might be a vault of some kind." He took a few more paces in, the group behind him. "Which means that somewhere around here, the ancient dwarves may have stored their..."

He trailed off when a large pile of rocks against the right wall began to rearrange themselves, rolling on top of one another, stacking into legs and arms, the final product a hulking, ten foot monster of rock, apparently none too happy with their tresspassing judging by the stance it immediately presented towards Varric. "...valuables," Varric finished, slowing bringing Bianca in line with its head. "This should be good."

What followed was a lengthy struggle between man and earth during which Lucien did his best to maintain the creature's ire, while the two hunters and the dwarf pelted it from afar with arrows and bolts, Nostariel and Rilien and Sparrow filling supporting roles. Needless to say, it was a very tired group of adventurers that stepped over the rock guardian's crumbled form, across the threshold of what was indeed, as Varric had predicted, a vault.

"The rock wraiths are supposed to be dwarven legends," the younger Tethras brother complained, "They're not even supposed to be real!" He was halted when a golden vase of some kind flew towards him, and he caught it, spying the Dalish elf up ahead, standing at the base of a literal pile of treasure. Gold littered the floor in every direction, chests of it overflowing to spill onto the ground around them, relics the likes of which the world had never seen. "I suppose the rock wraiths don't really matter now, do they?" Varric said to himself, momentarily stunned by the bounty.

Lucien, a little worse for the wear having been essentially battered with rocks for the better part of what was almost an hour now, all told, had raised a speculative brow upon hearing the dwarf's skepticism. "We're in the middle of an abandoned, supposedly forever-lost Thaig, having just slain a dragon and refused a bargain with a demon that possessed no flesh, and you're incredulous about the stone construct?" The question itself was light, though perhaps not as much so as it would have been if his ribcage weren't still smarting from whatever strange energy attack the thing had used. He'd caught it full in the chest the first time, and though Nostariel's intervention was timely as always, it would probably take him a while to recover the lingering damage.

At that point, though, he was able to temporarily forget the residual pain when he walked up behind the dwarf, whistling a low note at the hoard. "There's a lesson in here somewhere for Bartrand," he said with a chuckle. The Empress's treasury would be hard-pressed to match some of the things in here, though it was doubtful they'd be able to carry it all, having just themselves and whatever their arms could manage. No need to be greedy, though; he'd live quite a while on even the smallest portion of such hard-won gains.

"Heh. Demons, darkspawn, and rock monsters, oh my," Ashton said between hunched pants. For all of the dancing and dodging the archer did, he didn't come away from the fighting without his share of wounds. He was nursing a wicked looking black eye, blood dribbled from one gash along the bridge of his nose, and he was favoring his right leg more than was necessarily healthy. However, he was alive, and his enemies dead. He'd count that as a victory in his book any day. "Lucien has a point. It's talk like that that summons up a flock of feral griffins to attack us," he joked, though he did venture a cautious glance up to the ceiling.

What grievances Ashton felt was soon melted away at the sight of the gleaming pile. Perched above the stocky dwarf, he leaned forward, using the top of the dwarf's head as a rail and peered into the mound of gold. "Right. Best investment ever. Clearly. Looks like I'm not going to lose my shop, so that loan shark can eat it. Here, hold this darling," He finished by handing his bow and quiver (of which a scant few arrows remained) to Nostariel and darted around the dwarf. There, he let gravity do its job and fell into the pile of gold.

While riches were riches, gold was still hard and it stung all of his hidden bruises when he collapsed. But really, he didn't care. Treasure was a hell of a pain killer. Once he was situated in the mound, he began to move his arms and legs, making what he would call: "Look Sparrow! A gold angel! The best of angels."

She, too, whistled low in her throat, though it tapered off into a soft hum that barely left her lips. Had she escaped the forgotten, restless thaig without any injuries, then her guilt, already gnawing at her insides like an incessant rat, would've been multiplied. The Maker – if he, or she, even existed – would have none of that, spattering large gashes across her exposed shoulder blades, where pieces of her armor had been crushed and thrown aside. She'd need a new set if she were ever to find herself wandering down in the Deep Roads again. Worse yet, there was something within her that had spoiled the grandeur of their discovery, of their very adventure, even managing to muddy the mystifying find of so many valuable objects piled atop one another, spilling over into riches she could have never imagined. She'd been one of the reasons why they had so many bruises, so many wounds. Her contribution to their pain was conclusively real, rubbing her raw. Lucien's conversation with Varric seemed to glide past her twitching ears, past her shoulders, belonging to someone else. She blinked once, then twice, watching as Ashton plopped his weapons into the dwarf's open arms, ambling around him so that he could fall unceremoniously into the hoard of treasure, bruises and all.

If she could cut that thing out of her, she would've in a heartbeat. Sparrow meandered a few paces to their right, crouching down so that she could snatch up a handful of coins, allowing them to spill through her fingers. Her eyes focused on their ridges. She wanted to deny her cowardice, bury it somewhere deeper, darker, but it was still difficult to look them in the eyes and play the part of the flighty little bird, unaware of what she'd done to them. Of what she'd continue doing to them if she kept silent. Were secrets that important? Would they forgive her if she were honest? It seemed an unfamiliar concept. She was a liar, or a skimmer of truths. The only one she'd ever been truly, fundamentally honest to was Amalia, and even then, she'd managed to ruin their friendship by running away. As if pretending to look at her reflection in a nearby goblet, trailing the nasty gash running down her left cheekbone, Sparrow twisted and turned it in her hands, occasionally watching her companions in its hazy, warped reflection. If she wanted to, with her share of this unforeseen bounty, she could finally move away from Rilien, distance herself from her friends, and stuff herself away like some kind of hermit. A short bark of laughter bubbled out, sorely bitter. She plopped down on her butt, and rested her elbows on her knees.

Finally, she could pay all of her dues.

Nostariel managed a weary chuckle upon observation of the archer's antics, though she might have winced at his actual impact, more from sympathy than anything. Though she'd stayed away from the melee, she'd still managed to catch a few bruises and scrapes from flying stones, and her left eyebrow was presently diagonally slashed by a cut that leaked blood at a slow, but steady rate. Fortunately, this largely went around her eye rather than into it, but the sticky feeling was uncomfortable now that she was able to notice it at all. She'd have cast a spell to heal it and a few for her companions besides, but she was simply all out of mana for the moment, so it would have to wait. The large piles of treasure were of some cursory interest, but more for the interesting pieces than the shiny ones. Among the bits of wealth strewn about the place lay a staff, the knotted wood of it seemingly interlaced with some kind of stonework, perhaps intended to reinforce the structure. The blade at the end was as yet new-looking, though surely it must have been ancient.

Seeing as her last had snapped under the weight of a crushing stone not ten minutes prior, Nostariel was willing to consider it a good stroke of luck, and crouched to pick up the new one, faintly surprised at the fine make of it despite the odd appearance. It should do quite nicely. As for the rest, well... she would take a portion for her service, but it was not as though any amount of coin or luck would save her from her fate; Grey Wardens had precious little need of such things, in the end.

Rilien, perhaps true to form was standing mildly off to one side, observing the assorted shenanigans with no visible reaction at all. Ashton's act, silly as it was, hardly surprised him, but neither did it produce any kind of scorn. The man was as he was, and Rilien did not mind. Lucien was beginning to remind him more of the man beside whom he'd trekked over more miles than he cared to remember, less solemn than he'd been since the night before Denerim. Hardly noticeable, was the change, and yet the Tranquil noticed all the same.

Sparrow... concerned him, as seemed to be the case too often recently. The thought had occurred to him that she would now be financially independent of his care, but he had not considered that an ill possibility until the demon proved that it could sieze control. It was not that he desired to be near it, merely that he thought things better arranged if he could at least maintain a watchful eye on her. He was... inclined towards her staying. Surely, the demon was the only reason. It was the only one that made any sense, anyway. "It would be prudent to gather what we can and make for the surface," he advised, "That journey will be some time yet, and what food we have will not last so many time enough to tarry overlong."

Nostariel nodded. "Rilien speaks truly. I think that door might put us out into a passage, and if so, I should be able to navigate us out from there, but I for one am eager to be free of these blighted places."

"Should be about a week back to the surface, if we're unlucky," Varric guessed as he perused some of the finer artifacts among the treasure trove. "If we're lucky, we'll stumble over Bartrand's corpse on the way."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Deep Roads Expedition has been completed.

Act One has been completed.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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Sophia had nearly made it down the steps to exit the Viscount's Keep when the voice of her brother called out from behind her. "Off to play the hero again, are we sister?" She lurched to a halt, the pair of guards at the double doors suddenly unsure whether they should open them or not. Sophia spun about to face Saemus, who was coming down the stairs in a rather striking green doublet, his black hair combed back away from his face. Sophia herself had just suited up in her newly enchanted chainmail and plate, and was about to head back down to Lowtown. The day was wearing on, and his father had retired to attend to personal business, leaving any further court matters to the Seneschal, which freed Sophia to do as she pleased with the evening. Apparently her brother did not approve of her choice.

"Saemus, what are you talking about? I'm just going--" But he cut her off. "Down to Lowtown? Perhaps you'll come across another dragon to slay, write another chapter in the legend of Sophia Dumar?" She found herself a little stunned, but this wasn't the first time Saemus had done that to her. This was a rather typical way for him to respond to things he disagreed with. He'd pout for a time, often unnoticeably, stewing by himself, until at some point he could contain his displeasure no longer, and it spilled over the top in the form of venomous words, which were really the only kind of aggression he was capable of mustering.

"Oh!" he continued. "Or maybe another horde of heathen Qunari will attack you, and you can drive off the invaders! Or stop a giant spider-monster from terrorizing the poor people in Darktown!" Sophia weathered this by simply standing where she was, crossing her arms and holding his gaze. The pair of guards behind her shifted uncomfortably. Sophia was glad there weren't many people in hall, at least. "You could go find the leader of the Coterie, and drag him into the Gallows to let him rot for a few decades. Could I come with you? I could be your squire, polish your armor, sharpen your sword, and write down tales of your heroics. We could make a pilgrimage to the sacred ashes of Andraste. Ever since I heard about that one I've wanted to piss in that urn."

That managed to turn Sophia a little red in the face, and she currently regretted the day she put the idea into words. The Warden Queen of Ferelden had supposedly found the location of the Urn some time before the end of the Blight, and ever since Sophia had heard of the place she dreamed of seeing it. "... Are you quite finished, brother?" she asked softly, and to her relief, he spoke no more, allowing her a turn.

"I'm not sure I want to know where all of this is coming from," she continued, "but I can assure you that all I've been trying to do is to help the people in our city, regardless of their social status. Kirkwall is like two different cities at this point, and Lowtown currently needs any help they can get. I can't just stand idly by while--" He scoffed and interrupted her. "Oh, please, Sophia. Don't try to pass this off as some kind of selfless service to Kirkwall, not when everyone says otherwise. It's a reckless, selfish, glory-seeking habit."

She breathed deeply through her nose, trying to avoid raising her voice, and only making things worse. "I had hoped you would have learned by now that the nobles in Hightown do not constitute 'everyone' in Kirkwall. In case you were informed otherwise, the dragon that I played a part in defeating was terrorizing a mine with its kin." Saemus didn't seem impressed. "And the qunari you killed? I suppose you had a good reason for that, too? Apart from increasing the already high tension between them and the city?" Her eyes fell to the floor momentarily, and she ran a hand through thick golden hair. She really didn't want to have this conversation with him here of all places...

Sparrow had the perfect plan. In her own head, in her thoughts, there was nothing at all wrong with the idea of bumbling into the Viscount's Keep in order to ask him about his ledgers, of all those he'd allowed into Kirkwall when they'd all arrived in those ships. Surely, he'd be able to tell her whether or not two shifty characters – bloody bastards, those two rats, had moved through Kirkwall, or even settled down in its midst. She doubted the latter, for she hadn't seen even a glimpse of them. She wouldn't have missed them, either. She never would. Rapture's presence was sporadic, often melting into an ambient noise of displeasure, murmuring in her ear canals when she thought of doing something foolish. This particular plan fell under that category, but she'd made up her mind and she was fighting tooth and nail for control, pushing against the demon with all her might. If she could hunt down Arcadius and Silian, then she could finally exact her revenge and all of this would be over; in theory, anyway. No longer would she find herself suspicious of Rilien's kindness, or look upon Lucien's face and see him staring back. No longer would she find herself painting their faces on her friends, wondering whether or not they'd finally corner her, tear apart who she'd become and reveal a much weaker person; a cowering little girl whose fears rattled her bones.

In mid-stride, Sparrow opened the double-doors wide, nearly colliding with Sophia and a man whose eyes she shared, and effectively bustling the guardsmen aside. It took her a moment to recuperate from the shock of nearly bowling two people over, but she took it easily, quickly recovering with a brimming grin. “Oh, I didn't mean to intrude,” She began to say, rocking back on her heels. For a moment, Sparrow seemed poised to say more, but she held up her finger, waggled it and stepped backwards, past the double-doors, where she then closed them back on herself. The doors slowly reopened and she proceeded to lean her shoulders against them, peering out between the crack she'd made. The smile tugging at her lips, two-parts amused, and two-parts mischievous, only seemed to brighten, as if this was a chance meeting with someone she'd been looking for all along. Perhaps, this was more appropriate than her initial idea of storming the Keep until she happened upon the Viscount. What if he was away on an important errand? Far too busy to fetch up some documents. She didn't move away from the doors, only blinked up at Sophia and Saemus, hunched over. “Sophia, is it?” She greeted breezily, “It's what I remember the gallant knight saying, anyway. I like Sophie better.”

“I was hoping it'd be you.” The comment might have seemed odd coming from Sparrow, but she seemed nonplussed by its implications, only glancing briefly at Saemus to gauge what had been going on between them. By the looks of the man's creased eyebrows, broody eyes, and telltale frown, it might've been a disagreement. Rilien always told her it was best not to bury her nose where it didn't belong. Finally, the half-breed straightened her shoulders, stepped through the threshold and pulled one of the doors wide open, ignoring the gawping look the guard was shooting her. “Apologies, Serrah, but I need to borrow Sophie for a wee bit, if you wouldn't mind,” She swept her hand towards the door, arching her eyebrows. If Sophia needed saving from whatever she'd been talking about, then it would've been a perfect excuse, even though they hadn't planned on speaking at all – and she could ask her in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt. She seemed ready to depart the Keep anyway, with mail armour riddled around her joints. As if to accentuate the offer, Sparrow offered an upturned palm for the taking.

The half elf... man's, interruption was a welcome one for Sophia, even if she found everything about it to be entirely odd. She remembered him, even though they had only briefly met before, but even still she found the informal nature of his greeting to be a little surprising. Sophia, Saemus, and the pair of guards inside the door all turned their heads to watch the visitor retract from the doorway and then reappear, addressing the Viscount's daughter by her given name, and then by a nickname, one which Sophia was not particularly fond of herself. Sophie was too... girlish, and reminded her far too much of her childhood.

The guards, and Saemus, blinked in surprise at the rather bold entrance Sparrow made, but allowed Sophia to speak for herself. She was momentarily torn between addressing her brother and the visitor, but Saemus soon solved that problem by throwing up a hand in dismissal and departing towards the private quarters at a quick pace. Sophia thought to call after him for a moment, but knew it would be no good, so instead she sighed in displeasure and turned to Sparrow. The half-elf had his hand swept towards the open door, and Sophia shrugged before heading outside. It was true that she had been planning on leaving anyway, and if Sparrow had come seeking her specifically, maybe they were headed to similar places as well.

Once the pair of them were outside and the great doors shut behind them, Sophia began to lead the way down the steps. "It's... Sparrow, right? We met in the Hanged Man, I think. I was just headed there, myself. You needed something?"

Sparrow offered her another smile, retracting her hand back to her side. She'd half expected for the guards to silence her charade, berate her for interrupting their quarrel and appearing in quarters she didn't belong in, but was glad that Sophia seemed at least as inclined to leave as she'd expected. Her smile briefly faltered, then blossomed into a wry grin. “Sophie is a lovely nickname, but I'll call you Sophia, if you'd prefer,” Sparrow added softly, clicking her tongue. She'd seen the odd scrunch of the armoured-woman's nose when she'd let the nickname slip – and as inept as she was at picking up subtle expressions, she wasn't entirely oblivious. She knew how it felt to be called a name that didn't suit who she'd become, like wearing ill-fitting boots. She hooked her thumbs in her belt, eyeing the ceiling. What might it have been like to grow up beneath those archways, running around marble pillars, scampering down carpeted stairwells?

His inexperience with royalty was plain as day to her, as most of the people around here would have trouble calling her by anything other than my lady, and here he was offering a choice between her first name and a nickname. "I do prefer Sophia, actually. Thank you for asking." In all honesty, it was quite refreshing for someone to come into the Keep and not act like she was worth more than them or something.

Sparrow followed Sophia down the steps, moving beside her. She barely avoided bumping into a passing man, murmuring a quick apology as she shifted to the side, then stepped back into place. “Sparrow, that's right. Barely properly introduced,” the half-breed put in, bobbing her head, “The Hanged Man? Perfect. I need to ask you some questions. The subject is a little fragile, and it might not be tasteful for any passing ears, if you get my meaning. I'll buy you a drink.” Searching for assailants with the obvious intent of hunting them down certainly wouldn't sit well with any snobbish, goody-goody nobles who believed justice was best dealt with patience and prisons. She wasn't looking for someone to plaster wanted posters around Kirkwall, either. If Sophia had access to Kirkwall's records, however, then she was the perfect person to come to. Perhaps, better to see her then to ask for an audience with the Viscount. From what she'd heard, he'd holed himself up, refusing to take any action at all.

Another fragile subject, huh? Sophia took a moment to wonder if there was an issue in Kirkwall that wasn't fragile. If it involved the words mage, templar, or qunari, then the answer was definitely no. Maker, even fighting those bandits for her brother hadn't been a straightforward issue. And speaking, Saemus was doing an excellent job remembering to be grateful for that little adventure, wasn't he? Sophia rolled her eyes to herself, pushing the thought of her brother from her mind.

The two of them made their way through Hightown and down the steps, making enough conversation so as to not allow the trip to become awkward. Sophia was more than familiar with the way down the Hanged Man by now, and swiftly cut through the Lowtown streets until she reached the destination, pulling open the door and leading the way inside. She spotted the dwarf, Varric, as she entered the main room, and waved to get his attention. Though they did not know each other very well, Varric easily understood the value of being friends with the future Viscount, and Sophia had learned the benefits of being friends with a man like Varric. She knew him enough to know he was good at heart, and that his connections (and words) had perhaps more influence over the people of Lowtown than she or her father did. "Hello, Varric," she said. He bowed rather low. "Good afternoon, my lady," Varric said with a trademark smirk. "And to you, Sparrow. What can I do for you today?"

"Could I borrow your room for a moment?" Sophia asked. "Sparrow has something to discuss with me. I had hoped to speak with you afterwards, as well." The dwarf nodded easily. "Of course. I'll make sure no one disturbs you."

That out of the way, Sophia gestured for Sparrow to follow and led the way up the stairs to the rooms, closing the door to Varric's room once both of them were inside. She pulled up a chair, indicating for Sparrow to do the same. "This should do, I think. The drink won't be necessary. Now, what can I help you with?"
In turn, as she was greeted, Sparrow bowed her head, and slipped a hand across an invisible plumed hat. The Dwarf had proven, over the years spent in Kirkwall's infamous tavern, to be not only useful, and efficient in gathering information, but to be one of her predominant drinking companions whenever she was out of sorts. He never failed to make her laugh, and even though she'd never shared her most intimate secrets, she'd always felt like he could see straight through her. However, it didn't make her feel uncomfortable. She always thought that he'd heard stranger tales, or stories that reflected her own (at least, ones that might make hers a little less shocking). When she straightened, Sophia had already asked whether or not they could borrow his room – which was met with an assertive yes. It didn't surprise her. Rubbing elbows with the Viscount's daughter, or anyone of any important birthright, was useful in its own right.

For someone who'd spent a hefty chunk of her time under the Hanged Man's bar stools, Sparrow hadn't made it any further than that, so anything in the rooms above the stairs was territory she'd yet to discover. She let her gaze roam across the various rooms until Sophia slipped into the one closest to the staircase, which she promptly ducked into. Unusual posters, and drawings hung in the far corner of the suite, though it was the chair Sophia motioned to that drew her attention. Sparrow swiftly plopped herself into it, crossing her leg over her knee. There were certain secrets she'd have to skip around. It wasn't entirely unlike her to skim around the truth, or offer half-truths in the place of complete honesty, and this particular instance wasn't any difference. If she'd taken anything to heart while staying with Rilien, it was the importance of tactful discretion and keeping her mouth shut. She shrugged her shoulders, sweeping her hands in front of her as if to say are you sure about that drink?

When it was obvious that she wouldn't take her up on the offer, Sparrow rested her elbow on her knee, leaning forward just enough so that she could support her chin in her upturned palm. She met the woman's gaze resolutely, only looking briefly away to gather her thoughts. “I'm looking for someone, or two someones, rather,” She began to say, then continued, “A few months after I came to Kirkwall, we started receiving refugees from Ferelden. If I'm correct, everything's been written down, catalogued in ledgers, or documents. Papers, or anything.” She laughed into her knuckles, though it lacked its usual warmth, “I'll admit that I was seeking an audience with your father, but he's been rather busy with other matters.” Everyone knew that the Viscount was tied up with the Arishok stationed in the docks. Those issues would always be at the forefront of his mind, tangling him into affairs that, to him, would be far more important than shuffling through old files. Her eyebrows drew together, expression growing grave. “I need to find them. Can you help me? Please.”

Sophia was glad Sparrow had run into her rather than try to gain an audience with her father. He was indeed quite preoccupied with larger issues, and would only have been aggravated by a request like this. In fact, the Seneschal likely would have either turned him away or heard the request himself, if he thought it important enough, but certainly this would never have made it before the Viscount. Kirkwall had taken in thousands of refugees since the beginning of the Blight, and although it was ended now, a vast majority of them either could not or chose not to leave, for whatever reason.

"That's true, the city guard took a full accounting of everyone who entered the city seeking refuge during the Blight. I'm afraid there's not much more information to be had than the names, though. If the names you're looking for are on the list, it would only mean that they are somewhere within the city walls." Almost certainly in Darktown, Sophia added mentally. Lowtown if they were lucky or extremely hard working. The undercity's population had exploded since the refugees started coming in, along with the crime.

"I can see if Bran or the city guard can take a look through it for you. Who are you looking for?" It wasn't that she wouldn't be willing to do it herself, it was just that her free time was precious to her, with the responsibilities her father was piling onto her. It seemed a simple enough task, but it also seemed tedious, and Sophia wanted to avoid spending a free afternoon poring over papers in the Gallows if at all possible.

Any attempts at trying to tame her eagerness curdled in her stomach. Sparrow leaned back in her chair, watching Sophia's facial expressions. She'd learnt a long time ago – that, even though your companions may be friends with your acquaintances, it didn't always mean you could trust them, or hope for anything unrealistic. She didn't know her very well, though she had a pretty face, and a genuineness that surprised her. Her ability to tell the difference between lies and truth, to read between the lines and extract what she needed out of lies and dishonesty had long been eroded away with her own inability to come clean. She could only read so much in someone's eyes, but it seemed as if Sophia honestly wanted to help her, if she had the time to do so. “I know who they are, I need only know if they're still residing in Kirkwall.”

Her fingers found themselves wrung together, white-knuckled and rosy, until she slipped them apart and sighed. Anxiety blossomed in her gut, feeding a desperation she never knew she possessed. “Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil,” She said the names like curses, like things she whispered between her lips in the dead of night. She'd said them more times than she wished to count. To Rilien, in the middle of the night, when she had nightmares. To herself, when she scoured Kirkwall, foolishly willing them to appear in the alleyways so that she could kill them. Her eyebrows knit together, souring her usual cheeriness. Every memory that threatened to squirm out of the hole she'd dug was promptly smothered, hastily buried to keep herself from crumbling. “They're dangerous – parasites in your city, really. Worse than anything in Darktown.”

She paused briefly, pinching her nose between forefinger and thumb. “One of them even looks like Lucien.”

So he was looking for dangerous people, was he? That caught Sophia's attention. Worse than anything in Darktown was a pretty big statement, and though he hadn't yet stated why he was looking for these people, Sophia's instincts told her that this was something worth following up on. Sparrow didn't exactly strike her as the type to go catching dangerous criminals just because he could, which led her to believe there was obviously something personal going on here.

"Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil," she repeated. "I'll make sure Bran puts someone on this, and I can let you know personally if their names turn up. If they're criminals, it's likely they would use a false name, but I'll have the city guard go through the lists all the same." Notably, Sophia did not ask the obvious question of why Sparrow would want to find them, but that was primarily because if they did have any success locating the two of them, they would be having this conversation again. That, and Sophia wasn't quite convinced this was entirely her business yet. If they were as much a danger to her city as Sparrow seemed to think, she would probably want to go after them with him, but as of now Sophia didn't feel it was appropriate to pry for more information.

Though, Sparrow would've been hard-pressed to admit it, there was still much of Papyrus inside her. She was still the same: stubborn. Hard-headed. Doubtful, lonely, afraid.She felt like she was protecting someone by seeking them out, by promising that she'd destroy them as soon as she hunted them down. Eyes, brilliantly brown, were beginning to water, until she dashed her knuckles into them, mashing any unspilled tears away as if she were tired, exhausted by the peculiar request she'd just made. She didn't apologize for her behaviour, only met Sophia's gaze once more, holding it steady. “Thank you, Sophia,” She breathed, leaning over so that she could touch the woman's arm, then, thinking better of it, pulled briskly way. Her movements were wooden, particularly odd given her eccentricity.

“We have history. They attacked me as a child, stole me away from my family.” One small truth, vague as it was, would be enough. The details were shady, at best. If Sophia wanted to know more, and if it came down to trading information for what she wanted, for what she needed, then she'd do her best to offer it. If not, then nothing needed to be said. "I want to prevent that from happening ever again."

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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The Wounded Coast might not have been most peoples' idea of a good place to meet an old friend, but as had perhaps been long established, Amalia was not most people. Nor was Sparrow most 'old friends,' for that matter. So perhaps it was not so unexpected that when the Qunari had at last decided she was in the right state of mind to have this long-needed discussion of certain very pertinent matters, she had sent word to the half-elf through means of his much more stably-located companion, the enchanter who worked now out of the merchant's district in Hightown. She was quite sure that Rilien, as he was called, would convey the message to Sparrow that Amalia sought audience with him, and at this particular spot on the coast, no less. Here, the ocean met the shore, a cove of soft white sand hidden and defended on three sides by rocky inclines that would be tricky for the average person to navigate. In their childhoods, they had found many such places, secreted away after their hours of instruction to while away the afternoons which were theirs.

Though she was still robed, and armored beneath that, the Qunari had allowed herself the concession of removing both her boots and her gauntlets, setting them neatly on a sun-warmed rock some distance from her present location. This little strip of beach was occupied by several tide pools and many large planks of wood, arranged such that they had obviously once been the bare skeleton of some seafaring vessel. Many, many years ago, from the looks of things. Now, they formed a dozen proud, if decrepit, archways, braced against the west side of the cove.

Amalia walked parallel to the line between sand and water, close enough that occasionally a wave would wash over her bare feet, the sea's spray dampening the tan hem of her linen robe. It was nowhere near as hot or balmy as Par Vollen, here, nor so arid as Seheron tended to be, but it was the closest that this place ever came to reminding her of home. And here, with no humans or elves or dwarves about to prove the contrary, she could almost believe she was back there. At least, she could have if she ever bothered to entertain such useless fancy. Those had always been Venak hol's things, not hers. The breeze from the water rippled through the fabric she wore and tugged at her loose forelock, as though chiding her, in much the manner he would have, no less. Perhaps that was the true reason she'd chosen the spot: it reminded her of him, anyway, more even than it reminded her of home.

The two had not been so readily distinguished, once.

Rilien's straightforward message had been, most likely, repeated word-for-word, identical to what Amalia had told him to relay to her. The location hadn't surprised her in the slightest, and she was almost relieved that it hadn't been somewhere unfamiliar, some place unlike where she would've chosen. If she'd wanted to meet in Hightown, or somewhere busy, chaotic, full of snobby nobles, then she would've wondered whether or not her old friend had truly changed for the worst. She decided ahead of time that she wanted to head to the Wounded Coast before Amalia appeared, in the childish hopes of surprising her. Instead, Sparrow's withering enthusiasm seemed to sluggishly lead her over the hills, following a faint trail.

The way she walked had always been different from hers; she walked lightly, quietly, hardly leaving any evidence that she'd ever been there, and Sparrow walked with large, lumbering steps, leaving tracks like a receding tide-line. The blue undertones of the sky promised of pleasant weather, of a beautiful day spent by the beach. She'd chosen simple clothes that made it look as if she'd just hopped off the nearest shipyard; a fitted, cotton vest with leather trousers and a silken bandana wound across her head, slithering down the right side of her face. For this particular meeting, Sparrow needed no armor, even if it made her feel vulnerable. She'd never been one for being prepared, anyhow.

As she neared the meeting spot, Sparrow removed her shoes, held them aloft and dangled them over her shoulder. She could just see over the cliff-side, and spotted blonde hair blowing in the wind, gentle as blades of grass. Her breath hitched, stilling her movements. It was stifling how she could still do that to her, without so much as saying a thing. Sometimes, Sparrow could muster the courage to do things she never dreamt of doing. Her recklessness was boundless, and often bordered on stupidity, but at moments such as this, whatever bravery she'd scooped up in her hands sifted through her fingers like sand. Only she managed to do this to her. Her eyes, brimming with fire and seriousness and seawater, shook her foundations, and made her want to apologize for something, anything.

She might have been a mirage in the desert, weaving in the distance with all of her aliases and locked doors, but her old friend was as solid and real as the tiny particles of sand squished between her toes. She pressed her free hand to her chest, instilling a calm she didn't feel in her thumping heart, willing it to beat with the steadiness of the ocean. How dearly she wanted to snatch up her elbow, pull her along the beach, like she'd done so long ago – but things were different, and they'd changed more than she'd like to admit.

Sparrow breathed in through her nostrils, tasting both the cleanliness of the air, and the saltwater of the coastline. It was cooler than Par Vollen. Her memories, however skewed, had not eroded like the smooth rocks she'd spotted freckling the beach. She remembered every detail, as vividly as if they'd happened yesterday. Perhaps, it was what made it so painful. She couldn't deny abandoning her friend all those years ago, for reasons beyond selfishness, and she couldn't explain exactly why she'd done it, either. With one final shuddering breath, ruthlessly snatched away with the breeze, Sparrow took another step forward, then another, until she picked her way onto the beach. The secret alcove, hidden away from the world by jagged rocks and a skeletal shipwreck, reminded her of home, of secret hideaways and sharing their worries, dreams, ambitions. She walked slightly behind her old friend, off to the side, idling in the water; knee-deep.

“This may be the only place in the Free Marches that doesn't make me physically sick,” she mused softly, kicking up bits of sand, “Do you think they call it the Wounded Coast because of Kirkwall? Anything close to that place must be in a little pain, a little tainted.”

Amalia's pace hadn't changed when she sensed the arrival of her once-fellow, and indeed, to anyone else it might have seemed as though she hadn't acknowleged his presence at all. But she had; it was in the subtle relaxing of her posture, the way she walked now with looser, longer strides, though still atop the sand rather than sunk into it as he was wont to be. He was flighty, so flighty, and she'd had to admit to the possibility that he wouldn't show at all and her day would be spent by herself. It was not that solitude bothered her-- she'd been alone, in the poet's sense, almost her entire life. Ever since he'd departed, in fact. That she still was could not be counted as his fault, however. By now, she had chosen repeatedly to remain so, though she might have chosen otherwise. She told herself her burdens were best borne alone, that attachment to anything but the Qun diminished her judgement and her usefulness, but in truth she knew not whether it would because she'd never really tried to find out.

He spoke, and she stilled her feet at last, turning a bit to look at him out of the corner of her blue eye. Qunari were excellent with subtext, and Venak hol's, as always, didn't much stretch the limits of her comprehension. Whether it was because they had once been close or because he was unsubtle didn't much matter-- though he did seem to have picked some up, from somewhere. He must have, else surely he'd be dead or in the place they called the Gallows by now. I'm in a little pain, a little tainted, he said to her without speaking the words, and she answered without them also.

"I expect it is called this because it is frequently attacked from the outside, wounded by raiders, perhaps. I do not think they realize that it is the coast itself which brings the most ruin." She eyed the ship-skeleton with meaning. You know as well as I do that the world can only hurt us if we allow ourselves to be hurt. Why else would a being, any sentient person, refuse trust, friendship, cameraderie? Because it opened them to harm, and some were more wary of it than others. Amalia was wary of it as the prowling tigers of Par Vollen were of the spear-laden kossith who moved through its tropical landscapes.

In comparison, Sparrow had lived frivolously, flinging herself in every direction and choosing to lean on whichever sorry shoulder was closest – though, only sharing when it was necessary and only offering small, slivers of truths in place of its entirety. Perhaps, they hadn't strayed far from each other, after all. While Amalia willingly adopted a life of solitude, treading a path of isolation and tranquillity, she'd chosen a life in which masks were worn, falsifications embraced and well-intentioned fibs strewn out like grains of sand. Her friendships were based on unauthentic foundations. They might've been strong to withstand things like disloyalty, but conflict and declarations between companions and allies alike reaffirmed, strengthened and solidified their bonds. She wasn't sure whether or not she was prepared to make that leap. The burdens she shouldered were not carried for the Qun, or for any sort of justified reason, aside from the fact that she was terrified of being left alone once all of her dirty secrets were spoken aloud, as if she'd become a stain on their lives, doomed to be avoided.

Small, insignificant parts of Sparrow sang clearly, noisily, at the very thought of standing on an unfamiliar beach with his once-friend, and other darker parts urged her to throw her hands out wide, offer her everything she'd managed to scrounge up after running rampant in Kirkwall's streets. All of her secrets, all of her hideaways, everything she'd managed to discover since leaving the Qun, its people, and more importantly, her. Each and every question she'd ever thought since abandoning them bubbled to the surface, gurgling in her throat, battling to be voiced, but she only managed a slight inclination of her head so that she could better see Amalia's face. To trace the slope of her nose, and the foreign angles of her cheeks. While it was true that Sparrow had flown far from her nest, further still from her comfortable perch, her heart still basked on Par Vollen's dusty beaches, underneath a brilliant sun.

She blinked slowly, letting her eyes fall away from her, and roll skyward. The smile tugged at her lips, then arranged itself into a knowing smirk – of course, only those who allowed themselves to be hurt, truly hurt. Sparrow thought it was impossible not to let miniscule pieces of yourself slip out, as if they were seeping through imperceptible cracks. Her chest had been clamped shut for so long that she was having difficulties cracking it open, and feared Amalia suffered the same unbearable fate. Did it eat up at her? Did she wish that words came easily? Did she have secrets, as well? She hadn't understood, for the longest of times, why it was Amalia's voice that she could hear the clearest, even though she was nowhere in sight, but it all made sense now that she stood with her on the Wounded Coast. She'd seen her in all of her entirety, once. Her weaknesses, her past, her truths, every part of her. There was no need to lie, or fib, or skirt around anything to stave away humiliation. She already knew everything.

“And they've even got unwelcome guests they can't seem to rid themselves of. It's a mess, this place.” Too cowardly was she to say I'm possessed, I'm possessed, and it'd be better off if you ended it for me. Had she asked, she wouldn't have expected a reply, or an answer, or worse yet: compliance. She finally threw her hands out wide, approaching the skeletal remains of the ship, with its underbelly sticking out like wooden ribs, “I'd rather be home.” Home was an objective, undefined term. Where did any of them truly belong? She'd sought out the answer to that question for as long as she'd been alive, never truly finding it. If she didn't include her happy childhood shared with her once-friend, then Sparrow could readily admit that living alongside Rilien, with new friendships always weaselling their way in, was the closest thing to feeling like she was home. She frowned thoughtfully, clambered up onto the rotten bowsprit, and hooked her arm around the wooden woman's eroding shoulders. “But, you've made some friends, right?”

She needed to know.

Amalia had stopped short at the phrase unwelcome guests, watching Sparrow advance further forward with a hard, measuring stare. This was their entire story, encapsulated: Amalia tugging down the muffler that covered her face, watching with an expression her childhood friend could not see as he opened his arms to the world beyond, the places she could not, or perhaps simply would not, follow. He'd leave her behind, and she'd understand the necessity of it. She'd never like it, but she would understand, so truly and deeply that she'd wish she didn't. He'd leave, and she'd occasionally return to stand at the edge, staring at the marks he'd left in the sand as though some piece of him yet remained in them.
What would he say, if she told him that this was the harm that had stayed her hands, on the way to prying open that foolish thing she called a heart?

But surely it wasn't. One incident did not close someone to so much for such a long time. His leaving had been the first in a series of incidents that had bound that harbor shut with massive boom-chains, a gate to remain forever sealed. She made study of his open, slightly coltlike stride, and her eyes narrowed. She had played at words for too long not to guess what his meaning could possibly be, but she avoided voicing the conclusion, even in her own head, for what she would have to do in response was immediately clear. Instead, she allowed the words to be more literal, a reference to the presence of the Qunari in Kirkwall. "A mess that should be careful, else it finds itself unwittingly cleaned by those suited to the purpose." The Arishok grows impatient; with me, you must guard your words. Meanings stacked atop each other in haphazard piles, woven into the fabric of even the drollest utterances. He always had infused chaos into the order of her being. They complimented, simple as that.

So it shall be. It had become a part of her, it was her. She just hoped, as dearly as any old friend did, that the Qun's wishes were never burdened onto Amalia's shoulders, and that she never conferred any orders to do away with her, and that they'd somehow forgotten about her. As if her presence were little more than a passing breeze, leaving nothing but wayward memories and faint traces of her laughter. It was easier that way. Though Amalia's face was hidden from view, obscured by the muffler she'd pulled up over her lips, nose barely peeping above the fabric, Sparrow imagined that she was frowning. She, herself, had never hidden her face from anyone (though, she'd hidden her identity well enough), because if anything needed to be understood, then all one would need to do is look at it, clearly, unobstructed. Her expressions told many things all at once. Far too much, at times. She squinted her eyes, as if she were staring into the sun, eyebrows flagged in question.

Sparrow's fingers absently tugged at the fabric of her shirt, where her heart thumped beneath. Wherever they might have ended up, they'd still pulled and tugged and lugged their individual chains – quite simply, the ones they'd latched onto their chests, tangled around their hearts, because it was too difficult to live simply, seeking friendships when loneliness hounded their thoughts. She was lonely, often. She chased those sentiments away with liquor, poor company, good company and lending a helping hand where it was asked, or not asked. Her nosiness and curiosity constantly kept her out of her hovel, kept her from withering away in Darktown's despairing corners. Kirkwall, with all of its prospects of confinement and plausible death, could not clip her wings, or keep her grounded enough to present her from escaping once more. Words, words, more words with hidden meanings. They danced around each other, holding metaphors and whispered colloquy’s aloft, knowing everything and yet still belying an animus of altruism, of delicate intentions. Whilst she offered stability and tempered discipline, Sparrow could only swing her mace, sending vibrations through her structure. It would always be this way. “A mess I care not to defend,” She mused quietly, tipping her head.

The question went long without answer, and Amalia took the opportunity she gave herself to approach the dead ship, tilting her head to look up at his perch. Fitting, for a bird, but he'd never remain there for too much time. Friends? Had she? Amalia had to give the question some deliberation. Nostariel was a student. Aurora was... the same, and perhaps also an apprentice. Something not quite identical, but friend was not the proper word; their relationship was too sharply-defined for that muddlement.

That left one, and maybe she hadn't closed herself quite tightly enough, because she was... uncomfortable, thinking about him. A constricting feeling tightened about her lungs, and she pretended to take sudden interest in the curvature of the vessel's wooden bones. Leave it to Venak hol to disturb so much with such an innocent question. Amalia had not ever given much thought to what to call the strange cameraderie between herself and Sataareth; a name had been unnecessary. In retrospect, perhaps that was part of the problem-- without a name, it had no such boundaries, and she may have overstepped hers without understanding that she was doing so. If they had been... friends... they were not now.
"Perhaps," she said quietly, and the word was heavy with implications unvoiced. Her own foolishness was only now beginning to become clear in its fullest extent, but she still knew not whether she was more the fool for overreaching what may indeed have been a friendship or for allowing it in the first place. Had her life not taught her beyond the shadow of a doubt that such things were impossible for her to sustain? Whatever the case, it was abundantly clear that she, not for the first time, had allowed herself to come to harm.

"Nehraa meraas, in the end."[/color] She shook her head, then looked back up. "And of you? The Tranquil was protective." Indeed, it had not been until she stated exactly what her purpose was for desiring a meeting with Sparrow that he had even admitted that he would be able to deliver her any message whatsoever, though Amalia had had it on good authority that they cohabitated. She understood; Sparrow tended to inspire that in people.

Unwelcome guests, indeed. Sparrow did not hate the Qunari, nor even dislike their presence in Kirkwall, and certainly held no aversion towards their teachings, for she'd once believed in the Qun with all of her heart. She'd flown alongside it, allowing it to pass over her like sheets of rain until the it became little more than a torrential storm, stifling her breath, slapping down shackles she thought were too heavy to carry. Flighty birds were not meant to be caged, or told what to do. Respect, honour, dignity, and duty as strong and unyielding as iron. These traits, as she'd begun to see, were embodied in her once-fellow, down to her very core. It was admirable, to say the least, but even in her youth she'd felt as if she hadn't been born with the makings of a good follower, of a resolute kinsmen who breathed and lived within her blade, only to extend herself out as the Qun demanded. Though, she still felt threatened by the Qunari presence in Kirkwall. It signified everything she feared – her freedom being stripped away, her secrets finally executing fatal consequences in the form of stapled eyes and stitched lips, and losing everything she'd recklessly, foolishly fought for. They would kill her for abandoning them, and she'd very nearly deserve it.

The half-breed looked down from her spiny, wooden roost, taking note of Amalia's approach. Like two matches coming together, igniting into something all-too familiar. She moved like a phantom, barely disturbing the ground she trod upon, but still leaving footsteps in her wake – and she found herself oddly relieved, for it meant she was really here. Reality and the Fade had become something intangible, difficult to separate in the days she did not feel her fingers wiggling.

She'd been concentrating on the sound of her once-friend's voice, occasionally leaning forward to hear her better. At times, when she's not quite prepared to hear it again, Sparrow was surprised. It was sharper than she recalled, full of wisps of confidence, as if she knew exactly what she might do and where she might go. Her shoulder blades press together, hand retracting away from the mermaid's wooden collarbone. Again, Amalia wore that iron expression of hers, one of tight lips and lines, a face bound so tightly, so adept at saying nothing at all, while she admired the vessel and looked away from her. Sometimes, her once-friend moved like clockwork, gears all bunched up, mechanically staggered, slow and cautious. Her heart, even now, seemed closed off to her. She'd closed it herself, when she chose to leave.

Her head tilted once more, craning to see Amalia's face. “You have, then,” Sparrow exhaled, breathy and clearly relieved. Her guarded heart, speckled with ramparts and crocodile-infested moats, would always attract a friend, a companion, acquaintances and allies. She might have disagreed, but there was something about her that reeled people in. Her inner core professed safety to all those who stood in her presence, sang of loyalty, honesty, and a guiding hand perpetually toughened by gauntlets. Amalia would never be without a friend. The question had been silly, if not rhetorical. She'd wanted to hear her answer, or see that her worries had always been childish, selfish things. She could pretend. She was good at that. She was the best at that; she'd convinced herself that leaving hadn't effected anyone, she'd convinced herself that lying was the only option she'd ever had. Sparrow adjusted her position, her behind promptly scooted across the figurehead's shoulder, hand extended to the horizon, fingers played. “Ketojan kadan, is fitting. A bridge between hearts. You might disagree, but I don't think your path is meant to be walked alone.”

To that, Amalia exhaled in a huff, a gentle testament to disagreement. He didn't understand, and that was fine. He wasn't meant to. There were secrets she had shared with none, of things that had passed years ago, things that even now kept her a safe distance from others. If she had anything to say of the matter, they always would. Sparrow had shown her that nothing was permanent, but he had convinced her that nobody was trustworthy. It was a lesson she'd taken to heart, the only thing he'd done to her that could ever be considered a beneficence, and even that coated with malice the like of which she'd not seen before or since. She was scarred, and they pulled in places, insistent reminders that what was made broken could not become whole again, not as it had been.

She reeled her hand in, and turned towards Amalia. Rilien? In more ways than one, the unwavering, ever-present bard, had pulled her from the darkness, dusting off loneliness from her shoulders without so much as asking why she was there in the first place, in exchange for nothing. It was a kindness, what he'd done for her. She'd never seen him as someone afflicted by the Rite of Tranquility, and he'd never seen her as a hapless orphan, drug out from the rain. It was a bond she was willing to protect with everything she had – she'd die for it, as well as for the others she'd manage to care for. The half-breed crouched down from her perch, gauged the distance to the ground, and finally hopped down, brushing errant shards of wood from her trousers. She threw her head back, and laughed, then thoughtfully scratched her chin, grinning. “I think I've found a reason to fight, people to fight for.”

This, the Qunari understood. To live always alone did not preclude doing service for others, nor even living for their sake. That much was the very essence of the Qun. Each individual lived and died for the whole, but they should never expect the whole to count them for anything. Nothing at all; they had to be disposable, else their loss would do damage. It was not the same, perhaps, as what Sparrow had found himself, but it was something. Similar, on some level, and she was glad he had found it. It was something worth having-- something to protect, to love, to defend with all the life in one's body. If that was some group of people for Venak hol, it would do. "Then you should count yourself lucky," she replied simply.

It was her turn to frown, mouth struggling to find any chipper expression, flipping through into something a little sadder. While Sparrow moved around things, as transparent and mellifluous as the briny water that lapped over their feet, Amalia had been molded, or guided, into being something similar to an anchor, willingly drowning and professing that loneliness was her only, ever-present companion. Her own word were empty, flighty things, twittering on branches before taking flight. They didn't mean anything, anymore. She'd lost the right to offer advice, or stolidly counter that she'd always be here for her, that she'd always be there to chase away her distrust. This woman – who exuded poise, and grace, and a centre that did not move unless she willed it – was still a prevalent force in her life, as absolute and real as the fragment of herself she'd intentionally buried.

She approached Amalia, tentatively, at first, and stopped short of her right side, fingers already snatching the corner of her muffler. Sparrow did not pull it down, nor make any movement that might've given away her intentions. Indeed, she'd had none, but it had always been a familiar action; one she'd done several times in her youth. The half-breed would always be on the brink of leaving everyone she's ever loved, suspended over a cliff side, wings held aloft. Incessantly claiming that the distance called to her like songbirds, and that she didn't truly belong anywhere. She might have found someone, or many someone's, to fight for, but it would always be in her nature to run away. Difficulties, internal or external, frightened her more than anything. Amalia knew that better than anyone, and yet here they were, standing along the Wounded Coast, with secrets shackled to their ankles.

“Lucky?” She mused, allowing the fabric to sift through her fingers, “Everything comes with a price, I suppose.”

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Afternoon had long threaded into evening, but the Tranquil was heedless of the passage of time. He was not without such bodily needs as food and slumber, but he was quite able to ignore such needs for extended periods of time. He slept at regular intervals because his limbs and mind stopped functioning properly if he didn't, but he never felt fatigue. He ate, but he did not hunger. At least... not most of the time. Unfortunately, occurrences outside the realm of the ordinary for him were becoming increasingly common due to his cohabitation with a possessed individual, and he could not to deny to himself that he was avoiding Sparrow to some degree, pushing his hours at the shop back further and further past even a reasonable closing time. He'd flip the sign, lock the door, and light several lamps by which to continue some project or another, and he was now so far ahead in his orders that he had almost nothing to do. He supposed, when it came down to it, that he was displaying a reprehensible cowardice, but when her very presence brought him into the proper frame of mind to miss that which he would ever be without... he could not call it irrational.

Without any more pressing work to occupy his time, he was transcribing a list of ingredients from the book Ashton had helped him procure some weeks earlier. Many of them were rare, but there was only one that he thought he would have major difficulty finding. He'd need to do more research in order to locate possible sources, but there was a problem: it appeared on another list, one he was working on just as secretly. But that, should it become a problem, would be one best dealt with when he came to it.

Adding the last flourish to the list, Rilien replaced the quill on the worktable and rolled up the parchment. Tying it off with a string, he placed it on a shelf, and, bereft of anything else to occupy his time with, decided to clean his instruments. By now, he was very clearly wasting his time, but he had no desire to return to Darktown at this juncture. He supposed he could not remain here forever; Sparrow would show up eventually. But perhaps not until tomorrow.

Had Rilien been so lucky, but alas, Rapture was seeking him out. She'd taken control of the woman's body whilst she was lounging in the Hanged Man, impatiently biding her time in the dark quarters of her mind, until Sparrow had a few drinks swirling in her belly. It only took a few moments to wrestle with her subconscious, slithering in like an overpowering viper. The briefest gloss of her eyes, or the unnatural twitch of her fingers, told of something gone awry. The act in itself was becoming easier and easier to fulfil, which was surprisingly boring. The skittering sparks of indignation, and complete revulsion, were becoming as stagnant as a withering plant. She supposed she'd enjoyed their small, fruitless bouts. Nowadays, Sparrow's fiery willpower sizzled like a pile of sopping wet coals. She was a dead fish, hardly worth the effort of goading. Her efforts, instead, had directed themselves in her companion's direction, or Rilien, to be specific. Not only had he been avoiding Sparrow entirely – and she'd noticed, oh she'd noticed – but he'd taken to cooping himself up in his shop.

Which was where Rapture was heading. She very nearly skipped down the alleyways, unafraid of anything that might face her in its shadows. She'd already taken to slaughtering thugs, thieves, and petty gang-members whenever she grew bored, reminding Sparrow once she'd awoken that her hands were getting mighty bloody. Her inability to control herself kept her up at night, as if staying conscious would ward the insolent demon away. No amount of sleeplessness, of caution, could keep her in the shadows. If she wanted something badly enough, then she'd take it. Her desires were greater than Sparrow's wavering inclinations. Familiar faces were beginning to blur, dimming the line between friend and foe. Every single face became their faces, sneering and whispering and plotting. They'd hurt her again, she said. They'd do it while she slept, while she thought everything was safe, while she dropped her guard. Her greatest friend was beginning to look like them, and she was beginning to lose sight of what mission she'd undertaken to rid herself of all of those thoughts, to exterminate the source.

Rapture rounded another corner, walking languidly back into the streets. Her gait was purposeful, unusually sensual. She paused in front of a doorway, resting her hand on the copper handle before pushing it open – and of course, Rilien was there, hunched over his desk with an all-consuming focus. She did not stop. Footsteps, quiet as skittering mouse-pads, drew up behind the bard, until she settled her hands, so unlike her own feminine talons, around the man's shoulders, slipping them down across his collarbone. She knew as well as he that her advances, her unwelcome touches, brought something entirely uncomfortable – feelings, sentiments, slivers of what he'd lost. Her chin came to rest atop his head, and she blew fluffy strands of white from her lips. She wanted to pick apart his flaws, and pinch everything he wished he still had between her fingers until Rilien hurt so badly that he, too, crumbled under her words. Unfortunately, those inflicted with the Rite of Tranquillity were difficult, if not impossible, to overpower.

He hadn’t missed her approach—how could he? She was like a flashing dock-light, distractingly-bright and reeking of the Fade. It smelled like home, and he despised that about it. But when the moth refused to fly closer to the flame, the lantern grew inclinations of its own and came to him, lighting up the stubborn darkness of his world with that peculiar luminescence he’d once basked in. He’d been a creature of emotion himself, a flame burning ever brighter with brimming magic, a vessel for that uncanny light that was magic, and it had lit his eyes from behind, flashed somewhere in his capricious smile. He had been magic, then, and she reminded him of what it was like.

He didn’t tear his eyes from his task, knowing that to ignore her was perhaps his strongest recourse when he wasn’t willing to harm her host. He sat still, his only motions those familiar ones that came of oiling instruments to a shine. He did not so much as acknowledge her presence.

Once, that had been enough to stay her. Then, they’d both come to a most unfortunate realization: when the demon touched him, he felt. The Fade in that close a proximity lifted the Tranquil haze from his mind, and like a flame released, his emotions returned in full force to burn him from inside out. It had been a complete accident; he’d shown up at the Hanged Man one night when he felt her take over, as he often did, to make sure Sparrow would do nothing she would later regret. She’d brushed him, purely by accident, and he’d actually yelped as sensation overwhelmed him, for the first time in years. He’d come to a realization, then: he hadn’t remembered what it was like to feel, not at all. Not like that.

It was a tidbit of information she’d been steadily growing bolder and bolder in exploiting ever since. She. Rapture. The demon that held his friend.

She was not cowed by his steadfast refusal to see her today, and not-Sparrow’s hands trailed over his shoulders, whispering just a fraction beneath the fabric of his tunic to brush over the skin stretched across his collarbones, and Rilien tensed. He resisted this, despised it, not so much for the fact that it caused him to feel, but because the moment she decided she’d had her fun and released him was all the agony of the Rite, over and over again. Like a flame plunged into cold water, everything was simply
 snuffed out, and pain replaced it until that, too, was numb, like a body slowly dying of hypothermia, only the victim was his soul. That was the part he reviled the most. She tortured him, and she knew it.

“She hates being around you, did you know that?” Rapture hissed between her teeth, tapping two fingers against Rilien's starburst tattoo. Her fingers dropped away, and she linked her arms around his neck, intertwining her hands. How long could he simply avoid the subject? It seemed peculiar, given his nature. Skirting around the issue, from what she'd witnessed so far, was not his style. The Fade hung around her like a heavy blanket, pooling around her feet. Her lips pursed, lidded eyes staring ahead. “Almost as much as you hate being around her. But, you know, you're starting to look like them. Her attackers. I keep painting their faces here,” She continued in a sing-song voice, thumbing his cheekbones, “and soon, she won't know the difference. How would you like that?”

With the uncanny calm of his Tranquility sloughed from him like an old skin, Rilien was acutely aware of every subtlety she was attempting to wring from him. His anger, his distress, and even indeed his bodily awareness of the proximity of another person, one he cared about. For indeed, he was also free to care. But he was not so easily divested of his own subtlety, nor his logic. Before he was Tranquil, he had been sly, and even now, he remembered the lessons he’d been taught by the Lady Montblanc, on manipulation and deceit. He’d not had to put them to use for a long time, but things like that didn’t leave you.

He knew that he had to turn the tables, put the demon on the defensive, or he would not have the time for the veritable coup de gras before she defeated Sparrow utterly. It was only himself-as-craftsman that could accomplish her ultimate demise, but Rilien-as-bard had more than a few tricks in the distraction and subterfuge categories. He was angry, enraged that this creature thought to toy with Sparrow’s mind as though it were nothing important at all, as though Sparrow were insignificant. He desired little more than to slit her throat, or perhaps to burn her if he could trust himself to remember how, but he could not. Not while she still wore her flesh.

Don’t get angry when you can get even instead. Of course, I probably don’t have to tell you that, do I, dearheart? the Bardmaster’s voice was as amused as ever in his recollection, and he allowed it to bring the slowest of smiles to his lips. Standing slowly, he turned to face not-Sparrow, his gaze boring into hers with a half-lidded languidity that did not belong to the Tranquil. Certainly, he was dealing with a different beast than he was accustomed, but she needed to learn that she was, too. Pausing for just a moment to remind her of the fact that he was, in fact, just a fraction taller and broader than she, Rilien hummed a note of mock concern in the back of his throat. “Am I?” he questioned, his voice bereft of its usual neutrality and infused with something throaty, like the purring of some great cat. It was all about keeping her unsure of his intentions, after all.

Indeed, to this effect, he reached up with one hand, crooking his index finger and using it to tilt her chin upwards by a small degree. “But Sparrow knows I’d never hurt her,” he continued, inclining himself slightly forward and down so that his breath fanned over her cheek. He held there, for three full seconds, letting her draw her own conclusions about his thoughts, their faces so close that their noses almost touched, but just as quickly, his intent look vanished, replaced by a quick, sanguine grin, and he pressed the pad of a callused thumb to her chin and used it in tandem with his gentle hold on her jaw to tilt her head just a little away from him, so that he was speaking nearly directly into her ear.

“It isn’t her I avoid, demon. It never was her. And if she didn’t know that before, she does now, because I can feel her in there. It isn’t her I hate. It’s you. And mark my words: I will find a way to expel you from her mind, and when I do, I will make you hurt, so badly that you’ll beg to die. When you do, I’ll let her kill you, in whatever slow, painful way she most
 desires.” His hand slid down her throat, to rest gently about the base of her neck, just enough pressure on her windpipe to be suggestive of something much less comfortable.

”She is not a toy for your amusement, and neither am I. You should have picked easier targets, creature.”

This not-Sparrow smiled gleefully, aglow with cruelty, as if she'd won another small, insignificant battle. One that she'd willingly conjured every time, breathing life into old wounds, and rubbing them raw with salt and brine. It was a wicked thing to do, but it still served as one of her preferred pastimes. How she longed to pierce her talons through thisTranquil's tender neck, needle-pointing across his unmoving Adam’s apple – Sparrow's useless nails, sheared short for convenience, could do little more than scrape over, serving as a minor annoyance. She pulled her fingers away from his cheekbones, and roughly snatched up a handful of his hair, where she'd been leaning her chin. However, Rapture did not jerk her hand back as she'd intended, but allowed the strands to sift through her fingers, falling back into place as if she'd never grabbed it in the first place; eerily similar to how she toyed with his Fade-inflicted emotions. Important things he continued to lose each time they were in physical contact.

She took a step backwards, as if she were pulling the Fade-blanket off of him in one fell swoop. She wanted to sever that uncomfortable bond, and remind him that every time she was around, he'd have to suffer that same awareness of having something familiar being ripped away. Perhaps, each time, it felt as if the Rite of Tranquillity was being performed. The fire-hearted, brimstone breathing demon idled, adjusting her weight from foot-to-foot. Every ruin she created, every life she'd managed to extinguish in her short time occupying Sparrow's vessel had been a lesser feast. She was not finished. Her appetites could not be so easily sated, and until her residency became a little more permanent, then she'd continue pushing and pulling and manipulating Sparrow's thoughts until she simply stopped fighting. Until her heart, and her consciousness, grew sluggish and exhausted, far too tired to run a such a hopeless race. It would be difficult, but she'd always loved a challenge.

The Tranquil's lack of response was not disconcerting, nor surprising in the least. When did any Tranquil react with anything but empty-eyed, flat-lined frowns? Though, circumstances were profoundly different. The Fade still lingered, sticky and heavy. It did surprise her when she saw Rilien's shoulders inch backwards, followed by his entire body. He was standing up. Her eyes widened, pupils shrivelling down to pinpricks. There was a deliberate indifference snapping wildly in his eyes, lidded and impish. As if he was holding all the cards, and just as many secrets. This was not his accustomed apathy. The soul-gazing serenade of silence, of learned behaviour and automatic reactions, were absent, for once. He was taller than her, and he was looking down at her. The thought, in itself, professed weakness. She bristled irritably, straightening her shoulders. Already, Rapture could feel victory slipping away.

Each demon had their own dirty-laundry list of weaknesses. They kept them quiet, locked them up in steel boxes, and threw them out to see, never speaking of them again. Hers were obvious enough, if one was immune to her wiles. Her persuasions were two-fold, double-edged swords. The Tranquil's weighed words, enticingly evocative, slithered down her spine, snapping obnoxious synapses in her veins. They were alight, burning with need, want, desire, and lastly, hate. She wanted to snuff the light out of those eyes, ring out every breath, but even she could not wrestle that pleasure from Sparrow. A sharp intake of breath, two-pints surprise, and half anger, hissed from her half-parted lips when the Tranquil held her chin, crooked slightly to the side. Unbridled fury rose in her throat like bile, and retreated as soon as he leaned forward, barely a breath away. Helpless, helpless, helpless. When had she lost her footing? There was a gentleness in his touch, but the implication was clear. Rapture's mouth, still parted, produced a carnal sound, and before she'd had the chance to claim the Tranquil's lips, to utterly extinguish his threats, he'd tilted her head and moved to her ear.

His desire to destroy her far outweighed her own goals. The realization came quickly, with each enunciated word. Clenched muscles twitched along Rapture's jawline. He would expel her? She wanted to laugh, to snarl and bare her teeth, at such a preposterous idea. They'd struck a deal. Deals could not be broken, ripped, or annulled. Did he not know the rules? He was a mage, after all. But, it was Sparrow who'd given her pause, slamming her fists into the barrier, the little birds' cage, she'd created within her Fadespace. She'd heard, loud and clear. He was ruining things already, kicking down the blocks she'd been so painstakingly building. Her expression transformed itself into something else entirely, impetuously serious. “Threatening me, Dearheart?” She laughed gaudily, hands clasping his wrist, “I can ruin her. I can destroy her. I can do anything I desire, boy. And you'll be powerless to stop me. So, have her while you can.”

Rilien's nostrils flared, his jaw tightening with irritation. This was indeed a game that both of them played well, but he could at least be satisfied with this: she did not know. She didn't understand just how far he was willing to go to accomplish her separation from Sparrow, and frankly, he wasn't so sure about that either. What would he give up for that? The question lingered at the fringe of his thoughts, always, made salient by a possibility he could not quite bring himself to form into a coherent thought. There might well be something important, something vital, that he would have to sacrifice, and the potentiality of this, he could not ignore. Not completely. Perhaps it was better that neither of them knew-- it would make her complacent and him cautious. This was as it should be. The last phrase seemed to have extra meaning, and it wasn't long before he caught on.

Her eyes, once illuminated with unnatural reflections, dulled; pupils evening out. Sparrow's skin felt too-tight and uncomfortable as Rapture left her, only leaving a lingering sense of unease in her wake, dragging burning seashells and coals. Her lungs felt as if she didn't have enough air, wheezing wet and parched, all at once. The blood in her veins pounded through her head, erratic and out of tempo, like hard rain on a windowsill. Her hands fell away from his, and she leaned slightly forward, like a fallen pillar, into the pressure at her throat. She'd heard his threats, wished deeply that they weren't needed, that she hadn't been so weak in the first place. The reckless, unstoppable strength that was impacted into her very core felt like a long lost thing, drifting apart – it was drowning and she'd keep coming up for air, resuscitating it at the last second. But, this time, she was too tired. Her shoulders sagged, drew together, then rattled into a boxed-up sob.

It was painful. It was too much.

He felt her retreat, and Sparrow's return, as ripples in the movement of the Fade about him. This part was always the worst-- it did not vanish from him immediately, oh no, it seeped away slowly. The flame was snuffed, but the heat would recede, leaving him uncertain what to do in the meantime. The disappearance of that source, though, wracked him with a shudder, and he immediately drew his hand away from her throat. It was too familiar a touch. Taunting a foe was one thing. But this was no longer that.

The raw sound of a sob tore from Sparrow, and Rilien felt a surge of misery he had not been expecting. In this liminal state between what he was and what he could have been, were the world a more merciful place, he lamented her torment without truly being able to understand it. He'd looked demons in the face and laughed his defiance, but to keep fighting one after it had already nearly won... this was a kind of struggle he did not know. Could not know, any longer. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself, and knowing that his ability to do anything was fading fast. Deciding not to wait for that, Rilien stepped closer to Sparrow, twining his arms around her torso, just beneath her shoulders, and pulling her against him, stooping a little to prop his chin on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said, with the uncomfortable certainty that it wasn't enough, not nearly enough. To his credit, the hug wasn't at all reserved or tentative on his part-- and he'd had to draw on his very early childhood for that, as he hadn't been properly hugged since. He could have said more, could have promised her that he'd do whatever he could to make it better, to fix this, because even through the fading haze of his feelings, he knew he wanted to, but he'd never been one for words when actions could do so much more, and so he stood there quietly instead, willing to move if she pushed him away but otherwise quite unruffled by remaining right where he was.

It had been long, so long, since anyone was last precious to him.

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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(And the two that always seem to be there for her)


"As I presently have things to do, it would be preferable if you continued your antics elsewhere," Rilien intoned, shutting the door of his shop on Ashton and Sparrow, but not before secreting a slip of paper from his sleeve into the archer's hand, a subtle handoff between rogues that looked like nothing more than an incidental movement. The parchment itself contained a short list of ingredients, of a caried but mostly mundane nature, the likes of which could possibly take one all over Kirkwall and the immediate surrounding area. Along with the list was a note, provided for context.

I need to be able to work, and she needs to be distracted. It would be convenient to me if these items were acquired at some stage in the near future. That was it; as usual, he was only oblique in his meaning, but direct if one knew how to interpret him. By this stage, Ashton surely would. Whether he took the opportunity offered or not didn't really matter to the Tranquil-- he just needed people out of his hair while he mixed some of the more complicated ingedients for the future concotion that, if all went well, would save his friend from that demon.

Ashton found himself intimately close to the door. Surprisingly, this time he was sober. "That's strange. Usually the one who's slamming the door in my face is the bartender over at the Hanged Man," He said tilting his quizzically. He then turned and looked at Sparrow, "I didn't know Tranquils could slam the door in someone's face. Huh, we must be better than I thought." Well at least he didn't leave them with nothing to do. Ashton skillfully drew the note from his sleeve and cast a quick glance over it. "Oh goody, looks like we're playing delivery while Rilsie plays with his toys. How exciting," He said. If it could be said that dry wit could drip...

But knowing the pair of them, they'd find exciting before long, damn the consequences. Ashton loved days like this, full of nothing to do but cause as much trouble as he possible could without getting run out of Kirkwall by an angry mob. The normal gauge would be getting sent to the dungeon, but that seemed a likely possibilty. Not like it happened before. Hell, he didn't know that it was possible to be drunk and orderly. "I do hope he's paying for the damages," He joked. It wasn't like his trousers were weighed down with gold after all. That would be his dresser at home. Have to weigh it down after all, else it might wander off on it's own. "And say some... Delivery fees?" He winked with a mischievous grin. Delivery fees, as in the amount they spend in the Hanged Man, as that's inevitably where this venture will take them eventually.

"So should we play as nice little fetch dogs and scrounge up what we can from this list? Maybe... Stir up a bit of trouble along the way?" Ashton suggested, grinning ear to ear. Today was going to be a fun day, he could already tell.
Sparrow was in motion, already sidestepping away from the doorway, as if anticipating Rilien's uncharacteristic (or inevitable, really) door slam. His moods had been awfully unpredictable because of her presence, or Rapture's rather. She understood the need for distance, for time spent alone. How could one explain having their emotions being ripped away time and time again; like a repeated torture that was listlessly lethargic and sluggish in its effects. She could never understand, but she did know what it was like not to have complete control over her own body, and how it felt every time she was returned to it. They'd both lost control of something important, and for now, there was nothing they could do to amend either problem.

“And he even threatened me,” She expressed, straightening her shoulders as if etiquette, manners, and practised posturing had suddenly become her own comportment, “If you don't fetch these things, then you'll not be seeing the Blooming Rose for some time.” Her impersonation faltered when she sidled backwards, catching her balance with a quick pinwheel of her arms.

She wanted to say slamming doors isn't all he's been doing lately, but she kept silent. There were so many questions as of late concerning the Tranquil – whether or not a cure was possible, at all, and why was the Fade affecting him so?

“What is it this time? Toads feet? Barnacles? Squid tentacles,” Sparrow questioned, wriggling her fingers in front of her mouth like those squiggly, sucking things they'd been sent out to search for one afternoon. They'd found them around the Wounded Coast. Small, stunted things that swam in maddeningly swift circles. He'd appeared as nonplussed by their sopping wet appearance as when he'd first sent them out. She dropped her fingers, clicked her tongue knowingly. They'd all managed to scrounge up quite a bit of coin from that skewed-adventure in the Deep Roads, where they'd been betrayed and left for dead by Varric's half-wit of a brother. Anyone who'd seen their abilities, and what they were capable of, before intentionally driving a dagger through each of their backs was clearly missing half their brain. Surprisingly, Sparrow had managed not to blow all of her coin as soon as she'd reached the surface, though Rapture's untimely visits might have had something to do with that. What need did demons have for wealth? She only desired a working vessel.

She linked her hands behind her head, elbows skyward. “Damage and delivery fees; hopefully with all limbs intact, or he'll be paying for those, too,” Sparrow quipped in response, eyebrows arched and dark eyes alight. It'd been so long since they'd ventured out on their own, so long since she'd done anything but hide away in Darktown. She'd been avoiding her companions in the hopes of keeping them out of the line of fire. Loneliness, she'd recently found, was just as powerful a foe as the beastly haunt glowering in her Fadespace. She regarded her companion with a smile, tilting her head – he was always as happy as a clam, eager to tramp up and down the streets of Kirkwall looking for trouble. Trouble wasn't how it started out, anyway, so it wasn't like they were actively searching for it. This time, maybe it was intentional. “Really. Who could refuse that?”




Thump-thump thump-thump

Was he dead? Oh Maker, he sure as hell felt dead. He'd never felt deader in his life. But the mere fact that he felt dead told him that he was not, in fact, dead. Of course he wasn't, that'd be too merciful for soiled soul, it'd be too kind. A long, pained groan escaped his mouth and out into the wild, wherever in the hell he was. He honestly couldn't be assed to care to open his eyes to take in his surroundings. They wouldn't. They were sealed shut, as if trying to drown outside world. Like a defense mechanism. Pretend it doesn't exist and it'll just go away. A shame that real life didn't work like that.

Thump-thump thump-thump

Oh Maker, there it was again. That bloody thumping. What the hell was that? Every beat of that damned drum brought him pain. If he ever found out what or who it was, he'd kill it. It sounded so close, almost like it was inside his head... Because it probably was inside his head. He had a raging headache. If he had his guess about it, a hangover. But not the ordinary sort of hangover. The hangover of the Gods, the king of hangovers, one that a mere mortal like him couldn't even deal with. It hurt, it hurt so bad. Everything hurt. He let loose another death wail, mixed in with a gargle, but that only made things worse as it left him in a wracking cough. After he was finished coughing up a lung, he bravely ventured to peel back an eyelid.

The light! It burned! His eyelid slammed shut in an effort to keep the foul light away from his cornea. The world was assaulting him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was cold, he hurt, his head was on fire, he felt like he was thrashed by a couple of unruly Qunari, and he was pretty sure that he had to piss something fierce. What in the hell did he do last night? The last thing he remembered was... Sparrow.

"Heeey... Hey. Sparrow. Hey. Are you.. Hey. Are you alive. Sparrow? You there?" He asked. He didn't even know. What in the hell did they get in to last night?

Thump, ba-da-bump, thump, ba-da-bump

The incessant thumping of her heart continued playing xylophone-beats through her skull, only pausing momentarily, as if she'd clapped hands with another ringleader, successfully trading off all of her discomforts, pains, and baritone throbbings. Why had she even bothered pulling this stupid woman away from her debilitated bag-of-bones? Perhaps, it'd been unintentional. Like slipping into water from a slippery surface. She'd watched with mild displeasure as her careless vessel had so casually strayed away from her initial quest, which was to retrieve something for Rilien. Accompanying her was her equally foolish companion, and so she'd watched like a petulant mother, arms resolutely crossed. She'd pay for this later, she'd thought. The window-theatre from which she watched had become a blurry, woozy mess of hazy figures, dizzying objects and buildings she'd hardly been able to identify. Which direction had they even gone? Where were they now? For some reason, Rapture was unsure. She'd been as blind as Sparrow, though she'd somehow felt that they weren't in any familiar location.

And here she was, barely cracking her eyes open for fear that the looming lights would tear straight through her pupils, burning them to ash. It certainly felt like it was a possibility. An unwelcome, humiliated groan escaped her throat before she'd been able to drown it out in a long string of beratements. Humans were stupid. Elves were equally doltish. Is this what was considered a good time in this realm? Willingly drinking themselves silly, awaking in some unknown place and feeling as if ten elephants had waltzed across their body? Foolish, foolish creatures. She understood desire well enough, but desire in sobriety was far more satisfying. Alcohol, in her opinion, was a poor man's measure of entertaining oneself. Her eyes slowly peeped open, barely slits, encroached by the beaming sunlight. Were they indoors? Outdoors? On the suns blazing surface? For someone who'd dedicated her life on bestowing pain and agony on others, she'd never felt this terrible. In her own body, hangovers were quite impossible. Poisons had no effect. Any mortal means of noxious demise did not exist in their realm. Their genealogy prevented them from feeling these things, much like how Tranquil worked, but without the inability to feel emotions. Negativity outweighed any blockades.

She was on her back, hands folded across her chest and she was holding something. Rapture forced her eyes open, ignoring the brilliant flashes of lights assailing her corneas. She glanced down to the frilly object gripped in her hands. A dress? Hundreds of indignant questions arose, but she stifled them down, absently rubbing her thumb along the lacey designs trailing along the collar. Sparrow's clothes were in order, though haphazardly buttoned, hanging sideways and awfully disarranged. It made no sense. She licked her chapped lips, then coughed like a fish out of water. Her throat felt as if she'd spent the night guzzling goblets of sand. Eyeing the ceiling balefully, Rapture allowed her head to slump to the side, regarding her vessel's companion - the archer, the equally stupid one. Unanswered questions arose in her thoughts, but the pounding chased them all away, scattering them like skittering insects, or birds in the midst of flight. Cobwebs, disgruntled considerations and raw abhorrence took their place.

"Fools. One simple request from the bard and you both thoroughly fail. I question the wisdom of my choice," Came her response, dry as any desert. Her voice, as always, had changed. It was languidly frustrated, two-shades feminine. The effort of her words caused another round of wracking coughs, muffled into her knuckles. In a fit of rage, and one that could not be so easily satiated for fear of expiring the copse she inhabited, Rapture tossed the frilly dress over Ashton's gawping face. "Dolt. Where are we?"

"I guess that's a no... Shit," He swore. Great, now he had a demon riding along with him. That's a hell of a start to any morning, if it even was morning anymore. He'd knew about the demon, he was there when it stuck it's wretched hands into Sparrow's head. Rilien had told him about the growing boldness of the damned thing, thought it'd been rare when Ashton had seen it firsthand. He still remembered the waking nightmare it had put them under during the expedition. Needless to say, he was not a fan of the thing. He'd have to deal with it for now. Make sure it didn't cause too much trouble until Sparrow could fight her way back. He'd put it in a headlock if he had to, though the chances of doing that immediately were... Slim. It felt like his own head was in a vice.

It felt like Qunari were drumming a war song on his head, relentless and fierce. He pushed himself further against the ground, as if trying to dig his way out the misery. There was no escaping it, it was inside him. He'd been drunk before. He'd had his fair share of hangovers. This one was for the books... Hell, he wasn't even sure he was sober yet. Everything tasted like cotton. Thinking about cotton, something soft and feather graced the back of his head head, and he took the opportunity to open his eyes. Though hidden from the most of the light, what little slipped through the fabric still stung. It was a white fabric, and as Ashton lifted it slowly off of his head, he came to realize that it was actually a dress. Wait. A dress? "The hell did you get this?" he asked, forgotting for a moment that it wasn't Sparrow. He groaned loudly, bringing to minds the death throes of a horse three times his size. Whatever he ate last night was threatening to make a reappearance. It took all of his strength to force it back down his throat.

He was not a mighty man. He hefted himself up off the floor-- of which he finally realized he was laying face down on, and scrabbled toward the corner of whatever room they were in. Luckily, there was a bucket waiting for him them, into which he unleashed the contents of his stomach. It was a vile, nasty practice, but he felt better afterward. Still not good, but you can't void an empty stomach again. That's not to say it didn't stop the dry heaves. From his vantage point above the bucket, he finally got a good look of where they were at-- and a familiar sight it was.

"Daaaamiiit, not again," Ashton cursed, fighting back another dry heave. The dirty bricks, the chains from the walls and ceilings, the tiny window, and the entire wall of bars-- he was back in jail. "We're in the bloody jail. The hell I do this time?" He said, exasperated. He was locked in a jail cell with a demon possessing his friend. Who did he piss off last night to curse him like that. "Rilien's gonna strangle me," He murmured under his breath. He hoped he managed to get some of the tranquil's things. No telling where the list was now. It certainly wasn't in his pocket...

Because they weren't the same pockets. "What." He stated flatly. Instead of his usual attire of homemade leathers and furry furs, he was instead wearing the finery befitting a noble. Midnight blue svelt shirt, embroidored with gold inlay, and the collar was made of rabbit fur, finer than anything he'd ever worked with. Burgandy linen pants that still had the crease in them, and jet black boots to complete the ensamble. These weren't his clothes-- but he had to admit, he looked damn fine. Perhaps it was a good thing he was drunk. He'd piss himself if he knew the price now. And he couldn't have that, especially not in his new clothes.

"Listen, I think we uh... I think we fucked up. Real bad," He admitted. This was worse than usual. "Do you remember anything. This better not be your fault," He accused. He didn't know what he'd do if it was. Chances were, he'd find out if it was possible to rip a demon out down Sparrow's throat.

"Don't sound so disappointed," She chided, rolling her surreptitious eyes. There was nothing else she could do - she was stuck in this small, brick-built chamber, trapped along with some sodding wet pup who insisted on whining about his current condition. T'was his fault, after all. The consequences were hardly severe, only uncomfortable. Even as her stomach gave a contradictory growl, threatening to spill whatever Sparrow had eaten last night, Rapture merely swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, refusing the humiliation of retching in the corner like some ignoble creature. The action in itself, however well she might have felt afterwards, was far below her. She would not stoop, she would not wretch. Instead, Rapture turned on her side, facing a small porcelain basin. It was either a washpot or a chamberpot. Her mouth twisted upwards, mirroring her upraised eyebrows. There was something within that leer of hers, unfamiliar and foreign even though she should have been used to it by now, as if that reflection knew something she did not. As if Sparrow looked out of it from her Fadespace prison, clearly amused. Knowing that she might know something she did not set her teeth on edge, grinding harshly.

Those eyes of hers have a reddish tint that lies adjacent to the dark flecks surrounding her pinprick pupils, muddying the mucky waters. Sharp and menacing, sadistic. Dangerous, even in her vulnerable state. She could not stand over Ashton and throttle him even if she'd wanted to, and parts of her did, desperately. More than anything, it'd poke holes in Sparrow's heart. She'd sink further, and further, but those violent actions were beyond her. Her limbs would not obey her. They remained limp, devoid of strength. One hand remained draped over her eyes, fingers splayed across her cheek. The other traced lazy patterns across the cobblestones. She'd found a way to embrace the erratic drumming in her skull, forcing it into a voodoo-mantra; a seance of sorts. She almost smiled, willing herself to open a small tear, a tiny window-hole where she could watch Sparrow. Throughout the days she'd spent in the Fade, she'd begun building onto the dreaming prison, adding willowy trees and the ruins of Tevinter, mountains of books, and her father's old blades, her mother's leather satchel, and mirrored images of her assailants who'd waver in the shadows. They'd emerge from the darkest corners, creep through her windows, and extend their clawed hands. Then, Rapture blinked, and the images were gone.

It was a small comfort. Nausea assailed her, dragging her down into a wobbly sea that left her reeling. Had she been a weaker creature, then she would have joined Ashton in the corner, throwing up Sparrow's last meal, but she was not and would not allow him the satisfaction. Her refusal was resolute. She shrugged her shoulders, scrapping up any sliver of memory that would explain why Sparrow had brought some woman's frilly dress along with her. She came up with nothing and responded with silence. Surely, someone was missing their clothes, or at least had one dress missing from their closet. Had they decided to break into someone's home? Or had they visited the Blooming Rose? The possibilities were endless, and all she knew was that, for once, she'd had no part in their foolishness. Narrowed eyes analyzed her surroundings, dragging across the empty room. It was devoid of any comforts; no sheets, no pillows, no scrummy bed made out straw. Absolutely nothing. She scoffed harshly, pushing herself up onto her elbows. "Prison? Really." She mused softly, breathing the words through her teeth. This was an interesting turn of events, and one she hadn't been expecting or plotting in advance - but, if it worked in her favour and they hadn't actually procured any of Rilien's listed items, then she was happy as a clam.

"My fault?" She repeated sourly, scooting herself backwards so that she could lean against the brick wall. The effort sent another tremor scrambling through her stomach, roiling her innards. "T'was not I who went to the Hanged Man. T'was not I who drank myself stupid. Had it been I who'd been inhabiting this lousy vessel, then we would not find ourselves in this cell. You, and Sparrow, are to blame." Her accusations had some grain of truth, but she wouldn't have admitted to any folly such as this. Had she had any saliva in her mouth, then she would have spit it on the ground in disgust. Ashton's insistence that she had something to do with their misadventure was entirely offensive. Rapture laughed bitterly, mouth twisting into an unimpressed scowl. "I'm sure the bard will be pleased with your efforts, archer." She, too, wore a different outfit, altogether. Whatever clothes she'd been initially wearing had been tossed away somewhere else. Hers was an assortment of feminine clothes mixed with a sailor's portage; a corset over an embroidered vest, high-top boots with silken pantaloons, a gaudy bandana, and several golden bangles reserved for women who could afford them.

"We've stolen clothes. Why is this?"

Or they could have stolen clothes. Now that they demon mentioned it, he couldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. He was tight with his money, so much so that his wallet squeaked when he opened it, and he wondered if it carried over into plastered Ash... Plastered Ash was such a jackass. He certainly had the skills to steal clothes, and it wouldn't be the first thing he had stole in this city. He was keeping his outfit though. They fit him perfectly, and he looked great in them. "You're asking me? I don't even know why I do some of the things I do when I'm sober, much less drunk," He said, dry heaving into the bucket one more time. He tried not to think what the bucket was used for... He glanced at Sparrow's body, and noticed that she looked just as bad as he felt. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"Play your games, try to pretend that you're better than us, I know you feel just as bad as I do. Suck mortality, demon," he chuckled, followed by a series of loud dry heaves. Not that these in particular were necessary, he just wanted the demon to suffer. It picked the wrong time to wear Sparrow's skin. He hoped the sounds would be enough to put her over the edge-- if that didn't, the last was sure to do it. He didn't think his course of action through to the end, as something did manage to find it's way up his throat and into the bucket. And here he thought he couldn't get anymore empty. Still, this wasn't his first time. The same could not be said for the demon. He fell back, and felt the rough stones of the jail floor dig into his back. Maker, he hoped he didn't have to fester in here for long.

The demon's musings were shortlived, fleeting things. She didn't care whether or not they'd, in a drunken stupor, slaughtered an entire family of svelt-wearing nobles to acquire the clothes, nor was she bothered that Sparrow had managed to smuggle someone's dress, as well. The scenario was unlikely, in any case. Neither Sparrow, nor Ashton, seemed to be able to channel the apathetic nonchalance she wore so well. Inelegant fingertips fumbled with the vests fastenings, plucking absently at the lustrous buttons. She was not Pride. She cared little for appearances, unless they managed to aid her in acquiring what she desired, what she wished for. Her true form was a testament to that veritable truth; scaled body, clawed hands, knobby disfigurements. Even so, Rapture had managed, in the past, to attract careless mortals. This vessel was an unfortunate mess; weak handed, and hardly immune to circumstances like this. If she denied wanting to step into the mortal world permanently, then she would have been lying. It was every demon's wish, desire, wanton need. When Ashton continued wretching in the bucket, Rapture pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to settle her queasiness.

"Disgusting wretch," She hissed between firmly pressed lips, burping wetly, "Foul human. I hope you drown." Her vindication faltered briefly, eyebrows screwed up in concentration. She would not, she would not -- and then, Rapture skittered quickly across the chamber, emptying the contents of her stomach into the chamberpot. Thankfully, it had been cleaned. It seemed as though even Kirkwall had its standards of cleanliness when it came to prisons. Her back arched like a struck feline, ribcage seemingly bunching. The horrific act could not be described, nor understood. Her insides were turning against her, disobeying her with childish refute. She kept one arm slung around the chamberpot in a tense deathgrip, white-knuckled and trembling from the effort of keeping her face from smacking off the lid. Why the hell did they drink? Was this the entire point of it all? Finally, as if her stomach had relented its merciless assault on her throat, Rapture wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, breathing harshly through her nose. Her throat was rubbed raw, and she imagined something acidic sizzling somewhere behind her tonsils - this awareness, this discomfort was not something she'd wanted to experience.

She'd decided, then and there, that Sparrow had done this on purpose. And when one intentionally wronged her, then they'd suffer the consequences. Her eyeslashes dripped with fresh tears, speckling the now-dirtied basin. There was a slow unwinding of her intestines, and Rapture managed to fall backwards onto the floor, holding herself up with one elbow, remaining half-slumped. The pounding in her throat is explicitly apparent. She wet her lips, and squeezed her eyes shut. However much she willed away the sickness, Rapture felt its sharp talons dig into her shoulder, scrunching tiny fingers in her stomach. "Pathetic. Lord Riviera." Ashton chuckled. "Lord. I like that,"

"He is certainly not alone in his baseness," a different voice answered, the sheer flatness of it rendering it unique, unmistakable for anyone else. Rilien stepped out of a shadow and stood in front of the cell, arms folded into the sleeves of his emerald-colored tunic, the silk heavily embroidered with gold-threaded designs. There was a vaguley-illusory quality to it, as though it depicted something different depending on the angle at which it was observed. If Ashton and Sparrow were quite unaccustomed to such finery, he was anything but. In stark contrast to the incarcerated pair, Rilien was as immaculate as ever, not a single hair out of place and free of all dirt, which was rather stark in comparison to the vaguely-grimy dinge of the jail's stone hallways.

His eyes flickered over the pair, flitting from Ashton in all his inglorious sprawl to her, clearly attempting to clamp down on the contents of her stomach. Just how long he'd been standing there, as well as how he'd known to find them there in the first place, were questions that for now would be resolutely without answer. He intended to extract answers of his own, first, including why he'd had to go to the trouble of speaking with several officers of the peace and procuring a certain piece of paper. One he was quite certain they would be interested in.

From his sleeve, the Tranquil drew three objects. Scissored in the spaces between his fingers were the necks of two glass bottles and one large brass key, all of which he flashed in full view of the other two, dangling them in front of the bars. "I expect these might be of some assistance to your... ailments. In order to be completely certain, however, I would need to know how such conditions came about." He did not doubt that at this point, he knew more about their night than they did, but frankly, he was in a position to force the story from them, and he fully intended on doing so before allowing them any relief. He considered it a due measure of retribution for the fact that they obviously carried nothing he had asked for.

"Well," He began, forcing whatever was crawling it's way up his throat back down to the rippling abyss that was his stomach. "I think it began in something like that--" He said, pointing at the bottle in Rilien's hand before whatever had climbed his throat returned, this time with a righteous vengeance. He couldn't tame the beast this time, and he sat up and clutched the bucket as well. He was pretty sure that time he expelled his pickled liver. "Ughhh... And it ended.. In this cage," he managed. He couldn't even look at the bottles in Rilien's hand, they reminded him so much of the demons swimming around his own belly.

Had his mind not been pickled as well, there would be some questions of his own asked. Such as how long had the tranquil been there. How much of their night did he know-- certainly it was more than him. A complete stranger would know more than him. But alas, the only thing that Ashton could ask was "Why?" It was rhetorical of course. He damn well knew why. Because he was a silly, silly man whose limits knew no bounds. Damn his unbound soul. He laid there for a few moments, careful to avert the sights of the bottles away from his eyes. Finally, he had enough solid foundation to project his next sentence. "Well, the last thing I remember was heading in the general direction of the Hanged Man. I suppose we got there..." said.

"Hey Ril? Can you stand still. You're making everything worse," of course the Tranquil was still as a statue. It was Ashton that was moving. He had manage to catch a bout of the shakes. His own body was plotting against him now, probably in retribution for whatever he did to it last night. What did he do last night? Well. He didn't have a nice night's sleep in his own bed. That much was for damn certain.

With Rilien's untimely arrival, and one that Rapture hadn't been anticipating, or detected, in her debilitated state, the demon began pushing against her fleshy restraints. Kicking out like a wanton child with all ofher power, throwing herself back into the Fadespace and nearly colliding with Sparrow's barrier-prison. Every object within Sparrow's dreamscape shimmered like a mirage, crumbling into hazy pieces with each desperate collision. She did not want to face Rilien in her condition. She did not want to be seen weak or vulnerable. Cleverness was all and well, but there would be repercussions if she flaunted any chess pieces, at all. Her liquid arms, ethereal and impossibly elongated, pitched through the barrier, grappling onto Sparrow's shoulders. And for once, Sparrow smiled and nearly refused, pulling away from her - let her suffer the consequences, let her face discomfort. But, Rapture's insistence was too strong, far too wild to struggle against. The demon pulled Sparrow straight through, fingers wrapped around her tender neck. Like always, an iciness enveloped her body, as if she'd been thrown into water that was absurdly cold. Impossibly so.

A guppy-fished gasp escaped her lips, and Sparrow sat straight up, relinquishing her hold on the washbasin. Unlike Rapture, she'd felt this way before. On many occasions, actually. How many times had she found herself too drunk to walk home, and in need of assistance? How many times had she found herself retching into a bucket because her thoughts had taken a turn for the worst? Far too many. And so, feeling as badly as she did, it wasn't the end of the world. She'd felt worse before. Her body felt foreign to her, igniting twitches down her forearms, legs, and fingers, as if it'd begun to wake up from a horrible nightmare. Pinpricks and short spasms; slowly, ponderously becoming more aware of itself. Eyelids clicked open, and the pigment around her eyes darkened, losing its unnatural light. In spite of the bongo drums trouncing through her skull, and the caustic illness spreading through her midsection, Sparrow laughed loudly. Then, slumped onto her back, arms crossed over her chest.

"I bet she's never felt that before," She breathed, still a little short-winded, "Seems to me that we've found a weakness, getting piss drunk and all." Sparrow looked through her eyelashes regarding her upside down companion, who seemed disappointed by the turn of events. "Like he said. The Hanged Man. Drinking loads, stealing clothes. We didn't hurt anyone, did we?" She paused, waggling her fingers just below the peculiar vials Rilien was holding. It was just beyond her reach, so she pawed at them. She hoped they hadn't encountered anyone, and hurt them to steal their clothes. One could never be sure when they've traversed the bottom-of-the-barrel. The likelihood of she and Ashton carousing the streets and randomly accosting someone, particularly nobles, for their clothes seemed a ridiculous notion. It hadn't happened before, after all. There was another pause. "By the way... I'm sorry, Ash. She's a little unpleasant. S'pose we haven't talked much about that. I was hoping—," that she wouldn't appear, that she'd flit away like the night, that the talk would be unnecessary. Her selfishness, it seemed, far outweighed any of her other conventional senses. Her hopes were childish things. Soon enough, she'd have to talk about it, even if she didn't feel ready.

She'd have to trust her friends.

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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"Yes," Rilien murmured lowly, just the faintest hint of sarcasm seeping into his tone, "it seems that logically, being as drunk as possible as often as you may would be an excellent method of keeping the demon detained." It was also a shortcut to organ failure and death, but he decorously refrianed from saying as much. Observant as he was, he had not missed the fact that his sudden appearance had triggered Rapture's retreat, and part of him was quite satisfied by this arrangement, though he kept the smug gleam from his eyes. She would know then, that she needed to be in much better condition to face him. Satisfactory-- he did not want her growing too familiar with his methods and habits, and the less time she was in his company, the better. The world was no doubt different filtered through the relatively innocent (in a specific sense of the word) Sparrow.

The bulb end of one of the bottles, he moved forward just enough to press into her palm, that she might take it. She knew a little better than Ashton what it was, anyway-- a remedy for just precisely the situation they now found themselves in. Invention was inspired by reality, and when one lived with Sparrow, one invented a curative for hangovers, or one endured her less than tidy mornings-after.

"Your tale is not yet finished," he observed, proffering the other bottle through the bars to Ashton. He still had the key, after all, and that was greater leverage than anything. "Attend to your fingers, Ashton." He glanced pointedly at the man's digits, one of which was now bearing something that had not been there the previous day.

“Well. Unless you've got better plans up those floppy-sleeves of yours,” Sparrow murmured, frowning thoughtfully. She continued opening and closing her hand, fingertips grazing the bottom of the vial. Of course, she'd had this concoction before. Perhaps, during the first week of her stay in Rilien's comfy, unassuming abode, he'd wisely contrived the ill-tasting sedative to keep her from pestering him while he tried to sleep. Inebriated-Sparrow often turned into a five-year old child who was wholly entertained at the prospects of removing warm bedsheets in one fell swoop, then throwing them over said victim's face while letting out an ear-splitting roar. He'd learnt quickly, that one. Even though she wouldn't say it out loud, and even if it was under awful circumstances, Sparrow was glad to see Rilien here. Ashton, too. She was a catalyst; they were her causation. She was a con artist of hidden feelings, late regrets and half-told stories; they were solid, mostly stable, and always there. The appreciation she felt could never be put into satisfying enough words. She spoke through her actions, anyway. It was always the littlest things.

Finally, Rilien moved forward and she felt the end of the bottle brush against her upturned palm. She plucked it away from his proffered hand, offered him a cheeky smile before she casually gulped it down. The taste wasn't very pleasant, but she knew well enough that she'd be feeling chipper in a matter of minutes. Already, there was a spreading warmth wriggling its fingers through her stomach, easing the tension in her abdomen and leeching away the acidic flavour roiling in her mouth. Sparrow let out a satisfied sigh, one of relief and abating sickness, and felt Rapture's disgust in her Fadespace. She balanced the empty vial in the hollow of her collar bone, finger poised on the semi-unfastened stopper. “You'll feel a lot better,” She cooed softly, eyeing Ashton sideways. He still looked a little worse for wear. Sparrow absently patted down her pockets, checking the inside of her vest for any signs of where they'd been, who'd they'd stolen from and whether or not they'd procured Rilien's list of goodies. She hoped they'd managed to grab something at least.

In answer, a series of gurgling, wordless, formless sounds escaped Ashton's mouth all on their own. It was the same tone as a death moan from a horse, and he felt little better. He reached for the outstretched bottle, but was momentarily confused. When were there three Rilien's? More importantly, which bottle should he reach for? The center? He reached out and slapped in that general vicinity, but evidently missed as he only swatted air. A muffled curse and he went for the right. Another swing and a miss, this time it managed to ellicit a fully fledged curse "Dammmit," He strung out and reached for the last one. Success!

He struggled with the stopper, but finally managed to get it off by ripping it out with his teeth, downing the entire connoction instantly. Maybe inhaling the substance wasn't the best idea. "Oh Maker, that tasted like ass," he gagged. Ah, but only gagged. He managed to keep it down, which meant it was doing its job. That was good. Maybe he'd survive after all. Still, the room shook, and he decided to not press his luck by jumping cartwheels anytime soon. He just sat still, and would until the bottle ran its entire course. The effects did manage to tone down the thumping in his ears, as now he could finally hear the words being thrown at him. "Fingers? Please tell me I still have them all," he said as he raised his hand.

The first order of business was to make sure all ten digits were intact. They were. He arched an eyebrow, wondering what Rilien meant. What secrets did these fingers hold? He turned the hand that Rilien pointed at over, trying to figure out what was so wrong that he had to bring it to attention. "I don't... Wait. Hello. what's this?" Ashton noted, finally finding the golden band looping around his finger. Funny, he didn't like to wear jewelry. That didn't explain what it was doing on his hand. "Heh, wonder who I married," He added sarcastically. More importantly, he wondered who he mugged.

Though the Tranquil was well-aware that Ashton was not being serious, the question nevertheless demanded an answer, one that he just so happened to have. Producing a folded and official-looking piece of parchment, he opened it crisply, scanning over the document with apparent disinterest. The bottom contained a telling seal, the generic mark pressed into the glob of red wax an imprecise echo of the sunburst adorning his brow. What unfortunate brother or sister of the Chantry had been convinced to officiate over the document's creation and the attendant ceremonies, he did not know. They had likely been quite unwittingly pressed into it, if the haste of the handwriitng was any indication. Glancing back at his two recovering companions, Rilien raised a single brow and began to read in his very best monotone.

"This document shall serve as official record of the lawful union of Messere Ashton Cuthbert Riviera and Messere Sparrow Kilaion, both men of the sovereign city of Kirkwall, here duly recognized. Undersigned, Brother Stefano, servant of the Maker and his bride Andraste, in the city aforementioned, within the Free Marches of Thedas, in this the thirty-third year of the ninth age." Rilien paused to let that sink in for a moment, then continued. "The signature and seal seem to be in order, and given the location I procured it from, the two of you gentlemen are apparently the most recent newlyweds in Kirkwall." It was quite hard to keep his voice level, actually, as amusement and irritation were both threatening to waver his steady tones, but he wasn't an expert actor for nothing, and remained as entirely nonplussed as ever.

"It seems I must offer my belated congratulations. Tell me, will Sparrow be moving into Lowtown accommodations, or should I expect another guest at my own home?"

"... What." Ashton said, simply dumbfounded. Surprisingly, the syllable was even more monotone than Rilien.

The ensuing laughter exploded from Sparrow's lips, rumbling through her chest, as if she were entirely sceptical of Rilien's statement. As if he'd just told them a particularly nasty joke whose punch-line was well-received. Though, Tranquil never joked. They did not jest, or cajole, or caper around the truth. Her laughter faltered, sidling into uncomfortable titters. Seeing as there was no further response from her companion, holding the documents just so that she could see the unamused light in his eyes, Sparrow's breezy smile curled into a deep frown, eyebrows knitting together. "You're not kidding. You're not, are you?” She protested sharply, shooting straight up. Her mind reeled in protest, begging her to lay back down and allow a bit more time to recover from her silly escapades, but she was on a mission and she needed to see the document for herself. When had all of this happened? For the life of her, she couldn't recall stumbling drunkenly into the Chantry. How had that even come about? They both adored buxom, lovely women. This made no sense!

Sparrow hurtled forward, catching herself on the bars before she could smash her face into them. With clumsy fingers, she managed to get a hold of the pristine piece of parchment, with its scrawled writing and official stamp of red wax – and it was then that her breath hitched, nose crinkling. There it was; a golden ring bound around her finger like a prison sentence, like an anchor thrown out across barnacles and ship-sinking reefs. “No, no, no!” She sputtered and shook out the document like an old, dirty shirt, flattening it out on her knee. “Blah blah blah, Brother Stefano... blah blah blah lawful union. This is real. By the Gods, useless Chantry twats. What were they thinking?” None of this made any sense. The Chantry looked down on same-gender unions (not that they would've known otherwise), unless said individuals were in a free-loving place like Antiva. They must have threatened them with something dreadful. What would Kirkwall's women think of her now, with a collar around her neck and a ring on her finger? The city wasn't very big. Rumours would spread like wildfire. They'd be ruined – Sparrow's hands caught hold of Rilien's robes, half to keep herself from sliding down the bars like a slug and half because she wanted to say, “If you knew, then why didn't you stop us? We're just a pair of drunks.”

The half-breed leaned her face against the bars, cheek promptly squished. “We're going to have to kill Brother Stefano. No one must know,” She deadpanned. Again, Sparrow's eyes went wide and glassy. "We, uh, didn't, did we? No, no, 'course not. Impossible."

Rilien, unfazed as ever, plucked the document back from his friend's grubby hands, refolding it properly and taking a step back from the bars. "Even I am not omnisicent, Sparrow. I was unappraised of the details until I conducted an investigation this morning." By investigation, of course, Rilien meant that he'd broken into the Chantry records room and stolen the required document, then bribed a prison guard to get in to "talk" to his friends. The key had been another pilfered item, but Rilien was nothing if not thorough-- he also had the arrest documents in his possession. Once he decided to let them out, nobody would be the wiser. "There is no need for an assassination. If there had been, I would have taken care of it." There was a faint note of chiding in his voice, as though he were the slightest bit offended that she thought he would leave a necessary murder uncommitted. There was also no need to cover one up; fortunately, killing at least was not on their list of deeds for the previous evening.

"Now, are your deficient memories yet recovered, or will you require further prompting?"

Ashton was still stuck back at the word union and anything after that fell on deaf ears. His mind was trying to register marriage, but it wasn't happening. He'd never-- well maybe-- he never thought about it, much less actually had the gall to go through it. "Married?" He repeated mutely. It still hadn't bored through his head. He wasn't marriage material, but then again, neither was Sparrow, but him especially. Finally, with time to process and mull over options, he returned to his conversation. "You understand what this means right?" He asked Sparrow, very nearly biting the ring off of his finger. "We must murder Rilien too. No one must know," He echoed.

"A shame really. I liked the fellow," Which was Ashton's way of saying it was a joke. Rilien had the key and the documents, he shouldn't bite the hand too hard, though letting it go completely unhampered wasn't in the cards. "I got nothing Rilsie. I think I pickled my innards-- so obviously we had some of the gutrot at the Hanged Man. Maybe if you'd stop dangling that key over our heads like a carrot and let us out, we can begin to find out what in the hell happened." He stated matter of factly. "I promise I won't make an attempt on your life," he said, holding both hands up out of the bars.

"Today," He added in a mutter for Sparrow.

Sparrow dramatically plopped forward, allowing the fabric of Rilien's robes to slip through her fingers. Though, she remained placated against the bars, hardly holding herself up, and bent at an odd angle that looked like she'd fall on her face at any moment. A limp noodle that felt as if she'd been given the most outrageous news ever. Elephant-sized mabari hounds were rampaging down Kirkwall's streets. Knight-Commander Meredith was getting married to First Enchanter Orsino. Varric suddenly, spontaneously threw out his beloved crossbow – they all didn't make any sense, but at least they were as shocking as finding out that she'd gotten married to one of her closest friends in the midst of a drunken misadventure. She adjusted her grip on the bars, slipping down a bit so that she was speaking directly into Rilien's chest, eye-level with his sternum. “But you know everything. Practically, anyway,” She groaned, eyebrows knitting. Another unintelligible lament of injustice gurgled from her throat, hardly anything more than noise. “No more, please. You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

She eyed him balefully through her long eyelashes, though the expression only lingered for a moment before it crackled away. Of course, this was entirely their own fault. Liquor was a troublesome friend who provided the worst ideas, shadowing their every step until they went through with it. Matrimony certainly wasn't, in anyone's mind, a means of having fun. Why did they even think of it? Sparrow gently knocked her forehead against her extended arm. “No one. No one can know,” She repeated, as if it were a mantra to undo the undoable. It sounded like something more had happened. But, it wasn't like it could get any worse. What more had they done? What more could they have done? She wasn't sure if she wanted to know, but it seemed as if Rilien wouldn't stop baiting them with that metaphorical carrot until they knew the entire truth. It wouldn't make any difference, anyway. If this was some sort of sordid intervention to prevent them from getting arsed again, then their good friends words were in vain. Matrimony could be undone, could it not?

“Let ussss out, Ril. And erase this, this thing.” She whined, waving towards the document. She regarded her equally-hungover connubial partner, and a crack of a smile smoothed over her lips at the mention of offing Rilien for having bore witness to their humiliation. Future repercussions for teasing them so much would be had – perhaps, in the approach of giant five-year-old pranks. As an aside, Sparrow added, “I hope you wore the dress.” He would've looked nicer. "And I hope you tripped over the broom," He responded.

"Enjoying your plight, however much you have earned it, would be impossible," Rilien replied automatically, though they all knew that wasn't exactly true. Of course, only he would be able to say whether it was true in this case, and his phrasing did not make things particularly explicit. It was true that he could vanish their troubles in a simple moment, with nothing now but a gesture. But what they seemed to be missing was that he'd already put himself at considerable risk to erase this careless little mistake. Well, it shouldn't matter. He did nothing for thanks, did he? He worked for payment or because he felt the task necessary. Yet he was asking for no payment and annulling a reckless marriage was hardly necessary to him, so why...?

The thought was troubling enough that he now as well desired this charade to be over and done with, so he once again produced the parchment. "If you are sure. I will not do this again." Their actions and words all spoke to their certainty, so he waited for no confirmation at this point, simply tearing the document cleanly in half with the same minimum of ceremony as he always did. He handed one of the halves to each of them. Defaced so, the document was no longer valid, in the City of Kirkwall or anywhere else as far as he knew. They could dispose of the rest as they desired. Maybe if they chose to keep it, the pieces would serve as a reminder of what too much fun tended to get you.

He doubted this last thought very much.

With that, he produced the key. "The guard has been bribed, and I have already burned your arrest documents. There is no record of your time here, nor shall there be. We will meet no resistance on the way out, but if someone stops you, you were here as witnesses to a break-in at my shop last night." Fitting the thing into the door, he turned until there was a click, then stepped back, pulling the door open as he went. They had their freedom, even if their dignity was still utterly absent.

Ashton stared at his half of the paper for a moment. The sound of the parchment tearing in half ushered in a feeling of great relief, one that noticably set his posture at ease. He wasted no time in prancing past the threshold of the bar before coming to an abrupt stop. He whirled around and arched his back so that he was head height with Sparrow. As he waved his half of their paper, he stated, "This does not mean you get half my stuff."

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Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose
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(Of tying off loose ends and hunting bad men with friends...)


Revenge was never a dish best served cold – it was a writhing worm, continuously festering and growing larger still with time. This needed to be finished as soon as possible, so that Sparrow could finally wash her hands and free herself of the grime and dust that had gathered there since her childhood. Who else might have helped her? There was only one individual who hated humans just as much as she did. Had it dulled with time? She selfishly hoped it hadn't. Hoped feverishly that he thought the world was better off without such a destructive race gallivanting where they wished, but somehow knew that Amalia was not like them in the least. Sparrow had always thought that way, though she'd been susceptible as of late, befriending flat-ears without so much as a second thought. It hadn't even struck her as peculiar. They'd weaselled themselves under her arms, effortlessly, and shouldered themselves into her heart. And even still, she couldn't ask anyone else to come along with her, for then they'd know her dirty secrets, and her humiliating past. She wasn't ready for that, yet.

Sparrow quick-stepped down the alleyways, threading herself carefully, and occasionally checking over her shoulder to see if anyone else was following. Kirkwall was ever-known for its shady assailants, skulking in dark corners in wait for passer-biers. How many gangs were there now? Too many to count. Women wearing shawls in creme-coloured helmets, donning shields and calling themselves the Invisible Sisters, which was far too ridiculous, for they weren't even close to being invisible or undetectable – and they weren't the worst, since there were highwayman, men pretending to be guards and redwater whatever's. They posed little threat to her, or her companions, but she'd rather move undetected to her destination. Who knew whether or not Ithilian would blame her for bringing leech-like gang-bangers to his doorstep. She needed him in his best spirits to convince him to help her. It would be difficult enough spitting the words out, because she never asked for help, specifically from strangers she hardly knew, let alone her own friends.

Pebbles skittered into the gutter, kicked and scuffed away from the toe of her leather boot, as she picked her way down another stairwell, momentarily struck dumb as to what she'd say when she found him. Oh, can you help me find and slaughter two humans somewhere in Kirkwall? In the woods? They're garbage, anyway. It sounded stupid. Would he even ask why she'd request such a thing? He didn't seem the sort to pry into private matters unless it somehow mattered to him. If he outright denied her request, what would she do then. She supposed that she'd have to find them herself, though her tracking abilities were mediocre as best. Asking Rilien was out the question. Having to drag himself back and forth from Tranquility to feeling all of those emotions was cruel. Ashton was out of town, somewhere, and she wasn't exactly sure she wanted to explain her story, in its entirety, to someone she nearly saw everyday.

Finally, Sparrow entered the Alienage's clearing. She stared up at the enormous tree, bedecked with colourful patterns and terracotta pots holding lopsided candles and various feathers, and sighed. Had she been born in the Dalish clan like her mother, perhaps asking wouldn't be so difficult. All Dalish felt a kinship with one another. The want to help others was instinctual, but she hardly fit there, nor here, with her nominal pedigree. No doubt, Ithilian felt the same way towards her. Not quite disliking her, but finding no reason to like her, as well. He owed her nothing at all. And there he was, sitting on a rock. Sparrow cleared her throat, pushed the white locks from her eyes and approached him as she would a particularly skittish deer (for reasons she could not readily discern). As she drew nearer, subtlety sailed straight through the window.

“Ithilian,” She greeted with a slight inclination of her head, eyes already blazing with her unspoken question. She would not address him as a Qun today, for no Qun would aid her with this quest. To them, it would seem a selfish task that would be better left forgotten. “I need your help,” Sparrow began, fiddling with the gaudy bracelets dangling around her wrists. There was no easy way to say it, so she merely looked at him and added, “Tracking and killing someone. Someones, rather.”

Ithilian was in the process of getting reacquainted with the flute, which was more or less like catching up with an old hunting friend from his original Dalish clan. Awkward at first as each tried to discern where the other had been all these years, but then once the time had been summarized, they were able to go back to business as though nothing had changed. It was a rather small thing, sadly not carved by his own hand, but he knew it as though it had been. A few elven children had stopped to listen for a while, but he was not so compelling as Amalia was with her harp, or perhaps she was just better with children.

He was playing a slow tune, not a particularly cheery melody, but something more akin to a lament. His wife had taught him how to play it, but he was trying not to think of that particular fact at the moment, and simply listen to his own music, ensure that the sound was as he remembered it. He came to a close just as a visitor arrived, who he noted as the half-breed elf woman, Sparrow. The one with some form of history with Amalia, judging by their last meeting.

She was straight to the point, and that Ithilian could at least respect. Perhaps she was wise, too, if she chose to come to him for help with tracking and killing. Playing the flute reminded Ithilian of how many humans he'd killed with it. Well, not with the flute directly, but it was a preferred tactic of his to lure trespassing shemlen into a clearing with music, and then allow his brothers and sisters to put them down from afar. Indeed, they'd been separated for far too long.

"Tracking and killing are what I do, it's true," he said, one eye studying her to try and find more information than her words would give. "What I don't do is sell my skills for coin, however, so I'll need a reason why this is worth my time before I can say any more."

Playing the flute for the Alienage's oppressed children? Seemed like he'd taken a leaf out of Amalia's book, though Sparrow wondered just how soft he could be under all that bluster, under all that aggression and indifference she'd witnessed in the Deep Roads. She did not know him well – could not directly form any judgement beyond the small interactions she'd had with him when they'd first met, and when they'd slaughtered drakes and dragons in a deep, dark place she'd rather forget about. Initially, she was jealous of him. Jealous of the friendship he'd found in her once-friend. It hadn't seemed unfair that they lived in the same vicinity, and somehow, thisseemingly random person had seen the newer version of Amalia that she'd wanted to know and bonded with her in ways that seemed impossible to her now. She'd wanted to know every piece of her childhood friend: hidden troves, soliloquy thoughts and unspoken messages that shun as brightly as the moon, crisp and clear as daylight. Apparently, not forever because forever meant something that would remain solid and unchanged. They both moved on, and they'd changed, after all.

Sparrow glanced over Ithilian's shoulders, feeling a little foolish for blurting such a request in front of gawky-eyed fledgelings, who were openly listening in onto what she was saying. Not that she really blamed them. They didn't have much else to do beside huddling around scary-faced elders playing the flute, or else, listening to their actual elders who'd tell stories of a better life, and a better culture, lived somewhere faraway. She understood. She remembered. They would hope for the best, but most likely live the rest of their years in perpetual fear, hoping blithely that things would change – and people like Ithilian would try to make those changes. She wasn't so sure whether anything would make a difference. But, she wasn't here for that, anyway. She took a deep breath, and returned her gaze back to Ithilian. Sparrow didn't believe that this particular person, no matter how similar he and Amalia seemed, could read between the lines and know all of things she hadn't said, but managed to convey. Still, his steady gaze was a little off-putting (perhaps, another trait he'd managed to acquire from her).

What could she say? That she'd been brutalized in the woods as child by shemlen-defilers. That she was not who she said she was, and not what she seemed to be. That her parents were most likely in some travelling clan she refused to return to, and that they probably thought she perished. How much could she tell? It took her by surprise that he was unwilling to accept her offer – uninterested in killing humans just for the sake of killing humans. She knew Ithilian wasn't a monster, only a sentinel, a guardian, and a shepherd to his people, but even still, Sparrow believed that his hatred was a blinding thing that drove him forward like a blade in the night. Foolish thought. Amalia's influence, and the Qun's teachings, were unswervingly against anything as transparent as vengeance.

“I-I, they were...” she began, nearly mumbling, and tried pressing on a little louder, “I was separated from my clan, before Amalia. Long ago, after leaving Tevinter. And I was attacked.” Her eyebrows screwed up, knitting tightly and her hand busied itself in her hair. “A group of them, shemlen. They attacked me, and I-I found them. They're here in Kirkwall, somewhere. Maybe, in the woods,” she explained hoarsely, eyes swirling skyward, “They're parasites, cysts, pockmarks. They deserve—”

Judgement, justice. Most of all, death. It was difficult trying to explain what they'd done to her as a child. Harder still to convince someone that someone else deserved to die, that it would be better off for everyone if they ceased to exist. What if these children wandered too far from the nest? They were vulnerable, too. They could be hurt like she'd been hurt. And then, they'd run away from their once-friends, lose themselves, and become someone entirely different. They would run, never stopping to consider anyone else. Surely, he'd understand.

Meanwhile, not too far away, Aurora was busy working in her garden. Weeds were beginning to attack her precious plants, but they would not have her garden if she had anything to do with it. A rusty tin watering can waited beside her to finish her weeding. She had planned on watering soon after, but the arrival of Sparrow sought to change that plan. She (Aurora was still getting used to that) had gone to Ithilian, and she couldn't help herself. She ended up inadvertantly eavesdropping as she weeded. About midway, Aurora stood and pulled her gloves off, tossing them on top of the watering can. She then approached Sparrow from behind, patiently waiting until she was completely finished.

"I'll help," Aurora spoke first. Her plants could wait, they would be there when she returned. It was not in her character to ignore a friend in need, even if she wasn't specifically asked to help. She just hoped Sparrow wouldn't percieve it as Aurora inviting herself in on a private matter, leaving her mouth working itself for a few moments. She could have chosen better words, yes, but it wasn't like she could swallow them again. Finally, she put words in her mouth and added, "If you need me, that is," she said apologetically.

She'd drop everything to help a friend, she'd offer the same aid if it was Amalia, or Nostariel, or even Lucien. She had found friends in them, in a place long away from her home. They made it feel more like home than it was. And though she was averse to killing, the last being a bandit she had killed some odd years ago in anger, when Ketojan was being led out of Kirkwall, she'd follow Sparrow into this. Besides, the way she spoke of it, they deserved it anyway. Aurora was not their judge, that title belonged to Sparrow.

"Killing humans sounds like fun, does it not?" she added dryly for Ithilian, but she quickly reined in her tongue. It would do Sparrow no good if they bickered back and forth while hunting for these men. If anything, she hoped the comment would drive him into the request. She'd be remiss if she didn't admit that she knew nothing about tracking.

"Says the human," Ithilian said rather darkly. He wasn't armed at the moment, aside from the flute, but it was still quite possible that he looked no less menacing than usual. After Sparrow's explanation, he was no longer conflicted on whether or not to help, however. The descriptors Sparrow used sounded accurate. Parasites. Threats only if they were allowed to linger here. The Alienage itself had been pressed not as hard lately, thanks to the combined efforts of all those who sought to protect it, but that only stressed on Ithilian the need to not grow complacent. There was no reason to wait for danger to strike home when he was capable of meeting it on its own ground. Better that the elves never see the inside of Nostariel's clinic at all.

It still left the matter of how this was to be done, however. "I can find them and kill them," he said, "but the woods are not a small area, and you don't sound sure they're there at all. We may end up going out there and tracking down some shemlen hunter for hours. I'm not fond of wasting my time." He rose slowly to his feet, leaning back up against the great tree behind him, crossing his arms. "Do you have any more definite evidence of their location? I'm often needed here as well, and I can't commit unless I know this won't be a fruitless search."

She mentioned she'd been part of a clan. Were she still, he would not have hesitated. Were she even entirely elven, he also would not have questioned her like this. But she was not elven, nor was she Dalish. She was a half-breed, and cursed to receive perpetually unfair treatment from Ithilian. It was nothing she could change. He disagreed with whatever choice her elven parent had made, to try and raise a child split between worlds. A harsh view, no doubt, but one he knew to be necessary.

"I'll help." The voice, clear as jingling bells, came from behind her. She automatically pivoted on her heels, whipping around to face the newcomer, Aurora – and wondered absently how she hadn't noticed her while walking into the Alienage. Usually, her keen eyes were accustomed to spotting beautiful women, especially if they were preening weeds in a lovely garden. Had she always been there? Fading tendrils of electricity goose-pebbled her arms, flattened the raised hairs on her neck. She placed a hand on her chest, over her heart and exhaled dramatically. “Geez, Aurora. Quiet as a panther, you are.” Doubtlessly from Amalia's tutelage. There were few and far in-between that could walk as quietly as her once-friend, footsteps shushed and muffled. “I—”

It was peculiar. Sparrow still wasn't used to her companions offering their aid, even though Rilien, more often then not, worked behind the scenes to ensure she didn't get into too much trouble. He saw to so many things that she hardly noticed, at all. He did not ask, but simply did. The same thing could be said of the majority of her companions. She assumed that even Sophia could have brought her in, throwing her in a grimy cell, for a number of small crimes she'd committed during her lengthy stay in Kirkwall. By no means was Sparrow a slimy individual, sucking marrow from bones in Lowtown and awaiting poor, wealthy individuals in back-alleys to steal whatever coin they had – but, she'd done her fair share of stealing and squabbling when she needed to. No more, since their merry adventure in the Deep Roads, but she'd always been lucky. Someone wanted, after supposedly hearing her ridiculous request, wanted to help her, out of the goodness of their own heart? Had it been anyone besides Aurora, Sparrow would have scoffed.

When Aurora turned a dry, cutting remark at Ithilian, Sparrow winced. She hadn't meant that all humans were dirty shemlen. She hadn't meant that they all deserved the same sort of punishment, solely for being what they were born as. Those bitter thoughts were reserved for the Dalish who thought all humans were dreadful creatures bent on stealing away what little culture remained. She did not fit as nicely into those categories, and hardly believed herself to be this or that. Perhaps, this made her an impartial party: an outsider looking in on all their strife. She clinched her jaw, and awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck. Whatever animosity Aurora had with Ithilian, or vice versa, it clearly dealt with Ithilian's dislike for human beings, and her disagreement with his attitude. Hopefully, there would be no more hostilities, though she wondered just how far he'd be willing to go for just a short, sharp jibe.

Her musty-brown eyes radiated, once more, but quickly became subdued, and thoughtful when Ithilian reminded her how difficult it would be to find two travelling worms hiding in the woods, or even in the dark recesses of Kirkwall. There were so many variants. They could be living in moderate wealth, having moved up in the world of petty mercenary-work. Hadn't she done the same thing? Minus mercenary-work. Far too excited to elbow her way into the Alienage, and ask him for help, that she'd forgotten to retrieve information from the source: Sophia. But, at least Ithilian hadn't outright denied her request. Her heart soared with rekindled hope, shifting gears and alighting anew. “Not exactly,” She admitted, tapping her chin with two fingers. “But, I have a friend who has documents with their names on them. They came over with the last shipment of immigrants, from Ferelden. With addresses, whereabouts, where they'd plan to be.” It wasn't exactly true. She wasn't even sure whether or not their names were on the ledgers. If Ithilian wasn't on board to help her, she'd never find them on her own.

“You've agreed, then?” Sparrow questioned, easily rhetorical. Of course he had! For the Alienage. For all of the Elven children he strove to protect, he'd follow her until they were rightfully brought to justice. Buried somewhere, or left in the gutter. They hardly deserved anything but brutality. And they would be their death-bringers. “I'll come back once I've gotten the information. Very soon,” She added quickly, swinging her gaze back to Aurora. Better to be done with this conversation before Ithilian decided it wasn't worth the effort. She felt like she'd succeeded in something, as if she were finally moving forward to a brighter, better tomorrow. And as much as she wanted to thank Ithilian, Sparrow understood that his cooperation would not be for her benefit, and it hadn't been completed, as of yet. A wary, though thankful, smile stretched over her lips.

“Yes, I'd like that.” Sparrow paused, eyeing Aurora's mucky knees, dirt still clinging to them. “I'll help with your garden, while I explain some things.”

"I'd appreciate the pair of hands," Aurora began. "The weeds are trying to choke all of the flowers."

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Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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"My lady," Bran said pleadingly, "I know it is your way to take struggles like this upon your shoulders, but the city guard can handle this. It just isn't wise to risk yourself like this, not when the guard is capable of solving this issue without you putting your life in danger."

Sophia smiled slightly as she knelt down to lace up her boots. "Unwise? I don't believe there ever was a wiser choice than this." 1t0mIfpVc

"I agree, it is most noble of you to make these sacrifices on behalf of the city guard, but I must repeat myself: the risk is not worth the reward."

"And there we'll have to disagree," she responded, sliding Vesenia over her shoulder and buckling the sheath across her chest. She gave Bran a knowing look. "Really, Bran, how many times have we had this conversation? You know how it ends, don't you?" She slipped her hands into her leather gauntlets and, now fully geared, crossed her arms and gave Bran a half-smile.

"I do," he admitted. "I warn you of the dangers, you ignore them, and then you return to us bleeding." She laughed at that, even if she knew it to be the truth. "Maybe so, but a leader that does not bleed with her people is no leader at all, is she?" Bran sighed, lowering his voice now. "It's a good thing the leader doesn't bleed in equal measure as the people. I'm afraid you wouldn't have any left."

"Sadly true. Which is why I have to go."

"You're impossible, you know that?"

"It serves me well. I'll see you soon, Bran." She strode confidently from her quarters, a pair of guardsmen joining her. It was true, she had to admit, this was probably something she needn't involve herself in, but when the Viscount's daughter overheard trouble from a guardsmen, especially when she'd been itching to get out of the Keep for about a week now, it was too difficult for her to resist. And so here she was, about to ride out to the Wounded Coast and investigate why a patrol of guards hadn't returned from their route today.

She stopped when she saw Sparrow standing in the entrance to the Keep. She'd almost forgotten that she'd summoned the half-elf to deliver her update on the whereabouts of those men she was looking for. As much as she wanted to drop everything and help the woman (Sophia was also still getting used to that), she had already committed herself to this, and couldn't stop now, especially since time was of the essence.

"Sparrow!" she called. "You'll have to forgive me, some trouble's come up on the Wounded Coast and I've decided to see to the situation myself. We'll have to arrange another meeting time. Is that alright?"

Sparrow tip-tapped her feet against the cobblestones, creating a significantly more annoying tune whenever the guards shot glares in her direction. She only shrugged her shoulders, levelling her own lidded gaze, partly because it seemed to cause them some sort of personal affront – were all guardsmen so testy? Or did her presence somehow threaten them? Patience had never been a virtue of hers. Beams of sunlight kissed their shiny pauldrons, reflected from their breastplates like old lighthouse beacons leading other grumpy-faced back into port, and she'd actually left her sturdy set of armour back in Rilien's homestead (because homestead sounded so much better than hovel). Instead, she'd opted for a slender-fitting set of leathers, coalesced with shiny, freshly-washed vestments that might have belonged to a freebooter. Slightly better than running around in noble's wear, but not by much.

Her mace still swung neatly at her hip, looking awfully large without her bulky plate mail. Had it been anyone else, they might have arrested her for looking far too peculiar. Thankfully, they were awfully familiar with her by now. She yawned theatrically, stretching her arms above her head. In the midst of her stretch, Sparrow spotted Sophia approaching from the top of the stairwell, and deftly dropped her hands, rubbing absently at the corners of her eyes. “Sophia,” She greeted merrily, nearly bounding up the remaining stairs to meet her. Her mouth opened to say more, but was promptly shut when her well-to-do companion announced that she had other matters to attend to. It made sense, after all. A quick glimpse was all it took to see that she was geared to leave the city – or else, did she always don her armour? Disappointment weighed briefly in her stomach, anchoring her in place.

“Ah!” Sparrow suddenly chirped, nodding her head sagely. She was familiar enough with the Wounded Coast, having met with Amalia there on occasion and wandering there when she had to clear her head and her heart. “Why don't I accompany you, then? Four hands are always better than two.”

Sophia's first instinct was to refuse, considering that the task she'd taken upon herself was likely dangerous, and she wouldn't want to bring that danger upon someone who didn't understand what they were getting into. But after a moment of thought, she figured Sparrow knew exactly what she was signing up for by offering to help. Sophia was as armed and armored as she'd ever been, she had a pair of city guards flanking her, and was moving with a sense of urgency that implied impending danger. Sophia noted the mace hanging at Sparrow's hip.

"In that case, we can talk about it on the way," she said happily, continuing on down the stairs to the bottom and signaling for Sparrow to follow her. Really, she imagined even Bran would approve of this. While Sophia would have liked to believe she could place utter faith in the guard, her past experience told her otherwise. Friends outside the sphere of traditional authority had to be more reliable, and Sophia found that she had not enough in this regard. She felt that Sparrow could possibly fill that area, based on what she knew of her personality so far. She seemed bold, and while she didn't strike her as someone who had the utmost respect for authority, Sophia thought she could sense a good heart in her. If she was freely offering her services like this, it only added to that belief.

"A patrol didn't report back on time. Normally I'd let the guard handle it, but their route of the Wounded Coast has been hit by bandits pretty regularly, enough for me to think there's some kind of organization to it. We're going to put a stop to it, whatever it is." They pushed their way through the front doors and off to the side, towards the stables, where horses were already brought out and waiting. Sophia whistled loudly, gesturing to one of the stablehands. "One more for my friend here, please!" She then turned to the half-elf.

"Do you ride, Sparrow?"

Sparrow waited, eyebrows flagged expectantly. Had she been refused, she would have simply offered her services once more, perhaps a little more adamantly, until Sophia finally caved in. She could be persuasive if she wanted to, or just insufferably irritating – both of which usually worked to swaying someone to her way of thinking. Who wouldn't accept another willing hand, a steady sword, or specifically a heavy-handed mace that could crush skulls and ribs alike? Not many, she thought. When Sophia inclined her head, Sparrow threw her a lopsided grin and mock-saluted the guards flanking their dear lady. Thinking better of it, the half-elf dropped her waggling fingers and joined Sophia at her side. Usually, guardsmen were busy chasing her fading trail down dark alleyways for causing trouble, and now she'd be fighting alongside them, however temporarily.

“That's great!” She approved, tromping down the stairs two at a time. Two birds, one stone. Though, she might have offered her services even if she hadn't had business with Sophia. Sticking her nose in other peoples business, when she was around to be nosey, was commonplace, and as Rilien usually said, would get her in more trouble than she warranted – but Sophia was a beautiful lady who she hadn't yet seen swing a sword, who could walk away? She could wear all the world's emotions on her face and still not mean any of them, but this time, her smile was genuine, clearly appreciative. She could not profess to know Sophia as well as she did her other companions, but anyone who was willing to help her, without much to go on, couldn't be ill-intentioned. Sophia was, in truest form, a knight. Perhaps, a little like Lucien.

She nodded. The Wounded Coast was renown for its dangers. If there weren't bandits plaguing the roads, then there were rogue Qunari – those who'd willingly left the Qun's teachings, otherwise known as Tal-Vashoth, creeping in the underbrush. Their motivations, even still, were unknown beyond escaping their chosen vocations in their strict society. She'd questioned on more than one occasion whether or not she fit in that category. Had she not done the same thing? She'd just chosen not to do away with her life as a mercenary, hiding in the mountains like a snake. Unorganized, pathless. Sparrow pitied them. She'd found her own path through her many travels, paving a road she couldn't have ever thought possible. But, perhaps, it had been because she was not truly Qunari, nor elven, nor human. “That is worrisome,” She added, rolling her eyes skywards. Organized bandits in groups capable of taking on skilled, experienced warriors? There were few capable of such a feat. Could they be...

A horse? Sparrow's ears twitched, lowering restlessly. The whistle caught her off-guard, but what had surprised her most was when the stablehand trotted back from the stables, guiding a large beast in his wake. Horses were treacherous creatures, always snorting and pawing at the ground. Probably whispering to each other in horse-language, plotting to toss you off like a sack of potatoes, straight off a cliff. “Oh, uh...” she began, idling slightly away from the horse, who'd pushed its muzzle towards her face, “Riding. I've never really, honestly. Uh, but it can't be that hard, can it?” Fingers, unusually unsure, snatched up the reigns, dropped them and moved towards the saddle. The horn on the saddle looked useless to her, but the dangling-metal contraptions hanging on the bottom looked promising. She paused momentarily, and regarded the other guards, and Sophia, as well. Perhaps, it might be easier watching someone else mount, and she could (attempt to) follow suit.

Sophia's own horse, a white destrier equally as beautiful as he was powerful, was trotted out to meet her. He had been a birthday gift for her upon her twentieth birthday, and was certainly one of her truest friends. She stroked his silvery mane affectionately once before lifting her right boot up into the stirrup, taking a grip on the pommel and rising, swinging her right leg over and settling easily into the saddle. She turned him around to face Sparrow, smiling gently at her hesitation.

"Aiden can hold two, if you're uncomfortable. I don't mind," she said, removing her foot from the stirrup and offering Sparrow a hand if she wished to climb up. Instantly learning to ride a horse was no easy task, and they wouldn't be traveling slowly, that much was certain.

After fiddling with the reigns and the metal-contraptions for a moment, and even attempting to swing her leg the wrong way onto the horses saddle, only hopping along with the bemused creature, Sparrow halted her clumsy attempts. It would do her no good if they started galloping and she was left hanging from the stirrups, banging her head on the ground. She certainly wouldn't know how to stop the horse if it misbehaved. She gave the horse an uneasy pat on the muzzle, handed the reigns off to one of the burly, smarmy-mouthed guards and turned on her heels.

Surely, Sophia wouldn't think ill of her not knowing how to ride. She'd only been around the deer-like variety as a child, and the Qunari had no need for valiant steeds. Too proud to let another creature bear it's burdens. Sparrow circled around Sophia's horse (who seemed a little more experienced) and snatched up the proffered hand, and with a little difficulty, managed to swing behind her. For once, she wasn't exactly sure where to rest her hands, so she settled them onto her knees and laughed. “Thank you. Hrm. Perhaps, you can give me riding lessons one day. I can't remain useless on horses.”

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Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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Sophia led the small company out to the Wounded Coast at a gallop, her golden, braided hair gently bobbing behind her. The day was clear and calm, at least, the conditions good enough that a conversation with the woman accompanying her wouldn't be too difficult to have. It was a relatively straight road, so it wasn't as though she needed to put much effort into the riding until they reached the coast.

"I've had the guard looking over the refugee records, as you requested," Sophia informed her. "We had no luck finding either Arcadius Kassim or Silian Raunthil, I'm afraid. It's likely that if they came to Kirkwall, they used false names. However, you said one of them looks similar to Lucien. I suggested the guards keep an eye out for any man with that description, apart from the one residing in Lowtown, of course."

She slowed Aidan to a trot as they rounded a bend, before picking up speed again. The ground beneath the destrier's hooves was slowly shifting from dirt to sand. "Nothing turned up for a while, but recently they've reported sightings of a man with a similar appearance entering the northern edge of the woods outside Kirkwall." It was frustrating that the guard wasn't really in a position to do anything about it, but with Sparrow's help, Sophia could probably change that herself.

"The guard has been spread too thin combating the Coterie and keeping order in the city itself to be able to organize a force for clearing bandits out of the woods, but we've suspected they've had hideouts there for some time now. This only confirms that. If you want to head out that way and search for them sometime, I'd be happy to assist. If they're as dangerous as you say, I'm sure four hands would be better than two." She smiled lightly back at the half-elf.

The Wounded Coast was beautiful as ever. It seemed to be the only place untouched by progress, unwaveringly wild against everything that surrounded it and equally bountiful by feral-men who wished to absorb all of its ruthless, slack-shouldered freedoms. Whoever shirked their civilized lives in Kirkwall usually wound up somewhere on the beaches or in the darkest parts of the mountains. Living alongside whatever other creatures that called this place their home must of had its own allure, and one that she herself had felt – a siren's pull that captivated, enthralled and enticed. Few could deny it.

The ride itself was a lot quicker than Sparrow thought it would be, racing recklessly down dusty pathways and thorny underbrush. In the beginning of the journey, she'd attempted to somehow steady herself on the horse's rump, but to no avail, ended up wrapping her arms around Sophia's midsection. More out of fear that she'd tumble off and be trampled by all of the other trailing riders than anything else. She was grateful that she hadn't had to suffer the jarring ride by her lonesome. She nodded appreciatively, straining her ears. The clopping of hooves was louder than she'd ever imagined. Even still, Sparrow made a sound of surprise and replied, “Lucien lives in Lowtown? I hadn't, I wouldn't have thought. But, you're right. They'd be stupid to keep their own names.”

Didn't this render her search fruitless, unless one of her guards managed to bump into one of them? They were a dangerous lot doing who knows what in Kirkwall. Once a criminal, always a criminal. She didn't doubt for a second that they'd simply decided to live a quiet, peaceful life. They were her monstrous bogeyman, and they'd most likely strike again. Even if she was wrong and they'd suddenly taken the Chantry's robes to atone for what they'd done, she needed her own justifications to continue hunting them down. To terminate everything they'd done to her. Sparrow's eyes trailed the changing terrain. She listened intently, leaning forward when she needed to and retracting a few inches away when she felt she wouldn't slip off Sophia's spirited destrier.

“Apologies if I've been taking advantage of any men you need. Maker knows it's been hectic in Kirkwall.” Maker knows. Sparrow still wasn't sure why she ever used the name. She wasn't a follower of the Chantry, and hardly believed in any other religious entity. Far too young to take what her parents believed into consideration and far too stubborn to believed in anything other than shackless, unburdened wrists, she'd realized sooner rather than later that she was better off not getting her hopes up in anything. Sophia's uncomplicated offer to aid her in her task took her off-guard, but she laughed, tipping her head to the side like a colourful bird.

“Only a fool would refuse.”

"It's their job to track down dangerous criminals that threaten the city. Even if you want to bring them to justice for something they did to you personally, it would still be a boon to the city to remove the threat they pose." She slowed the party to a canter as they entered slightly narrower terrain. She turned back to one of the guardsmen. "This was our missing patrol's route, yes?"

Somehow, Sparrow was pleased that Sophia hadn't thought her objective as a petty, selfish vendetta. Too often she'd thought the same, wondering why she hadn't been able to forget it and move forward with her life. The Qun had taught her that holding old grudges was like dipping your hand into scalding water, indefinitely. It was an effortless choice, and one that they repeatedly managed to make. Her weaknesses were far greater than anything she'd been taught as a fledgeling. She'd been holding her hand in those particular waters for as long as she could remember.

"Yes, m'lady," one of them replied, his voice slightly muffled by the full face helmet. "The route leads off the left at the next crossroads." Sophia nodded. "Very well, let's find them then." She'd been curious about Sparrow's mention of the Maker, actually. Some elves had adopted the Chantry, certainly, but not a majority of them by any means. She wondered if her companion was merely using his name out of habit, and many often did, herself included. It was not always an indication of faith, but certainly Sophia would have welcomed it if Sparrow was Andrastian.

"And yes, Lucien lives in Lowtown. I believe he's able to do much more for the benefit of the people from there. It's a rather small place, but of course Lucien is nothing if not mod--" She was cut off when Aidan suddely reared up on his hind legs, startled. A ball of fire had flown in their direction, smashing against the rocks in front of them, just missing. Only through her trained control over her mount was Sophia able to bring him back down, and still it had been a challenge.

Modest-man, old chevalier, friend of Rilien and justice-bringer of Lowtown. All of those titles certainly fit Lucien. She did not presume to know him very well, but she'd asked Rilien enough questions to know men like him. They were the likes of guardians, valiantly saving the day, slaying dragons and sweeping damsels off their feet without wanting anything in return. Did men like that even exist? It was hard to believe. He still looked like someone she vehemently hated. Someone she had nightmares about. Lucien did not deserve her wariness, nor her obvious avoidance. It was all she could offer until she buried her attackers. Perhaps, then, she'd explain why she acted so strange around him. She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted when Aidan suddenly reared, driving a strangled yelp from her lips and forcing her to tighten her grip around Sophia.

"On foot!" Sophia commanded. "Find cover." She pulled her foot from the stirrup and swung it over Aidan's neck, a slightly awkward dismount, but she had to account for the possibility that Sparrow was still right behind her. She dropped down into the sand before giving Aidan a swift rap on his hind quarters, telling him to get to a clear distance. He led the other horses back up the way they'd come, out of the reach of danger.

The ball of fire exploded into a shower of sparks, hardly a couple of feet in front of them. Sparrow whipped around, trying to detect where it'd come from without slipping off Aiden's rump. Thankfully, Sophia managed to calm him down. She, too, dismounted as gracefully as she could. Once her feet touched the ground, Sparrow took a few staggering steps backwards, watching as the horse bolted to safety. Everyone, it seemed, had already dismounted, searching for their assailants. It was an ambush. Perhaps, to be expected. Arrows hissed overhead, slamming into the sand and sailing over her shoulders. Unfortunately, she'd decided not to wear her armour, riddled with its own set of enchantments. The only means of defence she had was to desperately pivot her body out of harms way, open palm conjuring brief spurts of arcane-energy to know the away.

Arrows began to tear through the air around them, one of which seeming to hit Sophia in the arm before being turned aside by Rilien's armor enchantment, the shot merely glancing instead. She drew her sword from her back and moved forward, staying low and pushing down to the low ground, where a group of guardsmen were taking cover behind a line of rocks high enough to defend them. Just as she arrived, one of them lifted his head high enough to get a view of their enemy, only to take an arrow through the visor for his trouble. Looking around, a few more had fallen to the arrows or the mage, but there were still five of them left, enough to make a fighting force now that Sophia had brought some help.

"It's Harley, isn't it?" Sophia asked of the one with the Lieutenant's gear. Her eyes widened in shock at seeing the backup. "Lady Sophia? The Maker himself must have sent you. This is a disaster here. My first 'routine' assignment."

"I wanted to lead the party personally when I heard a patrol had gone missing," Sophia said, "I'm glad we got here in time to be of use." She shook her head in frustration. "Bollocks... Bedden must not have made it back. But, you came anyway. Can't look back now. We're up against Evets Marauders."

It would do Sophia no good if she took an arrow just now. Being slain by wretched bandits in the Wounded Coast would be a pitiful end. Especially if she hadn't really accomplished anything yet. Watching Sophia hunker down, sword clasped in hand, Sparrow couldn't help think that she was a warrior worth following. Certainly, a leader worth looking up to. Precious few had the ability to command, lead, and inspire. She crouched lower, sidling to Sophia's right. The guardsmen looked a little worse for wear, like they'd been stuck behind the outcrop for awhile. Her mace had already found its way into her calloused fingers, curled tightly – a familiar companion, always ready for bloodletting. She did not know who Evets Marauders were, but still bobbed her head, listening.

There was a name Sophia recognized. "Are you certain?" She nodded. "Fell Orden's up there. And Viktor Longdeath's handiwork you've already seen. We tried two sorties up the path, but it's trapped to oblivion. Now I'd be thankful just to get out of here alive." A call came from up on the ridge behind them, the mage Fell Orden lobbing a taunt down at them. "No fair, guard dog. You've brought friends."

"Shut your mouth!" Harley shouted back. Sophia turned to Sparrow to better explain what they were up against. "This group's been robbing and raping for Maker knows how long now, based out of the forests. Fell Orden's the mage, but Viktor Longdeath is a deadeye shot with that longbow. One of them even took to calling herself Little Sophie. Think I made an impression on them."

“Cocky bastard,” She whispered, very nearly peeking over the large rock like the unfortunate guardsmen had. Several arrows spat down, clattering and shattering against their craggy shield. Suddenly, throttling that arrogant mage seemed like a good idea – and thankfully, there was only one to be seen. Robbing and raping. A muscle jumped in her jaw, which was now clenched. Molars grinding against adjacent molars. Then, they were exactly like them. People that were more or less like slime, puddles of mud, writhing worm-sacks. They deserved no mercy. “Disgusting. We have to make sure this is the last of all that,” Sparrow rasped, eyeing her steadily. The look disintegrated. “You should have told them that you prefer Sophia.”

Harley banged her sword against her shield to get the blood pumping, ready for a fight. "With you here now, I think we can take them. I'm with you... but the men might be too rattled to join us. We've been trapped here for hours." Sophia looked to them, and though she couldn't see their faces behind their helmets, their body language spoke volumes. They thought they were going to die here. She wondered how many of them had gone up against a mage before. She herself hadn't either, but after fighting a dragon, a little fireball didn't seem so ominous. Perhaps she could still give them some hope.

"Listen to me," she said, at the very least getting their attention. They certainly weren't going to ignore the daughter of the Viscount. "Our enemies today are just men, made of flesh and blood, just like us. Men that would take advantage of your fear to pick you off one by one. But together, we can make them know fear, when they see us move as one to storm their position, with courage in our hearts and fire in our eyes. They will be powerless to stop us when their one weapon, fear, is taken away from them. Show them what strength the noble men and women of Kirkwall still have in them. On me!"

"You'll make a brilliant leader someday, my lady," Harley said, smiling despite the situation. "Let's go wipe these bastards out!" They rose as one with shields up and swords drawn, charging out to attack the marauders' position.

This warrior-woman would lead Kirkwall places, she was sure. Harley had said it well enough. Sparrow only grinned, surveying the visored-faces once more. They seemed rejuvenated by the speech. The heavy blanket of impending death had been ripped off and replaced with hope. Sparrow, too, rose alongside the guardsmen, brandishing her mace. Never had she feared death. It rode beside her like a shadow, promising the end of all things. If she died here, or anywhere else, then so be it. Perhaps that, most of all, had been ingrained into her. So it shall be, meravas. With the flush of battle creasing across her cheeks, it's easier to tell that her eyes were encircled with dark, tired coils. Something else seemed off. Her eyes shun brilliantly, several shades lighter than they usually were – she was Sparrow, but she was not. She was Rapture, but she was not. Sometimes, as of recent, they seemed to bleed together in times of duress.

Sparrow was already lurching down one of the pathways with a couple guardsmen, crying out something indecipherable. Her free hand flicked down to her waist, procuring a thin little knife between her fingertips and snapping it forward, like Rilien had shown her, into one of the traps, successfully clamping it shut like the jaws of a great metal-beast. She continued waving her hands in front of her, deflecting arrows in sweeps of brilliant blue while she barrelled forward. For years, she'd trained herself using maces and learned how to deal with things without magic. It was painful for her to learn. Magic was everything – she breathed it, it soared from her like caged birds being released. In battle, Sparrow was reckless. She did not think of who was in her company, nor did it occur to her what Sophia might think. They were friends, were they not? Friends accepted. Friends understood. Finally, Sparrow's mace drew backwards, slamming into the shoulder of a man knocking an arrow.

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Being the clearly visible leader she wanted to be, Sophia went first up the central path, feeling Sparrow branch off to her right, and Harley take the left, each of them supported by a few guardsmen. The bandits were thicker in the middle, several of them meeting her almost immediately as she entered. She met the first as he came, driving his longsword away from her throat and whipping Vesenia around and down, slicing into the back of his legs, throwing her knee guard up to catch him in the jaw as he fell to his knees. She felt the jawbone crack under the force, and he sprawled onto his back.

Her guardsmen rushed ahead to intercept the others before they could swarm her, tying them up effectively enough for Sophia to push on, but not before she was met with another fireball, this one better aimed. She dove to the side, covering her head, as it exploded where her feet had been moments ago, chunks of smoking rock raining down around her. She turned back over to see the young female bandit she'd heard about almost gleefully charging to attack her. Sophia blocked Sophie's strike into the sand from where she lay on the ground, before putting the sole of her boot into her attacker's gut, knocking her back a few paces and giving Sophia time to get back to her feet. She hoped Sparrow would be quick to get around the flank and handle that mage; he'd likely account for her movement much better the second time around.

The hapless bandit who'd been trying to knock his arrow collapsed in a heap, screeching like an injured dog. His shoulder had been crunched into his collarbone, jutting out in awkward angles. Sparrow hadn't held back at all, utilizing her fierce momentum to throw herself into another enemy, shoulder first. She felt the weight of the dagger in her hand, calloused grip tightening around the warm metal, dropped subtly from her sleeve. Effectively driving him backwards, Sparrow suddenly whipped to his right, dipping low to avoid having her own guts spilled over her shiny new boots. The blade pivoted in her palm, twisted up and under the man's boiled leathers and sunk into his belly. She'd already moved on before his innards slapped down his legs, before he'd even slumped down.

Occasionally, Sparrow glanced up the middle section where Sophia had charged, quickly gauging the distance between them. It would be more effective if she kept pace with her. Her mace swung once more, two-handed, and blood spattered the sands in thick rivulets, as if she were painting a Wounded canvas. She imagined the bandit's face crumbling. Bones shattering like old, fragile tea cups. Her fingers twitched, muscles contracting. Electrical itches rippled down her forearms, her elbows, her hands. She was there, scrabbling just beneath the surface, and screaming to be heard. Another bandit scrambled over the rocks, propelling himself off and sweeping his sword overhead in a downward swing. Her breath hitched, nostrils flaring. Sparrow managed to compose herself in time to bring her mace to her front, and they collided, meeting face-to-face. The clang of metal echoed in her ears, along with the grating of the sword nipping closer.

It will be fine, she lied to herself, while Rapture hissed and spat and threw her head back to laugh at such weak, pathetic words. Who would they comfort? For she was growing closer, almost close enough to through herself from the edge of their Fadespace. Her breathing calms, and her head feels dull and heavy, arms leaden. She sucked in a deep breath and shoved harder, hands summoning a much larger burst of energy. It crackled in the air, brightened considerably and ignited the man's vulnerable face. The smell of sizzling flesh and burnt hair assailed her nose. He clawing at his face, shlepping thick patches off. As she sidestepped around him, hurriedly avoiding his maddening screams and raking fingers, Sparrow moved ahead. Hadn't been for her momentary lapse, she might have been able to avoid a stray arrow, sailing through the air like a wingless, much more dangerous hawk. It sunk into her shoulder, sending her to the ground.

Whatever Little Sophie's intent was on building her bandit career by making fun of the name of the Viscount's daughter, she would never find out, as Sophia quickly overwhelmed her with fast and heavy strikes, swiftly removing her sword from her hands before plunging her bastard sword into the bandit woman's midsection. Looking up, she quite certainly saw her half elf friend using unconventional means of defense against arrow attacks, and the revelation that the woman who'd ridden on her horse to the Wounded Coast was a mage of all things was enough to give her pause, quite nearly knocking the breath out of her.

Her breath was quite literally knocked out of her when one of Viktor Longdeath's arrows hit her squarely in the stomach, sending her back a few paces and huffing for breath. A bandit attacked her from behind, having slipped by one of the other guards, but she turned and slipped Vesenia up under his axe, before throwing a kick to the man's groin, and plunging her sword cleanly through the lightly armored back, dropping him. Turning back again, she pushed forward, staying low, intent on not letting that murderer hit her again. The newly arisen issue of the fact that they had an apostate on their side would have to wait. Staying alive would take enough focus for now.

She reached their rear ranks just as Harley broke through from the left, engaging some of Viktor's own goons. Longdeath himself drew back and fired once more at Sophia, but a timely sidestep combined with the kicking in of the armor enchantment helped the arrow skim harmlessly off the edge of her breastplate. The bandit archer managed to pull a knife by the time Sophia reached him, but he was renowned for his arrow work, not his fist fighting. He'd be wishing he'd put the arrow through her skull soon enough.

Sophia caught his arm as he lunged for her throat, twisting it aside painfully to the left, while she plunged Vesenia up under his ribcage. Not one to waste more time than was necessary, she pulled the blade free and spun about in a whirl of golden hair and crimson skirts, her bloodied blade whistling sharply through the air until it cut clean through his neck, dropping the archer to the ground a head short. She glanced around. Most of Harley's men had made it, though she noted that one had fallen behind her, and one of Sophia's own guards had been killed coming up the main path behind her. She resisted the urge to sigh. Deaths made it seem otherwise, but with the odds these men and women had before, this was a victory. The majority of them would be going home, and that was certainly something that would not have happened had she not happened along.

There was a shaky, hardly audible, broken-record sound ringing in her ears, and it took her a moment to realize that she was the one making it. Sparrow released the breath she'd been holding. Her hands instinctively sought out the cause of her pain, which was blossoming in her shoulder. Fingertips snagged against the wooden shaft, then fell away. She could not simply pull it out. Instead, Sparrow teetered on the backs of her heels, pushing herself back to her feet. It took her a few breaths to conjure enough energy to raise an arcane shield around her own body, kindling visible warmth. Unfortunately, she was still quite useless when it came to healing. It was out of the question, and lay far beyond her capabilities. To anyone who asked, Sparrow was not a mage. She was, simply, Sparrow.

Finally, the half-breed broke through the left-sided ranks and reached who she presumed to be as Fell Orden. If the glowing balls of orange juggled in his palms were anything to go by. His name was ridiculous. She hardly swallowed the comment. He seemed to have taken notice of her, hands already swathed in growing flames. To this, Sparrow's teeth flashed in a grin. She did not shy away from mages, did not shrink back from the Fade's stink. Even if she were a mage, by anyone's standards, she still considered herself an opportunistic soldier, a warrior and one who almost always relied on brute force, rather than unconventional means. She leaned to the side, once, twice, then charged forward just as the fireball left Fell Orden's hands. Mages, it mostly seemed, were always vulnerable in close range. The fireball sizzled small hairs at the crown of her head as she ducked beneath it, hardly slowing to allow him to throw another. The man's eyes widened—

Her mace, riddled with blue flame, smashed into his ribcage. Soft, silky robes would do nothing to protect him. It ripped away in a blistering wave of black. She'd like to imagine that each and every bone were pulverized, sending splinters into his major organs. Especially for what he'd done to the others, even if he hadn't been the one to orchestrate everything—it didn't really matter. They were all scum if they preyed on other people. She spat distastefully on the ground, circling around Fell Orden's remains. Something was peeking out of his pocket. She hunkered down on her haunches, poking and prodding until she finally pulled it out. A letter? Creme-coloured. Nice paper, by all accords. For reasons unbeknownst to her, Sparrow mimicked another trick she'd seen Rilien perform by slipping the letter into another secret compartment on her person.

Fell Orden's fireballs had stopped, which meant Sparrow must have succeeded in getting around the right flank. Lowering her sword to the sand, but certainly not sheathing it, Sophia looked for the apostate, suddenly quite uncomfortable with the situation. It was reminiscent of when she'd learned that Aurora had been an apostate, years ago. But back then, it hadn't been the right situation to be able to do anything about it. The timing wasn't much better on this one, but she had the guard on her side, and seemingly no excuse to simply let Sparrow go free.

Other than the fact that she had just helped her rid the Free Marches of these despicable bandits, but Sophia was trying not to think of that right now.

One moment, Sparrow was looking at Fell Orden. Then, everything had gone black. Rapture had crept in, reaching her ethereal talons into her arm-holes. She took every piece of Sparrow into herself, shaking her legs into unwilling trousers. Her eyes changed completely, hardening into two sanguine orbs. And she laughed, throwing back her head in victory. “Now, this. This is quaint,” it sounded awfully like Sparrow, but there were higher, unfamiliar tones. The Fade grew heavier around them, drawing up like a foul wind and pooling around her feet like lewd blankets slipping from her shoulders. Finally, Rapture-Sparrow turned on her heels, and faced Sophia, ignoring all the others. “Little Sophia come to play the hero on unfamiliar grounds. Oh, and that unease. Tensing up your shoulders like that. You should see that crease,” She teased lightly, softly, then added in a far more sinister tone, tapping her chest, “This, is mine. Not yours. Not the Circle's.”

Everything about this mission to the coast had felt so right moments ago, but now, as Sophia was looking at a woman who she'd been ready to call friend, clearly controlled by something both otherworldly and malevolent, it felt wholly wrong. Harley and guards looked unsure, no doubt mirroring what Sophia was trying to keep from her face, and utterly failing. She had liked Sparrow, enjoyed her company, valued her assistance. She'd seen her for being a mage, but this was something else entirely. Was she only just possessed, in the course of the battle? Had she been an abomination from the beginning?

Abomination. Sophia knew full well what the Templars had to do when faced with one. She'd always imagined them as malformed horrors, twisted creatures, only mockeries of the person they had formerly been, but this woman still looked very much like Sparrow, apart from the eyes. But the way she moved, the way she spoke, only too clearly gave her away. Sophia didn't want to kill Sparrow, but this... this wasn't Sparrow, not anymore. Could control be returned? Sophia had never heard of a possessed mage returning to their former selves. She had thought that once a mage was possessed, whatever was left of them was gone. Was this not a mercy, then? To kill this demon using her friend's body like some costume, a means by which to experience mortality?

She would have to. The right thing to do was never easy, and this certainly fit into that category. Sophia raised her blade slowly towards the demon. Harley and... four guards remained to her. None of them had any experience fighting abominations, undoubtedly. No more than she had. They were with her, though, clearly. The demon's calling out of her tenseness was only too accurate; she felt none of the calm she could usually maintain in a fight, and little of the confidence. Even if she could best the demon, she wasn't sure she could make the killing blow.

The arrow still embedded in her armor twinged painfully when she took up a battle-ready stance, but there was no time to remove it properly. For now, she snapped off the majority of the shaft, trying to hold back a wince as she did. It would ensure it didn't get in the way of her arms or blade during combat. Dropping the feathered shaft to the sand, she looked to the enemy before her. "Relinquish your hold on her, demon, or we will force you out," she said, keeping her unease from her voice at least, if not her body language.

If the demon failed to comply, they would have no choice but to attack.

Now, this was precious. She ignored Sparrow's willful attempts to batter at her Fadecage. This was her time, her hour, her minutes. With gleeful anticipation, Rapture wondered how much damage she could do before releasing her grip. The demon appeared somewhat shocked by Sophia's righteous demand, mouth forming a melodramatic “o”. Simply asking a demon to leave its hard-earned residence like that. How many times had that been done before? Her shoulders slumped, raising slightly to indicate that this conversation bored her. “You'll have to do better than that,” She teased, coyly fluttering her eyelashes. A light laugh escaped her, airy and breathless. Living and breathing and stretching her arms over her head as if she'd always been born in Sparrow's body, Rapture nearly sighed in content. Every single demon dreamed of overtaking someone's fleshy husk, whether it was for ill-intentioned purposes or to simply have something that had been denied to them.

“Abomination, abomination. How insufferably rude,” Rapture whined, soft and low, as she toyed with the arrow still jutting from her shoulder. Her slender fingers tip-tapped across the wood, and sifted through the colourful feathers like hands running through her lover's hair. Every movement bespoke of lewdness. Her eyes roved across the ranks, daring them to make their first move. Each soldier had its own set of weaknesses, bubbling to the surface like emerging paper-boats flowing down a river, and she was like a child meticulously plucking them from the waters. Reading secrets and desires had always been a forte, but this was different. She would not have time to manipulate them with words. Already, Rapture spotted hands hesitatingly raising their blades, or nervously reaching for their scabbards. Fear resonated through them, thrumming like individual heartbeats. She licked her lips.

“Demon? I am fear. I am doubt. I am promises wrapped in silk. I am more, and you, dear, are less,” Rapture hissed, lidded eyes widening ever so slightly. Her hand wrapped around the arrow's shaft. She had an unexplainable need to terrorize, to completely deny Sparrow of what she wanted to do—which was to run far, far away. In one sudden, incisive motion, Rapture wrenched the arrow free from her shoulder and casually tossed it over her shoulder, hardly indicating that it had hurt at all. Pain, after all, was just another sort of pleasure. She assessed Sophia as well, with a hard, scrutinizing glare before spitting at her feet. “You'll regret hesitating so, Little Sophia.”

With this, Rapture hurtled forward, hands free of the burdensome mace Sparrow was so keen on carrying around. It clattered to the ground behind her, left laying across Fell Orden's rumpled body. Pure, rough energy rippled around her. This woman would not choose Sparrow's prison. The demon held her in an ethereal cage, a cell made up of Fade-magic. Filled with locked doors just as real as any material one, and she could not escape because it was inside of her. The greatest of prisons were often the ones created in the mind. What could the Circle do beyond shutting out her abilities? Just like what they'd done to Rilien. It was a cruelty that even she could recognize. They imprisoned themselves so, while demanding freedom. Before reaching the first of Sophia's band of soldiers, Rapture spun around, her hands sweeping out in an arc, wielding dangerous Force Magic. It was her next round of movements, swift and assured, that devastated.

Draining life from her enemies, drawing their strengths and vitality into herself. She cast the spell to the two guardsmen hunkered in front of Sophia, offering her a slight inclination of her head, and a gaudy wink. Her fingers waggled, then swept in front of her once more. Their eyes met, and Rapture's wrist flicked towards Harley, launching a thin, finger-proportioned ice-needle towards the vulnerable flesh of her neck. She did not turn, but only lifted her shoulders again, dropping them in a shrug. She revelled in their fears, in their pained shrieks. “Open those pretty little eyes of yours, darling. You cannot command me, when you've nothing to offer.”

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Her reward for offering the demon a chance to end this peacefully had been only death. The guards in front of Sophia fell to their knees, losing the strength to stand, subject to unbearable amounts of pain as their very life force was drained from them, only strengthening the demon. Sophia thought to try and do something for them, anything, but then her enemy had thrown a precise and deadly needle to slice open Harley's throat, and her blood spilled out onto the sand in front of her. She dropped her weapons, hands going to her throat, but there would be no stopping her death. The Lieutenant collapsed onto her knees, a gurgling sound rattling from her throat and she fell backwards onto the sand, eyes staring blankly up at the sky.

Sophia should have just attacked, forced the demon on the defensive, fought the way she knew how. Instead she'd tried to save whatever was left of her friend, only to find that it had made the situation worse. Two of her allies were removed from the fight, and another was dead, all because of her hesitance. The demon's words cut through her. Uncertainty, doubt, hesitance, weakness, fear... all the things this demon represented Sophia felt coiling through her insides, poisoning her with every second she spent waiting. But she would not run, she would not falter.

"I can only offer you death now, demon," she said evenly. The Viscount's daughter threw herself into motion, kicking up sand behind her as she rushed forward past the weakened guards. There were still two allies on her side, and these took up arms at Sophia's side, the three of them rushing Sparrow. There was little defence against her magical attacks, so their only option was attack. Sophia dashed to close the distance between her and the demon, launching two swift horizontal slashes in broad strokes out in front of her, while her allies moved around the sides, to surround the demon.

Rapture reeled backwards, and spun again, weaving her arms in intricate circles. Her slender wrist came to her mouth and slipped back down, hands drawing together and pulling apart to reveal a thin rapier fabricated from her own blood. It had been ages since she'd been able to use blood magic—remnant abilities from an old body she'd taken and lost after he'd tragically plunged off the side of a cliff. Blood bonds and demons simply weren't matched for each other. He'd been too weak to hold her, and too stubborn to admit that the power she offered was something he could have only dreamed of. If one's desires were too weak, then perhaps, you were better off dead. She had no regrets, after all. Rivulets ran down her forearm, and dripped off her elbow as if admonishing what she'd done. Sparrow's clear revulsion made her smile.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyeing Sophia like a coiled snake, swaying slightly on her heels. The feeling of euphoria was immediate; it felt as if she was truly limitless, as if she could do anything. This body was her own, for the time being. She could feel the sheer power of her blood, singing siren songs and trumpeting in pleasure. It was as if she had been sleeping and the whole world had suddenly come alive; and in the most literal ways, perhaps this was truest of all. Every single sense seemed sharper and more distinct; she could taste the metallic tang of her blood in the air, smell it, feel it pulsing loudly. Rapture breathed in and out, in controlled bursts. “And death to your new companion, as well? Oh, Maker no. Mercy please,” She coaxed, lowering her eyelids.

Instead of remaining still, Rapture whipped her blade out, spattering the ground with ruby-red constellations and hurtled towards them. She looked as if she were about to collide with Sophia, but quickly sidestepped away from her, and her flurrying sweeps, slamming the pommel of her makeshift blade into the guardsman's head. Miasmic energy collected in her open palm, commanded forward with a sharp, crisp demand of, “Sleep!” It shot from her fingers just as Sophia's second assault caught her sanguine blade, sailing over her shoulder towards the other guardsman. She strained and pushed, locked together. Perhaps, if she were busy dealing with her unconscious guards—

Startlingly quick, Rapture felt something pulling at her, tugging her ferociously in all directions. The Fade became heavier, more tangent. Desperation tugged at her smug expression, until it completely collapsed. She'd lost to her. Fragments of confusion coloured her vision as her gossamer hull retreated from Sparrow's bodies, as if a much larger person had merely plucked her out of an unruly set of boots. Sparrow was quick enough to mewl her dismay, “No, no, no, no. This was, this wasn't supposed to happen. I-I didn't mean—” She sobbed, shoulders working to somehow hold this blade she did not entirely understand. Its firm shape wavered and became distorted, held together like a child holding a wet sand fortress. Her mucky-coloured eyes lost their glimmer, faded back to their original hue. “Sophia. Sophia!”

“I didn't mean to.”

Sophia had been about to strike another blow, but the cry of her name, in such dismay, was enough to stay her blade. She felt instantly that it was the wrong choice, that she should strike the woman down now and be done with it. It was only the two of them now. Harley was dead and all of the guardsmen with her had been incapacitated, but thankfully left alive. In all honesty, the fact that Rapture hadn't immediately killed them, but instead simply subdued most of them, gave Sophia pause, but this made her wonder if this was some kind of trick. Demons were deceptive above all. How was she to know this wasn't some ruse to get her to lower her guard?

"Didn't mean to?" she said, holding her blade steady. "I'm supposed to just turn the other way and forgive you for murdering that woman there because you didn't mean to? You were dishonest with me, you have been from the start. I..." Sophia wanted to be angry, she truly did, but she was just starting to feel upset instead. Why did this woman have to be a mage? Why did she have to be possessed? Her intentions were so clearly pure of heart, but the results had been so disastrous all the same.

"You have to know better than this, Sparrow!" Sophia said, her blade lowering ever so slightly. "I am hesitant to let apostates walk freely. The Chantry's laws, and those of the Templar Order, dictate that all magic must be accounted for by the Circle of Magi, and as the future Viscountess of this city, I must follow its laws. Only in the most extreme of circumstances will I allow an apostate to walk free. But I could never let an abomination do the same, and still live with myself."

Her eyes wavered from Sparrow. She could do this if the demon had still been in control, but with Sparrow returned like this, she didn't think she had it in her. But she would not falter. She lowered her sword more, her voice unconsciously taking on a pleading tone. Pleading for her not to resist, to let Sophia do what she had to do protect the city. Still, she couldn't meet Sparrow's eyes.

"I can't let you leave, Sparrow. Not knowing what you are."

“I made a mistake!” Sparrow bellowed, murky eyes swimming. She couldn't condone what she had done, but didn't Sophia understand that it was beyond her control? But, that might have been the point. No amount of explaining could weasel her way out of this situation—she'd done what she was always afraid of doing. This was her waking nightmare, pressed firmly into reality. She'd never wanted to kill anyone on her side. Her allies were her companions. Whether or not they'd known each other for two minutes or years, Sparrow considered all of her acquaintances chummy, elbow-rubbing friends, and now, she'd just slaughtered a handful of them. It was impossible to take that back. She swallowed thickly, blade-tip drooping.

All of Sophia's warmth was replaced by her defensive stance. Blade still held at the ready, hardly dipping any lower. Like birds screeching out in dismay, ruffling their feathers at the sight of shackles and chains, Sparrow's hard-earned freedom begged her legs to turn and flee. If she did not run, then she'd be lead away to... the Circle? Or execution. She wasn't entirely sure, and her irresolution caused her to hesitate. There was no way she'd turn her blade on a friend, even if it was the only means of escaping another hopeless situation. Perhaps, Rilien had been correct. It was safer for her to remain in one place, far from anyone she may injure. Gallivanting the streets of Kirkwall was just asking for trouble. “I made... a mistake. If I could trade places—” Her voice broke, creaking on the words she could not utter. Would she trade her life for strangers? Strangers she considered friends. Even so, no.

“You don't understand.” Bile rose in her throat, threatening to spill from her lips. All mages shared a common enemy within themselves. Shadows stood vigilant in the Fade, waiting for any sign of weakness, for any chink in their armour to infiltrate and take advantage of. No one else understood the enticement of having someone shoulder all of their burdens, heft them across their shoulders and promise that they'll protect them no matter what, forever and always. It would always be easier to open up their arms and listen. Demons paraded around in the guise of once-friends, whispering in soft tones and making promises that preyed on their individual weaknesses. She'd said yes and now, she was paying the price for it. “Apostate. The Chantry's laws and the Templar Order,” Sparrow solemnly echoed, knuckling at her eyes with her free hand. “I thought you were different.”

I can't let you leave. Those words said volumes. Sophia was already slapping chains to her wrists, appealing to her guilt to waddle along straight to the Gallows. How she wanted to comply. How she wanted to face what she'd done, what she'd been doing to her friends, to strangers, to anyone who'd come in contact with her. And all in one motion, Sparrow's spine arched straight, tearful eyes hardening and shifting colours, before she hurtled forward and closed the short distance between them. Instead of using the stiff sanguine-blade, Sparrow-Rapture's hand thrust out from her side, slapping over Sophia's forehead. She tried, desperately, to control her arm and yank it back, but Rapture only crowed at her. Just like in the Deep Roads, Rapture mustered the last remaining grip on Sparrow's body, and her magic, and cast her into her own waking nightmare.

And Sparrow stumbled backwards, unable to take it away. Unable to keep Sophia from snapping out at her, either. She'd seen, through hazy eyes, in another plane, what the spell had done to her companions. She didn't have time to wait around. It was a useless endeavour. She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and screamed in frustration. Half-stumbling over to one of the unconscious guardsman, Sparrow shook and slapped him. She turned to run as soon as his eyelids fluttered.

I'm sorry, for once, would do her no good.

Sophia's focus had wavered so much, her resolve melted away into nothingness, that she was horrendously slow to react to the demon's return. Her blade had only made it halfway back to her guard when Sparrow, or whatever she was, reached her and placed a hand on her head. The very fabric of her reality twisted and wavered as a splitting pain tore through her mind, and she felt instantly nauseous, the coast tearing itself apart in front of her. She wavered for a mere moment before her legs gave out from under her and she crashed heavily to the sand on her back, eyes firmly shut.

She found herself in her father's room, where she so rarely visited these days. By helping to take over the responsibilities of his public life, she rarely played a part in the Viscount's private life anymore. It was night, a cold wind playing across the bare skin of her shoulders and arms. She felt entirely naked, but looked down to see that it wasn't so. She was garbed as finely as any Hightown noblewoman ever had been, her dress the color of gold. How strange she felt when unarmored lately. She wished that were not so, that she didn't need to leave her front door prepared for battle every day. It was meaningless now.

Her father was dressed all in black, standing quietly on the balcony outside. The view from the Viscount's Keep was breathtaking, standing tall over Hightown itself, Lowtown so far below and away that one couldn't possibly see the state of it, shrouded in darkness and smoke as it was. She took slow, measured steps out to him. She always felt like she had to approach the Viscount with caution now, like he was some ancient vase precariously perched on a column, with one wrong touch plunging it to shatter on the hard floor below. She came to a stop by his side, placing her hands on the railing rather than his shoulder. He didn't like it when she touched him, he'd started slapping her hands away a few years ago.

The city, as always, was burning. The riots, the chaos, it had started a lifetime ago, and Kirkwall now consumed itself from the inside out. Man, elf, dwarf, Qunari, all had turned on each other, and the city burned. They'd been locked in the Keep, for their own protection, for weeks now, surviving on the castle's ever-dwindling food stores. Her father looked skinnier than ever. Sophia wished there was something she could do for him, but everything she had ever tried had failed. He didn't look at her, the words he spoke hardly leaving his throat. They cut through her as surely as any sword would, however.

"I thought you could have been as strong as she was. She could have saved everyone. If only you hadn't been born with my weakness, but instead her strength..." And he threw himself from the balcony. She screamed, reached out, but he was gone, leaving her to stand alone on the edge, and she watched him fall. Only when he passed from her sight did she turn away.

She turned to run from this horrid place, to leave, to go anywhere where less would be placed upon her shoulders, where less would be demanded of her. But she hadn't made it halfway across her father's room when the door burst open, and Saemus was there, and his eyes were alight with rage and hate. "You killed him," he said, as if it were that simple. A knife gleamed in his hands, and she raised her own, trying to calm him.

"Saemus, no, I tried, you have to believe me. I did everything I could." She wanted to scream at him, tell him how he'd done absolutely nothing to take the weight off their father's shoulders, but despite all that he was still her brother, and she loved him. He wouldn't hear it, though, and he advanced, forcing her to back up while she begged him to see reason. Saemus had never seen reason. Sophia was halted unexpectedly by the wall behind her, and Saemus reached her, plunging the knife into her abdomen once, twice, a third time.

She slid slowly down the wall to the floor, coughing and sputtering blood, while Saemus tossed down the knife to clatter against the floor, taking his leave of the room, abandoning her to bleed on her own. There was little else she could think to do. She'd become pale as a ghost, her shallow breaths all that sustained her, when a man crouched before her. She'd always thought he'd had cold eyes for everyone else, but for her they were warm. She wanted so badly to hate him, for a reason she couldn't even remember. She tried to lift her arm and touch his face, but even that much movement was beyond her.

"I just wished you had known," he said, gently touching his hand to her cheek. "They were never yours to die for." He stood and moved to the balcony to watch the city burn, while Sophia's head finally lolled to the side, and her eyes closed.


Sophia gasped awake, the sudden lights and senses assaulting her powerfully. She coughed several times, the effort feeling like it would crack open her skull. Leather boots staggered through the sand towards her, before a figure fell to their knees beside her.

"My lady," gasped one of the guards, clearly struggling himself, "are you wounded? Can you hear me?" Sophia coughed several more times, before nodding weakly. There was a sharp whistle from the guard, and it simulated the effect of an arrow passing through her ears. Hooves galloped towards them in the distance. "We need to return to Kirkwall, my lady. Before more bandits arrive. We are in no fit state to fight."

For once, Sophia agreed with that sentiment. The surviving guards painfully pushed themselves to their feet and heaved themselves back upon their horses, departing for Kirkwall.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Raiders on the Cliffs has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Sparrow exhaled sharply through her nose, mussing up her fingers through thick snowy locks. She was on her way to the Alienage, seeking out Ithilian and Aurora. She'd included Rilien, as well. It seemed foolish to hide anything from him, though he didn't seem overly bothered that she hadn't immediately come to him in the first place, which was strangely relieving. She'd also told him about her run-in with Rapture on the Wounded Coast, and what had happened with Sophia and her fellow guardsmen. Tearfully, regretfully. In the means of sulking in the corner of their home, knees drawn up to her chest. Initially, she'd wanted to lie to him, tell him that nothing at all happened in the hills, but he'd had that look in his eyes. An all-knowing speculation full of patience, understanding and tolerance that always left Sparrow bewildered. She remembered, shamefully, how her fever-head ached and how her throat felt as if it'd been stuffed with cotton, hollow-framed and solemn once more. He did not question her foolishness, only sat quietly by her side.

Now, they were two riff-raff denizens who the Templars would gladly drag back down to the Circle if caught or found. Her, perhaps, more so for what she'd done. She would have been considered a runaway apostate, a malificarum, and demon. Already, she'd spotted freshly inked, crisp posters with her description plastered against wooden doorways. The Hanged Man's barkeep had tactfully ripped them down, offering her homage in the backrooms should she need somewhere to clear her head. Varric, too, was keeping his mouth shut when it came to her whereabouts, deftly sending inquisitors in the wrong direction. She was thankful, but her guilt was beginning to eat her up, gnawing at her insides like incessant rats. Her frequent bouts of silence betrayed her doubt. Each time she unfolded the letter, already fraying at the corners from fiddling with it so much, Sparrow remembered. Vivid snapshots of just how little control she'd had over herself, like smears on a glass frame.

Her ship was bound to be shipwrecked, smashed up against the rocks. It was a matter of time, she'd said. Rilien disagreed. He would not allow it. And Sparrow believed him wholeheartedly, bellying a reliance that she could not entirely understand or accept. But, if the time came, she refused to drown everyone with her. Pulling them to the depths would be the end of her. It was enough that she'd entirely ruined her relationship with Sophia. Dallying anywhere near the Viscount's quarters was out of the question. Redemption, in Sophia's eyes, would only come in the form of slinking into the Gallows, offering herself up for whatever punishment they'd hand down to her. Would her death be enough? Perhaps. Her freedom and life were important. She could not offer either, even as an apology to someone she considered her friend. She understood, best of all, that Sophia's reaction was justified. She understood that no amount of explaining would change her mind. Weaknesses were weaknesses. Those who did not entirely make sense of magic could never possibly sympathize.

She was not an apostate, nor a mage, nor born with anything she ever needed to hide.

Sparrow's fingers tangled for a moment before she dropped them back to her sides, busying themselves with her leather satchel. She wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. This was a hunt, in all technicalities. She'd been up early, pacing back and forth like a perturbed kitten—because, she was terrified and angry and afraid of facing them again. Everything in her body screamed that she wanted to get this done and that it would have some positive effect on her life. It did not, however, stop her from rattling on to her companion, trying to will some of the Tranquil's unruffled calm into herself. It was impossible. Fearful crackles of adrenaline coursed down her spine, readying herself for something that was to come. Perhaps, today, or tomorrow, depending on if Ithilian could find them as easily as she believed he could. “What if they've heard word and left already?” She seethed, arms crossed. “No, no, they wouldn't.”

Once they entered the Alienage, Sparrow pulled out the letter from her small space of her breastplate, reaching over the lip. She wore it, more often than not, in Kirkwall—for who could recognize her if she was wearing an iron visor, plopped down to obscure her face? Her armour concealed her gender, as well. Though, with Kirkwall's blistering heat, it was difficult not to feel as if she were boiling up in a tin can, or an open soup-pot. She spotted Ithilian and Aurora across the way, and threw her arm out in a wide wave, letter held aloft. “Yo-ho!” The half-elf greeted, bumping Rilien's elbow with her own as if to get them moving along quicker. “I've good news, I hope. Er, rather. A better idea of their whereabouts.” In long strides, Sparrow halted in front of Ithilian and dropped the letter in his lap, staring expectantly. It had their names written in it, but the locations were generalized. She was no good with riddles.

Rilien had watched her eat herself from the inside out for a number of days, but it had finally reached the point where he’d simply appeared in front of her pacing form one evening and pointed to the sofa in their shared living space. She’d sat, with great reluctance, and then he’d sat beside her, close enough to brush her leg with his, because as much as he hated the feeling of freezing and drowning again when it was all over, she needed someone to feel with her, for her, and even his logic had informed him of this conclusion. He knew the story—what about her life did he not know? He had contacts, ears to the ground, scruffy little children he paid handsomely to listen, beggars and thieves to sneak into shadowed corners and earn their keep doing less dangerous things than begging and thieving.

The thing had made an appearance on the Wounded Coast, and taken its first innocent (or relatively innocent—Rilien was not fool enough to assign that adjective fully to anyone in this forsaken place) victim. In front of the Viscount’s daughter, known to have sympathies in the general direction of the Chantry and the Templars. The eventual description, the story in its fullest form, had not, however, issued from her, but a guard who had been half-delirious at the time, and given only the vaguest, most confused of descriptions. Rilien used his network, and some of the members of Varric’s, to further muddle the story, until some versions of the demon were twelve-foot-tall monstrosities with sickly green skin. Certainly not something anyone would find near Sparrow.

But these—subtle misdirections and delicately-spun lies—were not what Sparrow had needed then, and she also did not need to know that he understood just as much of it as she did. Perhaps more. So instead, he listened wordlessly as she relayed the tale, and he felt. Predominant was a hot rage at the thing, though there was some irritation at Sparrow for using her magic in front of Sophia Dumar in the first place. He was also
 moved. Sympathy was not something he’d often known before, but he couldn’t think to call it by any other name. Sitting there had also reminded him of how tired he was. The first stage of brewing the potion that he required to fix this had started about a week ago, and he was searching for the key ingredient in the meantime. There were a couple of potential sites near Kirkwall, but he needed to survey them from a closer location to discern if there was enough magic in any of them to potentially contain what he was looking for. The Tranquil was, to put it another way, not sleeping very much anymore.

Still, as he accompanied her to the Alienage, there was no tell of it save the soft bruising under his eyes, mostly covered with some alchemical concoction or another. The heat of summer drew near, but if the sun beating down on his white head bothered him at all, Rilien made no sign of it. He ignored the urge to twitch when her elbow knocked his—she had a tendency to forget what even such incidental things caused—and he did not quicken his footsteps visibly, but kept pace all the same, all the way to the great tree in the middle of the place.

He recognized both of the people beneath it, though he would not have expected either to be involved had Sparrow not told him that they were. He said nothing. He was here to kill whatever needed killing; the talking could be left to those more disposed to it.

Ithilian had been in the middle of his first conversation with Aurora in which he hadn't been actively trying to remove her from the Alienage. It was a rather frightening thing to witness, but at least it had been she who had approached him, while he'd sat playing the flute near the vhenadahl. Conversations with Amalia were still... a little tense, so he'd been giving her a good deal of space for the most part, but at the moment she was not present in the Alienage.

The conversation, mostly one-sided as it had been, was interrupted when Sparrow returned to the Alienage, this time with a folded paper in hand, and a Tranquil in tow. He hadn't expected her to disappear forever, certainly. As someone who fully understood the idea of vengeance, Ithilian knew just how powerful it could be. She would not simply stop because of difficulties, of course, not if these men had wronged her as she implied. He would have sought their deaths, certainly.

Ithilian glanced at the letter she'd plopped into his lap, before cracking it open, his eyes darting across the contents. "... A request for an unspecified shipment of six units, to be delivered to 'the seventh, below the west chain.' The exchange is to be this evening. Signed, Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil." He knew the forest well enough, but that didn't sound a forest location. He shrugged, looking up at the pair, glancing once at Aurora. "Location sound familiar to any of you?"

She watched Ithilian expectantly, nearly echoing the same words under her breath. Her lips made to move, before clamping shut. Maker knew she'd read the damn thing into oblivion, memorizing every word under hazy lamplight, and pausing every time her eyes roved over their names. She whispered them like curses, willing death and justice and pain upon them. Silianand Arcadius—they could not give her innocence back. Their price would be death, in whatever way she could make worse. They did not deserve mercy, nor would she grant them quick deaths. She doubted that Ithilian would have anything to say to the idea of drawing out their deaths, but she did not think Aurora would think it right. She shrugged her shoulders, eyeing the sky as if to conjured up the location in her mind. The seventh, below the west chain? What the hell did that mean?

Aurora chewed her lip for a moment running the description through her mind. It was certainly cryptic, but unsurpising considering who it had signed it. However, she was quick one and thinking about it logically should reveal the answer. "No, but it sounds like it has to be somewhere in the city," She began. Certainly not in the forest as she was expecting to head first. The shipment though, the fact that something was being shipped meant something. "If a shipment is being delivered, then perhaps... The docks?" she asked. It'd be a lot easier to smuggle something out by boat than by cart. "The seventh pier maybe?" She offered. "Underneath the western boom chain," Rilien finished, "I know where that is."

"Then there's a meeting to be interrupted, and scum to be killed," Ithilian said. Really, he felt rather good about this now. Perhaps he was trying to live without needless hate now, with his eyes open, but this wasn't needless, and sinking blades into the flesh of the lowest of individuals was something that he had always found rewarding. Aurora turned her nose up, but said nothing. Killing still sat ill with her, but this was not her choice. Ithilian was right, in any case. They were scum, and if not dealt with would only continue to do what they did.

Bolstered by Rilien's composed presence, shadowing her movements like her thick-plated armour, Sparrow felt as if she could carry this thing out. She did not need her companion to say a word. Her nervousness ebbed and flowed in turbulent waves, retreating a little further each time. He, as well as her like-minded acquaintance and generous mage-friend, would help her see this through. Honestly, she couldn't say enough to thank them. Words could do no justice. Actions would prove just how much she was indebted to them—and should they refuse her future attempts to pay them back, Sparrow would stubbornly persist until they took back all of their rebuffs and reluctantly accepted whatever help she had in mind. Her dogged determination would win, in the end.

The lack of animosity between her temporary hunting-partners was welcome, indeed. Had there been anything between them, Sparrow might not have noticed, anyway. From her harried, and often blurry recollection, nothing bad had happened between Aurora and Rilien (though he probably wouldn't have told her if something had), and she wasn't exactly sure if Rilien and Ithilian had even spoken more than a few words to each other, if any at all. Either way, everyone seemed rather content, if not entirely nonplussed by the company they stood in. Sparrow was pleased. She offered Rilien a half-smile, smoothing her hands across her chest-plate. Hopefully, nothing would go wrong and they could be done with this quickly. Though, not too quickly. As much as she wanted to be relieved of the heaviness weighing on her shoulders, Sparrow wanted them to suffer as much as she had suffered. It was a selfish thing to want, and perhaps a little cruel. But, it was not a feeling she could readily dismiss.

Sparrow instinctively peered across the Alienage, through the great tree's foliage, in the vague hopes of spotting her once-friend. It might have been true that she hadn't sought her out for this particular mission, but she still wanted her to know that she was finally burying important parts of her past. That, finally, some of her hurts might be put to rest. And, finally, that she might be allowed to stop running. She would be allowed to rest, finally. The aching bitterness consumed her; it was an ugly, crushing feeling that she believed she shared with Ithilian. It swallowed every particle, deep down into her core. Painted things she'd once seen as beautiful into a horrifically abstract canvas, splattered with things she'd rather forget. She felt it was her right to hunt them down, and make them pay, dearly, for everything they'd done. Surely, she hadn't been the only one.

“The docks,” Sparrow repeated, clapping a fist into her palm. “Makes sense, if no one's spotted them anywhere else.” Hiding like bilge rats, scampering over the wooden decks of a ship. It made her sick how they could have been so close to her, and her being completely unaware of their whereabouts. How long had they been drifting in and out of Kirkwall? How long had they been living in the same city? An involuntary shiver pebbled her spine and forearms, hidden beneath her sweltry iron plates. When Rilien conceded knowledge of the riddle-place in the letter, Sparrow turned towards him and nodded vigorously, wooden and jittery with something. Not quite excited and not quite terrified. “Lead on, then. I can discuss some things on the way.”

Namely, how they fought, how they weaselled around the battlefield. It was true that they might've changed, but she would always remember how they'd faced the band of Qunari. They were dirty fighters, and rather good. If not for the Qunari's numbers, and the mercenaries' genuine surprise, it might not have gone in her favour. “Arcadius looks a tad like Lucien. You'll likely recognize him first. He uses a long blade, curved slightly and he's quick. And Silian, I've seen him use magic. Dirty magic—blood, I think. He could move corpses. Neither will fight fair, but it's to be expected. Scum fight like scum.” She felt foolish for warning them, but they needed to be prepared either way.

Ithilian silently took in the warnings, and nodded. The mage would likely not be his business, if he could help it. He could shoot him down from afar, or sink blades into his flesh, but he knew not how to defend against magic other than to get the hell out of the way. Perhaps Aurora would be more willing to handle him. As for this Arcadius, Ithilian could cross blades with him, but if this was Sparrow's vengeance, undoubtedly Sparrow had something in mind. More importantly, it was her vengeance, and as such it should be her to claim it, if she truly desired to when the time came upon her. If she decided against it, he'd be more than happy to slice under their throats, but he knew nothing of these men other than what he'd been told. They would undoubtedly bring assistance, if they were not fools. Ithilian would be more than capable of handling these, when the fight came.

It seemed
 wrong, that a man like that should wear a face like Lucien’s. Then again, Rilien was probably more nonplussed by something Rapture had told him once: that she was overlaying the face of a tormentor on his, trying to make Sparrow believe that he was one of them. He assumed it much be the blood mage, for attempting to force his structure to mimic that of his chevalier ally was quite like attempting to make a circle into a square. It didn’t matter, he told himself, they were going to die anyway. He was not overly concerned with who did what damage to which, but he would accept instruction, if Sparrow gave it. Even if part of him wanted to gut the one that was supposed to be a bit like him. Just to prove that it wasn’t. She had told him to lead on, so he did, padding up the Alienage steps on silent feet. Whatever awaited them, it would soon be theirs to deal with.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Sparrow followed Rilien, with her companions, through the dusky city, occasionally glancing at the Gallows sitting on the horizon, looming like a foreboding giant. Twisted statues, immense gates and ever-vigilant Templars watching like slavering shrikes. She wondered if it'd been done on purpose, building the archways in such a way that they'd be visible from all angles and levels of Kirkwall. If it wasn't for its grisly history, she might have thought it looked impressive. A castle in its own rights, barring away all signs of hope and freedom. It reminded her of Sophia. Certainly, not the brutality. But, the sense of justice that wafted down in waves. The docks came quickly, billowing the scent of rotten fish, sweaty bodies and who-knows-what-else. It was fetid, filled with bilge from the docked ships and whatever else Kirkwall felt free to dump here. Trash, old garbage, dead fish, dead people. She still enjoyed hanging around the sailors, opening up caskets filled with aged rum and clanking wooden cups together to celebrate another long haul she hadn't been present to enjoy—but, they still shared with her because she sang for them and made them laugh.

There would be no laughing on this occasion, and she hoped she didn't see anyone she recognized. Sparrow adjusted the straps of her chest plate, rearranged the weight distribution. Tightened and loosened the straps, fiddled with the fastenings. She was not as silent as Ithilian, nor Rilien. Her footsteps were clattering things, iron slapping against broken cobblestones. She kicked up pebbles until they skirted off the edge, plopped in the briny water. All clenched knuckles, mace-handed and frustratingly tense, Sparrow wondered if her companions, her hunting partners, were any amount of nervous she was. It didn't seem likely. Courage was a difficult thing to conjure. Every step closer seemed like a tangible thing that was making her shrink backwards, becoming younger and younger. More vulnerable, with fragmented bones, bruised lips and clouded lungs. Resisting the innate urge to step closer to Rilien, Sparrow removed her helmet and tucked it under her armpit. She wanted them to recognize her. She wanted them to know who was seeking their end.

She did not ask whether or not they were close. Exchanging a look with Rilien revealed that they were nearly there, rounding another corner until they descended a grimy set of staircases. It was surprisingly out of the way—and she wondered whether or not she even knew of this location's existence. No, she'd never been here. If she had... perhaps, she would have managed to kill them long ago. Sparrow chewed her lip, descending the last step. The metal plates of her amour, creaking at the joints, seemed to gain the attention of a few sailors. Sifting through wooden boxes on the decks of a discernibly large ship, hardly lifting their heads to identify who was making such a goddamn racket. The larger buildings and lower docking created a makeshift grotto, hiding it from view unless you tallied down the fishy stairwell. Few and far in-between, exempting Rilien, were willing to drift too far from the main docks, and for good reason, unless they wanted all of their coin pinched from their pockets.

Worse yet, being thrown into the water for trespassing on shady transactions. Sparrow squinted her dark eyes, noting oddly-shaped boxes at the end of the docks, slightly larger than the others, with rusty bars and emaciated forms hunkered in the middle. Her mouth went dry, and her breath hitched. Slaves—elves, humans. The closest sailor waved his hand at them, clearly confused as to why they were here. His crooked teeth flashed, pulling back into an ugly grimace. “Oi', bugger off.” The second sailor, long-haired and unkempt, clapped him on the back and whispered something into his ear. The exchange only lasted a moment. Crooked-teeth regarded them once more, eyes trailing to the human girl. “Eh, less 'ave got business, innit?” Three elves. It seemed peculiar that a woman would be leading unchained (and armed) slaves to the docks, where they'd been waiting for another shipment.

But, Fell Orden had told them that Little Sophie was a fiery lass.

If Rilien had been asked, he would have advised a much stealthier approach, for himself and the Dalish hunter if nobody else. The less their enemies knew of them, the better, but he was not asked, and Sparrow was not subtle, so in the open they all remained, conspicuous as that made them. Some of the men down on this dock knew him by sight, but these were none of them. He had no business in flesh, nor with those who traded in it. He may spare few thoughts to morality and suchlike, but even he was not cruel enough to bind someone in chains and sell them like one would a chicken or a goat.

He studied the arrangement of the gazes, reading from the motion of eyes what these men thought of their arrival. Though he walked slightly to the front, most looked at Aurora, the only human in the group, then the other three, then back to the redheaded mage. Rilien adjusted his gait slightly so as to fall into step beside her. “They assume that you are in charge,” he told her, curiously without seeming to move his lips at all. His voice was pitched low enough to be only audible to the three nearest him, so effectively, nobody else would know he'd said anything at all. “If you can act it, we may be able to sight our true targets before the killing begins.” He did not desire that they should wade their way through a small sea of blood and allow the actual intended recipients of Sparrow’s vengeance to escape in the meantime. A slaver was almost always a coward, and a coward would not remain after witnessing what damage such a small group was capable of inflicting.

It was likely not possible for Ithilian to appear as a slave, or to even get him to attempt to. He too would have preferred a more subtle approach, at least to open up the conflict, as his longbow and quiver of arrows were currently feeling suspiciously like unnecessary weight behind him. His right hand rested on one of his blades, the left itching to pull Parshaara and teach these slavers what agony felt like. He preferred a bloody fight to something quick and clean, especially against types like these, but it would have been ideal to at least start the fight with the upper hand. But, perhaps it could still be done.

The Tranquil's words reached his ears, and he frowned. Drawing them out could be difficult, if they were the cowardly type. Surely Aurora would have some experience with putting on a false face, if she had survived as an apostate for this long, but assuming the identity of a slaver was no easy task. Explaining why she was flanked by three armed and armored elves (or two and a half, perhaps) was even more difficult. Honestly, Ithilian had little expectation for the fight to be put off for long, but he was certainly willing to give it a shot. It would be a waste if they came here and spilled all this blood, and never found the particular pair of throats she was looking to slit.

Well, not that much of a waste. Killing any of these men would be a good use of his time.

What? He thought she was in charge? She was by far the smallest and most unarmed (to the naked eye) one among them, and she was the one in charge? Not only were the business they were in deplorable, but they were dumb as rocks too. Aurora had her head tilted when Rilien spoke to her, to which she rolled her eyes. If they believed that she was in charge, then everything else should be simple. "Fine," she said, less than enthused. Like or not, it was probably all going to end the same. In blood and destruction. At least this way they could see who they need to kill before things got inevitably violent.

It was hard enough to understand the slack-jaw with his lip in the way, and it caused her to issue a loud, exaggerated sigh. "Yes, yes, business. Glad to know that you can see," Aurora began, taking on an aloof tone. Truth be told, it wasn't that hard, "Now, am I to believe that I have to do this business with you? Or are you gonna go get your boss for me before I leave? I doubt he'll be happy, considering." Aurora crossed her arms and nodded to her three companions. As far as elves go, they didn't get much more healthy and interesting as those three.

Crook-teeth squinted at her, beady eyes roving down her shirt-front until he seemed to remember himself. He clicked his tongue and shrugged his shoulders, leaning heavily over the wooden railing to better inspect the three armed elves flanking her heels—slave-guardians, perhaps? Ambitious owners had been known to teach their slaves to kill for them, but three seemed like overkill. Especially for a woman who was said to have been able to hold her own against much larger men. Fell Orden's claims may have been embellished. He certainly did not know what she looked like, either. The silence grew between them, prickly and uncomfortable, until Little Sophie stepped ahead of her slaves and told them, quite clearly, that they'd better fetch their captains or they wouldn't be too happy with their inactivity. He chuckled awkwardly, flapping his hand at his companion to go bloody well fetch them.

“Oi, oi. Missus, they be comin' alright.” Crook-teeth drawled, bobbing his head back and forth. He hawked harshly and spat into the briny waters, eyeing Ithilian and Rilien. They might'en reward him for his diligence, too. They were a little early, but they never knew when to expect shipments these days. It was getting more and more difficult to shepherd them through Kirkwall without being seen—and the vagrant clans were getting wise to their schemes, hiding away their children like angry, circle-forming buffalos. His cheeky grin displayed piano-key teeth, pulled into something that he might have thought was coquettish, but only appeared lewd and vulgar. “Dressed mighty nice fer' dirty knife-ears, I say, messere Sophie. Look healthy, too. Dona' skimp on meals, get my saying—”

Sparrow seemed petrified in place, hardly moving from Aurora's side. Fear charged through her veins like a wild chariot, rearing its head only long enough for her to feel like she was shrinking backwards or being pulled between the slats of wood beneath their feet. It was unreasonable, and alarmingly stupid. She'd been waiting for this moment for ages. Every cutthroat, bloodthirsty thought had been cultivated in her dreams. She had been adamant, desperate for them to understand. The passion in the few short sentences she'd first uttered to Ithilian seemed foolish now. All of her doubts pricked numbing talons into her shoulder blades, bellying a gutlessness she could not comprehend. Her mouth went dry, for she knew not what to say to these dirty, disgusting wretches. Everything in her body urged her to simply do away with them and recklessly tromp through the ship until they found them—though, that plan was as unwise as simply walking down into this hidden harbour (which had also been her idea).

Thankfully, Rilien leaned into Aurora, quietly suggesting that she'd better take the reins and impersonate whomever they believed she was. The stagnant feeling in her stomach abated, if only a little. The tight knots wringing braids with her innards loosened. She wasn't required to do anything but stand there, masquerading as a slave. As long as she kept her mouth promptly closed, they wouldn't have any trouble right away. It was difficult enough while emaciated forms crooked forward like weeping willows, fingers wrung around the bars, and shallow faces watching them as they conversed with their captors. She felt ill. The temperature felt as if it'd dropped dramatically. Her flattened ears picked up advancing sounds of someone climbing wooden stairs. Thok, thok, thok.

Sparrow recognized him immediately, gracefully stepping onto the deck. He wore thick boots, loudly clopping as he strode over to the railing to join the ugly sailor. He nearly floated. Thick ringlets fell across his forehead, contouring cloudy eyes, awfully amused by their appearance. The expression faltered completely when he looked down at them—and Silian whipped towards Crook-teeth, scowling fiercely. “Idiot! That isn't Sophie. Get Arcadius, now. Send the boys up, as well.” He nearly slapped his head as Crook-teeth scampered away from him, as if he'd been struck. Like an exasperated mother who'd caught her children in the cookie jar, Silian turned towards them and combed slender fingers through his hair. He looked sallower then before, obviously having lost weight with age. “Tch. We were expecting a group of much more vulnerable... I see neither Fell, nor Victor here. But, instead, a lofty group of elves with a woman. Armed to the teeth, no less. Now, if you're adventurers, I'd suggest moving on your way. Forget you've seen this, or I may rip out your skull and beat you with it.”

The threat flew straight over her head. Sparrow cradled her discomfort, willed it to disappear. So, Arcadius was here, as well. Cotton lungs clenched. Her lip trembled, but she still managed to sputter, “You.” The mace was in her hand, though she had no recollection of reaching for it, white-knuckled and at the ready. Drums barrelled through her head, drowning out the sound of the tide slapping against the pier. Sailors were already stomping back onto the deck—armed with shiny blades still stained with blood.

Silian swung his lidded gaze onto her, eyebrows knitting. There was a tense moment of silence, before he laughed sharply, twisting the staff from his back and tapping it across the railing. “Me. And who are you?”

Perhaps, that was worse.

It did look a little bit like him. Rilien was not vain, despite was his appearance might suggest, and on a clinical level, he understood that it would not have been terribly difficult for a demon to make him look like this man—their hair shared a hue, their faces a fine-boned angularity. They were even of a height. Something twinged distantly in the back of his mind, a feeling of disgust, he thought. It took no more than the space of a blink after Silian had finished talking for Rilien to dart forward, drawing his enchanted knives from the sheaths on his back. The sailors were slower to react to the sudden burst of violent action than they should have been, but someone else could take advantage of that if they wished—he had only one target in mind.

Sparrow was clearly not in the right state of mind for this, but she would never forgive herself if these two men got away. He would make sure she did not have to fight that battle with her own mind, and trust that she would come around in enough time to do what she was really here to do. Ducking and weaving around sailors hastily-drawing their weapons, the Tranquil sprinted up the gangplank, throwing himself to the side in just enough time to avoid a burst of flame from the mage atop the deck, rolling back to his feet undaunted and leaping forward.

Silian’s own reflexes spared him from being unceremoniously skewered, and he took only a slice to the outside of his arm for the trouble. Taking no time to lament the loss of the clean kill, Rilien decided to settle for the dirty one. Lacking much of a conscience, he was not at all concerned by the thought of inflicting pain on this man, however unnecessary.

The mage, though, only smiled, as if the Tranquil had done him some great favor, and Rilien’s sixth sense lit up with a very different kind of magic—insidious and creeping, as though it lingered under their skins and threatened to sever everything from within. The dripping line of blood on the bandit’s arm rose into the air, and he hooked his fingers, driving it at the elf like a lash. Dropping into a crouch, the intended target ignored the crack overhead as it snapped, whiplike, into the space he’d just occupied, and pressed forward, hooking his right-hand blade out in an attempt to hamstring the man, who just laughed when it instead met a wall of hardened red, blocking access to the spot at which he’d been aiming. His control was formidable, and Rilien knew this would not be a simple matter of a few hits.

Ithilian liked the Tranquil's initiative. He'd been wondering if seeing one of the two targets would be an acceptable time to begin, but Sparrow herself seemed to be in no clear head to be making these decisions. Rilien, on the other hand, had just decided for them all that the battle was to begin, which Ithilian really had no problems with. Arcadius was supposedly on his way, and it would be easier to kill them in groups rather than all at once.

Leaving the blood mage to the Tranquil, Ithilian drew his blades and darted forward after the other elf did so. He didn't think starting a fire here would be wise, and so Parshaara remained in its sheath. The surprise of seeing Rilien simply charge into battle with one of their leaders was enough of a distraction for Ithilian to get his first kill free, by plunging his right hand blade through the belly of the nearest slaver up to the hilt, before raising a shoe to the man's chest and kicking him off of it, to fall backwards into the water with a heavy splash.

The second one came at him from the right, swiping quickly with a small hand axe that Ithilian sidestepped left out of the way of, flipping his right hand blade over in his hand. He stepped forward and plunged down, stabbing the short sword into the back of the man's knee, a light pop accompanying the sound of splitting flesh as the blade punched out of the kneecap, and the slaver went down to a knee in agony. He ripped the blade free and spun, flipping the sword back over in his hand and landing a clean, swift slice at the base of the slaver's neck, the weapon cutting clean through and shortening him by a head.

Really, Aurora would love to see the man try to beat her with her own skull. She was not impressed by the boast, and even less so when he revealed his control of blood magic. In fact, Aurora seemed a mite bit disappointed, going so far as to tiredly sigh. "It's always blood magic. This is why we get sent to the circle," Aurora monotoned, seeming less willing to plunge headlong into the fray. Blood magic, she had yet to meet a mage outside the circle who either didn't practice the art, or didn't want to kill them. Most of the time, it was both. Funny, the ones who turned to blood magic were always the weaker willed ones, who believed it would give them strength. It was a topic for thought, but for later, she was there to help, and help she would. Seeing how she was the least imposing member of their elven band, it left it with very few glances in her direction. Why would they, when the tranquil and dalish were right in the middle of showing off their own brand of ferocity?

She gave Sparrow one last glance before walking into the fray. Most of the commotion was centered on both Rilien and Ithilian, so it was with impunity that Aurora waltz up behind the nearest slaver, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him to the ground. She shifted her hand from his collar to the side of his head, steadying it while she rained down a number of quick punches to the top of his crown. When she was done, the slaver was out cold. Her actions did not go unnoticed, as another slaver watched this petite girl effortlessly dispatch his coworker. Unfortunately, this one had a whip. The air in front of her nose cracked as the whip cut through the air, and she threw herself back.

That would be problematic. Whips weren't deadly... but they hurt.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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It was difficult for Sparrow to shake herself off and join in the fray, though she did catch Aurora's sideways glance and swallowed dryly, rummaging within herself for a sense of courage she did not currently feel. Her legs felt like jelly, sticking to the wooden boards as if she'd been frozen there—just another statue to add to the Gallows. But her friends were engaged with the sailors, and more importantly, Silian. Her clammy hands shifted as she hurtled forward, sidestepping around Aurora and bodily throwing herself into the whip-wielding sailor, clipping him violently with her huddled shoulder. It was enough to send him tumbling backwards, skidding on his rear. She did not stop. She did not slow her maddening pace. There was a wildness flashing in her murky eyes, reflecting Silian's sanguine whip and the back of Rilien's shoulders. Graceless and audaciously reckless as she might have been, Sparrow did not pause to consider her actions when she threw herself to the side, swinging her flanged mace as if it were a slender, precise blade. She aimed for the back of his legs, intending to break every bone.

Fortune favoured the wicked. Sparrow's mace rebounded off Silian's crimson shield, swept up with the flick of his slender wrist, and swung her in the opposite direction. He smiled coyly, fluttering long eyelashes in her direction, but kept the majority of his attention directed at her Tranquil-companion, crackling his whip with waggling fingers. Wide, animated eyes orchestrated her frustrations. Her teeth chattered, clenching and unclenching. Every injustice roared through her head like clamouring lions, toppling over one another, unrestrained and unbound. Her breath hitched, struggling to wheeze out of her lungs. Rapture was unusually quiet, hidden in the darkest parts of her Fadespace—watching and waiting and engrossing herself with her fingernails, though she could feel a certain unease from her. It only fed the flames broiling in her stomach, spilling over into her thoughts. She was not thinking. But, Rilien was like the tide to her hurricane, weaving around the trouncing cracks of the whip, calm and collected as always.

Sparrow found the scream settled under her chin, curdling there like rotten teeth. It bubbled out of her mouth, filtered through her bitterness. She charged again, swinging her mace in a wide arc. Silian, once more, slapped her away with his own blood. Her momentum carried her towards the railing and one of her hands instinctively shot out, preventing herself from tumbling overboard. Her scream, it seemed, reminded him of something. Another smile tugged at his lips, and his tired eyes beamed in recognition. He lowered his voice, but it still seemed like he was dropping plates when he said, “Ah, you. Little girl in the woods. It was hard to recognize you like that, all dolled up in steel.” The sanguine-whip slapped the air, attempting to keep Rilien at bay. He did not even turn to look at her. “A dime a dozen. It's hard to keep them all straight when you've been in the business this long.” The loud, agonized cry bunched itself in her chest, replaced by another sharp intake of breath.

To him, she'd been nothing. To him, she'd been just another. Forgettable, hardly worth remembering. She wanted, with a desperation she could not justify, for him to regret everything he'd done as he died. She wanted him to die brutally, without an ounce of mercy. She wanted him to beg and cry and wail like a broken, doe-eyed mother who'd just lost her child. Even now, Silian seemed to be pleasantly surprised, rather than terrified that he may die. Sparrow pushed away from the railing, gripping her mace, two-handed, and swung once more. This time, Silian's whip crackled towards her, slicing a fine line down across her neck and face, stopping short below her left eye. Had she not understood what blood magic was, then she would have asserted that hardening blood was impossible—that slicing someone's face with their own blood was a joke. It hurt her enough to ruin her forward push. Momentarily blinded by her blood, or speckles of his, Sparrow collided into another sailor, bringing him down with her.

Her fingers, free of her mace, frantically grappled onto the first thing she managed to touch. Someone's scalp. Grimy, dirty hair with a tousled bandana. Sparrow wrenched backwards, straddling the man and jerking his head up with her, only long enough to slam it back down against the wooden slats. She felt as if she'd been ripped inside out, inverted and uncomfortable. Her fear radiated under her skin, rippling away with all of her anger. Stretched thin and wounded. And like a coward, Sparrow pictured Silian's face on the sailors, slamming his head again and again.

Rilien’s next attempt to move forward was diverted sideways with another crack of the whip, which forced him to dodge. Unlike the regular variety of such a weapon, this one was controlled only by the mind of the wielder, the kinetic motions only necessary for the psychological effect of moving that mind along its proper paths. He felt a measure of disdain that this man needed that much. But perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was only for show. That he was capable of manipulating a weapon and a shield of blood at the same time spoke to a great deal of skill, not nearly as subtle as most Magisters would claim, but suited for a violent occupation such as this. Those with feelings to speak of might have felt daunted. Rilien could not recall what it was to be daunted.

Sparrow entered the fray then, her in articulate, almost animal rage met time and again by Silian’s amusement and his shield both. And still, he devoted the attentions of his offensive arm to the Tranquil rather than the mace-bearer, who in her fury seemed once again to have forgotten her own magic. It seemed that he recognized her after all, but only as one face in a long chain of them, and truthfully, Rilien had expected nothing else. He wondered distantly, ducking around another lash with dexterous ease, whether it was a blow to her pride to realize as much. It shouldn’t be—the recognition of this one wasn’t worth that.

Sparrow was beaten back and turned to the side, and Rilien took his opportunity—or that’s what he would have said he was doing. It was hard to tell, but his feet may have been driven forth just as much by his desire to remove the blood mage’s attention from his friend as from any particular strategic advantage presented at the moment. It worked, however, and Silian found himself with a new, deeper gash to his side for his trouble. Only the need to remain out of reach of the whip, lest it bind him, prevented Rilien from disemboweling the man for truth. The mage pressed a hand to the wound, and it came back covered in ichor. “My, my; that silly little girl has quite the voracious hound, doesn’t she?” A flare of magic, and the wound ceased bleeding, at least for the moment. But a blood mage was not a healer, and both of them knew it was a temporary solution at best.

This time, the whip caught him off guard, going low rater than high, and instead of lashing him across the back or the face as Silian had seemed to be initially intending, it slithered around one of Rilien’s ankles, wrenching abruptly upward and hanging the Tranquil upside-down in the air for the space of a breath, before it snapped out and down, slamming him bodily against the deck of the ship. He felt a crack as his nose broke, blood gushing from the wound and over his mouth and chin, but though the rest of the force had been bruising, it was insufficient to break any of his sturdier bones.


At least until the motion was repeated, and then he felt one of his ribs give under the pressure, snapping uncomfortably. The third time, Rilien did not allow the motion to complete, slicing through the blood-whip with enchanted steel at the apex of his upward arc, something which flung him further into the air and gave him ample time to adjust for his landing. Thudding to his feet on the wooden floorboards of the boat, he wasted no time, and the point at which elegance was required was long over. As Silian had done, Rilien went for the unexpected, lowering his shoulder and taking the other man into a grapple on the ground. The shield was useless at such range, and before the mage could so much as protest, Rilien had staked one of his shoulders to the ground, this with the ice-blade, which had the added effect of freezing most of the blood, rendering it unusable for the foul magic.

Silian didn’t look so amused now, but Rilien didn’t really care. He wasn’t interested in things like vengeance or admonishing this man for what he’d done. Words were often useless, and this was one of those times. The slaver knew why they were here, and he knew what fate awaited him. Discussing it would only grant him the chance to think of something to prolong his life, and that was simply unacceptable. The Tranquil did manage to muster a glare from somewhere in his old repertoire, however, and a tiny, wicked little twist to his mouth. Instilling a little fear seemed appropriate enough—though whether either expression of mood was genuine or merely affected was hard to tell. He’d been trained that way.

And just like he’d been trained, his other blade started at Silian’s left ear, biting deep and sliding with both precision and no haste along the line where neck met jaw, finishing its elegant sweep at the lobe of his opposite ear. There was no mistaking that the blood that welled from this wound took his life with it, and Rilien stood, his face once more smooth and impassive, even given the break in his nose and the crimson trail now winding erratically down his throat. Flicking his knife to clear it of blood as much as could be done, he planted a foot in Silian’s shoulder and used that as leverage to work his other free. Now
 how did the others fare?

It wasn't long before some other company arrived, and Ithilian turned to see three more enemies approaching from the rear, slipping out of shadows to try and help their soon-to-be-slain leaders. Seeing as the mage was in the capable hands of two of his allies, he rushed to meet these newcomers, and prevent them from reaching the others. He was certain that if they knew just what kind of teeth they were walking into, they'd turn right around and run the other way, but sadly all they seemed to see was two and a half elves and a small woman, and it would be the last mistake they'd ever make.

Aurora had taken the opportunity given to her by Sparrow and rushed forward. She took advantage of the sailor sitting on his rear and ran through him, bringing up a knee and smashing it into his face. As his head ripped back and smacked against the ground, Aurora straddled him, picking his head up by the back and hammered two blows home into the center of his skull, knocking him out as well. With two of the sailors dealt with on her end, she stood and took a step toward the blood mage currently engaged with the pair consisting of Sparrow and her Tranquil friend. Blood magic was dirty business, and one she hoped to scrub away personally. She saw it as a weakness of character to resort to such dark magic, seeing it as a lack of willpower to resist the allure of false power. Unfortunately, the pair would have to deal with Silian himself, as another three sailors stepped from the shadows to aid their comrades.

Eyes fluttered to Silian and then back to the trio, and with a grumble she too turned to face the new arrivals. While she was unsure of Sparrow's emotional state, she could be perfectly sure of Rilien's, and trusted the tranquil enough to do what must be done. So she followed in Ithilian's wake toward the next couple of sailors. While she'd been careful about ending any lives thus far, she felt that streak was soon to be broken in the Dalish's company. So be it, they were wicked men, they would all be dealt with sooner or later. At some time between the beginning of her run and the confrontation itself, she had called a layer of stoneskin across her arms, leaving her body stone-free to allow for better dexterity.

The first sailor that turned to her wielded a huge meat hook. The sight of the weapon sent a shudder down her spine and she hoped that he had only found it laying around on the docks. She didn't like the idea of a slaver handling a hook on a daily basis. He brought the hook down hard, looking to skewer her through the shoulder, but she was faster than he was with such an unconventional weapon. Instead of flesh the hook buried into stone, though the point did manage to touch flesh. It stung, but beat the alternative, and now the hook was stuck as well. With that in mind, Aurora hauled it back, overextending the Sailor and leaving his flanks wide open.

The young mage seemed willing to take the blows and allow Ithilian to deal them, which he was more than content with. After all, she had arms currently made of rock, and he had no problems with killing these people. Instead of immediately going for the exposed flank Ithilian struck upward with a blade into the hook-wielder's elbow, stabbing through it and pulling the arm away, removing him from his weapon. With that done he impaled the slaver through the middle with his other blade, his withdrawal accompanied by a headbutt to send the man to the ground, while Ithilian slipped around to take out the next aggressor.

The mage spent the next moment fishing the hook out of her armor, and by the time she managed to free it, the next sailor was upon her. This one was wielding a mace-- that would be a bit more difficult to dodge. She couldn't just hold up her armor and hope to take the hit, it would splinter both the rock and her arm in one fell swoop. So instead of doing just that, she moved inside his guard. past the handle of the flail. She took the opportunity to slam a rocky fist into his sternum, taking the breath out of his lungs and hunkering him forward. She was still worried about the backswing from the flail, and needed to neutralize it before it slammed into her back, snapping her like a twig. She reacted on instinct, swinging the meat hook up and around, hooking the elbow around the back of the man's neck. Next, she just dropped and yanked the hook at the same time, throwing her feet out from under her and bringing the man completely parallel with the ground. The sound of the flail head slamming into the ground was a comforting one, and now she could only hope Ithilian was kind enough to not bathe her in his blood.

By the time the enemy was bent over for Ithilian's attack, he was already in motion towards him, eyeing the head that was held down by the hook Aurora had commandeered. He launched a knee forward directly up into the slaver's forehead, cracking his head back with a snap and shatter of skull, and ripping the hook clean from Aurora's hand. The man toppled away onto his back and Ithilian's momentum carried him forward on top of him, where he sank both blades into the man's chest, for good measure.

The last chose to attack the murderous Dalish rather than the sitting mage, and Ithilian pulled his blades free in time to cross them and catch the down swipe from the third slaver's sword. This was followed up with a swift kick to the man's groin, and a rough shove in Aurora's direction, that she might do with him as she wished.

She was just returning to her feet when the last of the sailors was unceremoniously launched in her direction. She didn't even have the time to dust herself off before she was forced to react. She took a step forward, past the man with her stone encased arm extended. The rough appendage caught him in the center of the chest, and with a mighty heave, she used the heavy weight of her arm to force him off of his feet and planted him into the ground. She then raised her fist, the stone exterior peeling away in the middle of flight, so that the fist that struck the sailor's nose was made of flesh instead of stone. For extra insurance, she dropped another fist on the man's head, this time in the forehead to make sure that he was well and truly knocked out.

Now that all that had been settled, she finally found the opportunity to dust herself off and shake the pain from her hand. Her eyes then picked up where they left Rilien and Sparrow, seeing that they too had finished their own fight. With that, she nodded and shrugged, "So much for beating us with our skulls."

Sparrow pushed away from the sailor, fingers sticky with clumps of matted hair and blood. The man below her gurgled unintelligibly, fingers twitching until he exhaled, finally lying still. Her own breath came in sharp, uncontrolled rasps. If she looked back, she would be lost. If she hesitated now, then she'd only live to regret her own weaknesses. Sparrow bent to retrieve her weapon and took the time to look around her, to see how the others had fared. Her flanged mace thumped against the wooden planks, loosely held in her fingers. Honestly, she shouldn't have been surprised. Her companions were far stronger than they looked—though, if anyone had thought Ithilian weak, she would have laughed at them. Even Aurora seemed nonplussed by the onslaught of sailors, grimly wiping herself off. Flecks of pebbles skittered from her slender fingers, and Ithilian seemed to be just as happy to dispose of these disgusting cretins.

Uncertain, trembling fingers wiped at her face, smearing blood across her cheek and forehead. The ugly gash on her face only paused its bleeding for a moment, weeping back down her chin as soon as her hand withdrew. A dull, throbbing pain ignited its way down her jawline, drumming down her neck with each heartbeat. It didn't matter. The only thing that really mattered was making their way through the ship to find, and brutally kill, Arcadius before he managed to flee their wrath. She whipped her gaze around to her Tranquil-friend, who was finishing Silian off with a brutal slash to his face. Appreciation, and sickening fascination, swelled inside of her chest, infected her with a disturbing sense of satisfaction. She was truly happy that Rilien hadn't spared him any pain. She was happy and it made her feel sick. He stared ahead of him, expression blank and blanched as the vellum pages of a newbound book. If it hadn't been for the blood painting his face, running thickly from his nose, Sparrow might have thought he'd come out unscathed.

Her eyebrows screwed up, drawing tightly. Apologies bundled themselves in her parched throat, bubbling around words that would not puzzle back his nose in place or heal his broken ribs. She feebly wished that her magical repertoire came with some sort of healing ability—for if she tried to lay her hands on his face and weave cartilage and bone back into place, she might settle them in the wrong places and cause even more damage. It was the reason why she resonated so clearly with the more offensive aspects of magic. She could break and destroy and make a mess of things, but she was rubbish at fixing them. Sparrow took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them. Her hands trembled almost imperceptibly, drawing up to touch two fingers to his cheek. Sallow, selfish little girl in the woods, the creature whispered from her Fadespace, ever-smiling and dipping into her reservoir of guilt. “I'm sorry—I,” She sputtered, dropping her hand away, “I lost myself.”

Sparrow glanced at Aurora and Ithilian. This was not a game. She wanted to scream until her throat was raw, and cry as she hadn't since she was a small child—hadn't since that one day in Rilien's home. Her home. Her gaze rested on the magelet, requesting aid without opening her mouth. She knew that Aurora was capable of healing, but even she'd admitted that it wasn't her strongest suits. If she could not, then she would seek out Nostariel's aid. Rilien would probably refuse, saying that he could deal with it himself as soon as everything was finished. An old stubbornness, or an unwillingness to rely on others, seemed to be the cause, as always. Sparrow turned away and headed for the ship's staircases, door still hanging wide open. “Let's finish this, then.”

She would lead them down this time.

She would not hesitate.

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Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Rilien cocked his head to one side, blinking. “You need not apologize,” he informed Sparrow quietly, allowing the touch even though—or perhaps because—it allowed him to feel and understand feelings better. Though his face changed little, something about him softened. Perhaps it was his stance, or the hard look to his eye, but it was perceptible all the same. “Pain is fleeting, irrelevant. You matter more.” And that was the truth of it, even if he had difficulty understanding why. Almost everything he knew pertained to looking out for himself, ensuring his own survival, seizing personal advantage. He found the knowledge less and less pertinent as time moved on.

He didn’t like the look on her face, but stepped away from the contact before he could do something emotional and pointless like say as much. By that point, the others were done with the fight below and ascending the gangplank anyway. Rilien sheathed his knives momentarily, wiping the blood on his face away with a sleeve, glancing at the smear for a second before dismissing it. From a pouch at his belt, he withdrew a potion, a pearlescent red that marked its potency. His other hand went to his nose, and with a sure motion, he set the bones there properly in place, betraying no hint of the pain he professed to be in, then downed the concoction.

The cartilage in his face knit back together, a bit tender and not quite as perfectly straight as it used to be, but a slightly-crooked nose was not a problem as far as he was concerned. If it should truly become an issue, he could re-break it and set it more precisely with tools. His rib mended as well, and he replaced the empty container and stopper up one of his sleeves. The ship contained one obvious door, that doubtless led down to the captain’s quarters, cargo hold, and everything else stored in the bowels of such a transport. He indicated it with a glance, but he would let Sparrow lead the way down, now that she seemed to be in a more fit state for it.

You matter more. Sparrow wasn't sure what bothered her more—the fact that he was not upset with her selfish behaviour, or the fact that her apologies did little to stopper her guilt. The stabbing reminders and drawn out internal wounds were beginning to pull at her, plucking away her warmth. She was beginning to tire. If all of this could be over quickly, then she could begin to heal and continue throwing out apologies, tripping over herself to pay them back for all of their efforts. This meant more to her than they'd ever know. Words would never suffice. She swallowed thickly, wiping the sweat from her eyes. Someday, she'd begin to thaw. Someday, she'd be able to live with the dull ache and know, with replete certainty, that it would never happen again. Looking back on the events, Sparrow's memories could be filled with the vibrant, vivid recollection of Rilien's blade carvings its way through Silian's face. As if he were little more than a side of ham. Yes, it would do. Releasing would-be slaves, once they were done dealing with Arcadius, was only the icing on the cake. Ithilian and Aurora, no doubt, would agree with her.

She kept her footfalls to an acceptable din, silently descending into the ship's belly. This time, Sparrow did not plunge down the short staircase, rigid and graceless as a ball-jointed puppet, though she desperately wanted to. Hardly accustomed to stealth or even attempting at not being heard, Sparrow's eyes scrunched up in concentration, nose crinkling against the reek of unwashed bodies and urine. If fear had a smell, it was palpable enough to feel. The hairs on the back of her neck rose up, goosepebbling her copper skin. She rounded a sharp corner, peeking her head into an empty room. It was likely that whatever holding-space the other shipment had been contained in hadn't been washed since. Disgust roiled in her stomach, snatching up the reigns to her anger. The ship was badly lit. Lanterns peppered the hallways, hanging in rusted tins with white candles dripping hot wax on the floorboards. She imagined shadow-hands plucking at her from the darkness, trying to frighten her into turning back the way she'd come.

Pulling back from the musty chamber, with calloused fingers pinching the bridge of her nose (and failing miserably at keeping the stench away), Sparrow led them down another long hallway. Her sense of direction left little to be desired. Occasionally, she prodded doorways open with the toe of her boot, stuck her head into promising chambers, only to lead them back out again. But, it wasn't her fault. Every open doorway looked the same. Every hallway looked the same under the flickering glow of the lamplight’s, throwing stretched shadows across the walls. They must've been going in the right direction, because at the end of this particular corridor was another chamber, lit from the inside—door held slightly aloft, like he expected guests. Who else would have remained in the ship? They'd confronted no other sailors. No other grimy, bilge-rats hiding in dark corners while they trekked down. Her head throbbed again and she winced, inhaling a sharp breath through her nose.

Everyone behind her embodied everything she'd ever needed. Steady, even, smooth, strength, reasonable—calm in the most horrific situations while she flowed around them like an erratic tide, clinging onto their rock faces. Even Ithilian with all of his anger and injustices and bubbling indignities radiated these qualities. She took a few tentative steps forward, until she faced the door. Her eyes diverted from the crooked knob, fell to the floor and back up again. Like a little girl peeping in on someone, Sparrow gently pushed the door open, pulse quickening. Her throat tightened, voice threading away. He was there, sitting at an old oaken desk with his feet propped up on a stack of papers. Documents, information on his kidnapees, no doubt. An old, familiar sword was balanced across his knee, while he held a plumed pen in his hand, absently tapping his chin.

“Awfully rude, I'd say. Gentlemen, messere...” The man, with Lucien's likeness, trailed off, as if to invite introductions. He gave them no time to respond, gesturing offhandedly with his pen. There was no indication that he was worried, no hasty movement to defend himself. Whatever intentions the group may have had coming in, Arcadius acted as if he was savvy to nothing that had occurred on the upper decks. “I wasn't expecting any visitors today.”

Sparrow's lips set into a hard, thin line. She managed to find her voice in time, scuffling out of her stupor and feigned a dry laugh. Cold, brittle and bristling with embellished satisfaction. This was her victory. “Papyrus.” It almost felt as if she were talking about someone else. As if Papyrus was separate from Sparrow. Perhaps, they would always remain that way. A small measure of gratification came with the widening of the man's bright eye. The other was still covered by a patch. Had she known Lucien sooner, she may have found the coincidences amusing. “I'm afraid you won't be having any more visitors. We'll be your last.”

Arcadius shifted his weight and let his feet drop down from the desk. He leaned forward, and eyed her companions. The pen twirled between his fingers, half-resting on the pile of papers. “Hardly fair. Where's your honour? Or have you become one of the unsavory types all these years past? Unlikely, I think. I could have fled, but I did not. Surely, that warrants for something. I'd make a wager, but I've nothing to offer.” A strained smile appeared, then fell away. His gaze flickered to Ithilian and Rilien. “Allow me to walk free and I'll close the trade, never to violate your shores again. You could kill me, but I assure you, it will continue without me. It always does.”

If he was searching for mercy in the heart of Ithilian, he was looking in a very poor place. The Dalish elf held both his blades comfortably in hand, lowered as he propped himself up against the wall, eyeing the meat before him as it tried to negotiate its way out of a painful death. This was a despicable creature, trying to act like honor meant anything to him. No man who sold others into lives of servitude could speak of honor truly. Why it was dishonorable for them to allow him to leave simply because he'd been stupid enough to stay rather than flee was not apparent to Ithilian.

And beyond that, this was not his to decide. He would certainly not override any of Sparrow's wishes, and she clearly seemed to wish the man's death. Again, Ithilian was not coming up with a single reason why it would be wise to allow him to live. Honor was not his greatest attribute, either. He did what he felt was needed, and he did what he felt was best. "I can kill you," he agreed, "and I can kill whoever comes to carry on your work. You seek mercy from the wrong blades."

Aurora had crossed her arms as her three companions shuffled into the room in front of her, leaving her to slowly walk out from behind them. She settled into an open space on the other side of Ithilian, and nodded as the elf spoke. Neither was it her choice to decide what to do with the man, that honor belonged to Sparrow and to Sparrow alone. She could do nothing more besides lend her strength and lend her mind. And her mind was much of the same as Ithilian's. The man who wore Lucien's face attempted to feign honor, but his words were transparent and meant nothing to her ears. Slavers did not have honor and deserved none. Slavers bought and sold life and broke many more in the act. She felt it was an insult to Lucien that he was forced to share a likeness with this man. If it was Aurora's choice, the man would have already been dead.

"It will always continue, whether you leave here dead or alive. Scum has a habit of rising to the top like that," Aurora said in a placid tone. The student was becoming much like the mentor, in that if she was in this position some years before, she would have flew into a rage and denied Sparrow her choice. Now she was in control, the man had nowhere to go. He was trapped, merely waiting on Sparrow's judgement. She then disregarded the man and turned to Ithilian, saying, "I'll help if you do. They deserve about as much mercy as they give." Rilien said nothing, dignifying the man with no response at all. Instead, his eyes remained fixed unerringly on Sparrow's back. He could read the tension there, but he was waiting to see what became of it.

“Hear that? I don't think you'll find any quarter with these ones, either. Not too fond of scum-buckets like you.” Sparrow forced a smile on her face, hoping that it would send a chill of fear down his spine. Mortality had a tendency of doing that, especially if you felt like there was nowhere to go. Hopefully, he'd be reflecting on his lack of options. There was nowhere to run. He'd already blown his chance—seemed as if he'd grown foolish and stupid over the years. Had she been in a better mood, Sparrow would have swivelled around and enlisted her own two hands in the effort to eradicate any future-interlopers from trespassing on their shores. Prancing down the Wounded Coast hand-in-hand didn't sound too bad. Though, Ithilian didn't seem like the touchy-feely sort. Now, Aurora...

Whatever distraction she was trying to conjure up to steel her nerves only managed to stay with her for a few seconds. Arcadius was itching in his seat, finally realizing that he'd made a mistake. They weren't going to give him any leeway or accept any kind of barter that involved him walking out with his life—unfortunate for him, but satisfying enough to her. Sparrow leaned her mace in the doorway and extracted a thin blade from her boot, turning it over in her palm. She distinctly remembered asking Rilien if he'd ever intentionally drawn out someone's death. Made them suffer for what they'd done, if he'd known ahead of time. She knew well enough that he'd killed many in his previous line of work, though perhaps not brutally. Not like she'd seen on the upper deck, slicing open Silian's face like he was chopping up a thick ham for dinner. Did he make them suffer? Did he make them beg? And if so, how? The particulars were always matter-of-fact and he'd never questioned why she was asking.

His blades were far more intricate than her own. Slightly edged, graceful and well-crafted. Sparrow looked back over her shoulder and arched her eyebrows at Ithilian, motioning idly towards Arcadius. “He needs to be disarmed and detained. If you'd like the honour.” She spoke as if Arcadius was not in the room. It was a gentle offer, almost as if she was offering Ithilian the greatest seat in the room. If he refused, then she'd have to try and disarm him herself. His swordsmanship, from her childhood memories, were not to be laughed at. It was troubling in such small quarters, but she didn't doubt her companions. Either way, Sparrow preferred carrying out what came after. The look in her eyes was one of frigid determination, hardened and tempered. Resolute in the actions she would carry out. She would not falter. She would not hesitate.

Sparrow turned towards Rilien, holding her rusty dagger aloft. “I was thinking, Ril. Could I borrow yours for—” Her words were interrupted by a loud crash, belonging to the wooden desk Arcadius was sitting at. He'd managed to flip it over, spilling all of the papers, quills and bottles of ink across the floor. The expression on his face was not one of breezy indifference anymore, but one that belonged to all men who knew that they were going to die. Desperate and wild, puffing and panting with the effort of keeping his wits about him. He knew, better than anyone, that losing his head in the next few seconds would only give them the upper hand. Three against one hardly did him any favours. Either way, he refused to be cut apart by some little bitch. One dark eye flicked across their faces, calculating. He'd only have one opening. Swinging the broadsword to his front, Arcadius roared indignantly and feigned to attack Sparrow, who brought up her dagger in response, before veering up towards Aurora. Woman. He would attack the weakest.

Cleaving her companion would be a bitter price to pay for revenge.

He'd have to try harder in order to kill the little mage, Aurora was far from the weakest in the room. She wasn't oblivious, she had no delusions about her stature. She looked like a fragile woman wading into waters far over her head. And there was some truth in that line of thought, she was nowhere near the sturdiness Ithilian and Sparrow possessed, but that did not make her weak. What she had was in her head, an intellect and a ground bestowed upon her by a Qunari friend. She would not be swept aside so easily.

She knew better to entirely discount Arcadius. He was trapped, and like the animal he was he'd prove to be much more dangerous in this state. The crashing desk came as little surprise, setting Aurora down into a defensive stance, and he acted like she thought he would, throwing himself first at Sparrow. It would be simple, Sparrow would deflect the blow, and then the rest of them could take advantage. Quick and easy. At least it would have been if she'd managed to see what came next. For all of her confidence, it seemed like she underestimated the swordsman. The blade she first thought intended for Sparrow instead dipped and came up for her.

Still, if he thought such a tactic would be enough to kill her, he was sorely mistaken. Right at the moment it was clear the blade was meant for her, Aurora threw herself out of the way, and rolled sideways across the ground. However, she was too late to completely escape the sword, as a crimson line bit deep into the bone along the length of her upper arm. Quick thinking caused her to freeze the wound close, but this needed to end fast, and she'd need to attend to it more closely if she didn't want to lose a large chunk of it. Still, either way, she felt a scar brewing in the frozen limb.

Aurora rolled up to her feet, sliding back into the far wall and once she was stable enough to raise her hand with the uninjured arm, she fired a stonefist at the slaver, giving him a surprise of her own. Aurora was no mere girl, petite and fragile. She was a mage, with her feet grounded deep. It'd take a lot more than a common bandit to break her.

Arcadius did not seem to account for the possibility of the girl being a mage, and the stonefist took him in the chest, knocking him back and directly towards Ithilian's blades. Normally, Ithilian would have simply speared through the back and pierced the heart, or attacked the head, either slipping a blade around the open his throat, or more brutally punch a sword point down through either the skull or the base of the neck. He was still tempted to simply dispatch the bandit and be done with it, but Sparrow had requested otherwise, and this was her vengeance he was exacting.

Ithilian had been taught to show no mercy to his enemies, and also to never take them lightly. He had used some brutal tactics in his lifetime, but the only time he had ever toyed with the suffering of an opponent had been when he was at his lowest, in the Deep Roads, when he'd sought to inflict as much pain as possible upon the darkspawn there. He knew more than anything else that he didn't want to return to that state of mind, and he wondered if Sparrow was somewhat close to that herself. It was troubling, but if it was the case, he wasn't certain the deed would fall to him to help her, as Nostariel and Amalia had helped him. It seemed like something a closer friend should handle.

For the moment, though, he knew her mindset, or at least something close to it, and he knew what kind of reaction she might have if her vengeance was denied to her. He ducked low and slashed with both blades, biting deep into the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees. Ithilian gave him a kick to the back to force him down on his face, before darting around to the side and stabbing down hard where the man's sword hand lay, spearing through it and into the wood of the ship, separating him from his weapon and holding him to the floor. He looked up at Sparrow with a rather hard gaze in his remaining eye.

"Have your vengeance, if you want it," he said. The tattoo for Elgar'nan at the base of his neck almost seemed to itch.

The Lady Montblanc had called it the red smile—a method of execution that involved slitting the throat directly under the chin, from ear to ear, hence producing a gout of blood and being moderately curved after the fashion of a mouth. It was efficient, though he’d made Silian’s slower, deeper than was strictly required. It was unusual for him, to do something like that, but then everything about this situation was rather unusual. That made it no less necessary.

He could not say if vengeance was the kind of thing that would cleanse Sparrow of these old sorrows. In truth, Rilien doubted it. But if there was even a small chance that it would work, then it was an opportunity he needed to do his part of give her. As usual, she didn’t even need to complete her sentence for him to know what she was saying, and even as Aurora and Ithilian reacted, Rilien drew his blade with a slow, ringing hiss, stepping up to Sparrow’s side, even as she recovered from the feint. He knew quite well that the two who had attacked were capable of bringing a single man down, though the mage-girl would require medical attention, he was sure. He had potions enough for that, but first, something else must be done.

It was the first time since that hostile takeover by Rapture some years ago in his shop that he’d willingly initiated contact with anyone, least of all her, but he did it now, flipping the blade so that he held the flat of it, cold to the touch with the ice enchantment he’d placed on the hardy steel. A gift, from a Dalish weaponsmith, to an erstwhile traveller, goaded into an act of selflessness by another who performed them as easily as breathing. And now it would be used to kill a man who wore a very similar face, by a woman who’d been stolen from another clan. He was not oblivious to the fact that the world worked in strange ways sometimes, patterns and eddies in the fabric of it entrapping them all.

So he reached for Sparrow’s hand, uncurled the tense fist it had become with his own, more dexterous fingers, and folded them closed again over the hilt. Would she give this one a red smile to match his friend’s, or would she be slower about it, more brutal even than he had been, than the Dalish hunter was, staking Arcadius’s hand to the floor of his ship? Who could say? He cared not for the answer. He cared only for her. So he tilted his head to one side, studying her profile, then released her hand, dagger now held safely, and stepped back.

Her vengeance was hers, if she wanted it, and he would still be there when it was done.

Sparrow hadn't been quick enough to react when Arcadius feigned to her right, aiming instead for Aurora—she only had time to swing her dagger in front of her, hoping to catch his broadsword before it cleaved her head from her shoulders, and stumbled backwards when nothing connected. Thankfully, Aurora had been swifter, sending a stoney fist into his chest. She bet that he hadn't expected that. The ill-fated way his momentum carried him into another deadly foe must've been quite a shock, as well. She watched with sick fascination as Ithilian's twin-blades bit into his calves, sending Arcadius to his knees. Watched as Ithilian swiftly dove to the side, sinking his blade into the swordman's hand and successfully pinning him into the floorboards. There was blood. Too much blood. It poured from his wounds, pooling around his legs. He thrashed like a beached fish, flopping onto his back, spluttering and hissing and yowling.

It's beautiful, she thought, it's beautiful but. Her hand dropped back down to her side, fingers clutched into a tight fist. This was it. This was the only chance she'd ever have to feel better. To erase something she never thought she could. Foolish as it may have been, Sparrow believed that it would lessen her burdens. Her shoulders would feel lighter. She could finally shed off all of her bitterness, shake them off like a dusty coat—maybe, just maybe. Her childish thoughts always won out. Even if she went back with Rilien, hollow and empty and full of uncertainties, she'd know that at least a couple of her ghosts would be gone forever. The memories would remain, but they'd never be able to touch her. They'd never be able to reach her again. It became a silent countdown, a deliberate search for blood owed.

She met Ithilian's gaze and nodded numbly, mouthing soft words of gratitude. The lump in her throat only seemed to expand, making it hard to say anything intelligent. All she wanted was—what, exactly? Movement to her right caught her attention, dragging her eyes away from the writhing body below her. He wasn't going anywhere. Someone caught hold of her hand and she froze. She was caught off guard. He didn't instigate physical contact often. Unravelling her fingers from their tight, wrecking-ball of a fist, one-by-one, until he pressed the pommel of his curved dagger into her palm. Sparrow did not pretend to know the significance of the act, nor the similar antiquities of the blade. Her eyes burned. Rilien didn't say a word. He never needed to. The sturdy, unwavering look told her enough, belying concern and support to whatever she decided to do to this man.

No one would try to stop her.

Sparrow swept down over Arcadius, pinning his free arm with her knee. He bucked underneath her, desperately trying to throw her off. She only plopped down on his chest, slender fingers snaking around his neck and digging into the popping tendons. She applied pressure, and briefly loosened her grip when his bloodshot eye began rolling backwards. Instead, Sparrow smacked him in the face to keep him lucid. To keep him from falling unconscious. “You don't get to sleep through this,” She snarled sharply, free-hand dropping back to his neck to keep him still. Positioning the curved blade at the crook of his collarbone, Sparrow pressed it down as Arcadius screeched bitch bitch you bitch. Slowly, inch by inch. “For them,” she whispered. She jerked the blade out, raw and chilly in her hand, and placed it flat against his cheekbone. It jumped up against his ear as he whipped back and forth, though responded by bearing down on his head with her forearm, looming over him.

She was free to do as she wished. She'd spoken of this technique before. Discussed it at length. It was brutal, savage, and entirely appropriate. He deserved no less—didn't he? Arcadius' shirt was already black with blood. But, she felt disgusting. Sticky and crusted. Was it worth it? The questioning disturbed her.

“For her. For me.”

The blade skittered down his jawline as she shied backwards, shoulders straightening. It idled above his thumping heart. All of the acrid morning-fantasies that involved opening him up from his gut, spilling his innards and holding him together only long enough to shred his face up fled from her. But, Sparrow did not shush him like a wayward mother—as she might have had it been any other enemy—remaining silent as blade sunk into his chest, gradually sucking through flesh. Blood dribbled from the corner of his lips, drawn into a toothy grimace. He gurgled, unintelligible. With another quick, crisp jerk, Sparrow hauled the blade downwards, opening up a long laceration. There was no need for sawing. Rilien's blade was sharp enough. Almost as if it were made for this. Mercy? Mercy this. Discarding the blade from his chest, Sparrow made the final push into his chest, pumping arcane energy into her fingers to push aside his ribs and close around his heart.

She squeezed and he died. It took her a moment to realize what she'd done. It took her even longer to remove her hand from his chest and lean away from him, shoulders slumping. Her expression crumpled. Beginning, middle, end. She wasn't sure where she fit, exactly. Still, Sparrow looked up, expecting no one to be there but herself. To be alone with her grief and her savagery. She was surprised when she was not.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Burying the Hatchet has been completed.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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She never seemed to have taken much to the quarters above his shop in Hightown, and preferred still the ramshackle hovel in Darktown, one of very few that actually wasn’t in danger of falling over, due to the structural work he’d put into it over the years. Rilien was the kind of person who picked up skills as he went along, learning anything and everything that was useful for him to know. With the life he’d lived, this was a very wide range of things, indeed, and he was used to being almost entirely self-sufficient. Living in a proper city meant that he didn’t have to be, but he was certainly able to, should that become necessary. If he had any pride, he might have been proud of that. As things were, it was simply another fact.

So he glided through the dusty streets of Darktown, carrying himself down the familiar path that led to one of his dual residences, the one that she still occupied. Though he stood out rather like a bright gemstone in the mud, given his clothing and general cleanliness, any criminal worth his salt knew better than to try anything, as the gleaming blades at his back were ample deterrent.

His key unlocked the door, though he could have picked it faster, and he stepped inside. It was still mostly clean, as he paid regular visits to the place for this purpose, though his off-shot room was beginning to show signs of disuse anyway. Sparrow’s on the other hand, was just as vivaciously messy as it had always been, clear evidence that a life was being lived in here, and lived loudly. There seemed hardly another way to describe it, even if the vibrancy of her colors seemed to have dimmed a bit recently.

He would be hard-pressed to admit that he was here to check on her rather than the house, but all the same it was her room he went to first, knocking on the doorframe, as the door itself was cracked somewhat ajar.

Her recent actions had taken a toll on her, though she was hard-pressed to admit it. Admitting any sort of weakness was still beyond her stubborn reach, idling just beneath her chin whenever she felt like a scream would bubble out. Thankfully, it was really only Rilien who witnessed her outbursts. She wasn't sure what she'd do if everyone saw those parts of her. Unbrazen, cowardly and wholly selfish—that wasn't a side of her that she wanted everyone to know about. The kind of person that locked themselves away instead of facing what they'd done. It wasn't just about her brutal revenge, already lapping bitter on her tongue. The slight against Sophia and her men had begun to weigh heavy on her, anxiously batting around her skull. How many more people would she hurt? She was changing. That much she knew. Sparrow preferred to hide out in Darktown, especially if the Wounded Coast was possibly being patrolled by Kirkwall's finest. Perhaps, even occupied by her once-friend. She was not ready to see her yet. After killing Arcadius, and gathering herself up off the floor, she'd asked Ithilian to pass along a message for her.

After all these years, she'd finally buried a small part of her past. Even if Papyrus went with it. Amalia would understand the gravity of his words should he so choose to pass it along. Telling her herself seemed impossible. She would know the difference—whether or not she'd killed them honourably, or done it like a monster. Years had not tarnished her ability to see straight through her. Sparrow sighed softly, inspecting the broken shards of a vase she'd recently broken. Her room was a mess. Far messier than it usually was, with broken furniture and smashed goblets strewn across the floorboards. Lately, visits had become sparse and wandering Kirkwall felt like a daunting task. The house had been hush-quiet. Aside from the occasionally thumps and crashes, as a result of Sparrow's disgusted fits. She wondered if it was on purpose. Whether Rilien had known how she would react and given her the needed time and space. It was most likely true.

Her feet ached, throbbing dully. They were bereft of her boots and thinly sliced from walking on the broken shards, but nonetheless crusted and smeared a few shades darker. Old wounds. Perhaps, from a couple of days ago. Dipping her legs in the sea might have sounded a grand idea if she had the heart to leave her room. She'd donned a loose vest with a pair of cotton trousers. Slightly ripped and speckled red at the knees. The armour she'd worn to the hidden harbour had been haphazardly thrown in the corner, tossed atop a glittering pile of goodies she'd snatched from the Deep Roads. Like the dragons they'd fought in those dark halls, Sparrow liked to hoard things. She wasn't sure what she was expecting. This was the complete opposite of salvation. Freedom did not look like this, she was sure.

She hardly heard the door open. Nor did she hear anyone approaching until a steady knock on the door frame sounded, startling her enough for her to drop the chipped vase. It tumbled onto her bed, which was also in complete disarray and hurtled off the sheets, crashing at her feet. Honestly, it made no difference. It only added to the mess, but she still shot up and towards the door. “Y-Yes?” Sparrow called, reaching the door in time to slip through and jerk it closed. Suspicious? Perhaps. Might not have been any stranger than she usually was. She hoped for the latter. Pressing her shoulders into the door, Sparrow arched her eyebrows. Heavy bags rung around her eyes bellied anexhaustion she could not quite feel. Rilien—of course. “Ah. Another mission? Errand, perhaps? Forgot something in your desk?" Her expression, silly and sly, waned and died as she slowly eased around him. She took up a half-empty bottle of wine and raised it up. “Drink?”

Rilien impassively took in the details of the room as she opened the door: rumpled bedclothes, broken objects scattered about, the occasional jagged edge of pottery bearing an unmistakable red smear. Sparrow’s feet. Clearly, allowing her to try and sort through her thoughts on her own was not getting her anywhere. His eyes trailed back to meet her own, just as blank as always, or was that some hint of something in there? He wouldn’t know, even if he looked in a mirror. Wasn’t he the mirror, after all? People seemed always to see things in him that he did not. Lucien saw someone worthy of being called a friend. Ashton saw humor and easy camaraderie. Sparrow
 he honestly didn’t know what she saw in him anymore. She was too far confused about what she saw in herself, maybe, and this translated to the mirror that he was.

Rilien saw nothing, felt nothing. Brief flickers of light on the walls of a cave maybe, the shadows of emotions that other people felt, as though occasionally what they saw bled into him, like color into a pristine canvas. He was blank—they dyed him with their hues. He didn’t mind—he couldn’t mind. This was how he rationalized those ghosts of feelings poking at his established equanimity. They were not his, they belonged to others, and everything he had was pale and borrowed. She was the most colorful of all, even when they clashed, like sky-blue and burnt orange and too-deep purple.

She was holding a wine bottle aloft, and his nose wrinkled slightly at the smell of it. “Not me,” he said tonelessly. That peculiar subtle shrugging motion, and suddenly, the bulb of a potion bottle was in his hand. Red, with that pearly sheen only he produced. He held it aloft, so that it was a foot in front of her eyes, blocking her view of his face. “But you will. When was the last time you ate an actual meal?” He wasn’t going to ask her, not about the thing that hung over her. Her business was hers, to keep to herself or share as she chose. He would demand no confidence, require no further closeness than this: that she at least tried to heed him on matters of her health, which even he somehow managed to care about more than she ever seemed to.

This was how it had always been: Sparrow found the trouble, and Rilien made it disappear. The debt collectors had vanished with a weighty purse from his hand to theirs, the irate husbands or lovers of the women she flirted with in the taverns went home after trying uselessly to gather information from a man who might as well have been a wall. If they didn’t, they left after he reminded them that the knives on his back had a purpose. Her physical wounds were matters for his tinctures—even Rapture would soon understand that there was no problem Sparrow could ever have that Rilien would not vanish like smoke and
 mirrors. But he couldn’t tell her that, not yet. She couldn’t know until it was certain, that he would be able to solve this dilemma, too. No matter the toll—for cost had never been an object.

He did not understand why it was so. This was certainly not a level of trouble he went to for everyone. Sometimes, he suspected that she must remind him of someone, but if so, he had forgotten whom. Such things were too sentimental for his consummate logic, anyway, and when they threatened, he made them disappear as well.

She would speak, and he would listen. He demanded nothing, but accepted whatever she desired to give, or-- sometimes more accurately-- bombard him with. He weathered her strange moods with all the certainty of an island in a storm. If she spoke of nothing, he would listen. If she spoke of what mattered, of what had put her in this state, well, he would listen to that as well. They both knew it; there was no need to say as much.

Had anyone told Sparrow that Rilien did not actually feel—she would have been doubled-over in hysterics, because she'd never seen Rilien as the Tranquil. The sunburst swell on his forehead meant little to her. She may have been a hungry-eyed hurricane, sweeping in to destroy and disrupt and shake apart the very foundations of her own emotions, but Rilien had the ability to see straight through you and pull out all of your best parts. Meticulously sorting through her flaws and smoothing them out into beautiful gems, eroding all of the grit away. He could always look through her, and still, Sparrow wondered if he saw into her soul, or if he saw something else. She'd never been sure what he thought about himself, but she never believed that he was an empty husk in need of filling. Nor a colourless canvas, stretched perfectly over a wooden frame. Sparrow never believed he was an empty drawer being filled with vibrant things, either. He was a window. He was the night sky, holding everything inside of it.

She asked for more then she gave. She'd always had. And Rilien dealt out pieces of himself in paper parcels, uncomplaining. Only the most selfless souls could utilize themselves in such a way. Had it been anyone else afflicted by the Rite of Tranquility, would she have been spared from a lengthy jaunt to the Gallows? She did not think so. Not many people in Kirkwall would be willing to deal with her ludicrous conceits. Nor her outrageous tendency to nearly get herself killed, captured or tossed away. Trouble dogged her footsteps everywhere she went, with black lips, a lolling tongue and a wet nose planted firmly on the ground she chooses to walk upon. Never had he questioned her poor decision-making skills, nor prevented her from doing something she'd set her mind to, even if it was detrimental to her health. Stubbornness usually won out, unless Rilien had that look in his eye.

The tallest tales could not overrule his simple request. There was no stitch in his brows. No telltale sign of annoyance fluttering in those eyes, like two sky-lit orbs on the brink of frosting. Even still, it was if he was saying that there was hope for the hopeless. He was worried in his own way—but he could not tell her, could not convey anything beyond the dangling bauble filled with some sickly liquid swaying in front of her face like a pendulum. Sparrow's nose crinkled and she nearly jerked backwards, catching the edge of their table. She sighed softly, knitting her eyebrows together. The wine bottle thumped onto the table. When had she eaten? Good question, really. She wasn't sure she knew. Empty pangs hollowed out her belly, pushing away her hunger like finicky infant. Finally, Sparrow plucked the bottle from his fingers. She turned it over in her hand, inspecting the sloshing liquid with squinted eyes. Rilien's potions neverfailed. But, they usually tasted terrible.

Under Rilien's unwavering scrutiny, Sparrow finally swilled down the potion and placed it next to the wine bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I'm sure I've eaten something lately. If not, I'd be half-dead, wouldn't I? Or chewing up leather boots. Furniture. Your hidden goodies.” Obviously, she'd been sulking in her room, feeding herself with negative thoughts and worries. All of her uncertainties pooled around her feet, sapping the cheerfulness out of her words. It nipped at her ankles, pricked her spine and slowly, ever so slowly, squirmed into the spaces of her skull. Grew thousands of spiders, laid eggs, bore its fangs and tore in. She took a breath. Then, another. Her smile grew heavy, twisted into crestfallen frown. Childishly, Sparrow wished Rilien had a potion up his sleeve to remove those sickly portions from her. It was stupid.

If a blank stare could display skepticism, Rilien’s did. He could see it in the obvious changes in her physiology—Sparrow had grown thinner with the passing of years, when that thing resided in her body like something too big in a skin too small, sucking what little life and nourishment was left to the perpetually impoverished, but the sunken-eyed look she had now, the hollowness to her cheeks, that was newer, and temporary, if he could have his way. Somehow, Rilien usually found a method to get what he wanted. It was perhaps a side-effect of the single-minded dedication with which he undertook the things he deemed worthy of the doing. Loyalty was not a trait he would associate with himself, really, (because loyalty was what you had when you remembered you could chose otherwise) but he did have a certain measure of
 devotion. That was the word. Once he found something to work to or for or with, he was devoted to it. There were simply no other options anymore.

He was still waiting for her to get around to what she really needed to say, but he did not expect that she wanted to say it, so he might be waiting a while, yet. But he had all the time in the world, and much more patience than she had ever displayed in his company. A hurricane on a stone, she was
 but with time, the lashing forces could shape the stone, too. She’d changed him, he knew it. He just wasn’t sure it was for the better.

His telescope eyes saw everything—heard and knew everything. Mirrors and smoke. Windows and clear, blue skies. Picking apart her flaws and laying them out on the table like gambled-coins, offering the juiciest pieces because even your flaws were important. He knew that. He understood, even when she did not. Sparrow seemed to deflate, body weathering storms like a creaky, pock-holed boat. She plopped down in one of the wooden chairs surrounding the table. “I thought I'd be happy. Free from this,” she swung her hand in an arc, eyeing nothing in particular, “This feeling. This hate.” Her eyes drew up from Rilien's feet, and met his eyes. “Why do I feel like this? I know better. For as long as I could remember, I was waiting and waiting. I was prepared and I had friends with me. I'd imagined it in my head. Over and over again. But, I still... it wasn't like I'd planned.” She leaned forward, pressing her hands to her face. Snowy hair fell over her fingers.

“I feel wounded.”

In a rare display of solidarity, perhaps, Rilien sat as well, propping an ankle on the opposite knee and laying his hands calmly on the table. He felt no need to fidget—his stillness was nearly supernatural, really, as though he were an ice-sculpture rather than a person. He cocked his head faintly to one side as she explained. It seemed that her vengeance had brought her no absolution, no redemption, though he wasn’t sure what there was to redeem. As he understood it, she had been a child when those man had taken her from her home. What was a child to do against such forces? Where was the blame in simply being young and weak? This loathing, he did not understand it, for he supposed it was directed just as much at herself as it was towards these men. And that was simply illogical.

When he opened his mouth, however, it was not to express this, but to provide an answer more direct. “It hurts to grow,” he said simply. And that was what she was being forced to do. To let go of the things that held her back was causing her pain, but to change at all carried a risk: a risk of pain. But greater than that was the risk of failure. If she did not let go, she would fail to change, and it would destroy her. It might be strange for him to think so, but he understood better than most. He was growing, too, in ways that he did not fully understand. He didn’t even know what he was letting go of to do it, only that it was causing him to hurt, on some level.

“And it hurts more if you rush. Come. You must eat—I believe the Hanged Man serves dinner soon.” She needed to see the light of day again. Time alone with one’s own thoughts could be useful and productive, but she wasn’t pondering, she was stewing, and it wasn’t helping anything. She also needed to eat, and in this way, he could facilitate both without having to take his eye off her. It went without saying that he would be funding this little expedition, of course. It always did.

It took Sparrow a moment to respond, because she wasn't really sure what he meant. It didn't feel like she was growing. Not in the right directions. Always in opposing corners, stretched out across a thin pane of dirt. These were one of the moments where Rilien surprised her by saying things she could not understand—with her unappreciated, flash flood ability to feel and hurt and wound herself in the most self-deprecating ways. This Tranquil understood feeling far better than she did. While Sparrow floundered with her emotions, swallowing mouthfuls of anxiety and bending under the colossal weight of despair, Rilien navigated the waters as a sailor would. He may not have been able to properly express himself, but his wisdom persisted. He remembered whatever he'd forgotten and patiently expressed his opinions, opening doors and shutting out the ones that would not help her. To grow. Was she growing? In which direction?

She stood and pushed herself away from the table, moving inelegantly by Rilien's side. Hollow cheeked, sunken eyed and sallow complected, Sparrow agreed that it might be better to leave the house and go to the Hanged Man. She'd be better off leaving her worries locked in her room, however temporarily. She did not look into those eyes that cupped oceans, that saw through all of her insecurities and dared her to keep moving forward. For long enough, she'd been cowardly. For long enough, she'd been running away from everything that threatened her. Freedom, at once point in her life, had been the most important thing to her. Something that needed to be hoarded and violently defended. Naturally, Sparrow had changed over the years. It was no longer an end-all, or be-all. She'd settled down in a place that did not think highly of liberty. Slavery emerged within Kirkwall, and blossomed, until its reluctant demise. Misery took roots in the Gallows, twining around broken-backed statues. It was the last place she'd imagine herself living.

Dipping low, Sparrow hunched her shoulders and leaned across Rilien until her forehead touched his shoulder. Her hand gripped his collar, twining the fabric of his robe between her fingers. Selfish creatures often asked selfish things. That day spent on the Wounded Coast, she'd asked Amalia, through the means of an unspoken request riddled in hidden meanings, to kill her if she got out of hand, if there were no longer familiar parts of her left. If she became more of a monster, and less of the once-friend she'd known in days gone past. Losing who she was. If Rapture won—she did not want to live. Either way, Amalia would know what to do when the time came. She would not ask Rilien the same. Instead, Sparrow closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. “You'll always be right here, right? Even when I've changed. Even if you don't recognize me anymore.” The sound of her voice wavered, surprising her with its frailty. “Even if you hate every part that's left.”

She did not wait for an answer, pulling away from him and straightening her shoulders. The remnants of gloom slipped from her like an unruly coat, shrugged from her shoulders and replaced by an artificial guise of complacency. Sparrow gestured towards the door and trudged towards her room, glancing over her shoulder. “Good idea. I'll have to change—they'll think I'm drunk already.” Which was probably true. She needed to find her boots, anyway.

It was harder every time. Always, insistently like being pulled up for air, harsh and ragged in his lungs, only until she tugged him, he never knew the pain of drowning. Just submersion, cold and numbing, where all sensation was dulled under still water. Colors were a bit less vivid, sounds more muted, only the color and the sound was his emotion and his conscience. But then, like an unwitting guardian of some kind, she’d yank him up above the surface with a touch, and he remembered that he’d forgotten what it was like to breathe. It took all he had not to stiffen, nor to acknowledge the peculiar warmth that came over him, and the sadness that lay under everything. Because he knew it wouldn’t last. These moments were tastes of life, but he could not keep them. Could not keep her.

But she could keep him, if she wanted. That was the nature of him—unwavering, growing only a little where others changed constantly. He only molded at the pace of the stone in the ocean, and only the most relentless tides achieved it. “I cannot hate, and I cannot forget,” he reminded her gently, the slightest hint of real warmth in his tone. Was there a you implied at the end of each of those clauses? Right now, he wouldn't mind if there were. She wouldn’t look at him, but that was all right. He had no expectations of her—he never had. “I’m not going anywhere.” Loyalty was for people who chose constantly, who reaffirmed. Rilien only chose once, and after that, reconsideration was unnecessary. There were no other choices. This—whatever it was—was all there would be. He’d not wanted it, exactly, but he’d never want anything else. This was the nature of devotion.

She let him go, and he was submerged again, but that was all right.

Wasn’t it?

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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The trek back to the city took the same circuitous route that had been necessary to get there, and by the time they crossed the threshold of the limits of Kirkwall, the sun was just starting to set. Rilien had no desire to delay this moment one day longer, and it seemed his companions were of a mind with him as well. Sending Ashton to fetch Sparrow, he led the other two back to his shop, where Bodahn and Sandal were just closing up for the day. As he’d requested, Sandal had kept the fire at a low burn, and when he removed the lid over the small cauldron he was using for the brew, the pungent smell of brimstone nearly overwhelmed the front of the shop.

Removing an obsidian rod from his wall (he couldn’t risk tainting the mixture with steel), Rilien upended the glass vessel of ashes into the mixture, watching with a calculating stare as it changed colors from a bright orange to a fluorescent purple in hue when he stirred. The smell dulled, receding until it was just mildly irritating rather than overwhelming. Bodahn and Sandal offered their farewells and took their leave just as Ashton returned with Sparrow. This was for the best—they were going to be releasing a demon into the shop, and he didn’t want either of them to be caught in that particular kind of crossfire. Carefully, Rilien poured the admixture into a glass vessel, dropping a measured spoonful of lyrium dust into it and swirling several times.

He realized that Sparrow still had no idea why she was here, and chose to at last rectify the situation now. The words he selected were as blunt as ever, but it might be possible for the others to detect a hint of kindness to them, if they were listening for it. “Sparrow,” he said, and held out the glass. “I have found a way to exorcise the demon from you. You will need to drink this, and when she appears, you must slay her.” The last part, he said aloud so that the others would understand. He had done all of this, given up as much as he had, not so that the demon could be merely slain, but so that she could do the slaying. Of course, if things got dire, he would prevent no interference. If they became bad enough, he would personally interfere, even. But he wanted the chance to go first to her, because it was she who had suffered most for Rapture’s presence. For all the unhelpful emotions the creature had forced him to endure and remember, for all that she disturbed the peacefulness of his equilibrium, for all that she had attacked and even killed an innocent person, she had still hurt nobody more than the one whose body she occupied. He’d seen it, and he would see it no longer.

She would suffer no more, not from this. It was the least he could do. It was the only thing he could do. On the abstract level, Rilien knew he could not be the kind of friend that other people could be. His emotional handicap prevented those warm feelings from seeping through, and he was poor at delivering comfort or reassurance with his presence. All he could give her was this: the promise that he would chase away her troubles by whatever means he could, always. This, then, was a promise long in the fulfilling, but fulfilled all the same. The rest was up to her.

Sophia was aware that their last meeting had ended in a fight and a very unfavorable result for them both, so it was with warmness tempered with caution that she gave Sparrow a smile of greeting. It wasn't the right time to explain, certainly, but at least her presence her would speak to the fact that she wanted to help the woman be free of the demon that plagued her. Whatever their differences were, Sophia couldn't wish anything bad on her. The demon wouldn't leave the shop, Sophia would see to that, but she was more than willing to let Sparrow defeat it herself. She deserved this chance, regardless of how foolish she'd been to say yes to it in the first place.

Ashton had sat down on the nearest table, leaning his bow and quiver next to it. His machete he drove into the wooden edge. Had it been anyone but Rilien, that stunt would have drawn a glare and an angry word, but not from Rilien. Not anymore. Perhaps earlier, when he had full control of his facilities, he might have provoked a response. It was taken from him as fast as it was given, but Ashton noticed. He also noticed how he willingly gave himself away to save Sparrow from the demon. The cost of Sparrow's freedom was a steep one for Rilien, one that Ashton would never tell Sparrow. The girl's been through enough. "The bitch has nowhere to go between us," Ashton said, crossing his legs, "We're all behind you."

When Ashton had come to retrieve her, she'd noticed a couple things. He looked tired. Secretive, as well. While the twinkle in his eyes dampened her suspicions, Sparrow was perceptive enough to pick up little clues. There were barely perceptible indications that Rilien's ambiguous absence hadn't involved merrily parading through daisy-gardens and raspberry fields, and somehow, her wily companion had been involved. She knew not of where they'd gone, what they were searching for, what they'd face, or why she was even accompanying Ashton to Rilien's shop. She frowned at his appearance, but only slapped him on the back and joked the entire way about this buxom lass she'd met at the Hanged Man—anything to keep the silence at bay, or the itching questions from scaling the walls of her throat. She never doubted her friends, nor their intentions. If they wanted her to meet them anywhere, then she would always be there. They shone as bright as flames in her darkness, blazing a trail of concern and hope. While she said she was wounded, they proclaimed that she was not broken.

Winding their way through the near-empty streets, Sparrow felt an uncomfortable pull in the opposite direction. It was as if she expected something she was not aware of. It prickled at the nape of her neck with grizzled teeth and scaly lips, threading the hairs up and goosepebbling her flesh. She sensed impending danger, and could not shake the feeling. She looked around, blinking into the alleys as they passed. It made no sense, really. The only one with her was Ashton. Rapture felt threatened. The demon residing within her Fadespace curled into a tight ball, coiling like a hissing snake backed into a corner. She was murmuring incoherently, feverish as an old woman rocking in a wicker chair. Piecing out her thoughts was akin to dousing her hand into a pit of hot coals, so Sparrow ignored the distressed creature, burying her discomfort with exaggerated, gawky hand gestures and jokes that hardly coaxed the dread from her dull eyes.

She still appeared as if she had not been eating correctly. Previously-muscled shoulders looked far more slender than before, and her frailty showcased itself in her bird bones, stubbornly jutting from unfamiliar faces. Hollowed out and gutted, Sparrow had begun to feel like she was withering away. Rapture's continuous gnawing, linked with her guilt, had begun to rend and tear her barriers, destroying the body the demon so sought to control. She clapped Ashton gently on the back, slender fingers like dainty willow-branches. Less out of comradeship, and more out of some instinctual need to feel like someone was actually walking at her side. She was not just imagining things, conjuring up fancies in place of her horrors. She stepped into Rilien's shop and instinctively halted. Everyone—everyone was here, even Sophia. Rilien had been secretive enough only to send Ashton to her, requesting her presence. No other questions were answered.

A lump formed in her throat, stonewalling emotions that tried to crawl up. Where Sophia may have felt awkwardness at how their last encounter had transpired, Sparrow only felt a relentless sadness. She mourned her actions, however insuppressible they had been. Never had she committed a crime that had taken such a toll on her—stealing from rich nobleman did not count, nor did breaking into their quarters in order to snatch up silk-drawers and pantaloons for an impromptu drunk-wedding (she'd soon as forget the dress, unless Ashton was wearing it). Constantly affected by a plethora of circumstances, some intentional, while others were slip-ups and blunders, Sparrow could not easily forget the ways she was altered and used, nor could Sophia, she believed. The person she was now ghosted along who she really was, hardly living at all. While Sparrow struggled to stay whole and keep together, slumping against her companions for support and leaning her sickness into their shoulders, they held her anyway.

“Sophia—” Sparrow began to say, whirling her gaze around the room. They looked somewhat haunted, as if they'd witnessed something disturbing. She found that she had that effect on people, as of late, but it seemed different this time. A flood-geyser of questions rake through her mind, but they are easily quelled. Rapture's noises are louder now, desperate and frantic and distracting. She took a step further into the shop. “Lucien, Ashton... Rilien.” Each name said like a prayer, fluttering from her lips, soft as silk. Her body tilted and creaked, bereft of its usual bounce. Even still, Sparrow returned Sophia's smile with one of her own, though hers was rough and lined with sharp cheekbones, sunken eyes and the childish gloom of someone who wanted to be forgiven, but believed it impossible. It was Rilien who finally explained why she was there in the first place, and her heart clenched, like Rapture had begun to squeeze it. Without hesitation, Sparrow took the glass from Rilien's hand and nodded woodenly.

If she feared it, then surely it would work. She glanced over her shoulder, in Ashton's direction, and gave him an ashen smile, quickly downing the vial as if she were at the Hanged Man, drinking with her companions and cajoling while Rilien played his instrument in the background. It burned her throat, threading its way down the entire way to her stomach—ugly and bitter and tasting of nothing she'd drunk before. In one moment, Sparrow felt light and airy, then uncomfortable and dizzy. The dizziness swirled into a red-hot pain gnashing its teeth at the base of her spine, all the way up into her shoulder blades, which forced her backwards, where she planted her hand onto the table Ashton had sunk his machete. The clear, roaring no no nos bugled through her throbbing skull. She felt warmth threading ghostly fingers in her belly, followed by an icy numbness clawing at her innards. Sensations swirled together until she felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out.

Sparrow hadn't realized that she had her eyes clamped firmly shut. Hadn't realized she was holding her breath, caught in a half-gasp as she fought the bucking awareness that her limbs were twitching and trembling with the effort of keeping her standing in place. Something was being forcefully pulled from her. The painful, shrieking yanking only ceased when her shoulders sagged. Her skin sizzled and steamed, billowing puffs of sweaty smoulder. Crooked fingers slithered from her forehead, made from the same fogginess. It began congregating in front of her in thick smears, forming slender legs and horned elbows. Crimson scales shone brilliantly, catching the light seeping from the windows. Beautiful and dangerous—covered in sanguine patches, draconian features and a tipped smile that looked irritated and pleased all at once, Rapture crossed her arms over her bare chest, eyeing them languidly. Sparrow finally exhaled, breathless and horrified.

It was also Rapture who spoke first, cocking her head sidelong. For all of her twisted heart, she'd finally acquired what she so wished—life away from the Fade, in her own body, damned thrice by the Maker. “Oh, I've an audience, as well.” Her glee soured, but she kept her smile civil. She was not a fighter. Muscling her way out of the shop was out of the question. There were no other mages in the shop, only a righteous knight, a fool in foppish rangers-wear and the warrior-woman she'd accosted on the Wounded Coast. Not to mention the not-so Tranquil bard, resolute in his unfeeling hatred. The phantom tendrils did linger. She was no fool, unlike the Pride demon they'd dispatched of in the mountains. The demoness could still rifle through their thoughts.

What she found there surprised her. “Poor mechanical man. Little dearheart. To be toyed with so—but, it felt good. Not that you'd remember, after all. He was a beast. You'd wonder why he lived alone in those hills.” She spoke easily, as if they were friendly acquaintances. Her brusque movements sizzled the last remnants of steam from her own body, but she still reached a clawed finger towards him in a come-hither motion. She glimpsed in Sparrow's direction and tutted softly, turning back towards Rilien. Her vessel had worsened in health, unable to accept her greatness. Useless to her, really. “Would you like to feel again, dearheart? To feel powerful and whole? I'd not need to manipulate you so. You could love, dance. Offer more, take more. Live normally.”

To be toyed with. Sparrow, exhausted and still catching her breath, huffed a curt, “What're you talking about, she-bitch?” Her fingers had begun to have feeling in them again, chasing the numbness away. They were clenched at her sides, barely containing the anger restrained in her white knuckles.

In which the demoness responded with arched eyebrows, and a coy smirk. “You've not told her. Oh, that's tragic.”

The Fade was pulling again, which made this harder than it needed to be. Where such an offer, spoken with no magic to back it, would not have fazed him, to have again that tantalizing taste of what he could be was at once agony and temptation incarnate. How many more times would he be forced to suffer so, to breathe again when he’d resigned himself to drowning? To feel the stinging, burning pain of life when all he needed was the half-lived existence he had now? He didn’t require his emotions, didn’t need his magic, but the desire for them was so much stronger than he’d dared contemplate. Layers upon layers—every single experience came back to him, every time his Tranquility had been brushed aside as though it were the real veil on the truth of things.

A flicker of pain crossed his features, but he suppressed it quickly, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms into his sleeves. For a long moment, he stared at Rapture flatly, as though thinking about something ponderous, but in the end, he merely rotated his head a little, to glance at Sparrow from the corner of an eye. “I did not bring her here so she could repeat her lies. Slay her, Sparrow. You must.” He hadn’t told her—he’d never tell her, especially not now, when it might make her too guilty to do what needed to be done.

It was Sparrow who next moved, bullying free from her stupor and wrapping her arm around Rapture's slender neck. It fit finely in the crook of her elbow, squeezed tight against the jumping tendons of her vocal chords. The crooked finger, held towards her friend, immediately retracted, seeking purchase against her attackers unmoving arm; ineffectually scrapping and tearing and gnashing little cuts from her black talons. Sparrow would not move, despite her weakened state. Fury drove her actions, boiled her insides until she felt as if she would bubble over. How could this demon spit such lies? How could she still torment him in front of her, thinking there would be no consequences? Given their height difference, Sparrow only needed to drag Rapture backwards, tucking her against her chest to achieve a stronger hold. The cat-calling voice in the back of her skull, itching at all of her vulnerable places, was finally quiet. No longer would she be huddling there, either, cowardly in her inertia.

The sight of her friends bolstered her actions, however brutal they may have seemed. She had not brought her mace, for it had become too great a burden to carry. It reminded her of a strength she had begun to lose, and of one that she would not easily regain—heavy as a sack full of bones, and equally sobering. With her hands, there was no need for weapons. It may have been fitting to sink Rilien's blade into her heart, though. The idea flit through her eyes, sooty and infuriated, only momentarily, before Sparrow backed into the table and jerked the thrashing demon with her. Whatever needed saying would be said after this was finished and done, because she'd caught the quick quiver of something playing across Rilien's features, as well as the haunted looks on her companion's faces. There was an inkling of truth in Rapture's words, but she refused to hear it from her contemptuous mouth. Her grip tightened, twisted and became iron. The demon, unused to mortal means of respiration, spluttered and coughed, unable to voice her seductions.

She was useless without her words, without her voice. Sparrow held on as if her life depended on it, and perhaps, it did. Her mouth curled into a snarl, then tempered into a strained line, eyebrows knit across her forehead. This was necessary. This was all she dreamed of since allowing herself to be taken. Rapture's thrashing had become desperate, kicking things. Her legs caught against one of the chairs wooden legs, and upended it across the floor. It took all of her withering energy to keep herself on her feet. Errant claws and fists caught against her face and neck, but she resolutely ignored. She was drowning and Sparrow was keeping her under, plunged in nonexistent waters. The wild threshing ceases when Sparrow is on the ground, still holding Rapture until the solid-form begins to hiss and char, flaking and dissolving in her arms.

This, this I leave you. The croaky voice was nothing like the one that provoked her, threading nightmares through her dreams and painted ugly faces on those she loved. It was weak and small; something like the little girl in the woods. The remnants of Rapture's charred body sizzled straight through Sparrow's forearm, leaving an ugly blistering. Slightly scaled, twisted and spiderwebbed. It was all she could do to scramble backwards, ruefully kicking the thing away. She cradled her arm and laughed, disbelievingly. Mirthful would've been a far cry of what it sounded like. Her hand fell away from her arm, and busied itself through her hair. The ferocious light in her eyes had already faded, though she stared at the floorboards, as if there were buried answers in the knots. “There. It's done. It's done, finally—” She murmured, perhaps more to herself than anyone in the room. She did not move from the floor, only adjusted her position and bowed her head.

“I need to know what she meant. Only then, I think. Only then can I move forward. Make amends.”

To Sophia, to Rilien, to Ashton, to Lucien, to all of her friends.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Devotion has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Nostariel sat inside the Hanged Man, completely sober and drinking only some form of fruit extract, as the water was still, she thought, quite unpalatable, and she didn’t even want to think about where the milk had been. She’d heard through the grapevine (and in this case, the grapevine was simply Ashton) that Sparrow wanted to meet the two of them today for some reason. Having also heard that her fellow mage was demon-free, she supposed it must be for a celebration of some kind, though frankly she thought a party of three was a little small for such a venture, especially when two of them didn’t drink anymore. Perhaps it was something else then, though the Warden had no idea what.

Either way, here she was, planted in her usual spot, but with only the barest traces of the ponderous melancholy that had once anchored her to the spot. It was getting close to that time of year again, and she knew there would be a few days in there where she was almost as bad as she’d used to be, but hopefully, this time it would only be for a little while. Much as she didn’t want to fall behind, the occasional step backwards was part of moving forward, wasn’t it?

"We really should start going to a better bar," Ashton said, brushing his hands softly against Nostariel's shoulders as he slipped by. A commotion near her ankles revealed that he had brought Snuffy along with him on this trip. They had entered as Nostariel was pensively staring into her mug, or maybe quizzical was the better word. Honestly, he'd caught himself with much of the same stare on his face when he gazed into his own. Now that he was sober, he actually had the ability to question what it was he was shoving down his throat. It was a question he was positive he didn't want to know the answer to, and one he was sure would haunt him if he found out. It was better to not think of it, as he took a seat and ordered another one of whatever Nostariel was drinking.

Snuffy, now larger than the little pup Ashton first got her as, hopped up on a chair beside Ashton and looked every bit the Princess Ashton had named her as. Head held high, chest puffed out, she didn't even pant, as that would break her regality. As his drink arrived and barring a curious look at Snuffy (one which was fixed by an extra silver piece or two) nodded thanks and continued, "It's not like we don't have options. I mean, neither of us are broke anymore. Surely we could find a nice Hightown establishment that doesn't have mandatory weekend barfights," And maybe one that didn't allow dogs into their establishment. He loved Snuffy to death, but as an experiment, a bar that allowed dogs onto the premises wasn't exactly the highest class of experience. Still, he'd never for the life of him admit that in front of Snuffy. He could swear that the dog was smarter than he was.

Small talk is all it was though, he couldn't deny that the hole-in-the-wall didn't have its charm, even if he had to wipe that charm off after he left. And the shock of actually drinking something nice for once might very well kill him faster than the stuff he was already drinking. He folded his fingers together and created a hammock upon which his chin rested as he looked at Nostariel, "Soooo... How's life?" He asked with a comically large smile.

Nostariel beamed at the combination of Ash-and-Snuffy as they broke into her otherwise ordinary afternoon and summarily brightened the entire thing. He had a way of doing that, she decided, and of course, the Warden’s favorite dog could only help. Obligingly scratching the Mabari beneath the ears and moving down under her chin with muttered endearments, she dropped a playful kiss on the canine’s forehead and laughed when she chuffed in response. Glancing up at the hunter, she couldn’t force the smile off her face, and to her credit, she didn’t even try. “Oh?” she replied with traces of amusement. “And what respectable Hightown establishment would serve an elf like me and a no-good rogue like you, hm? I think I like my hole-in-the-wall just fine, don’t I, Snuffy?” She looped an arm around the Mabari’s rapidly-thickening neck and propped her pointed chin on the furred head.

“I don’t go to bars to be reminded of the reasons why I’m not wearing a dress and living in a mansion, thanks.” Though her nose wrinkled with faint distaste, her eyes were still clearly of a good humor. She considered the question perhaps more than its flippant nature really warranted, then shrugged, still leaning on the dog. “I feel
 selfish, saying that life is good. But for now, at least, it really is.” Time would change that, like time changed everything. The anniversary was coming up, and who knew when this Qunari business would at last overwhelm them, but between now and then, Nosatriel was resolved to enjoy her simple contentment as much as she could.

“Any idea what Sparrow wants? I admit, I was a bit surprised when she asked to meet us here. You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you?” Poor Sparrow had just been freed of that demon; surely she did not need to be troubled again so soon with other difficulties. She deserved to be able to have a chance to make peace with herself and the ones she’d hurt, to start healing as everyone inevitably must attempt to do. Nostariel knew a thing or two about healing, and the process would be long, but
 if Sparrow could achieve it, things might at last be right in her world again. And that was worth just about anything.

Looking at herself in a mirror hadn't ever been a nasty habit of hers, but Sparrow couldn't help but pluck handfuls of cloth in her slender hands, inspecting the way they fell around her shoulders. Her lack of musculature made it impossible to keep her trousers snug on her hips, forcing her to continuously tug them up while she walked or sew them two-fingers inwards—and with her horrible seamstress abilities, it made for ugly clothes and ruined garments. Bearing her armour for the first time had been even more disappointing. It bounced and chafed her joints, like she'd become a bumbling fledgling trying on something that did not quite belong to her. Too skinny to trundle around in ill-fitting armour, and too stubborn to leave the house looking like a scraggy, rawboned little girl, Sparrow needed to do something. Startling observations like that caused her to look closer at herself. She impulsively enlisted the aid of her two friends, hastily sending letters to meet her at the Hanged Man. They might have a better idea of what to do with her. Rilien did not seem to understand her grievances, and simply suggested buying clothes that fit her, whilst feeding her spoonfuls of Maker-knows-what.

She fiddled with her trousers, sighing softly as she buckled a worn leather belt around her waist. Hipbones swung out like ivory tusks, no longer hidden by her masculinity. She didn't quite look like she was wearing a nightdress, but she nearly did. It was enough to give her pause. She fixed the collar of her shirt and tried to tighten the drawstrings. Robust shoulders had long wilted away to slender things, hardly worthy of manly veneer. No point in squandering her time anymore than she already had. She'd forgotten that Ashton had already seen what she looked like, but Nostariel certainly hadn't. She sighed again, low and soft, before pulling on her boots and slipping outside. It took her a little longer than expected to reach the Hanged Man because she'd been dragging her feet, swilling words in her head like the scummy-ale they served inside. Sparrow hesitated at the door and backtracked a few paces. Nostariel had never been one to judge others, nor laugh. Her weaknesses were her own, and she'd have to own up to them eventually—and she'd faced worse odds. Clothes were clothes, after all.

Sparrow swung into the Hanged Man like she always did. Or always had, before becoming Rapture's puppet-play thing. Her smile was genuine enough, even if it looked odd on all of those sharp angles, sticking out in her cheekbones and chin. If it was possible for her to appear more slender than she'd been under the guise of a man, she'd certainly proved it possible now. However, if anyone thought she looked like a man, they wouldn't now. Perhaps this, most of all, was the most disconcerting. Her identity was important enough to keep—important enough to protect, even if everyone knew contrary. All of her barriers were built around those lies; around falsehoods and tenderly built ideas of what she perceived strength to be like. She'd lost that with Rapture, along with much more. Her friends were kind enough not to seek retribution for her behaviour, though she'd been receptive enough to face what she'd done. She wanted to get better. She wanted nothing more. Sparrow spotted Ashton and Nostariel sitting in their usual spot and purposefully strode in their direction, unburdened by any sycophant-weight preying on her thoughts.

It was only then that she noticed the Mabari-hound obediently sitting in one of the wooden chairs, as if she'd been schooled by some sort of noble handmaid. She paused in her steps, faltered momentarily, then childishly hopped behind the mannerly pup to scratch it behind the years. “What—I never knew! You got yourself a Mabari-hound...” She cheeped excitedly, before tempering down her tone and clearing her throat. Snuffy's very existence had been a mystery since her possession for she'd rarely left her quarters in Darktown, nor sought out Ashton's companionship for fear of losing herself. Come to think of it, she hadn't really known what any of her friends were doing. It was something that needed rectifying. Slowly removing her hands from Snuffy's head, she smoothed out the many wrinkles of her flag-like shirt and plopped down beside Ashton.

“Suppose you two are wondering why I've asked you here.”

"Well, now I expect you to make regular visits to the shop. Then Snuffy won't be a stranger any more. And don't think about missing a week, I will hunt you down. You know I will," Ashton said, making a show of pointing at her. Afterward an easy smile settled on his lips as he shrugged noncommittedly. "Nah, just a little bit curious," He said, using his fingers to indicate how much a "little" was, "But then again, I can't say that I'm worried. Whenever you're around, I can expect copious amounts of fun times... Let's just not black out this time, yeah?" He said with a chuckle that quickly turned nervous. In that moment, he shot a glance at Nostariel that was somehow apologetic, ashamed, and embarrassed all at the same time. Damn his tongue being faster than his head.

Nostariel sighed and rolled her eyes, but whatever initial displeasure she'd felt with the whole incident seemed to have faded into mostly-good humor with time. Maker knew her friends were odd people that did strange things sometimes-- there was little point in getting upset over that.

So instead she smiled at Sparrow over Snuffy's head. "Well, don't keep us in suspense," she replied, trying not to mother when she noticed the rather frighteningly-emaciated conditions of her friend. She knew the last months-- years really-- had been bad for Sparrow, but she seemed to have lost her concept of how bad, if the shadow of worry behind her eyes was anything to go by. "What can we humble Wardens and hunters and hounds do for our gallant friend?"

Sparrow paused momentarily, before reaching over Ashton to scratch the Mabari-hound behind the ears. She quickly retracted when he recounted their harried tale. It was a slip of the tongue, clearly. Her grin was strangely sheepish. She hardly remembered what had happened, nor would she ever admit to wearing that accursed dress—she still secretly hoped she'd been the one wearing the silk fineries, and he'd been the one skirting around in frilly laces. While Rapture preyed on her weaknesses, Sparrow drowned them out with alcohol. It hadn't been her finest moment, but Ashton was there to support her, anyway. Thankfully, she'd been a little better. She even waved away the goblet the barman slipped over, wordlessly denouncing her nasty habits. Quite unlike her. Her stomach couldn't handle it, empty as it was. Her tolerance, it seemed, had all but slipped down the gutter. Rilien said it would take her awhile to feel normal again, but perhaps it was for the best.

“Don't worry—I'm in the business of remembering nowadays,” She affirmed, skating her fingertips over her the rim of her goblet. It was a genuine enough statement. After being freed from her unwelcome guest, and realizing what her companions had gone through to help her, Sparrow felt true liberation for the first time in her life. Nothing came without a price, though. Her friends had sacrificed much—Rilien, most of all. All of her lapses and mistakes had perched under her chin like contained howls, eating her away much like that leech-creature had. It was also her friends who had taken the reins away from her, belying a concern she did not believe she deserved. Who would stick their hand in the burning coals, only to pull one out from the fire? They would. They'd proven it over and over again. Mending her wounds, and trying to bandage theirs, was her only mean of rectifying all of her wrongs. It was enough for now. She took a deep breath and plucked at her dragging sleeves. “Nothing fits me anymore. I mean, I don't own anything that fits. And I thought that I ought to, I don't know. I look different.”

She threw up her hands, unable to chew the words out. Wardens and hunters and hounds did not dally around with skeletons, trying to dress them appropriately. It was difficult enough admitting that she wasn't happy with what she saw in the mirror, let alone leaving her hovel long enough to request aid. She knew how she looked. Sparrow mussed her fingers through her hair and leaned forward miserably, head plopping down across her forearms. “I look like I'm wearing Rilien's robes. My armour doesn't fit. I need help.”

Nostariel was pretty sure that ‘eat more’ wasn’t really the right thing to say here, though it seemed pretty obvious to her that it needed to happen. Sparrow was looking rather unhealthy, but
 she bet it didn’t help to feel like she was swallowed by her own garments in the meantime. Still, she hadn’t really picked the vivacious half-elf as someone with any amount of vanity, so there were obviously other issues at work here. Sparrow needed to feel good about herself. Herself. That might be the operative thing, here. She couldn’t exactly pass for a man anymore, even if she wasn’t all that girly, either.

Well, there were a lot of things going on underneath this, maybe, and there was obviously still the matter of her health to consider, but all those issues would take time to work through, to sort out. Maybe a nice little dose of confidence would be the best place to start, rather than a way to end. Leaning forward onto the table, Nostariel propped her chin in a hand, sending Ashton a conspiratorial glance and smiling widely. “Well, that’s easily-enough remedied,” she said lightly. “We just need to find you clothes that fit properly. Would you like a dress? I think you’d look lovely in a dress, but if you’d rather not, there are tailors who make trousers and tunics for women.” Nostariel wasn’t exactly an expert on clothes, being a Warden and thereafter having most of her things made for her. She suspected Ash knew just as much, if not more, about women’s clothing than she did, but maybe between them, they could give Sparrow a hand.

Shrugging, she stood and tugged on Sparrow’s elbow, trying not to wince when this only reminded her of how bony she was. Nostariel had always been small and slight, but there was a difference between that and looking half-starved. Yes, a good dose of confidence was definitely in order
 and then a large meal. “No time like the present, is there? Let’s make a day of it, the four of us.” Snuffy, of course, would always be included. "Shopping!?" Ashton exclaimed, flailing his arms about.

Sparrow's mouth gawped open. A dress? It sounded as absurd as her and Ashton's impromptu wedding. Had she ever worn one? Suppose she hadn't. Qunari were clearly unfashionable, and those who dwelt in Ferelden and Kirkwall seemed to prefer dressing reasonably, rather than frivolously. Not that she was in the habit of noticing. The finest clothes she'd ever glimpsed had been the ones Ashton had stolen from whatever poor nobleman's quarters they'd stumbled into—and even then, Sparrow was clueless as to how the pieces fit together. Running into money in the Deep Roads only garnished a short period where she bought and wore gaudy clothes found in the richer parts of Kirkwall, which were politely, albeit casually, jilted and dismissed by Rilien. They would attract unwanted attention, he said. He knew better than her, so she'd stashed the peacock-emblazoned garments in her hoard-corner. Now, they didn't fit her either.

She smiled when Nostariel leaned forward, propping up her elbows. Smoothly assuring her that they would find something proper for her to wear. Dresses, trousers, tunics made for women. The subject was still tender, but she'd have to come to terms with it eventually, as unusual as it sounded in her head. Coming to terms with herself, more like. It felt like something else she'd been desperately running from, and something else she needed to face. Piecing out the reasons always seemed ridiculous. Who would want to live the way she'd managed to live? Her lies were heavy things, bearing down her ankles and tugging at her throat. They'd protected her before, hadn't they? “I've never worn a dress,” She mused, meek for the first time in ages. Her armour shielded her from more than blades, it seemed. She was only relieved she'd sought them out for this. There was no laughter. No mockery or jeering. Amalia wouldn't have laughed, either. She was not ready to see her yet. “I think I'd like that.” "Shopping!" Ashton repeated in the affirmative, nearly launching out of his chair.

Sparrow responded in kind, slipping from the stool and leaving her goblet untouched. Steps forward were better than steps backwards, in any shape, any form.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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"Give me one reason why I shouldn't nail you to the wall right now," Ashton threatened, and quite unlike him he meant it. The man he was speaking to was the same man he had contacted to acquire some books for Rilien. Instead of bringing Ashton any illicit goods, he had brought a message and found himself pinned to a wall with a machete at his throat for his efforts. "Because I'm the messenger! Nothing more. Look, Ash--" He was cut off by the blade of the machete pressing deeper into his throat. "You don't get to call me that," He spat. Garrath's mouth worked in an effort to backpedal, but nothing came. Instead, he just continued, "If I had a choice, I wouldn't drag you back into this. Look, I'd leave you the hell alone if it was me, but this comes from the top."

That managed to relieve the pressure on his throat, but Ashton still gripped his collar tightly, "What do the Redwater Teeth want with me? Don't they have enough flunkies like you to do their dirty work?" Ashton asked venomously. If Garrath was insulted by his words, he didn't show. For the man's credit, it did seem like he really didn't want to do this to Ashton. "No one else was a good as we were. The guys they got running the operations now would drown if they fell in the water. There's this ship coming in and Leech really wants it bad. He doesn't want to leave anything to chance." Garrath said as Ashton released his grip on his collar. "So he calls on the best?" Ashton replied with hostile sarcasm.

He made his way back to the counter and leaned heavily upon it. He was glad that Lia and Snuffy both were gone for this. Ashton had sent them both out when Garrath arrived, as whenever the man came unbidden, good news was rarely the reason. And he was right. How right he had been. "Would they really burn down Nostariel's clinic?" He asked with a sickened look on his face. "You know Leech," Garrath replied darkly. Had it been a threat against his own shop, he would have refused outright. He could survive without his shop. But Nostariel? Leech really knew how to go for the weakpoints of a man.

"Look, if I had a choice--" Garrath was interrupted again. "You wouldn't have asked me. Yeah, you said that already," Ashton said, turning around to level a hard stare into the man. "Did you even fight for me?" Garrath's silence was all the answer he needed. Ashton chuckled mirthlessly and turned away again, looking back down at the counter. "Honor among thieves isn't what it used to be."

There was an uneasy silence hanging in the air for more than a minute, Ashton staring holes into the counter and Garrath wordlessly watching. Finally, with an uncharacteristic sigh, Ashton answered, "Do I even have a choice?" He asked. "Seems not," came the reply. Another elongated silence puncuated by a sigh, and Ashton put his back into the counter. "Fine. But I have demands," He said, his face hard like rock. He held up the first finger and spoke, "First, your ass is coming with me on this." Garrath nodded, he expected that. Ashton then held up finger number two, "Second, I get to pick out my own crew for this job, people I can trust completely and utterly, and people I know won't stab me in the back." That as well was nodded to. Then came the last finger, "Third, after this, if I ever see you or Leech again, or you make any more threats against Nostariel or my friends-- I'm killing every single one of you bastards. Now get the hell out of my shop."




A couple of weeks later her found himself in the Hanged Man with his assembled team of Nostariel, Lucien, Sparrow, and Rilien. None of them knew exactly what he had planned for them, but that was not because he didn't trust them. In fact, that was why they found themselves assembled in front of him, because he trusted them absolutely. Garrath had went ahead and reserved one of the back rooms for them, one with a large table, and the man himself was leaning in the corner, silently inspecting the men and women Ashton had enlisted. The man himself sat on top of the table cross-legged, face pressed up against his fists. Suffice it to say, he did not look happy about what he was about to say. In fact, he had spent the previous weeks working out how to say what he wanted to say.

For a while, he didn't say anything. It wasn't until Garrath cleared his throat that he finally did. The words did not come easily, nor did they come quickly. It felt like they were being ripped from his throat by some unknown entity. "I bet you all have... Questions. I'll see if I can't answer as many as I can now," He said in an odd formal manner that didn't mesh well with who he was at heart. "The thing is... I need your help. There's these people," Ashton spared a glance backward to Garrath at this, but the man said nothing in return, "Who want me to do something. But, I can't do it by myself. That's why you all are here."

He was dancing around the issue, but he would need to dive into it sooner or later. He decided to just go for broke and do it sooner. It wouldn't do to keep them in the dark. He couldn't do that to them. "See, the something they want from me is that they want me to steal a boat for them. It's filled to the brim with relics and artifacts that would fetch a high price in any market, and they want to make sure it gets delivered to them. Fortunately, they chose me to do it," He said, his tone indictitive that he did not feel very fortunate.

Ashton sighed but continued to push forward. "What I'm asking you to do is very, very dangerous. If you don't want any part of it, then you can stand up and leave right now. I wouldn't blame you a bit for it. Hell, if I was able to, I would, but I'm just not able," Ashton said. "The boat isn't Kirkwallian, so don't worry about that. The cargo it's transporting is on its way to the Tevinter Imperium, so don't feel guilty about stealing it. And you're getting paid for this," Garrath clarified. It didn't make much of a difference for Ashton, he was still being dragged back into something he had left a long time ago.

"Anyone want out?" Ashton asked.

Lucien was frowning, clearly less-than-pleased with what he was hearing. He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest, and canted his head to one side, patrician features arranged into something oddly like a look his father would have worn. A bit of disapproval, a bit of exasperation, but underneath it, a certain kind of steely resolve to get at the heart of things. “Tevinter is not synonymous with the Black City,” he pointed out steadily. “Not everything within it was evil. I would feel much better about this if I knew who was sailing this ship, what it was carrying, and why.” From the way Ashton kept shooting glances at his heretofore-unknown acquaintance, he wasn’t exactly doing this of his own free will, which meant that Lucien’s trust in his character could only reassure him so far. Good men could be made to do awful things, given the right circumstances.

"Pirates, raiders, opportunistic vultures who stole everything they own. These people raided towns all along the Waking Sea. Killing these people would be a service to everyone who lives on the coast. Don't fret about getting your hands dirty," Garrath replied, approaching closer to the table. Ashton nodded along, hoping to appease Lucien. Of course it would take conviencing for the honorable Chevalier, Ashton had expected no less. "Garrath might be a bastard, but he's never lied to me. If we get on the ship and they surrender, we won't kill them. I'll promise you that," Ashton replied. Garrath nodded his appreciation and continued, "As Riviera said, the ship's loaded with plunder stolen from the coastal cities. My employer would like to see that wealth in his pocket instead of some blackmarket magister's," He answered.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to pay a visit to your
 employers, instead?” Lucien asked. The people assembled here were more than capable of dealing with the average gang of ne’er-do-wells, though he wasn’t entirely sure that was what was going on. Either way, he needed more information before he decided how he personally was going to handle this. He was honest enough about who he was that he did not think Ashton would have invited him here if what they were being asked to do was truly vile, but
 the lines that Lucien drew and the ones other people thought he drew were often different.

Lucien's statement made Ashton geniunely laugh, and he nodded his agreement, "You weren't the only one with that idea Luce. It was the first thing I thought about doing. Turns out these people are hard as hell to find. Probably why they're all still alive... You know what they say about roaches," Ashton added ponderously. "I couldn't even beat it out of Garrath," He revealed, leaving Garrath nodding. "He couldn't. Even I can't find them most of the time. I get all of my orders and targets from dead drops across the city." With that being said, Ashton's face drew serious once more, "Lucien, you don't have to do this, you owe me no favors." The last thing he wanted to do was to force someone else into his mess.

Lucien appeared to consider it, one of his hands moving upwards to rub absently at the beard that presently coated his jaw. It was short enough that really it was just particularly-thick stubble, but the gesture didn’t depend on that. Glancing for a short moment at Rilien, he threw another idea out there, one that he’d never have thought to use before meeting the Bard. “Well
 why not both? We board the ship and take the plundered goods, and that makes sense—I’d prefer fewer raiders in the area, anyway. But if this employer of yours really wants it in his pocket, I see no reason we can’t follow it there. Well
 perhaps I can’t, as such,” he gestured at himself, intending to convey the fact that he was not particularly oriented towards sneaking about. “But surely yourselves and Ril here are more than capable, should he agree to it. Follow the money, I believe the expression goes.”

“I have done tasks of this nature before,” Rilien put in, his usual deadened monotone only reinforcing the point. He well knew how to find people who didn’t want to be found, but bait—like the cargo from this ship—would make that task considerably easier. “I do not think Lucien’s idea preposterous.” Actually, he’d just been thinking it himself when the chevalier spoke it aloud. That was a bit odd, really, as usually their methods of approaching such issues were very different. Still
 perhaps if anyone else knew his mind, it was his friend. Or perhaps the need to help another friend was simply enough that both of them automatically sought the best solution. Rilien had efficiency in mind—doubtless, Lucien wanted to stop the largest amount of illegal activity possible. In this case, the goals dovetailed.

Nostariel was silent for a moment, contemplating the possibilities. She did like Lucien’s idea, more because it felt like something good to do, instead of just
 ending one group of criminals to enrich another group of criminals. It was perhaps she alone of all those assembled who understood just how hard it must be for Ash right now, to be forced back into this world that he hated and had left as soon as he could. And surely, he must have been forced—there was no way that man who had confessed his misgivings and his crimes to her a year ago would ever volunteer again to cast his lot with such folk. It was that knowledge, the knowledge that there must be a reason for this, that allowed her to say what she did, in the end. “Whatever you decide,” she said, a layer of steel in her tone that hadn’t been there for a long time, “I’m with you.”

Sparrow needed absolutely no convincing when Ashton tasked her to join him at the Hanged Man, along with some other friendly faces that made her feel warm and fuzzy on the inside—albeit, she still felt a little sheepish when she glanced in the Chevalier's direction. She hadn't apologized for her awkward behaviour, and simply hoped her willing presence meant that she would not skirt around him like he bore the plague. If Ashton needed anything from her, then she would willingly oblige. He'd been there in her darkest moments, in the vilest circumstances. The remnants of such times hung onto her like an emaciated veil, showing on her bones in the means of billowing clothes and ill-fitting armour. Her mace swung at her hip like a long lost friend, denouncing any such weakness. Certainly, there was something to be said of her willingness to carry out such a task. She'd been a petty thief at one point in her life; running from the Qunari only to end up pinching and pilfering to keep her stomach from bending in on itself, but she hadn't thought of it as entirely wrong. She'd never wondered whether or not those pockets belonged to nobleman, or poor folk like herself.

Her eyebrows peaked when Lucien spoke, though she remained mild-mannered enough not to interrupt him. Friends bent the rules for friends, didn't they? She'd always thought that morals only remained steadfast as long as your friends were out of danger, and by the look on Ashton's face, there was something much, much darker going on. He was in trouble. He needed them. If he'd thought that he could do this on his own, he wouldn't have bothered asking them here. Perception came difficult to her, and she certainly couldn't read the situation as easily as Nostariel, but even Sparrow knew that this was not what Ashton wanted to do. Humour had no seat at their table. He was being forced, however subtly. To be honest, she'd never seen him this upset. It told her volumes—there was much she didn't know about her friend, and it sat ill with her. Either way, Sparrow would always be here to do whatever needed being done. She, too, nodded her head and made no move to vacate the table.

She cast a sideways look at the Chevalier, then quickly averted her gaze. “Of course. We're your friends. Whatever needs doing. But, I wouldn't say Luce's idea is bad, either.” Doing something for the sake of doing something good? She was growing, indeed.

Garrath chuckled behind Ashton, though it was of the dry and mirthless type, "I wouldn't worry about following anything. Leech is to meet us once we've acquired the ship, along with a number of enforcers. How many you say he could fit in that boat of his Riviera?" Garrath asked. Ashton asnwered like teeth were being pulled from his jaw, "About two dozen. Conservatively. If we attack him, then it'll be a hell of a fight in cramped quarters. He wants us to do his dirty work for him, so that he can reap the reward without all the nasty business," But Ashton liked the idea of hunting the man down.

As an afterword, he added, "But it shouldn't stop us from finding out where the bastard puts his head down at night... Surely he isn't so protected everywhere?" He posited with a tight-lipped grin. He left the implication in the air without further words, but Garrath had something to add, "What you do afterward is your business. I'm just here to make sure he gets the boat. It's your funeral." Ashton leveled one last glare at Garrath before he leaned over, an action which also drew the man behind him closer. Now was time to plan.

Lucien could accept this. For any action, it only made sense to take the path one thought was right, and stopping these raiders seemed right to him. The chance of being able to undo another criminal enterprise afterwards, well
 he would be taking it, unless there should be some better reason not to. He’d not put his friends in danger if they were unwilling to be, of course, but if they were willing
 a difficult fight wasn’t exactly a deterrent for the chevalier, nor, perhaps, for the rest of them, either. With a nod, he chose to allow Ashton to lay out the plan sans any further interruptions from him.

"Well, to start we're going to need two rowboats..." Ashton didn't know what was worse, that he was being sucked back down into the underworld, or that still felt so comfortable drawing up these plans.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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With a full moon hanging low in the night sky, they began. Ashton had traded in his light brown hide leathers for something he thought he'd never wear ever again. A pitch black leather suit hung tightly on his shoulders now-- and to be quite honest it seemed too small for him now. Oh, there was a smirk of satisfaction when he discovered that. It was a far better methaphor than he could ever possibly come up with on his own. Still, the fact that he had it laying around worried him, he should have burned it long ago. It was there though, and he was wearing it now. Afterward, though, they would all have a big bonfire on top of Leech's corpse, and then he'd burn it then. That sounded like fun. Rilien could bring the marshmallows, and they could all sing campfire songs. But first, they'd have to deal with the pirates.

Like he had said, they'd gotten a hold of two rowboats, and they were presently rowing their way toward the ship. Three to a boat, Ashton, Nostariel, and Sparrow in one, with Garrath, Rilien, and Lucien in the other. However, Ashton found himself wishing he had put Lucien in his boat. He never remembered rowing being so taxing. It felt like his arms were about to row right out of their sockets. But he needed someone like Lucien, and Rilien too in the boat with Garrath. If he tried something, he knew those two would be uncompromising in their resolve. Still didn't hurt to wish.

"And one, and two, and one, and two, and damn... Better workout than anything Amalia puts you through, yeah? Sparrow? You aren't dead yet, are you?" Ashton asked in a hushed tone. The ship was still only silhouette on the horizon, but it paid to be cautious, even from this distance. They were even rowing by moonlight with no other illumination to speak of.

Nostariel could have laughed. Now there was an errant thought. Still, she understood the need for silence, and even tried to row more quietly on the oar she shared with Sparrow. "You’d have to work much harder than this to put me through more than Amalia does,” she said in a sotto voce, but there was a smile in the words, some genuine affection for the Qunari woman. The Warden had never thought it likely that she would get along with someone like that, but as she’d slowly discovered, it wasn’t actually hard at all. Beneath her gruffness and efficiency, Amalia was a good person. More brusque and uncompromising than most, but she seemed to care very deeply for the things she chose to concern herself with, and never put half-effort into anything. Those were admirable qualities
 even if they were part of the reason Nostariel was so sore after every session.

Fortunately, Nostariel and Ashton had done a brilliant job outfitting her emaciated-form. She donned a new set of leathers, fitted with shiny buckles and a brocaded vest that somehow made her look lean instead of sickly. It seemed to accent her femininity, as well. Oiled buckskin boots, featherlight dark green trousers and a pauldron of Ashton's making finished the look. Far more ranger in appearance and far less warrior-like than she would have liked but she could not deny the lovely make. They'd chosen well. It was comfortable to move around in. She appeared noticeably smaller, but she didn't mind. As long as she could swing her mace, then all was well. Sweat still beaded her forehead. Her arms were growing leaden, heavy with the burden of rowing. She managed a chortled grunt, followed by, “Not yet.”

Her eyebrows inclined. She did not know the extent of Nostariel's relationship with her once-friend. Only that she'd seen them together on several occasions when Sparrow grew homesick enough to spy on Amalia. Shamefully flitting from one building to another like she had something to hide. The Alienage held no place for her kind—those lying in the middle, those who had no clear-cut path, but she still appeared. Sometimes, she busied herself in Aurora's ever-growing garden just to be in close proximity. Her curiosity ebbed and flowed, gnashing its teeth whenever it was ignored. She'd wanted to ask about it before, but believed that she hadn't deserved the answers. What right did she have now to intrude into her once-friend's affairs? A small laugh escaped her lips. “She sounds like she hasn't changed a bit.”

In the other boat, looking a lot better than Ashton was, Garrath looked at the two in his boat. A man of clear military caliber and a Tranquil-- Ashton had strange friends indeed. "You two know the plan right? Get it done quickly and get it done quietly... If you can," He said, sparing a glance at Lucien. They needed muscle... But maybe Ashton found too much.

Rilien fixed the man with a look that somehow, despite its bland nature, managed to convey that yes, he knew exactly what he was doing. "Is repeating the plan in very nonspecific ways multiple times usually required for understanding?” he asked tonelessly. He did not feel that the repetition was necessary—the plan was relatively simple as far as such things went, and he had grasped it the first time it was explained. Despite having the appearance of a common mercenary or solider, Lucien was also well-spoken, and clearly not stupid enough to require such measures either. This left Rilien to conclude that this Garrath was nervous about their chances of success. He need not have been, but the Tranquil would not stoop to correct this misapprehension. He was not in the business of idle reassurances.

Lucien did not sigh or otherwise express any frustration with Garrath’s obvious skepticism regarding his suitability for this task—indeed, he knew quite well that he was not the typical choice for such assignments, but he had been asked by a friend to be here, and the cause itself was one worth undertaking. No matter how suited or not, he was in this wholly. “I understand your concern,” he replied in a low voice, “But I shall be as discreet as I am able. If I fail, well
 it will only be an opportunity for the rest of you, I suppose.”

As the pair of boats crept closer to the ship lingering in the horizon, their paddlestrokes became smooth at the behest of both Ashton and Garrath. If they were to make too much noise upon approach, whatever sleep-deprived guard would come to investigate, and that would blow the whole stealth thing. Better to be slow and sure over quick and reckless. For now, Ashton had too much sense in his head to believe that everything would go swimmingly quiet. That's why he brought Lucien, for when things inevitably got loud. The boat containing Ashton's team rowed up to the broadside. Wordlessly, Ashton indicated that they were going to scale the side of the ship. With all the agility expected out of him, he sprung out of the boat and gripped the inside of one of the portholes.

Still fighting the feeling that this was still far too comfortable for him, Ashton swung out, keeping grip with a single hand and foot. He held out that hand in benefit for both Nostariel and Sparrow. What kind of gentleman would he be if he didn't lend the women a hand? A damn poor one. That, and he was sure that neither of them had this kind of experience before. Scaling galleons isn't something one did on their weekends, after all.

Nostariel took the proffered hand with gratitude, having been quite uncertain how she was going to manage this ship-scaling otherwise. It wasn’t exactly something she’d needed to do before. A bit awkwardly, she used the leverage Ash provided to swing up, catching onto the deck railing with her bare, callused hands and pulling herself up and over on arm strength alone, something she would not have been able to manage a year ago. Sticking to the shadowy parts of the deck, she awaited the others, trying to mute the sound of her breathing so as not to alert anyone else, though she offered Sparrow a further hand up and over the railing when the other woman’s turn came to make the climb. On the other side, she could see Rilien making the last few movements in the same ascent with no assistance and little discernible effort. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have looked like he was exerting any even if he were.

How many ships had Sparrow scaled before? Several. In Kirkwall, of course. But they'd been at port and she'd been drunk, lollygagging over the side of old skiffers and occasionally stumbling into the briny, dirty waters. This was different. The sea-sawing rowboat, as well as the stubbornly swaying galleon, proved much trickier to navigate, and so Sparrow watched Nostariel appreciatively from behind as she followed Ashton aboard. She, too, placed her hands and feet in the appropriate places, and snatched up the proffered hands to swing herself onto the decks as quietly as she could muster, nodding appreciatively. Had they not been there, she might have taken a noisy dunk. She flashed Nostariel and Ashton a cheeky grin, ducking down and keeping her breathing in check. Maker knew she was not the stealthiest person, but she'd try her best.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat, Garrath was already out of the rowboat and ascending the side of the ship. Unlike Ashton, he had no affinity for his friends-- even though they certainly looked capable. Once hanging onto the railing, he scanned the deck quickly before dropping back down below. Only a single lantern cast illumination on the deck, and revealed that there were only three pirates dozing on deck. The rest were probably in the hold below sleeping. This was acceptable. With that done, Garrath turned to the rest of his team and relayed the information, concluding with Garrath pointing at Lucien to go first. Ashton had insisted on the man going first, for some reason.

Despite all insistence to the contrary, the knight wasn’t an idiot, and had forgone most of his armor for this assignment. He had no particular desire to be half-drowned should he happen to fall in the water. As a result, he was weighted down only by a chainmail shirt and leather gauntlets and greaves, as well as a leather chestplate. He’d even swapped out his usual massive axe for two smaller ones, hanging from either side of a thick leather belt. Still heavier than anything anyone else was wearing, but then, he had the physical strength to compensate. Rilien was much faster up the side of the ship than he, but Lucien managed all right. When they had all reached the deck, Ashton's acquaintance gestured for him to go first, and he supposed there was some merit in that—his habits were not unknown to anyone who’d worked with him at all before, including Ashton himself.

Stepping out into the light of the sole lantern illuminating the deck, he cleared his throat, with a bit of exaggeration so as to draw attention to himself. “Much as it pains me to say this: gentlemen, this is a robbery. If you would be so kind as to put down your weapons, nobody need be hurt.” Sometimes, he wondered why he still bothered to say this—nobody ever surrendered. Still, better it be completely unnecessary a thousand times than forgotten the one time it would have saved a life.

The answer was as obvious as the moon in the sky. Upon Lucien's sudden appearence, all three pairs of eyes awakened immediately and turned in the Chevalier's direction. It gave Ashton the perfect distraction to hoist himself the rest of the way onto the railing, where he now sat nonchalantly, bow and arrow sitting across his lap. Just like Lucien, Ashton hoped that the pirates would heed his advice. He didn't want to fight, he just wanted the boat so he could find Leech and put all this nasty business behind him, where it should have stayed. Things never went their way though, as the pirates loosened their weapons and began to lurch toward Lucien-- they probably didn't want to shake his hand. Ashton's first arrow struck the pirate near the bow, dropping him where he stood.

They never did surrender, and one of them had an arrow blooming from his throat for the trouble. Lucien’s hand slid an axe each from the loops on his belt, and the first one cleaved vertically into a fellow’s shoulder, biting easily past the light leathers he wore and dropping him to the deck in a rapidly-forming pool of his own blood. The second was a bit more savvy, and the chevalier had to step out of the way of a two-handed blow with a one-handed mace. The would-be overkill had the unfortunate effect of throwing the wielder off-balance, and it was all too easy to stick a foot out and trip him, sinking the opposite axe into the back of his neck and severing his spinal cord. That one dropped next to his friend, and Lucien’s grim expression only darkened a bit further, helped along by the sudden clangor of a bell sounding from the crow’s nest.

The rest of the crew had been alerted to their presence, and it wasn’t long before the muffled thumping of footsteps could be heard from below, interspersed with the occasional ragged oath. In various states of wakefulness and dress, no less than a dozen more men and women emerged onto the deck, not a one of them looking inclined to simply leave. If this was how it was going to be, then there was nothing else for it. Joylessly, Lucien spun one of his axes by the haft and stepped forward to meet the incoming tide of people.

The first half-dozen to emerge all sustained heavy fire damage courtesy of Nostariel’s well-placed arrow, but none of them fell, and the Warden backed herself up a safe distance, to pick her targets carefully, mostly concentrating on taking out any who threatened to sneak up on or overwhelm her friends. Rilien, on the other hand, was much more direct, and stepped into the path of an opponent attempting to flank Lucien, striking quickly with his ice-blade, the gleaming metal cutting a broad sweep across the brigand’s chest. Fortunately for the smuggler, he was reactive enough to jump backwards, avoiding the exposure of his innards to the outside world. The fool had not donned any armor for the occasion, and it would be perhaps the last mistake he ever got to make.

The Tranquil went low next, the hit from his lightning-enchanted dagger blocked by the longsword the pirate was carrying. Of course, the electricity conducted right up the blade, shocking him, though not so much that he lost his grip. The momentary lapse was all Rilien required, however, and he surged upwards with fluidity and force, burying the other blade in the juncture between throat and chin, spearing upwards into what doubtlessly passed for the man’s brain. An arrow flying by over his shoulder thudded into the abdomen of a woman trying to take advantage of his distraction, the sheet of ice that encased her center mass marking it as one of the Warden’s. Rilien did not waste the opportunity, dropping onto his hands and sweeping his legs out to tangle with hers, taking her to the deck with a dull snap—she had been unfortunate enough to land awkwardly on her wrist, and hissed when it broke. Scrambling backwards, she tried to kick out at him, but Rilien simply jumped over her legs to land solidly on her ribcage, feeling a few more dull breaks beneath his boots. Dispassionately, he swiped a red smile across her neck, adding more ice to her corpse.

Rising, he found himself with no more foes in his immediate vicinity, and scanned the deck for anyone not directly engaged with one of his allies.

“So much for being quiet,” Sparrow muttered, loosening her trusty mace from its leather-holding. The straps fell away, leisurely tugged off with graceless fingers, until she held the thing in her hands—like she was holding it for the first time. It still felt heavy, but it was accompanied by an excitement she'd thought was long-buried. No longer did she tremble. No longer did she shy away from battle, anxiously looking back on what happened when he blood ran hot. Rapture was no longer there, hunched and watching from the shadows for any inkling of vulnerability. Chinks in her armour that were not physically apparent. She adjusted her grip, allowing the mace to swing to her side like a pendulum and grinned wildly, murky eyes alight. Surely, they hadn't expected dirty pirates to lay down their weapons and surrender. Ashton, no doubt, expected how their welcome would go, but he'd given them a chance to walk away.

As Lucien and Ashton dispatched of the three lollygaggers on the deck, with a well-aimed arrow and skillful blade work, Sparrow's ears twitched at the sound of a bell. She craned her neck, glimpsing a silhouette hunkered down in the crow's nest. No doubt calling others, and as if on cue, footsteps advanced from below. Those who finally appeared were hardly dressed for combat, but still looked as if they would put up a fight. Half-dressed, bootless, with unbuttoned shirts and trousers put on backwards. It might've been funny if it weren't for the fact that they were ready for such confrontations, and the pirates obviously were not. Did they know that? Were they afraid? She pursed her lips and swung her mace in a wide circle, threatening anyone who dared to step in close. One man may have underestimated her meagre size, grimacing and brandishing his own weapon of choice: a scimitar. Perhaps, it was fortunate she wore leathers as opposed to her full-set of steel plates—she was much, much faster than before.

She dashed to the man's left and abruptly knelt down, faintly hearing the sword hiss overhead. She swung her mace into his exposed calf, bracing herself against the arm-prickling recoil. The splintering crack left him sprawling on the ground, bereft of the blade he'd been so confidently holding. He was screaming, unable to figure out what to do with his awkwardly-splayed limb. As Rilien had taught her, Sparrow ended his screams by smashing his face in. Her means were not delicate, nor were they gentle or quick. However, even she did not relish in suffering. Laughter bubbled in her chest, but did not escape her lips. Killing was not something she enjoyed, either. Nonetheless, feeling her bones and muscles move underneath her skin filled her with feeling. Something in between exhilaration and freedom. Her body was her own. She wheeled on her heels, dancing away from the body, and turning to face whoever else dared to face her.

"Wasn't really expecting it," Ashton answered Sparrow. He still leaned back against the railing and plugged a raider exiting the hold. Honestly, the only thing he was worried about was getting to the ship in one place. His team were all great fighters in their own right, and a crew of pirates were no match for them. However, that advantage wasn't held when they were in piddly little rowboats. If the pirates had seen them on approach, then it would've been over for them. It wouldn't take much for them to point an arrow at them and pick them off at a distance. Not to mention the ballistae they no doubt had pointing out of the murderholes. He'd said nothing on the trip because, well, why worry everyone?

He did turn an annoyed eye upward to the form huddled in the crow's nest. That had been something he'd forgotten. Always take the lookout down first-- He should have done that while Lucien was giving his little surrender speech. Even though, the annoyance only lasted for a moment before it dissolved. He was losing his touch-- and that meant he was putting this part of his life behind him. Silver linings. Speaking of, he was having a good laugh at the next pirate's expense. He had to drop his bow and switch to the machete, but it was all worth it, as the pirate was brandishing a cutlass in nothing but his smallclothes.

he was fast enough to move out of the way of the initial slash, which managed to bury the blade into the wooden railing. Ashton kicked the blade's grip, smashing the pirates hand and making him lose hold. Now completely unarmed and nearly naked, the pirate stood in front of Ashton. The archer merely rolled his eyes and flipped the blade in his hand, smacking the pirate across the mouth with the flat of it. He couldn't just kill a man who was both unarmed and indecent-- Lucien must've been rubbing off of him. A hard thump off to his side caught his attention before he could engage another.

A pirate-- more dressed than the ones around him and with an arrow to the face, laid broken on his face. Ashton followed the direction he fell and noted the crow's nest as the only logical explanation. A quick glance at Garrath and his hypothesis was proved. A twinkle of victory dance in his eyes as his own bow dropped to his side.

His friends were certainly efficient, and Lucien found that he only had to dispatch one more pirate—this one with a sideways blow to the temple designed to stun and not kill—before it was seemingly over. The rest of the pirates stopped advancing, not that he could blame them. A good half of those left jumped over the port side of the ship and began swimming frantically for shore. He was inclined to remind them that the nearest shore was in the opposite direction, but there wasn’t really an opportunity of the clatter the others were making as they threw down their weapons and backed away from them, hands in the air to placate their assailants. From his own good faith, Lucien reaffixed his axes to his belt. He wouldn’t necessarily need them to hurt or kill somebody, but it was the symbolism that counted here. Almost despite himself, he was smiling as he turned to Ashton and the others. “What now?” he asked the other man mildly.

""Uh... well, maybe... we should-- Alright look," Ashton said pointing over the starboard side and into the water, "Is it that their captain?" Sure enough, in the direction Ashton pointed, a finely dress man in a magnificent hat was swimming his poor ass off. "Let them go? I really don't know, I never expected a surrender. This never happens," He said with a simple shrug.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Never in his days in Kirkwall had he imagined a bunch of vagabonds would attempt to appeal to his sense of mercy. The bands that roved the darkened streets were not the surrendering type, but apparently these pirates were. It was all a little off for Ashton as he expected this to go more along the lines of the usual manner, killing the raiders down to the last man. Fortunately for them, there wasn't a callous organ in his body and the idea of just executing them left a horrid taste in his mouth. So finding the mercy in his heart, he allowed them to follow their captain to shore. Well, not exactly follow, Ashton pointed out the correct direction of the shore before they jumped ship. Such as the gentleman he was.

Some splashes later and the ship was under their total control. Without words, Garrath ascended to the helm while Ashton lit some of the lanterns on deck. "Now that the ugly business is done, with considerably less ugly than I imagined mind you," He said, turning back and waving a finger in the general direction of someone. "It's smooth sailing from here on out," He punned with a giggle. With enough of the lanterns lit for people to see on deck without tripping over each other, or Maker forbid, falling off, Ashton returned to the group with a chest puffed out and a mock air of superiority.

"Alright my lovely crew. As your dashing, and not to mention handsome, captain, I ask that you get this ship ship-shape and ready to sail," A beat passed and he exaled all the hot air and donned his usual good natured smile, adding a magic word to the bravado, "Please?" Before they dispersed, Ashton laid a gentle hand on Nostariel's shoulder and pointed toward the nearby open hatch. "Except you, I've got a special job for you. We're going to check the decks below for any stowaways. Don't want to have any unexpected surprises, do we?" He said before admitting, "And I want to see what they got in stock. What can I say? I'm a curious man."

With that, he flashed her a bright smile and began walking backwards toward the hatch, beckoning Nostariel to follow. "Come along my pretty little firstmate, we must inspect our haul!"

Rilien could have done without all the showboating, but he felt that to say so was just on the wrong side of too much humor for him to be displaying. Not that he found puns particularly entertaining, but he did know that Ashton would probably appreciate it, a bit. Still, it was too far beneath his dignity, and so he refrained. Instead, he simply blinked at the set of orders, such as they were, and then promptly turned on his heel to make sure that the rigging was in working order. He didn’t know that much about sailing, but the basics were far from lost on him. Someone who’d done as much reading as he had tended to know a little bit about just about anything. He would not be surprised if the workings of ships were stored somewhere in Lucien’s repertoire of practical skills, and as for Sparrow—he honestly was not sure. He would not put it past her to have been on a ship or two in her life, obviously, but whether or not she’d bothered to learn anything about them was another matter.

Rilien, as it turned out, wasn’t too far wrong, though Lucien was far from an expert sailor of any kind. He knew how to haul an anchor and cut a jib, so to speak, but beyond the actual steering and the repositioning of sails, that was about it. He had little knowledge of how the rigging was supposed to look, only what generally attached to what and the names sailors gave to the various bits and bobs around the deck. Still, it should be enough, and he stood still a moment, getting a read on the general direction of the wind, then nodded to himself, adjusting a few things with the sails accordingly. It seemed to have some effect, as the white cloth filled to bulging with the breeze, and the ship started to move in the direction he’d intended. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do anything more complicated than that, though.




Nostariel tilted her head to one side, then nodded. "That makes sense,” she agreed, though a smile flitted over her face for a moment. "Curious, or sticky-fingered?” she asked with a hint of amusement. Not that she thought him a thief on a regular basis, of course, but this was a ship going from one set of raiders to another. Liberating some of the cargo would be as much a public service as anything, when looked at a certain way. Probably not Lucien’s way, she decided. Perhaps it was better to leave everything as it was, but that obviously did not preclude finding out just what everything was.

She followed him down the dimly-lit stairway to the first underdeck, which was considerably darker still. In the interests of not falling on her face, she lit a spell in one hand, the light easily enough to see by in a ten-foot radius or so. "What do we have then, captain?” she asked, attempting to peer round his shoulder and get a better look. Or more accurately, looking around his arm. He was a much taller person than she.

"Crates. A whole lotta crates. Real exciting," Ashton answered in deadpan, shifting to allow Nostariel a better view. Crates were everywhere, stacked up against the hull of the ship and taking up a bulk of the deck. There was a chaotic organization to it all, with just enough room for both Ashton and Nostariel to manuever comfortably, if only for the viture that neither possessed much girth. Ashton's tone then shifted into something a little more giddy, "But I do love opening presents!" He moved to the first crate and slid his machete under the lid, popping it off with little issue.

Within the crate, furniture finer than he could imagine awaited him. Probably because his imagination could come up with something better than nice chairs and tables. Dejected, Ashton replaced the lid and shook his head. "Unless you want to redecorate, let's keep looking," Ashton said, moving to the next crate. A slide and a pop, and the lid came off just as easily as the last. The contents of this crate proved to be better than the last. "We've struck gold," Ashton grinned, and pulled out a gold circlet studded with a blue gem. He looked at the piece and shrugged, "Looks like something you'd find in the Chantry," He looked back into the crate and sure enough it looked to be items pilfered from a religious hub.

"The Maker's not going to be too happy with them," Ashton, moving back toward Nostariel. In single swift movement, he placed the tiara upon the warden's head and taking a step back. He took on a thoughtful expression as he inspected Nostariel's new headgear and nodded sagely. "Just as I thought, you look as pretty as ever."

Nostariel snorted, shaking her head. A hand reached up and closed over the circlet, and she removed it from her head with a rueful smile. "I was never much of a Chantry girl,” she confessed, though he likely had guessed that much already, "But even I would be very uncomfortable wearing something intended for a statue of Andraste or something like that.” Believer or no, she wasn’t a heretic, and she certainly didn’t want to be taken for one. That could only end poorly, no matter what protection her status as a Warden offered.

The two moved deeper into the bowels of the ship, walking side-by-side through lines of crates, which Ash would occasionally open with the machete. Nostariel mostly kept the light going, looking for anything interesting or out of place. At least, that had been her plan until she quite literally tripped over something on the ground. Windmilling her arms, she just managed to grab hold of Ashton’s arm to stop herself from faceplanting into the deck. How very graceful of her.

Once she’d regained her balance, she turned around to take a look at what had tripped her In the first place. It was a massive tome of some sort. Stooping to pick it up, she found it very heavy—the pages must have been made of some particularly sturdy parchment. Hauling it upwards, she set it down on a crate and examined it more closely. The cover was predominantly blue, but there were other colors in some kind of design on it, as well as a white band with a ruby clasp holding it shut. There was something familiar about the color of that diamond-cut gem, like the hue of fresh blood. Unfortunate, that this was the first comparison that came to mind.

"I wonder what this is
” she murmured, undoing the clasp with the ease of one used to rummaging around in libraries containing many similarly-ancient things. She was surprised to find that the script was I none of the languages she knew, though it did indeed appear to be old, especially if the smell was anything to go by. Despite that, it was in very good condition. Peering closer at the characters, she sucked in a breath, realizing that while she didn’t know how to read them, she had seen them before, inside Amalia’s house, on the labels of the bottles that contained her ingredients. Qunlat.

"This is Qunari,” she said, shooting Ashton a glance over her shoulder. "And it looks important.” Carefully, she closed the book and refastened the clasp. She couldn't read it anyway, and she certainly didn’t want to risk anything happening to the book—it could be valuable to the Qunari, and that meant they should do everything they could to treat it well. "We can’t let Leech have this.”

"Then we won't," Ashton said reassuringly, hovering over Nostariel's shoulder. He had examined the book along with her, but all the so-called words look like incomprehensible scribbles. But if Nostariel thought it was important, than he was willing to protect it with his life if need be. He took his leave of Nostariel for a moment, heading a ways back down the old and peeking into one of the crates. An uttered curse and he moved to the one beside it, mumbling to himself, "I know it's in one of these things. I just saw-- Ah!" Upon the exclaimation he dove headfirst into the crate and retrieved a rucksack, and a fine one at that. For all of Ashton's skill in leather making, he couldn't come near the craftsmanship of the one held in his hand. Whatever he put in it, would certainly be protected from the elements. It almost felt like a betrayal just holding it, but necessity demanded that he simply deal with it.

He returned to Nostariel with the mouth of the bag open, allowing her to carefully deposit the book. He tightened the mouth and threw it over his shoulder. With that dealt with, he looked up and noticed that they were nearing the stern of the ship, and a set of stairs leading to the last deck lay just ahead of them. On either side of the stairs were a number of hammocks-- undoubtably the crew quarters. Among the hammocks, articles of clothing still remained, causing him to remember the incident with the pirate in his smallclothes. A chuckle escaped him as he moved past them and stood above the stairs.

He nodded approvingly as he looked back over the deck. "So far so good, no nasty surprises. Just expensive goods, like Garrath told us. One more deck and we're done. Simple," Ashton said with a smile. He then turned and descended the stairs. Just as fast as a flame getting snuffed out, so did things suddenly not become simple. Ashton stared in slackjaw silence at what he saw. A barrage of emotions assaulted him, shutting him down completely until he felt nothing but a cold numbness. He could do nothing but stare.

Crates didn't occupy the last deck, cages did. There were rows of cages, but it wasn't the cages that froze Ashton to the spot, but rather the contents. People, emaciated elves, stood in the cages. Fearful eyes cast their haunting cages at Ashton, wondering what fate this stranger brought them. They were quiet, just as quiet as Ashton was. Their fear reflected in his eyes. Not again. Maker, not again. He traveled back through time, back to the last job he ever pulled off. He never forgot their faces, he never would. Their faces, their fear, mirrored that of these elves perfectly. Ashton turned mechanically toward Nostariel, mouth open and eyes the size of saucers. His mouth worked in trying to find words, but none came. There were no words that could describe what was happening..

Nostariel managed to keep more of her composure, but that was hardly surprising—this was not a scene from her very nightmares, ripped from her mind and made real once again. This was not to say, however, that she was unaffected by it. Indeed, her stomach turned a lurching flip, and her hands curled into fists at her side. Quickly, she looked around the room, but there was no obvious key hanging anywhere—the captain had probably taken it with him when he jumped overboard. She had the vicious thought that she hoped he drowned, before shaking it off. Being angry wasn’t going to solve anything.

Instead, she stepped forward, taking one of the half-rusted padlocks in hand. "Lucien was right,” she said softly, turning to look at Ashton over her shoulder. "We can’t just give these people to Leech. It’s not right—you know that.” And she knew he knew it. Nostariel still recalled vividly the look on his face when he’d recounted this story to her—told of a different time, and a different man. She had faith that the person he was now would not allow this to happen, no matter how much harder that made things. "Help me free them. Please.”

Under her hands, the lock heated until red with it, then rapidly iced over and chilled, leaving it brittle and bearkable. But she had nothing with which to do the breaking, unlike Ashton. The machete should work just fine for such a purpose. She knew it was important to him to do this job and not earn the ire of whomever he was working for, but he had to know that this was too wrong not to fix. She believed in him, she did. Surely all of those considerations were gone now, in the face of what they were seeing. This was an opportunity for him to prove to himself that he was a better person than he had been, the kind of person she knew he was. All that remained was for him to take it.

Ashton's face was an empty vessel, at least until Nostariel spoke again. So shocked was he by the specter of his past haunting his present, he didn't realize that these people were suffering far more than he was. He slapped himself hard enough to leave a mark and moved forward, machete at the ready. A flash of uncharacteristic rage flickered across his face as he made one comment to Nostariel. "I'm going to kill that bastard," He said with uncharacteristic darkness. There was no lightness in his tone, no flicker of hyperbole, not even a hint that it was a jest. It was the truth, he would kill Leech, and his entire bandit outfit for this.

The machete slipped in behind the lock, and Ashton applied the necessary leverage to shatter the lock into pieces. He swung the door wide and pointed upward toward the upper decks. "Go up a deck, grab as much stuff as you can carry, and tell the people on the top deck to help you. We have two rowboats to get you back to the mainland," Ashton spoke, disregarding everything but these people's safety. They needed the plunder more than Leech did, and besides-- what would a dead man need with treasure? He shifted downt to the next cage and as Nostariel gave the same treatment to that lock, Ashton spoke to her.

"Thank you for that... Kick in the ass. I needed it. I'm sorry I left for a minute, I was just-- Look," Ashton said, sighing. Well, they weren't giving this ship to Leech now, so he might as well tell her. "They threatened to burn down your clinic if I didn't do this job," He revealed through an imperceptive sigh. "I wasn't about to let them lay a finger on you, or anything you've built. I still don't plan to," He said before he began to softly ram his head into the steel bars.

All the locks were broken, all the people in the cages fled to the upper decks, and Ashton’s confession fell at first into complete silence, interrupted only by the dull thudding of his head into the rusty iron bars of the door he still held. Nostariel reached up, sliding a hand over the bars so he couldn’t repeat the motion and hurt himself, but for a moment, she didn’t say anything. She was the reason he’d agreed to do this? The Warden honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one level, of course, it was incredibly self-sacrificing of him, to undertake this venture back into a part of his life that he hated, and all on her behalf. That part was a little overwhelming, really, and something fluttered with uncomfortable nervousness in the pit of her stomach.

On the other hand
 she couldn’t help but think it was a little unnecessary. She wasn’t helpless—it would not have been the first time she’d fended off some people less than happy with the fact that she offered such a vital service for free, that those with sick relatives no longer had to take out exorbitant, gouged loans to afford an apothecary’s goods. And besides that, she had many friends who would be willing to help, himself included. A Captain of the Grey was not afraid of street thugs, no matter how formidable they took themselves to be. She had slain Darkspawn in the Deep Roads—scarcely any horror people could visit upon one another compared to that.

Still, she smothered the flash of irritation, remembering how tentative Ash had been regarding the suggestion of simply taking Leech down instead. He knew more of the gang leader than she did, and it seemed that he warranted more caution than the average such person. He was trying to look out for her, and she was not blind to what he’d been willing to give up to do it. "Ashton,” she said seriously, tilting her head back a bit to look him dead in the eye. "Don’t ever do something like that without telling me again. Please.” She would have been devastated to learn that this was all done for her if things had gone worse. What if someone had been seriously injured? What if they hadn’t gone down to these decks and discovered those people? She’d have felt responsible, and she didn’t want either of them to shoulder something like that.

She paused, and her expression softened. Her free hand reached up and gently touched his cheek. "And thank you. For being willing to do it.” She half-smiled, tracing the line of his scar with a fingertip. "Now. I think we have some gang members to deal with. Let’s go find the others.” Dropping both her hands, Nostariel glanced around to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, then turned to head for the upper deck.

"Let's," Ashton agreed, feeling a weight on his shoulders shift. Neither was it lighter or heavier, just... Different. "I won't," He promised.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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They were headed for shore, perhaps halfway there, when the first of the emaciated people made his way to the surface, clothed in scarcely more than thin rags and carrying an armful of what looked to be vaguely Chantry-themed gold. He got one look at Lucien, Rilien, Sparrow, and Garrath and froze, something like a deer in the face of a predator. Lucien himself held his hands up as disarmingly as possible, slowly winding a sail-rope around a hook designed for the purpose and stepping forward very slowly. “Th-the one downstairs!” the man started, pointing back towards the door he’d emerged from as if that explained everything. It perhaps explained enough. “H-he said to take what we could carry, and you would get us b-boats.”

Lucien swiftly did the mental exercise and determined what must have happened belowdecks. “Then we’ll get you a boat,” he said simply, moving to the side of the ship and grabbing the mooring rope for one of the rowboats they’d used to get here, now tied to the deck rail. “You’ll want to wrap all of that up in one bundle, if possible.” It would be much easier to drop into the boat, that way.

Several more people followed, and Lucien and the others helped them lower themselves and what they carried out into the rowboats, this time pointing out the direction of the docks and telling them where it was best for them to go ashore. He wasn’t sure how well the Alienage would handle the influx of newcomers, especially not in such bad condition, but that was a matter to deal with later. Right now, getting them into the city and away from their captivity was the important thing. Hopefully whatever valuables they’d grabbed would sell moderately well, and they could at least keep themselves for a while. He’d have to be sure to check with Nostariel and Amalia about it later


Speaking of, the Warden and Ashton both emerged onto the upper deck just as he tossed the mooring rope for the second boat down to the people on it, and it too took off for the Kirkwallian shore. Straightening from his lean, Lucien fixed both with his single visible eye, and quirked the eyebrow over it, though the rest of his expression was grave. “I take it,” he said quietly, “that our plans have changed.”

Sparrow may have been a smidgen less useful than Lucien when it came to adopting chores aboard the vessel they'd so peculiarly-commandeered. Honestly, she'd expected much more blood. A lot more screaming and stubbornness. She'd encountered plenty of sailors, but never any pirates—and all of those stories she'd heard of fearless, merciless pirates going down with their ships, rather than surrender to a bunch of dirty landlubbers, had become unfounded in a matter of days. She couldn't help but feel disappointed. Instead of aiding Lucien with the rigging or bugging Nostariel and Ashton in the ship's bowels, Sparrow occupied her time by subtly harassing the nervous, tittering navigator and climbing the rigging like she'd been born to sail the seas. Frankly, the lack of female sailors kept her in foul spirits.

She shouldn't have been surprised to see so many slaves aboard the vessel. Where there were pirates and greedy dogs, dark dealings often followed, or so she'd been told. The ship somewhat reminded her of the one she'd recently taken under her wing; the one that belonged to the man-who-looked-like-Lucien. Speaking of which, she'd never apologized to him about that. Her outright avoidance must have made him uncomfortable. Another day, another conversation. She stood beside her companions, Garrath aside, and watched as the skeletal-figured forms halted their ascent. She, herself, no longer cut as an imposing a figure as she would have liked, but the first to emerge still jerked to a halt at the sight of them. It was what they held in their arms that was most curious. Chantry-treasure; or at least, something that looked like it belonged in the Chantry. Valuable, from the looks of it. She licked her lips and sighed halfheartedly, “Chantry goods. They would sell for a pretty penny.” She looked over her shoulder at Rilien and added, “Ashton's changed, hasn't he?” Rilien only blinked-- the question was not his to answer.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Either way, Sparrow approved. There were women in their midst, but they shied away from her, gripping the bundles all the tighter to their chests. Entirely nonplussed, Sparrow made light conversation, casually complimenting them on their pretty eyes and hair and gentle fingers while moving what they could not carry. This, she thought, may have been what it was like to feel like a hero. Battling evildoers until they surrendered and mercifully allowing them to live. Freeing slaves and saving women and children, and then showering them with riches and giving them a place they might call home. Sparrow wouldn't have thought herself capable of performing such feats. Not willingly, anyway. Perhaps, she was the one who was changing. She clapped her hands together and watched as rowboats paddled back towards Kirkwall. Towards the Alienage. She wondered how Amalia and Aurora would fare with all of the new faces. Surely, Nostariel would be busy patching up whoever needed medical attention...

It was Lucien's voice that brought her attention back to everyone else still standing on the decks. She turned and leaned her back and elbows against one of the cannons, eyeing them. Whatever else needed to be done, she'd be there. As well as everyone else, she guessed. By the severity of Lucien's voice, she wondered what Ashton and Nostariel may have had in mind.

"Marginally," Ashton responded, though the word didn't match the gesture. He held his hands near two feet apart to indicate how marginally he meant. His hands then drifted to his lower back, where he pushed, popping his spine. He then looked out over the water towards line, gazing towards the last direction he'd seen the rowboats head. "Half of Leech's prize are on those rowboats, so chances are he isn't going to be too thrilled with that. We might have to move up the whole 'kill Leech' plan," He said all rather nonchalantly, though a smile never did find its way to his face.

Garrath himself was entirely quiet on the matter, listening intently with his arms cross and jaw set. It was as if he was bracing himself for something he knew that was coming. Hands clenched his elbows and his shoulders were squared, waiting for whatever was coming. "Oh, and before I forget," Ashton said, and the reason Garrath seemed braced became clearly apparent. Ashton rounded on his heel and smashed a heavy fist into Garrath's jaw, putting him on the ground instantly. He didn't make much of a movement to return to his feet, he just sat on the deck and waited for Ashton to vent. "I told you I was done with this! And what do you do? You don't bring me back to just steal a ship-- No, you pick one with slaves on it!" Ashton yelled, pushing his hair out of his face.

Garrath just nodded and wiped the blood that was pooling in the corner of his mouth. "Saw that coming," He accepted, but before Ashton could continue to vent or throw another punch, he continued, "But I did not see the slaves coming. This was supposed to be a simple grab-and-go." He looked around at the others gathered and finished on Ashton. "If I'd known, then I wouldn't have asked you. You think I like dealing in flesh?" Garrath asked back before shaking his head. "But if it wasn't you, could you honestly say that whoever would have replaced you would have set them free?" He asked.

Ashton winced. No, he knew the people who dealt with this line of work. None of them were as merciful or as soft as he was. Garrath had the closest thing he'd seen to a soul amongst the thieves he knew. "Then you won't mind helping us take down Leech," Ashton not so much as asked, but rather commanded. You've got me into this mess, you're going to be there when I get out, Ashton thought to himself as he held out a hand for Garrath to take. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?" He asked rhetorically, taking the offered hand back to his feet.

A look of confliction graced Ashton's face as he looked to his friends. While Garrath did not have a choice, they deserved one, but with Ashton giving the slaves the rowboats to escape he seemed to have chose for them. "I... Guess you guys don't either," Ashton said meekly. He was ashamed that he had not thought about their feelings on the matter. If there was another set of iron bars in front of him, he'd set about banging his head again. Seeing as they were absent for the time being, he just hid his forehead with his hand. "I'm sorry... For everything. For dragging you all back into my past. You all deserve better than that," He said. The fact that he knew each of them would willingly help him only made it worse.

"I'll make this up to you all, I promise," He said. He had to try and make it right. That was the only thing he could do anymore.

"Unnecessary,” Rilien replied, referring to both the apology itself, as well as the promise to repay them. He had taken this job with the implicit understanding that he would not be monetarily compensated for it—he saw no reason to change his tune now. If they had to kill slavers and thugs, well
 Rilien was certainly not going to weep over such deaths. Even had he been capable of the necessary remorse, he would have been too busy disliking the people he was killing to feel sorry for them. As it was, this was merely another obstacle in the way of the mission’s completion. Like all the others, it would be surmounted, probably with a lot of blood involved.

"Rilien’s right,” Nostariel added, faintly surprised that she had cause to agree with the Tranquil on anything, but definitely with him on this one all the same. "We’re your friends. That's why we’re here, and I’m sure none of us object to doing the right thing and dealing with this Leech and his gang.” She couldn’t imagine anyone here having a problem with what they were going to do, not even the recently-hit Garrath. She might have been a bit less sympathetic towards him than she could be, but she did not think him a monster, not by a long shot. A little inconvenience was a small price to pay for the help they’d be giving their friend and the city. It was simply inconceivable that someone should refuse to do it. Lucien nodded as well-- it was obvious what they had to do here, and it was really what he'd been inclined to do from the start. It certainly didn't demand any apologies. As always, Sparrow agreed. Dealing with scumbags had become a bit of a hobby of hers (and Garrath needed a good punch in the chompers). Whatever still needed doing—needed to be done promptly. If it helped Ashton get out of all of these shady dealings, as well, then it was well worth it. She flashed him a grin, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Until the end.” She would not forget, regardless of their friendship, that she owed him much.

"Well, that's settled then. Still wish I had options," Ashton said, shooting a glare at Garrath, who in turn took a tentative step back. He had already taken one hook, he wasn't about to risk another. All enthusiam that he might had feigned had been drained out of him, and now he viewed the job as just that. A job that needed to be done. He shook his head and pointed at the helm, "Take us to the meeting spot while he hatch out a plan of attack," He told Garrath. He nodded and turned, taking his place back at the helm, grateful to be out of Ashton's reach.

Once he was sure Garrath was steering them in a direction other than backward, he turned back to his friends and shrugged slightly. "I'm not going to lie and sugarcoat it, this is probably going to be difficult. Like I said before, two dozen of his best buddies, and in tight quarters to boot. Not to mention the bastard is a blood mage," He mentioned offhandedly before pausing. He paused for a beat, letting what he just said filter through his own ears. A moment later was accompanied by a mouthed curse and and closing of his eyes. "I might have accidently forgot that part-- why the hell is it always a blood mage? Why not a normal one?" Ashton asked Nostariel, before scanning the rest of them.

He rolled his eyes at himself and drove forward, tucking that bit of information away for later. "Anyway," he exaggerated the word's length as he continued, "it's going to be a party, is what I'm saying. Maybe we can use the quarters to our advantage, but still. I don't like those odds," Ashton said, crossing his arms and migrating toward the railing, upon which he said. "We should even them up, yes?" He said thoughtfully. "Any suggestions?" He asked curiously.

Rilien considered it, folding his arms into his sleeves and staring straight ahead at some point over the horizon. "Sabotage,” he offered after a bit of deliberation. "Poison or acid or a smokescreen, if they are available. The close quarters will make it difficult to escape any such effects, and we can wait until the resultant fumes have mostly dissipated before entering. Anyone with the ability to hit multiple targets at once should take the first round of attacks, then step aside and allow shorter-range combatants to actually enter first.”

Nostariel wasn’t the most fond of using poison or acid, but she could see the merit in the plan. "So
 that would probably be Rilien and Ash with the chemicals, then myself and Sparrow with mass-targeted offensive magic. I suspect after that, we let Lucien in and follow him.” She smiled a bit apologetically at her knight friend, but he was by far the most durable of the lot of them, even if he wasn’t wearing full plate at the moment. The plan thus far would require a lot of stealth of the first two, a lot of speed and judgement from the second, and a lot of courage from Lucien. Those traits, she thought, were at least playing to their strengths. "Once things actually get down to it, though, I don’t think there’s a lot of planning we can do. We’ll have to work together as well as we can and react to what the situation gives us.”

Lucien waved off Nostariel’s glance—apologies were not necessary. He knew there were advantages to being as large and strong as he was, and subtlety was not one of them. Being able to get in the way of a lot of people simultaneously was. He could hardly expect to be asked to play to his weaknesses rather than his strengths, and he preferred to be useful, regardless. Rilien’s strategy was sound, and though quite a bit depended on his ability to do what was being asked of him, he wasn’t worried about it any more than he needed to be. He was good at what he did, and he knew that much. He’d simply have to dig in his heels and do it. As a military commander, he had drilled strategies akin to this one before, though they were not usually so heavily-reliant on subterfuge. Still, one worked with the resources that one had, and it just so happened that this was the way the personnel was arranged.

“It’s fine by me,” he said simply. “Just point me where you want me to block, and I’ll block.”

Ashton chewed his lip for a moment before shrugging, "Sounds like more of a plan than we usually have. This whole "ambush" thing is a new experience," Ashton said with the intended air quotations. He then paused and reflected on what he had just said, flipping his hand through the air as he did. "Well. Not new. I can't wake up in the morning without walking into one. It's new being the ambusher rather than the ambushee," And just like that, the word ambush was beginning to lose all meaning on account of how many times he used it.

"So that settles it then. After we're done, we can sing sea shanties all the way home. Does anyone know the "Drunken Sailor?" Ashton asked enthusiastically.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The water was dark, the prow of the boat slicing cleanly and quietly through the few waves present at sea this close to shore. The motion of the ship was a smooth rocking under his feet, and it hardly registered consciously to Lucien. Perhaps, had he been a different man with a different life, a life as his should probably have been, he would have been unused to the feeling, and disturbed even by this much. But while knights could choose to remain land-bound and mounted whenever possible, mercenaries had to be adaptable, and both willing and able to grow accustomed to new things. It was not his first time on the ocean, and he doubted it would be his last. He bore it no great love, but he was not averse, either. As he had learned to do with both people and circumstances, he simply accepted this for what it was, appreciating what it had to offer, which in this case was a certain meditative rolling, conducive to the flow of his thoughts.

It was not meant to be, however, because it wasn’t long before they would have made it into the port that he spotted a light in this distance—another ship, from the way it bobbed slightly up and down, as the lights on their deck were undoubtedly also doing. There was no reason for a trade vessel to be leaving safe harbor at this time of night, and certainly not to be making for the only other boat on the water, so he was left with one conclusion.

“I think,” he said, loud enough for those about the deck to hear, “that our duplicity may have been discovered.” Perhaps one of those they’d allowed to escape had intentionally misconstrued the terms of his or her surrender and informed Leech of the goings-on. If so, it was but one more consequence to accept, and he would do so without complaint. Though not, in the end, without concern. Hopefully, it had been deemed more important to pursue the rogue ship than to attempt to recover the people coming ashore and making for the Alienage.

Lucien's call drew Ashton's attention, and the pitter-patter of his feet echoed over the deck until he stood ontop of the railing, arm intertwined in the rigging. Leaning forward it took him no time to locate the ship Lucien spoke of. This surprise evoked little more than a harumph out of the hunter. "Hmm, I do believe you are correct, Ser Chevalier. Least it simplifies the issue of finding," Ashton said with a chuckle. "He's got nowhere to go. Let's get ready ladies and gents! We've got visitors, and I aim to give 'em the best boarding party they ever had!" He said, dismounting the railing and loosing his bow. Now there was only the small matter of finding his perch, and being the professional hunter he was, he already had three in mind.

Everyone was more or less ready by the time the second boat, superior to the one they sailed, slid up beside theirs with all the sleekness of a mink, the boarding planks clattering onto their deck seconds later. Lucien moved to block one of these ingresses, as one holding a more conventional chokepoint would do on land. He had promised to block, after all. Unfortunately, there were two planks, even he could not be in two places at once.

Not only was he a marvelous hunter, but Ashton seemed to have picked up a taste for tactics hanging around his friends. While Lucien created a chokepoint with that large body of his, Ashton had set up on the stairs leading to the helm giving him a clear shot at the other. The men who streamed across the pair of planks wore darkened pitch armor glinting in the moonlight, their faces obscured by black cloth. These men were Leech's handpicked enforcers, while the maleficarum probably waited from somewhere from inside the other boat. Smart, that one. That was the first thing Ashton noted, his eyes immediately set about looking for the elf. Still, he knew the bastard was on the boat, men like him didn't simply watch from the shore, their ego wouldn't allow. If it meant that Ashton would have to go into his own boat to kill him, then so be it. But first, his lackeys.

An arrow whistled through the air, and a splash bespoke of his aim. Another followed soon after, but they boarded faster than he could drop them. If they weren't culled fast enough, then they'd overrun over the ship. Another arrow glided through the air, though this one wasn't from Ashton's bow. A glance behind him revealed Garrath reaching for another arrow. The two locked eyes for a moment before he shrugged, "I needed a promotion anyway." Chuckling, Ashton turned back toward the gangplank, a fresh arrow nocked in his bow.

It was evident that a body was needed to actually block the way on the second gangplank, and though Rilien was no Lucien, the fact that two archers would be doing the majority of the work between them was enough that it should not be a problem for him to provide the body in question. Indeed, he flickered into visibility behind one of those enforcers that had made it past the barrage of arrows, his knife planted firmly into her back. The area around the wound was already freezing when he withdrew the implement, spinning it around into a backhand grip and using it to slash across the chest of the next marauder as he whirled to face them. The arrow-fire was still steady, and this meant that only the occasional combatant made it to the Tranquil on the other side. He “held” his end with far less solidity than Lucien did, preferring instead to preserve his motion, ducking and weaving beneath bodies and wooden shafts, slicing whenever he spotted this or that bit of exposed or poorly-protected skin.

Nostariel had taken up a spot at the aft of the ship, high enough to see over Lucien’s head from somewhat to the left. From there, she assisted him as best she could, firing magically-charged and mundane arrows alike into the line of enforcers trying to make it past the leather-armored knight. He was a bit less sturdy than usual, perhaps, given the absence of metal, but all the same, she was confident that they could handle this. An arrow sailed over his shoulder, thudding into an enforcer’s chest, and tipping his balance just enough to send him off the boarding plank. Things seemed to be going well
 until she caught the telltale glimmer of Tevinter Fire.

"Pitch!” she shouted, referring to the tarlike substance that was most often set on fire and catapulted onto enemy ships. This boat, being a trade vessel, had no such things, smugglers or not. Standing from her crouch, Nostariel lit an arrow with the best ice spell she had and aimed high, firing the arrow from the bow in a powerful arc. It landed wide of where she’d wanted it, but still extinguished a few of the catapult fires, buying them some time to prepare for the incoming onslaught.

Never one for finesse, even in a weaker state, Sparrow curled white-knuckled fingers around the hilt of her mace and willed it to be lighter (something she would never admit aloud), imbuing it with arcane energy. She whirled it in a tight circle, clicking her tongue appreciatively. Had she any sense, she would have simply asked Rilien to enchant the damn thing—but stubborn is as stubborn goes, and her pride simply wouldn't survive uttering the words. As discussed, Sparrow watched Lucien break off towards the choke point and Nostariel gracefully take the upper levels, raining down arrows as Ashton did, as well. It was the most organized thing she'd ever been a part of, so much that she felt lost. She was a creature of disrepair and spontaneity. She'd been prepared to take the second gangplank, but Rilien had already beaten her to it. Already gracefully weaving between the bodies, slipping unseen knives through exposed ribs and lungs and tender parts that left them flopping down at his feet like fish.

No use getting in their way. “Mind if I join you, lady-lass?” She shouted over her shoulder, mouth split in a smile. Sparrow climbed the staircase Nostariel had taken, and took her place at her side, conjuring concentrated balls of energy and tossing them to those who still attempted to scramble aboard. Some cried out and pitched off the plank, splashing between the two ships. Other times, Sparrow sorely missed—unused to solely using magic and not simply bashing her way through things like a brute. It was the best that she could do. Pitch—not good. Not good at all if it hit any of them. She, too, crouched down to avoid the onslaught of incoming arrows, where archers had finally gathered enough wits to shoot back at them. Peeping up from her hiding-space, she wrestled down the innate urge to simply begin slinging fireballs across the way, and concentrated on applying arcane shields on her companions. Sinking back down, Sparrow exhaled sharply through her nose. Anything these days, particularly of the magical flavor, took its toll on her. She felt old, but at least she could do something.

Some of the archers seemed to have added two and two, and began dipping their arrows into the pitch before firing them. The result was a number of flaming arrows streaming through the darkened sky. These particular arrows did not have a particular target in mind, aiming only to set fire to the boat under their feets. Ashton glanced upward and became acutely aware of the sail above their heads on fire. It began as a small ember, but eventually that ember would grow into something far more fierce before it was over. Adding the pitch and other flaming arrows into the equations, he predicted a swift change of scenery in their near future.

As if to enforce the point, one of the catapults launched its contents right where Ashton was standing. Quick thinking and even quicker feet had Ashton up by the helm, and closer to Nostariel and Sparrow. Ashton had tripped on the last step, leaving him sitting in front of the burning pitch. He watched as the fire spread from the tar and into the wood proper. No doubt the side of the ship was in much of the same state, a ship-swap. Standing and slipping his bow over his head, he waved for Nostariel to descend the other flight of steps. "They want to sink this ship? Let them. We'll just take theirs in return. Go!" Ashton said between coughs. The fumes were starting to sink into his lungs.

Nostariel didn’t need to be told twice: the ship was catching fire, and they needed to abandon it. She didn’t exactly feel attached, though taking the fight to the other boat would put her in a bit of a bind—the quarters would be much closer, and that was where she tended not to do as well as she would have liked. Then again, it was where Sparrow seemed to thrive, so perhaps as she’d provided her fellow mage with cover fire here, Sparrow would be willing to act as shield over there. Either way, she descended the steps quickly, and was halfway across the nearest gangplank before she realized that she no longer knew where Ashton was.

At the first oily whiff of fire, and Ashton's persuasive idea, Sparrow nearly got herself killed by springing up from her hiding place. Fiery arrows whizzed overhead, thudding into the wooden railings. She swore she felt the crackling bite of flames kiss her cheeks, but it could have just been the ship catching fire. Pitch, arrows, wood—not a good mix, especially since the ground beneath their feet had no resistances to such things. Her arcane arts were useless in protecting them while she dodged arrows, nor could she properly aim any ice-spells at the already growing patches of fire. She followed close on Nostariel's heels, shirking away from the spitting beams. Everything seemed as if it were on the brink of bursting into fractured-slivers and dangerous obstacles. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Ashton bounding down the stairs, as well, but stopped short of the gangplank. Just about to call to him, Ashton beat her to it, already backing up against the railing. Scheming some sort of grand escape, no doubt. Heroes, after all, never died. She turned away and crossed to the other ship.

A part of the mast had fallen and barred Ashton's forward progress. It would be a trivial matter for him to clamber over, had the beam not also been engulfed in flame. He found himself alone at the aft of the ship, both avenues of escape either blocked, on fire, or a combination of the two. He spent the first couple of moments moving from one set of stairs to the other like a confused mouse until he finally figured out that escape wouldn't come from eithe direction. "I'll be fine, go on over to the other ship, I'll meet you over there!" He called over the flames for anyone who was listening.

Of course, saying and doing are two completely different things. He'd have to find a way around the fire first or jump into the water below. He backed up to the railing behind him and glanced down at the fall below. Whistling to himself, he decided that that way wasn't going to do. That and he'd be easy prey for any opportune archer who saw him flailing about the ocean. The boat creaked as the fire steadily spread. Death by arrow, death by drowning, or death by fire-- which one did he feel the most comfortable with? Honestly? None of them.

His vision darted across the side of the ship before it came dancing back. The bow of the hostile ship waited just beyond the railing. He moved towards it, leaning forward and gauging the distance. It was long shot, but it was possible. He did have long legs after all, maybe it was about time he put them to use. He had to lean backward to dodge an arrow threatening to peel his gourd, but that was the only option that didn't involve certain death. Though, there was always the chance of death, but he wisely decided to think against possiblities of that type.

Taking as many steps back as he dared, he fell into a dead sprint and hit the railing, launching off with a foot. He sailed through air and then... Missed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Perhaps fortunately for her peace of mind, Nostariel did not see the spectacularly-failed attempt at a leap, as she was caught up trying to stay alive. The men and women on these boats were a mix of poorly-armored, roughspun deckhands and what seemed to be the most elite fighters Leech had at his disposal. The boarding party they’d just dealt with had clearly comprised the middle. Coming across the gangplank, Nostariel was nearly beheaded, but she managed to lean back just in time to earn herself a nasty gash to the cheek instead. Too close to draw an arrow, she blasted the woman responsible with raw fire instead, sending her smoking over the side of the boat, probably to drown. Part of her winced, but there was simply no time to consider much of anything for long.

Lacking any significant melee capability, Nostariel knew that she had to get out of the way of the others, and quickly. Pursing her lips, she caught sight of some loose, low-hanging rigging rope, and decided that it was her best option. Channeling a much clumsier, less able version of everyone’s favorite Qunari, she ran for it, ducking past a few bewildered crewmen and shouldering her bow before using her momentum to leap as high as she could, catching the dangling rope with both hands and climbing it as several cutlasses made hasty swipes for her feet. Another occasion on which she owed her life to Amalia; she’d never have been able to support her own weight like this a few years ago. Now though, she managed to get herself partway up the rigging, bracing her feet in it as well as she could and drawing her bow again, nocking an arrow to the string and icing the projectile over. That, she fired into a knot of people making for Sparrow.

Rilien played a more flexible go-between, given that Sparrow was being attacked on one side of the boat and Lucien the other. Without the convenience of a chokepoint, both of them had their work cut out for them. Crouched behind an assassin of some kind, he used the strength in his legs to help drive his blade up into the back of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord and ending his life, whirling in place to deflect an awkward scimitar strike with the other. Metal connected with metal, but the lightning woven into the silverite of his own traveled up the steel of the tall woman’s, and she hissed with her surprise, dropping her weapon and her only chance of survival. Swinging his body back the other way, Rilien laid open two wide slashes, one across her abdomen, and the other over her throat. A spray of arterial blood barely missed him, and he flowed smoothly to the next. It seemed Leech himself had yet to make an appearance.

She played a much poorer shield than Lucien, but that did not stop her from barreling after the deckhands who swung their blades after Nostariel—who'd impressively vaulted over their heads, dangling above them like one of those nice lasses she'd seen at the Blooming Rose. The circumstance, as it was, did not allow her to admire the woman's agility. She bullied her way into the fray, catching a man in the face with her bony elbow and allowing the momentum to catch another with her leather-clad fist. What she lacked in efficiency, discipline and a man's prowess, Sparrow made up for in pure reckless abandon, roaring like a wild-thing breaking out of a cage. It only took her a moment to snatch up her mace, and swing it in a heavy-handed arc, catching someone's shoulder and careening off into a cheek. She spun in a tight circle, avoiding a downward slash and followed up with the flanged underbelly of her mace, smashing it, two-handed, into the man's exposed chin. Teeth, lips, nose crushed inwards, spluttering florid red across her own face.

Damned thing was stuck. She grunted with the effort, trying to pull her mace from the mess-of-the-man's-skull. She poised her foot on the deckhands shoulder and tugged harder. It finally gave, but she heard a strangled cry. Someone behind her, intent on striking her down, thudded down at her feet. An arrow protruded from the back of his head. Straight through his eye socket, in all specificness. Fortunately for her, Sparrow's blind spots were covered by keen eyes, and a wicked hand. She spun the mace in a tight, controlled circle, spattering the remaining bits across the deck. Rilien always said that a weapon was best used in a clean state. She took up a defensive stance, eying the remaining deckhands she'd initially assaulted. Bloody-nose, and the one she'd elbowed. Both men, thankfully. Fighting women was still a sore subject. Bloody-nose howled or gurgled, rather, towards her, ambling to her right and wildly swinging that scimitar of his. The maneuver was laughably easy to parry, but she overcompensated. Underestimated, rather, that he would have been able to lock her mace in a standstill.

His friend, the one who smelt like dirty socks and onions, pounced to her left, driving a dagger into her hip. She didn't believe in the Maker. Not like people usually did. Lady luck, perhaps. Her boniness, probably. She felt it slip in and out just as easily, like a knife through butter. Like her fingers through water. She did not remember howling. She did not remember yanking herself away from bloody-nose, and wrestling the knife-wielder in a wild attempt to disengage herself. She remembered the body-quaking crash as they collided with the floorboards, in a tumble of arms and legs. She did not remember Ashton meeting them on the ship, either.

Lucien’s maneuvering was much less dramatic, by design: he simply moved himself across the gangplank from one ship to the other, this made easier by the fact that he was much more sure of step than the half-panicked enforcers, who were by now coming to the realization that despite the low number of their foes, they were by and large quite outclassed. He had no doubt that for thugs, they were quite stout and survivable. But they were still only thugs, self-trained, sloppy, and subject to the mental weaknesses of glory-seeking, overestimation of their own abilities, and—when these faded—fear enough to paralyze. He took what pity he could on them and chose to use the flat side of his axe to simply shove them into the water when he could. They’d chosen the wrong profession and the wrong employer, but that itself was not inherently worthy of death. Not if there was another way.

Sometimes, however, there was not. No sooner had he made it to Leech’s own boat than he was immediately set upon by three remarkably-similar-looking men; triplets, if he had to guess. Each was large, broad, and bald, though they’d all chosen different weapon arrangements: one held a longsword and shield, one a pair of cudgels, and another a bastardsword, similar in intent if not in quality to Sophia’s Vesenia. He didn’t wield it half as well as she did either, and Lucien simply turned into his blow, the blade turning on the hardened leather of his chestplate. He’d have been better off stabbing, but it wasn’t a mistake he’d have much time to contemplate. Lucien hooked his axe behind the man’s knees and pulled, sending him to the deck and smashing the butt end of the haft into his forehead with a grisly crunch, but the time he took to do it forced him to take a shield bash from the next right in the shoulder.

The man’s size was comparable to his own, and his strength close as well—the joint dislocated. With a grunt, he swung his heavy weapon one handed, cracking up and into the man’s chest cavity, but the force of his opponent falling backwards and the weapon’s own weight tore it from his grip, and his hand went immediately to his injured shoulder, and he leaned back under the horizontal swing of the first cudgel, his heels meeting a bit of air and forcing him onto the balls of his feet if he wished to stay on board the boat. Understandably, the third of the triplets was in a rage at the deaths of his brothers, and quite intent on his vengeance. The second cudgel smashed uncomfortably into the chevalier’s ribs, cracking one of them. It’d have broken several more if Lucien hadn’t known how to move after such a hit, but even so
 he wasn’t in the best of positions. Gritting his teeth, he popped his shoulder back into the socket, diving to the deck as the cudgels came in for another attempt. His ribcage protested the motion, but he came up on his feet, and no longer in danger of going overboard. The nearest weapon was the longsword the second had been holding, but Lucien wasn’t going to take it, so he grabbed the shield instead, bringing it up just in time to meet the double downward sweep of the clubs.

The wooden shield groaned under the blow, but it had done what it needed to. As the blows, the force excessive and therefore rebounding much harder than was safe for the wielder, ricocheted off the wood, Lucien put his back into it and smashed the man in the face, dropping him to the deck and then rolling him overboard with a foot. Perhaps he’d survive. The knight hoped so—drowning was not a very good way to die. Picking his axe back up, he waded deeper into the battle, glad of the overhead support from Nostariel and the flitting form of Rilien, coming and going as was necessary to assist both himself and Sparrow, who for now held the other end of the boat. The numbers of thugs and deckhands both were thinning rapidly—if Leech planned on surviving this, he had to show himself while he still had men left, and that wouldn’t be much longer now.

Like a mirror image of Ashton, Garrath danced across the gangplank behind Lucien. The man had a great way of pushing across to the other boat, making more than enough room for the man to follow. However, unlike Lucien, every arrow Garrath fired was one aimed to kill or maim. The less that remained of this lot, the better. He jumped onto the deck and put distance between him and his foes-- it was better he was far from that scrap. However, the fight would soon find him either way as he soon found out. Standing unprotected in the middle of the deck was stupid and he knew it, but he didn't have a choice. For this, he recieved a flaming arrow to the shoulder. Flesh sizzled under his muted show, and he quickly ripped the arrowhead out. The bit of cloth tied to the arrow to act as the flames wick saw to it that the arrow didn't dig far, but the pain and burning was still there. One good thing about the flaming arrow though-- it managed to cauterize the wound. At least he wouldn't bleed out.

He flipped the arrow around and nocked it into his own bow, returning it to the sender. It was the only arrow he could manage on the deck as a thug drew in to engage in close combat. Garrath responded to the challenge by swinging his bow at the man-- the light timber shattering on the man's thick padded leathers. As far as he could tell, the only damage it'd done was to evoke a grunt and piss him off a little bit. Garrath managed to roll under the large sword, drawing his own scimitar as he rose. Damn that Ashton, he thought as he plunged forward edge first.

He had just dodged another slash from the thug when something began to feel off. Nausea wracked his belly and a splitting headache worked it's way through the back of his skull. He barely had the sense to fend off another strike when he vomitted. "What the hell?" He asked as his hand went to his mouth. It was blood, he had just spat up his own blood. He pushed himself backward away from the thug, stopping only to vomit again. He quickly turned and looked toward the aft. Standing at the entrance to the Captain's Quarters was Leech, ribbons of crimson dripping from his hand. Blood magic. Leech had finally made an appearance. The bloodied hand clenched, and Garrath found himself expelling more of his own blood. "This isn't good," He muttered, weakly fending off another attack.

It felt like his blood was boiling, straining to escape his veins and burst out of any possible rupture in his skin. Lucien was not entirely free of those, not after all they’d been through this night, and in the end, what Leech’s spell did was simply make him bleed more and faster. It was far from pleasant, but it wasn’t intolerable. Very little was intolerable for someone who bet his survival on his fortitude so often. Even so, his movements were slower, and a quick rogue darted in under his guard and slid a knife between a pair of his ribs, at the place the boiled leather plates of his armor joined together. Grunting with the effort it took, Lucien hauled his axe backwards, slamming the pommel into the back of the woman’s head and taking her to the ground with it. It would be better, perhaps, just to leave the knife be for now—lest the blood mage’s work cause him to lose too much of his own to remain standing. If he fell, there was no guarantee he’d be able to get back up again.

She finally bounced back from her initial tussle, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Dirty, spattered with blood; dry and wet alike. And already panting like a beaten dog. But, it was she who walked away alive and breathing—not that trout-lipped bastard blubbering on the ground, holding his pudgy fingers against the wound she'd opened across his throat. Hidden blades, as Rilien had taught her, often decided whether one would live or die. So did striking a man in his precious bits. Fighting fairly, with honor and propriety, had never served her well, and so she'd live to see another day. She stumbled sideways, catching Garrath's shoulder before steadying herself. He was on the ground, vomiting and she could not understand why. Vomiting blood, all over her boots. Repulsion would have been her reaction, had it not been for the searing pain cutting through her abdomen like a coal-hot blade. It felt like her intestines were falling out. Her hand fumbled across her belly, just to be sure. A savage snarl ripped from her lips as she stepped in front of Garrath, sinking her knife into the crewman's bulging eye just as he was about to strike down. “W—What's happening?” As if Garrath had an answer. Dribbles of blood poured from the corner of her lips, at the same time blood began pooling under her leathers, blossoming like ruby wildflowers.

Nostariel could do little against the hemorrhage spell, and in fact, it nearly caused her to lose her grip on the rigging, and she was forced to stop shooting, doubled over in pain and leaking too much blood from her nose and mouth especially. She was familiar with the spell, and knew it meant that Leech was somewhere nearby, though she was having trouble holding her head up long enough to tell just where at the moment, dizzy as she was. She did manage to fire off a group heal, which should help mitigate the damage, but their biggest mercy right now was that spells like this took a lot out of the caster, and they could not last forever. Rilien was of a similar mind, though he was perhaps a bit better at ignoring the discomfort of his body than most of them were. It hurt, there was no mistaking that, but of anxiety about his lack of control or fear of what might happen if the spell continued, he simply had none. Though his blood trickled down his face and poured from his wounds, he still swung his knives, still fought through the thinning tide of thugs, attempting with what force he could muster to reach the mage before he bled out instead.

Leech looked between the assembled fools bleeding on his deck with a look of utmost distaste and disgust. He counted off their number-- noting a particular archer was missing-- and simply shook his head. Of all his men, to think these few could cause him so much damage. Were they simply that good, or was he simply surrounded by idiots? Possibly a combination of the two. He rolled his eyes as he waved the few remaining men that were still alive off. He'd finish them himself. His hand flexed, drawing more of his own blood to further fuel the spell. The blood mage took his time to pick his first target, lifting his bladed staff over his head and resting in on his shoulder.

His eyes fell upon the woman nearest to him, the elf with the shorn ears. Her, he'd start with her. He simply strolled toward her-- keeping out of the way of the elf with the sunburst. There was still a lot of fight in him, he'd have to be dealt with last. There weren't any urgency to his steps, they were already in his web. The only thing he had to do was deal with the little flies. "You've all cost me a lot of money, you know," He said with an indifferent tone, "Though, it'll cost you all a lot more in the end."

He stood over Sparrow, and considered her words before revealing his bloodied hand to her, "Does this solve the mystery? The blood coarsing through your system? I control it, I tell it what to do. It's mine." He tilted his head before shrugging speaking again, "Don't worry, it won't kill you. You don't have that much time, I'm afraid," He said, lifting the bladed staff above his head. In a moment, his hands tensed about the bring the blade down before something stopped him. He stood motionless for a time and a silence echoed around the ship. In the next moment, the staff slipped out of his hand and stuck harmlessly in the deck as his entire body went limp.

The white fletched arrow sticking from the center of his forehead told the tale. He was not the only to fall either. A number of his thugs fell in quick succession until only a handful remained. Each with a white fletched arrow in his head, and those that remained without an arrow threw their weapons down. The man who paid them was dead, and they weren't about to follow suit. At the other end of the ship near the bow, the hatch leading into the lower deck was open and standing halfway out was a battered Ashton, his entire quiver emptied.

The man stood injured and bruised. He had a black eye, a cut along his jaw, his entire shoulder was moist from a wound in his shoulder, and his fingers dripped blood. He breathed heavily and winced with every exhale, a sure sign of a couple of broken ribs. The holds had not been as empty as he would have liked, apparently. He scanned the deck, counting off to make sure that all of his friends were still alive, if not up and about. Satisfied that everyone who had thrown their lot in with him was still alive. His mouth worked, trying to find the words that would fill it, but for once in his life none were coming to him. Instead, he simply shut his lips and leaned back, taking a deep breath into his lungs.

It was over.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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"Lady Dumar, it is an honor to see you again! A beautiful day, is it not?"

Sophia provided the shopkeeper with a warm smile. "Please, Jean Luc, you've been here since I was just a girl. It's Sophia to you. And it is a wonderful day, I agree." Jean Luc's stall in the Hightown market had always been one of her favorite places to visit growing up. He imported the finest of fabrics from Orlais and places far beyond the Free Marches, most of which was expertly converted into dresses for the noblewomen, or robes for the Circle, though Sophia had no illusions about where the majority of his profits came from.

"Of course, my lady. Please, browse as long as you like." It was a warm day, quite nearly cloudless, and Sophia had made the decision to relieve some stress by perusing the market in Hightown, something she had failed to do quite as often of late. It was a colorful place, both literally and in terms of the people it brought together. The Free Marches were a melting pot of many cultures from around Thedas, and here it was often on display. Sophia actually wore one of Jean Luc's dresses today, a deep royal blue in color trimmed in silver, cinched around the waist with a silver cord, the skirt falling just below knee length, the ensemble completed by simple band bracelets and knee-high leather boots.

"This one's lovely," she commented, touching her hand down on a deep shade of crimson, slightly darker than her house color. It actually reminded her of the dress she wore on the night of her birthday. She was temporarily saddened by the memory of how that night had turned out, but pushed it from her mind. She had already moved on from that, together with her friends. "I think I'd like to have something made of this. Do you think you could hold on to it for me?" She could see a familiar face approaching from the corner of her eye. Jean Luc smiled and agreed easily. The Viscount's Keep always threw in a little extra for Sophia's purchases, after all.

“As lovely as you, Miss Sophia.”

Careful not to let Sophie slip, even if it did sit so well on her tongue. Guttersnipes like Sparrow did not belong in Hightown, or in any place with so many expensive items on display. Bad habits and all that, even if she was still very well off from their journey in the Deep Roads. She preferred the dirty, unorganized hovel in Lowtown, with Rilien's starkly contrasting corner. Her distrust for humans, in particular, had gotten a little better over the years, but too many of them, and Sparrow's skin felt like it was crawling. There were far too many eyes following her footsteps, probably wondering why some Alienage rat-girl was wandering around their streets, wearing clothes unfitting such a person. Her toothy grin, flashed in all directions, disengaged their rude stares. Set them go their way again.

Her clothes were primarily layered, though in a fashion that accentuated her form. Obviously, they had been prepared ahead of time, with a little thought behind them. A loose-fitting, sleeveless tunic with laces around her collarbone, colored a dark green, and tighter fitting bodice holding down what goods she actually had. Brown leather pants, tucked into darker boots. Ranger clothes, is what they appeared to be—probably showcasing more of Ashton's influence than anything. With her slender shoulders, and effeminate features, Sparrow looked far younger than she used to, and gentler. Everything looked tailored to fit her properly, and that, perhaps, most of all, confused the Hightown denizens. How could an Alienage-girl afford such clothes? It made her smile, impish in her delight. Had it not been for the seriousness at hand, Sparrow may have made a joke of it, flourishing her clothes like a proper noble-lady, or man. Whichever they thought she was.

Sparrow swept in front of Jean Luc's stall, inspecting his wares with a critical eye. Her fingers brushed down the fabric Sophia had been holding and trailed away, tipping back towards her face, until they rested on her lips, tapping. It just occurred to her that she had never seen Sophia in anything other than armor, not that she didn't look lovely in that, as well. Brazen women clad in steel plates, fighting off bad men and monsters in the name of justice had a soft spot reserved in her heart (as well as most of the women she encountered in Kirkwall, but that was another matter altogether). She looked away from the fabric, settled her eyes on Sophia and squinted at the silver trimming of her dress. A true lady looked like this, after all. She shouldn't have been so surprised. “I was looking for you. Turned away from the gates, understandably.” There were still grieving families, and guardsmen who did not want to see her face, however different it looked.

“Care to take a walk with me?”

"I'd love to," Sophia answered, smiling broadly. "I'd thought it was you, but I couldn't be sure. You look... well, you look wonderful." Sophia had yet to see Sparrow dressed this well before, and she didn't doubt for a second that this was not entirely the half-elf's doing. She'd known the woman long enough to know that she had never really given much thought to her appearance, always choosing substance over style. She wondered if Rilien had anything to do with it. He certainly had an immaculate sense of style. It was undoubtedly for the best, as well. While she was free of the demon now, it was not so long ago that things were different, and she had been forced to do some terrible things. The fact that she was almost unrecognizable from the Sparrow that once was had to help with that.

They made an odd pairing, Sophia didn't doubt. The Viscount's daughter, heir to the city, a noblewoman all her life, standing next to a half elf who had come to the city as a refugee. But if the nobles wanted to talk about who Sophia chose to spend her time with, they could all they liked. There was nothing wrong with a human woman from Hightown visiting with an elf, and the more people who realized that, the better.

"Where are we headed today?" She hoped it wasn't anywhere too low in the city. She was a little over dressed for Lowtown, and a little under-armored for anywhere lower than that.

Sparrow returned the smile with one of her own, crooked and pleased with the response. Jean Luc might have been confused with Miss Sophia's poor choice of friends, but she did not care. Perhaps, she mused, it made it all that more entertaining. Never in her life would she have thought that she'd ever have such high-esteemed companions, nor did she think that they'd come in friendly-flavors, without pomp and prejudice tailing them like silk-skirt filigrees. She was a fortunate one, indeed. She casually adjusted the collar of her shirt and offered her elbow, as observed by far more cultivated gentleman such as Lucien (though, Rilien had always been a top-candidate in manners when he actually wanted to). Anyone, in her opinion, served as a better example aside from herself, all peacocking aside. It didn't hurt that she looked far more adjusted than before. They may have passed off as two ladies, albeit her ears were a dead giveaway, shopping in the wealthiest district, sans gaudy hand-flapping.

As soon as they left Jean Luc's stall, and they were far enough out of his, or anyone else' earshot, Sparrow's smile simpered mischievously. She did have a place in mind. Possibly unsuitable for any other lady, but she understood that this woman was made of a different fashion altogether. Warrior-women hardly scoffed at adventures, after all. “Where to, indeed.” She cooed softly, rubbing head chin between thumb and forefinger. “It's a surprise, I'm afraid. A good place for a long talk. Have no fear, though, I'm quite sure the view will make up for it.” Sparrow had a pathological need to fix things that were broken. This often included relationships that she'd been at the fault of damaging in the first place, and whether or not Sophia thought it necessary, she wanted to patch things up as best she could. Her friends had taught her important lessons about herself, and others. Overcoming her mistakes, earning forgiveness, and relying on others, were taught to her here, in Kirkwall, of all places. This was an important step she wanted to make, to mend her burnt bridges.

She led them up a staircase, beneath crimson parapets and fluttering banners. Deeper into Hightown and past all of the merchants and their stalls, far past any patrolling guardsmen, as well. She only slowed her pace when she reached the higher estates, built into one of Hightown's furthest corners. She'd noticed, quite a time ago, that they were reworking some of the buildings, constructing lavish balconies and elaborate pillars. Wooden scaffoldings and stable platforms were erected around one particular mansion, though they weren't very high and led onto a much smaller building—but, from their vantage point, the surrounding buildings almost looked like stepping stones. Days earlier, Sparrow happened onto the site, clambered up onto the rooftops and saw something truly breathtaking. It made up for all of Kirkwall's ugliness, in truth. She turned towards Sophia, glanced down at her dress and arched her eyebrows, meeting her eyes. “You're not afraid of heights, are you?” She laughed, scratching the back of her neck. “Might have been prudent to ask beforehand.”

"Hardly," Sophia answered, taking in the surroundings. "Growing up in the Keep would have been a miserable experience otherwise." Most of the rooms around the perimeter of the castle had a good view of the city, and were all located a rather impressive distance from the ground. Her own room had one of the finest, and while it took her at least a year to get used to standing out on the balcony without clinging to the wall, she had since become quite comfortable with the presence of heights. She'd even been a bit of a clutz in her earlier years, but one of her teachers had managed to work that out of her when she learned to use a blade.

"This used to be the mansion of Lord and Lady Rousseau," she commented, remembering the way the place had formerly looked. "I used to come through this way on my way to sword practice, since it's so secluded. I learned the sword without my father's permission, you see." It was somewhat awkward to speak of those days, what with Dairren Quinn's recent interference in her life, but there was no need to think of that now. "They moved back to Val Chevin a few months ago. I'm not actually sure who lives here now." It was obviously someone extremely wealthy, to have bought the place and immediately began extensive renovations of the exterior. For some reason, she rather liked that she was entirely unaware of who lived in the mansion now. It was evidence that she had better things to concern her thoughts with than the comings and goings of various noblemen and women. Or perhaps it meant she wasn't paying close enough attention to the influential citizens in her city. She preferred to go with the former.

"It's a climb, then, is it? I suppose there's no harm in that." At least the dress she wore wouldn't be tangling about her ankles, and there were no sleeves to get in the way, either. The boots would serve well enough. "But you'll have to promise to never tell Jean Luc I went climbing scaffoldings in one of his dresses. He's rather sensitive about such things."

Sparrow's grin only widened. She was impressed. She joined her hands in front of her, cracking her knuckles and rolling her shoulders. Women, in all shades and flavors, who were not afraid to get their hands and knees and shins dirty climbing up buildings, or swinging swords for that matter, were wonderful creatures, indeed. She would have been disappointed had Sophia said anything different (though being afraid of heights was understandable, on its own). Lucien was a lucky fellow. On more than one occasion, Sparrow wanted to ask what, exactly, their relationship was, but thought it best just to see how things panned out between them—besides, she hardly spoke more than two words to the honorable man, and pried information out of Ashton whenever they bumped into each other. It seemed like love, or something like it, was blossoming wherever she looked.

“I bet you were a handful,” she teased, testing her weight on a couple handholds. All of the guards held her in high esteem. Surely, she'd run them ragged back in her youth, scampering the hallways in search of a good adventure. Sparrow could picture it, anyway. Who was the greater troublemaker out of the siblings, she wondered. Growing up without any responsibilities, save following what the Qun authorized, Sparrow could never understand having strict obligations weighing down on such young shoulders. They made a stranger pair still, had people known where they came from. One dreamt of flying through meadows and nearly did at times, while another was confined to her Keep, inching closer and closer to the balcony's edge. She imagined that she gave her handmaidens gray hair, prematurely, but it was difficult imagining her being anything but demure in her plates of armor. In this light, things were different.

“Ah. Lord and Lady Rousseau,” she repeated slowly, as if memorizing the names. Names were handy, after all, if said to the right people—something she'd learned when she first landed in Kirkwall, with little but a few coins, and a knuckle of bread to her name. She pulled herself onto the first platform and twisted sideways, kicking her legs over the lip, so that she was peeking down at Sophia. “He didn't believe a lady should know how to defend herself?” She inquired, nose crinkling. The idea, in her eyes, was beyond absurd. Whether or not someone had breasts, or lacy gowns, she had been conditioned to believe that they had to learn how to defend themselves. Qunari women, in particular, were brawny creatures, rippling with muscle. Even if their chosen roles did not involve battle-warring and swinging blades, axes, broad-weapons, they were built larger. Much larger, and much more intimidating. It was difficult imagining that women in this society thought differently. She laughed, scooting back to offer her hand, “I'm sure he was glad that you did. Though, I'd imagine he wasn't much pleased when he found out.”

Her other hand flapped near her face, where she pressed a finger to her lips. “Your secret is safe with me, milady.”

"No, he was not pleased at all," Sophia, somewhat more seriously. Sparrow didn't know the half of it, but Sophia decided to leave it at that. This was an enjoyable conversation, and bringing up the fact that her sword teacher was expelled for corruption and collaboration with the Coterie would... well, it would lessen that. She accepted the offered hand, pulling herself up onto the platform with Sparrow.

"It's not that he didn't think I should be able to defend myself. My father has always been a diplomat rather than a warrior, you see." She brushed her hands off, looking around for the logical next step to climb up. "I think he feared that learning the sword would teach me to solve my problems with it. If I didn't learn the sword, I know I wouldn't be taking trips to Lowtown and Darktown and the Coast to risk my life directly for my friends and for the city. He believes a leader must think differently than that in order to best serve their people." Rather than wait for Sparrow to go first, she took the next step herself, pulling herself up another level.

"But if I didn't learn the sword, well... I wouldn't be me, I suppose. I wanted to help with my own two hands, and that required skill with a blade. For when words fail, I tell Father. I try to live by that."

The Viscount must not have been pleased with anything that deviated from what a proper lady must learn, and swordsmanship must have been at the top of the list of things he did not want his daughter learning. She often wondered how, exactly, noblewomen and noblemen lived. How they grew up, what they learned was proper and not-so-proper, and what paths they were taught to walk down. Having Sophia as a friend was as much of a learning experience, as it was a pleasure. She mistook Sophia's seriousness for a particularly nasty punishment the Viscount must have handed down, and bubbled with laughter, eyeing her between lidded eyes. Punishments were different in the Qun, as well, though she supposed that all parents had to have a stern hand, sometimes.

“And now, you've got both skills—how to talk your way out of slippery situations, or fight your way out if you have to. I'd say, you have the best of both worlds,” Sparrow conceded, clicking her tongue agreeably. Had she Sophia's ability to coerce others into not wanting to chop her head off, she may have saved herself quite a few bruises in the past. Even Rilien could somehow manage his way around a conversation without setting someone off. Staying blades, unfortunately, had never been one of her strongest suits. She was a born fighter. Clawing and tearing and kicking her way through life, only to continue dining on freedom. It was worth it, she thought. “I know nothing of leaders, but I'd rather follow someone who's willing to swing a blade for her friends, as well as make the right decision when one comes up.”

She made sure to look away while she climbed (though she may have peeked had it been months ago). Sparrow followed as soon as she reached the upper level, mimicking her handholds until she could swing herself onto the second platform, as well. For a lady wearing a dress, Sophia sure was nimble. They were making progress, and only had to pull themselves up over the lip of the building to get to the makeshift staircase, leading towards the horizon. “A lady after my own heart,” she tittered playfully, batting her eyelashes. Her smile became more subdued, curiously titling. “Have you ever wanted to run away before? Not that I suppose you ever would. But, I'd imagine that with all of the responsibilities, all of the duties. Lessons, manners, messere, sir, things like that would feel heavy. I just can't imagine knowing where you'll end up, supposing you do take your father's place as lady-Viscount.” She only assumed as much. What little she'd seen of her brother didn't make him seem like a likely candidate.

Sophia was very much used to the views of the city that the Viscount's Keep could provide her with, to the point where many of them had somewhat lost their grandeur over the years, but this was something different altogether. This was more... all-encompassing. It was all somehow more impressive when viewed from such an exposed position, with no guardrail of a balcony to reel her in, no windows to separate her from the world outside. It was breathtaking, really... and a little scary, now that she was taking it in. She imagined the disapproving looks she'd get from Bran or her father for this, and smiled.

Sparrow's question made the smile wither slightly, but from thought more than sadness. She was right in that actually running away was not something that Sophia had ever considered as a possibility. But had she wanted to? "Honestly... I think about it more every year. I couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else when I was a young girl, but as I came to understand, I think I started to resent not having a choice as to what I was going to do with my life." Her mother had a choice. That was always the first place her mind took her when she brought up this topic in her head. Her mother was no noblewoman born into wealth and power, but simply someone who'd had the opportunity to pick their own path.

"But I suppose the choice I have then is whether or not to accept that." For some reason, it sounded like something Amalia would say. Of course Sophia had a choice. She could run away, and abandon everyone who was depending on her to safeguard this place's future, to sacrifice so that they might all live better lives. But it was not in Sophia to be selfish, and thus there had only been one option to choose. "And it isn't so bad. I've always had the best of people to lean on when things get difficult."

Sparrow studied Sophia's face as she posed her questions, eying her with a little twinkle in her eye. Studying her in more ways than one, perhaps. She was always surveying for imperceptible quirks, shifts in someone's composure. Testing the waters, with people she infrequently touched, was her only way of opening herself up, allowing trust to leak out like a rusty faucet. Her friendship-making skills were complex, and often inappropriate, but she hoped her efforts weren't in vain. She stepped to Sophia's right, clapped her gently on the shoulder and swept her opposite hand across the horizon. The sun was winking in the distance, casting a mirror-like effect on the ocean. It was beautiful, indeed. This was what reminded her most of freedom. “Someday, I hope to be counted among them, as well. I've much to make up for, after all.” Her laugh broke up the seriousness of her words, and the smile that accompanied it teemed with playfulness.

“For what it's worth, you'd make a wonderful Viscountess.”

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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There were far more children in the Alienage than she could ever remember there being. Amalia did not, perhaps, seem at first glance the kind of person who liked children, but in fact she found them in most cases to be considerably less odious than adults. Children still had, no matter how dire their circumstances, a kind of way of looking at things that suggested that not all in them that was good or curious or creative had yet been snuffed. It was a quality she liked, and as for the rest, well
 they did not look at her with the same mistrust as their parents tended to, nor did they know enough to be put off by her brusque mannerisms. They were dauntless, brave because they did not know what to fear.

She appeared much different from usual—though her garments were still more practical than aesthetically-pleasing, she now dressed in a way that could be considered more appropriate for both season and setting. There were no sleeves on her tunic, exposing the crisscross patterns of pale scarring on dark arms. Her face was uncovered, and her hair confined only to a tail rather than the severe plait she conventionally used. She was even barefoot, but the thing that had not changed was the only thing the young ones really cared about anyway, and that was the music. Her harp was currently in the hands of a boy of perhaps ten, one of the newcomers to the Alienage, and though she occasionally stepped in to correct an overzealous comment from one of her other “pupils,” what was really happening was that the children that had lived here for longer were teaching him the basics of how to play it, as she had taught them.

It was easier for him to forget that he did not belong here when he was just one of them. When they grinned at him with gap-teeth and one particularly-bossy little girl moved his hands into place lower on the strings with an emphatic ”That’s how you do it.” Her lips quirked up into the ghost of a smile, but she said nothing, allowing them to guide one another as far as they could, and her face remained impassive even when one or another would look over at her, as though for guidance or approval. They were not dissuaded by this, as most had grown used to it by now. She was hard to please, but she was also difficult to upset. It seemed to work somehow, at least in the sense that they strove to do well enough to earn the occasional word of praise or gentle ruffling of hair.

It wasn’t that she could get used to it—it was that she already was.

Her lips were fettered in a rusty smile, slightly hollow but getting better everyday. Some may have said she looked like a husk of who she was, but those who knew her could see her eyes, alight and free at last. Free of the warped creature whispering in her ear canals, gnawing on her thoughts like an old bone. She was feeling better, braver even. Her cheeks were not so sallow anymore, but her bones still showed signs of bird-like angles. Rilien had her on a strict routine of eating and eating and eating—no liquor, for now. She, too, had grown in different directions. Her feverish wanderlust led her here of all places, in Kirkwall, in a place whose chains hung the heaviest and whose dangers often proved fatal. Visiting Amalia had been on her to-do list. Actually making her way to the Alienage had proven far harder than facing any creature, or any demon she'd encountered thus far. She was afraid.

Sparrow pressed her back against the ramshackle building. In truth, before Rapture had taken a semi-permanent residence in her chest-cavity, she'd begun visiting the Alienage on a more frequent basis. Partly to see Aurora, partly to see what Amalia was up to, and the other half was reserved for strict play-time. Romping with the children proved an enjoyable pastime, and she was hardly grown herself. Her immaturity, and inability to take anything seriously, made the Alienage feel like home. She'd ask them questions about Amalia, in exchange for grandiose tales of her embellished adventures. Sometimes, she would bring them tokens from her tales. A tooth there, a shell from the Wounded Coast, or shiny baubles she may have procured from passing merchants. Always telling them to keep them in their hidey-holes, for fear of the squash-nosed baddies clomping around in their armored-suits. As of late, Sparrow hadn't been brave enough to face even them.

She brushed her palms over the brick slabs, breathed in deeply through her nose. Amalia appeared so different these days, uncovered in more ways than one. Vulnerable, perhaps. Like someone was able to peel away her layers, helping her step through a brighter, kinder threshold. It had not been her. She had not been there to see it happen. Had she ever been this way, with the Qunari and their oppressive teachings? As children, even. Had she ever been this comfortable? She itched at her arms, willed her fear into a malleable thing. She'd wear it as a crown, if she had to. Her clothes were fitted, at least. Thanks to Nostariel and Ashton, Sparrow now had an arsenal of garments that suited her smaller stature, and still somehow concealing just how thin she'd become. It did little to conceal how weak she felt, however. No longer could she call herself a warrior. Not by Qun standards, and not by her own.

Another soft sigh escaped her. Dragging herself back to Rilien's shop, blubbering about how she hadn't made it again would only earn her a stern, leveled stare. There was only so much cowardice she could take before plopping herself down in the Hanged Man, so she pushed away from the building and slowly walked around towards the looming tree. Tree of the People, they called it. Suiting name, really. It was far too beautiful to be surrounded by such squalor, but it signified something far more important than Kirkwall would ever understand. Her fingers, clammy and sweaty, trembled through her hairline, brushing snowy strands from her face. All of the carefully constructed words seemed jumbled in her brain, sticking to the roof of her tongue. She'd never been good at words. Never very good at apologizing either. Instead, Sparrow took a seat close enough to inspect what the boy, and the children, were doing. Far enough not to interrupt them, or spout something stupid in front of Amalia. She settled for a hoarse, “You look well.”

Stupid.

While it was true that Amalia was always aware of her surroundings, had been trained to be so from a very tender age, it was also the case that here, she was relaxed. Moreso than she allowed herself to be elsewhere. She was not the only vigilant guardian of this place, and the other of note was someone she trusted more than she truly understood. It was well, though, there was no mistaking that. That weight, the weight of living, did not seem so heavy, when he was near. When she was here. But even in her relaxation, she was attentive, and there were people she knew so well that their treads would always gain her notice at once, like she was magnetized to their very presence. She’d looked at those people, knew them—how they moved, how they worked. How the muscles and sinews were put together over bones, how their mindsets and their histories inscribed themselves into motion.

Some were just distinctive. Others, she knew because she had to, because wariness made forgetting impossible. Still others, she was sensitized to from some measure of respect, of regard, of interest. Sparrow’s was some strange combination of all three: a clomping, graceless thing that did not remind one at all of birds. And yet—this was the one she’d met who flew in the only sense that mattered. Flew away, in fact. Though she did not at first make sign of it, Amalia knew that it was he and no other who approached. She remembered those steps leaving craters in sand.

When he spoke, though, she listened, and then she looked, raising mismatched eyes and flicking them over to where he sat, sharing in the shade of the tree. He was welcome to it—she had no reason to hoard this small piece of tranquility. She pondered the words for a moment, not finding them as stupid as he had, because she supposed they might almost be true. She could not look lovely, not anymore, and she had no reason to care about that. But she supposed she could look well, and that if ever she had, now might just be the time. “I feel well,” she said simply. “But that is not why you have come.” It was as factual and straightforward as anything she ever said, but she forced it no further. Sparrow had to come to things in his own time, or the words would be mangled on the way out of his mouth, and she did not think that either of them much desired that.

Sparrow didn't like to think of it as abandonment. She hadn't abandoned her. How could she? Amalia had always been the only reason she stuck around so long in the first place, but the Qunari were sticklers for regulations, hounding her footsteps like nagging old women and making sure she knew her place as well as the crinkles on her palms. There was no doubt that they had saved her from a fate worse than death and given her a reason to live, but they'd also slapped on a new, shiny pair of chains. Clipped her wings, decided who she would become from the moment she set foot on their lands. She knuckled her nose, resting her hand across her chin. In this light, Amalia is brave and proud and strong. She wonders, halfheartedly, if she is made up of the trappings of a ghost, loudly wandering in wherever she pleases, and leaving just as easily, as if she hadn't even been there at all. She is nowhere near as strong.

Her fingers fell away, trailing the curve of her jawline. Lacking in all of its masculinity, Sparrow wondered what Amalia thought of her now, or if the illusion still held true. Did she still mirror how she wanted to be seen, or did Amalia see an empty copse of who she was, bereft of the strength that made up the carefully cultivated persona she so wanted to become, to embody. Was she a flowerless garden with dying weeds, or a bird in flight, never looking over its shoulder to ponder what she was leaving behind? Not even once. She didn't look over at her, not directly. Instead, Sparrow focused on her boots, and then her bare feet. Her toes, relaxed. Just as she was, she supposed. Within the Qun, one had to always be prepared for the worst, and expect danger in the most unexpected places. Her toes, she thought, might have always been curled, as if ready for a mile-long sprint into battle, or through a grove of wheat-grass. Perhaps, it was people, rather than time, that had changed them both.

She tightened her fists into the folds of her trousers, gripped the fabric tightly and slowly, slowly released. She felt Amalia turn towards her. A small, imperceptible shift between them, as if a scale was tipping in her direction, and still, Sparrow felt like she was unable to meet with her, partway. She had always been teetering on the brink, threatening to collapse the whole thing by leaving the scale altogether, and she had always been resolute in her vigilance, standing like a statue weighing it down until she touched bottom. Cowardice has many stripes, and she often wondered just how many she'd scrubbed off over the years. Apparently, not enough. Her eyes rolled skyward. The leaves almost looked like translucent pieces of parchment, absorbing the sun's orange-red-yellows. Occasionally, spattering down tubes of sunlight, warming the right side of her face. Tipping her head slightly backwards, Sparrow leaned until the brightness temporarily blinded her, then tilted farther. She looked at her, really looked, and for a brief moment, she thought that she was a little afraid of her. Of what she might say, of what she might think.

The transition was abrupt enough to startle her out of her stupor, and Sparrow blinked at her before her words actually sunk in. She was well, she felt well. She supposed that she was happy for her. She'd found something important to her, after all. Important enough to rearrange her entire world, pushing out the pieces that she once thought impossible to move. The Qun, it seemed, had a lesser hold on her once-friend. She was less, and she was more. Lovely, beautiful, star-laced, cloudy-eyed, ocean-tipped—she'd once called her many things, in their youth, and would never deny that they still held true. Perhaps, more so now. Those words, however, were reserved for those she held close to her heart, and she'd strayed further than she ever expected to. She kept her head tipped, meeting those mismatched eyes of hers with her own. Straight to the point, as always. Her frankness had not dulled over the years. It was as sharp as ever, cutting through her facade like a blade.

“You're right. You've always been right, you know,” she admitted, leveled and bare. She searched those eyes for something. Forgiveness, perhaps. But only found age-old patience, polished and refined for slow speakers, for people who bore their feelings like cataclysmic storms. “I'm selfish. I run, I ran. That's what I did, for as long as I can remember.” Running from her past, running from her family, running from responsibilities, and running from heartache. Kirkwall, she supposed, was what happened when she was too tired of running and when her legs refused to budge anymore. Rilien and the others, she knew, showed her the way towards, instead of away. She no longer headed in the opposite direction, passing everyone by. She no longer left letters that never mended hearts, no longer left tracks in the sand to remember her by. No longer left without saying a word, expecting someone important to understand. She ached more acutely than before, but it was different. She was different.

She opened her mouth, drew in a quick breath, plodded on. “I'm hopeless, and I expect forgiveness. I expect a lot from everyone, and I've come here to, to be rebuked or forgiven. I want to apologize, but you know I've never been good at those, either.” There's a consistency in the way her heart drummed in her throat, tightening and loosening all at once. Cords were coming apart, somewhere, she was sure of it. “I came here, I came to tell you that it's impossible. I tried to stay away, because what right do I,” she bit off hoarsely, hunching forward like a leaf curling in on itself, “I hate this. This distance I've made. I hate that you've moved on, and I am apart. I always wanted you to look at me, to look for me. I wanted to talk to you, as we were. I'm selfish. I'm not well.” The bitter bark of laughter never found its way out, but her frown twitched, sharp edged. Even after all these years, it still hurt.

“Would you have run with me, had I asked?”

Amalia sighed, nothing more than a slight quickening in the exhale from her nose, but unmistakably a sigh all the same. She rolled back a little bit, moving fluidly until her back came to rest against the painted bark of the tree. It was an interesting sensation, to lean on something, especially when one was used to meeting nothing but open air when one had the inclination to try. But the tree was there, rough and abrasive through the fabric of her tunic, and she seemed to sink into it a little, until the abrasion was no longer irritating but simply a fact, accepted like any other and not much bother. She had once thought that she had eased against Sparrow’s leaving this way, taking the little metal spike that had driven itself into her chest, melting it down and hammering it into her armor, that emotional plate-mail that kept her defended from future attacks of the same sort. It was how one lived longest: by turning one’s weakness into one’s strength. By never repeating the same mistake twice.

But for all that, she’d managed to do so. Amalia had found some measure of peace with this, and was to whatever extent she could be willing to leave the past in the past and see what she might do with the future, but Sparrow seemed insistent on being that spike, again, driving himself into that vulnerable little chink in the armor that Amalia had opened up in hopes of bettering herself. And here he was, asking questions about what might have been, calling himself selfish and implacable. About that, she could only suppose that he was correct. She had not sought to trouble him by reminding him of what had been. This was why she had not sought him out. He was making a new person of himself, and she’d never had the desire to hamper that. She swore that somewhere, she could hear a chain rattling, but at least it was rusty, now.

“Does it matter?” she asked flatly, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You did not. And I did not. What happened after changed us both. Why is it of concern to you what might have been? Should I ask next where we would have gone, who we would have become, if things had happened that way? We are not those people. That opportunity passed us by. You have become what you are, and I have become what I am. We change still. Should that not be of more interest to you than something that never was and never can be?” She did not understand this fascination with it. “If you hate that we are distant now, make an effort to know me now. Do not speak of then. Speak of this, or of tomorrow, I care not. If you wish me to see you differently, be different. It is not enough to say. You must do.” Perhaps that was harsh, but Amalia was not exactly known for being gentle, and she was the one who had been wronged here. It was not Sparrow who had been left behind.

If all he wished to speak of was what had been or might have been, then Amalia was uninterested. Those reflections had been the ruminations of enough sleepless nights already. She was done wondering if it was some fault of hers that all the people she ever cared about betrayed her. And she was done assuming that it would always work out that way. These were well-traveled paths that she would not walk down again. It was time to seek new ones. She’d break them herself if she had to.

Sparrow watched her press back against the tree, eyes rolling over her shoulder, until she had to readjust herself. Her hair hung in front of her eyes, like snowy tufts, obscuring what she did not want to see. There was a tiredness there, belied in the soft sigh that escaped her lips—exhaustion, annoyance, something like that. It was difficult to piece out, to pluck out the parts that hurt the least. Amalia wore her pain like a suit of armor, smoothing out the plates until they were strong and smooth and always adding more, until it stood like a brick wall. Impenetrable, fortified against future dents. Sparrow wore her lies like a suit of armor, sliding off the metal bits whenever she went to bed. Flesh could not lie. Sinew, muscles and tendons were the greatest truths, beating honesty within her heartbeats. If she refused to speak, in any state of vulnerability, then she could dust off the blackened untruths and pass them off as something palatable. This reaction, perhaps most of all, slid across her neck, tightening like a noose. Amalia always had the awful habit of reaching straight through, instead of taking what was offered from her hands.

Friends were made up of the family you chose. Love was never made of clean pieces. It could piece you back together, however it wished, and leave you with only stories to tell. She was not entirely sure where she'd heard those particular bits, but she expected something different from this encounter. She never wanted to be one of the stories one told, or a thorn that nosed itself between someone's ribs. Somehow, she'd become both. An old wound, reopening. An old scar, still puckered and always a bitter reminder. She was a betrayal, she knew. Months, weeks, days, she'd agonized over the details until she was sure how everything would pan out. But, like always, Sparrow forgot to factor in just how factual, just how brutally honest Amalia was. Her childish expectations floundered, flopped and were speared in place. Of course, it was foolish to wonder how things might have been, where they might have ended up, but it was the only way of rationalizing what she'd done wrong. She could only see so far ahead of her, before everything: the world, her world, tumbled into darkness.

Her hunched shoulders straightened. Muscles bunched in her neck, straining into back. Does it matter? No, she supposed. Wondering what might have been felt like it would have justified leaving in the first place, as if Amalia's choice would have decided whether or not she would have accepted her shackles, head bowed. Those were questions that would never have any answers, for she hadn't asked all those years ago, hadn't given her the choice. If she had asked her, she wondered, would she have left, anyway? She did not know, and as Amalia said, what use was there in wondering? What was done, was done. No amount of reminiscing would return them to that day. Her response came in crestfallen eyebrows, mouth straightening into a line. “I did not mean—” she sputtered, hands braced in her lap, “I did not mean it that way.” This was what she had wanted, after all. Had she not come here expecting no different? Utmost honesty shearing back the brambles sticking to her heart, stripping down her cloak-of-lies and revealing a simple solution. Let go, breathe in. Make a choice, now.

Sparrow was spineless, spiteful, and unrelentingly sporadic. Changes were being made, but not quickly. Her pace was slower, much slower. She did not have her own safe haven, in the Alienage, beneath a beautiful tree, surrounded by a past that still eluded her. She did not have children to teach, or someone like Ithilian guarding her sanctuary. She did not have the kind of tranquility that eased the mind and calmed the soul. But, she did have friends with the kind of loyalty that continued surprising her. “I want to know you, as you are now. I want you to know me, as I am now.” It was the truth, mostly. She could not ask for things to be as they were, for even she was not that thoughtless. They were no longer children. She could not retrieve things she'd long since trampled on, and could not expect Amalia to do the impossible—could not bear squeezing her heart any further. She stared at her fingers, studied her nails. Dirty, like they'd been all those years ago. She opened her palms and squeezed them shut. “I profess, that I do not know where to go from here. I always thought that this would be easier, becoming friends again.”

Amalia was quiet for a moment, curling her toes into the cracked stone beneath her feet. Could she have friends? She had one friend, she knew that much. And perhaps Aurora, Nostariel, and even Lucien might be her friends, if she thought about it a little. The word meant something different than the one she’d grown up knowing. Vulnerability was not something she usually allowed in herself, and to an extent, she knew that she was beyond changing in this respect. No matter how much she had grown, or altered, she would never be open with herself, though she would always give things freely enough. If that was a paradox, it was one she lived. Sparrow was almost the opposite conundrum—he gave the feelings and tender words Amalia did not, but he did not always part with the truth of things as he saw them. It was up to other people to dig if they wanted to find that. Expressive, but fundamentally, as he’d said, selfish. It was a dangerous kind of person to know, in one sense.

Than again
 she blinked slowly, tipping her head back so that she regarded the light-stippled canopy of the tree, but then cast her eyes to the side, back to him. He was being honest now, that much was not lost on her. “The things worth doing are seldom easy, and never entirely without risk,” she pointed out. “There are no landmarks one must pass to become a friend, it seems. You will do as you do, and I will be as I am, and we shall see what comes of that.” There was no list of instructions, no tome she could crack open, to tell him what to do to achieve what he wanted. Even if there were, she probably would not have shared it. It would likely defeat the purpose. “Perhaps
 I make ventures to your area of residence once a week, to teach. Afterwards, I could visit you.” It was not a grandiose proclamation, nor even an especially startling offer, but it was what she had to give.

Sparrow always wanted more, but she nodded grimly, allowing her smile to soften the edges of her face. For now, it would do. For now, she could wait for Amalia's visits, after her lessons were finished. Anyone willing to trudge through Darktown on their own accord demanded respect, and she felt fortunate that she was being allowed this little thing. This chance to make amends in any way she could, and she would try, spilling herself out until Amalia said that it was enough. Meravas—so shall it be, perhaps now, was best understood. She had always been this way. Even the Qun had recognized it, plucked it out from the array of brokenness and wrapped it around her shoulders. They were alike, in some ways. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and a musing that sounded like, “Then that is enough. Asit tal-eb.”

She swung her legs up, pulling them beneath her. The half-elf leaned towards Amalia, palms face down on the roots of the tree. Her once-friend had grown in all directions. Much stronger, much more self-assured than she could ever wish to be. Taller, as well. She remembered being the taller one, in their youth. She brushed errant strands of blonde hair from her face, studied her mismatched eyes briefly before planting a kiss on her forehead. Quick as a serpent coiling back in on itself, Sparrow hopped down from her perch, arms quickly pinwheeling to make up for her hasty retreat. It would be enough, for now. Perhaps, later, they could speak as they once did. Looking up at the stars, naming them what they wanted and making wishes on those who fell. She could still hear the children tittering as she left, wondering aloud, as children often did, whether or not she was a man or woman.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Rilien read over the parchment, noting that Emeric had sent the missive both to Sparrow (at the Darktown address, he presumed, though he lived above his shop, most of the time), and Aurora. That one probably would have had to go through someone, as he doubted very much an apostate wanted to be on record. Everyone knew where Sparrow lived—he gathered that very few knew where Aurora was located. He, of course, was one of the easiest people to find in Kirkwall, unless he desired to be otherwise. As there was no particular reason for him to hide, Rilien did not.

Folding the letter along its former creases, he tucked it away into his shirt. Another woman had gone missing from the Circle, but the Templar’s vigilance on the matter had allowed for quick access to her phylactery—it had ben traced to Darktown. The Templars had to go through official channels to get men down there, channels which were apparently being curiously slow, on both ends, from Orsino’s office and Meredith’s. One might have wondered why, but Circle politics did not concern the Tranquil. At least not until someone paid him to make it otherwise. Emeric was not, but this was a task Rilien was intent on seeing to completion, if only because he had started it.

The location was enclosed with the letter, and he supposed the others would meet him there with all due speed. Which was why, after taking a selection of weaponry and potions from the shop, he headed immediately for the nearest entrance to Darktown, which happened to be down a steam-release hatch and into the sewers. It was unsavory, but he paid it no mind—the waterproofing job on his boots was adequate to the task of keeping out anything potentially infectious. He’d lived in the place long enough to grow accustomed to the smell, anyway.

Rilien found himself outside a door. It looked like every other door in Darktown, save that he’d never had cause to go beyond this one before. It doubtless led, as many did, to a warren of tunnels and passageways, but that was of little consequence. He paused, however, before opening it. It would make sense to give the other two a bit more time to appear before forging ahead by himself. Given what they’d encountered thus far in their search, ill magic was almost guaranteed to come into play at some point. Allies would not go awry.

Sparrow did not pore over her missive as Rilien might have done, nor did study the lilting handwriting to identify its penman. Her fingers skittered over the parchment's edges, and she brought it briefly to her nose, before shoving it into her back pocket in a crumpled mess. Hardly anyone sent her messages in Darktown save for Rilien with his cryptic letters, always folded in unusual ways and annotating puzzling directions to meet him somewhere (always, always far too cryptic, in her opinion). Other than that, the Blooming Rose seemed dogged in their pursuits to have Sparrow make an appearance, sending papers smelling distinctly of roses, heavy perfumes and sweat. They, too, had found out that she was no longer a male, and had never been one in the first place. Curious things were difficult to conceal when you no longer looked as masculine as you would have liked—young boy, pseudo-girl seemed more appropriate. Either way, the brothel wanted oddities, and she would have fit in nicely. Not that she'd ever accept, but it was an option.

She sighed softly, tugging her boots on while rocking back on her disheveled bed. Whatever needed being done was, peculiarly, in Darktown. No use dragging her feet when the location was close enough to spit at. Though, Sparrow questioned why she was being called upon. She'd never been a good candidate for someone to rely on, nor anyone shining with goodness. Saving kittens from trees and swindling no-gooders all the way to the Gallows was not something she'd even consider, but somehow, Emeric thought differently. Missing mages from the drab-inner workings of the Circle, no less. It served them right, but the news did not sit well in her stomach. The Templars seemed nonplussed by her disappearance, hardly moving from their snail-crawl of a pace, unless it involved apprehending said mage and throwing her atop Meredith's blade, or whichever punishment they preferred to deal out when it came to unruly apostates. It sickened her to no end.

Gathering up her things—her mace, fitted leathers and cotton hood, Sparrow looked once over her shoulder, murmured something soft under her breath and slammed the door shut behind her. They would be dealing with dark things, no doubt. Though, Sparrow still childishly hoped that the Templars were the cause of this. Her anger could have been justified, backed by generations of wrong-doings. She would have no qualms fighting them. It hardly worked that way, and if they faced more mages, turned down darkened paths by years of oppression, she would have no other choice than to strike them down. Quickly, efficiently, before anything else could crop up. She promised she would never succumb to any creature again. She zigzagged through dark alleys, only slowing her sauntering gait to greet hunched-over figures, shouting dealers and small children squealing to be lifted up, and swung around like birds. This place was her home. Perhaps, as much as the Alienage was Amalia's home. Two sides of the same coin, she'd thought. Though, Sparrow belonged nowhere, drifting between the thin line of elves and humans.

No one could successfully creep up on Rilien, though Sparrow always tried. Her tiptoeing had always been louder to sensitive, trained ears, bordering on the clik-clak's of armored heels and horse-hooves. She paused briefly, straightened her shoulders and resisted the urge to plow into Rilien's back by settling her hand on his elbow, tugging him back from the doorway. “You weren't thinking of going on ahead without us, were you?” She inquired, eyebrows knitting. The mock-sobriety crinkled out of her face, replaced by a seedy smile. “I'm still not sure how you made it here before me, but I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. So, what have we here, at this door?” Her hand fell away from his elbow, and perched above the chipped door handle.

With the tape firmly bound to her fingers, Aurora began to flex her hand, balling both into fists and then relaxing them, putting the digits through the paces. Pleased with the mobility the bandages provided, she looked up to her nurse with a smile. "Hey, you're not bad at this," She told Milly. The elf simply shook her head and went about cleaning up the excess, sliding her medical kit underneath her bed. Well, bed was optimistic, in reality it was more of a cot held together with Milly's hopes and prayers. She wasn't too enthused about the missive Aurora had recieved, because usually when letters like that arrived, she returned home with bruises and cuts that she had to heal. More often than not, they were found on her knuckles.

The chilly air did not escape Aurora, and she tilted her head in puzzlement. "I'm going to be alright. I always am," Aurora said, fishing out a heavy boot from under her own bed. She learned the foolishness of trying to kick something solid without a thick piece of leather between her fragile toes and her target. Fortunately, there was enough time this go around to actually prepare for what was to come. Thus the taped fingers.

Milly's hazel's eyes stared at her in response. "What if you're not?" Came the accusation. Aurora was silent for a moment, unwilling to answer it so quickly. She'd grown accustomed to living on her own for so long, only having herself to depend upon. She had made friends within the city, yes, and she trusted them with every ounce of her soul-- But at the end, there was her, and only her. Others could guide her, aid her, but it was her to walk in her own shoes. No one else could do that for her. It was this she found her problem.

She never worried for herself, but the feeling of having another worry for her was alien. Maybe Amalia and Nostariel worried for her at times, but then again it was never so... overt as Milly was making it. "What if you're not?" Milly repeated, "What else do I have in this city? You're the only reason I'm here." With those words came a wave of guilt. Living on her own had made Aurora selfish-- or perhaps she had always been selfish. Either way, she could see the weight weighing on Milly's shoulders. But what was she to do? She wasn't the kind of person to leave things like this half-done. She needed to see it through.

Aurora stood up and marched across the room, wrapping Milly in a wide hug. When she pulled back, she gave her the biggest smile she could manage. "You worry too much," She said, dismissing Milly's arguments entirely. "I'll be alright, so don't you worry about me leaving anytime soon. I'll be right back, I promise," She said, slipping quickly out of the house.

As soon as she was outside, the smile from her face dropped just as fast. Herself and her own problems she could deal with, but Milly's worry was something she couldn't get a handle on. Illusion or not, it was hard to get it out of her mind. With her thoughts weighing her down, she took her time heading toward Darktown. When she arrived, she noticed that Sparrow and Rilien had both beaten her there and both were staring at a door-- Sparrow's hand hovering above the handle. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned the blade hidden within her bracer. Her head tilted curiously and she asked, "Is it locked? I can help with that."

Is it locked? Sparrow chuffed in amusement, wrinkling her nose. Her fingers touched the top of the handle, retracted a few inches and came to rest atop Rilien's snowy hair—so soft for a man's, as she'd so often noted. He wouldn't have cared even if she ruffled it, but she merely left them there, as if she'd placed her hand on a horse's muzzle, stilling it from tromping ahead without them. “The beauty arrives, diligent as ever,”[/i] she greeted with a twinkle in her murky eyes, shrugging her shoulders, [color=#1589FF]“We aren't even sure whether or not it's locked, to be honest. I just kept our hot-headed friend from dashing off ahead.” Nothing could be further from the truth, because Rilien was capable of anything but hot-headedness. Treating him so, as she would any other, made her feel like their relationship hadn't changed in the slightest. He was still the Tranquil, not-so-Tranquil, and she was still Sparrow, the woman who sometimes hid beneath her own flesh. She nodded and stepped back, allowing Aurora to move closer to the door, and finally releasing Rilien with a cheeky grin splayed across her lips.

"It is not,” Rilien replied simply. He’d stopped at Sparrow’s approach, and then it had seemed only pertinent to wait for Aurora as well. The deduction was not hard—it was they who had begun this, and so it fell to them to finish it. Lucien was out of town at the moment, besides. Perhaps he would have been here, otherwise. Whatever the case, Rilien would fight outside the other man’s looming shadow today. His eyes flickered just briefly upwards as if to chastise the roughened hand that rested atop his crown, but of course he did no such thing. "But it is trapped.” He pointed, and indeed, right before the tip of his finger was a wire, so thin as to be almost invisible.

Simply cutting it would set off the trap. The work was a bit more delicate than that. Removing several tools and a drop-shaped weight from a pouch at his belt, he stepped forward and out from underneath Sparrow’s hand. His movements were deft and quick—the trap was of a fairly standard assemblage, even if it was at what he considered to be an inappropriate height for a tripwire. Within a few seconds, he was pulling back, and he used a foot to push the door open. They were met with, unsurprisingly, a passageway, this one quite apparently empty. He blinked at it for a moment before he started forward. It would make the most sense for him to lead, as he had a trained eye for traps.

Indeed, there were several more. "Someone does not wish to be caught unawares,”[/b] he observed after disabling the third consecutive pressure plate. This one was right at the top of some wooden stairs, and they appeared to lead down into an area occupied by a sort of living space, dominated by several bookshelves, a fireplace, and above it, the portrait of a middle-aged woman. He felt something shift in the Fade, and His hands were at the hilts of his knives by way of warning when several demons appeared, spawning from the ground itself. Sentinels—it seemed they were in the right place.

There were two rage demons, a desire demon, and a handful of shades. Vaulting off the staircase and onto the ground below, Rilien brought a knife down into the single eye of one of the shades, banishing it immediately. Three more of them headed for the stairs, and he found himself immediately juggling the two rage demons.

Sparrow's mouth curled at the edges, though she only shrugged her shoulders. Her hand barely touched the doorknob, so she wasn't exactly sure why Rilien had been lingering there in the first place, but something was obviously wrong with the door, no doubt. If it was locked, broken, or otherwise fabled with tricky traps, Sparrow would not have been surprised. Nothing was easy when it came to the things they were tasked with. Especially if it involved any building residing in Darktown, let alone one she was not familiar with. This door—and whatever it led to—was an enigma, slowly piquing her interest the longer they stood there. Her hand remained on Rilien's head, nestled in his unsuspectingly soft hair, until he nonchalantly ducked under it. So unusually, and almost unsettllingly, soft for a man. She clicked her tongue in disappointment and settled the offending fingers across the pommel of her mace. “Sharpest eyes in all of Kirkwall,” she cooed softly and sidled closer to Aurora.

The last time she stepped into a ramshackle building, Sparrow hadn't seen the traps littering the floor, stupidly stepped into them and caused all sorts of misfortune. It ultimately led to years of misery, as well. She would not repeat the same mistake twice. Never again, she'd promised. She squinted at her companion. Traps had never stopped, or even slowed, his progress. Her fingers were hardly nimble, even with his careful, steady instructions. His patience with her lack of progress, even as a Tranquil, was uncanny. The most basic of mechanisms were impossible puzzles she could not complete, and she had no desire to practice. Sitting still for long periods of time rattled her nerves. Why learn something new when you could smash the obstacle to pieces? Or otherwise freeze, set to flame, or bash with rocks? Her eyes slowly trickled away from his hands, moving like clockwork. She'd never have thought that Aurora had a knack for locks, and just as she was about to inquire, the door creaked open as Rilien toed it open.

Her gaze swung back. An empty passageway. It wasn't what she was expecting. Sparrow was about to step in front of Rilien, taking the lead like she normally did, but was beat by him moving under the threshold first, which might have been for the best. Her pride prickled at the thought. Nothing special about the room that she could see, but Rilien was already bending down. Fiddling with things she could not see. Even when she focused her eyes and blurred her vision to see only movement or misshapen tiles, Sparrow saw nothing unusual. “It'd make it easier if they just stationed thugs,” she sighed, scratching the back of her head. Thugs could be beaten, bought off, or worse. Traps usually elicited terrible outcomes, by means of shadowy entities, harmful poisons, and arrows thundering past your ears. None of those enticed her. She only hoped that Rilien could spot and disarm each one. She followed him up the stairs, idling so he could deal with the plate, and then stopping short of the odd-looking painting above the fireplaces mantel. Calloused fingers trailed the lower edges of the frame, searching for a name. All artists wrote their names on their work, right?

Her fingers retracted. She, too, felt the eerie shift. Like stepping into an uncomfortably cold chamber, bare feet and all. Sparrow had enough sense to disentangle the mace from her hip, and cast a lingering shroud of arcane energy over Rilien, before slipping around Aurora and swinging her blunted weapon through the shade that appeared behind her. It disappeared, leaving a trail of dust in its wake. She whipped around, turning to face the desire demon, closest to their right.

The shift in the air was not lost on Aurora. In fact, she honestly sighed at the arrival of demons. "How much you want to bet there's a bloodmage at the end of this?" Aurora muttered without an ounce of humor. It was stunts like these that ensured that they'd never be able to walk free as mages. Aurora threw a quick glance around them, surveying the field and then slipping it into her memory. She then tilted her body to the side, opposite of Sparrow, and brought her hand around-- hidden blade unsheathing itself in midflight. The steel sunk cleaning into the eye of the shade that had appeared there-- and ensuring that it didn't catch Sparrow off-guard as she dealt with the one behind her.

The shade melted into dust as it was banished back into the fade, and that left one more out of the group that had approached them. With Sparrow dealing with the desire demon, she took it upon herself to pick up the nuisance. She brought her hands back around to her front and dipped into the fade herself, summoning energy to her hands. Strands of her cardinal hair pricked and lifted from her shoulders as a static charge gathered around her. In a moment, the charge was dispelled through her hands in an arc of lightning, striking the shade and branching off into the other demons around them.

She managed to catch a glimpse of her fingers-- noting the tape still intact despite the magical assault. It seemed that Milly was right on with their placement, though there was a moment of guilt. She ran past the guilt, and into a dead sprint toward the stunned shade. Midstride, she drew back her offhand, and encased it in a spear of ice. The uppercut that ensued pieced through what Aurora would call the closest thing it had to a head, and to make doubly sure, stung it a couple of times with her wristblade in the midsection. Her ice-blade melted away with the shade and she turned to clean up the rest of them-- keeping her allies close in mind in case they needed her aid.

"There always is,” Rilien replied, just as humorlessly. In truth, he’d been rather expecting that since the first murder. He was, of course, well aware of the possibility of a more mundane serial killer, but one of those would not likely have targeted two mages in his schemes—they were harder to get to, and riskier to take, with the Templars constantly sniffing around. Unless, of course, one was somehow prepared to deal with that
 or had help on the inside. That suggested either apostate or Templar, and the constant presence of shades and demons at every stage of this venture pointed to the former.

The rage demon on his left went in with a sweep aimed from his midsection, but Rilien leapt backwards, the magma-covered limb missing his tunic by a hairsbreadth. He threw the ice-enchanted knife in his hand, hitting center mass on the creature, and its molten carapace began to harden around the spot, stiffening it and limiting the movement of its torso. The other one, not so inhibited, lurched forward before he could press the advantage, and managed to collide bodily with him before he could twist out of the tight quarters between the demons and the wall. He hissed reflexively, a soft sound, as the heat from it nearly scorched the right side of his rib cage, but fortunately for him, silk did not burn easily, and so the heat itself was the primary problem.

Rilien rolled his entire body with the hit, allowing the momentum to carry his upper half backwards, and then he converted the rest into enough torque to flip his feet over his head, and landed in a three-point crouch, reversing his direction and pushing forward, driving the blade of his remaining knife up through what passed for the creature’s lower jaw. It emerged from the upper one, and he twisted and yanked it out, dropping the creature and then darting to the side to latch onto his other knife, still lodged in the second rage demon, and drag it sideways through its body, opening up a large wound before he pulled it free. A couple more quick strokes to the hardened portion of its body effectively dismantled it, and it too returned from whence it had come.

The Tranquil straightened, shaking a bit of excess fluid from the daggers, and turned to the others, who also appeared to be finishing up. "I would suppose there is something in this room that we were not meant to see.” What exactly that was would only become evident if they looked.

Did they always have to deal with shady bloodmages? She wished that these were Knight-Commander Meredith's lackeys. How satisfying it would have been to see her fingers muddled in this particular pie, but alas they had to deal with their own kind (and she did think of them as her own kind, because mages needed to stick together as best they could without setting each other on fire). Had they been dealing with commonplace thugs, or sticky-fingered, ass-backwards bandits, Sparrow may have been less disappointed. The Fade felt uncomfortably close, like a wool blanket being thrown over her head. Itchy and far too warm. It spread through her fingers, gripped her knuckles and tightened what-little muscle she still had on her upper arms. Her biceps, her shoulders; aflame with budding energy. If she were a stronger person, she would have sworn off magic altogether—because it had hurt more people than she could count on her fingers, and doing something else she'd only regret later was the last thing she wanted to do. However uncomfortable it was, magic still had its uses.

Sifts of ash blew behind her, billowing where Aurora had gracefully stepped in. She flashed a grin over her shoulder and quickly turned away, recklessly dashing towards the Desire Demon. Its arms were spread wide, fingers poised and searching, as if it were welcoming a lover to its barely-concealed breasts. Sparrow would have none of that—not this time, nor ever again. No tricks, no rose-rimmed promises could cause her to sink so low. Her answer was a resolute no, coming in the form of a wildly arcing mace; two-handed, swung over her head. The demon was smart enough to jerk backwards, pulling her arms to her chest. Her whispers abruptly cut off, and replaced by a grim-faced, screeching hiss. She did not slow. She did not temper her aggression. Instead, she allowed her momentum to carry her to the demon's right side, where she twisted her body to challenge the creature once more and slammed the back of her fist, bristling with arcane energy, into the demon's unprotected face. Whatever it had been expecting hadn't been that. It lay sprawled on the ground, holding its nose in its claws.

Desire Demons, as a rule, hardly ever fought unless it was absolutely necessary. Why fight if they could simply weasel their way past someone's defences? Sparrow shook the numbness from her hand, and approached with the mace leaning against her shoulder; striding purposefully. Bags of gold—women, all the women—atonement and forgiveness and identity pooled from the creature's purple lips, in many different voices. All familiar and all so pronouncedly false. She focused energy through her mace until it shimmered and wavered, somewhere between the physical realm and the Fade, hefted it into both hands, drew it back over her head and hurled it down. What remained was little more than dust and ashes, crinkling away like burnt parchment. She kicked up puffs of the stuff and whirled around to face her companions, and see how they fared. Perhaps, she shouldn't have been too surprised. Each person she'd met in Kirkwall had faced unbeatable odds, she was sure. Shades, demons, destitute bloodmages, beefy Qunari and bandits alike. She wiped the sweat from her brow, tied the mace back to her hip and squinted at the corners of the chamber. Most likely, it'd be Aurora or Rilien picking up what she could not.

“Nothing looks out of place,” she murmured, approaching a nearby wall. She never liked puzzles, let alone secret passageways or anything that wasn't an open doorway. Sparrow knuckled her nose, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. Aurora had gotten considerably better in combat since last they fought together (and Rilien was as efficient, as usual). She still hit things hard, but her strength wasn't what it used to be. “You should teach me that some time,” Sparrow ventured, flicking her arm out as if she had an ice-blade, "I've never seen anyone use their magic that way." Truthfully, she'd only seen magic used a handful of times. And usually, only in the means of healing. She continued moving around the room, occasionally scuffing her boot and crouching down to look at things. Dirt specks, upturned chair, page from a book. Nothing useful.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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"Hmm? Oh that? It's, uh, it's nothing. Really," She said, trying to downplay it. "It's not that different from enchanting weapons with an element, just using your hand instead-- Bad idea with fire though. It leaves a nasty burn," She said with a nervous giggle. There had been an incident back when she was training with Amalia, and it taught her that magical fire was still just as hot as real fire. Even the ice was chilly, but a quick summon and dispel saw to it that frostbite never sat in. Still, she responded with a smile and nod. "Any time, there's a lot you can do with magic if you just open your mind," Not that she had much of an opportunity to experiment, what with the Templars breathing down her neck in the streets.

It didn't take long to find something strange. Aurora found herself standing in the middle of a room that really wasn't a room at all. There stood bookshelves, dressers, a table and chairs and even a fine bed off in the corner. It had the makings for a master bedroom-- had the room itself not been the usual grey Darktown squalor. It was... odd to say the least. Loose papers and book spread haphazardly from the small table, books were stacked in an ordered chaos upon the shelves, and even the covers of the bed were thrown into disarray. The strangest part wasn't the pale facsimile of a room though, but the "shrine" looking over it all. And make no mistake, it was a shrine.

Candles sat lit on either side of a portrait of a woman. Chalices of gold and silver occupied a nook beneath the portrait, smoking with what smelled like incense. And the portrait, with its gold painted frame, was of an older female. Strands of gray fell from her head, but she still possessed a dignified presence. Once, Aurora would have thought the woman was beautiful, but with the surrounding area bearing a hostile air, the image only further added to the creepy atmosphere.

"Uh... I think I found something," she called out to the others, taking a few cautionary steps away from the painting. As she did, she backed into the table. The table shook, sending a single piece of parchment out onto the floor. Aurora stooped down and took the paper, reading what was on it. A few words into it revealed the paper as something more and so she began to read it aloud. "Today is our anniversary. Had hoped to complete my work before now, but one piece is missing. I'm so sorry love. Please wait a little long. I haven't forgotten my promise. When I see it, I'll know. I would know that face anywhere."

She turned her eyes back to the painting and then to Sparrow, silently mouthing a single word to her. What?

“Nothing?” Sparrow gushed, flicking her hands as if to dismiss her modesty. “The Templars are lucky you aren't retaliating with abilities like those.” She might have enjoyed it if she did given their circumstance in Kirkwall. Aurora—the great vigilante, sweeping up the streets of all of those sodding wretches, stomping around in their heavy plates of armor. Mages were forced to hide away like unwanted stowaways, skittering for a safe place to stay. There was much she'd like to change in the city, but for a poor pauper (not so poor since adventuring in the Deep Roads) keeping her head low in Darktown, Sparrow could only hope that the world would come to its senses and see how wrong they were about them. She could not profess to belonging, in any case. She sat somewhere in the middle, grinding her teeth at the injustice of it all. Perhaps, someday, she'd approach her little magelet-friend and inquire. See if anything could be done, and if there was nothing to accomplish, to still count on her as an ally in any future-event. She could never understand being hunted down, nor could she understand having her freedom ripped away by someone else made up only of flesh-and-blood. Good note to jot down. Certain elements were fine, but: fire bad. “Maybe after we're finished with all of this mess—”

She continued sweeping the room, switching positions every now and again. Rocking back on her heels to stare at the ceiling for any indication of a secret shutter door leading to an attic—or something else underneath the nearby carpet; a latch, perhaps. Nothing. She grumbled softly, scratching her chin between forefinger and thumb. Her imagination, if anything, hampered her ability to find anything useful. And her patience was whittling down to nothing. Barely stifling a loud, obnoxious yawn, Sparrow extended her arms above her head and stretched her muscles out. She dropped her hands back down, glanced over her shoulder at Rilien and opened her mouth to question whether or not he'd found something on his hand. A trap, a clue, something to look at. It was then that she noticed that Aurora had moved into another room. Edging closer to Rilien, she kicked a broken, lop-sided chair that stood in her way and posted herself halfway into the next room. I think I found something. Finally! It beat sitting around, twiddling her fingers. She motioned to her silent-companion to follow her (which he would have done anyway but she liked to pretend she was doing something useful) into another chamber, following Aurora's voice.

The stupid grin quickly died on her lips, replaced by something closer to revulsion. This room felt off, as best she could describe. As if it were caught halfway between a dungeon, and a comfortable, snobby house. If someone were to move their things into a cave, she thought it would have a similar effect. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the large painting hanging above the fireplace mantle, surrounded by candles. Unsurprisingly, Sparrow did not recognize the woman's face; graceful, somewhat pretty and noble-looking. The atmosphere cast an ugly shadow across the bridge of her nose, until she was sure the thing was staring straight through them. She was not easy to scare, and she would never admit to it, but if someone were to offer, she'd gladly leave the place. Unfortunately, they still had no answers. This place, if anything, only posed more questions. Questions she wasn't sure she'd like to know. “Eh, is this a shrine?” She said, wrinkling her nose. When Aurora began to read the letter, she scooped up handfuls of paper, sifted through them and tossed them back on the ground. Pieces of many books, it seemed. “One piece?” Sparrow repeated, circling around Aurora to get a better look at the letter.

“Anniversary. Shrine, promise,” she checked her fingers off, motioning to the fireplace, “Dead person, obviously. But, wait a little longer? He's delusional. We're dealing with a delusional person.”

"It would have to be someone delusional to assume that he or she could continue to kidnap mages from the Circle without it coming to someone’s attention,” Rilien pointed out in his usual dry fashion. He could not, of course, be disturbed by the feel of the room or any such ridiculous notion, though he could sense residual Fade in it, like someone had been doing spells at length and over a period of a very long time nearby. Whatever this place was, it had been in use for a considerable amount of time, and there were Fade-beasts about.

"I believe we will find our answers in the next room,” he said simply, as that was where he sensed most of it to be coming from. "And most likely yet more demons.” It was a safe bet, considering what they’d run into so far. Another piece of parchment, this one written in a surer, more rounded hand than the shaky and spidery letters the others had been looking at. Rilien tucked it up his sleeve. He could give it some examining later, for now, the thing they needed to be doing was looking for that woman. He doubted very much that she was still alive, but if they could find an actual corpse this time, it may well give them something more for Emeric. Perhaps they would even be fortunate enough to find the killer.

As things turned out, the next room contained both a corpse and a killer. Rilien was relatively certain there were words spoken, and in fact, he would likely be able to repeat them back to anyone who asked for them, but they were, in point of fact, simply the ravings of a mad man. No more evidence was necessary for this than the thing he had created. He counted himself rather fortunate for his Tranquility, in some abstract sense, because it meant he was incapable of feeling the revulsion that he was fairly certain must be turning the stomachs of the other two. The moving cadaver, stitched together at the joints and animated by some fell, tainted magic, took a few lurching steps towards them and then stumbled. A step forward and a deft motion caught it, and he lowered the misbegotten creature to the ground with a measure of care perhaps unexpected in him.

It attempted to speak, but the words were incomprehensible, and he closed its eyes as the stolen life it had been granted left its body. It was his concern no longer—he now knew what had become of several years’ worth of missing women, and how they were connected to the shrine in the previous room. When a pride demon erupted from the ground on the other side of the room, he went for it, leaving whichever of the others wanted to slay the puppeteer to do so. He had not thoughts of revenge or anger, but he knew at least that Sparrow certainly would, and probably Aurora as well. Since it made no difference to him, he accounted for their likely preferences and took the lumbering Fade-creature, leaving the mage alone.

"Necromancy?!" Aurora exclaimed, her voice stained with shock and disgust. She expected blood magic, she expected rituals, what she didn't expect was it all being done for love as the madman put. Power yes, but never love. What he had created was an affront to nature far beyond simple blood magic. He'd desecrated the bodies of who knew how many other woman, and desecrated the memory of whoever it was he was trying to bring back. Anger was an emotion Aurora had long since tried to seal away. Anger caused her to be reckless, and it threatened to drive her further into the fade, and into the clutches of the demons that waited there. But she found the rage hard to contain, and she was on the verge of attacking the man when Rilien moved first.

It wasn't to kill the man, like she expected, but to catch the creature he had created. In that moment, Rilien displayed a level of tenderness unusual to a tranquil, but also allowed her to regain a hold on herself. Anger, love, hate, if she let herself fall too deeply into any one of those, she could very well become the creature that stood before them-- for no simple man could do what he'd done. She caught herself, closed her eyes, and let all of her emotions flow out of her mouth and nose with her breath. What remained was the Aurora she'd worked so hard to become, and the Aurora Amalia had spent so many years teaching.

On the other side of the room, the fade ripped open and a Pride Demon stepped through, and Rilien, ever efficient, darted off to take on the monster himself. Aurora placed a hand on Sparrow's shoulder and pointed at Rilien as she ran, and she spoke with a certain level of calm, "Go help him, I'll deal with this monster."

He. It must have been a he. It may have been all of her biases piled on top of one another, screaming of the injustices men had done to people like her—like he'd done to these vulnerable women, snatching them off the streets like discarded goods. She was never good at sorting out gray areas, or thinking clearly when she ought to, so Sparrow only grit her teeth against the correction and nodded her head. Delusional, alright. Her skin itched and she had the eery feeling they were being watched. A quick scan around the spacious chamber found nothing to be worried about, which only made her feel worse. There was no one else in the room. Ironic, how she'd feel so strange in a building built in squalor. Sans expensive furniture and creepy love-letters scattered around an equally unsettling portrait. Darktown was her home and still, Sparrow knew little of it's inhabitants (though in this case, she didn't think she'd mind not knowing). This person, toiling away at whatever-he-was-working-on, had been here for a good length of time. What else was she unaware of?

In the next room. The words brought her back from her thoughts, anchored her in place. She wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to go into the next room, for fear of what she might see. She, too, could feel something from the next side-chamber, pulsing louder and louder. Like a cloud of energy expanding towards them, stifling the air with Fade-stench. She'd spent far too long lingering in places she never wished to be, trapped in Fade-spaces that confined and restricted her. Her fingers fumbled for her mace, and unwound the leather straps. She needed something solid in her hand—a weapon, a means of protecting herself from everything that frightened her. A small, whispery part of her wondered if Rilien could feel the discomfort raking its teeth across his bones; being so close to the Fade as they were. Wondered if he felt eyes peering from the dark corners of the chamber. Wondered if feelings and colors dripped into the monochrome portrait that made up his world. Was it heavy enough? Her grip tightened, white-knuckled and already growing numb. She persevered after him and fell short of the door, coming to a jolting halt.

What had she been expecting? Certainly not this.Not this. The perversion was overwhelming. She felt heartsick and mortified and disgusted all at once. It came in a startling wave, rushing over her until her ears and cheeks felt hot with flushed, unbridled anger. Sparrow did not share Rilien's detached Tranquility. She did not have any of Aurora's discipline (possibly handed down from her once-friend), either. She felt things in loud proportions, and echoed her response in equally bright colors, painting the walls in large, relentless sweeps. Her responses were not always beautiful or smart or well-thought out. Her sense of control was dubious, at best. But, this was revolting. What he'd done to these poor women; to these vulnerable, shambling puzzle-pieces that made up something monstrously heartbreaking. This was the ugliest use of magic she'd ever seen. She wished it'd been something that made sense, something as simple, as barbaric as blood magic. At least, she could understand that. This wasn't love. Her breath hitched and tangled in her throat, constricting like a coiled serpent. Necromancy. She did not know what the word meant, but if it described a patchwork woman stumbling towards them with milky eyes, searching; then that was it.

She took another step forward, finally entering the room, and tensed the muscles in her shoulders. Her eyes were glued to the second figure in the room, rambling like a madman. With dulled senses, Sparrow hadn't even noticed Rilien moving up beside and in front of her, preventing the handmade-woman from falling on her face and gently laying her down, as he would. As she'd come to expect over the years of knowing him—it never occurred to her that someone who'd undergone the Rite of Tranquility behaved in such a peculiar way. Her heart bloomed, retracted and grew colder as she drew nearer to the blabbering man, cursing them for interfering. Fury threatened to overtake her better sense of judgment, slowly sifting out from her mouth in heated, hitched breaths. This was one horror she was sure they would not forget. It was Aurora's hand, pulling her away from her outrage, that softened the creases in her forehead. “Make him pay,” Sparrow replied thickly, turning away from him, and joining Rilien, instead. For once, she needed someone to lead.

And though Rilien had generally preferred to do his work in silence and from shadow, he knew a thing or two about leading, thanks to his strangely-forged friendship with someone who did it for a living. He and Sparrow were nearly matched in terms of physique, save that she was far too thin and he had never lost his musculature, but the basic principles of durability and damage-dealing were more or less similar. That meant they would be best served by splitting the pride demon’s attention and confounding it, something which it was trying to do to him.

The words it whispered to him were louder than he remembered them being, almost as if he were somehow more susceptible to them now, less
 Tranquil. It was perhaps an unsettling thought, but the truly unfortunate thing was that he felt vaguely unsettled by it. He had never been perfectly Tranquil. This was something he used to his advantage. But he was unmistakably very close, and for the whispers to be this hard to ignore
 well, pride always had been his sin, before. Before he was wiped of them all and made into this. His steps faltered a moment, a hitching irregularity almost tripping him up, but in the end, just because something was said at greater volume did not make it more appealing, and he set his jaw, sweeping low with his knife and slicing deep into the creature’s hamstring.

Without pause, he turned on a hairpin and reversed his direction, jumping as high as he could without any sort of assistance and plunging both daggers into the middle of the demon’s back, his feet finding no purchase on its flesh but his arms and weapons holding him firmly in place nonetheless. With some effort, he yanked out one of the daggers and raised it, sinking it in again higher up, then repeating the process with the other side. At this point, the thing had chosen to stop paying attention to whatever Sparrow was doing and kill him first, which was precisely the intention. It would give her time to kill it, as there was no doubt that repeated stabbing from the man climbing it like a wall of ice or stone was weakening it.

Pride. She'd never had much use for that. Desire and wants and needs had always been a different story. She never had pride in herself—not until she hurtled into Kirkwall, meeting her companions in much of the same manner. It was a different sort of pride, she thought. She felt fortunate to have them with her. Fortunate to have met them, and continue to stand by their sides. The Pride Demon's whispers were laughably weak in comparison. Her eyes trailed back to Rilien, focusing on his side profile. After they'd banished Rapture, she'd asked Ashton what Rilien had been like, with all of his powers and feelings regained, and learned that he'd been confident, reckless, and even jubilant. She'd tried picturing a smile on his face, eyes alight with wonder. Like someone who was busy taking in a beautiful sight for the first time, drinking it up. Selfishly grateful for being spared of her foolish possession, Sparrow had small parts of her that were beginning to blossom, growing out into something new, that made her wonder what kind of life Rilien would have led had he not sacrificed so much. For her.

Sparrow braced herself, as she did in every fight, and tensed the muscles in her shoulders, gripping her mace all the tighter. She waited until he advanced, moving along at a respectable distance—and nearly hurtled to his side when he faltered in his steps, thinking the Pride Demon had cast some sort of spell she'd missed. Only a breaths second passed and Rilien jerked back into motion, as if he had reset himself, and Sparrow grimaced, eying him with concern. She watched him duck beneath the demon's spitting strike and weave his knife through the thing's leg before following up herself, moving to the creature's forefront with her mace lagging slightly behind, shoulders running parallel. Even now, Rilien's agility surprised her. Leaping onto the Pride Demon's back from such a precarious position, and sinking his blades into the creature's back, holding on with nothing but his blades. It reminded her of Amalia. Pure, raw power. Grace, as well. She whispered under her breath, conjuring arcane energy into her forearms, straight through to the tip of her mace; connecting them as one.

The distance closed between them and with the Pride Demon scrapping at his back trying to dislodge Rilien, Sparrow had no problems with her questionable accuracy. She squared her shoulders and shouted as she swung the beefy end of her mace against the creature's face, rolling up on her toes with the explosive impact. Spikes, teeth and spit splattered away from them, and its jaw hinged slack. It's beady eyes widened, as if it were about to retaliate, but they only stared straight ahead. Its flailing arms flopped down on the ground, away from Rilien's relentless assault and it leaned heavily on its knuckles for a few seconds before giving away and thudding on its belly. Sparrow hopped away before being showered with ash, breathless and red-faced. The anger she'd felt before felt like a dull ache, smoldering like a doused-out flame. Perhaps, he had the effect on her. She turned to see how Aurora fared.

Sticking out in stark contrast with Sparrow's ferocity, Aurora faced her own opponent with the utmost level of calm. Like an oiled spring, she darted forward toward the necromancer, her eyes steady and her breathing collected. She was herself, not diluted by feelings of anger, of rage, of vengence. The fact of the matter was that the Necromancer was something that should not exist, and she would be the instrument to ensure that he no longer would. It was mages such as him, using their connection with the fade to further their own goals, and not the goals of the whole. It was people like him that saw to it they were kept under lock and key in Towers.

But she wasn't angry. No, she felt the opposite. She felt pity. This man was so deluded by his love, so blinded by illusions of his own make that he slaughtered women to see that illusion become reality. But it was never to be, what was would always be what was. There was no use in living for what was they had to live for what will be. The Necromancer lived for what was once his love... Aurora lived for the future where she will be free, along with Milly and every other mage locked away in their cages. The Necromancer attempted to summon a shambling corpse to block her path, but the undead creature was dispelled as fast is it was summoned as a hidden blade bit deep into it's exposed spinal cord.

Another corpse was summoned, and that one was incinerated before its toes even felt solid ground. Aurora's path would not be halted. She ground to a halt as the Necromancer shrouded himself in the fade, drawing a ward around his shoulders. Likewise, Aurora dipped into the fade with every fiber of her being, ignoring the whispers of the power that it promised. Illusions, worthless illusions-- power was something that was earned and not given. She whipped both hands forward and a thunderstorm erupted from her finger tips, tearing the tape wrapped around them off and charring the ends of her fingernails. She easily overwhelmed the ward, and showing an amount of control, she cut the lightning before she fried the necromancer. She hadn't killed since her emotions took over in the warrens of Darktown, as they guided Ketojan out of the city.

For him, she grabbed the edge of his collar and pulled down, while she thrust upward with the open palm of her other hand, slamming it against his chin. Dazed, she then pulled, and threw him into the ground behind her-- where she planted a hard knee into his back. She leaned over so he wouldn't strain to hear her "You won't drag me down with you," She said, pulling back, and stepping off the man. She then looked up to Rilien and nodded. She might not bloody her hands, but she wouldn't stop anyone else from bloodying theirs. There were many paths, but only one choice. If not by them, then the necromancer would find his end, elsewhere.

Rilien had no qualms about doing someone else’s killing, and he certainly did not need permission. As he’d managed to leap clear of the falling pride demon, he now collected his weaponry and advanced on the pinned necromancer. His fingers threaded through the man’s greasy head of hair, and he tugged upwards to expose his throat, across which he drew the blade that crackled with electricity. All the tension in the mage’s body slackened, and the Tranquil let go, sheathing both daggers and folding his hands into his sleeves. "Emeric will want to know what we found,” was all he said, and then the turned to lead the way out.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. All That Remains has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The sun’s rays lazily drifted into the open window that led to Ashton’s bedroom, illuminating the room. The man himself sat on a stool in the corner, his back against the wall and his bare feet stretched out in front of him. The sleeves of his shirt were pulled back past his elbows, and even the cuffs of his pants were rolled back to his knees, which further served to make him feel that the day was an easy one. The rhythmic cutting of his whittling filled added to the melody of the birds chirping and the errant wind rustling his curtains. It was, perhaps the laziest day he could remember in recent time, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He had sent Lia and his new addition home, not wanting them to waste the day stuffed inside the shop, so all that remained in the building was himself and Snuffy, who was dozing lethargically in the corner of the room, her snoring adding to the sound.

The room he lived in was small, no surprise. The building he resided in was a small one, with the main floor of his shop taking up most of the real estate, as well as a workshop behind the counter. However, the closet he called home was undoubtably  his. The walls were painted a light greenish hue. A bed sat unmade in one corner of the room, while a dresser with either a sleeve or a pant-leg hanging freely from the between the cabinets. A small bookshelf sat against another wall, filled to the brim with books, with another few stacked on top.  Some were stories or fairy tales, while others were guides or techniques on his chosen craft. In the corner where he was sitting, right at his side was a desk with letters and blank pieces of parchment thrown chaotically into the mix.

For the finishing touches, all around him sat the products of his diligent work, those few that held either close meaning, or were too well worked he felt to be sold. Effort had to be made to actually find them, but they were there. Among those few were plates of wood, polished to a hardwood sheen. Each of the plates held etched within the grain the face of one of his friends. Sparrow as he remembered her, so full of life, of happiness, and of strength none of which he believed she’d lost—only hidden for a time. Another bore the face of Rilien, but he did not wear the tranquil’s frown—this one wore the face he remembered. The smiling face he’d met in the cave on Sundermount, the one that traded easy quips. Another held Lucien’s visage, and even through the plate his regal presence was captured, his head held high, and his shoulders straighter than any one of his arrows. There were ones of Sophia, Lia, Ithilian, Aurora, Snuffy, and even Amalia managed to grace one.

And then there was Nostariel’s. Her soft features reflected well in the cedar plaque, crafted by a sure and steady hand, the same hand that had crafted her bow. Her hair fell down in long tresses, her eyes wide and happy, and her mouth was graced with the widest grin Ashton sought to give her. It was an image he’d memorized, and one he could replicate in an instant. He’d sooner get lost in the woods than forget that face. His thoughts wondered as he worked the wood in his hand, the knife slicing with the grain toward an undetermined goal. It gave him time enough to think and to reflect—for recent events needed reflecting. Between his quest to come to terms with his own past, and Nostariel’s bid to face hers for closure caused him to want to pause and reevaluate what was really important in his life.

“Hurry, hurry! You're blocking the doorway—” a familiar voice whined, muffled from behind the door that led into Ashton's shop. Perhaps, even reaching through the open window overhead. Sparrow shielded her eyes from the sun, squinting up at the shutters. Her hands were poised against Rilien's shoulder blades, though she momentarily halted her insistent pushing. It was she, for once, who'd suggested visiting their friend-down-the-way. She hummed low in her throat and pushed away from her ever-silent companion, tipping her head backwards. She'd made this trek countless times (drunk and sober, semi-conscious and barely clinging on). For certain, they'd all changed over the years. They'd grown closer as friends and stronger as individuals. They'd overcome great obstacles and forgiven themselves for making grievous mistakes, allowing their pasts to become a part of them, rather than a crutch or anchor they lent upon or sank with.

She briefly considered scrambling up the wooden slats and surprising Ashton by appearing somewhere that wasn't the front door, but shimmied around Rilien and pushed the door open with her shoulder instead. No Lia—she noted in disappointment, pouting her lips. Pretty little Elvish girl, she was. She'd said as much to Ashton, who only laughed at her flighty eye-batting, and warned that she wouldn't be interested. It couldn't be helped, she supposed. Sparrow made her way inside, cupped her hand to her mouth and called for Ashton as she walked. Manners had never been convenient or necessary where she lived, nor accommodating unless she needed to smooth out any ruffled feathers (or deal with hoity-toity noblemen and women). She was learning to behave more civilly, as a result of having friends borne in higher places. Progress was definitely slow. She'd never attend a ball and fit in with the others, certainly not without stepping on some toes and offending someone. Sparrow slapped her hands on the counter and peeked around the main hall, before spotting a set of stairs tucked in the corner.

“Come on, over there,” she ushered, snatching up Rilien's wrist and rudely tugging him along with her. She might have appeared like an unruly hound pulling at the tethers, but her excitement often overrode her better senses (and gentility). If she'd ever been in this part of Ashton's shop, she could not recall. Discovering something new, however plain, felt just as thrilling as exploring the Deep Roads. Her nosiness and inability to keep her hands off of things knew no bounds, but fortunate enough for her, her friends tended not to mind. Sparrow plowed upstairs, and stubbornly pulled Rilien to her side as the stairway opened up into a smaller room. “Hey. We're coming in,” The half-elf announced, fingers slowly easing away from her friends wrist so that she could poke around Ashton's room. She flattened the wrinkles in her shirt and readjusted her ruffled collar. Her wardrobe had changed drastically over the years, lending her a feminine quality she never thought she had. Fitted tunics, layered coats and comfortable trousers with leather boots. Everything was still comfortable, still teetering between this and that, but she was now obviously smaller than Rilien, and much more content in her own skin. 

She spotted him lounging against the furthest wall, surrounded by wooden plates and small piles of discarded wood-whittles, intent upon his work. Her mouth quirked into a smile, and her eyebrows sailed up her forehead before knitting down curiously. “What's all this, then?” Sparrow tittered, coming to circle around all of the plates and swoop down onto her haunches for a better look. She crossed her arms over her stomach, and leaned forward like a perched bird. Her expression shifted, quick-firing into one of awe. Her tucked hands casually slipped away from her sides, and snatched up one of the plates—a smiling Rilien, unfamiliar to her. “Ash. These are amazing. I mean, the likeness is uncanny.” She tilted it this way and that, then roved the other plates with her eyes. “Where's yours?”

Rilien was not precisely sure why it was necessary to be here at the moment, but as he had no pressing orders waiting at the shop, he had acquiesced to be present. Sparrow may be of the impression that she dragged him places various and sundry, and in some literal sense, she would be correct. It was also true, however, that Rilien did nothing he truly did not wish to do. He could be relatively easily swayed regarding matters about which he was wholly neutral, which was most of them, so he supposed it might look quite a bit like he had no will of his own. Well enough—this was precisely how he was supposed to be, given his Rite. 

If asked, he would perhaps have advised against such an aggressive method of entry, as he had the suspicion that Ashton preferred his doors to have hinges, but as usual, he was not consulted so much as he was expected to follow, and follow he did, noting that the door had withstood Sparrow’s method of entry relatively intact. He trailed behind her into the smaller room at the back of the shop, just as indifferent to considerations of personal space or privacy as she was, if for wholly different reasons. He almost frowned at the general state of disorder the room was in, but there was no visible reaction to it. He did gain a small crease between his brows, however, at the depiction of himself among the others. He did not find it inaccurate
 for a very specific set of circumstances. He could smile like that now, if he wished. He just never wished. Not once in a decade and a half, save then. He did not want her to ask about it. In this, he was served by her effusive enthusiasm and her complete lack of subtlety and attention to detail. If ever there was a person in this world who was antithetical to everything Rilien was, it was Sparrow. 

“Your work is accurate, but there is nothing 'uncanny' about it,” he said bluntly. Then again, for Rilien, he who held efficiency and precision as highest virtue, perhaps accurate was quite the compliment. He’d once used the same words to describe Lucien’s efforts at painting. Neither man seemed inclined to self-portraiture. The Tranquil folded his hands in his sleeves, watching a few dust motes float through the air, the angled sunlight giving them illumination they would not otherwise have had.

He could have heard the chirping Sparrow was making a mile away, much less the dozen or so feet below his windowsill. His first instinct was to rise out of his chair and meet them downstairs. He knew that there was a “them;” that Rilien was tagging along with her. Or maybe tagging along was the wrong phrase... Dragged sounded like a much better fit with what he imagined. Something still kept him in his chair however. The carving knife between his fingers swung around lazily while he waited instead of getting to his feet. Sparrow’s beckons from his main hall was not enough to rouse him either, as he turned his attention to the door on the far side of the room. If he knew Sparrow (and he did) then she’d find the nook that his stairs hid in. He wasn’t disappointed as a pair of footsteps echoed through the stairwell—one set rough and loud, the other soft and quiet.

It was then, that he finally sat the knife on the desk and rose to his feet, in order to properly greet his friends. In truth, Sparrow’s entrance was a tick more subdued than he expected. Of course he’d still have to inspect the hinges on his shop door—but that was beside the point. “Busy work,” He answered modestly. Hovering over Sparrow’s shoulder, he too peered at his handiwork. Then his chin dropped the few inches and landed in the crook of her neck, bristling her with what unshaven hairs he had on his chin. “The shop gets dreadfully dull at points. So in a valiant effort to combat the boredom, I whittle the most interesting people I know,” he said with a chuckle. “Doing myself is
 iffy at best,” he admitted offhandedly, his tone noticebly dropping a decibel.

In an instant, he flicked his chin from Sparrow’s neck and skirted barefooted the distance between her and Rilien. With a pair of deft fingers, Ashton moved them through air and landed them on the corners of his lips. He then turned each corner half-an-inch upward, transforming his default neutral expression into a smiling (if forced) countenance. “Now it’s uncanny,” he said, tossing glances between the elf in front of him and the elf captured in the plate. Letting his lips slip back into their usual place, Ashton took a step backward and took a seat on his bed. “So what brings you to my very humble abode?”

Sparrow's fingers skated across the wooden cheekbones, creased with an easygoing smile. There was twinkle in those eyes that was not currently there. It was almost as if she were looking at an old portrait of Rilien. Painted before the Rite had claimed the Fade, and his emotions, away. He looked far happier. And if Ashton had whittled it this way, then he'd surely seen him like this, as well. Her grin faltered briefly. Petty as envy was, she'd wished to see him how he'd been before, even if she acknowledged Rilien no differently than anyone else—in the sense, that he was not placed in an unreachable category. It never mattered how much he was unable to feel or reciprocate her own relentless, vibrant feelings, certainly not to her. She'd often joked about feeling enough for the both of them. Her dearest friend was a beacon in her life, guiding her down a path she could never have found on her own.

She traced the depiction of his smile and dropped her hand away from it. Perhaps, if she just could... A stubbly chin needling against the crook of her neck shook her thoughts away, forcing an uncontrollable bark of laughter. She was ticklish, after all. Her fingers tightened around the wooden plate to keep herself from jerking around and dropping it, though she still snrked, toothy grin beaming. “Lucky for you, you've got an interesting band of friends,” she said between bouts of laughter. She finally wriggled away from him, and his scratchy beard, when he released her and strode towards Rilien. She meant to ask him what he meant by that—how could it be difficult whittling yourself? Had she any abilities in any artistic crafts, Sparrow would have depicted him with the widest smile of all. Wide enough for them all. What was a house, without its foundations?

She doubled over in laughter when Ashton's fingers forced a smile on Rilien's face, albeit a very non-consensual one. Clutching her stomach, Sparrow wiped at her eyes with her forearm and nodded appreciatively, “Y-You're right, it is uncanny.” She abruptly straightened and held the plate at arms length, swinging her gaze from Rilien to Ashton's wonderful craftsmanship. These two, they represented her home. However unwelcome, however annoyed they might become over her mistakes and antics, she could not imagine living anywhere they did not. She finally relinquished her hold on the plate, gently placing it back with the others, before sweeping up and facing the now-seated Ashton. Scratching her chin, Sparrow shrugged her slender shoulders and cocked her head to the side. “We don't need a reason to visit a friend, do we? Just thought you'd be lonely. It's been awhile—I mean, all of us together, without any questionable adventures involved.” 

She paused and hooked her thumb towards the stairs, “Besides, Rilien was worried. You seem a lot more pensive than usual.”

It was perhaps fortunate for Ashton that it was almost impossible for Rilien to be annoyed, lest he might well have reacted poorly to his person being utilized in such a humiliating fashion. Of course, he had neither shame nor pride anymore, either, and so he simply remained where he was, hands folded into his sleeves, while the corners of his mouth were shoved upwards, the only indication he’d even noticed the slow, noncommittal blink of his eyes, like a cat that was simply too lazy to bother doing anything about the child tugging at its tail. The moment he was released, his mouth resumed its usual neutral cast, and he allowed Sparrow to do all of the explaining. Really, what would he add? That he had been the worried one was obviously a lie, but he felt no inclination to correct it—the absurdity of the statement was rather self-evident. 

When she was done though, he did add one thing. "Understandably,” he said, picking up on the last statement Sparrow made as though it were true. "You have been thoughtful lately. I believe it is often said that uncharacteristic behavior in another is grounds to inquire after their health.” He didn’t even look at either of them when he said it, and of course, his tone would never waver unless he consciously caused it to do so. He was never one to make the offer—to say that if the other needed to speak, he would listen—but he was decent enough at implying it, somewhere between the flat-greys of all his words, always underlining the vibrant colors of hers. They were both there if he required them. And perhaps, between them, nearly any kind of requirement could be met.

“Ah, of course he was. Poor Rilien, I wonder how he gets anything done with all the worrying he does,” Ashton said, cradling his chin over the back of his interlocked fingers. At some point, he’d pulled up his elbows and planted them on his knees, giving his lofty head some much needed support as he sat on his bed. Then his attentions turned to Rilien after he had spoken. “Thoughtful?” Ashton repeated, weighing the word on his tongue. Yes, he decided that that was the best word that described his current mood. Tilting his head on the backs of his knuckles, the thoughtful mood resurfaced upon his face, hiding the silliness that had been apparent only moments before. “I guess there were things I was thinking about,” He said, looking between Sparrow and Rilien.

He wasn’t going to tell them what they’d gone through on Nostariel’s task, because it wasn’t his to tell. However, the experience he found down there stuck with him and followed him back to Kirkwall, keeping him in a reflective mood the past week or so. What had been closure for Nostariel, was a reminder to him. He still had friends in Kirkwall, and it was thanks to them that he remained instead of moving on. He’d stopped running because he found something not worth running away from. He’d wanted to thank them for that, for being there for him—but just up and saying that was far too awkward and way out of character for him. Rilien was right, he wasn’t a thoughtful individual, but a man of action! (In his optimistic mind, of course). 

They were there, and they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and neither was he. Tilting his head the other way, his ever present smile returned to his lips. Pulling his fingers apart, he clapped them together and stood from the bed. “You’re so right Sparrow,” he said looking at her, “I mean it’s about time we fix that, hmm? How about we go find ourselves a questionable adventure. I won't be satisfied unless Rilien has to bail us out of jail.” He added the last part in jest-- He really didn't want to go back to jail if he had the option.

With all the things she held dear, and all the things she was afraid to lose, it was a wonder—Sparrow shook her head and flashed a weasely grin in return, jerking her hands away from her sides to rest at the nape of her neck, fingers tangled. “Now, you're talking,” she chirped, eyes sweeping towards Rilien for a brief moment. Mission complete, then.  She'd never known a truer home and a better reason to stay in one place, as dreary as Kirkwall was, then to be in the presence of all the companions she'd been fortunate enough to meet. Blunder into, rather. They'd chased away her monsters before, so she hoped she could someday return the favor. She unlocked her fingers and waggled them in front of her face, dark eyes reflecting the lights in the room. “Maybe Rilien can wear the dress this time.”

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Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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Amalia held one end of the leather cord between her teeth, working the other deftly through a set of pre-punched holes in what would quite shortly be a completed shin guard. She was aware that Sparrow had heretofore worn at least some metal with his armor, and she didn’t doubt that he would continue to do so, but that was a smith’s work, and she had neither the tools nor the skills necessary to do it. Perhaps that Tranquil friend of his would at least make sure he had a breastplate that fit this time, rather than whatever cobbled-together clanking mass he’d arrayed himself in before. She had not had any particular reason to comment upon it, but after several weeks of regular visits with someone who had been her friend in childhood, she’d come to the conclusion that she just disliked seeing him wander around in armor that was so ill-begotten as to be no help at all.

With customary irritability, she’d told him to come by the Alienage in a month, though she hadn’t told him why. As he hadn’t asked, it was obvious that neither of them found it to be necessary information, and Amalia wasn’t much for the exchange of the unnecessary kind. As Sparrow had recently rediscovered, no amount of wheedling or goading could make Amalia talkative, nor even particularly open. She had changed—even she was willing to admit that. But she had not changed so much as that.

The shinguard laced—it would tie off to the side for a better fit—she loosened the binds to make them easier to step into at first and set it aside, picking up the other to repeat the process. Though the work was mostly in leather, it was reinforced with more of the dragonhide she’d procured so long ago in more vital spots. Whereas Amalia could perfectly comfortably walk around in a full suit of black scales and care not at all for the attention this would garner in the open, she had made sure to craft Sparrow’s accouterments with the consideration that he was of the sort to regularly socialize and cavort around the city without particular purpose—and that perhaps was best served by dressing in a way that did not overtly intimidate. So most of it was actually a dark blue—because Amalia had worked indigo dye into the leather, having the material readily on hand and seeing no reason not to use it.

The last of the touches done for now, all the suit required was a proper fitting, and that would have to wait for the intended wearer. Amalia didn’t tilt her head back to look, but she was aware of Ithilian’s presence in the tree, and so when she spoke, it was obviously addressed to him regardless. “I do not suppose you can see him approaching?” The elf was aware that she was expecting Sparrow, as she’d explained the purpose behind this new project a while ago. She’d actually been meaning to ask if he would like her to undertake something similar for Lia, but she hadn’t quite decided how to put the question, of yet. Perhaps after she was done fitting Sparrow


Ithilian turned his head enough to see the entrance to the Alienage, enough to see that Sparrow had yet to arrive. He was half-tempted to correct Amalia and inform her that the him was actually a her, but he thought better of it. Amalia had known Sparrow far longer than he, and if she insisted on referring to her as male, there was undoubtedly a good reason for it. Qunari, they were
 complicated, he found. At least, she was. As for the rest, he could not say, as there was only so much he could observe.

From the branches of the vhenadahl, he could observe more than usual. He’d watched Lia head off to work at Ashton’s store, watched as one of the neighboring boys followed her with his eyes, looking away only when she passed out of sight, into Lowtown proper. He was the same one he’d seen her dancing with at the marriage festivities not long ago. Ithilian wondered what Lia thought of him. He didn’t seem particularly well-built, and probably would be worthless on a hunt. Not that that was all that mattered, but Ithilian was not pleased with elves who were incapable of defending themselves when they needed to. A soft heart was not always a weakness, but a feeble body surely was.

“Not yet,” he answered, peering down to watch Amalia work. After today, surely Sparrow would not want for a set of armor again. Ithilian’s own work was effective and durable, but compared to Amalia’s leatherworking, it seemed crude, the product of an amateur. Not to mention that he’d never had the opportunity to craft something out of dragonhide. No doubt the material would be put to better use in her hands than in his.

Sparrow lingered in the doorway of their comfortable hovel, hand poised on the door-latch. Strangely enough, it had become warmer and warmer the longer she stayed (and Darktown was not particularly known for any semblance of warmth). It was a respite away from all of the noise and bustle Kirkwall offered, like soft blankets pulled up to her chin on a chilly night. Surely, it had something to do with the friends she'd made. Perhaps, Rilien most of all. His presence, while as reserved and isolated as their shoddy residence, made it feel like home. She was sure of this. It still struck her as curious, just how much she had changed. When had she become so fond of one place? Her fingers closed around the ripped bit of parchment and quickly flattened out the creases, where she then proceeded to stick a dagger, procured from her boot, into the leftmost corner. A few inches from the door—it was a cryptic message, with the assumption that Rilien would understand. It relayed something about a tree, accompanied by sketch of two children with horns. Nothing like Ashton's handiwork, but it would have to do. A month had already passed and she was due to visit her once-friend in the Alienage—though, the reason remained a mystery. It itched under her skin and made her childishly nervousness.

She slipped through the door and slammed it closed, as she always did when she was overly excited. Quite detrimental to the door's health, but it was still standing all these years, albeit with a few cracks splitting where the hinges were. Rilien was crafty enough to repair any damages she accidentally tallied up, such were his capabilities, while she naturally broke things. She fidgeted with the hem of her fitted tunic and adjusted her leather belt. It was embarrassing enough that Amalia had seen her regress into such poor shape, but she'd be damned if she saw her in anything but the clothes Nostariel and Ashton had worked so hard to find. Slightly feminine, but even still: androgynous enough. The strength she bore in their youth had come and gone, replaced by a wiriness that complimented a slippery rogue, rather than a warrior—though she still fought like one, to the shame of the Qun. They did not like weakness, and had she stayed, she might have been assigned a boorish allocation for being inherently female. Farming or fishing. Basket-mender, probably. She had long ago stopped wondering whether or not Amalia was bothered by her change of appearance, by her inability to be who she'd always longed to become; male, masculine, strong.

Soon enough, she'd weaved through Lowtown and picked her way through the alleyways and down the staircases until it opened up into the Alienage, with the towering tree at its forefront as per usual. Even after all these years, Sparrow still felt... an odd sense of awe, unaccustomed to such traditions. The paints were always vibrant. As if they'd been done days before, encircled with boxes and dripping candles. The torches hanging in front of their houses, similar to her own hovel, offered them little light—and the clouds overhead, oppressive and heavy, often threw shadows instead of sunshine. She could not remember any Dalish traditions from her youth, as much as she could not remember her mother's face, but even still, she had always found The Tree of the People beautiful. Her lips twinged momentarily, then cracked into a wide grin. She could only see Amalia's back from where she stood, but it was easy enough to identify her. She could not see Ithilian lingering in the tree—looking up hadn't occurred to her, though she never doubted that he was near. Watching and waiting and prickling his bristles whenever someone who did not belong wandered into his safe haven.

“Shanedan,” she chirped loudly, striding beneath the tree. Sparrow was far from still being considered one with the Qun or even remotely Qunari, but she hadn't lost or forgotten any of the guttural language, either. For some reason, the greeting made her laugh. Though she was kind enough to stifle it with her knuckles, pressed tightly to her lips. Her curiosity flared as she neared Amalia, who was clearly focused on whatever object that sat in her lap. Her eyes widened when she spotted an errant shin guard—gorgeously crafted, laying at her feet. The assumption that it was hers hadn't crossed her mind. She did have, after all, a perfectly suitable suit of armor that... she kept in the corner of her room, untouched and shamefully dusty. Chaffing had finally convinced her to put it away, and so, she'd been armor-less (and uncomfortable) for the time being. She whistled appreciatively, perching down beside her with her knees drawn in. “What craftsmanship. I had no idea—is this what you wanted me to see? I'd say you could open up shop with Ashton. Er, do you want a go-between? I'm sure he'd agree.”

She nodded in reply to the update—nothing more was necessary, and thankfully, that meant he would expect nothing more. Many of the things that were of her people, she doubted now, but that lack of reliance on nicety, she would never be able to see as anything but logical. She knew how to speak in the flowery, inane fashion of humans, but she chose not to. She’d had to learn, to earn her posting here. But anyplace she could forgo it, she did, and that was thankfully almost everywhere she would care to be or go. Still, the chirped shanedan, spoken just like that kind of pleasantry, did not jar her, and perhaps indeed Amalia’s mouth did flick up at the corner, for less time than it took to blink an eye.

The Qunari turned to glance over her shoulder at the approaching Sparrow through the corner of a red eye, but moved it and the other back to what she was doing until he’d properly made his way over, crouching down near her and mentioning something about the hunter. Truly, had he learned nothing? Amalia exhaled through her nose; it was almost, but not quite a sigh, and she shook her head slightly. Tossing the indigo-dyed shin guard she was holding at him, Amalia rose smoothly into a stand. “I do not sell my work. You know this.” Everything she made was given, kept, or destroyed as fit the situation. This, too, she had no intention of changing.

Amalia crossed her arms over her chest for a moment, tilting her head to the side and narrowing her eyes slightly, taking clinical estimates of Sparrow’s dimensions. She may use the masculine pronoun when referring to him, but her craft accounted for the fact that though relatively androgynous, there were still certain accommodations that needed to be made for his biological sex. She was fairly confident everything would fit with minimal adjustment, but there was only one way to be sure. Arching an eyebrow, Amalia blinked at he who had once been her only friend in the world. “I trust you still know how to don leathers?” As if to ask then why aren’t you?

Sparrow's inability to respect personal space was less endearing to nearly everyone, and much more of a nuisance—not that she noticed, as she continued peering over Amalia's shoulder like a curious child. She inched backwards and propped herself up on her elbows, staring out across the Alienage. Things sure had changed between them, but she still lacked the courage to appear any different than she had been when they were children, inching their way through fields of wheat and scouring the plains for misadventures. She had changed. Perhaps, just as much as Amalia had, though she still yearned for the familiarity of home. To be sure, Sparrow clung onto these disillusions as tightly as a child would her mother's skirt-tails, but everything was different. She might have been too stupid or simply too stubborn to accept how much things had changed between them, nevertheless she believed in forgiveness. In forgetting what she had done to this woman, in abandonment; her sister, her once-friend, her old bandage, her childhood resolution.

Forgiveness had been difficult for her, as well. While she had not dealt with her past in the smoothest manners, seeking out those who'd wronged her and hunting them like dogs was hardly commendable. But, she'd managed to forgive the most unforgivable person of all: herself. It had come slowly, like the changing of seasons. Assuredly, it would not have come at all had it not been for her companions, gently pushing her along so that she would not lose her way. They had helped pave her own path, hand-in-hand. And while the ripening ache stretched between her and Amalia, she had been making progress in her own life; carving the ghostly silence with her loud, bright colours, sunshine and honesty. She was still crowthroated and garbling. Perhaps, more of a irritant than a comfort. Simply a showy bird who would not fly away from her perch, one which refused to stop singing even when brooms were swept her way. Her once-friend, the girl who saw things much differently than she, wringing small, important moments of grace and composure; laughing entirely with those ruby eyes of hers.

The brilliantly-dyed shin guard thumped against her chest, and Sparrow nearly fell backwards catching the thing in her arms. A throaty laugh bubbled from her lips as she turned the piece of leather mere inches from her face, close enough to smell the leather. Brief flecks of light funnelled down between the trees leaves captured the colours nicely; indigo, purple, reds. She wondered why she had picked such a colour. “That I do,” she mused softly, arching her eyebrows and tracing her fingers across the Qunari's fine work, “There is much you would not have done, in days past.” It had been an observation she'd been making over the years. While Amalia was still obviously Qunari—she was less and less Qun every day, allowing things to slide that the Qun may not have overlooked. She was becoming more individual and less imposed by stuffy regulations. She was growing outward, instead of containing everything inwards. All thanks to him, or a collective group, no doubt. She straightened her shoulders and sat up as soon as Amalia shifted, standing in front of her.

She scratched her chin and skimmed her surroundings briefly, still finding no signs of the Dalish elf. Peculiar. Usually, she'd notice his scowling face. When Amalia directed another question her way, curt and cutting as usual, Sparrow dramatically cleared her throat and held the shin guard against her shin. “Of course. Well, almost. I mean, most parts,” she replied uncertainly, slowly coming to her feet, “I, er. You know, steel armour is much more straightforward. They just don't make them properly, is all.” In smaller sizes more like, but she needn't say more. She knew that her old set of armour had been ill-fitting. Her stubbornness, however, often won over her better judgement.

A light scoff came from a branch above Sparrow. "Steel armor is both expensive and cumbersome." Ithilian peered down at Sparrow, giving a short wave of greeting. "There's no forge here, and no materials to make steel. What Amalia does have some of, is dragonhide. Just as good as steel. Lighter, too, and more flexible. And because we already have it, no coin is required."

“Ithilian is right,” Amalia said, frowning slightly as she adjusted a few laces on one of the pieces. She might have added and noisy but Sparrow had never been overly concerned with stealth, so it was largely an irrelevant concern. Still
 perhaps a bit less clanking would serve him well. Spare him an injury or two, as would the hide, and that was really the point. It didn’t matter so much which of the features avoided the damage, only that one of them did. She’d even included a loop in the belt for that inelegant mace he insisted on carrying around. As a rule, maces were good weapons, and required much less skill to wield effectively than something like a blade, but using one poorly sized and weighted for oneself reduced the effectiveness. Perhaps one of the spares she’d picked up
? She’d have to inquire later. More urgent matters were first.

If he didn’t remember how to fit everything on, she’d simply do it herself, and expect him to learn from example. It was a little strange—she could recall having done something very similar once before, not too long before he left them. This thought produced relatively little pain, now; it had simply become another fact. He may be dissatisfied with the pacing of their reconciliation, but she was surprised there was a pace to it at all. And, admittedly, pleased that there was.

“Stand still.” She loosened the laces on everything a little more, then deftly slid each item on in its turn, threading and tying occasionally, sliding the chestplate, more molded and hardened than one she would have made for herself or even Ithilian, but suited to Sparrow’s direct, unsubtle style of fighting. That laced at the sides, to minimize the exposure of joints in the armor, and she lifted his arms over his head in turn, tying the fastenings and clicking the buckles into place from the top down, so that it would be easier to remove. Stepping back, she scanned her handiwork, nodding just slightly. “Try moving in it.”

The voice was unexpected. Sparrow flinched backwards, nearly dropping the shin guard. She was still easily spooked. Her gaze swung up towards the sky, searching the tree for the Dalish elf, while she worked to regain her composure. Ah, there he was. Nestled in the branches. Perched like a hawk—so that he could better view the Alienage in its entirety, and protect it from whatever it needed protecting from. “It may be expensive, but it is what warriors wear,” she lamented wryly, arching her eyebrows. She returned the wave with her own salute, shin guard in hand. As childish as it may have seemed to anyone but she, Sparrow had a vivid image of what a warrior should look like; strong, valiant and encumbered by clanging steel plates. It was difficult to imagine them otherwise, and even more difficult imagining her dressing any differently. Growing was startlingly difficult. “Dragonhide?” She mused, holding up the shin guard back in front of her face, “I've never actually seen it before.”

She took his word for it. If it was just as strong as steel, then she had no qualms. No misgivings. Sparrow was anything but stealthy. Stomping into floor traps and creaking through doorways had become something of a joke between her companions—after the matter was done, and they were out of danger. She'd grown accustomed to hanging back and allowing others to peruse chambers, in case she accidentally unleashed arrows, or fire, or angry shades down on their heads. She'd never thought of changing before. “Why're you sitting up there anyway?” She added, swinging her head back towards the leafy canopy, “Join us.” Looking back at Amalia, who was still carefully threading laces through another piece of dragonhide, Sparrow tapped the shin guard against her lips and hummed low in her throat.

Amalia stood there, contemplating something—to be sure, she could tell by the look on her face. Slight frown; pensive, reflective. Similar to when she used to meditate in the glades, quietly observing and absorbing everything around her. She knew that look, but could only guess at what she was thinking. She opened her mouth, then promptly closed it when she was ordered to not move. Easier said than done; being still was against her very nature. Sparrow dropped the shin guard away from her mouth and focused on not squirming. Instead, she wriggled her fingers, tapping them against her palms as Amalia strapped each item onto her person, obediently moving her arms as she dropped the chestplate over her head and adjusting things as she went. She flattened her hair back down, taming any flyaway tufts. Her once-friend had done this before; many years ago, when Sparrow had been Merevas of the Beresaad. A warrior, fitted with heavy armour and an even heavier burden.

She stretched her arms over her head, then abruptly crouched low to test the armour's flexibility and jolted back up just as quick. They were right. The armour moved far more fluidly than anything she'd worn in the past, and it was surprisingly light; almost like leather, but not quite. It did not feel weak at all. She bent her elbows, rolled her shoulders and kicked out her legs. Dragonhide, she supposed, lived up to its description. She'd only heard of it in whispers; from jealous merchants who wished to get their hands on such materials. A laugh bubbled from her lips, steeping into a childish grin. “Amazing,” she cooed, wheeling in a small circle and coming to face Amalia once more, “You must've been awfully worried about me to make such fine armour.” She held out her hands to indicate that she was jesting—maybe, and she continued to investigate her handiwork. She seemed a little more sombre, a little more genuine when she added, “Thank you.”

At Sparrow's suggestion, Ithilian reluctantly stirred from his perch, deftly maneuvering between branches with the skill of an experienced climber, dropping to land lightly beside Amalia, where he leaned up against the vhenadahl. In truth he valued the limbs of the tree half as much for the personal benefits they offered, in addition to having a vantage point over the Alienage. It was slightly removed from the ground-level bustle of the city elves, the air seemed to move a little better, seemed less congested with smog from the factory district. Small comforts, of course, but Ithilian took them where he could find them.

Surely, the Dalish had navigated himself amongst much larger trees; in forests as wild as he. She'd never had reason to give it much thought, but she knew little of the man and even less about his interactions with her once-friend. They were close, to be sure, but beyond that, she had no clue how close they'd become or where they seemed to be headed. It reminded her of something she'd wanted to mention. A small smile simpered on her lips as she studied Amalia. “There was a wedding here recently, a little bird spoke of it,” said little bird was obviously Lia, flapping away a teasing Ashton as she tended the shop, “By any chance, it wouldn't have been you two, would it? I mean, I'd have been insulted for not being invited.” Qunari did not marry for love; and had little use for rings, festivities and tumbling in the hay, as it were. Things had changed. People had changed. Dalish were different, she supposed. Judging by Ithilian's demeanour, it would have been a sobering affair. She jested, of course, unless it were true. It was a means of broaching the subject without outright saying what she meant.

Amalia nodded her satisfaction at Sparrow’s approval of his new armor. She would not say that she had been worried, as such—it was not an emotion that she often felt. She knew that, for the most part and despite all seemings to the contrary, he could take care of himself, and where he could not, there were others who would pick up the slack, see him fed when he was too thin, dragged out when he would languish indoors, dragged home when he was too inebriated to make use of his faculties properly. Stop the daggers aimed for his back, even. But this had been something of which she was capable and those he knew were not. Nobody had asked, Amalia had only acted. This was, generally speaking, the way she was. Whatever they may be now, whatever they had been then, Sparrow was
 of concern to her. Whatever life this was that she built, he was a part of it, though how much longer that life would last, she could not say. Perhaps she merely wanted him to have something of her should she go, when all was said and done. The protection she would not be able to give, as she had given it when they were both small and young and soft.

“You are welcome.” Ithilian dropped down from the tree, and for a moment, there was a confortable silence, in which she contemplated the possibility of carrying such intentions regarding a material legacy further. Objects were not of much worth to her, but she could at least realize that there was value to them when their function was important. It was why a warrior’s sword was as his soul, but anything else given up with no more than a thought.

Of course, her thoughts were interrupted by the flighty bird, and it honestly took her a moment to process what he seemed to be implying. Her brows drew together, her mismatched stare becoming faintly incredulous. “No,” she replied, blinking at last. “It was not.” Her face smoothed back out, and she shook her head faintly. She had no idea what anyone could have said to him that would make him think that it was—the thought seemed
 odd, to say the least. “Perhaps you may wish to loosen the armor—it seems to be restricting blood-flow to your head.” Her tone was about as dry as the deserts of Seheron.

Ithilian too had been a bit stunned by Sparrow's question, but thankfully Amalia provided a more immediate response. Her comment about loosening the armor actually got about as big a smile as Ithilian was capable of wearing. It was still a half-strangled thing, held back by the scar cutting along his face, but it extended all the way up to the look in his eye, an expression that somehow implied that even with all the awkwardness of the situation, of their situation, the Dalish hunter felt more or less at ease.

What they were to each other was something neither of them could fully grasp at the moment. Ithilian had scarcely felt closer to anyone in his life, but neither had he felt more cautious about the steps he took, either. He could see into her well enough to know that she was wobbling on an edge. They both were, questioning the ways in which they had been brought up, the things they were told to believe. Ithilian did not want to push her one way or the other, not for something so selfish as the way he felt. He wasn't even ready to confront any particular feelings himself, let alone share them. So for the moment, they were content to simply be whatever strange sort of companions they were.

It was Sparrow who laughed loudest of all, throwing her head back and holding her hands to her hips. She'd expected that sort of response, dry as tinder and quick as a vipers strike, but even still she'd been secretly hoping to catch her off guard; like a blushing maiden too embarrassed to answer her question. Her expression spoke volumes—it was difficult to catch if one were to not look close or quickly enough, because just as the look had appeared, it had puzzled itself back into its usually composed state. The seas had ceased their wild waves, brief as they were, and settled back into the rhythmic licking of the shore. She held up her hands and cocked her shoulder, shrugging. “My mistake, my mistake,” she chirped, leveling them with a grin. Her fingers feigned loosening the straps to her chestplate, as she danced away from the tree to avoid any swattings, “Should there ever be a wedding I better be invited.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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It was a rare day indeed that Varric Tethras did not at least appear to be in a good mood. The dwarf storyteller and rogue had been pacing around the Hanged Man, his place of residence, with an impatience and anxiousness uncharacteristic of him, waiting for those he'd sent for to arrive. On the table, his impressive repeater crossbow Bianca was loaded and ready for a small war, with ample ammunition set aside, as well as a number of other nasty devices, traps and poisons and light explosives and the like. Varric looked as though he was preparing for battle, though in reality it was simply one man that he sought.

The Warden Nostariel arrived alongside Ashton Riviera, and the dwarf put on something of a mask for them, offering them seats in his expansive (for the Hanged Man) chambers and offering them drinks, shoddy though they were. Sparrow arrived soon after, and Varric made somewhat forced smalltalk while they waited for the last arrival. Judging by the look on Ithilian's face when he entered, it was only reluctantly that he answered the dwarf's summons, given the amount of trouble he'd landed himself in the last time he'd accompanied Varric. The Deep Roads Expedition had been born out of greed, after all, and had almost turned into a disaster because of that greed, particularly on the part of Varric's brother. Still, the Dalish had dragged himself into the Hanged Man and back into Varric's private quarters with the others, though he declined the offer for a drink.

"You might reconsider when I tell you the news," Varric said, with a sort of dark humor. Upon seeing that there could be no more delaying, Varric uncomfortably settled in. "I've had an ear out for Bartrand. After the Deep Roads, he ran to Rivain, probably because he knew I couldn't track him. But I hear he might be back in Kirkwall. He called in loans from a few of his contacts in Hightown." Ithilian did not reconsider the drink. To him, this sounded like simply more trouble waiting to happen, since Bartrand Tethras had delivered them nothing but trouble the first time around. "And how do you know he's not just passing through?"

"If my information is good," the dwarf replied, "and it's always good, one of the loans was a small manor to stay in, which gives us a good shot at having a word with my dear, sweet brother."

Nostariel’s cup lay untouched in front of her, one leg crossed over the other. The news caused her to frown; she had not forgotten the ordeal they’d been through in the Deep Roads because of what Bartrand had done, not even in the three-and-some years that had transpired since. Still
 the Warden took in Varric’s array of weaponry, and the look on his face, and the way he said his piece. "Are you sure?” Her tone was cautious. "There is little to be gained from retribution but heartache, Varric. And he is still your brother.” One did not array themselves so if they merely wanted to talk to someone. Only the most violent of vengeances required an armory, and she was more willing to just let the whole thing go than she was to watch this hurt her friend more than he expected it would.

"Nostariel, dear," Varric answered, plastering another smile onto his broad face, "I said I wanted a word with my brother, and I meant it." He shrugged at the array of weaponry he'd be bringing. "Bianca's just coming along for our protection, considering what Bartrand tried to do to us last time. I want answers from him first, not blood. That might come later, depending on the answers." The Warden looked for a moment like she wanted to sigh, but in the end, she simply inclined her head.

Next to her, Ashton lounged about in his chair, one leg thrown over the arm and his back leaned against the other his foot rhythmically dancing in the air. In his hands were one of Varric's bolts which he set about to play with in the nonchalant way that was entirely his own. He ran a finger down the shaft, admiring the wood grain, but he was halfway listening to the conversation too. "I'm going to be honest, I'll be a little let down if he doesn't get away without a little..." Ashton paused and made a fist with the bolt, punching it into his other hand lightly a couple of times.Then he let his head loll backward so he could see Nostariel-- though upside down-- and shrugged. "They're dwarves, and brothers to boot. I'd be shocked if neither never thrown a fist at the other."

He then raised his head and tossed the bolt back into the pile, his face taking on a more serious edge. "Though I do agree. I'm not too keen on watching someone get shot in the face."

Ithilian wasn't overly concerned with what Varric would choose to do with his brother; if the dwarf thought the only solution was to put a crossbow bolt between his eyes, that was his business. Dwarven family matters were not something he wanted to be involved in. That said, the idea of seeking answers from Bartrand did manage to resonate with him. He had stolen a valuable lyrium idol from the Deep Roads, a trinket that led him to betray his own brother, leaving them all for dead. If Bartrand was dangerous, or if that artifact was, it seemed a valuable use of a night to sort the situation out. He nodded his agreement, as Nostariel had done.

Pleased, Varric grinned up at Sparrow. "So, what do you say? Shall we stop by Bartrand's new house, welcome him back to the neighborhood and all that?"

“I'd say if he's stupid enough to come back to Kirkwall after what he's done, he has what's coming to him,” Sparrow replied, shrugging her shoulders. Though her methods might have been a shade darker than the others, she could not relate to those who professed having a deeper understanding of familial ties. The closest person she ever had to a sister was Amalia, and she'd betrayed her as well. Perhaps, not in the same manner, but in a roundabout way that still felt like abandonment. What Bartrand had done in the Deep Roads had been far worse. Abandoning them to their own fates for a simple token that may or may not have been completely worthless. To a likely death hadn't it been for their skills. Even she was not that greedy. Not enough to leave her family and throw them to the wolves. If Varric so chose to kill his brother, she would hold him down. Justice and honor hardly held hands, in her opinion.

“I'm in,” she added with a slip of a smile, leaning her chair at an alarming angle before clattering back into place, “Lead on, Varre. May Bianca guide us swiftly.” Her eyebrows jettisoned up, then waggled back down. She looked at the others and pursed her lips, wondering why, exactly, they might have any reservations about the one person that could have been the end of them all. He'd been particularly ruthless about leaving them, so why did they want Varric to talk to him? Surely, if Bartrand had wanted something different, like reconciliation, he'd have contacted Varric or visited him in the Hanged Man. He knew where to find him. Or maybe, he'd lost his mind in shame. She clicked her tongue and leaned her elbows on the table, “Either way, we'll find out why he hasn't come to apologize, right? Let's go give him a warm welcome...”




By the time the group reached Hightown, the sun had set behind the rooftops of the towering manors, casting the streets into a darkness occasionally puncuated by the glow of a torch hanging along the walls. The particular house Varric sought was isolated, conveniently concealed by the wealthy district's twisting turns and occasionally narrow streets. When they arrived, however, Varric and Ithilian frowned as one, surveying the location.

"Abandoned," Ithilian stated, noting the obvious lack of care put into the state of the manor. A garden at the base of one of the first floor windows looked to have died months ago, if not longer, and the window above it had been shattered by something, with not even a simple boarding up job to seal it. Inside, there was no light visible, though the occasional picking up of the wind carried a torn leaf of paper into view. It was a dead end street with no other manors to speak of, and Ithilian wondered if the city guard even came this way. "At least, it looks that way. Could easily be staged."

Varric grumbled something unintelligible to himself. "Hrm... I don't get it. My sources saw people making deliveries here just a week ago. This... looks like it's been empty for months." Bianca on his back, Varric crossed his arms and studied the door, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to go inside. It was possible that nothing at all awaited them inside. More likely, Ithilian suspected, was a trap. Surely Bartrand wasn't so much a fool as to return to Kirkwall and expect those he'd left for dead to take no action.

Nostariel wore a puzzled frown, reaching up to absently tug at one of her ears, the motion somewhere between thoughtful and anxious. There were a lot of things this could mean, but it was probably just impossible to know from just this. She was certainly no master of deduction, nor of knowing the minds of other people. She couldn’t pretend to any knowledge about Bartrand’s logic or his motives, but she did know one thing: whatever was going on here, the answer was unlikely to reveal itself to anyone who waited outside the place. "I suppose
 we’ll just have to go in and find out. Watch for traps?” There was no telling what awaited—but caution was not a bad idea, considering who they were dealing with. "My thoughts exactly," Varric agreed. "Keep your eyes peeled."

Sparrow showed no concern given the state of the mansion, and the fact that it looked as if only rodents and roaches occupied the place. This particular corner of Kirkwall was unknown to her, so she hunkered down by what might have been a withered rose bush and pinched the crooked stems between her fingers. In disarray, or splendor, anyone could live in a place like this. She'd seen worse in Darktown, after all. This would have been considered luxury by any of their standards, but it was indeed odd if Bartrand had walked away from the Deep Roads a rich man, and willingly walked into squalor. Maybe he sold that blasted object and gambled it all away—forcing him to take refuge in this dump, or maybe it was a strange form of penance. A punishment for leaving behind his own flesh and blood. She doubted both stories, but it was the only thing she could come up with. She pursed her lips and slowly came back to her feet, studying the door, as well. If anyone knew anything about her, they'd know not to let her bumble ahead when there were good chances that traps had been set. Sparrow merely nodded, fingers creeping across her belt. She was ready.

The door opened with a noisy squeal when Varric pulled on it, and the group moved cautiously inside. They got no further than the entrance, however, before Varric carefully pulled Bianca into his hands, eyes falling to the floor, where two bodies lay in pools of blood. They were armed and armored men, the leather and mail trappings of mercenaries and sellswords. There had obviously been some kind of violent struggle leading to their demises; much of the room was wrecked around them. "These corpses aren't even stiff yet," Varric commented, prodding at one of them with his boot. "There has to be someone still in here."

As it turned out, there was someone in the very next room. Four someones. They were more mercenary guards, standing idly or sitting about as though waiting for someone. At the sight of Varric and the others, however, they immediately sprang into action, charging blindly forward with weapons drawn, shouting madly and incoherently. Most unlike sellswords, they gave no thought to personal defense, and as such Varric was easily able to thrum two bolts into the chest of the first, while Ashton and Ithilian feathered the second, leaving Sparrow and Nostariel to dispatch the others. When all four were dead or otherwise incapacitated, Varric stopped to take a breath. Ithilian frowned, crouching before one of them. "Even the most desperate criminal in Darktown has more sense than these four."

Varric nodded grimly. "They were completely out of their heads. Bartrand must have done something to them."

Whatever had been done, it had taken hold of the dozen men waiting for them in the great room as well. They set upon the group with a reckless abandon, dying without a second thought as they ran upon the arrows and bolts of the archers, and the magic and heavy mace of the mages. They proved little challenge in their delusional state of mind, and the fight came down to little more than butcher's work, as it was clear that little would dissuade them from trying to kill the intruders other than their own deaths. When the work was finished Varric led them upstairs, frustrated at needing to kill someone other than his brother for this. He was just about to kick down the closed door of the master bedroom when a shuffling was heard from his left.

He raised Bianca in the direction of the sound, but it was a second dwarf that appeared before them. Not Bartrand, that much was plain, but a well dressed younger lad, with an as of yet beardless face and short brown curls. He looked absolutely terrified. Upon recognizing him, Varric lowered his crossbow. "I know this man," he said to the others, to stay their hands. "He's Bartrand's steward."

"Varric? Is that you?" It seemed to take the steward a moment to recognize the dwarf. "Praise the ancestors..."

"Hugan, what happened here?" Varric asked. The dwarf steward's face fell, and he wrung his hands together nervously. "Varric, your brother... that statue he brought out of the Deep Roads... Bartrand said it sang to him, even after he sold it." He glanced down to the bodies of the guards on the floor. "I've been hiding in here, away from the guards. They're like crazed animals. I didn't dare go past them. Everyone in this house has gone mad."

"How?" Ithilian asked, not yet putting his bow away, though he did lower it at the start of the talk. "Did Bartrand do something to all of them?" Hugan nodded nervously. "He's been feeding them lyrium ever since he hired them. Secretly at first, but eventually he was able to force them into it. Some of the servants, he... cut pieces off of them while they were still alive. He says he's trying to help them hear the song. Please, stop him." Varric looked somewhat incredulous at the news.

"Bartrand's not exactly a nice guy, but... this doesn't sound like my brother."

Nostariel’s face twisted into a grimace. That idol had made her feel uneasy, certainly, but this
 she would have never guessed that anything like this would happen. Uncomfortably, the Warden smeared blood from her cheek onto her thumb, wiping it for lack of anyplace better on the hem of her shirt. This was all kinds of wrong, and something about the air in here made her feel
 ill. Chewing her lip, she glanced back and forth between Varric and the steward as they spoke, but in the end she had to admit that it was one piece of information that stuck with her the most.

"He sold it?” her tone was thickened by dread. If it could do this much in the hands of a merchant, she couldn’t even imagine what a magister would do with it. Or a politician. Or
 well, anyone who would want to purchase such a thing. "To whom?”

A statue rendering someone mad? Mad enough to cut off limbs and feed people lyrium, supposedly. An incredulous snort sounded, and Sparrow found herself wringing her own hands, binding them into fists. A kinder soul may have thought that it hadn't been Bartrand's fault—that the idol had influenced him so, that his crimes were products of an evil object. Whispering and promising things. She knew the feeling and she'd never excused herself, either. She hoped that the others felt the same, and when the time came, they would kill him. If he was too far gone, and there was nothing they could do, it might even be a mercy. They would need to find the idol and destroy it before it hurt anyone else. Demons and this idol, she believed, had much in common.

"I don't know," the steward said. "It's why we came back to Kirkwall, but I don't know who he sold it to. He was already starting to rant about the sodding idol and the singing. On his better days, he hated the thing, wanted to get rid of it. But the minute it was gone, he got worse."

"And where is my brother?" Varric asked. "I think it's about time we got some answers straight from him." Hugan pointed down the whole, to the last door. "Bartrand locked himself in the study with some of the servants. No one's come out for days, and those sodding lunatics just kept prowling the halls."

"Then we go in after him," Varric said, resolved. "Come on, let's finish this."

He led the way down the hall, leaving the steward behind to make his own way out now that they had cleared it of the mercenaries. Bianca in hand, Varric gave the door a couple of solid kicks before it busted open, and he charged inside. Bartrand was the only one left in the room, but he was lying in wait for his brother, and he sprang upon him as soon as he entered the room, a knife in hand. The two went to the ground, Bartrand ending up on top in an advantageous position, but Ithilian was quick to rush up behind the crazed dwarf, wrenching the knife from his hand and sending it clattering across the floor. Seizing Bartrand under the arms, he pulled him free of Varric, who immediately pressed the attack, throwing a wild haymaker into Bartrand's jaw.

Several more followed, and soon the younger dwarf tackled the older one, pulling him from Ithilian's grip and nearly knocking the elf over. Varric proceeded to beat his brother across the face until it was clear that Bartrand had submitted, at which point Varric reluctantly rose, allowing Bartrand to slowly get to his feet. He coughed and spat out blood onto the floor, but there was a small bit of clarity in his eyes now, something that had been lacking before.

"I can't... I can't... hear it anymore." He rubbed at his bruised face. "I just need to hear the song again. Just for a minute." He then suddenly turned sideways, staring at the wall. "Stop saying that! I know I shouldn't have sold the idol to that woman! It was a mistake! A mistake..."

Varric, annoyed, stepped forward and grabbed Bartrand firmly by the shoulder, shaking him. "Bartrand, get a hold of yourself. Do you know where you are? Do you know what you've done?" Finally, he seemed to recognize the dwarf standing in front of him. "Varric! You'll help me, won't you little brother? Help me find it again. You were always the good one."

"Help you? Bartrand, you left me to die, you left all of us here to die, and for what? Some trinket? Look at yourself. Look at what you've done to the men and women who served you. Where's your nobility, brother? Where's your dwarven honor?" To that, Bartrand seemed to have no answer. His gaze was often unfocused, as though sometimes he saw the people standing before him, and sometimes he saw something else entirely.

It was Ashton's voice that broke Bartrand's silence. His crouch brought him to eye level with both dwarves and he placed a hand on Varric's shoulder, urging him to calm himself. "Varric," He said, his voice lacking Ashton's standard whimsical tone. "Look at him, something's not right. That thing, whatever the hell it was, broke him. He needs help," Ashton said. "And keeping him the hell away from that trinket is a start," He added, whispered into Varric's ear. The Bartrand in front of him was not the proudly stubborn dwarf he remembered on the expedition, this was a sick man whose mind was muddled.

The actions he'd taken were despicable, Ashton wouldn't try to argue that, but the man stood in front of them, talking to the walls and looking at them through a haze. It was hard for him to feel anything else but pity.

Varric didn't seem to like hearing that. He glanced back over his shoulder. "I didn't come here just to leave without telling my brother he's a filthy nuglicker, and demanding some answers. Help can come later." He turned back to Bartrand. "Why'd you do it, Bartrand? Were you already crazy before we even went into the Deep Roads, or was it all the statue?" Bartrand seemed to hear the word statue clear enough, though he shook his head in disgust at the sound of it.

"Idol," he corrected, "not a statue. It wants to be worshipped. It wants me. It wants me back! She stole it from me!"

“He doesn't need help,” Sparrow cut in, throwing her arms wide in confusion, “There's no way he was off his bloody rocker in the Deep Roads, if what tiny said was true.” Whatever Bartrand was suffering had taken time to develop. He'd abandoned them in the Deep Roads with a clear conscience, for whatever manner of jewels and treasure. At the time, he never mentioned anything about the idol—only that he didn't want to split everything among so many people, that he hadn't wanted them to come along. They were pests and he was in the business of coin, always had been from the stories he heard from Varric. Her teeth grated together, chewing heated words in the back of her throat. The damning voice in her head bugled that she was being hypocritical. She'd never been insane, but she'd had the inability to distinguish dream from reality when under Rapture's influence. This was different, she reasoned. “He's dangerous. This is untreatable. Dwarves can't be possessed, everyone knows that. This isn't poison. If we can't help him now, how long do we wait while he's trying to cut off someone's arm?”

The tension in her shoulders slowly trickled away, and she found herself staring at the dwarves, and at Ashton. He was trying to soothe their ruffled feathers, pacify Varric's anger and save someone who was sick. Surely, Nostariel's influence. She couldn't help but feel wrong at the thought of helping someone who'd so easily abandoned them. For an object. An idol, whatever the hell that ugly statue was. Knuckling her nose irritably, Sparrow shrugged her shoulders and forced a tight-lipped, crooked smile. The more Bartrand babbled, the more she wanted to beat him senseless, too. She took a few steps around the huddled group and waggled her eyebrows, absently prodding the back of Bartrand's leg with her leather boot. “She? Mm,” her tone might have changed, but it still felt sharp as a knife, “Did an old lady-love take your stupid statue away? Thought that a woman would fall head over heels with you after presenting her with that ugly thing. Did she reject your feelings? Send you away? Choose the idol over you?” She dipped low, crouching to Bartrand's right. Her next words were frigid.

“Tell us who she is.”

"She glittered like the sun," Bartrand answered, "but her heart was ice. She will not feed it, not like I did it." Ithilian rolled his eyes at the answer.

"I don't think he even knows. Ashton's right; his mind is shattered."

Varric grimaced, frustrated. "Bloody ancestors... why bring me this close and still nothing? For three years all I've wanted was to look him in the eye and get his answers. Why he abandoned us in that thaig, what any of this was for. But I guess there's nothing he could say that could make it right." His hands gripped the crossbow a little tighter. It was obvious that Bartrand wasn't going to be able to supply them with the answers they sought. All that remained was deciding what to do with him. Varric's mind appeared unmade.

Nostariel’s mind was not. "Varric, whatever happened here
 Bartrand is no longer himself. He’s mad, and he needs to be looked after, not killed. He’s still your brother, and I think you would regret bringing him to harm.” Vengeance was not the answer here, if there was an answer. For all she knew, Bartrand was all the family Varric had left, and even if he wasn’t
 that connection, that tie, shouldn’t it be strong enough to allow forgiveness? Nobody was perfect, everyone made mistakes, and more than anything else, it seemed important to her that no more were made in the aftermath of it.

"Sparrow..." Ashton said, the emotion drained from his voice leaving the name monotone. Disappointment hid behind his tone, and held an uncomfortable note, one that was unfamiliar from his lips. "What you're suggesting is murder, no matter how hard you try to justify it," Ashton explained coolly. Sparrow was upset over Bartrand's actions, he could see, but to kill him for it in his state? It was petty vengeance, nothing more, and it made Ashton sick, and the fact that it came from Sparrow's mouth made it that much more worse. The man that'd left them to die in the Deep Roads was already dead, all that remained was an ill husk. "Is that what you want? More blood on your hands?"

She glittered like the sun. Cold as ice. Whoever Bartrand was talking about, she didn't sound pleasant in the slightest. A soft, billowy sigh escaped her lips, and she slowly reeled away from him, planting her hands on her knees and moving away, backwards. This was yet another reminder that she was not quite the same as her companions. Not as kindhearted, and certainly not strong enough when it came to forgiveness. Maker knew, it'd taken her a long time to forgive herself. Only at Rilien's behest had she stopped being so self-destructive; Ashton, Nostariel and the others had played their parts, as well. Her feigned smile faded away and strung itself into a frown, pulled taut at the edges. She'd known Ashton long enough to hear the disappointment in his tone, bereft of its usual lilt. And her heart tightened like a fist in response.

“Mercy,” she corrected, tonelessly, “I'm suggesting mercy.” There had been a time where she'd begged to be killed, to be put down before she committed any more crimes she would later regret. She remembered asking Rilien, as unfair as it had been. If Bartrand had any moment of clarity, would he even regret his actions? Greed had played his hands for a long time, and now, an idol played puppet master. Was she wrong? The fist loosened. What would Rilien do? His pragmatics always appeared sound to her. If there was a threat, it needed to be dealt with—but, he, too, was changing. Perhaps, he'd agree with them, or simply sit quiet and let the others decide Bartrand's fate. Bartrand was not her kin to punish. Bartrand was not her, either. More blood on your hands. Her stains would not wash off, mostly by choice. She took another step back from them, and shrugged her shoulders. Her hand drifted away from the pommel of her mace. “It's Varric's decision, not mine. Do as you will.”

Varric looked more inclined to violence at first, especially after Sparrow's initial words, but Nostariel and Ashton both counteracted them, and then Sparrow herself changed her tune. Ithilian did not offer any words of his own, agreeing that it was Varric's decision, not any of theirs, but he could see Sparrow's point. Whatever magic had warped Bartrand's mind, it appeared quite potent, and he was not sure what he would want if something of the sort was to happen to him. Sadly, they couldn't discern what Bartrand wanted, beyond the idol.

Relenting, Varric shook his head. "I can't do it. I thought I could, but I thought he'd be gloating, lying on a bed of gold and comissioning painters to memorialize the instant he sealed us in the Deep Roads. But look at him. Whatever that idol was... it did worse to him than I ever could." He lowered Bianca, any combative air leaving him for good. "I'll send someone to come get him. Sit tight, brother... help is on the way."

He turned to the others. "Come on. The sooner we get out of this house, the better. And... thanks, for having my back."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Family Matter has been completed.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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The Hanged Man was a little quieter than usual, perhaps owing to the fact that it was midafternoon rather than evening. The only people in here were those who sought a warm meal cheaply or the truly dedicated alcoholics, and honestly, there were few who could afford such a habit, even on the copper-swill the place ran on like human beings ran on blood. Given the recently-cleaned plate in front of him, Lucien was of the former kind, though he usually made do for himself in terms of food preparation. He’d had a bit of an adventurous morning, though, and hadn’t felt much like the extra work that cooking himself something would have been, so he’d stopped in here instead.

He remained still only to finish his mulled wine, really, the watered-down beverage a fair bit safer than actual water here, but entirely too weak to do more than warm him a little. He was staring off into space a little, his thoughts preoccupied with reminding himself of the tasks still left to him today, which were more than he’d anticipated since the morning escort job had almost gone sideways. He probably should have brought someone else, in retrospect, but he didn't feel he should yet take any of the Lions on anything that wasn’t a known quantity, just in case. The majority of them had a fair bit more training to go before he was comfortable assigning them to anything more than routine. There were but a few veterans among them, most of them greener than grass in spring. They were improving though. Maybe he’d let Fitch run the afternoon drills while he caught up on the paperwork


Too quiet if you asked her, but somewhat fitting for what she wanted to ask the daydreaming knight. There was so much she wanted to ask him. So many questions she'd kept to herself because the sight of him was too much. Sparrow hesitated in the hallway leading up to Varric's chamber, foot poised on the staircase, while the other remained firmly perched where she'd been standing moments before. Studying him from behind—convincing herself that she'd moved beyond her fears, and buried them like a good dog. Apparently, she hadn't buried them deep enough. Her knees felt weak as she descended the staircase, focusing on her breaths. In, out. In, out. One step, two step, three. These questions wouldn't wait. Besides, it wasn't as if Sparrow minded bothering someone who was obviously busy and working on something else. Who worked in the Hanged Man, anyway?

She leaned her elbows on the table, wove her fingers together and glanced down at the knots twirling in the wood just below Lucien's right arm. It felt much safer than meeting his eyes, though she stole a quick glance and focused her attention above his shoulder, as if to study the ugly boar's head hanging over the mantle. “Fancy seeing you here, figured you'd want company,” she greeted with a grin, bobbing her head, “You look like you've got something on your mind.” One small lie; she'd been watching him since he first sat down, grimly wringing her hands for an opportune time to approach him. He did look rather pensive, or rather, lost in thought. Rarely did she know a person that actually came to the Hanged Man for a meal, and little else. Rather than spitting out what she wanted to say, Sparrow waited for Lucien's answer. For once in her life, the questions, and the answers he might give, frightened her. She was afraid of what he might say.

Lucien, entirely oblivious to the fact that he’d been watched, blinked slightly when Sparrow sat in front of him, but he did offer the half-elf a warm smile as she sat down. The way she wouldn’t quite look at him was familiar—Nostariel had been like that, once, and even she was hardly the first. He understood that he looked oddly similar to someone she would rather forget, and that was bound to be difficult, so in all honesty, he was rather surprised that she had approached him at all. Surely, thought he, there was a purpose in it, but he didn’t mind. If there was some way he could help her, he would. He understood perhaps only a fraction of what she had endured, but that fraction was enough to stir his sympathy. Perhaps it was unfortunate that she looked ready to bolt at any moment, but he did his best to keep his body language as nonthreatening and unobtrusive as possible. Physical resemblance, he could not help, but he could certainly make the attempt to be different enough in demeanor to allay some of her anxieties.

“I certainly don’t mind company,” he agreed amiably, and the smile widened a bit. “That obvious, am I? Not unusual, I’m afraid—some of us are not capable of much by way of subtlety.” The corner of his visible eye crinkled; it was an obtuse reference to Rilien, who had often pointed out, in those dry tones of his, that Lucien was not subtle. He had the feeling Sparrow had been informed of the same. “But yes, I was thinking. Mostly about the rest of the day; nothing that can’t wait. Is there something I can help you with?” He leaned back in his chair a bit, folding his hands, fingers interlocked, flat on the table in front of him. He did at least have a sense of when someone needed something, and that was, to him at least, what she seemed to be projecting. Whatever it was, it had brought her here, and not to any of their mutual friends, a fact that piqued his curiosity.

“I never apologized, did I?” Sparrow lamented offhandedly, partially to keep her voice from creaking like a rusty door. For all that he'd done for her on that one day, she owed him an awful lot. Not only had he played a hand in freeing her from Rapture, but he'd also helped Rilien seek out the ingredients he'd needed in the first place. Perhaps, he'd done much more behind the scenes. She'd never know because Rilien refused to divulge into any details. Only that it'd been more difficult than he'd imagined, and that in the end, the results were what he'd expected. There were no lines to read between, nor any secret tells she could decipher. Ever the secret-keeper, Rilien could pull the wool over anyone's eyes, even her own, without so much as a wink. It was startling how much she wanted to creep in and tear down those walls.She cocked her head and leaned her chin atop her fingers. “So, I'm officially offering my apologies. No more running.” Diving straight into fear was the least she could do if she wanted to understand and continue moving forward. Standing still, and expecting things to simply flow over her, hadn't done her any good. Change only came with action, and she wanted hers done by her own hands.

It was disarming to see how kind and open her companions were (she's not so stubborn to say they haven't weaseled themselves into her heart). They never asked for anything in return. Even after so many years of being on the receiving end of such warmth, of such loyalty, Sparrow wasn't used to it at all. She'd grown better at seeing the gray areas in-between. Nothing was as black or white as she'd always imagined; clear-cut, evil and good and something else hunkered in a Darktown hovel. The differences between right and wrong were, at times, still hazy in her mind; blended into a murky gray. She was not all smiles and brightly colored eyes; not always. Most disarming of all was knowing that her companions would stick around, even if she behaved like a beast. Lucien was no exception, either. From what she'd gathered from Nostariel, and even Sophia, he was the embodiment of a knight. Not that she had much experience with them herself, but she'd heard stories. The Hanged Man, if anything, was notorious for loud storytelling.

Her grin simpered into a smile, and her gaze drifted from his fingers to his chin. “Don't worry. Neither am I,” Sparrow chuckled, waggling her eyebrows, “I suppose that's the only way I could tell.” She gave no oral indication that she'd caught the reference, besides a much louder laugh. Everyone appeared much more obvious compared to Rilien, and even though she was godawful at reading atmospheres or understanding when things were appropriate, and when she should just shut her mouth, Sparrow had grown unusually good at reading Rilien's cryptic words. Or else, she blindly groped for them, coloring their conversations with hidden meanings. How she thought of him might have been far different from how Rilien saw himself. She supposed that Lucien had much on his mind—dealing with the guards in Kirkwall, or whatever else he did alongside Sophia. Whatever it was, must have been of great importance if he was crinkling his forehead over it. Social etiquette had no place in her life, so when the opportunity arose to declare her intentions, Sparrow's eyes flew away from his chin and met his.

“I need to know what happened!” She burst forth, planting her hands palm-down and nearly rising from her seat. An awkward beat passed and her shoulders visibly sagged. “At the cave, I need to know. I understand that you all went to gather some ingredients, but...” She looked away and focused on her knuckles. “I feel as if there's something missing. From the whole story. And you would know, wouldn't you? You were there, I asked—,” she sighed and screwed up her eyebrows, “I noticed something different, I just don't know what it is.”

Lucien sighed. It was as he’d both expected and feared then—Rilien had not taken his advice and kept his cards played close to his chest, as he tended to do. Strange, that someone so entirely, flawlessly blunt could have more secrets than the average spymaster. Or at least he suspected that that was the case. As with any good spymaster, it was impossible to say with any great certainty. He was for a moment very unsure what to do. On the one hand, he felt it more than a little gauche to casually bandy about Rilien’s personal business, even if he had never been asked to keep it quiet. There was an understanding between friends that one simply didn’t do that sort of thing, and the fact that his friend happened to be Tranquil made exactly no difference in this or any other matter as far as Lucien was concerned.

But then
 was telling Sparrow really the same as telling anyone else? The matter concerned her just as much as it concerned Rilien, perhaps even more, if some details were omitted. This was about what had been necessary to save her, to help her, and it was her demon that had driven them all down into that place to begin with. To call it relevant seemed an understatement, making it her personal business just as surely. He knew what he wanted to do, and now all that remained was to determine if he truly believed his considerations or if he simply convinced himself of their truth so they aligned with the result he already desired, for his own reasons. Because he believed it would be better, somehow, if she knew. If she understood. Rilien didn’t let people in past a certain point—nobody knew that better than Lucien did. But something was different about Sparrow, and he knew exactly what that something was.

That much, he really wouldn’t tell her. But the rest
 he did hope Ril forgave him for it. The traces of humor disappeared from his face, leaving him looking solemn, the corners of his mouth downturned, but not unkind. “It is
 a complex matter,” Lucien said at last, his voice soft, intentionally beneath the hearing of anyone but her. “But
 my understanding is that Rilien faced a choice. He wasn’t Tranquil, in the tunnels where we found the last ingredient. He had his magic back, and his emotions, from the moment we entered the place until the end. The demon we fought seemed to be telling him that he had a choice. Help you
 or keep it all permanently.” He decided to leave off the part where he’d done it because of his love. In Lucien’s humble opinion, that was obvious from the enormity of the gesture alone. But there was something quite private, perhaps, about the actual admission of it, and that line, he would not cross.

The shift on Lucien's face chilled her like a morning frost settling across the room. Had she been given more time to brace herself, then perhaps... she'd still have the same reaction. He had the look of a man about to confess that someone had died. That they'd gone through the funeral without her, as well. Half of her wanted to slam her fists against the table to keep him from uttering another word, because the fear that clenched its hands around her constricted as soon as he began, and the other half stood stock still, waiting for a blow that might have been better if it had come as a fist.

Thump. Sparrow's chair clattered on the ground behind her. Some of the Hanged Man's dedicated regulars swung their gazes over to them, though they soon turned back to their drinks, nonplussed. Those who came to drink generally didn't care what was happening around them, and the ones that were eating instead of drinking were far and few in between. Her heart felt as if it was hammering against her chest, battering itself like a rickety stick snapping between rib-made fencing. “What?” She breathed, eying Lucien as if he'd said something ridiculous. She heard him the first time, and did not want him repeating himself—couldn't bear to hear what he'd just said again, because nothing at that moment made any sense. Why would anyone sacrifice so much for someone like her? It made no sense. It was illogical and Rilien did not do things that were illogical. Slow and steady, efficient and always, always choosing the option with the highest probability of success. Slim chances, and pointless sacrifices, hardly factored in.

“He wasn't... Tranquil?” Her voice came out as a hoarse, strangled whisper. Sparrow's touch soils things. Cuts them up, snip snip. She'd never been afraid of hurting anyone before, because she believed herself incapable of it. She did not shy away from anyone's touch, because she believed that given the choice, they would choose other paths. Paths that suited themselves, as she might have done in their place. “He, he never told me. No one told me! If I'd been there, I would've—,” she rambled, breathless: stopped him. She would have stopped him from choosing wrongly. This time, she meant it. The revelation sent her reeling backwards, away from the table, away from Lucien. They were too good for her, these kind-hearted, selfless friends. They brought all of her flaws to light, all of the things that made her selfish and needy and despicable. Had she even pressed Rilien hard enough for the truth, or had she been content with her freedom?

“That price,” she said, clutching the collar of her tunic. “You shouldn't have let him... He should've chosen differently!” Sparrow shook her head, eyebrows bunched. He could have had a normal life with all of the people he'd surrounded himself with. He could have gotten back everything he'd lost. Everything that had been taken away from him, stripped from him. It hadn't been his choice, but saying yes, however quietly, to Rapture, had been her own mistake. She should have been the one to pay the price, not him. Lucien's face wavered in front of her, and her grip tightened into the fabric, whitening her knuckles. Too much. It was too much. “You should've let me die,” she croaked, nearly tripping over her chair in her haste to reach the doorway. She hadn't meant to say that to him, not to Lucien. He didn't deserve her reaction, but her feelings shaped her. Moved her limbs, released her words, before her head had any time to catch up. Heads turned to see what had happened, though they might have only seen the shape of a fleeing form, and a slamming door.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The shop was quiet, something that was a little more rare in the years since Rilien had formed his odd business partnership with Bodahn and Sandal. They, however, were off for the day, and in the absence of clients, the building was occupied by himself alone. His preferences were few, all things considered, but it was not averse to him to have a bit of time with no one else around. Perhaps it would have been anathema to him in his youth, before, well
 before. There was no need to specify before what, because nothing he knew of was capable of changing a life so fundamentally as a Rite. He’d been thinking about that quite a bit lately; while normally he did not give his condition more attention than he found necessary, he’d been turning to the topic in any spare moment, of late, and that more than anything else was reminding him of how different he really was, from others like him.

There was something under his skin now, something that had insinuated its way there, initially beneath his notice but now very obvious to him. He had never stopped feeling entirely, but, like the friend that sees another after a decade, he was seeing himself in a new way, all the nearly-imperceptible changes stacked together to bear a weight he could not deny. It was one thing to attribute it all to the foreign magic of a demon, because it wasn’t really him, then. Just an outside force toying with him. Rapture, Abraxas, these creatures had made temporary inroads along paths he had not traveled since he was scarcely more than a child. But the damage, the progress, mended itself as soon as they were gone, as soon as his head was again beneath cold water.

That was not this. And now, he could not deny it any longer: something had changed in him. It was obvious, so obvious that he wondered how he could have missed it, but it had become clear when he looked at them. The newly-made Tranquil beneath the Coast. He’d never been quite like that, but he’d once been close. Now, he couldn’t see what they were and find himself in them anymore. They should have been mirrors, the images a fraction distorted—but it was like someone had taken a heavy mace to the glass, shattered it and spiderwebbed the remaining pieces, until what he looked at was nothing like him at all.

Rilien supposed, using a knife to work a carving into a rune-stone, that he might well be the only one that noticed it, but then he paused a moment, and reconsidered. Perhaps he was the last one to notice it. Lucien had never treated him any differently than any other person. Once, he would have put that down entirely to the other man’s strange nature, but now he wondered if it might not be that his friend had known something he did not, even all those years ago. Ashton completely failed to recognize his lack of humor or feeling, but that may well be because the lack was less than Rilien had once believed of himself. And Sparrow, well
 he’d always just thought her a little bit oblivious. He wondered if, just maybe, she’d seen more of him than he had.

He was not, and would never be, as other people were. He still felt less. He would likely never have much of a conscience—but that wasn’t merely the Tranquility at work, either. Logic and calculation would always find surer expression in him than emotion, and what of those things he did have would always be subdued. But
 he was forced to admit, by that very logic he utilized so often, that he was not without these things, and—more importantly—they were growing. The likely cause was obvious: it was the people around him, tugging at the tight weave of his mentality until some things loosened a little and some tore away. The imperfections of his Rite had left fraying ends that had never been tied off. He’d been pulled beneath the water, but never bound there, and every once in a while, he could surface just enough to breathe.

He set the rune down, sliding the knife home in the leather sheath to which it belonged, and brought his forehead down to the heel of his hand. The mark had burned when they’d pressed it into his brow the first time, but he’d not felt it since. He didn’t feel it now, but he imagined that he did.

Just what, Rilien wondered, was he becoming?

The buildings fused together in a dizzying blur of browns and ragged reds as she darted between them. Breathless and shaken, Sparrow shouldered her way into the square and dashed up the staircases leading towards Hightown. She was running from what Lucien had told her. Running from the truth of things. There was a relentless pounding in her head that clattered on the roof of her mind like a rainstorm that refused to trickle away. She stumbled over her feet and caught herself on the corner of rickety stonework before lurching forward again. Her jellied knees disobeyed her orders, making her feel as if the world were tipping sideways. The heaviness of those words weighed down on her like a wounded soldier being carried to safety. She'd been right after all. She hadn't wanted to know. The wretched acid of bile sidles somewhere in her belly and ascends her throat, burning in a grief so rapid that she's surprised she's able to will it back down and keep herself from falling flat on her face.

She clutched at her stomach, curling her fingers into her shirt and leaning against the closest building for support. What could she say to a man who effectively sacrificed himself? He'd been given a chance to reclaim what once was his and what he had every right to have, and he chose her. Stupid, selfish her. The one who'd willingly cracked open her heart and mind and handed it over to a honey-lipped demon: for petty revenge and a hurt that might have gone away on its own. It had been a cheap, quick means of making herself feel better. At the time, she'd never thought of how it may affect anyone else, only that she was hurting and that was enough to excuse what she'd done. Linking arms with all of her fears and insecurities; they'd become crutches she'd never learned to walk without. For all that she'd done over the years, and all of the trouble she assuredly caused, Rilien never turned his back on her.

It was disgust that crept in on her again, though she's not so sure it ever left. As crowded as Hightown was with all of its bugling merchants, tittering women and brightly colored ribbons flapping in the cool breeze, Sparrow felt alone among them. She wobbled away from the wall and ambled up the stairs, abruptly breaking into another puffing run. It felt liberating being exhausted, as if she were settling her worries, and her thoughts, on a shelf until she was finished battling the demons that were snapping at her heels. She scrambled down the street like a wounded deer, leaping over low walls, stumbling like a drunk and ever-evading the faceless nobles that turned to gawk at her. Heading instinctively towards the shop. For what, she would not say. Possible words, possible things, she might say to him ricocheted in her skull. None of them felt right, but if she didn't get them out, she wasn't sure what would happen.

She slowed when the shop came into view. Nestled quaintly between two buildings, as it always was. With all of the money he'd made in the Deep Roads, she'd wondered why he hadn't used any on the shop itself. Gaudiness, she supposed, was reserved for people like her, not him. He was better than her in many ways, even if he did not see it himself. Sparrow's pace became sluggish as she advanced, and the trembling in her knees urged her to stop walking. Sit somewhere secluded and delay the inevitable. Moments later and she was standing in front of the door; one trembling hand wavering above the doorknob, while the other pressed against the frame. She'd imagined herself tearing it open, but now that she was here, and all that remained was stepping through and seeing if Rilien was even there, she froze. Beads of sweat slicked down her forehead, which she slowly came to rest against the door.

Her hand fell across the doorknob. Cold, metal. It grounded her, focused her efforts on what she'd come to say, what she'd come to do. There were things that needed to be said—things she needed to say, or else she'd never be able to face him again. Memories did not get duller with time, and if she pretended as if the conversation with Lucien hadn't happened, she'd remember it every time she looked at him. It was the tight knot of anger pounding against her chest that finally turned the doorknob, throwing it open with all of her strength. She stepped through the threshold before it had any time to clatter against the wall and rebound back towards her. There he was; head bowed, palm pressed to his head. Her breath hitched, and her shoulders tensed. Brace, brace, brace.

“You should've told me, Ril,” she accused, though it was little more than an exhale, and then again, stronger and brighter and desperate for answers, “You should've told me!”

There was no need to ask what he should have told her. Sparrow’s thoughts were often written on her for all to see—scrawled into the lines of her shoulders in the large, loopy handwriting of a child. Etched into her face like someone had taken a chisel and hammer to it. Inked into the set of her limbs, her posture, and vibrating in the tone of her voice. Sometimes, that was actually a clever piece of deception, but not now. Rilien had much experience with deception; what he was seeing now was perhaps the most raw, honest thing she’d ever seen. Frustration. Anger. Hurt. He never had lost the ability to recognize them.

Slowly, calmly, he raised his head, leaning back a little, until his vertebrae all sat perfectly over one another. Whatever visual weakness he had been projecting there, with hunched posture and closed eyes, disappeared like a ghost into the mist. Into the Fade. He laid his palms flat on the table, and decided that it must have been Lucien who told her. The other possibility, of course, was Ashton, but he had the sense that something would have been different were that so. He also hadn’t told her the whole story, for he imagined that would look different as well. It was selfish of him, to feel a little twinge of relief that this was so, but Rilien had never claimed to be other than that. If people saw something else in him, that was their business, not his. He never did anything he didn’t want to do, and in a way, that meant he was living in the most selfish manner possible.

It was something that he would continue to do, because doing the right thing and telling her the whole truth of it would only hurt her. And perhaps himself as well. There was a strange little paradox in there somewhere, but he was willing to let it be. She was hurt, and so he must be whole. Let her howl against him like the emotional equivalent of a gale, and weather it as unchanging stone would. Eventually, things would settle back into something of an equilibrium. The damage would be undone. She was of a fundamentally elastic nature that way; little ever changed her much, and she grew only slowly, in fits and starts. Two steps in one direction, then one contrariwise. He knew it, and he would never attempt to change it. Perhaps that was part of the reason he’d never said a word.

“Why?” The question was unadorned, but perhaps the blunt edges of his tone were softened a little. He knew why, intellectually, but he could no longer fully understand it. That was what he had given up, in the end. He didn’t need his magic anymore, and he cared little if he dreamed, but that difference between himself and every other person was what he’d relinquished. Was it possible to sacrifice selfishly? It must be—for he was still the most selfish person he knew, her included. “What does it change? You would not have been able to convince me otherwise if I told you then, and it does not matter now that it is done. I do not suffer for what I chose.” A lie—he was lying to her now, if only a little. He would do worse to keep the truth from her.

“And you would have suffered had I chosen differently.” The truth, but not all of it. Had he chosen to regain what he had lost, and left her with that demon, she would have suffered, yes. But so would he have, watching it happen, knowing he could have stopped it, but had not, and with the full scope of his understanding returned to him.

There had never been a choice; only the façade of one.

Carbeau eyes stared fixedly on Rilien's face, searching. His own were so calm, so completely bereft of the trembling desperation swelling in her chest that it made it hurt worse. As if he could not understand what she mourned for. In more ways than she could express, those eyes of his were far more expressive than her own. Campfire mysteries, fiery and blazing and evoking emotion in others, even though he professed to having none himself; she never believed him. Eyes of wood-smoke and errant embers blowing in the wind. They are not watercolors. Not faded, monotone or plain. They spit fire and are ceaselessly brave, even when he has no reason to be. His eyes were the color of truth. Hers were mucky and dark and greedy—his were anything but. They were made of contrasts, variants and improbabilities. He, the Tranquil who was far more intuitive than she, and she, the runaway Saarebas who stole things from others without replacing them. She muddied him. And he deserved better. She felt a scream building in her throat. Perched languidly on the posts that composed the jumping lines of her Adam's apple, ready to rip out of her mouth.

She watched as he turned towards her. Aligning perfectly with the room, as always. Inclining his head as if he had expected this conversation, and had been waiting for her to storm through the doors. She would rage and batter and bristle. He would weather it and stand as still as a stone. This time, it was different. Moments before, he'd been bowed over his desk. Head down, hunched shoulders. It made no sense. It made no sense. She'd seen it. She was sure that she did. Brief as it was, and as composed as he appeared now, she'd seen him. This time, what she'd done to him was unforgivable, and what he'd decided for her had been unfair. Unkind, to him. Half of her wished that he'd react almost in the same manner she did; scream and fight and gnash his teeth at all of the injustices he's had to face, at all of the opportunities he's missed. Ask her why she'd accepted the demon's promises, and why he had to give everything away to save her. Ask her why he needed to sacrifice a chance at living.

Not all wounds could heal. And not all wounds were visible. For Rilien, she thought this was the case. Muscles bunched and jumped in her jawline as she ground her teeth together. Her emotions clashed wildly; walking a fine line between gratitude and anger and so much fury at the prospect of being rescued and cleansed, only at the loss of another. This was something she would not—no, could not forget. Settling back into the rhythm of things at the end of the day, after everything was all said and done, was impossible. Couldn't he see that? This pain was as much his own, as it was hers. Perhaps, she would have preferred seeing that different side of Rilien. Like the image itched into the wooden plates Ashton had carved so carefully. That is what he'd seen that day. A carefree, laughing Rilien. One that she imagined was far more reckless than he was now, for much different reasons. The thought had crossed her mind more than she'd care to admit.

On the surface, Rilien was the same as he'd always been. As she's always seen him. Simply so, but so much more. He was not shy to inform her that he thought differently from the others, herself included. However, scraping lines in the dirt to make their differences abundantly clear had never appealed to her. She was too stubborn, too oblivious, to understand that no matter how loudly she felt, that she could not feel for them both. Tranquility did not behave in a way that would suit her. Even so, he'd never dealt with her at arms' length—that in itself was different. Why? Of course, he'd ask that. The choice, to him, had been obvious, when it should have been illogical. Who would give up something so important? The lines of her mouth tightened and jerked into a grimace, teeth no longer grinding. “It changes everything!” She shrieked, balling her hands in her hair and tugging to feel something other than the hopeless, defiant anger. “I would have tried... I would have, and you—you don't suffer? You're lying! You would have been happier, if you'd chosen differently.” Her fingers loosened their grip against her hair, sifted the tufts as she dropped them in front of her. “I suffer,” she said.

The distance between them shortened in a matter of moments, and she did not stop slow to face him. Instead, Sparrow grabbed Rilien's collar and tried wrenching him up. Silently she shook, not in fear, but in her characteristic display of anger. She bit back a sob and turned all of her frustrations inward, jailing them. Clipping their wings. Settling them in their little cages. The muscles in her face tightened under the strain of control. “I suffer, Rilien,” she choked, “And so do you. So do you.”

Rilien stood willingly enough—there was no particular reason to fight to keep his seat. He could read her anger clearly, but he simply could not make sense of it. What had he done wrong? Had the demon not been killing her, slowly leeching the life from between her bones and skin, wasting her away into nothing and breaking her spirit beneath its feet? She truly did not understand him, if she believed he was capable of allowing such a state of affairs to continue uninterrupted. It did not matter whose fault it had been, that she had voluntarily accepted the demon into her body and her mind. It did not matter that he’d had to relinquish something to reverse that damage. Or perhaps it mattered, but even if it did, the simple fact, clear as day even to him, was that Sparrow, as she always seemed to, as he’d told her once already, mattered more than any of it.

“What would you have me do, Sparrow?” he asked dully, perfectly still in her grip. He made no move to step back, but nor did he attempt anything else. He simply stood and withstood. “It is done. I cannot take it back. I would not.” She said she suffered, but whatever pain she endured now was not of a kind that he understood. Rapture was gone, her health and vitality returned to her—she could go, do, be whatever she desired. He failed to see in what way the solution was inadequate to her. He failed to understand how and why she suffered, as she claimed to. “What must I do, so that you do not suffer?”

He had so accustomed himself to the attempt to remove from her path the worst of her obstacles that it seemed the natural question. Glancing down, Rilien placidly removed her hands from the collar of his shirt, insinuating his fingers beneath hers—they both bore calluses, though in different places—and prizing them gently apart. A few wrinkles remained from the force of her grip, but he made no immediate move to straighten them. “I would not have been happier at all,” he informed her factually, lowering her hands back to her sides before he released them. “Do you think it would have made me so, to watch the demon overtake you?” With all the emotions of some other person?

“You underestimate your significance.” To me. To what I would have been.

What did she want from him? A reaction, maybe. For him to finally throw down his hands, utterly fed-up, and scream at her for all of the injustices she'd thrown in his lap, for a life she'd selfishly stolen away. Even if it had been his choice to make, he wouldn't have had to make it if it had not been for her mistake. A future built from someone else' sacrifice, that's what it was. She wanted to batter her fists against him. Force the kind of response she thought was necessary. Caustic, brittle anger. And bitterness, most of all. Each time she tried protecting him, he ended up shielding her—even if it meant deceiving her. There was always a difference between those protecting, and those who were protected. It stood like a clear boundary drawn in the ground, drawing them at opposite ends of the spectrum. She suffered, she supposed, because she was undeserving and grateful, all at once.

Of course, Rilien's responses came as leveled, and unconcerned, as she'd been expecting. As she feared he would sound. There was nothing she could say to change that. No amount of squabbling or ruffled clothes could set any wrinkles across that forehead of his. She could not force him to blame her, as she wished he did. And he could not understand what she could not either. He was the sun, and she was the brooding clouds, eclipsing him in relentless waves. Heedless of his needs, she absorbed what she needed and wanted and desired, and left little more than scraps. Small crumbs, which was hardly sustainable. Had it not been for his Tranquility, she might have asked how he did it. How he gave more, and took less. How she snatched at his friendship like she was starved for it, and he hardly ate at all. As he did now, withstanding her unpleasantness with the patience of someone who'd dealt with this before. What did she want him to do?

Sparrow's eyebrows drew together, as her muscles slowly loosened. The answer eluded her. I would not. It was jarring how much she could not understand. His reasons, his choices; everything. Buds of anger blossomed in her chest—of course they couldn't take it back. There was nothing that could rectify her mistakes, and nothing that could be done to retrieve what was lost. It was finished. The damage was done. And with it, flew his chance of freedom. The cave, and whatever else that had been in there, had swallowed up Rilien's future. And then, he acted as if nothing happened. As if no small part of him ached. Sparrow wept for him, when he could not. She grieved his loses as if they were her own, even if she did not understand why. Long ago, her freedom had meant more to her than anything else, when abandoning those she loved meant less in comparison. She'd expected Amalia to understand her reasons. Though, the difference between her selfishness and his selflessness was stiflingly clear.

“I would've understood.” Had he chosen his own liberty, instead of hers. The flighty thought, little more than an exhale, spoke volumes of what she could not recognize. If Rilien had returned, whole and new and brimming with dusty emotions, Sparrow would have been happy for him. She would have understood his decision, even at her own behest. Rife with good, tender-hearted companions, and with a successful shop at his disposal, Rilien would have thrived in Kirkwall. She would have understood. She appeared to bristle at his question; of what he could do to end her suffering, but her shoulders sagged in defeat. And still, Rilien offered, and she looked, even when she'd taken everything already.

All of the fight left her as soon as Rilien pried her fingers from his collar, dropping her hands away from him. Everything is what it was, as it had always been. However, she could feel small, subtle shifts. Changes unseen to the eye, but felt, in pulsing surges, through the room. Rilien was the most selfless person she knew, keeping her ignorant to ward the pain away. And she, the most destructive one, afflicting guilt and anger as a means of wounding herself. Her mouth twitched, and her eyes and ears burned. “Why? Why​” The thing he'd lost had meant so much more than freedom, so much more than the freedom she fought for. Sparrow leaned forward and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, smoothing out the wrinkles with her freed hand. She remained there, unmoving, until she drew back her hand and covered her face. She would grieve for him, when he could not.

As do you. It seemed obvious. Instead, Sparrow asked, “Tell me how you were before. Everything—tell me how you lived.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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With a resolve held up by cracking pillars, the Viscount's daughter emerged from the Keep.

The sun would soon be setting on another day, and though Sophia had wanted more than anything to continue hiding, to ignore the terrible tidings that Bran was bringing her, her guilt at doing nothing was eventually able to overcome her shame, at what she'd already failed to do. She looked like a woman possessed of an illness, and she supposed grief was close enough to a sickness for it to count. Sleep had not come easily, but when it had finally overtaken her, she'd dozed through events that seemed destined to destroy Kirkwall. The guard captain had revealed a hatred of elves, attempted to commit atrocities he never would have dared had she been there to make him answer for it, and succeeded in finally setting fire to a bridge that had never been built with the Qunari. Now the Arishok harbored dozens of elves, several of which were reported to have committed very serious crimes, and potentially were using conversion as an attempt to escape punishment. The law required that someone go in and retrieve them, that they might be judged properly. But Sophia also intended to make one last attempt, a pointless appeal, as the Arishok might say, to stop the seemingly inevitable violence. It was an idea that was perhaps doomed to failure before she even set out, but Sophia had already seen what occurred when she did nothing, and she would not sit idly by again.

Blearily she had risen, washing herself off in a half-hearted attempt to make herself look like a future ruler again. She dressed, braided her hair, and pulled on her armor, feeling as though it was twice as heavy as normal. She felt no appetite, but knew that she needed to eat, and so she managed to consume a meager dinner before she buckled her sword belt across her chest, sliding the blade named for her foolish mother into the sheath. Assigning a personal force of four guards to her (ones she knew personally, which she felt necessary after what she'd heard of recent events), Sophia immediately set out for Lowtown. Though she felt defeated already, she did her best not to show it, putting up a thin illusion that the Viscount's daughter was still confident, capable, and going to make things right.

The streets were quieter than usual, she noted, informed citizens wisely choosing to brace themselves for what was likely to come. Some still seemed in blissful denial, however, particularly the ones with strong anti-Qunari leanings. She heard the word 'hornhead' uttered several times on her way to Lowtown. They would not say such things when the Arishok's vanguard came to burn these neighborhoods to the ground, she knew.

Sophia instructed the guards to wait upon reaching Lucien's street, and she proceeded to his door alone. Normally, she would have sent summons and had her friends meet her at the Keep, but waiting longer would have only hurt the situation further, and deteriorated her resolve. She needed to be moving right now, acting. To hesitate now would paralyze her. She knocked on Lucien's door.

Lucien had only heard about the chaos in Hightown after all was said and done already, and he felt guilty for missing it, considering the state he caught Nostariel in when he dropped by the clinic. Apparently, everyone else involved was much worse off, but currently resting. He couldn’t say how much longer they would be granted to do that, considering, but perhaps they would be able to avoid the worst of what was to come. There must be very little for the Qunari to want in the Alienage. If Amalia was right—and he had no reason to believe she wasn’t—the Arishok’s target was much more likely to be the Keep, or perhaps the Chantry. Though if he had to lay money on the outcome, he personally would guess that it was the Keep.

It was fair to say that this thought was fraying his nerves considerably. Of all the aspects of warfare, the waiting had always been hardest for him, which was a shame because there was rather a lot of it. Though likely not much more in this case. He was torn between remaining here at his home, where he knew everyone could find him, and taking up some kind of permanent post at the Keep, at least until all was said and done. He held no delusions of being able to stave off the Qunari army with what remnants of the City Guard had not abandoned their posts and commissions in recent hours, but
 he supposed if the Templars too could be mustered, there might be a chance, depending on how well the strategy could be executed. Unfortunately, he understood well that there was very little chance of uniting those disparate bodies, much less beneath someone with as little authority as he.

And the authority that might have sufficed was in no position to be organizing defenses at this point in time. He could blame neither Marlowe nor Sophia for that, not given all they had lost, but the knowledge of how much danger they were in was eating at him, like the acid mixtures he’d seen Rilien use to wear away at plate mail. Lucien was not a religious man—he never had been. But at times like this, he rather wished he were, because perhaps it would mean something to him, give him some assurance, to be able to put trust somewhere else, to believe without evidence that it would work out for the better. Then again
 perhaps it didn’t really suit him at all. So instead, he simply waited, trying to weather that gnawing feeling like he would weather any other kind of pain, to little success. He could not wish the moment he would need to act were sooner, but he could not wish that the waiting be prolonged, either.

When the knock at his door came, his heart jumped for a moment into his throat. Surely it would not be now, would it? But when he opened the door, it was to see someone he had expected to see perhaps less than a rampaging troop of Qunari on his doorstep. “Sophia?” He blinked down at her, clearly surprised to see her, though not displeased, if his tentative smile was anything to go by. He was aware that she was likely still in a poor state, and indeed the signs were there to be read underneath the care she’d managed to take with herself. It hurt, to see that, with the familiar ache of someone dear in pain. There was really only one question to be asked.

“What can I do for you?”

"I need your help," she replied, her voice a little quieter than usual. "I'm going to the Qunari compound. Someone has to try and retrieve the criminals the Arishok is sheltering... and I need to convince him to stay his hand. It might be too late, but to do nothing would be to invite death." She had already done too much of nothing, regardless of how good her excuse was.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Lucien said simply. He left the doorframe for a moment, heading back into his house to retrieve what looked to be a halberd from the back room. He informed his houseguests in quiet tones not to expect him back before nightfall. By now they knew that if anything happened, they needed to hide in the saferoom he’d had built into one of the walls. He’d sacrificed a space for clothing, but a trunk was sufficient anyway. Strapping the weapon into place on his back, he slid a spare knife into his boot and headed back out the door, pulling his door shut behind him.

The first stop, it was agreed, would be the clinic. The walk itself was short and mostly silent, though he did ask the guards to remain outside the clinic. His earlier visit had served to inform him that it was not Nostariel alone who was present, and he did not know how the situation would look now. There was no reason to invite more potential trouble than necessary, after all. He actually knocked, given that the place was technically closed, and it was Amalia rather than Nostariel who answered. She looked from himself to Sophia, then shook her head faintly and stepped aside, allowing both entrance without so much as a word.

There were a few cots set out, one of them occupied, and Nostariel herself was slumped against the counter, looking only half-awake. In fact, Amalia seemed the most alert of anyone there, given Ashton’s uncomfortable-looking sprawl in an armchair. They really did look like they’d been through the gauntlet.

While it was true that she was half-asleep, the presence of new people was not entirely lost upon Nostariel, and she straightened in her stool, rubbing slightly at her eyes. What had she—? Oh right, she’d been trying to take inventory of her potions. Rilien was supposed to come by with more today, but given everything that was going on, she felt it would be unwise to count on that. There was another lyrium restorative by her hand, and she uncorked it with a soft pop. “Lucien, Sophia? What’s going on?”

While Sophia explained the situation, Nostariel knocked back the restorative, feeling the kick almost immediately. From the sounds of things, she was going to need it—and probably a few more. This was going to wreak havoc on her system, and her magic would probably be out of sorts for days after she stopped taking them, but it looked like she wouldn’t be stopping until the Qunari mess was done, one way or another. At the request for her assistance, she glanced around at her patients, all in various stages of repair. “I
 yes, I’ll help. Just
 if I can have a few minutes, I need to
” She gestured vaguely to encapsulate the obvious injury surrounding her.

Starting with Ithilian, since he was still the worst, she gave him as much healing as she thought either of their bodies could tolerate, then moved on to Ashton. Amalia declined, which Nostariel was secretly grateful for. Taking a leather bandoleer off a hook in the back of the clinic, she loaded it with more potions and slung it over her shoulder, taking her bow and quiver down and situating those as well. At this point, it would probably be more offensive to the Arishok if they didn’t come armed to the teeth, so she felt little reservation about this.

“Okay, well
 any advice before we go, Amalia?”

Amalia turned her head towards Nostariel, and Lucien wondered where the scabbing cut on her face had come from. Like his own, he imagined it would scar quite apparently. Still, that was definitely a question for another time. “You will not succeed,” Amalia said in reply to the inquiry. Her voice was softer than usual, and did not carry far, even in the small space they all occupied. “The Arishok must fulfill a demand of the Qun, and he has chosen the most expedient path now that patience has failed him.”

Lucien sighed through his nose. “But what demand is it? If he were here just to conquer, he would have moved much sooner than this.” As military strategy, waiting around this long made no sense, and Amalia herself was testament to the fact that the Qunari were nothing if not logical. “Why attack at all, if not to conquer?”

Amalia was oddly surprised the question had not been asked sooner. Then again, perhaps those who dealt with the Arishok simply assumed he would volunteer all the relevant details. Such was not always the way of the Qunari—some things must be asked. And that was the question. “He has lost that which must be retrieved at all costs. From his care was stolen the original copy of the Tome of Koslun. It is the single most venerated artifact the Qunari possess. And he allowed it to be stolen from underneath his nose. Until it is returned, he is denied Par Vollen, and his Antaam with him. It was taken just off the coast of Kirkwall, and there is every reason to believe it is here.”

“Did you say it was a book?” Nostariel’s tone was perhaps surprisingly urgent. “Because
 I might know who has it, actually. Um
” The Warden hurried across the room, putting a hand on Ashton’s shoulder, shaking as gently as she could and still have a chance at waking him. “Ash, Ash, wake up. This is important, I’m sorry.” She’d rather not wake him at all, but they had so little time now, in all likelihood.

As soon as he looked awake enough to register words properly, she spoke again. “Ash, do you remember that book we found, on the ship? The one with the Qunari writing in it? Do you still have it? It might be very important.” What were the chances that they’d run across the very same artifact that the Arishok had been searching for all this time? Probably about the same as the chances that they’d run across some other Qunari book in a pile of stolen loot on a smuggling ship.

Ashton's eyelids snapped open wide but they lacked immediate understanding. Completely unaware of the dire mood everyone seemed to be in, he let a long drawn out yawn escape and proceeded to straighten his back accompanied by the sound of his vertebrae popping back into place. "The book? What..." He trailed off as he realized that they were joined by Lucien and Sophia, and by the fact that nearly everyone was staring directly at him. He paused only for a moment, meeting some of their eyes before looking back to Nostariel.

It was then he felt the full brunt of the serious atmosphere. If Sophia was here... Then something important was about to happen. He straightened out in his chair and leaned forward, throwing himself into deep thought. "The book... The book..." He repeated, urging himself to remember where he had it last. "It's at home, upstairs from my shop," He said, nodding. He went nowhere else with it, nor even knew exactly where it was-- but it was at home. That much he was certain. Again, his gaze flickered from person to person until it realighted back to Nostariel.

"Why?" He asked tentatively. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"It might be the key to getting the Arishok and his soldiers to leave the city," Sophia explained quickly, and for the first time since her brother had been slain she was showing signs of life. The revelation that it was a simple book the Qunari were here for, and that Ashton may have it in his possession, had injected her with a great deal of energy. Later, she could be upset at how the Qunari had caused so much trouble over a single lost tome, and how they had refused to ask for any help in recovering it, but for now, she had latched onto the idea of just recovering the thing, and getting them to leave. They could make it out of this yet, if they hurried.

"The book?" Ashton asked in confusion. The book that he had could send the Qunari home? Had her expression not been so serious, Ashton would've brushed it off as a joke, but there wasn't any humor in her voice, nor anywhere else. The attitude was serious and dire, and he could feel the importance. But if he had the book, the key as Sophia had called it... It sat in his shop for countless weeks forgotten. The guilt didn't hit immediately, but it began to drip in. He leaned back against the chair, letting the back of his neck fall against the chair. He hid his face with his hands, cursing himself for being such a fool look like he was simply trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. No... he was quite awake now.

He lurched forward and rose from the chair, going toward where he'd left his bow and arrow, as well as the guard's sword instead of his machete. "Let's hurry, while we can still salvage this," He urged, though his tone sounded more defeated than his words led to believe.




Rilien shifted the crate in his hands slightly, the glass bottles therein clinking faintly against one another. They were padded with layers of linen, but not so thoroughly that they would all hold if he dropped the object. Fortunately, he was more than strong enough to carry it, and it was rather difficult to startle him into dropping anything. Beside him walked Sparrow, no doubt enlivened somewhat by the prospect of going to visit Ashton, whose shop was on the way to the clinic at which he would be making his scheduled delivery. He at least was studiously ignoring the discomfort that hung between them in favor of attempting to return them to their equilibrium, but the longer passed since their
 discussion, the less he believed she would simply allow that. Whatever the case, neither was speaking of it now, and he was admittedly at a considerable advantage when it came to acting as though little had changed.

Of course, all plans for delivery were somewhat waylaid when the pair approached the Dragon's Hideout—a name which Rilien believed required some reconsideration, though he had thus far refrained from mentioning as much. Regardless of Ashton’s aptitude for titles, the store itself bore the characteristic signs of theft, and a hasty theft at that. The Tranquil’s expression did not change, of course, but he diverted his path from the road to the storefront, setting the crate down off to one side of the door.

The door hinge was broken, indicating that those entering hardly cared for whether they were seen, which implied that whatever was taken was of enough importance to risk capture. Inside, everything had been turned over and much of it was on the floor. The mess led up the stairs as well, indicating that what they were after did not appear to have been located in the storefront, suggesting an item of a more personal nature, rather than one associated with Ashton’s craft. As far as Rilien could tell from the window, nothing was missing, which meant either they hadn’t found what they were searching for or it was found upstairs instead.

Before he could enter to investigate further, however, a large party of people, including Lucien and Ashton himself, as well as the Warden, Sparrow’s Qunari friend, and the Viscount’s daughter. "Ashton.” The Tranquil’s voice betrayed nothing. "It would appear that you have been robbed.”

"Robbed?" Ashton asked, "What are you... Oh no." His question was answered before it was even asked, all it took was a look toward his broken door. The hinge was torn from the frame leaving the slab of wood that served as his entrance lazily swinging back and forth. He took his first steps tentatively toward the entrance, afraid of what he might find inside. Or perhaps, what he wouldn't find. "Oh Andraste," He said rubbing his face in exhaustion. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was playing some cruel joke on him now. Then his eyes snapped back as realization struck. The book wasn't the only thing of value in his shop. "Snuffy!" He exclaimed and dove into his shop.

He paid no mind to the wreck on the bottom floor, scanning it for Snuffy and Snuffy alone. When that search bore no fruit, he ran to the stairs and took them two at time. The mess in the room he slept in was worse than what was on the ground floor. His dresser was flung open wide, clothing strewn across the floor. His mattress was flipped from its bed-frame, leaning against the nearby wall with the frame itself broken in half. The bookshelf was face down on the floor, with its books and pages scattered nearby. All of his etchings and carvings were either broken or likewise discarded, but none of that mattered.

Snuffy was found laying against the wall under the far side window. Ashton stepped over the mayhem to reach her and found himself relieved to still see the steady rise and fall of her chest. At the soft touch of Ashton, she turned and faced him, her long face mirroring his. Flakes of blood were already drying in her mouth and fur-- and not all of it hers. Another scan revealed drops of blood near his desk, its empty drawer opened wide. "Dammit," He cursed, understanding what it meant. His attentions returned to Snuffy, gently stroking her side. He searched for any injuries she may have had, which were fortunately few. "You tried your hardest. You're going to be fine, Princess. Just fine," He said, reassuring himself more than her. Like him, she'd just have a few bruises-- perhaps more, before this was all over.

Sophia entered the shop not long after Ashton, though she scanned it a little more closely, looking for any sign of the book on the bottom floor. She hoped whoever did this had not killed Ashton's dog, yes, but with the entire city on the line, she needed to focus on this book. It was nowhere to be found, however, and soon she was trailing after Ashton, finding him over the form of the mabari hound, who was thankfully still alive. She glanced around for the book, but it didn't appear to be up here, either. Anxiety immediately began to set in, thinking about what they would do without this book. They were losing time...

"They took the book, then? Whoever did this?" It wasn't really a question, as it was obvious that the thieves had taken little else. "They can't have gone far. Do you think they could be tracked down?"

Now leaning against the same wall that Snuffy was, Ashton nodded in the affirmative. Pointing toward the open desk drawer, he spoke, "Yeah. It was in there." Was being the key word. As for if they could be tracked... "I... Don't know," He admitted. Ashton was a good tracker, perhaps bested only by the Dalish. But tracking in the woods and in the city was two different world. He could follow broken twigs, disturbed leaves, and footprints in the woods. There were no such things in the city, the best being a fine layer of dust on hard, packed in ground. Even then, the thieves' feet wouldn't be the only prints to be found. Hundreds of people walked the streets every day. Ashton didn't like their odds and it frustrated him.

A pound echoed throughout the shop as Ashton hammered the wall with a fist. Why, he asked himself. "It'd be near impossible to find any kind of trail," He admitted, shaking his head. A wet sensation happened upon his elbow, and he looked down to see Snuffy pushing her head under his arm and into his lap.

He began to caress her head as she rested. Ashton had never been a man taken to flights of rage, but his frustrations were nearing a boil. Why could nothing ever work out, he thought. He found himself staring at Snuffy's nose when an idea struck. His head jerked up and looked back at the blood stains. Next to it was a piece of ripped clothing, a pant leg most likely torn off during Snuffy's attack. "Wait." he said, gently moving Snuffy's head and picking the shreds up.

Energy came rushing back as he spun back around and hovered over Snuffy. "I need a potion," He urged desperately. "I'm sorry Princess, but looks like we're going to need your help. At least you'll get a chance to take the bastard's leg this time." Snuffy's ears pricked up that, and she began to leech off of his energy barking as he spoke. "I can't track them, but she can," Ashton explained, showing Sophia the scrap of clothing, "I've been training her."

Potions were easy enough to come by at the moment, and Rilien reached into the crate, withdrawing three and handing them all to Ashton. One was for the dog—the other two were for whatever happened to come next.

Ashton slipped the pair of potions into a fold in his shirt, unstopping the other and put it up to Snuffy's mouth. "It tastes like dirt, but it'll make you feel better. Come on Princess, we need you," Ashton urged. Snuffy's immediate response was to whine lowly and stare at him with her long eyes. Ashton would not budge, and soon she relented and let him turn the vial up into her mouth. She coughed loudly and shook her head, but otherwise took the potion well. Eventually she found she found the strength to stand on her front legs and give Ashton a grateful lick across the face. "That's my girl," He said proudly, giving her head a rub.

Nostariel, on the other hand, chewed her lip and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “I’m not sure we have much time.” Glancing between the others, she shook her head slightly. “I think it might be wisest to split ourselves. Some of us should track the thieves down, and perhaps the rest ought to inform the Arishok that his book is close at hand—hopefully stop the madness before it has the opportunity to begin.” Though it was arguable that it had started long ago. Perhaps they would be able to prevent the worst of it, regardless. She had little desire to be pulling bodies out of wreckage in the coming months.

It was a knee-jerk reflex that pushed Amalia to immediately track down the book as well. The way they spoke of it, they did not truly understand its meaning, and though perhaps she was still lingering in some threshold place between Qunari and not-Qunari, she could never for a moment doubt what the Tome of Koslun meant to her. The ideas within it had saved her life on more than one occasion, and the actual artifact was something she had seen only once.

But there was more then one reflex to contend with now, and her other one was perhaps something that nobody else here could spare the time and energy to do—something that she was no longer that surprised to find she held to be of equal importance. “The hound will track better even than I can, through this,” she admitted, then shook her head slightly. “And my words are not the ones that can stop the Arishok now. Perhaps none are, but yours have a better chance than most.” she spoke mostly to Lucien and Sophia, knowing as she did the extent of their interactions with him. Still, it seemed unlikely that the Viscount’s daughter at least would be able to sway him—here was a case where her station would serve her ill. Whether he would be any more inclined to listen to the other was something she did not know, and would not bother to speculate about.

“I am returning to the Alienage. When it comes to battle, they are unable to defend themselves.” Not with so many of their young and able-bodied converted to the Qun. Besides, it was still imperative to find and secure Lia, something Ithilian was going to need help with.

Glancing between all of those present, she inclined her head. “Farewell. I hope you do not die.”

She departed then, though not exactly back to the Alienage the short way. There was one more person she needed to find first, someone she desired to keep safe from that which would surely follow.

Lucien watched her depart, then turned back to the others. “Sophia and I should probably try our luck with the Arishok.” They wouldn’t be a whole lot of use in tracking, anyway. Lucien knew only the bare rudiments of it, and he doubted Sophia was any more of an expert than he was. Besides, they’d dealt the most with the Qunari, and it only seemed wise to give themselves the best chance they could have. “In case we don’t get through to him
 Nostariel, would you come with us?” He knew he could very well be asking her to die, given the gravity of the situation, but it was also true that with her present, they all stood the best chance to live if things went poorly. Her abilities were good for use on large numbers, and her healing might just save their skins. He suspected that the crate full of Rilien’s potions would have to suffice for the other group. It was far from the ideal situation for any of them, but it was the best way he could think to divide them.

If Rilien were the sort to be easily-stirred by such matters, he might have managed to be a little offended that Lucien would rather take the Warden into danger than him, but as it were, he easily recognized the logic in it, and though perhaps he was still more comfortable facing death beside the Chevalier than anyone else, he wasn’t precisely uncomfortable with it in any capacity, and would serve more use hunting those who were not well seen than those who were blatantly obvious. Examining the crate at his side for a moment, he provided several tinctures each to Sophia, Lucien, and Nostariel before setting about the task of partitioning out the rest into various pouches, loops, and pockets in both obvious and subtle places on his own person.

For her part, Nostariel accepted hers gratefully, then turned to Lucien. She knew what he was asking as well as he did, and though it brought her no joy to admit how long their odds were, she could not fail to acknowledge the reality of the situation. This was grim—and there was little hope to spare—but they would all do what they had to do to give each other the best shot at meeting again tomorrow. It was all they could do. “I’ll go.”

"So... We're splitting then?" Ashton asked, though he already knew the answer. It made the most sense, to split and have people try to contain the coming wildfire. It didn't mean he had to be happy about it. Looking between Rilien and Sparrow, he nodded and added, "Then you two are with me." Rilien and Sparrow he could trust to see their recovery to the end, if anyone had a chance of retrieving the book and getting it back to the Arishok in time, it was them. He stood and lead the groups outside his shop, where they split off into their groups.

Ashton watched as Nostariel's group began to depart before he felt a pinch in his chest. He wouldn't lie to himself, what they had in mind had low odds, if they had any chance to begin with. Danger loomed like a dark cloud over their heads, and it made him anxious and nervous in equal parts. There was a very real chance that he wouldn't be able to see tomorrow. A lot things could happen between then and there. But that didn't scare him the most. No, there were thoughts that were more frightening. He watched Nostariel's blonde hair as the distance between them grew. Well, if they didn't make it, then he'd have no regrets.

"Nostariel wait," He called, pressing the scrap of bloody cloth into Rilien's hand. He crossed the distance between them like he was sliding across ice and when he reached her, his fingers went to her face and pulled her in. No more regrets he told himself as he pressed his lips against hers.

"Come back to me safe, Nos?" He asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

Well.

That was making it considerably harder to leave. And to think, for that matter. For a few seconds, Nostariel could only smile, the urgency of the situation peripheral at best, and she was certain she looked quite the proper fool, holding his hands to the side of her face like that, her fingers slotted absently into the spaces between his and curled faintly around. The moment was warm, and she wanted to savor it, to speak even, tell him everything that was on her mind, everything she’d been putting off saying because she lacked the courage.

But she couldn’t. Not right in this moment. So when her lips parted, she managed only one thing: “I promise.” She had no idea if she’d be able to keep it, but in making the promise, she was giving herself one more reason to try. As though there weren’t enough already. “Be careful, Ash.” Gently, she dropped her hands and stepped away, nodding slightly before mustering the will to take a few steps backwards and then turn around, hurrying after Lucien and Sophia.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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It was just like they were back in the woods. Like when Snuffy had gotten scent of a squirrel she and Ashton had tracked. Except instead of a squirrel it was a band of thieves and instead of woods, brick surrounded them. Oh, and the entire city's well being depended on this particular quarry. So not even close, as it turned out. Still, Ashton treated it the same. If he thought about what all rode on their success, it would probably crush him with inaction. They followed the Mabari at a decent clip as her nose was planted into the hard ground. The scent was leading them deeper and deeper into Lowtown, the tension growing tighter and tighter with every step they took.

"When we get there, we need to get the book and get out. We don't have time to dawdle for long," Ashton said, though unnecessarily. If they were fast enough, maybe they could still save the city. Because if they didn't, then Kirkwall wouldn't escape the assault unscathed, no matter what the zealots thought. Belief was one thing, common sense was another. Snuffy took another turn into an alleyway and barked, letting them catch up before she continued to follow the scent.

Things had been strained between she and Rilien since her little outburst in his shop. Behaving normally seemed far more difficult than she'd thought. Even so, Sparrow followed closely behind Snuffy with Ashton and Rilien in tow, absently wringing her hands and pretending to check things out in the distance, only to jog back to them and resume her awkwardly quick pace. However important this task was—given that the entire city depended on them to retrieve this strange book—Sparrow found it difficult to focus her attention on it, as always was the case when it come to anything that was actually important. The surreality of the situation may have been at fault, as well. Qunari, zealots, magical books and impending doom just sounded like something straight from one of Rilien's hidden books.

In her opinion, it was always best to leave all of those concerns on the shoulders of those who understood impending doom; like Rilien and Ashton and all of the others. Should they need her mace to reach any of their goals, then she would fight with dogged abandon. Reflecting on what might happen should they fail had never been something she'd dabbled in. Better to steer forward and always expect victory. Perhaps, this is what she'd needed anyway. A means to release her growing tension, in the most intensive situation. It was somehow fitting. The trek towards Lowtown had been awfully quiet; and her usual banter seemed muzzled and distracted. She blamed it on the situation, though it might've only been half the reason.

“Book—in and out,” she repeated, staring ahead. Snatch the book from whoever had stolen it and possibly wreak havoc in the process. Then, they could prance all the way back to save Kirkwall in its entirety, gloriously celebrated as heroes. Maybe, they'd even be given fancy titles. Dukes and duchesses. Knights and a knight-woman. How bizarre that would be. She still managed to keep ahead of Rilien and Ashton, if only to avoid any unnecessary awkwardness. After all, she always had a habit of staring when there was something on her mind. Hopefully, she just appeared antsy to save the day. When Snuffy rounded the corner, into an alleyway, she broke into a jog and stopped short of the hound's heels.

As soon as they regrouped, Snuffy snuffled ahead. Her nose led them all the way to an eerily-abandoned warehouse in the Foundry District. Boarded windows and broken boards greeted them. Sparrow rocked back on her heels, studying the building looming before them. Snuffy did seem sure, though. Sniffing furiously at the edges of the door and turning back, tail flagged, as if she say that her doubts were unfounded. Her nose knew. From what little she'd paid attention to, she found it strange that thieves would simply run within Kirkwall and hole themselves up in an old, rickety building. Had she stolen some magical book, she'd have jumped on the first boat she could have, or flown back to the Wounded Coast. She gestured towards the door, eyebrows raised. “Er, should we knock, then?”

Surveying the building, Rilien could only assume that the thieves had holed up in here because it was unlikely to be a worthy target for Qunari takeover. What exactly anyone hoped to gain by stealing the text was unknown to him, which he took to mean it was illogical. It would only prolong their presence in Kirkwall, and it would be a thorough fool indeed who believed the forces here could contend with the army leaving the docks and win. There were some very accomplished warriors in Kirkwall, but of these, he knew less than thirty who were a match for so much as a single Qunari without a lot of luck or numbers—neither of which he would advise counting on when it came time to strategize. Scattered numbers were effectively useless ones, and the idea of this city mustering something as disciplined and organized as the Qunari ranks was foolish at best, deadly at worst.

But someone else’s folly may well be their good fortune—if they could acquire the book in time. Whatever the case, there was none of it to waste. “The three of you can stay together.” He showed no peculiarity at the notion of counting the dog as enough of a person to include. Perhaps if he still counted as one, it hardly seemed fair to say that a hound with that much intelligence was not. Hadn’t he been called such, not so long ago? Ser Lucien’s hound. He could find no offense in it. “I will find a back entrance, and flank.” In doing so, he should also be able to block any attempted escapes with the artifact—most of these kinds of buildings did not have more than one or two exits.

“Do watch your step, Sparrow.” He wouldn’t be there to notice the traps before she triggered them, after all, and he well suspected Ashton would be rather occupied picking targets to shoot. With nothing further to either of them, Rilien melted into the nearest knot of shadow, slipping around to the rear of the building.

"You be careful too," Ashton told him. Snuffy had done her job well, and for it earned an affectionate head rub, though this was where things got messy. He replied to Sparrow with a weak grin and subtle shake of his head. Any humor the archer might've had was drained by the recent days' events. All he wanted to do now was get the book and go home-- or somewhere. His home was in no shape to be lived in, as it were. "Let's not and say we did, yeah?" He said, slidding up to the door ahead. Pressing his shoulder gingerly wall beside it, he slid a dagger out from his boot and inserted it in the gap between the door and the frame.

A rusty pop and click followed as he unlocked the door, but before slipping inside he turned to speak with Sparrow and Snuffy one more time. "Be careful and quiet. Please? Just follow my footsteps," Ashton instructed, the plea bleeding through his voice. He of all people knew how not stealthy Sparrow was, but for once he hoped to get in close before their enemies were alerted. The closer they got before striking, the quicker they could be done, and the faster they can make off with the relic. "Ladies, good luck," He said with a nod of his head opening the door and slipping in silently.

Ashton stalked through the entrance, avoiding the upraised plate and even going so far as to point it out as he passed. He opted to ignore any and all noise that Sparrow had made for the health of his sanity. Fortunately, they made into the warehouse with no incident, with Ashton sidling up against the back of a nearby staircase. Snuffy settled in behind him, offering a low growl. He pressed a finger to his lips and she quietened. He saw them, the thieves were across the warehouse and talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. He thought he could make out the words "Qunari" and "Devils" but the words didn't hold his attention. The book being held under one of their arms was where his focus lay.

He drew his bowstring taut and turned to Sparrow mouthing only a few words. On me he said, turning back to the thieves ahead. Hopefully Rilien was somewhere else within the building, but he knew the tranquil wouldn't miss this fight. A moment passed as Ashton leveled in aim, and in the next the arrow was free. The impact was immediate, the arrow slamming into the book-holding thief's temple, crumpling him. "Now!" He belted, nocking the next arrow.

Idling near the doorway, Sparrow crossed her arms, uncrossed them and bounced on the balls of her feet. Impatient as ever, but conscientious enough to know that charging inside was not, and would never be, an ideal strategy—as she'd learn previously, setting off traps like a mouse trying to retrieve bits of cheese. However slowly, Sparrow was capable of learning from the mistakes she often made. When Rilien mentioned sneaking into the warehouse on his own, as he usually did in situations that required delicacy and grace, her mouth gawked open to protest splitting up. Stupid. When hadn't he gone on his own to do things? Her gaze drew away from Rilien and drifted back towards the door, and the crawling tension stiffened her shoulders.

“Of course I will.” As if to say that she always did. Before she had the chance to express her own quibble of concern, Rillien was gone. Vanished like a phantom. Probably already scrambling across the roof or slithering through the slit of an open window. Her mouth clamped promptly shut. When wasn't he careful? She'd never truly considered it before. Under the guise of caution, Rilien hardly hesitated. He was, perhaps, far more reckless than she was. Perhaps, much more thoughtless when it involved his own well-being. Disapproval gurgled from her throat in the form of a grumble. Her flagged eyebrows needled back down, creasing her forehead. “Yeah, quiet.” She followed behind him, waiting for Ashton to work his magic on the door.

They'd never let her live that down. She nodded curtly. Thankfully, with Amalia's handcrafted leathers, she wouldn't make such a racket whenever she moved; awkward sneaking-footsteps were much preferred to a tin of nails and creaking metal joints. As soon as he crept through the doorway, she attempted to mirror his movements, focusing on his feet. How the man managed to walk so quietly was beyond her capabilities. Still, she tried her best. She was not as quiet as Ashton, but surely on par with his faithful hound. Plate, ah, yes. She was familiar with those. This time, with his pointed guidance, she did not trigger any traps.

Peeking slightly over Ashton's shoulder, Sparrow eyed the assembled gang of... whoever they were, tossing startlingly offensive words; Qunari, devil. A brief blossom of anger twitched across her lips, until Ashton turned back to her and indicated that he was about to move. As soon as the next word left his lips, Sparrow had flown from her hiding spot like another hound loosed from its kennel. Another man scrambled after the discarded book while the others barked to each other, clearly rattled. Weapons unsheathed just as the mace found its way into her hands, swinging down from bellow to connect with the man's chin as he stooped low. The book fell once more and so did Sparrow's foot, hooking it with her heel, and skittering it back towards where she'd come. She twisted just in time to parry an oncoming blade.

Rilien had indeed entered through a window in the back, but he’d taken to the ceiling rafters very soon after, creeping along the wooden bars with the ease of—strangely enough—practice. Fortunately, they were not so far from the ground that a jump would be unsafe, though he was still trying to get the best position when Ashton and Sparrow entered the fray. Having little to no capability for long-range fighting, Rilien simply drew one of his daggers from his back, shifting his grip on it until he was assured that it would not cut him unless he landed very poorly, and settled back onto the balls of his feet to watch the progression of the fight, crouched on a horizontal rafter beam.

His companions seemed to have matters fairly well in hand, and the dog was currently halfway through dislocating the arm of a wailing smuggler. He supposed bites were not especially painless injures, though it would seem that another two were attempting to flank the hound, which had relatively few possible angles of attack compared to the others. As the book was mostly well in hand, Rilien used his element of surprise to drop down behind one of these, planting the dagger into his back with no hesitation. These were not professional fighters, clearly—it was unsurprising that they were overwhelmed by a force of four. The second man, or rather woman, it would seem, spun to meet his next hit, blocking the incoming dagger with a cheap longsword he would have dared not attempt to fold lyrium into. It would have shattered under the pressure.

Moving with the block, Rilien sidestepped, disengaging prior to any attempted contest of strength, unsheathing the second knife and sinking it into the side of a lung, giving the blade a twist and yanking it back out. The woman collapsed, and was promptly silenced by a quick slice to the artery at the base of her throat. A check revealed that the dog had fastened her jaws over her captive’s throat, and he was dead, too. Apparently, so were all of the others, and with a shrug, Rilien walked over to the book, plucking it from the ground by the spine and dusting it off before handing it to Ashton.

“I suspect this will be needed at the Keep.”

"Me too," Ashton agreed. He accepted the book and slipped it into the rucksack at his back and nodded. That was one thing done, now all they had to do was to deliver it. "Let's hurry and hope it's not too late," He said, whistling for Snuffy to follow behind. With that, the four made their exit.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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Resistance inside the Keep itself was thankfully light, most of the Qunari in the immediate area having already been drawn to the battle outside. It was possible that they would be too much for Meredith and the Templars, even with Orsino's help, but hopefully she could just hold them off, while Sophia reached her father, and ended all of this. The interior fighting looked to have been fiercer, more bodies of both sides strewn across the halls. Sophia had grown up in this place, in these halls, and never once had she seen blood spilled inside. She tried not to imagine Saemus's face behind the mask of every guard's helmet.

It appeared as though the guards had been engaged in a fight just before the doors to the throne room, and there they had suffered heavy casualties, likely buying time for those inside to bar the door. A heroic sacrifice, but it appeared to have been in vain. The doors did not look overly damaged, but they did appear to have been forced open, and now were simply closed again. She could hear a number of voices from within, scared or angry or confused. If Lucien and Nostariel had not been present behind her, Sophia doubted she would have been able to move forward, and open the door. They were behind her, though, and she did...

A number of Hightown's nobles had been rounded up by the Qunari at the base of the throne room's steps, mostly the leaders of various important families. The Qunari stood guard around them, far too many to take on at once. They were elite troops, all of them, and they had better positioning, archers and spear-throwers with good vantages over the assembled crowd. The bodies of slain guards had been tossed into the corners. The Arishok stood before the throne, turning to face the three intruders, unsurprised by their presence.

"Here is your Viscount."

He tossed a crowned head down the steps.

It bounced horrifically, the crown flying off and rolling off the carpet and onto stone, settling amongst the bodies of the guards. The head, still bearing Marlowe Dumar's terrified expression, came to a stop only a few feet from Sophia. She was certain that her heart had also been pierced by an arrow, as she suddenly lost the strength to stand, collapsing heavily onto her knees and needing to brace herself against the ground in order to keep from completely falling over. The anguish of it gripped at her, threatened to kill her right then and there, but this was somehow different from finding Saemus dead in the Chantry. She had known, in her heart, that this was coming. As soon as the Qunari had attacked them in the streets she had suspected this would happen. As soon as Meredith reported the Qunari took over the Keep, she knew. Her father was dead, and Sophia was now Viscountess. It had always been her future... but it was never supposed to come about like this. Not like this...

She didn't know what to do. She felt like she needed to do something, but there was just a head in front of her now, eyes unseeing. Sophia reached out as if to touch it, to touch her father, but then recoiled away. Touching him would somehow make it more real. Until she had touched Saemus, he could have been sleeping, or unconscious. Only when she touched him did she know that he was dead. This was of course different, but still her overwhelming desire was to think that it had not happened, that this was not real. She was frozen, tears falling onto the carpet, while her father's blood leaked from his head.

A nobleman in the crowd spoke up in anger. "You dare! You are starting a war!" The Arishok waited and watched while the nearest Qunari came up behind the man, and snapped his neck. The terrified nobles around him screamed and backed away, trying to find some kind of safety in numbers. None made another outcry.

"Look at you," the Arishok said down at them, filled with scorn, "like fat dathrasi you feed and feed, and complain only when your meal is interrupted. You do not look up. You do not see that the grass is bare. All you leave in your wake is misery. You are blind. I will make you see."

Nostariel’s first instinct caused her to step forward, hands lit with magic, before it fully set in that there was absolutely nothing she could do. This was not an ailment that magic could alleviate—grief could not be soothed by anything from the fade, nor there was a cure to be found therein for a beheading. That reality halted her in her steps about a foot behind Sophia and a few more to the left, watching the nobility of Kirkwall cower before the might of the Arishok and wondering just how it had all come to this. Where had it gone wrong? Amalia had said that the Arishok was only here for the book—how had that, the retrieval of an item, caused this? All this pain, all this death. Nostariel had stared Darkspawn in the face, known the worst of the horrors that they could do, felt keenly the Taint circulating in her blood, kept from killing her only by time, and still she could not help but feel that in the end, it was men that were the monsters. No one person had made this, no one group. The fault lay nearly everywhere, and this was what it brought.

Lucien’s throat closed, choking back he knew not what words. Perhaps there were none. It was entirely different, and yet—for a moment, looking upon the scene, he saw Thierry again, and the blonde of Sophia’s hair was so like Liliane’s. For all the strength he tried to gain, for all the good he tried to do, he seemed always to fail in the end to spare the pain of anyone around him, and to spare the death of the sort of person he most wanted to live—the good ones. His friends, even. But whatever pain he bore, whatever he saw standing as he was and looking at this, it was not the barest measure of Sophia’s. And perhaps that was the failure he felt most keenly of all: for how long had he been at her side, attempting to lend his effort to her ideals? He’d needed something to serve again, and she’d given him so much more than that. All he’d ever had to offer in return was his strongarm, and in exactly the situation where it should have been of aid, she was there, kneeling and bowed with grief, and the last of her family was gone.

It was like someone had lanced him in the chest.

He almost couldn’t bear that, the way she looked so crumpled, as though she were utterly defeated. As though she were smaller, more fragile, beaten. It wasn’t how he knew her, because even in her weakest moments, there had been a kind of strength about her, born, he’d suspected, of hope and love for her family in equal measure, and this was like watching what happened when that light went out. It felt like something in him was extinguishing as well, and all that it left behind was anger. At the Arishok for the murder, at the zealots for provoking the Qunari, at whomever had stolen the damned book in the first place. At himself, for never asking the crucial question sooner. At the kind of world where this sort of thing happened not just here, not just to them, but in many places and times, to many people, without ever the faintest hint of becoming better.

Crouching beside Sophia, he placed one hand gently at her elbow. His words, however, were firm. “Listen to me Sophia,” he murmured. “This is not the time to fall. It is the time to stand. Kirkwall needs you still. Your friends need you still.” The sentiment itself may well have been harsh—he would like nothing more than to wave a hand and make this all go away for her. But that was not the kind of thing he or anyone else had the power to do. The Arishok still stood there, the Qunari still had control of the Keep, the nobles were still panicking and likely to get themselves killed, and Ashton had not yet arrived with the book. Lucien did not know exactly what would happen now, but he did know there was no magic to fix this. That was something they would have to do themselves, to the degree they were capable. Some of it would not be fixed, and never could be.

But he had learned long ago that being a leader meant that sometimes you had to feel the greatest of pain, carry the heaviest of burdens, and still stand up to face down the next thing. Because if she could not, how could any of those who followed her expect to manage the task? If her pain overtook her here, then everything they had done to reach this point was meaningless. If it was the only thing left he could do, he would at least stay here, to hold her up until she could stand on her own again.

The Arishok was beginning to descend the steps towards them. Sophia was distinctly aware of his approach, even though she had blocked out the nobleman being murdered, the Arishok's words following that, everything around her, right up until Lucien joined her. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue at first, for her apparent lack of comprehension, but slowly the words sank in, as though transferred through his touch into her very bloodstream. It made her angry as well, initially just at everyone and everything. She wanted nothing more than to mourn her father. So much was lost here, how could she be asked to keep going?

She didn't know, but she was aware that she had to rise. One way or another, she had to face this on her feet, like a true Viscountess would, like a warrior would. Kirkwall still needed her, Lucien said... but in that moment, she couldn't find it in her to care about Kirkwall. None of the nobles in the room had ever sacrificed anything for Kirkwall. The Arishok was right about them. They only sought their own advances, and looked to make friends only when it suited their needs. No, she could not rise for them.

There was truly only one thing that could make her rise. It was that anger, that which began to spill from her like dark blood from an open wound. When Saemus had died, his killer had paid the price then and there, and she had not been able to find any fault in Amalia's handling of the situation. But here... no assassin would come to take the Arishok's life in retribution for this. No one was going to bring him justice, to make him suffer for what he did to her, without cause. Her father had only ever worked to maintain the peace, and this was how the Arishok repayed him for it. No one was going to kill the Arishok.

No one but her.

She reached out, sliding fingers over her father's eyelids, shutting them, before she grasped onto Lucien's arm and borrowed his strength to pull herself up. It felt like ripping a knife out, to rejoin the world like so, and she hastily wiped tears from her face, taking a firmer grip on her sword. She locked her eyes on the Arishok as he approached.

"Maraas toh ebra-shok. You alone are basalit-an, Lucien Drakon. You retain clarity even when all these others are blinded and stricken." He looked to the other nobles, putting his heavy axe upon his shoulder. "This is what respect looks like, bas! Most of you will never earn it."

The doors leading into the Keep swung open violently, revealing an exhausted team of Ashton, Rilien, and Sparrow, with a panting Snuffy lingering behind him. Sweat fell from his face as Ashton entered the room, betraying the effort given to make it in time. But it was clear it was too late, Ashton's eyes darting around the room before finally resting on the Viscount's head. Pain welled up in his face and guilt threatened to take over, and it would have if there wasn't something that he could maybe still do. Moving from Sophia to Lucien and then the Arishok, Ashton steeled himself and reached into the bag behind him.

A moment later, the Qunari relic sat in his hand. His grip was heavy as the guilt morphed into anger. All of this, all the death, all the destruction over a book. So many lives were given for something so meaningless, so... useless. He wanted nothing more than to burn it, but it was a means to an end. Eager to be done with the thing, Ashton set the book on the ground and slid it across the floor toward the Arishok. He wanted to be nowhere near the man who had murdered the Viscount. "There's your damn relic," Ashton said, moving to stand beside his friends.

The Arishok picked up the book with a mixture of surprise and reverence, examining it for any signs of severe damage, of which there did not seem to be any. "The Tome of Koslun..." he said, as though he did not believe it. Indeed, years of his life had been spent in this city, waiting for this particular artifact to be found, and now he had it, in his hands. A high ranking member of his troops came forth at his behest, and he handed the tome over carefully into his hands, the Qunari soldier taking it with a bowed head. The Arishok turned to the crowd. "The relic is reclaimed. I am now free to return to Par Vollen."

"No."

The word came strongly from Sophia, and she had been preparing to speak it from the moment Ashton entered the throne room with the book. If this had happened earlier, she would have been more than happy to allow the Arishok to take his damned book and leave the city. But she could not let him do so now, not after what he had done. This was the reason she had risen to face him at all. She was the Viscountess now, and the Arishok had murdered the last Viscount. She would see him dead, one way or another.

"What?" the Arishok asked, finally directing his attention towards Sophia.

"For the crime of murdering my father, I challenge you to single combat. I will deliver justice to you myself. No one else but you or I will die here." It was perhaps the most foolish thing she'd ever said, but she meant it, and had her reasons. She was aware, as much as she didn't want to be, of the unnecessary nature of any further fighting at this point. By all means, she should have allowed the Arishok to simply leave, and not allow any more violence. But one way or another, she would not allow him to leave the room without a fight. Either she would kill him, or she would die. If she could not fight him alone, she would fight him with the others, but she did not want to drag them into this. A small army of the Arishok's best were in the room with them, as well as a number of innocent, in a sense, bystanders. She would not have any of them suffer for this. It was stupid, probably, but it was what Sophia was intent on doing, even if it killed her.

The Arishok did not seem inclined to accept immediately, however. "You are not basalit-an. You are unworthy. Unless..." he looked to Lucien, standing beside the Viscountess. "You know this woman far better than I, basalit-an. If you believe she is worthy of the challenge she proposes, I will honor her request, and allow her the attempt at her vengeance."

No. Not Lucien. Why did he have to pin this on him? This was her choice, her decision to make. If anyone was to suffer in bringing the Arishok to an end, it should be her. Qunari and their notions of worth... Sophia looked at Lucien, conflicted. Vouching for her would mean allowing her to face the Arishok alone, as she intended. But judging by the two combatants, it would possibly mean condemning her to die. "Lucien..." she whispered, wondering if she was thinking straight, or if the grief of losing her father, and the rage she felt at the Arishok were driving her towards madness. Surely he could see her reasoning for this. This should not have been his to bear. She had made her choice already. All that remained to be seen was if she would be allowed to go through with it.

There was a very long moment of silence. Lucien wasn’t sure if it held all the volume of a crypt because everyone was really waiting on him or because he’d lost the ability to properly take in new noise. It was one thing for the Arishok to name him basalit-an; he understood the enormity of the gesture, though it was hard to feel honored at precisely this moment, when he just wanted the Qunari to be gone from here, and the complications of their presence with them, but this
 for it to matter in such a way was something he was utterly unprepared for, and he sucked in a breath, initially unsure how to respond.

He knew what Sophia wanted, what she was asking him. He did not have the excuse of ignorance—he understood her far too well for that. But the choice was impossible. He was too seasoned a warrior to believe she stood much of a chance of surviving this—in fact, he could almost guarantee that if he let her challenge the Arishok one on one, she would die as her father had. The very thought of it shot a cold bolt of terror down his spine, and he dared not think about it for long. But he also knew what would happen if he refused. She was obviously not going to let the Arishok go, and no choice he made, no words he could say would prevent a fight. If they were all together in this, there was a chance, a small chance, but still a chance, that they would survive it. But how many others would die in a completely preventable manner?

His tactical intelligence bade him allow the sacrifice of one for the lives of others, but his heart could not condone it, constricting at the very thought of letting her die for the sake of vengeance, even if it was a vengeance she had chosen. He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head, telling him what needed to be done, but for once he could not abide the advice of the man who had taught him so much of war. He knew, in the end, that there was only one thing he could do here. Only one thing his mind and his heart both would allow him to do.

And it would surely stain his honor.

Bringing himself to his full height and drawing all the cold dignity he possessed around him, Lucien Drakon looked nothing like a mercenary and everything like the prince he was supposed to be. And he spoke only the truth. “You could walk all of Thedas for the rest of your days and still encounter none worthier,” he said, meeting the Arishok’s eye with his own. Sophia was not without flaws—the very fact that this predicament existed at all was proof enough of that. But he believed in her, in what she had the potential to become. In what she was becoming. That was why he would step aside and allow her the choice.

But it was because he loved her that he would not let her die if she lost.

"Meravas," the Arishok replied, offering Sophia a nod. "So shall it be."

The Arishok's soldiers set to moving the nobles aside and clearing a space for the two to fight. Sophia offered Lucien a quiet thank you, one that she felt was impossibly inadequate. She wanted to apologize as well, but there was simply no time, and her mind needed to be clear for this if she had any hope of surviving. The Arishok wielded two weapons, both of which Sophia would have required both of her hands to use properly. The first was a great axe, double sided and tipped with a sharp point, the other a double-edged longsword that in any other hands would have been a bastard sword. They would give him excellent range, and she did not doubt he would swing them as quickly as another might swing a knife. Her own sword, Vesenia was smaller and thinner in comparison, and so was she. Speed, agility, and timing would need to be put to great use. She would not last long, otherwise.

The combatants took to separate ends of the lower area of the throne room, while the spectators were ushered up the steps, to watch from above. The only thing breaking up the emptiness of their arena were two pillars, one on each side of the room. She would need to keep track of those. The Arishok raised his weapons as the base of the steps, signaling that he was ready to begin. Sophia waited a bit longer, attempting to block out all the other swirling thoughts in her head, and focus solely on the battle. Then she readied her sword, and they began.

Arishok charged forward with a remarkable speed, his first attack coming so swiftly that Sophia was forced into a full dive and roll to escape cleanly. She rose swiftly and turned to face him, reacting in time to duck under the axe. She attempted to parry the sword, and while the steel of their weapons rang through the hall for the first time, his strength was by far superior, and her block was pushed aside. The axe returned, busting through her armor at her left side and biting into flesh. She disengaged hurriedly, offering a pommel blow, as they were too tight to each other to really maneuver her sword. Backing away, she took a brief moment to examine the wound. It bled steadily, but she would not be stopped by that alone.

She moved near to one of the pillars, putting her back to it, waiting for the Arishok's next approach. He came with a lunge of the sword, not what she had wanted, and she was forced to block it aside. The axe was what she wanted, and it came next, in a swift overhand strike that would have cleaved her head in two had she not ducked just in time, the blade passing inches above her golden hair. It carried on to bury itself temporarily in the stone of the pillar behind her, and left its wielder open for a brief moment for a counterattack, one that Sophia used to win a slash across his upper abdomen. Stronger he was, but more armored the Arishok was not, and there were many places she could easily wound him if given the chance.

Sophia had sidestepped to the flank for another attack, a more lethal stab through the side, but the Arishok seemed hardly to notice the first injury, instead removing his axe from the pillar and swinging both weapons simultaneously for Sophia's upper body. There was no choice but to block them, a feat Sophia was only barely capable of, at least enough to redirect the blades so that they would not pass through her. Instead they passed upwards, and all three weapons were quickly locked above the combatants' respective heads. Arishok was the one to break the stalemate, with a forceful kick to her torso. She felt her entire chest compress, one or two ribs giving way under the pressure, and Sophia was thrown onto her back, skidding to a stop some ways away from the Arishok, who did not immediately pursue. She grimaced, sucking in a breath and slowly pushing back upright.

"Yield, Viscountess, and this will end now," the Arishok promised. He bled as well, but seemed unbothered by the fact. "If you are as worthy as baslit-an claims, I would rather see you live."

Nostariel’s heart was firmly lodged in her throat—this was all so unnecessary, but for all that it was just as wracking. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the scene before them, and one did not need to be a combat expert to understand just how outmatched Sophia was here. Still staring almost unblinkingly at the scene before her, she reached to her side, grasping Ash’s hand as tightly as her grip would allow. It would be obvious to him, therefore, that there was a fine tremor in her entire frame. She was torn between being unable to watch and needing to, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how Lucien felt. The Arishok offered mercy, but how likely was it that Sophia would accept? Looking at her, Nostariel felt a sinking in her stomach. No, she wouldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Ashton let her clutch his hand, even as it began to hurt. The other hand held Nostariel's shoulder giving her all the support he could muster. His face was drained of all emotion, dark shadows lingering over his eyes. He watched the fight without word, simply staring and hoping that it would be over soon, and hoping Sophia would be okay. He felt helpless, unable to do anything, unable to stop this. The only thing he could do was ask the Maker to lend Sophia strength, to pray. So for the first time in years, he prayed.

Sophia could not yield. Even as the likelihood of her death increased, her resolve strengthened. Physical pain was negligible to her by this point, especially when compared to the more intangible kinds of pain she knew. This was nothing that could not be pushed through. Maybe when she'd set out, as a girl of twenty-one, a bleeding side and a broken rib would have made her falter, but she was not even remotely that same girl anymore. The Arishok would have to do much better than this.

She did not deign to answer his offer, instead replying with a surprisingly swift counterattack, one that actually seemed to catch the Arishok momentarily off guard. Her strikes came swiftly, from one angle and then the next, and Arishok had no time but to block and retreat, and unlike him, Sophia knew the layout of this building from living in it for so many years. She directed him right into a pillar, striking when his back collided with it. Her blade pierced through his midsection, just barely missing a lung, and she withdrew it just as quickly, not wanting to overcommit, knowing the Arishok's own tolerance for injuries now. Instead, she hopped a backstep in anticipation of the counterattack, which came in the form of an axe thrust, trying to put the sharpened spear point on the end of it through her. It was much too slow, for once. She hooked her blade under the bottom edge of the axe and pulled the arm to her, withdrawing her sword and bringing it down in a heavy slash on his wrist. His bracer was the only thing that prevented her from cutting clean through his hand, but she still made it halfway and cut into bone, allowing her to easily follow up with a kick to the axe, knocking it from his hand. His sword slashes that followed forced her to back away.

That wound had clearly caused him pain. She darted away from him, being sure to slide the axe towards the wall with her foot, and get it out of his reach. Now they were on even footing in terms of weaponry, at least. His right hand was also fairly useless now. They came together again in a flurry of slashes, attacking and blocking in turn, and while the Arishok was far her superior in strength and pure force, Sophia seemed to have surpassed him in terms of this single-weapon, one on one dueling. How many times had she done this with Dairren, when he had trained her in his own style? They had stood in one small space and traded blows with blunted swords for session after session, until she knew just how to counter everything that was thrown at her. The Arishok was not so different, he only needed to be countered a little less directly.

Finally, she had him, the opening that she'd sought. Her sword made to plunge straight through his chest and into his heart, and it had nearly done so when at last Arishok did something she did not expect. He simply caught her blade with his free hand, wrapping fingers around the edges of the sword, redirecting her lunge high and above him even as her weapon sliced deep into his palm and fingers. She could not allow him to disarm her, but his grip did not falter, and Sophia found herself pulled to him at his will. His knee thudded into her stomach, a blow that felt like a dozen knife wounds with her already injured torso, before he turned and pulled her on past him, bringing his sword around in a wide arc to slash diagonally down her back.

The strike opened a long bloody line, and Sophia cried out with the agony of it, falling when the Arishok released her sword and mercifully backed away. She did not allow herself to go entirely to the ground, catching herself on hands and knees and scrambling away. She turned to face him, still not yet fully risen again. Blood dripped steadily to the floor below her, and her breathing was heavy. Her bearing, though, was still aggressive, indicating she had no intention of relenting.

"Yield," the Arishok urged her. He seemed tired, though not so tired as she. "Do not waste your life on this. Remember your role, Viscountess. A corpse cannot lead a city."

It was one thing to see or know that someone was being injured on a battlefield, when you fought beside them.

It was entirely another to simply stand by and do nothing while it happened right in front of you.

By this point, Lucien’s grip on his halberd was so tight his knuckles were white, pressing uncomfortably into the joints of his gauntlets, but he could not be bothered to notice this fact. He could not be bothered to notice much of anything except for what was going on in front of him, actually. He was more relieved than he could properly express that the Arishok seemed to be in a merciful frame of mind, and sincerely wished Sophia would see that for the boon it was and accept it. Because while doing so would mean she walked out of here bereft her father and perhaps even her pride, it would mean that she walked out of here. And he could find no flaw with the course of action that allowed that.

More than once, he had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking, and it bled in his mouth from the force he used, but interfering now would do little to make things better and much to make them worse. Nostariel was here, he had to remind himself; everything that had occurred thus far could be repaired. But for how much longer dare he believe it could remain so? Would his insistence on staying the course she wanted, on respecting her ability to make her own choices, become the reason he lost her? Could he bear that?

Protecting people is only rarely being the shield that stands in front of them, his father had said. Most of the time, it is standing behind, allowing them to feel the brunt of their choices, and holding them steady if they start to collapse. Inaction was the hardest thing of all for a man like him, though, and he knew not which situation this was. Could he interfere, could he forfeit these lives here to fate, risk the additional death brought by a larger confrontation?

Should he?

“Sophia,” the word, a cracking plea more than anything, fell into the silence that followed the Arishok’s command. Gone was the coldness and the dignity, gone also was his usual easy sort of demeanor, his equilibrium, his steadiness. He was not a prince here, because he could command nothing, only plead. He was not a knight here, for the foe was not something for him to fight. All that was left of him was a man, and that man simply could not carry the thought of losing her. He had found at last the burden that was too heavy for his shoulders to support alone.

“Please.”

The plea hit her, but she was resolved to ignore it. Her mind was set, and she could not let feelings like that cripple her, not when there was such an important task to be done. She wished that Lucien did not need to be here, that he wouldn't have to see if she fell, never to rise again. This would have been easier for the both of them if they had never met, but such thoughts were the very folly she had to avoid.

Some part of Sophia wondered if the Arishok would truly kill her, at this point. He seemed intent on letting her live. And perhaps, if she took another wound like the last, she would fall, unable to rise, but unable to die. The Arishok would proclaim the duel to be over, and Nostariel would save her. Some small part of her, the one most tormented by what she had suffered, did not want this to happen. Some small part of her wanted to keep her promise, to die before she let anything happen to her family. Her family was gone now, and she yet drew breath. There was something wrong about that to her.

The greatest part of her just wanted the Arishok dead, though.

With as furious a cry as she could muster, she pushed to her feet and charged him again. He was ready for it this time, but Sophia did not overcommit, sidestepping in her approach and making it unclear which angle she would attack from. They exchanged blows back and forth, neither making any solid hits, as each one tired. Sophia was tiring too fast, though, the Arishok merely stalling her out now, waiting for the blood loss to take its toll. He was attempting more attacks with the pommel of his blade now, trying to put her out cold, and it was steadily making him predictable. She waited until she knew the next attempt would come, and then threw everything she had into one last attack.

She dropped low at precisely the right moment, slashing her blade into the side of the Arishok's left knee, causing him to momentarily stagger in pain. The wound she scored angered him enough to attempt a downward swing of his blade, at her exposed back, but this too, she had been counting on. She rolled forward and to her left, ignoring the blistering pain on her back and the agony in her ribs. The Arishok's blade came down hard into the ground where she had been, and her own sword slashed into the back of his other leg. Both legs heavily injured, the Arishok had no choice but to fall to his knees. Spinning around smoothly from that point, Sophia swung her blade in a horiztonal arc, aiming to take off the Qunari's head. He leaned back enough to avoid decapitation, but the point of her sword still slashed cleanly through his throat.

Her mistake was believing that such a wound would finish the Arishok.

He was a fountain of blood at this point, but he still rose, his sword in hand, and Sophia was rooted to the spot, unable to move in time. In one smooth motion his sword punched into Sophia's armor and slid through her midsection like she was made of tissue paper, coming out her back glistening crimson. The feeling was not that of being pierced, as one might expect, but rather that of being slammed, like a warhorse armored in plate had charged her at full speed, taking her off her feet and leaving her breathless and helpless. Her legs quickly buckled beneath her, and it was only the Arishok's forward momentum that kept them moving. He stumbled forward, pushing the sword through until the hilt pressed up against her abdomen, and only then did he let go, releasing the blade and collapsing onto his face, blood draining out onto the stone as he stilled at last.

Vesenia clattered to the ground as Sophia fell onto her side, coughing up a mouthful of blood and shaking. Her trembling hands grasped around the handle of the Arishok's sword, but she was far too weak to remove it. She quickly gave up the futile effort, letting the sudden voices and movement wash over and around her. Sophia was dimly aware that Lucien was at her side. She was glad for that.

“Nostariel.” The call was a terse one, given in the tone of an order more than anything, and while he ordinarily would have felt bad had such a thing slipped him, he could not be bothered to care at the moment. Sophia needed a healer immediately, and the Warden was the best damn healer in Kirkwall. He doubted he needed to spell it out for anyone. As soon as the healer was near, he steadied Sophia with one hand, looking to her and speaking more quietly, but still in as few words as possible. “Out on three.” As carefully as he was capable, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the Arishok’s sword. He’d elected to take the spot at Sophia’s back, so that Nostariel had better access to the wound, so he was glad his reach was long, else he’d have had to angle the blade on the way out, and that risked worsening her wound.

On three, he slid the longsword from the wound, tossing it at the feet of the nearest Qunari. “Take it and your damned book and begone. Rilien, Sparrow, Ashton, get everyone out of here, now.” Quite a lot of the triage work would have to be done here on the ground, probably, and he was not going to allow that to be a spectacle for the nobility and the Qunari to peruse at their leisure. Fortunately, the latter at least did not seem inclined to linger, and while one picked up the Arishok’s sword, none so much as looked at his body. He was dead now, there was nothing of value left in the flesh.

He had no doubt that Nostariel was working as hard as she possibly could, but Sophia was bleeding at an alarming rate, and so Lucien unbuckled all of the armor on his left arm, allowing access to his relatively-clean sleeve, which he tore and pressed up against the exit wound, trying to stop her from exsanguinating before the Warden could finish her work. His hand shook; Lucien only took it as incentive to increase the pressure he applied.

She had never doubted that Lucien had experience with battlefield medicine, and she was grateful for it now—Nostariel herself took strength from the fact that he seemed intent on doing what was needed. It was no easy thing, working on a friend in such a state, especially because Sophia’s survival was far from guaranteed, and she herself had so little magic left to give. Everything in her now was put there by doses of lyrium, and she only had the one left. But if Lucien could weather this without letting the strain of it overtake him, so could she. With the bleeding stemmed from Sophia’s back, Nostariel focused on healing from the inside out, trying to knit together all the flesh and blood vessels that had been torn, using a separate spell to siphon away excess blood. The reason so few mages were any good at healing was because it was incredibly complicated, and for her at least involved weaving multiple spells together at once in a lot of cases, something which provided a very quick drain on her reserves.

Sophia would need to be brought to a relatively stable condition, and then they needed to move her somewhere Nostariel could work for an extended period, free the woman of her armor, and really get down into the sinews and bones of the work. For now, though, the priority was just keeping her heart going without allowing her to bleed out on the stone of the Keep’s floor. She was dimly aware of the Qunari leaving, and then the nobles being ushered out, not all of them quietly, but she couldn’t spare the attention to give a damn at the moment. Her hands were wet and growing sticky with blood, and she was starting to shake from the pressure of so much magic expenditure on her system. It took a while for her to even feel comfortable using one hand to quaff a potion, but when she did, it was to realize that there was a large quantity of them, about half a dozen, sitting by her side. She could only assume that was Rilien’s contribution to the effort, and she was grateful.

She would need them all before the day was out, she was sure.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Demands of the Qun has been completed.

Act Two has been completed.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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At the behest of Nostariel, Lucien had at last left the Keep, albeit only temporarily. She needed a few more things from her clinic, not least among them fresh clothing, because trying to heal in someone else’s too-loose garments was apparently not the best of ideas. He certainly didn’t mind going to fetch things for her, especially considering the fact that Sophia was now stable and out of immediate danger. It had been about a week and a half in total since the Qunari attack, and in that time, Kirkwall had descended into utter chaos, then found itself slowly pulled out, mostly by Templar effort, as they had taken to using the power that usually belonged to the Viscount. Given that there currently wasn’t one, and Sophia’s recovery was still largely an uncertain quantity, he supposed someone had to.

He’d stopped by his own house first, for much the same reason as he was going by the clinic. He’d asked Rilien to check on his guests of course, but it was still a relief to see for himself that the three of them were unharmed. He trusted his friend to recognize physical injuries immediately, but wasn’t sure how well Ril would read into their psychological states. Or more accurately, how relevant he would find anything abnormal there to be. But the three of them were fine—the house had in fact remained untouched by the Qunari themselves, though there had been a visit by looters, in which Desne and her children had used the hidden room as instructed.

Lucien was unsurprised to find that his coat of arms and several of his spare weapons were missing, but thankfully they seemed to have left most everything else intact. He doubted anyone would see the value in old books and drawings, and none had taken the time to destroy much just for the sake of destroying it, either. Probably they’d simply decided to leave for better pickings elsewhere. Retreating to his room for a moment, he retrieved enough coin to compensate the three what they’d personally lost and then some, pointing out that it might be a while yet before he was back to stay, and directing them to a former client of his who made a very sturdy lock. It seemed to assuage any remaining concern, and with a small rucksack, mostly empty, he headed down to the clinic.

He was returning downstairs from Nostariel’s rooms and picking through the potions on her shelf—the clinic was remarkably free of signs of theft—when he heard the front door open on his blind side, and turned his head so as to see the newcomer.

Kirkwall's lapse into chaos had shaken, rightfully so, all of its citizens. Whether it was the scrummy vagrants hunkered down in Darktown, or the equally grimy denizens of Lowtown—all the way to the prim and proper nobles of Hightown, picking through ravaged homes and grimly peeking out through broken windows and doors that appeared as if they had been up and stolen away. To their credit, everyone was all too eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. Buildings were being repaired, as well as anything else that had been destroyed. People were actually working together, and while it might have taken awhile to gain what they had lost, even Sparrow could appreciate the efforts that were being made. She, too, had walked away affected by everything that had happened. As surprising as it was, even to her, Kirkwall had become something of a home. Admittedly, without everyone inside of Kirkwall, it would be just another place she was passing through. She no longer wandered, and cared far more about people, and what they thought of her, than she'd care to admit.

And so came her self-entitled mission to corner Lucien into having a conversation with her. That wasn't to say that she hadn't seen him, as he was staying at the Keep round-the-clock, and she had been dropping by to bolster the chamber with flowers. She hadn't, however, allowed any moments where they might be in the same room together, alone. She scurried out as soon as she appeared, leaving petals and bandaged fingers in her wake. This time, this time, she would set things straight. If it hadn't been for Lucien, she never would have known the truth. And she would have never been able to confront Rilien, at all. Even if Rilien didn't understand the importance of knowing what he had given up, because as he said, it was done, it would always be important to her. Lucien had shed away layers of Rilien she hadn't noticed before. Layers that she wasn't ready to notice. He'd peeled back some of hers, as well. Screaming at him, and then ignoring him as she'd done before, was unfair.

She followed him to his own home, keeping to the shadows. Fear told her that that was not the right time to make herself known, so she pressed her shoulder to the building and waited for him to reappear, only to tail him towards Darktown. Ah—the clinic. Again, Sparrow hesitated approaching him, until he entered the clinic itself. She hopped down the steps and pushed open the door just in as Lucien swung his gaze over, causing her to pause mid-step. She was half tempted to turn tail and slam the door behind her. Instead, she took a breath, stepped inside and closed it behind her. “Ah, Lucien—fancy meeting you here,” she greeted shamelessly. Small talk, somehow, seemed inappropriate. Bringing up Sophia, and her health, even more so. She understood the gravity of her situation as well as anyone else did, and it wasn't a comfortable topic to bring about. She shuffled her feet and scratched the back of her head, focusing on the ground in front of her.

“I wanted to catch you before you headed back to the Keep.”

Considering that the last few times he’d seen her, she’d fairly well avoided him, Lucien could not say that he was expecting Sparrow. The sensation of being watched, of being followed, had definitely hit him along the path he’d taken, ingrained as it was by years of just waiting to find a dagger in his back one day, but he’d passed it off as unimportant. Hardly anyone here would have a reason to kill him; it was probably just someone trying to keep away from him in case he was a looter. He wouldn’t even put it beyond people to be actively trying to protect the clinic. Nostariel did good work, and asked nothing for it—surely even the most hardscrabble people would not want to bring harm to the same person that healed up their cuts and bruises and set their broken limbs. He was firmly a believer in the idea that criminals were not themselves without hearts—or at the very least without enough intelligence to know when they were being so obviously counterproductive. No, surely nobody who lived here in this community in Lowtown would let the clinic go up in flames. He may have simply run afoul of one of its many protectors.

So when it was Sparrow, he wasn’t immediately able to reply, and it took him a few seconds before he got a handle on his tongue. His brow furrowed a bit—while far from unhappy to see her, he did hope she didn’t plan to take that much time. He wasn’t too keen on being far from the Keep for long. Nostariel needed these supplies, and Lucien needed
 well, he needed to be back there shortly. “Well,” he said, remembering his manners and managing half a smile, “you have indeed caught me. What can I do for you, Sparrow?”

Even as she entered the clinic, Sparrow hesitated and took a few step backwards, eyes flicking down to the bundle Lucien held. Of course, he was probably heading back to the Keep, and visiting Nostariel's clinic meant that there were some sort of healing goodies he wanted to bring there, as well. She pulled the doorknob and held the door open, sweeping her hand in front of her, “We can talk as we walk. I'll be your escort today.” Not like he truly needed one. Pity the poor soul that decided to try and wrangle those goods away from him. Either way, it was another excuse to delay the inevitable. She wasn't entirely sure where Nostariel was either, though she'd rather keep the audience to the minimum of two should she resort to grovelling and pouting. Apologies came as naturally to her as trying to breathe underwater. Once they were out of the clinic, and on their merry way down the hobbled alleys, Sparrow twined her fingers together and settled them at the nape of her neck. It wouldn't get any easier the more they walked, she understood that much.

“I wanted to—,” she began, sifting air through her clenched teeth, “Forget it. I'm sorry.” She continued walking slightly ahead of him, tangling and untangling her fingers. Neither she, nor Rilien, had even admitted that Lucien had been the one to confess the specifics of his actions. He'd opened a door for her; one that Rilien would have kept firmly shut for her benefit. How many things had he neglected to tell her because he was shielding her from something he believed too harsh for her to face? If she never learned to hold her own shield, what did that say of her strength? Strike hard enough and she would shatter. If they saw her as little more than smoke and mirrors, incapable of defending herself from harsh realities, then she would thicken her skin. Sparrow was a storm, but she would stop sinking them.

“I've never been good at apologizing.” Truly. Anyone would know—Amalia would, specifically. She never apologized because she always believed her actions were justified. For reasons that continued to elude her, she was beginning to question herself. All of her motives, once tangled in freedom and worldly enjoyment, shivered away at the thought of losing what she now saw as important. Most of all, she feared losing her companions and being left alone. They were not expendable. She would fight for them, even when the obstacles were of her own making. “But I hope that you can suffer me awhile longer.”

It honestly took Lucien a while to decide what she would need to apologize for. The past few weeks had been murder on his ordinary sensibilities about such things—he lived now in a very narrow world, where he waited for something he hoped was not impossible, and everything else simply faded. His company, his plans, even his friends—for these weeks, they were there, and his thoughts occasionally wandered to them, but they were far from the center of his attention, as perhaps they would have been at other times. He liked being able to do that, in some senses, to shift his focus such that he was wholly invested in whatever people brought before him. He thought it suited him to be that way, to want to solve problems and give them everything he had—it certainly felt right. He’d never found it to be a troubling balancing act, keeping all of those concerns, those people, at the fore, but right now he simply couldn’t manage it.

He had to cast his mind back to their last conversation, and the details were slow in emerging through his distraction. Once they did however, he understood that she must be referring to her hasty exit last time they had spoken. “Then I suppose it’s fortunate that none is required,” he said, shifting the burden in his hands slightly such that it was tucked under one arm. He used the other to pull back the thick strands of dark brown hair that had fallen into his face. It really needed to be cut, but that was another thing that could wait. He favored Rilien’s cohabitator with a smile, though it was a melancholy thing, and unlike him. “I understand why you needed to leave, Sparrow. It was not exactly easy tidings I was giving.”

He’d been told he was patient with people, and supposed that to an extent that was true. But most of the time, he didn’t think patience was the right word for what he did. It seemed to imply that the things he was being patient about vexed him somehow, that he needed to exercise some superhuman capacity for tolerating them. Lucien thought that rather than that, he was simply not a man easily vexed. Sparrow leaving had not been an annoyance to him, merely a reaction he understood in the context of the revelation she’d received. He had no idea how he would have reacted if he’d been told Rilien had given up a chance to divest himself of his Tranquility for him—but that was a matter complicated by the fact that Ril being Tranquil had never bothered him in the first place. There were nuances to their situation that Lucien was not privy to, and he did not expect that she would stay and linger for light conversation having heard what she had.

They approached the Keep, now, and he turned to Sparrow at the bottom of the stairs, an indication that this was where he thought it best to part. “I wanted to say
 I know that being friends with Ril has its challenges, and perhaps more for you than I. But
 in his way, he holds you very dear, Sparrow, and I’ve never known him to do anything without a reason. So, whatever you did to produce that reaction in him
 thank you. I think you’ve done him good.”

Silence had always bothered her. And while Lucien had good reason to be reflecting on more important matters, like keeping Kirkwall from collapsing in on itself and tending to Sophia while she recovered, Sparrow still wrung her hands together behind her head, anticipating unreasonable outcomes. Dread curled rings in her stomach. She expected much from people, and assumed they thought the same of her. Instead of standing tall as they did, she bent under the strain and lashed out like a cornered animal, scratching and biting and spitting. Apologies—those were new developments. Surely, by their influence, she had changed. Tiny steps were still progress, and perhaps, she would learn to quell her volcanic tendencies and voice how she felt. She hoped so. Rilien hadn't even suggested apologizing to Lucien. His suggestions had become fewer and fewer the more she ventured out on her own, driven by her single-minded determination to do better.

She occasionally flicked her eyes over her shoulder to read the expression on his face, but found herself unable to read anything at all. To her, Lucien looked as if he were always contemplating something. Vexed by matters that went far beyond her. Backwater politics or Kirkwall's state of disrepair and its recent dalliance with petty crime, and who knows what else. His plate, as well as anyone else involved with the Viscountess and leading lords and ladies, were full. While she might have had brief glints of envy when thinking of had comfortable it might have been living in such a grand home, surrounded by nobles and knights who bowed and saluted as you passed, Sparrow had spent enough time around them to know that she would have hated it. Gaudy garments aside, there were certain responsibilities she did not envy. She doubted Lucien had any less, and of his own volition. Alongside Sophia, she doubted he'd care if his duties tripled, quadrupled.

None? She blinked, caught in mid-glance. The look on his face... was somber, exhausted. And still, he managed to smile and say things she hadn't expected. Sparrow's hands slowly dropped away from her neck and drifted back to her sides. Being understood was strange. Stranger still that her behavior needed no apology in the first place. It struck her as odd, perhaps, because she had never had conversations like this before. Living among the Qun, she apologized to no one, even if she had done something wrong. She did as she pleased and expected those she cared about to simply accept her as she was, and if they did not, she behaved as if they did. Explaining herself to those she wished to keep close continued to be an experience she was not familiar with. However, she did not dislikeit—this, being understood and being forgiven.

Soon enough, they stood in front of the Keep. Sparrow's expression walked a fine line between bewilderment and serene. She bobbed her head and turned to leave as Lucien halted on the stairs, turning to face her. She paused and swung back around, about to chirp her goodbyes. With her escort services complete, and her secret mission annulled, she had planned a hasty retreat, but as she feared, Lucien had more to say. He was thanking her. She garbled unintelligibly and ruffled a hand through her hair, shouting louder than she'd intended, “I—you, you, as well! Thank you!” The goodbye was strangled, and clipped, but she managed to sputter that she'd be around later to drop off more flowers. Her heels, in full-flight, flagged her retreat.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon
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It was after no small amount of thought that Aurora stood on the docks. There were many questions she had to ask herself and emotions she had to battle. Beside her stood Milly, a cloak thrown over her shoulders and a wide brimmed hat hiding the sunburst mark on her forehead. Unlike Aurora, Milly did not look out and into the horizon, but at the mage by her side, awaiting the next instruction. A pent up breath of air forced its passage through her nostrils as Aurora watched the ships come and go. There were many in the bay, but one in particular caught her attention. Pointing it out for Milly, Aurora spoke. "That one. That one's going to take you... Us, home."

The ship in question was entirely nondescript, ordinary in every sense in the word. A simple cargo ship that traded goods up and down along the coast. Aurora had worked out a deal with the captain. He would grant them passage in return for her work during their trip. She was not the poor stowaway she was when she first arrived, the crew would not take pity on her this time. She would have to earn their passage-- but she wasn't fragile as she once was. She was ready to work, and a momentary glance to the side revealed the crates she was to help load. They looked heavy, but her shoulders had long since grown accustomed to burdens. Nodding, she reached for Milly's hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, giving her a forced smile.

Antiva was their destination. Home. Aurora could not hope to keep Milly safe and hidden outside the Circle. Even though it had only been a few weeks since the Qunari incident, but already the Templars were asserting their control. She could feel their squeeze, and she feared it would not relent any time soon. Milly was not going to go to the Gallows. She would be a stranger there, completely and utterly alone and though she wouldn't realize it, Aurora would. Antiva's Circle was familiar, there were people there that knew Milly and could take care of her, better than she ever could. Rilien was right, Milly would be best off in a Circle, and the best Circle for her was Antiva's. It did not mean she wasn't nervous about the whole thing.

The ship lazily drifted into the harbor with both Aurora and Milly patiently awaiting its arrival. It steadily grew as it drew closer until finally they had to step out of the way of the gangplank. By then, the pair were joined by the other ship hands and once it was tied off, they began their work loading the cargo onto the boat. The Qunari may have damaged the city during their attack, but trade had recovered quickly and resumed within the weak. Aurora found the captain of the ship, worked out the final plans. She handed him a coin purse, full of the silvers she managed to save doing odd jobs around the city during her time there. It would buy his silence, and ensure that they reached their destination safely.

Aurora set about loading the cargo with the other ship hands quietly, avoiding any unnecessary conversations. They seemed to allow it, keeping their talk between themselves, and before long all the cargo on the docks was stowed away under deck. "You got an hour to finish any business before we shove off-- with or without you," The captain warned as he stepped off the ship. He headed toward Lowtown-- the Hanged Man for one last drink if Aurora had her guess. Nodding, Aurora sat down on the dock and let her feet dangle below, urging Milly to do the same.

"This is it," Aurora said, giving Milly's shoulder a protective rub. "In a month we'll be home again." Milly looked at her and nodded her acknowledgement. "It's as you say," She said simply.

"Do you plan to return?” a flat voice asked from behind them. It was in fact Rilien, bearing a smaller cargo crate of his own, which he handed off to the crewmen still on board, tucking the purse of sovereigns he received in return up one of his sleeves. He did not wear his money openly, because he knew exactly how simple it was for a good thief to take advantage—and how common it was for a bad thief to try. He knew the ship was headed for Antiva, and it was not difficult to divine Aurora’s intentions, given Milly’s presence, though he had to say he felt a small flicker of dull surprise at the fact that it would appear at least that she was actually taking his advice. He would have supposed her too emotionally attached to act on the logic in it. But then perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. Just because they were going to Antiva did not mean Millian was to be given to the Circle there. It would not shock him that Aurora had become tired of dealing with Kirkwall.

Still, he supposed he might as well ask, if perhaps only for Sparrow’s sake. It seemed like the kind of thing she would want to know, after all. "Have you adequate provisions for the journey?” He didn’t only mean food—likely, it had cost a substantial amount to get a ship captain to transport a Tranquil away from the city, particularly given the clues that provided to what Aurora was. It would be preferential that they actually made it to their final destination, rather than reaching the shores of their home only to starve on their way inland.

"Eventually," She answered. Aurora had told Lucien something to that effect, and despite all that happened between then and now, she still felt much the same. She still felt that she could do something there, that she could make a change in a city that needed it. But she couldn't do it as she was. Time was needed, to heal, to mend, and to make whole what was broken. The journey to Antiva was not for Milly's sake alone. Aurora needed it just as much, she needed time away to regroup and recollect herself. It was about time she took the long road home. Family would center her and give her strength. The next time she left them, it would not be by force, but by choice, and the tears would not be from sadness alone.

Aurora's eyes came back into focus as he spoke again. Leaning back on her arms, she looked up at Rilien. "Adequate enough," She answered, "We get off in Bastion." The importance of the destination may have seemed inconsequential to him as she never revealed where she lived before the Antivan Circle. She had told Lucien, but he was not the type to spread such information, and Rilien wasn't the type to ask. "From there, the DiMerenda Trading Company should help me get Milly into the city..." Should. She had asked the captain about the company, if he even knew about it, and from what she gathered her father's business was quite doing well for itself.

She wondered what he would say when he saw her again. What would she say? What would he think about Milly? It was the cause of the knot in her stomach. There was so much uncertainty, but it was not without its measure of excitement. It was closing in on eight years since the last time she'd seen her family, she wanted to see them again. She just wished it could've been under better circumstances.

Rilien nodded with a sense of thoughtfulness, though perhaps that was only because he always seemed so serious. He made a small movement on one of his arms, something akin to a shrugging motion, though the gesture itself would have looked odd on him, and hooked his fingers around the small satchel that fell from his sleeve. “If one could account for all the circumstances in which bribery was necessary, there would be fewer.” It would seem that this explained the fact that he was dropping the coinpurse into Aurora’s hand, or was at least as much an explanation as he was going to give. Glancing briefly sideways at Milly, he offered a nod to both.

“Bon voyage.” Rather ironic, maybe, from him. He could hear the approach of others, however, and had no desire to remain. Therefore, he didn’t, choosing instead to turn on his heel and depart. His business, after all, was done.

Her mouth moved to tell him it wasn't necessary, but summarily closed. Aurora could attempt to return the coinpurse, but the end result would be same. He was a lot like Amalia in that regard, he did nothing without a purpose and to try to reject a gift from either would only make her feel silly in the end. So instead her eyes fell to the collection of coins in her hands, jingling them for effect before stowing them away on her person. "I'll pay you back," She said adamantly. She owed him a lot more than a few coins, but at least the coins she could repay.

Lucien had made a bit more of a concerted effort to actually be present to see his friend off, and he arrived at about the same time as Amalia and Ithilian did. He’d been left temporarily once more in charge of the embrium, but he figured it would be good to come say a more proper farewell-for-now regardless. Bereft of most of his armor, he approached the other two with a small smile. “I know it is not undertaken for the nicest of reasons,” he admitted, glancing at Milly’s impassive expression with something unreadable in his expression, “But I must confess to a twinge of envy all the same. I understand that Antiva is simply lovely in the summertime.” It was more than that, of course; Aurora was making a journey back to her homeland, and given what they had told each other of such things, he knew it was not insignificant for her by any means.

“I am glad you get to go back, regardless.”

"I'd.. Be.. Caught in a lie if I said I wasn't intimidated," Aurora revealed. The anxiousness she felt was clear in her face, but it held a look of not excitement, but an emotion more subdued. She was looking forward to going back home, despite the circumstances. It was not to be an entirely joyous return, but it was a return. She found enough solace in that to keep her looking forward. Worrying, thinking about how things could've be different, and fretting on circumstances out of her hands would do nothing to help neither Milly nor her. Forcing a smile back to her face, Aurora nodded and thanked him. "But.. Me too," She said.

Amalia, who had thus far simply been scrutinizing the scene in her usual stoic fashion, seemed to find nothing wrong with the seaworthiness of the vessel from where she was standing, and so turned from it to Aurora instead. Her lips pursed slightly, her expression appearing troubled for a short moment before it smoothed back out. “Be wary,” was all she said, though perhaps even two words made everything else clear enough.

Looking back to Amalia, Aurora held her words for a moment before accepting them for what they were. "Of course," she replied. Not everything needed to be put to words for the meaning to be found, and she was grateful for what hid behind them.

"Don't be intimidated," Ithilian urged her, though quite gently. He was no mentor of hers as Amalia had been, nor did he have years of friendship with her to call upon. He spoke more from being the one in the current group who had already taken the opportunity to return to what had once been home, and learn from it. "Keep a clear head, and don't doubt yourself. You'll find the way forward." The clear head was easily the most difficult part, when dealing with anything that evoked powerful emotions, something he knew Aurora was going through with everything that had happened. But he'd found a way through it, and from what he'd seen of how much Aurora had grown, she would too.

"We'll be glad to have you back when you return."

“Hurry, hurry! C'mon, it's a shortcut—”

The insistent urgings came from the half-haphazardly dressed sprite dragging Ashton through winding alleyways and down questionable cobble-stone streets, all the while clutching onto the sleeve of his shirt as if he would simply wander away if she let go. Flighty as she was, she hadn't actually explained why he had to go with her this instant, but she still managed to convince him to follow along with her, and while they walked, she finally told him where they were headed and, more importantly, why. Spending time in the Alienage, and in the gardens specifically, she'd already heard what had befallen on Milly. She was familiar with Tranquility. Far more than she wished to admit. She supposed it was worse for Aurora, since she'd known Milly when she was wide-eyed with curiosity and teeming with enthusiasm. To have that all stripped away and not know what to do afterward. She couldn't imagine it. With her and Rilien, it was much different. True enough, it was difficult seeing him as anything other than who he was, for everything he had been was little more than tales he seldom shared.

As soon as they rounded the aforementioned bend, Sparrow relinquished her grip on his sleeve and spared Ashton having to replace his shirt altogether. Had she shown any signs of acknowledging her roughhousing and oblivious rudeness, she certainly did not show it, as she was already waving her arms in the air, trying to call over to the assembled group without shrieking across the docks. Not that that would have been all too surprising given that she had the subtlety of a bugling dragon flying overhead. She abandoned her gestures, leaving Ashton at the mouth of the alleyway, and broke into a brisk jog. Then an impatient sprint, as if they would hurry onto the ship and disappear before they had the chance to say goodbye. Each crisis, each tragedy, she'd learned, in mostly awful ways, revealed truer measures of a person's character. The parts one would normally hide away, because they were raw, ragged things. In Aurora, she saw hidden strength. Maturity, patience, and even if she felt lost, she recognized a sense of direction.

By the time she reached them, she inhaled sharply and held a hand against her chest to slow its thumping. No endurance, after all. She was all momentary bluster, with hardly any staying power. “G, good, you're... not gone... yet,” she breathed, puffing her chest out and planting her hands on her hips, “Can't leave.. without saying... goodbye.” Finally looking around her, Sparrow noted who was here, and who was absent. Everyone was here... except for Rilien, which was strange, wasn't it? He had given her all of the right information. The destination and the time, and a stern-eyed warning that if she were late, the captain would not wait and she'd miss her chance to say goodbye.

She straightened and hooked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating that she had another wily visitor to see her off. Without another word, Sparrow bustled towards her and cupped her face between her calloused hands, planting a kiss on her forehead. She pulled away and stooped to do the same to Milly, brushing strands of hair away from the starburst tattoo, before planting another whispery kiss—while it may have been just her way of saying farewell, it was one of the only things she could remember mothers doing to say that they would always be there. She stepped back from them and smiled unabashedly. They would do fine, the both of them. She'd never been good at comforting others, she simply expected things would pan out, as she did now.

“I'll tend the garden until you're back, yeah?”

"I, uh," Aurora stammered clearly not expecting a goodbye kiss. Her cheeks matched her hair for a moment before she gathered herself and nodded, a smile at her lips. "Thank you Sparrow." For both the garden, and the farewell. Looking over her shoulder, she watched as Nostariel's friend, the lanky archer she'd met in the Hanged Man followed behind Sparrow straightening his clothes that he'd almost gotten pulled out of.

Ashton took a moment to exchange nods with Ithilian before leaning on Sparrow, planting his elbow on the crook of her neck and cupping his head with the hand. "What she means to say, is that she'll miss you dearly," He said, flicking a lock of Sparrow's hair. "And between you and me," He said, hiding his lips from her, "I think you're a good influence on her." A playful smile fluttered across his lips as he suspiciously eyed Sparrow for a moment. "But I'm not only saying farewell for myself, though make no mistake, you'll be missed. If Nos was up and running, I'm sure she would've been here too. She'll miss you and I'm positive she's sorry she couldn't make it," he said, somewhat apologetically. "So don't forget about us, yeah?" He asked with a laugh. Like anyone could forget them.

Aurora nodded gently grateful for his message and agreed, "Of course not. Thank you-- both. And give Nostariel my best wishes." If she ever had doubts about returning, maybe lingering in Antiva, they were summarily dismissed and replaced with the desire to return one day. It was a journey she needed to take, one that was a long time in coming. Grabbing Milly gently by the arm, she drew the girl close to her side and bowed. "Thank you-- All of you. And Milly thanks you as well, I'm sure," She said, Milly nodding along. Just then, a whistle cried out from the ship behind them. The captain stood on the deck and beckoned them to hurry, they were about to set sail.

Nodding, Aurora couldn't shake the want for just little bit more time, just another minute or two to express just... Just how thankful she was. For their support, their belief, and their friendship. "Thank you all," She said, her eyes wavering, "For everything." She couldn't imagine trying to survive Kirkwall alone. She couldn't imagine life without them. She didn't want to think how life would've turned out if she didn't duck into the Hanged Man all those years ago. "I'll be back. Soon. I promise," She pledged. Taking Milly's hand into her own, Aurora stepped onto the boat as it floated away from the dock. She stood at the bow, waving until they faded from view and nothing but water surrounding them.

Aurora then leaned against the bow rubbing the spray from her eyes. "We're going home," She told Milly as she stared out across the sea. A moment of silence passed between them, before Milly spoke. "Are you?" She asked. Aurora looked at her before smiling, looking out back toward Kirkwall.

"No. I'm leaving it."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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For once, Kirkwall felt less stifling to her. The crumbling walls no longer pressed in on her and Darktown's musky stench hardly swayed her unfaltering steps—she was on a mission. Not one that involved murky magic-dabblers, which always tended to lean on the dark and bloody scale, nor were there any wayward, vicious Qunari involved. No no, not this time, at least. And she led someone in tow, flapping her gums about nothing in particular. Somehow, she'd managed to convince poor Rilien to accompany her somewhere special. It was the most information she would give, which was hardly any at all. Not that Rilien seemed to mind.

Though it had taken a some convincing for him to simply leave the work he'd been poring over; partially, because she'd been relentlessly badgering him. First from the staircase, perched like a stubborn songbird; staring intently until he settled down his quill. From there, she'd moved a few feet away from his working table. Scrunched up with her knees to her chest. Obviously waiting for something, expectant as a child. Sparrow wanted people to ask what she was doing so that she could bluster on with what she actually wanted. Rilien, more than anyone else, understood that.

Whether or not she'd actually bothered him was a mystery. She supposed that if he was ever bothered by her incessant pecking in the past, she would've been thrown out ages ago. Thankfully, Rilien had the patience of a Saint. Half of the time she did not look where she going. Speaking over her shoulder and walking backwards, seemingly without purpose. But she was heading somewhere in particular. She just didn't want to spoil the surprise. They'd hardly had any time to speak between her heated argument, the Qunari invasion, Sophia's comatose state and Aurora's parting.

Kirkwall was anything but a sleepy little town and they always seemed neck-deep in another catastrophe. Not that she was complaining. Had she been born anything other than who she was, and if she had any other friends other than those she currently had, her life might have been a great deal duller. She grinned to herself and knuckled her nose. “Besides, it's nice to get away from work every once in awhile, y'know?” A little play in his life might've done him some good. Books and quills and mixing potions was well and good, but what fun could be found in that? Her contributions came in the form of needling entertainment and brief brushes of newly-discovered areas spanning across the entirety of Kirkwall. This was her home now, so it was imperative that she touched every corner of it. There was no doubt that the Wounded Coast was far prettier. However, the dark history Kirkwall presented had its own gritty appeal. Dark alcoves, hidden spaces, and great views. She wanted to share that with someone.

They finally arrived at the Docks and Sparrow led them down a straightforward stairwell ending in a small, rickety pier. Her boat awaited her, bereft of the sailors they'd once slaughtered. With the remainder of her money made in the Deep Roads, she'd maintained and improved the trusty little vessel. It was small enough not to be a bother and large enough to fit several someones should she ever wish to leave Kirkwall.

But today, she was on a mission. There was a smug pleasure in having freedom swaying just at your fingertips, and being able to share something as secret as a her discovered nook. Not too far from where they were—just around the bend, maybe. The craggy rocks and intimidating statues provided perfect cover to dissuade curious sea-farers from venturing too close, and so, they were hers to claim. “Alright, then. Get on!” She chirped, springing onto the deck. She turned to offer her hand, as a gentleman might to a fair lady, and only barely hesitated before doing it anyway.

“I was thinking that we've much to talk about.”

Rilien eyed the boat with the faintest trace of skepticism, unsure he could affirm that Sparrow had enough knowledge of seafaring vessels to maintain one in decent condition for travel. Also, he was unsure how the dinghy itself was relevant to whatever it was that she might want to discuss with him, but he accepted that this at least was one of her many strange idiosyncrasies. Unlike himself, she could not simply say whatever it was that she wanted, regardless of setting. Quite the contrary, she had to feel comfortable enough, and this was apparently where she had decided she would be comfortable today. Raising an eyebrow just slightly at the outstretched hand, he bypassed it, stepping gracefully onto the boat and sinking into a seated position, pulling his legs up underneath him on the bench.

"Is that so?” His reply was neutral, eyes fixed on her as she went about the process of casting off and getting the vessel into working order. He was willing to help, of course, but he did not know an especially large amount about boats, only the basic principles, and thus he may only be in the way if he acted without direction. "I think you would find nearly universal assent to the proposition that I generally have very little to talk about.” It was another half-joke, only really funny because of how utterly not funny it was. If indeed there was any humor to be found in it at all. He could no longer claim to know, particularly.

"But if you find yourself with the desire to speak, I will listen.” He always did.

Her expectations were often outrageous. She couldn't understand why Rilien, or anyone else for that matter, hadn't thrown themselves aboard, full of bluster and adventure. The ship was seaworthy enough and she'd already spent inordinate amounts of time among sailors to know how to keep the vessel afloat.Well, she knew enough not to severely damage it. There were telltale signs gouged into the side of the dingy; obvious indications that it had taken some rough handling to get used to. Like all things, she never learned easily. All in all, she and the ship were still alive, so that must've counted for something. Sparrow snorted, as if to say suit yourself. Surely, any maiden would have gladly accepted her aid—but, in retrospect, Rilien was no maiden, and he was far more capable than she when it come to grace and balance. She mm'd at his choice of seating and bustled around setting up the sails, tying down the rigging and finally taking her place at the wheel. Obviously, she'd done this many times. Practised manoeuvres and many mistakes later, and she wasn't so bad anymore. It was her only means of showing off as well, so she did little instructing and far more pea-cocking.

Sparrow stared down at him, dangling her arms dangerously through the wheel and leaning her chin across the wooden bands. They were going in the general direction she intended to go, anyway. No need in being overly cautious. She did laugh, but not particularly because it was funny. Partially because she did not believe it, and partially because what she wanted, and needed, was what was so difficult to achieve—Rilien often said what needed to be said, and tended to speak his mind far more than she imagined any Tranquil would, even if it took prior initiative or relentless needling. He listened and she rattled on. He stood vigilant while she crashed against the shoreline. They were made up of variants and variables, spontaneity and tendencies. She craned her neck owlishly, blinking. Universal assent might have been that Rilien was nothing but different. Even in his sameness, in his proposed general lack of conversational skills. What little he did say always seemed to speak volumes. A soft sigh escaped her lips, proceeded by a grin. “Sometimes, I suspect that's a selective trait.”

She withdrew her arms from their wooden shackles and stretched them over her head, settling them on the pegs of the wheel. Now that they were alone, swaying on the sea and rounding the aforementioned bend towards the craggy caves and mountainside, Sparrow felt uneasy. As if all of the questions and all of the things she'd wanted to say were being clamped shut by chokedust. Asking questions, and talking at someone, were two different matters altogether. She was not so foolish to admit feeling discomfort in situations that called for genuineness. Her process involved boiling over at a breaking point and Rilien, simply put, did not. She had no memories, no glimpses or images, to call upon—no brief touches of who he'd once been. In that regard, she was shamefully jealous of her companions.

Sparrow clicked her tongue and arched an eyebrow. “And what about you? I've got ears, too.” Her gaze drifted away from the top of his head, and settled on the looming statues up ahead. Rusty chains hung from their arms. Great sentinels guarding terrible secrets. She closed her eyes briefly and scratched the back of head neck, “Tell me a story about yourself. Anything, really. You know too much about me already. I'd say that's fair, given that I'm letting you sail on the Fair Maiden.” Her lips twitched into a stiff smirk. Far easier to venture down that avenue, then to ask him outright.

So she had invented for him a debt owed, and now requested her recompense. Rilien was not surprised. Perhaps, had he even been capable of much in the way of shock, he still would not have been. His fingers, resting motionlessly on his knees, twitched slightly, an old piece of instinct. A Bard never told his own story—he was merely a conduit for other kinds of information, the stories of others. The natural reflex was to expect a lute or lyre in his hand, but here, there was none. Only what words he could conjure to mind—and those were not generally many, even if they did sometimes have meaning.

Still, he supposed, he was not a Bard any longer. There was no particular reason not to answer, though he doubted what he had to say would be what she wanted to hear. "There is only one story about me.” While perhaps not literally true, it was certainly true in a sense. When most people asked him for something of that nature—and lots of people had, once—it was only the one that they wanted. The one that began with a boy who had the world at his fingertips and ended with a hollow shell imprinted with the Maker’s mark on his brow. He thought, sometimes, that he had picked up on instruments so easily because he knew so well the feeling of being able to make something from almost nothing, to transmute the world around him, long before he ever used song as the medium for the transformation.

For a moment, he tipped his head back, letting the rays of sunshine hit his face, narrowing his eyes to half-mast and squinting against the luminance. "I remember the faces of my parents, but not their names. I was sold to Lady Aurelie Montblanc sometime before my tenth year of life. She attempted to keep me out of the Circle when I discovered my magic, but she was unsuccessful.” He tipped his head back down, meeting eyes with Sparrow. "This only grows less pleasant. Are you certain you really wish to know?” She was not known for her staying power when things became difficult, after all, and while the tale could hardly cause him any distress, he supposed the same was not true of her.

She had once asked that question herself—had anyone asked for Rilien's story? Of course, it wouldn't have surprised her if people had asked him throughout his journeys. Those inflicted with the Rite of Tranquility were already considered oddities on their own and people in general, whether Elven or human, had always been curious creatures who needed and wanted to hear about things they did not currently understand. Truthfully, she'd never met any other Tranquil, and she still had trouble considering him anything but who he was. He was Rilien. Composed of serene seas, and uniform seashells. Of greater and far more resilient statues than those that cast their shadows over Kirkwall's harbour. The only time she found herself painfully reminded of their differences was when she wanted more than he could give, and she was such a beast who never stopped reaching out.

Thinking back on all of the colourful folk she'd met along her own adventures, Sparrow had never met any Bards, either. She understood now that they were a secretive people who traveled throughout each and every kingdom, carrying songs and stories and tales of grander escapades, and traded whispers if one should so seek their counsel. She only knew these things because Rilien had told her, and even then, they sounded otherworldly. Qunari had no such vocations. They spoke as plainly as Amalia, and sheared through half-truths, much as she did not. She found herself leaning forward, draped across the wheel. Only one story—she wondered what he meant by that, but kept her mouth clamped shut for fear that the story would end prematurely. There was a sadness, she supposed, that resonated from that statement, even if his tone remained temperate, unruffled.

Sparrow anchored her attention back to Rilien, owlish and eager, with her hands digging into the wheel, anticipating a waterfall of something washing over her. Realization or sorrow; she was not so sure what Rilien would say next, but she'd learned early on that the majority of stories that mages had to tell ended in hardship and an ache they couldn't quite shake off. She was sure that his would be no different. However, where her companions were involved, she felt and ached for them with an acuity she'd never believed she had. Common sense might have flown from her as a child, but empathy for her loved ones had strewn thorns and barbs in its wake. The future hardly swayed her, but looking at Rilien now, she wondered who he might have been had he never gone through with the Rite. Beautiful, and perhaps, not much different. She blinked. “Aurelie Montblanc,” she echoed softly, curling the words in her mouth.

Her eyes fell to Rilien's, and she realized he was asking a question. “Yes.” A simple exhale of assent. However, Sparrow paused and took a deep breath from her nose, leaning precariously backwards, while hooking her hands through the spokes. “That's not all I wish to know—who was Aurelie? Was she kind? Were you afraid of your magic then? Do you wish to find your parents? Did you try to run away?” As she had. These were the questions she sought. Pieces of Rilien she'd wanted to assemble to better understand who she may never have the opportunity to see, to know. “The Circle. What happened there? Aurora once said, she told me that she'd learned to dance there. What was it like?”

Rilien pursed his lips, though if it was evidence of anything, it didn’t pan out conclusively. His answers bordered on monosyllabic, mostly because he took her to be asking irrelevant questions. Perhaps this was why he avoided being the person doing most of the talking in any given situation. It was much easier to listen. “A bardmaster. Not especially. No, no, and no, respectively.” Kind and unkind were not really the applicable adjectives for a relationship of the kind he’d had with Lady Montblanc. She was a bardmaster and thus a teacher, as well as a collector of exotic rarities of one kind or another. He doubted she’d have looked twice at him were he more average of coloration, but he also knew that the reason for that was simply business. One had to stand out among others, if one was to be a successful Bard. At least in Orlais. It may serve a Crow well enough to blend, but the nobility where he was from would often refuse to engage a person perceived as bland or boring. His talent had made him good at what he did, but the simple fact was that his appearance had gotten him in the door to begin with, and continued to open other ones thereafter.

“The Circle was nothing special, I do not believe. It had Templars and other mages, both with varying degrees of skill and talent. I recall being bored with the vast majority of them. Speaking in generalities, the mages were fond of me and the Templars were not. I suspect this was largely a consequence of the fact that I frequently deceived them into scenarios designed to produce discomfort or humiliation, but with no actual harm. On balance, I spent approximately one third of my nights in solitary confinement because of this tendency.” Before he’d had much opportunity to be a talented Bard, he was a talented mage, if a troublesome one. It was not as though he could not recall it clearly, it just produced nothing in him any longer. He felt no residual traces of amusement at what he’d done, nor any righteous anger, nor any shame, though he recalled all of the feelings with clarity and distinctness.

Rilien folded his hands in his lap and cast his eyes out over the ocean. Kirkwall was still visible, though from this distance, it was quite small. “If you care so much about the damned Tranquil, then you can be one.” His words were flat as ever, apropos of seemingly nothing. It was clear enough that he was quoting someone else, though he did not specify the context of the statement. He turned his head so as to glance at Sparrow out of the corner of his eye. “There is no justice in the world, and I long ago gave up on seeking it.” It was enough to do what he did, and provide the means for those few who concerned themselves with him to remain as safe as one could in such a world. He had no aspirations to anything grander, not anymore. He left the aspiring to other people, and kept his own feet planted firmly upon the ground.

And so, Sparrow learned that Aurelie was a Bardmaster—not that she particularly understood what the difference was, for weren't all Bard's exclusively masters of their instruments? Perhaps, Aurelie played a myriad of instruments, keeping them all secured to her back while she traveled, but by the sounds of it, the image seemed unlikely. However irrelevant her questions might have been, she still found herself disappointed that this woman hadn't been kind to him. Or kind, in general. He never wondered about his parents, even now? She found it difficult to believe. If he did not remember their faces, surely he wouldn't recall why he had been sold in the first place. If her parents had sold her, she doubted that she would have any interest in finding them, as well. Slavery in itself, or the act of being sold to another, hardly existed in her realm of thoughts. Yes, she'd been born in a segregated part of some smelly city, but she'd also experienced the joy and freedom of the Dalish forests, short as that time was. Rilien had been little more than an accessory being shipped from hand to hand; first, his parents, then Aurelie's, and finally, the Circle's. Afterwards, she wasn't so sure. She supposed that story may have been happier, even if he hadn't felt that way.

She never considered him a tool to begin with. No one was. People simply were—even if Rilien had explained the manner in which Orlais functioned, with all of its systems and snobbish workings, Sparrow would not have understood, nor appreciated any of its intended splendour. Nobility, in her opinion, had no such attraction. They might have worn bejewelled shackles, but they were shackles all the same, and they chose to spend their time oppressing others. It was an ugly system she wished to see unraveled. Her eyebrows drooped down and pinched together. Rilien had no use for any of her sympathies, and comforting words were often unnecessary. Even still, she wished to soothe the sorrows he could not feel. To be robbed of the selfish opportunity made her feel hollow. What had she expected? Something of the ordinary. Or the kind of reaction a woman might have had, while attempting to calm their quivering lips. Rilien was neither, so her repertoire of savvy responses was like an empty coin-purse. She, did, however, listen without interruption. The only indication that she wanted to ask more questions was a brief puff of her cheeks.

Reflecting on the wooden masterpieces Ashton had created, it didn't surprise her that Rilien had been somewhat of a rascal. She was still glad to hear it. In those caves, for whatever brief time they'd been in there, Ashton and the others had glimpsed the missing pieces of Rilien from long before. They'd also seen something that could have been. Whether or not she'd ever come to grips with the fact that he'd chosen differently, and did not suffer the consequences, Sparrow wanted to see him that way. She wanted to see him cry and scream and laugh with the genuineness reserved for those who could. No amount of questions could bring about the reception she wanted. But she would try. She couldn't stop. His answers painted pictures across a great canvas, and even if she alone stood as a single, selfish observer, she would stay. Cranking the wheel hard to the right, Sparrow steered the ship towards the Wounded Coast but stopped short and turned inwards, towards an outcrop of slanting rocks and smoothed out stone. She busied herself moving the sails into position and snapping the rudder towards the rocks. It was only upon closer inspection that the questionable harbour could be seen, and she managed the dinghy with surprising confidence.

If you care so much about the damned Tranquil, then you can be one. Sparrow's shoulders grew rigid as Kirkwall's statues, and her stomach felt as heavy as their foundations. Whatever source those words had come from felt startlingly relevant to her own life, as well. Her mouth slivered open, then snapped closed. He might've been right. She wasn't ready to hear the rest. His life was a landscape, as far as the eye could see, of brackish hostility. Of the deepest distress and betrayals. She was not ready. If there were no good moments to give, then she was only scraping her nails across old wounds he could not feel. The lump in her throat jumped and settled like an iron fist. She, too, did not believe in justice. Not the kind that knights carried at their hips. Not the kind that the Chantry waved in the air, either. She fought for making herself feel better, but that sort've thing never cloaked itself under the veil of honesty. “I don't know about justice,” she replied breathlessly, “but there are some things best not to give up on.” Motioning with her hand, she beckoned him to stand while she finished all the essential preparations to keep the ship from sailing away without them. Without a moment's hesitation, Sparrow threw herself across the gap and landed on the mossy wooden slats, already clambering up the rocks.

Giving up.

Was that what he had done? Rilien did not know if that was the best characterization for it. He had simply decided that it would be better to cease depending on anything in particular. If the only things he needed were the things he could provide himself, then it would simply not matter what the world was or was not like, how far it sank or how high it rose, according to whose standards. If that was giving up, then perhaps he had. There seemed to be little value in doing otherwise. And yet—there were some things Rilien still knew he could not always do for himself. Even he needed to rely on other things sometimes, other people, even. Certainly, he would not have been able to slay Abraxas by himself, magic or no. He had tried to choose the most solid, reliable people he could for these purposes, and ones who would not mind him overmuch for being what he was, but
 to get from that to relying on anything else seemed like a gulf he simply could not cross. He was self-contained, stretching out into the world just as far as his limbs would allow, to touch only what was closest. His feelings did not extend any further than that. They could not. Rilien stood on command, and trailed Sparrow up the bank, looking a mite odd climbing a rock face, so obviously urban as he was.

And this is what she wanted to show him. She neared the mouth and placed a hand across the lumpy stones. Another home away from home—a place to escape, should he so desire to. Should they both desire it. Clear, unbridled satisfaction was riddled across her features; like a child with a toy held aloft in its hands. There were indications that she'd been here many times before. Some things had been moved here; chairs, a large chest and a fire pit a little further inside; as well as her old suit of armour hanging on its own wooden rack. “What d'you think, Ril? Glorious, isn't it? I mean, it smells a little, but if we were pirates, and needed somewhere to lay low, this would be it.” Her throat grew thick again. There were squeaks and chattering coming from above, probably sea-birds nesting in her hideout. “I mean, if you ever wanted to escape. This place would be safe for you and I.”

The environment was certainly about as far removed from Rilien’s aesthetic as it was possible to get. The polished cleanliness and silks of his person were sharply at odds with the earthen hideaway, the fire pit with raw wood, and the faint smell of something odorous. But then something in his body language shifted a little, and in a blink, it was as though he had blended a little, blurred slightly at the edges, and the contrast was no longer so sharp. These were things he knew how to do—hold himself in certain ways, move certain muscles in his body or his face, and suddenly he was more or less intrusive, depending on his surroundings.

He could tell by the expression on Sparrow’s face that she was quite proud of her accomplishment—it was a look that people wore when they were expecting praise. Rilien moved his eyes back to the hideaway, and then back to her, and decided that there was no especial reason why he should not meet those expectations. It took him all of two seconds to remember how, but he pulled one side of his mouth slightly upwards, just barely, the expression flickering across his face for barely a moment before it was gone, like a shadow of something that had been, but could be no longer. "The location was well-chosen.” Any hope that the inflection of his voice might change to match the tiny piece of affected pleasure on his face was dashed by the monotone. But still—he’d said it, and he’d meant it.

Sparrow stood like a hound expecting a bone. Any measure of bedazzled fascination at finding such a hidden cove of... mostly brine, but she could bring treasure here if she so wished. Her expectations might have been a little misplaced, given that Rilien operated through pure, unrestrained logistics and always followed an unimaginable system that would make a librarian blush. But she still expected, as she always did. Shallow creatures groped for pretty words. Even if this particular discovery was moss-covered and smelled like a natural version of Kirkwall's dirty harbour. At least the water was cleaner. No bodies floating around, either. A perfect childhood hideaway. She was sure that if it had been Amalia standing in Rilien's place, the response might have been the same—and for reasons she could not describe, she felt fortunate.

Her expression slowly ebbed away as she puzzled over his smile. A flicker of something. Or a twitch of the lips, more like. It lasted the length it took her to close the distance between them, until she stood in front of him and held her hands at the side of his face, dipping her head slightly to the side. Rough hands splayed beside his cheeks, not quite touching but inches from doing so. She yearned and craved and expected such compliments, and the fact that Rilien found them unnecessary in the most analytic way seemed to make them all the more gratifying. A more sensible mind may have presumed that Rilien expected excellence, and so, by remaining silence, it might have meant that she'd done well. Silence, in her opinion, only soured the milk. It never spoke volumes. It did not sate her hunger. She blinked and cupped his cheeks in her hands, pulling the corners of his mouth up with her thumbs.

Not quite how she imagined. Her face twitched. And when she could no longer hold it in, laughter bubbled from her lips as she released her loose grip on him and turned away to study the cove. “I'm glad, I really am.” Sparrow leaned backwards with her hands on her hips and hopped beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Our secret cove, then.”

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Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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It felt odd, to be encased in a sheath of guard mail instead of his typical light leathers and silent boots. Ashton was still in his transitional phase from lowly shopkeep to lowly guardsman, but there was progress the be found. For one, he was no longer a prospective guardsman, but a fully fledged one. It had been about a month, give or take a few days that Ashton revealed his intentions to join the guards to Nostariel. In those few weeks, they rushed him through the training process and spat him out as fast as they safely could. He had been right that the guard's numbers were down due to the Qunari and the extracurriculars of a select few who perhaps were best left unnamed. Fortunately Ashton was no greenhorn looking for a paycheck, years of living in the heart of Lowtown and taking on some of the more dangerous errands with his friends had prepared him more than a few sword swings at a straw dummy ever would. Of all those that had answered the guard's summons, he was among the few who had the most combat experience, having faced Darkspawn, Qunari, and bandits in equal measure.

It meant little in rank, however. He still started on the bottom rung of the ladder and he'd have to climb his way to the top tooth and nail. They'd taken his leathers and machete and stuffed him in a uniform and gave him a proper sword. The one thing they'd never take from him was his bow and it remained strung on his back, a quiver full of arrows sitting beside it. As long as he had a guardsman sword they'd let him keep the arrows, he'd been told. A fair agreement in his head. He would hate to be armed only with a sword in the dark alleyways he now patrolled. While he looked the part, a soldier he was not, at least not yet. At heart he'd forever be an archer first and foremost.

"Any baddies here? Maybe they'll be polite and turn themselves in, hmm? Would save us the trouble." He spoke aloud, mostly to Snuffy who loped at his side. Even his faithful hound was outfitted to seem more official with a light layer of kaddis displaying the guard crest on her back. Their patrol had been quiet thus far, and there was no indication that was going to change. Not that he complained. He'd rather enjoy the easy peace of a quiet street than have it erupt in a fountain of gang members out for his blood. He'd chosen his own patrol and he chose Lowtown, letting some of the greener recruits safer areas like Hightown and guard duty in the Keep. He wasn't so brave as to attempt Darktown without another partner... or several. Snuffy was a wonderful hound, just not the entirity of Darktown wonderful. A lone uniform there was like a big kill me please sign. He'd rather the relatively safe Lowtown.

Relatively.

A wiser woman might have adopted a faithful hound to watch her stagger through the streets like a sloppy spaghetti noodle, but she was not wise and hounds as loyal as Snuffles were hard to come by. Besides, Sparrow doubted that she could properly care for any other living being if she could not even care for herself. From her hazy view of the alleyways, the streets appeared fairly empty anyway. Not that she could see particularly well. Kirkwall looked much different, in this light. A little less ugly. Swaying tapestries of bright, flapping colors danced in the small licks of moonlight pouring down from the skies. Occasionally, her hands darted out to clutch at the air, as if she could hold the tubes of light. She dared not look up or the world would swallow her whole. Waking up with an egg-sized lump on her head sounded as appealing as dragging herself back home, dejected and still lost in all those thoughts that swam in her skull. Instead of ruminating and reflecting in front of a creaky desk, Sparrow did what she did best in times of thoughtless abandon—she got piss-drunk. In the months passed, she'd thought herself cleansed of those bad habits, of those rank pulls. Habits, it seemed, were hard things to shake, and maybe, she hadn't been as ready as she thought.

Slumping against one of the buildings, Sparrow pressed her cheek against one of the cool bricks and closed her eyes. The world span behind her eyelids, urging her to follow its momentum and continue forward else her head might spin off her shoulders. Like her ripped tunic, slipping freely down her shoulder until she grumbled at nothing in particular and fiddled with her non-existent buttons. While she hardly left home without wearing some form of protective gear, she didn't want to ruin Amalia's hard-work. Ruining the leather by means of vomit or dirt would be a disservice to such beautiful leathers, and so, they remained hung up in her hovel. It still felt strange wearing normal clothes. A soft, fitted tunic that was more or less ruined, and a pair of leather trousers loosely belted and haphazardly tucked into unlaced boots. One might have wondered whether she'd been at the Hanged Man or just woken up, too sleepy and rushed to bother making herself look presentable. “Stupid moron,” she babbled, slapping at her cheek, “Tell me about... story, I said, stupid.”

Suddenly pushing away from the wall, a little too forcefully, she careened into the streets; jerky legs instinctively trying to keep its upper half from taking them both down. The impending danger of the ground kissing her face seemed of no concern to her, because the world felt as if it were tilting to compensate for her lack of balance. Everything was right in the world, or else, in hers. Warmth spread through her stomach, even as the empty bottle slipped from her fingers, bouncing off the toes of her boot and disappearing behind an empty stall. A voice called out somewhere to her right—or was it her left? Or even below? Cocking her head slowly in both directions, Sparrow detected nothing out of the ordinary and decidedly hunched lower, slowly swaying in what might have been an attempt at a silent tip-toe, moving towards another alley. It was neither quiet nor sneaky.

Thunk.

She fell flat on the ground. Far from where she'd been sneaking. Somehow, she had managed to make it into a wide open space and from her sideways vantage, someone was standing there. In a uniform. Shiny. Brown, maybe. And a dog. Or something furry. Lopsided silhouettes tended to look like any kind of critter. She stared at them flatly, searching for a face, and dumbly realized that the man was facing the other direction.

“Whu... this is my alley, you.”

Ashton had whirled around in an instant, hand already reaching for his bow when he realized how entirely unnecessary it was. Even Snuffy bit off a growl as she too realized who had fallen behind them. Sparrow and stealth went as well together as oil and water, it just didn't happen. Ashton paused for a moment to let what he was seeing register before laughing. "So much for a quiet patrol," He told Snuffy who had trotted to the prone Sparrow. Ashton followed soon after, coming to a kneel in front of her.

He held a single finger in the air as a father would do to quieten a child before plunging it down onto her forehead. "Technically," Ashton began, issuing the most haughty tone he could manage, "This is my alley, you. Gotta keep them safe from ruffian vagabonds such as yourself." A mock frown etched into his features before it broke into a genuine smile as Snuffy began to lick Sparrow's face.

"Come on, let's get you to your feet," He said with a smile in attempt to help her stand again. That's when he caught a whiff of the alcohol on her. All of it. "Damn Sparrow, what? Did you sack a brewery while I wasn't looking?"

Sparrow presumed an alert stance in her mind, but in reality, hardly budged from her prone, cheek-to-ground position. She squinted up at the blurry figures, wondering whether or not that furry creature was some sort of monster-cat. No, no—it was a hound. A Snuffy. It was Snuffy. But why was she here? And with a stranger? Snuffy never usually left Ashton's side, and that might have been a more telling sign, but her rattled thoughts immediately hooked onto the singular thought: kidnap. It was obvious, wasn't it? The stern interrogation for committing such a lofty crime against her friend came out as another gurgle, holding none of the intimidation she'd conjured in her head. “Quiet... patrol? Pah!” This couldn't be Ashton. He wasn't a guard. And besides, what kind of guard stole, anyway?

She opened her mouth to sputter some colourful expletive, but the shadowy stranger held up a finger. A finger! How dare he—and then, the offending finger tapped down on her forehead and the blurry image become clearer. Finally dragging her arms up in front of her, Sparrow broke into a fit of snorts and chest-rattling laughter. She swiped at her eyes and blinked up at him. “Oh. You are Ashton. Did you, did you... steal a guard's uniform? Why would you do that?” As soon as Snuffy started licking her face, she attempted to shoo her away with weak, floppy hands. To no avail, mind you.

And then, the world began to right itself as Ashton tugged her back to her feet. Her legs protested, but it felt immeasurably better than lying on the ground. Sparrow squinted her eyes harder at him, peering close enough so that her nose nearly touched his cheek. Then, as abruptly as she'd stumbled into sight, she pulled back and nodded her head, as sage as a drunkard could be. “Ah! You are Ashton, then. Yup—and no, no. I think the bartender is fond of me, is all. Why else,” she threw her arms out wide, “would he send me home with his best ale.” For harassing everyone else in the tavern.

"Last I checked, yeah, I was still Ashton," He chuckled as he let Sparrow stand on her own two feet, though not without caution. He had a hand at the ready in case she threatened to take another plunge face first into the cobblestones. "I'd say he's a little too fond, I mean, how many of me do you see anyway?" He asked with a smirk. He then began to sway side to side, subtly at first to see if she would notice. Despite his words, he didn't miss the initial hesitance Sparrow had displayed, but it wasn't anything he didn't understand. Sparrow hadn't seen him in his uniform yet. Hell, he wasn't sure she even knew about his intentions to become a guard, it wasn't something he paraded around his circles.

"Oh Sparrow, you wound me. I don't steal... Well, I didn't steal this one, anyway," He scratched the back of his neck and averted eye contact as he spoke. The ones that he did had long been disposed of, along with the sword that came with it. Besides, the one that he wore now fit a lot better and didn't ride up in sensitive areas. "They give one to you when you pass training. You, my friend, are looking at one Ser Guard Riviera, esquire. Defender of the peace, protector of the innocent, and friend to a very certain drunk," He said with a playful wink. "Come on, let's get that ale and you home, hmm?" He said, offering her a shoulder to grab on to. He'd been drunk once before too, he remembered how hard walking was.

"What were you drinking for this time?" he asked in an attempt at conversation.

She narrowed her eyes at him, as if to verify his sincerity. Yes, this was Ashton. She had already identified the telltale scar. Sparrow pinwheeled her arms in a slow circle before regaining her sloppy balance, eyeing the ground suspiciously. How dare it move in such a way. Her mouth quibbled to blubber such accusations, but as soon as her eyes swayed back to Ashton, she had already forgotten. “You,” she cooed with a shake of her head, “Just you. And no shadow... are you sure you're Ashton? Serrah man-guard.” She followed his swaying. First with her eyes, then with her head, until she grew dizzy enough to prod a limp-finger into his chest. Or shoulder. Close enough. Ashton the guardsman. The Kirkwall guardsman. It had an odd ring to it. Why would he do that, anyhow?

Well, this supposed-Ashton knew her name, so that was proof enough of his character. Surely, a pretender wouldn't have known who she was. She was a stealthy beast of crafty proportions after all. That sounded nice, come to think of it. She bobbed her head agreeably. Well, if he hadn't stolen it to add to his repertoire of stolen outfits, she supposed that she believed him. Her squinted eyes could have passed for fatigue or veiled astonishment, depending on how one looked at them. “Ser Guard Riviera! Congra, congura, good!” She threw out her arms in celebration and nearly toppled backwards, if it weren't for Snuffy's resilient post behind her, pushing her back to her feet as a colt might. “That does have a mighty fine ring to it, doesn't it? Ser Guard. Riviera, Ser Guard Ashton. Guard Ashton, ser. Protector.” Her rattling laugh carried her forward, where she slung one droopy arm over the man's shoulder. If she'd known any better, and this was not indeed Ashton, she might have been marching off to jail again.

Ah well. When Ashton posed the question, Sparrow crinkled her nose and rolled her eyes skyward, turning the question in her head. Why had she been drinking this time? Why, why. “Oh,” she exhaled solemnly, “There's no ale left, y'know.” She took another breath, heedless of the languishing weight she applied onto Serrah Ashton's shoulders. “Rilien, y'know. He doesn't look like that wooden plate. And, I, no, no.” She pursed her lips and clamped her eyes shut, and recovered. “We sailed to a cave, and I said, I said, this can be home. Like, I can be home.” She swung another stare. Perfect explanation.

"Oh, there's plenty of ale. I can smell it on you from a mile out," Ashton said, having valiantly resisted the urge to poke her in the belly. The rest of her words, however, took a while to decipher and he had a sneaking feeling that if he was drunk as well, he'd understand her perfectly. Alas for sobriety. Still, he remembered being able to understand her, or at least thought he was able to understand her when they both were properly sauced. For all he knew, he could've been hearing something completely different from what she was saying-- but that all that felt so long ago...

"Rilien and that wooden plate...?" He repeated, thinking on what she meant. It didn't take long for the cogs to turn and he remembered the portraits he had carved-- she must had seen the one he had made of Rilien. "Oh! That one. Yeah... But he did, once." And he wasn't talking about the one time in the cave either. Before Ashton, before Sparrow, Rilien the Tranquil, was Rilien the Mage. He never asked about the latter, because to him, he was neither tranquil nor mage, he was just Rilien. Nothing more, nothing less, just a close friend. The next series of blubbering words were a bit harder to peice together. "Wait. You sailed? To a cave? Like, in a boat? The hell'd you get a boat?" He asked confused. Not only had she apparently gotten a boat, but also somehow managed to learn how to sail.

Ashton shook his head to brush his confusion off. The boat wasn't the important part, it was what came afterwards. "Home? Sparrow. This is home." He agreed with a knowing smile.

“Plenty of ale,” Sparrow parroted with a snicker, rolling her eyes skyward. Tattered flags and balconies swirled overhead. Combining muted colours, swaying in the wind. Seeing the world in such a light, as drunk as she was, could have been considered refreshing. With her stomach burning and her legs disobeying simple orders, she found herself sorely missing the simplicity of not caring. There were too many unanswered questions rattling around in that skull of hers, just when she'd begun to clean out the cobwebs to make room for things she'd yet to experience. As of recent, she had decided to stop running from her problems, but here she was, still running, in a manner of speaking. Stumbling around Kirkwall, more like. She dunked her head closer and nudged his shoulder with her forehead, before dipping forward, laugh rattling her entire being.

What she wanted to do exactly remained a futuristic mystery; an island bobbing on the horizon. Holding promises and lengthy conversations that she couldn't bear to voice, and words that would not crack the surface. Rilien might have been patient with her outbursts, however unintelligible, but hers was a minute, mostly nonexistent thing. Her tiny footsteps evolved into coltish stumbles, and no matter what way she looked at it, waking Rilien in a drunken stupor seemed like a bad idea any way she imagined it. He would not understand—illogical, he'd say. Or he'd try to appease her. And neither did she.

Understanding this feeling would've taken a tremendous amount of reflection; and she was childish and selfish, still a sapling in all accounts. She blinked up at him and bobbed her head with a grim frown. It hardly lasted a second when Ashton mentioned sailing and her majestic boat and the cave she'd discovered. “Oh yes, my boat! Sophauriel. You see what I did? A combined the names of lovely lasses,” she cooed brightly, “From the bad ones. The, you know. We killed them. I mean, Ithilian and Rilien, we—uh, you weren't there were you?”

She blinked again, trying to piece together her foggy memories. But the veils were too heavy, and Sparrow simply shrugged her shoulders and grinned. Home. Such a strange word. One she had come to seek out with feverish desperation and one she'd been able to speak aloud when referring to such a strange place. “Home,” her body slowly slackened against his shoulder and she turned to look back up at him, owlish and wide-eyed. She pulled on his neck and peered uncomfortably closer. “You really mean that?”

"Think about it Sparrow," Ashton said, turning toward her own very close head. "I don't know about you, but there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be than here with everyone. How about you? Anywhere you'd rather be than with us? With him?" He said. He followed the question up with a very sudden, but playful headbutt, the risk of drawing far too close to his face. Hard enough to knock, but soft enough that no damage was done. "That's what makes it home."

She stared at him. Murky eyes wide with wonder—as if she was witnessing a miracle, or an assembly of shooting stars, or the first time she successfully kind of sailed her ship. Had anyone ever said anything so kind to her? Maybe. She couldn't remember. And the harder she tried to recount the memories, the more the ground beneath her swayed like the seas. Had she even asked the question before? Maybe. Her assumptions were simple. She belonged wherever her friends were situated, but never accounted for any particular area.

She struggled with the idea of freedom and the need for acceptance, for all of her faults. Even so, despite her addled state, it was strange to hear aloud. Sparrow blinked up at him when Ashton butted her head, producing a rattling laugh from her gut. She finally withdrew her face, kindly sparing her friend from her ale-breath. She drew her free hand to clap him gently on the cheek and readjusted her grip on his shoulder. The sadness that gripped her own shoulders seemed much lighter.

“Seems as if I've been closer to home than I thought. Home. Home.”

She liked the sound of that.

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Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion
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Flowers had their own personalities, too. Sparrow had taken to naming them after her friends. She questioned whether or not she was spending too much time tending to them, but the books she'd borrowed from Rilien, specifically on botany and herbalism, strictly directed would-be greens-keepers to treat their flowers as if they were little people—or else, the author was the strange one. She didn't mind it. There was a small row of sunflowers, startlingly tall; ripe for the picking. A small satchel swung at her hip, holding seeds that she plucked in passing. Sunny-yellow petals, with stalks reaching out into the sky; higher than the others, they reminded her the most of Aurora. She, like the others, missed her in Kirkwall.

The most fragrant of the bunch lied in twisted bunches; mixing with blue-bells and twisted branches: alyssum. Dainty white flowers that didn't look like much until you swept past them and caught a whiff. Perfumed with the sweet scent of honey that often dominated the entire garden, and the main attractor of colourful beetles and flighty lacewings; they reminded her of Ashton. Unassuming from the outside, but capable of bringing out the best in people. The comparison would've been better if he were a woman. Looking closer at the hanging bluebells, lied starry-pink flowers that appeared as if they were bursting into long strands. The name eluded her: puff-balls, she'd decided. If she puffed on the blossom-shaped petals, the leaves would close in on themselves. Similar to how Amalia used to be, but surrounded by all of the other flowers, without interruption, they would open up all on their own.

There lied the upturned Calla lilies, assorted in colour; pure-white, with shades of yellow, green and purple. They were sculpted like vases. Delicate with strong stalks; delicate and strong—Nostariel for certain. While she may have scoffed hearing herself being viewed in such away, Nostariel, at least to Sparrow, was very much a woman. For all of the knightly things she'd done in her life, with and without the Wardens, she'd seen her change throughout the years. Become stronger and happier and brighter, while still maintaining the same strength she admired. She crouched down in the dirt and sifted clumps through her fingers, examining her dirty fingernails. As of recent, she'd been returning home with fresh callouses, dirt-stained hands and smelt of flowers (fortunately for anyone around her, for it always beat stinking of fish and brine).

To her right was the only Yarrow bush in the entire garden. Growing on the outskirts, outside of where she'd meant to plant it. However it was clearly the hardiest of the bunch; throughout cold bouts, droughts and heat, it hardly withered. Spicy-scented and strewn with yellow and red clusters, she was aptly reminded of Ithilian. Watching from a higher vantage point but not straying too close unless he was asked to; a guardian to his own garden, his home. Even when he tried his best not to be noticed, it was near impossible. His presence was always impossible to ignore.

Closest to her feet, nestled between flowers, grew a patch of Sage. Had it not been for Aurora's good eyes, she never would have found it—might've trampled over it, too. It was perfect for herbalists; an all-purpose plant used to reduce swelling and heal wounds, cook wonderful food and as a curative for sore throats, colds and fevers. Hidden from view and growing in the strangest of places, convenient when you understood it, but puzzling from its appearance; there were no flowers at all, only fuzzy leaves. Velvety to the touch and the closer she looked, the more it looked like ash or snow had fallen. To anyone else, it might've looked like a weed. Rilien, perhaps. Sometimes, she brought leaves back to him to have hung up and dried, for whatever use he may have. Sometimes, she watches. Most of the time, she doesn't understand.

Sparrow took a deep breath from her nose, and exhaled through her mouth; wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Together, in the unlikeliest places, flowers and people could grow.

Ithilian made his way out of his house once more, now wracked by a considerable amount of soreness, in places he never would have expected. Amalia's routines had really pushed him, but he knew it would be beneficial in the end, even if it was a pain in the ass now. For the moment, the Alienage was not in need of regular protection, given the way the entire city had calmed down in the wake of the chaos. Now that the dust had fully settled, it was as though everyone had lost their will for troublemaking for the time being. It would not last, but it was nice while it did, and Ithilian meant to make good use of the time.

He'd intended to make his way up out of the Alienage to what was now Lia's shop, though it was still ultimately owned by Ashton. Lia had worked the store on her own for several days now, and was doing well to start out, but Ithilian still felt that regular check-ins were warranted. Amalia and Nostariel and Ashton would swing by when they could, but this morning was Ithilian's turn. He was stopped short, however, upon sighting Sparrow, crouched down among flowers and dirt.

She wasn't exactly a common sight in the Alienage, though she was known enough by now to be welcome. Ithilian wasn't actually aware if she and Amalia had worked out whatever differences they had fully, but if they hadn't and Amalia didn't want Sparrow around, he assumed she would have taken care of that already. She was harmless enough, in intentions at least, and much more of a friend to elves than many. It was enough for him.

"We should be paying all you gardeners," he commented, stopping once he was close enough to speak comfortably. "The Alienage was downright drab before." Ithilian was certainly no gardener. No Dalish were, really. The idea of a garden relied on being stationary, and that was the opposite of what the clans were.

As always, Sparrow did not hear Ithilian's approach, rather she jerked away from the shrubs like a child with its hand jutting out of the pantry—not that she was doing anything particularly wrong, but she never expected Ithilian to approach her willingly. Even if they were on better terms than before, though she suspected the majority of it was a mild-mannered tolerance born from her relationship with Amalia. Perhaps she was wrong and he genuinely saw her as someone of respect. Or else, he might have just seen her as a moderately irritating stray cat that drifted in and out of the Alienage, doing no damage that would warrant shooing her away (with the pointy end of his knives).

She swept her hand back across her head, smudging dirt and flecks of pebbles across, before pushing herself back to her feet with an exaggerated yawn, as if she hadn't been surprised by his sudden appearance and she'd just finished what she'd been doing. Of course, Ithilian no longer caused her to bristle. Not quite, anyhow. He no longer posed as a threat when it came to Amalia, either, though the age-old green monster sometimes stewed like the remnants of a smothered fire. Immaturity still reigned its ugly head, but she was growing; she was sure of it. Hopefully.

“Paying?” Sparrow parroted and scratched her chin, mock-considering such a proposition. Her reasons for sporadically visiting the Alienage and tending the gardens did go beyond boredom, or doing Aurora a favour in her absence. However, she didn't understand herself enough to acknowledge those reasons. She felt like she'd found a home in Kirkwall, for all its dark secrets and histories, but she only half belonged. It was in the way people tended to look at her—humans and elves, alike. The elves in the Alienage fought for their freedoms, and the humans in Kirkwall fought to maintain what they had. She wasn't so sure what she fought for.

“Consider it a favour, of sorts.” She eluded to none in particular, of which there were many. Her serious expression demurred, and crinkled into amusement. “It does look nice, doesn't it? Though if I let them be, you might find yourself trekking through a forest of flowers and prickly shrubs.” Sparrow took a few steps back and eyed the garden, nodding her head. She hummed low in her throat and tipped her gaze up towards the tree growing in the center, coloured with bright reds and blues and greens: beautiful. It reminded her of something. “You left the Alienage for awhile, hadn't you?” She paused and shifted her gaze towards the sky, squinting. “Did you happen onto any... y'know, others like you?”

She supposed that part of the reason she appeared so often was because she was waiting. A stupid, hopeless child, still searching.

"Other Dalish, you mean?" Ithilian asked, raising an eyebrow at the half-elf. He wasn't sure why the question was phrased as it was. She knew full well the people he came from, and what to call them. Willing to pin it on her awkwardness around him, Ithilian carried on.

"I did, actually. I sought them out on information given to me by Lucien." In hindsight, it was fairly strange that he'd made such a move on the words of a human mercenary at a time when he had not yet relinquished his hold on blind hate, but he'd also been in a strange state of mind, and more willing to accept things that had slipped by him before. And it had really only affected the direction of his search, not his decision to search in the first place.

"I found the Relaferin clan in Ferelden, and stayed with them for a time. Why do you ask?" The details of that trip were rather intensely personal, and he was not of a mind to delve into them on a whim, but it was possible that she sought something else.

“Dalish!” Sparrow parroted again, albeit full of daft bluster. Her eyes widened expectantly, as if he'd inadvertently cleared all of the confusion. Or any of her awkwardness—either way, it was an admission that he had seen some, right? Of course! She stepped forward and barely contained the urge to grab him by the shoulders, in order to squeeze the information out of him in the kindest way possible. Her social conventions and civilities were as polished as the dirt crusted under her fingernails. That is to say, Sparrow blundered through them with bearish force.

And as soon as Ithilian admitted that yes he had, her shoulders squared and excitement danced across her face. Perhaps, perhaps, he'd seen them after all. He wouldn't have known of any connections between them, lest they spoke of her. Unless they remembered her and still sought her out after all these years—perhaps. Attempting to wrestle down her childish hopes came as a brief twitch of her lips, which soon after liberated itself into an eager grin. Several questions bullied through her mind... like, how Lucien had obtained the information in the first place. And if he, too, might know of any other Dalish clans in the area, or if the Relaferin clan had spoken of the one she'd been briefly accepted into.

“You did? You stayed with them?” She blustered and shifted her gaze to the ground in an effort to conjure up the name. What was the clan's name again? It was her mother's clan, after all—so why couldn't she remember? Not that she was particularly interested in things like that as a child; its history and traditions remained a mystery. The only thing she could remember was their strange affiliations with the Halla. Almost every one of them had one of their own, connected as children, or so they said. Deer-things. Halla-riders? No. She turned back to Ithilian and pinched her stunted ears, waggling her eyebrows. “As you know, I'm a bastard. Er, I... were there any nearby clans? Full of Halla? I mean, Halla everywhere. Er, song of the people. I can't remember. An Elvish woman and a human man.”

She rubbed at her temples, and crossed her arms, scrunching her face up. She'd never once considered that they might have been dead. Or far, far away from her.

Ithilian was starting to see where this was going, and he was able to relax more now that he had a grasp on what Sparrow was after. This wasn't about him, no prying inquiries into his own past or anything of the sort; this was about Sparrow. The bird wanted to know if he'd heard anything about where her nest was. Sadly, he had not known to listen for that at the time.

"We encountered no other clans while I was with them, no. Messengers, sometimes, but no full clans. I certainly don't remember any mention of a clan with that many Halla." Clans sometimes kept in touch, but bad things tended to happen when too many elves gathered in one spot. Human kingdoms didn't seem to like it. With the whole of Thedas to wander, they often lost touch with one another, only to regain it a decade later.

"You're looking for your mother, then? Or... your father." He supposed that could be just as likely. Old instincts took a long time to fade, even more so when Ithilian was far beyond youth. He reminded himself that he didn't know the first detail of this union. It could have been love, like Arianni thought she'd had when she left the Dalish for Feynriel. Or it could have been something else entirely. And he didn't know the first thing about where Sparrow came from. Judging from the fact that she was a Dalish bastard and had past history with the Qunari at least in the form of Amalia, it wasn't anything remotely simple.

"It could be done, with a lot of luck. It was years ago when I visited the Relaferin. They may have moved since then, or they may not have. They may have heard news of this clan you're after. A lot depends on chance. The Dalish aren't supposed to be easy to find." There was the matter of his current lack of information, too. Ithilian hooked his thumbs behind his belt, glancing down a moment and beginning somewhat awkwardly with his question.

"Your mother was Dalish, you said, and your father human? That... tends to be complicated, if the relationship is one of consent. She likely would have been pressured into leaving the clan, for laying with a human. If she isn't with a clan anymore, then my help is quite useless, I'm afraid."

Sparrow stared at him, nearly bristling with energy—excited to hear any news comprised of what she was looking for, even though the chances were unlikely. She hated dipping her feet in disappointment and if she set her heart on something it was difficult enough realizing that she might have been unrealistic, so when Ithilian conceded that he hadn't seen any other clans, she appeared to deflate. Shoulders slumping and eyes slinking down to her dirty boots.

She did attach herself to a few of his words, and like a child bent on getting what it wanted, Sparrow's gaze flit back up to her only means of information. Personal space? No. She stepped closer to him, eyes spinning. Messengers. If there were messengers, then they must have come from another clan, somewhere in the distance. And if what Ithilian said was true, and she had no reason to doubt his experiences, then it might not be too far of a stretch to admit that the clan she sought could very well be in the area. Which meant she still had a chance.

“Both of them,” she babbled between bated breaths. Even the mention of such things—father and mother, Sparrow felt elated. She had barely flakes or a fragments of a memory to chew on, but she remembered the feelings as clearly as the beating sun on her face, as the salt on her skin whenever she sailed that unruly ship of hers. She remembered kindness, and warmth and love that drove them both to sacrifice their previous lives to construct a better life for them. She remembered stories, and a few Dalish words, as well as the Halla that influenced their lives. Of her parents, she remembered little; dark eyes, perhaps. Or skin as ruddy as her own.

If what Ithilian said was true, finding a Dalish clan with a human... clansmen, kin, could be impossible. How then, did she remember living among them? She was so sure that he'd been there, as well. She took a deep breath and studied Ithilian's face, uncomfortably close. A foot between them, as she might have if Amalia had been the one standing before her. Personal space? Never. Qunari had no use for that. And she certainly didn't either. Seemingly ages ago, she'd been a much different person. Colder, harsher. Until meeting Amalia, and going through the process of becoming someone new. It occurred to her that she'd never actually met anyone Dalish since she'd shed that skin, and even if she did happen onto her family, she wouldn't know how to approach them. Sparrow was many things, but not of the Qun, and not Dalish; hardly an elf.

“You're the only one that could help me,” she mused, heedless of the fact that he hadn't actually consented to help her. Sometimes she asked, and other times she artlessly anticipated. Surely, Ashton could help her track them down, but he knew just as much as she did about Dalish traditions, or their etiquette, and secretive nature. Being pin-cushioned with arrows seemed a high probability if they found any clan, especially looking like two wayward humans, and with little more than a few Dalish words spoken between them, there would probably more than a few misunderstandings. “You're the only Dalish I know of, and I, even if I were to find them on my own, I wouldn't know how... I'm not Dalish. I don't remember.”

She watched as his gaze dropped to the ground, and finally stepped back as soon as the question was stated. Stumble, rather. A bubble of indignant warmth swirled in her gut as an errant muscle jumped along her jaw, “Of course it was consensual! They were in love. We were together,” Sparrow's voice rose and trickled away, like the momentary spurt of anger. Trickling through her fingers, because she could not clearly recall the things she needed to know. To prove that they'd been together in the clan: accepted as one. Hadn't they? Her head throbbed. She wheeled back towards Ithilian, eyebrows scrunched. “What if she were the Keeper? They make the rules, right? It can't be the same for every clan. It isn't fair. That isn't fair.”

"The world isn't concerned with fair," Ithilian said, somewhat firmly. "You should know that by now." Any mage should, especially any mage who had gone through what Sparrow had. Apart from that... he was honestly having a bit of trouble processing this. Sparrow was a Keeper's daughter? The Keeper fell in love with a human man, and the three of them were together. That was what Ithilian had to go on.

"The Keeper does not make the rules," he corrected. "They guide the clan, lead the clan, but the Dalish have traditions, things that are tied to who we are as a people. The Keeper's task is to keep these traditions alive." The Keeper's authority rested on the clan's belief in their wisdom. They were not rulers. "First among these traditions is our separation from the shemlen. The clans interpret this law differently, but it is treated as law. No human can ever be Dalish. If your mother, a Keeper of a clan, allowed a shem to live with the clan out of attachment for him... I'm sorry, but I can't see that going well."

The Dalish were not always opposed to hospitality, but there was a difference between the kindness of finding a lost shem and saving them and allowing them to live with them. Such a transgression would cause the clan to be seen as little different than the city elves, if the Keeper allowed it to stand. The result, as far as Ithilian could guess, would be the removal of the Keeper if she refused to change her stance. Even if the clan got behind her, the other clans would likely cut off communication with them. Either way would make it difficult to find her or the human father.

But... there was clearly something he was overlooking here. Sighing, Ithilian tried to ignore Sparrow's childish nature as she bounced around him. Truly, she was worse than Lia. "As it happens, I know someone who may be able to help. He may have knowledge that only the Keepers are privy to." It was unlikely Emerion had been to an Arlathvhen himself, still being the First, but his Keeper could possibly have told him of it. A subject like this would have undoubtedly come up at a meeting of the Keepers.

"I will ask him for you... but don't get your hopes up."

Like a ragged pup that was finally tossed the scraps of a bone, Sparrow's eyes brightened considerably. So there was hope, and as long as Ithilian's nose was to the ground and his ears were open—she would find them. She'd never doubted his abilities, and perhaps, with a little insistence, he would also give her some quick lessons on the Dalish. Even with his frankness, squashing the hopes that her father and mother were still merrily living together in a faraway clan, she still believed that it was possible. They'd been in love, she was sure of it. She chose to cling onto the few words that she liked, and clamped the rest in a box she'd rather forget.

For now, there was a chance. And that was all that mattered. She clapped her hands on his shoulders and stared at him for a few seconds, grinning. “Not so prickly after all. Thank you.” A compliment? Hard to tell. Without giving him time to respond, or shoo her away, she was gone. Spirited away with the remnants of caked mud flying in her wake, flitting off her boots.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose
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Kirkwall felt lighter today. Of course, it was because one of her friends had returned—the lovely little flower, Aurora. She huffed impatiently, slipping through the narrow alleys as if she were a stray cat returning home; all giddy excitement, untempered energy. She hadn't known of her immediate return, so she'd missed the welcoming party, but hopefully she'd be home now. In retrospect, she supposed she'd never actually missed friends before, since she was always the one walking away. And now, she had a home, with people she cared about, and whenever they left (for however long), she wanted to see their faces again; as soon as possible. This was no different. Besides, she wanted to see how this flower had grown. And if she'd seen anything on her travels. She wanted to hear her stories.

She dipped underneath a hanging tarpaulin flapping in the wind. Red was Kirkwall's color, red as her hair. Unusual color. One that she'd never seen before in her youth; both with the Qunari and what she remembered from the Dalish clan, whose name still eluded her. Pretty color, she thought. Hopping down the steps like a child, Sparrow neared her destination and bubbled with the temptation to simply throw open the door and greet her in the most boorish way possible. Instead, she cleared her throat and rolled her eyes skyward, waited a few seconds and rapped her knuckles on the door; always louder than was necessary, and harder, by far.

A glib smile played on her face, and her arms twitched at her sides, ready to be thrown into a rib-squeezing hug. She didn't call out, for fear of ruining the surprise. It was always better to be pleasantly surprised, then to expect things—at least, in her experience. Much like how Rilien operated. He might do things in an orderly fashion, but he still managed to confound her. Strange how much she'd changed over the years, where something as simple as seeing someone's face would make her this happy. If home were ever described as a feeling... she supposed it would feel something like this. A mass of moments, rumpled together.

On the other side of the door, Aurora laid on the floor, a film of sweat glistening from her brow. Her fingers were interlocked behind her head and she pulled herself to her knees, "Seventy-three," she said, counting her sit-ups aloud. She'd peeled away heavier clothing and wore instead a simple light shirt with matching pants, something that she could work up a sweat in without ruining. It was part of her routine she'd adopted, to work out whenever she had a free moment, and since Kirkwall was quiet as of late, she'd found a lot of those. A strong body led to a strong mind led to a strong spirit after all.

Since her return to Kirkwall, she learned a few things. For one, Nostariel and Ashton were an item. Second, Lucien and Sophia were too-- which was a bit more surprising honestly. Still, she was happy for them all, and thought they all made adorable couples. Other than that, the clean up after the Qunari attack had gone smooth, and though there was still evidence of it, most of it had been patched away. There was still the lingering presence of Templars, more so than it had been, but years spent skirting around them had taught her how to stay out of their way and it wasn't anything she couldn't cope with.

Aurora was still in the process of catching up with everyone since her departure, and she'd find the time for it in the coming weeks. There was still a good many things she had to do. Among those things, she still had to repay Rilien back for his loan, and check on the Embrium she left in Lucien's hand. But all in good time, right now, she had to reach one-hundred.

She'd gotten to eighty-five before a knocking echoed through her small house. She paused her exercise to just stare at the door, wondering who it was that came calling. It could've been anyone really, but judging by how loud the knocking was, she had a few ideas. Pulling herself to her feet, she grabbed the cloth that was on the back of a chair and threw it over her shoulders, and moved to the door. She pulled it open and beheld the culprit.

"Sparrow?"

Sparrow wasted no time in wrapping her arms around the shorter woman's shoulders, and only noticed then, that her light shirt stuck to her back—sweat? Had she just taken a bath? Sparrow pulled back a few inches and studied Aurora's face, eyes scrunched critically until it dawned on her that she might've been interrupting something important. Something intimate, perhaps? Her mind, as always, drifted off like a lewd ship sailing for the Blooming Rose, and her murky eyes drifted over the woman's fiery hair, seeking out any naked interlopers.

None. Well, Aurora was dressed and had, indeed, answered the door. She blinked once, then twice, and laughed gaudily at herself. She'd nearly forgotten about Amalia's tutelage. To think that her once-friend could actually teach—or, perhaps, it wasn't so surprising after all.

Hardly remembering that she was invading someone's space, holding them by the shoulders and staring at them as if to absorb their wayward journeys, Sparrow pursed her lips and smiled wide; a pleased shark. Or someone who'd missed a dear friend. “Aurora,” she greeted with a twinkle in her eyes, dipping her head to perch a kiss on her brow, heedless as she'd been on the docks.

Her affections tended to burst, unchecked. But hadn't it been a long time since she'd seen this lovely bird? She'd taken good care of her gardens in the Alienage, and she'd missed the welcoming party at the docks as well. An unwelcome visit was in order, even if she was busy. Sparrow was not one in the habit of asking for an invitation, she merely stood with an energy that was slowly unravelling, uncoiling from her shoulders; asking impolitely to let her in.

“How've you been? What've you seen? I want to hear everything.” She chirped as she finally released her shoulders, stepping back to rub at her chin, as if to mock-scrutinize some kind of magical change in her character. Aurora certainly seemed stronger; coloured with something she could not yet put her finger on. A flavour of growth only travels and closure could bring. She did not doubt that she'd had both in strides, on her journey across the way, and she wanted to hear all about it. “Sorry I missed the welcome wagon, but you'll be pleased to know that I haven't killed all your plants.”

"You didn't miss much, it wasn't a huge wagon. I just sailed into the harbor with my things," Aurora said, simply moving out of the way to let Sparrow in. If she didn't then she was worried the woman might literally pop from excitement. And she did, in a sense. Aurora was expecting the flurry of questions with a smirk and was hardly surprised when they flew from her mouth. "I knew you were the right person to trust with my garden," she said teasingly batting a lock of Sparrow's hair as she slipped by. She played coy and hesitated in answering Sparrow's question, keeping them behind a pair of tightly coiled lips.

She dabbed her forehead with the cloth resting on her shoulders and made her way to a chair in her humble little "parlor." "In order," she began, listing them off with her fingers. "I've been feeling better, thanks for asking," one finger, "I've seen a lot of things. Antiva City is big, so can't really go too far without seeing something wonderful," Another teasing grin and another finger down, "And that's going to take awhile. I was gone for a couple of months, that's a more than an afternoon's worth," she said with a laugh and putting her hand down.

Aurora leaned back in her chair and looked at her ceiling, wondering even where to begin, or even how. Her gaze then fell onto Sparrow, and she remembered something she told her a long time ago. "Remember that time in the Necromancer's lair? The one trying to reanimate his wife?" She left it at, since it wasn't an experience forgot all that easily. She shuddered even thinking about it. "You asked me to teach you how to do this?" She said, holding up her hand, which was now crackling with electricity from the fade. "Tell you what," she said, killing the small display of magic as quickly as she summoned it, "Let's get out of here, I've got somewhere I want to show you. And on the way, I'll tell about Antiva?" she asked, rising.

Didn't miss much? She doubted that. Sparrow pursed her lips again, arching her eyebrows higher, burgeoning on the edge of bursting out with many more questions. One did not simply travel without getting into a little bit of trouble, and while Aurora might've been a smidgen more innocent than she, surely she'd seen some interesting things. It was Antiva, after all. Unfortunately she'd never had the pleasure of visiting it before, so her excitement showed through her jittery impatience, tensed and strained as if she would pounce into her home. Her grin simpered a little. Of course, she'd taken great care of the gardens. It'd been a duty she was glad to have—better than keeping herself stuffed behind closed doors, tiptoeing around Rilien like their conversations would shatter a world's worth of her most recent thoughts.

She nearly danced into Aurora's home. Nosey as ever, she feigned disinterest as she peered into different chambers along the way. It occurred to her that she'd never actually set foot into the woman's home, even if they lived in such close proximity. As soon as they reached their destination, Sparrow plopped down in a chair and hunkered forward, clutching onto her every word; elbows propped on her knees, and chin perched across her steepled hands. What were these wonderful things? Beautiful long-lashed women, bedecked in silk finery; big bosoms. The only tales she'd heard about Antiva, and its citizens, were from passing sailors, and usually, their stories tended to be far more lewd and exaggerated than they actually were. Aurora hardly seemed the type. “You've got my rapt attention, pretty flower.”

Suddenly, the conversation shifted, and Sparrow cocked her head to the side, finally nodding. Her memory was a mishmash of what she wished to remember, and tended to walk the same lines as the sailors. This, however, she remembered vividly. Who wouldn't? It wasn't everyday that someone stumbled onto a Necromancer's lair. Or someone so twisted. She remembered the smell, and how sick she felt afterwards. The brief flicker of solemness disappeared as soon as electricity danced along her fingertips, circling around her hand. Controlled, disciplined. Unlike her own meagre attempts; only working half the time, coming out in childish spurts. She was made up of violence. Smashing things up and setting things on fire was hardly subtle. “I'm surprised—even I'd forgotten.”

Sparrow straightened her shoulders and vaulted from the chair, nearly dragging Aurora out the door. “Of course. Let's go, let's go. Tell me everything!”

And she'd brought them to Sundermount. A particular patch she did not recognize, which meant it was a secret alcove—shared with her, as well. Just like the place she and Amalia had been along the Wounded Coast. Pleased as coddled feline at the imagined prospects, Sparrow stretched her arms over her head and surveyed the area. Trees spotted here and there, and she could hear the sounds of running water. If she'd ever chosen the life of a hermit, she supposed she'd have chosen something like this. She clapped her hands together and turned on her heels, eyes bright and expectant.

"Antiva City was my first stop," Aurora began, as promised. "It's a booming trade city, it wasn't hard to find a ship to take me. I spent a few days there." Thanks to the sovereigns Rilien had loaned her, she was able afford room and board at a local inn, as well paying the innkeep to look over the brand on Milly's forehead. "I... Sent Milly to the circle. There were people there that would remember her, and care for her much better than I could. I was a wreck after that," she sighed. She still felt the pangs whenever she thought of Milly, and the memory of the sunburst always accompanied every thought.

"I didn't spend much more time there," She said, looking at Sparrow. She hadn't wished to spend her time alone lingering in the city with the pain still so fresh. "I chartered another ship to Bastion-- home. It's smaller than Antiva City, but no less beautiful in my eyes." She continued to relay the story. She told of hunting down her father's trading business, only to find that they had become more prominent, and was run by her brother now instead of her father, having retired himself. She talked about how awkward the initial reunion was with her sister, and how they just cried after realizing she made it home. It wasn't long until there wasn't a dry face in the entire house.

"Their flower garden had grown since the last I saw it," Almost the entire hillside on which their house was built was covered in flowers of all colors, shapes, and sizes. "It rains all the time in Antiva, but the flowers are always in bloom." She said wistfully, a smile on her lips. She continued to talk about her time from there. How they kept her room the same since she left, how wealthy they'd grown, just how happy she was to be back. A few months later, she revealed, that she finally returned to Antiva City, this time with her parents and her youngest sister. "They... Dressed me up. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not too big on dresses, but they put me in one anyway. It was the most fun I remember having putting on clothes." A laugh escaped her lips.

She paused for a moment, pressing her tongue into her cheek and thought. "When I left again, there was more crying. But it was happier this time. They knew I was okay, and I knew they didn't forget me. They asked me to take care, and to write them whenever I have the chance... I plan on sending the letter off tomorrow," She revealed with a wide smile.

"And here we are," Aurora said, stepping into the clearing that Nostariel had set up. "So far, only Nosta, you, and I know about this place," She said with a coy finger placed on her lips. "As she told me, there is no place to practice our magic in the city, but this isn't the city, and it's away from anyone that would see us in the Circle. A perfect place to teach," She said, raising her fist again, this time enveloping it in stone.

"Want to begin?"

Antiva City—the city of splendour and beauty and all of the things she used to slaver after in her glory days, selfishly bouncing from city to city in search of ways to find herself. Whether it was in someone's lap, in some gaudy brothel, or in a dishevelled tavern surrounded by men with bristly beards and pirate-garb, Sparrow had many misadventures in many cities, but had missed out on Antiva. She maintained an expression of giddy excitement and prying curiosity as she spoke, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waited for the juicy details to come pouring out. She still remembered the original circumstances for such a journey and dampened slightly, wringing her hands together when Milly was mentioned. She wanted to reach out for her hands, to give a quick squeeze, but only scrunched her eyebrows together. Had she known Rilien then...

She bobbed her head and inched a little closer to her. Understandable. It was for the best, but being so close to the Circle and not being able to do anything for her would have driven her mad—had positions been reversed, she wouldn't have known what to do. How to react or even if she would have been selfless enough to think of Milly, or Rilien, instead of clinging to them and keeping them nearby. Aurora was by no means a selfish creature, but Sparrow was like the bird she claimed as a name; clinging to priceless baubles and gems just as hard as she clung onto the people in her life. Now, Bastion. She'd never heard of the city before, but if it was anything like Antiva City, and if Aurora said it was just as beautiful, she had no doubts that she was right. She smiled and grew dewy-eyed as Aurora told her of her family reunion, grinning wildly soon after and clapping her on the back as a late celebration.

Closing her eyes to imagine the hillside she spoke of, ripe with flowers of all colours and sizes, Sparrow smiled and sighed. She could almost smell them. Having been tending to the garden in the Alienage for as long as she did, her senses came easily. Dirt under her nails, the grit and earthy muck staining her hands, and the sweet, distinct scents. “Yours will look like that in no time,” she cooed, snapping her eyes open. “I'd like to see that. Sounds beautiful there, not so with the places me and Am used to live.” Dry sticks and long expanses of grass, always travelling and being shipped off to try their hands at specific jobs. Children did not grow up in gardens or tight-knit families, so the nights they spent under the stars, bundled together like thieves, were the best memories she could recall of her childhood. “Lovely sight, I bet. I wish I could've seen.” She clucked her tongue, blunt as ever.

Family. She supposed this was what it was like. Filled with letters flying back and forth and well-wishes; visits and crying and holding each other until you felt warm and at home again. Hearing about it from a friend was enough, instead of fantasying about it on her own. It gave her hope, even if she considered her companions as close to family as she could get. “I'm glad everything went well. And you'll have to send our greetings, too. We missed you.”

“Oh?” She rubbed her chin, trying to wheedle the pleasure from her face. It was almost like a secret gift—almost like showing the caves to Rilien and having him say that it was a pleasant find, or that she'd done well. However she'd composed his words in her mind. Rightly so, not that she'd ever been too worried about Templars or being dragged down to the Gallows (as she should have been). This place was a convenience mages could afford to take advantage of, especially since the recent activity of Templars in the city. She, too, stepped into the clearing and shrugged her shoulders, stretching out the muscles there, before holding out both hands in front of her.

“Yes.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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And here they were again.

The skeleton of the ship was still there, though eroded further by the years that had passed since last Amalia had been to this precise spot on the Coast. She supposed she had eroded, too, in some sense. Some would say it had made her weaker, but she thought that in truth, all that had happened was that some of her sharper edges had worn away a little, leaving her smoother but not soft. Stone, not sand. Her fundamental nature had not changed, only the mode of its expression. She had, she thought, always been capable of being everything she was now, and arguably, things both worse and better. But she was not those things, she was this. And she was at peace with that.

She would change still more, she could sense that. But though what lay ahead for her was in many ways clouded and indistinct, foreign to her ways of thinking and even
 frightening, in some respects, she had accepted that too. Acceptance was probably her strength, she supposed. She could accept others as they were, even if she did want to push them away from paths that seemed especially perilous to walk. She could accept mistakes and failures. She could accept pain and punishment and change, even. Once, she hadn’t been able to turn that acceptance towards herself, but she thought she might be able to now. It was a weight lifted, to be sure.

She thought that Sparrow might have a bit more difficulty with acceptance than she did, though he would probably argue until he was blue in the face that it was not so. Or
 less argue, more insist. As though he fooled anyone but himself that way. As though there were anyone left who hadn’t forgiven him but himself. Curling her toes into the sand, Amalia turned so she was facing him, halfway. Her reddish eye caught his, and the brow over it ascended her forehead.

“I believe you had something to say to me?”

Here they were.

Sparrow busied herself with a piece of driftwood. Skewering the sand and painting lopsided, ugly pictures; depictions of herself with slanted grins, and perhaps, something that resembled a Qunari. The only indications were branch-like horns sprouting from its lumpy head, and the clear size difference between the two figures. She occasionally stopped to peer away from her work and scrutinize the upended ships, merely wooden skeletons decorating the Wounded Coast; husks of what they once were. Was she the same? She supposed she was, in a way. However, she was no longer alone. She did not waste away as she once did, becoming less and less of what once was. An old ship with patched holes, painted anew and sailing again. Only a little more carefully this time.

Her eyes lingered on the remains of the nearest ship and then drifted towards Amalia, who stood only a few paces away. She could not read her expression--that, at least, had not changed from when they were children. The years had transformed them both. In Amalia's case, certainly for the better. She watched her open up in ways she would have never dreamed plausible, and to particular people she would have thought impossible to get along with, given their differences. Not that she believed that she, too, hadn't changed for the better. In more ways than one, she had. Never had she felt as if a place called her name, but things were different now and she'd been given many reasons to stay. Freedom no longer tugged at her legs, willing her to ride the wind as she had; abandoning all that remained behind her. Did anchors now weigh on her ankles, or roots to grow?

Years had not changed her temperament. She still denied her faults, burying them in the sand and convincing herself that the spot would be long lost and forgotten. Her companions, as stubborn as they were, had been the ones to dig them up, dusting them off in order to pin them back where they belonged. They did not push her away when she was selfish, nor did they scowl when she made outrageous mistakes. She did not understand their kindness. Sometimes, she rejected it--as a mistrustful child would, striking out unintentionally. She was Sparrow, after all. A flighty bird prone to moody outbursts; slow to understand, and quick to anger. She screwed up her eyebrows and stabbed the ground with the stick. Forgiveness was a sour word to swill in your mouth, even now.

Murky eyes swung away from Amalia as she turned towards her. In her peripheral vision, she could see that her once-friend did not face her directly. It felt as if they were meeting with their backs turned. Two forces with many tales to tell, many grievances to swallow, and a tongue too twisted to get the words out. She blinked down at the sandy images and scuffed the heel of her boot across them; smudging. Erased.

"Don't I always?" she asked lamely, finally arching her eyebrows. How long had it been since she'd heard Amalia laugh? Ages. Ages and ages ago. It felt far away, now. She bit at the inside of her lip and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "We haven't had a proper talk about everything. I mean, it doesn't feel... resolved. I wanted--I mean, I want, I say that a lot." She laughed curtly, shaking her head. "What do you want? What do you see? For us. I've never asked."

What did she see for them? Amalia knew what was meant by the question, she simply did not understand why it was being asked. Then again, perhaps she did. Sparrow always seemed to want reassurance, someone to reinforce the ideas he already had formed—that he deserved to be forgiven, accepted, and brought in close. Or perhaps it was not something he thought he deserved, but something he wanted anyway. Whatever the case, she had long since let the hurt of his abandonment go. Forgiveness was a relatively simple thing for Amalia, as it was for most Qunari, though perhaps not many people in this city would know that, given what they had seen. Once a wrong was rectified, as best it could be, it was forgotten. Grudges were poor substitutes for the people they kept you from. Even the Qun understood that.

She did accept him, too. She always had. But neither of those things meant they had to be
 friends, whatever that meant for her now. In childhood, she knew, they were encouraged to spend time with one another, probably so that the centered, calm Amalia could level out the unsteady, coltish Sparrow. Convince him not to fly, so they wouldn’t have to clip his feathers. That had obviously been a miscalculation. Or maybe they’d known, and only used him to teach her a lesson. They wasted nothing, after all, not even the temporary.

Amalia sighed. Somehow, it was always incumbent upon her to decide, with him. For all of his fluttering and squawking, he rarely seemed to get anywhere or achieve anything. “I don’t understand what you want me to say,” she pointed out. She visited him in his house on occasion; all told, they ran into each other maybe once or twice a week. Even that was a matter of some effort on her part—they did not otherwise occupy the same circles in Kirkwall. The interests they had independently of one another didn’t often intersect, and so unlike Nostariel or Aurora or even Lucien, she didn’t naturally run into him during the course of her normal activities, and he’d made no effort to make a space to include her in the rest of his life, not that she’d have necessarily accepted the offer to occupy it. She was not one for flitting around, socializing and occupying herself with whatever whimsical thing caught her attention next. She saw nothing in particular wrong with him being like this, but it would never be who she was.

And just the same, she did not expect him to occupy the spaces in her life that were open to him—he likely had little use for her instruction, he was not frequent in the Alienage, and he did not come to visit her on any but the rarest occasion. All fine, all perfectly acceptable to her, but none of it conducive to any relationship other than the one they already had. “Would it satisfy you, if I said we were friends? If I told you that you mattered?” He had never ceased to matter, but perhaps she had not been especially clear on this point. She’d thought he still spoke the language of implication, but she had learned that sometimes, unspoken understanding was insufficient. That things had to be said. And some people just needed things spelled out for them, even the not-so-crucial things. As for friends, well
 not close ones, but as she had learned to use the word, Sparrow qualified. “What if I just see that?” She was frustrated, but kept her tone as even and calm as it always was.

How many times would they tread this ground before he was satisfied?

What she felt was a mess of confusion, fatigued from her desperate attempts to conjure up or preserve their youthhood. She was trying to resurrect a relationship that remained in the past, even when she did not understand the reasons herself. While others grew around her and became better, more stable people, Sparrow clung to old feelings, old relationships like barnacles beneath wet stones, heedless of the waves smashing across them. What did she need? What did she want? She wasn't so sure herself, which only made things worse. Her behaviour, she supposed, was the furthest thing from being Qunari as far as she could tell—forgiveness was as unpleasant as treating a wound with salt and acceptance, especially of oneself, was like pressing scalding stones to her skin. The branch-jabbing softened into smooth lines drawn into the sand as she searched herself, sought out reasons she could not let go and move on. The effort was fruitless.

Being a creature of needs and desires, hardly practising patience and discipline and restraint as she should have been, meant that she was usually unsatisfied. The Qun, the Dalish, City Elves; none of them held a place for her and so, she could never make comparisons. She was Sparrow, and even being that made things difficult for her. She was in-between most things, treading grounds that did not call her name. Sometimes, she desired the simplicity Amalia and she shared as youths. Sometimes, she just wanted their relationship to return to her imagined state; sharing everything from dreams, nightmares, goals, foolish things. Acceptance, forgiveness. Those were concepts that flew over her head. They might have been two sides of the same coin she'd been seeking for so long, but her awareness was a sad, stunted creature, scrambling after scraps of approval. Pats on the head; nods, any small measure of comfort to sweep back her ego.

That is how it had always been. So it shall be. It was in the name she left behind in the valley, where and when she'd abandoned Amalia and the others. It felt as if it had been eons ago, and still, Sparrow chased after those moments as if she could turn back time. As if she could prevent herself from walking away as she had, but maintain everything she'd gained in the process. If she stood at any sort of crossroads, she would have been the hopeless wanderer, cross-legged, beneath the sign post. Too stubborn to move forward and still looking over her now-slender shoulders. She licked her dry lips, and stared hard at her sand-markings, willing them to answer her questions. Calm the stirrings in her mind, quell the unease that inhabited her thoughts. Had it been any of her other friends, in her position, they would have simply accepted their pasts and moved on. They would stop beating the dead horse, as it were.

I don't understand what I want you to say, either. It was an unending battle that pulled her in all directions at once, though she was never satisfied with the results, and always fearing that she was missing something. That her discomfort could be rectified if she only tried again, if she only rephrased it; if only she raised her voice higher and made her intentions known, even if they made no sense. She swung the branch like a blade, and imagined it were so. Sharp, whetted. Cutting through the jumble of words tangled in her throat. Her tongue was brambles; her words were thorns, coming out all wrong. They were friends, weren't they? They both lived in Kirkwall. They shared the same friends. She could see her anytime she wanted, if she so wished to seek her out. Shame kept her in the shadows, wishing to be there, but not quite making it to her door. Hell, it seemed as if she spoke to Ithilian far more. She jabbed at the air again and crushed her teeth together, bunching the muscles in her jaw.

She wanted to know her, as she was now. “Yes,” it came out as a hiss, surprising even herself, until she bit out a laugh that loosened the tension in her face. She wanted to know that she mattered to her, she supposed. Had there been any more space to occupy in her life, and if it still existed after having vacated it so long ago, Sparrow wanted the chance to make up for it. She wanted to make amends; not just forgiveness, but another chance. She blinked up at the sky and lowered the branches tip to study the clouds, intent on the horizon. “Long ago, you were the only one I called a friend. There were no others. And I... Nothing I say can excuse what I did,” she shook her head, and glanced at her, “but that's not why I called you here.” She exhaled sharply and abruptly crouched crouched on her heels, dropped back on her rump, and wrapped her arms childishly around her legs. Her ears grew hotter. Saying things plainly made her feel physically ill. “I want another chance. As your friend. Nothing else feels right—but if you don't, if this is all you see, there's nothing I can say to sway you anyhow. I know that much.”

“So take it.” Amalia looked somewhat incredulously down at Sparrow, crossing her arms over her chest and letting out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh. “You are waiting for me to extend something that I have been attempting to put into your hands for a while now.” She wasn’t sure how he had missed it, honestly. It wasn’t like she went around visiting people she did not care for, or making armor for those she did not want to help. Amalia had never been one to use other people’s words to describe how she felt about something—she had always been a person who preferred to show herself through her actions. “I cannot close your fingers for you.”

Shaking her head slightly, she dropped down to a crouch, putting her more on an eye level with her friend. “You know how to ask, to insist, even to demand. Now it is time to learn to accept. Yourself not least of all. Only when you are able to come to terms with yourself will you be able to come to terms with me, with this.” He was friends with others, of course. But his history with those others was not so fraught as it was with her, and so the obstacle was only hampering him here.

There was a period of silence, and in it, she studied him, pursing her lips slightly. “Sparrow
 are you still aqun-athlok? You lived as a male, when last we knew each other well. Would you still have me call you as one?” It might seem a change in topic, but for Amalia, at least, the matters were connected. There were those Qunari who were born as one sex and lived as another, and this was accepted. For all intents and purposes, the Sparrow she had known in her childhood was a boy. But he had never been quite like the other aqun-athlok. He’d seemed less comfortable than they were, with what he was. As though he were not sure of the role. Now, Amalia thought he looked much more feminine than he ever had as a child, and she wondered if his mind on the matter was still the same. This, whatever the verdict, as something he had to accept about himself, as well.

Just take it? Simple as that. No catches, and no begging on her knees. Not that Amalia was the sort to demand either—but for so long she'd learned to expect things from others. Nothing was free. Even friendship had a fee. Rough times, and rougher acquaintances, had taught her that much. Everything came with a price, and if you expected anything different, then you were a fool and deserved what you got. So she thought, until the day she stumbled into Kirkwall where her world, along with all of her give-and-take ideals, was flipped on its head. She finally looked at her, jaw slack, even as the minute signals of impatience flickered across Amalia's face. She probably reflected stupid-surprise, but she couldn't help it. She hadn't expected this. There was space there, then. A breath of relief escaped her; one she wasn't aware she'd been holding. Her hands trembled, as if she wasn't sure what to do with them now that they were empty. Had she missed so many signs?

The tension in her shoulders loosened when Amalia stooped down to her level. She did not look away, even when the words she spoke turned her stomach in weak flops. Probably because she was right and it was difficult to hear. Words could be used as weapons, as well as bandages and salves. For so long she'd used her own as biting whips, or furious waves of passion that were made to reduce things to ash and dust. To damage and destroy; hardly to understand anything or make known what she truly meant. She was fickle, but honest. At one time, they operated on metaphors, actions, and silent nods of approval, but that had been long ago. No longer did she understand what others meant, unless they made their intentions known, because her thoughts swam with what she assumed to be true. Accept herself? It made her want to laugh, but she could not. The problem, it seemed, lied with her.

Aqun-athlok. She blinked and tipped her head against her knee, chin propped. The question caught her off guard. Sure, she'd been referred to that before, particularly when the other Qunari found her tattered and naked in the woods, but she'd never given it any thought. To her it had been a simple change, as if she wore new pants. A new identity that suited her purposes. She had shed her old skin to begin anew, even if it meant she'd never truly left her other self behind. Sparrow was a boisterous man, full of bluster and fickle as the wind. She was also wonder-eyed, and adventurous, but she'd also been kind and naive, far too friendly for her own good. A weaker person, she supposed. It surprised her even more when she mouthed, “no.” If she ever struggled with her identity, she had long pushed it to the side. Kicked it under the rug so that she could no longer see it.

What would she call her, then? It seemed strange that there should be any shift at all, as if the change would affect who they were in the past. Who she was, and who she would be from now on. Stranger still that all of her friends had been aware, and already acknowledged, her true gender for years now—it never bothered her, even if she still wasn't the most feminine of the bunch. Having any possibility of weakness, of returning to that broken thing in the woods, frightened her more than she could admit. But she was stronger now for having changed. She had companions who would watch her back. It made no difference now. Her eyebrows drew together. “Suppose not. Still Sparrow, though.”

A new beginning. She held out her hand and stuck out her pinky finger.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia
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Rilien was not a common sight in Kirkwall’s Alienage, elf or no. He stuck out a great deal, perhaps even more than its usual defenders did, and considering that one of those had a face full of scars and a bearing the furthest thing from servile and the other was a human, that was saying quite a lot. Even bereft of his usual silk and soft linen, in favor of coarser blue-dyed cotton and dark leather armor, he was exceptionally distinctive. The meeting place for this venture had been given as the shade of the large painted tree, however, and so, distinctive or not, that was where he chose to plant himself, in anticipation of a venture out.

Sparrow had been making attempts, insofar as someone with little knowledge and less tracking skill could, to locate her birth family, he understood. The excursion into the mountains outside Kirkwall was going to be the fruition of those inquiries, and he had asked him to be there. Rilien could not remember the names or faces of his birth parents, beyond a few very indistinct impressions, but he had never cared to. Not even when he was young, and yet complete. He therefore found it difficult to truly understand why she had any desire to find hers. They were not a part of her life, and had not been for a very long time. But whether he understood or not, she had asked this of him, and he was rarely inclined to deny her anything.

He was not presently alone. Amalia, his newest business partner, was beneath the tree as well, and the Dalish elf Ithilian. They were to be the remainder of the party for the trip, and this also he had no reason to object to. He knew little of either of them, truthfully, but it did not matter. He knew enough, and Sparrow wanted them here as well.

"She would be late to her own venture.” The observation was dry, but perhaps not entirely so.

Amalia’s lips twitched; she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the trunk of the vhenadahl. Rilien spoke truly, to be sure. Still, she expected that Sparrow would be along as soon as it was physically possible for her to do so, given the importance of what they were doing. Amalia understood that her parents were apparently part of some nomadic group of elves and humans, though she chose to follow what seemed to be logic in not referring to them as a Dalish clan. She didn't know a great deal about them, but what she had picked up from Ithilian indicated that actual Dalish clans would likely disdain them a great deal. It seemed an unsafe way to live, but perhaps they saw it as better than a city. They may not even be wrong.

“She would,” Amalia agreed, “but she will be here, even so.” The one human in the group was also dressed for travel, with an eye for the dangers of the road, but out of consideration for the fact that this was supposed to be a peaceful meeting, she was only wearing two visible knives in the way of weaponry, and had a mere four hidden elsewhere on her person. It was about the minimum for leaving the Alienage, really.

Being at least in appearance obviously Dalish, it was less concerning for Ithilian to be armed, but he carried no more than his usual armament, the bow and two short swords, Parshaara at his belt. He was eager to be getting on with this, though mostly for Sparrow's sake. As far as he knew, the clan they sought didn't know they were coming, and would have no reason to stay put for too long.

Sparrow had taken the longest to appear at the designated meeting place—partially because she'd been worrying over what to wear, pacing in front of the mirror like a dog with no direction. She plucked through her wardrobe and tossed whatever article displeased her on a growing pile in the corner, much like she'd done with the riches she'd acquired in the Deep Roads. That pile was much smaller. It was a surprise it wasn't entirely depleted, but for once in her life, dingy taverns like the Hanged Man hadn't been receiving as much attention from her as it had been over the years. Too worried, she was. Instead of drowning herself in goblets of ale and wandering her ship like a sailor late for duty, Sparrow obsessed and fantasized about her meeting with her parents, heedless to the possibility that they may not even be living. With a snarling noise frothing from her lips, she finally donned a soft green shirt, strong leather pants, and quickly strapped on the armour Amalia had crafted for her. Why hadn't she thought of that before...

She ran the entire way, puffing through the empty alleys, and scrambling over stone fences to reach Kirkwall, and the others. They were all here, which meant she was the only one who was late. A crooked smile twitched across her face, accompanied by an awkward laugh. “You wouldn't believe how busy the streets were,” she gushed with sweeps of her arms, and bobbed her head. “Anyhow, now that we're all here,” she looked them over and took another deep gulp of air to still her beating heart. Her mouth felt as dry as a desert. Or bones. Bones chucked into the desert on a hot summer day. Or else anything equally uncomfortable. She regretted not bringing her water canteen. Unlike the others, Sparrow hadn't brought any weapons. Not this time. One dagger, she supposed, tucked into her boot, would be enough. Even if there were other dangers outside of Kirkwall, and they were met with hostility by the unknowing clansmen, she appeared nonplussed by any of those possibilities.

“Let's get a move on. Time's a wasting.”

The sheer magnitude of the forest troubled her as they walked, following Ithilian's surefooted directions. She believed she'd explored a great portion of the region—but found herself wrong on all accounts, at least, when it came to this particular path. How Ithilian navigated himself through all the shrubbery without getting lost was beyond her. She counted herself lucky that she wasn't the one leading. As they walked, the woods grew thicker and thicker; taller trees, thicker branches, with far less open spaces. Darker, almost. Her gaze drifted away from Ithilian's back and settled through the trees, to their sides, because she could swear... she heard absolutely nothing. The only advice Ithilian had given was to assume you were being watched at all times, because you probably were. From his directions, they had walked around the main pass to avoid banditry, and taken an indirect route.

“Stay your ground.”

A voice from her left... no, right. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she jolted to a halt, swinging her head to locate it. It seemed as if it echoed off the trees, and carried on a ways. Through an abyss of branches, yet she'd heard none snap at the strangers approach. She'd never been the most perceptive of hunters (or even one at all), but she had trouble even locating its source. Light filtered through the trees, and caught the reflection of an arrowhead nearby; notched, poised. Dark eyes narrowed, focused on the only other person recognized as Dalish.

”Ar'din nuvenin na'din. Dirth. Why have you come?”

They were wise to be defensive, Ithilian thought. They traveled like Dalish and lived like Dalish, but if these rumors of shemlen in their midst were true, then they weren't really Dalish. It wasn't anything negative or positive, simply how it was. Ithilian expected they had run into trouble with other clans in the past, if they were pointing an arrow at him. The Dalish were typically quite welcoming to those that bore their marks.

"Andaran atish'an, falon. We mean you no harm, so I'd prefer if you didn't shoot me or my friends." He stood at ease, one foot elevated slightly upon a fallen log. His hands he rested on the pommel of one of his swords, fingers loose and not actually gripping the weapon. "Sparrow here," he gestured to the elf-blooded woman in question, "would like to meet your Keeper, Beragail. She is the Keeper of this clan, correct?"

There was a murmur of compliance coming from behind the combative archer. Another voice, higher pitched and much kinder. Another male, equally covert. Sparrow only now noticed the first of the two, following Ithilian's line of sight. The arrowhead dipped slightly lower. His knuckles, however, remained taut and white, ready in case any of them made ulterior movements. His eyes remained narrowed slits, searching them without restraint. It was only when an older man shifted from behind the tree; smiling disarmingly. He, too, was an Elf. Dalish markings claimed the majority of his face, but newer ones, in a lighter colour, had been added. Old, and faded patterns, casting a stark contrast against its lighter counterparts. The design was mostly of a tree, with the lighter parts signifying a Secret-Keeper.

He raised his hands defensively and then placed them palms-up, empty of any threats. No weapons, no deceit and no crinkles of distrust—like the younger man, hardly at ease beside the tree, but still stepping out from his vantage point. “Ma serannas. For staying your blade.” He tipped his head to the side, meeting Ithilian's eyes; dismissing the hand that could, and would given the circumstances, draw its blade out in a matter of moments. He'd seen that look before, in his younger days. Dangerous men; Dalish or no. “I am Pilen, and he, Arros.” He paused briefly and shifted his gaze towards Sparrow, before continuing. “If you are aware of Beragail, or our clan, you must understand our caution.”

The archer's mouth twisted into a scowl, sour as curdled milk, as if he wished to speak but barely managed kept his tongue in check. Instead, he snorted and finally loosened his grip on the notched arrow, slipping it over his shoulder into its quiver and pinned the bow to his side.

Pilen seemed to consider the Dalish' words, without any haste. He looked at each one of them as if he were scrutinizing hoodlums caught trespassing on an old man's property. If the situation was awkward, he bore no indication that he thought it was so. This was, however, a strange assortment of strangers bandying through their woods. He had no doubt that the Dalish man had led them here, though he was curious as to why they had a Tranquil elf in their midst’s, as well as a human woman. He scratched at his chin and bobbed his head once. Twice. Not a Dalish ploy—that was for certain. “You are correct,” he admitted and hooked his thumb in the direction they had been travelling in, “you may follow us, but you are not welcome unless Beragail permits it.”

The archer made a hissing noise and shook his head, hopping down from the mossy outcrop and stalking ahead of them. Red-faced and shoulders hunched. Younger, by far.

Sparrow felt uncomfortable and giddy all at once. How did one even claim something as large as these woods? Dalish etiquette made no sense to her. Their words slipped out like silk, but jumbled in her ears like tangled cords. None of it made any sense, but whatever Ithilian had said seemed to have some effect. They weren't pin-cushioned with arrows, at least. She trekked beside Amalia and Rilien, as quiet as she'd ever been. Deeper and deeper into the woods, and finally, underneath overgrown thistles and thorns, they somehow appeared into a well-hidden grove. A cleared space with wagons and leather-made tents. Easy to tear down and move when needed. Most surprisingly were the people living there; humans and Elves alike. Some with vallaslin, and others, bare-faced, and perhaps, from different Alienages. The humans appeared like any other, adopting traditional garb, and simple clothes; laughing and eating together.

“Vir Adehlen,” Pilen hummed softly. Together we are stronger than one.

Amalia had thus far been silent. She was not here to take issue with the hostility directed against them by the younger of these guardians, nor indeed to do anything at all, save apparently be beside Sparrow whilst she underwent whatever she supposed was waiting for her here. Though she understood intellectually the importance of family, she still didn’t quite understand how this could be so significant, to meet with someone who had played no important role in Sparrow’s life. If Amalia ever knew who her own birth parents were, she would likely be concerned with them not at all. Perhaps a bit of idle curiosity, but nothing so important. The Tamassrans had raised her, and the Ariqun had advised her, and these were the people that had made her into the person she was. Even Marcus had a more significant impact on the person she had become than her parents. All of that, of course, was to say nothing of the exceedingly important contributions of those she had met since arriving in Kirkwall. She had thought this was something she and Sparrow had in common.

But nevertheless, she was also not here to tell her friend that what she believed was important was really not. Sparrow was not Amalia, and they were allowed to be different. As for these people
 honestly, it looked like an Alienage with humans and aravels. They gave off not the air of guerrilla fighters, as she would have expected from a clan like Ithilian’s had apparently once been, nor even the hardened survivalists she would at least have suspected most other Dalish were. They were
 soft, somehow. It was more a moving village than a band as such.

Amalia glanced over at Ithilian for a moment, raising a brow. She was interested to know what he made of it.

Ithilian was wondering if that young scout they'd run into was not the finest of their warriors. If so, this would-be clan was right to fear all outsiders. He was also glad that Emerion had not needed to come along for any reason. Regardless of their heated conversation and his subsequent attempts at altering his mindset, he would not have been able to contain himself here. Even Ithilian, who had been without a clan or any reliance on Dalish ways, was feeling old pride being dredged up to be slighted by this.

Amalia's glance caught his eye, though they were certainly in earshot of the clan elves of their present company, so he could not respond as bluntly as he might wish to. Instead, he directed his question at the elf who had greeted them, Pilen. "You must need to be extra careful, to avoid the other clans as well as the humans." All had some reason to dislike this place, after all.

“We are well aware,” Pilen replied with another modest smile. While some Elvish hackles raised around them—perhaps for good reason, and others seemed less so, only raising their heads away from conversation to offer Pilen their greetings and sparing them curious glances, before returning to their duties. Some cooked and stripped the hides from rabbits, cutting them up, while others prepped cooking pots and bustled around with various vegetables. They worked efficiently and laughed easily. One might have assumed there was nothing different from any ordinary day; as if there were no strangers walking into their camp. There was an impressive array of Halla in a makeshift fenced-in area. Mostly with wooden posts and ropes, tied in sailor knots, surrounding the enclosure. Anyone well-travelled would have recognized many different cultures amassed in one location.

“This must seem strange to you,” he trailed a finger across his chin, where the patterns were the heaviest, “I had thought so, too. Once.” He tipped his head towards the tree canopy and squinted against the sliver a light sifting through the leaves and branches, pausing briefly before regarding Ithilian once more. Out of all of them, he supposed he would have the most to say about the way they had chosen to live. Few Dalish understood their way of life, clinging to the past as they did. Humans thought of them as peculiarities, but still, laughably, as Dalish. They were different from them, that much was to be admitted. And the Elves, outside of their clan, looked to them as threats; as if they believed their scheme was to tear down their heritage and ancient ruins just to spite them. A foolish notion.

“Humans. Elves. They are not so different after all of our old aches, and our prides have been put to rest,” he continued while leading them further into the camp, nodding his head, “Imagine an old tree, bending against the wind. There are other trees around it, but it refuses to accept shelter. Cling to those grievances long enough and new growth is impossible.” A rough laugh paused him in his steps. “Had I been with you years ago, I would have cursed this,” he swept his hands towards the campfire, and everyone else around them, “Beragail is a strange woman.”

Sparrow lingered closer to Amalia, as they followed. It was only when they paused in front of another group that her throat tangled further. A couple of Elves, and two humans, clustered with bows and staves, speaking heatedly about something she could not hear. Something about moving camp again. She could not see most of their faces, but someone had tufts of snowy hair. Lighter than hers. And she was much shorter; arms crossed and talking vibrantly. Sparrow's hand snaked out and snatched Amalia's wrist while she ground her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She was sure her fingers trembled, but she kept focusing on her wrist.

Rilien wasn’t the sort to care much for the explanations or the politics of this kind of thing. None of this had ever been his world, and in all honesty, he probably would not have given any of it much consideration even if he were not Tranquil. He wasn’t Dalish, and he wasn’t even really part of any sort of elvish culture, not anymore. Nor did he subscribe to the sorts of soft-bellied notions of togetherness and union that fell so easily from the tongue of this Pilen. It was antithetical to everything he knew about the world—to the world as it really was. That made it illogical, and Rilien was nothing if not logical. Of all those present, he probably fit in least of all, given the way he was dressed and the way he carried himself; there was no common ground to be found, really. Besides, he wasn’t here to learn what these people thought was the right way to live; he was here because Sparrow believed she needed to be, though for how long, neither had he asked nor she specified.

As such, his attention had remained more or less fixed on her, aside from what was necessary to ensure that the were not taken by surprise in some manner. He noted her anxiety and the way she clung to Amalia; also, perhaps, the way it was fixed on a specific figure in the distance. The resemblances were clear even from this distance—that must be the infamous Beragail. Sparrow’s mother, if her memories served her well.

Moving up to her other side, opposite Amalia, Rilien folded his arms into his sleeves, glancing at her from the corner of one bright eye. "You did not come here only to observe. If fear stays you now, there will likely be no more chances.” He would go with her, if she wished, stay at her side just like this all the way up to her mother, but he could not and would not speak her words for her. However much easier it would be for someone with no anxiety to do so. Amalia's only contribution was a hum of agreement; she chose not to mention the increasing pressure on her wrist.

Sparrow gulped thickly. Her mouth was dry, so not even the comfort of saliva could quell her anxieties. It was not she who first approached, but the woman with snowy hair turned slightly to face them, and inclined her head, bird-like. However much fiercer. From the sharpness of her chin to her hawkish nose, even she could see the similarities in appearance. Though, her eyes were different. Much lighter, and blue, nearly as bright as Rilien's, but not quite. There was humour there, dancing a slow circle of curiosity around them all. Not quite a predator on the hunt, but a quiet, mischievous creature slinking through the trees, curious and clever. Her death-grip only relinquished Amalia's wrist when she realized she'd been holding on too tight, and she hung her head apologetically.

“Aneth ara. Newcomers?” The woman finally spoke, nodding her head towards their group. Her voice was higher than hers; soft-spoken, and bright. Everything she was not. The telltale signs of a past long abandoned marked her face in colours of white and blue; unusual markings spanning the majority of her face. Her smile was friendly, wrinkling around to her eyes. There was a staff strapped to her back; decorated with white feathers, and green beads.

"No, no. They wished to speak to you. I felt no ill-intentions." Pilen tapped his bottom lip and hooked his thumb towards Sparrow, nodding. "Or her, specifically."

She knew that Rilien could not speak for her. Nor could Amalia, nor Ithilian. The woman who stood before her was her mother. She needed no introduction, needed no confirmation beyond seeing her face in person, and even as she stared at her, she could see that the recognition was one-sided. Her mouth worked over the words she'd so carefully practised, and she swore she could imagine the outcome—but nothing came out. Letting her gaze drift around the Dalish camp, or whatever it truly was, and Sparrow found that she could not recall any of her prior memories. There were trees, padding around barefoot and strange insects; afterwards, only pain and soon after rebirth, when she'd been inducted into the Qun and introduced to Amalia. She did not belong here. This was not her home. Even still, the tension sifted away from her shoulders, and she cleared her throat; applying another carefully cultivated mask.

“Ah yes, er. We've come from Kirkwall. This clan, I heard, has few friends. Trade must be difficult. And the area, as you probably know, is dangerous,” she spoke with her hands, “and I know you've no reason to trust us, blindly. I know I wouldn't, but there's channels that can be explored.” Sparrow prodded herself in the chest and then pointed at Beragail. “Between you and Kirkwall. We've a shop, with goods.” Ashton's shop. She sported a cheesy smile. “Kirkwall's a free port, after all. Things come in from the sea; you make Dalish things, we make everything you might need, and we trade. Good yeah?”

Beragail stared at her. Her smile did not slip away, only crinkled apologetically. “You are sympathetic merchants, then?” She paused and regarded Pilen and the others for a few moments before slowly shaking her head, fingers perched on her chin. “Abelas, da'len. We thank you, but we will not be staying here for much longer. And I cannot risk the safety of my people in lands I am not familiar with. Rafael may know more. You may stay as long as you like.” Pilen had already murmured a soft farewell and retreated back towards the archer he'd been with previously.

Sparrow exhaled softly and nodded her head, forcing a wily grin on her lips, even though it quivered. “All's well. That's business for you. I tried my best,” she threw up her hands and shot Ithilian a look of defeat, “thanks for the hospitality, but we'll be heading back. It's a long walk.” She began walking in the direction they had come in, shoulders slumped, as if the business deal truly bothered her. She could feel the eyes trailing her back, but could only focus on keeping her face settled into a straight line; smother the quibbling and push back the sick lump in her throat.

They were alive, after all. And doing well from what she could tell. It was enough.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Considerable time had passed since Sparrow’s rather anticlimactic return to the people that had brought her into the world. Rilien could not say he was disappointed, of course, though he did have a sense that this was not how such things were generally expected to proceed. Literature was not exactly replete with characters who were reunited with long-lost relatives and did nothing. And while life was hardly literature, he would perhaps have expected something more dramatic, or at least loud, out of her. But there had been nothing. She had laid eyes on her mother, exchanged words as one would with a stranger, and then gone on with her life.

All in all, it had been mostly
 rational. Rilien would have said that there was very little they could offer each other. They didn’t know one another, to the point where Beragail had actually failed to recognize her own child. Not unforeseen, necessarily, but he would have expected it to produce a very different reaction in Sparrow than the somewhat defeated acceptance it had. For a few days afterward, he had even contemplated returning and revealing the secret, though it was not his to tell. Rilien was hardly concerned with the convention of such things. Her possession should not have been his business either, but he had made it so, because it was something he could fix. If he had thought there was something to be fixed here, that telling Beragail about Sparrow would have helped her in any way, then he would have, he supposed.

That she might resent him was hardly relevant to whether or not he would act in her best interest
 was it?

For once, he was not in his shop, toiling away at his craft, nor was he out on Sundermont with Estella, training. He actually had some time to do as he wished this afternoon (not that he did not wish to be doing those other things when he was), and so he had decided to spend it on the roof of the shop, or rather, the roof of his lodging above the shop, his legs crossed underneath him and his lute in his lap, his fingers plucking precise sequences of notes at intermittent intervals. Dusk was falling on Kirkwall, tinting the pale colors of most of the city with vibrant oranges and reds, a few violets and blues. The air smelled less bad up here, and while the city was hardly an aesthetic marvel, the present hue of it was not unpleasant to look at. The breeze stirred his sleeves and his lengthening hair—long enough now to fall slightly past his shoulders. It had been much longer in Orlais.

The sporadic nature of his playing evened out until he was properly strumming a song, a soft tune that started quiet and slow, then gradually increased in tempo and volume. If he closed his eyes, he could remember. Lords and ladies in all the colors under the sun, garlanded in feathers and lace and gossamer, whirling about until their feet could no longer follow, then begging off to the sides to watch those who could yet continue. Until there were only two. Strange, that it could seem at once so long ago and so recent.

Time did not heal all of her wounds. Like a sick dog dragging its hind legs underneath an old, abandoned house, Sparrow slunk back to Kirkwall without so much as a two words to the others, aside from her abashed apology and thanks when they finally returned. Directed to all of them for attending to her selfish needs, but especially towards Ithilian for tracking them down in the first place, when he did not benefit from any of it. It could have been far uglier without his presence. Back home, she mourned as she always did. Quiet days in the Hanged Man which quickly transformed into gratuitous, loud evenings slumped outside Rilien's shop. Or in the doorway of their home. She always found herself tangled in her own sheets, even though she swore she hadn't made it that far. Time was a burden of memories, composed of all the what-if's she'd walked away from. Even then, turning her back had seemed the proper thing to do. The right thing.

What right did she have to return? Sparrow would not leave Kirkwall. And she did not expect her mother to return with her. What would Beragail have done? Leaving the clan to its own devices was out of the question, especially after all she'd seen, after everything they had managed to build throughout the years. Had she been younger and still lost, she might have considered joining them. Certainly not the case with how she was now. She'd grown into another person entirely. Papyrus still dwelt beneath the surface of her skin, clammy and uncomfortable, even if she acknowledged that she was not who she had created so long ago. Sparrow had been there to steel her bones, and carry her through her aches, she was the one she wanted to be. She could be whoever she wanted to. There was no place, no room, for her in Beragail's glade, and the knowledge that her daughter was alive and well would do neither of them any good. Let them both thrive, she supposed, as well as they could.

It didn't mean she could fluff it off. Not so easily. Sparrow bore her expectancies clear as day. Pinned to her eyelids, rimming her eyes like gloomy anchors. She did not slip into the same slump she'd suffered during her possession, but she grieved as anyone did when confronting loss, however poorly. Where had the warm embrace gone? Where had the realization that her daughter was standing right in front of her gone? The moment of recognition and heartache and flooding relief. Her expectancies had been robbed from her in only a few seconds, a breath of eye-contact and then nothing. It was strange, surreal. Like entering a stranger's home, expecting a warm return, and only finding someone who was wondering why you were there in the first place. It had hurt, but she'd learnt something in the process. Home was not what ran in the blood, but rather, whoever you chose it to be. Family was not who you were related to, either.

She wandered the streets with her hands linked behind her head, occasionally dropping them to pluck flailing pieces of shredded cloth clinging to some of the wrecked buildings in the area. Her hands were always busy. Always needed to be occupied, lest she wouldn't know what to do with herself. As she tended to do when she walked with no direction, Sparrow found herself in front of Rilien's shop, kicking up rocks and steeling herself beside his door. It was unfair how she treated him in the throes of her tantrums. In times where comfort and friendship would have been appropriate, she disappeared to mourn on her own, and sheltered herself against kind words. These days, she could not guess what he would say. Or what questions he might ask should she show her face, and still, she appeared at random, greedy for the solace she'd previously rejected.

A few moments later and she heard music playing from above. Had the instrument, and its playing, not sounded so familiar, she might have thought she was losing her mind. It sounded sad, at first. Mimicked the ache in her heart, slow and painful—but then, it quickened, and reminded her of warmer things. Her friends, the Hanged Man, and laughter mostly. She did not need to call out to know that it was him playing. Sparrow found a rougher path up one of the balconies, and relished the climb, pulling herself up brick and iron-cast fencing before reaching the rooftop where Rilien was seated. He faced away from her, looking to the horizon. Almost lost. She brushed her hands on her trousers and approached him, kneeling down behind him and slipping her hands across his eyes. She'd wanted to laugh and shrill guess who?

Instead, she murmured, “What do you see?”

Fortunately, Rilien had no need of his sight to play, and finished the last few notes with her hands over his eyes. Rough, callused hands—his eyelashes brushed her palms as he blinked. “Very little, at present.” His answer was, as always, exceptionally literal.

Sparrow remained immobile, hands poised across his eyes, hunkered behind him like a flightless bird. His eyelashes tickled against her palms. Long and feminine as they were, far longer than her own. She often wondered how he had been in his youth, and if he ever took advantage of those eyes of his, as she would have had their lives been reversed. It would've been a waste otherwise. Hers were mucky coloured things, hardly worth diving in. She envied visceral traits like a hungry beast. A soft chuckle hummed in her throat at his response, as literal as ever. Even if he could not see, he could play just as well. Far better than any of her attempts at clumsily plucking the strings with her eyes uncovered. She figured his playing was like a mirror to the self she'd never been acquainted to. A reflection of memories, long lost but still swimming just beneath the surface. Scratch hard enough and there it was—brass, copper, brilliant and blinding.

Setting his lute down in his lap, Rilien raised both of his hands to her wrists, wrapping his fingers around them and lifting her hands from his eyes. He did not immediately let go of them, however, instead shifting himself and her both so that they were facing one another. Then he blinked again, moving his hands such that his fingertips, just as callused as hers if a bit more fastidiously-maintained, slid from the insides of her wrists along her palms, finally coming to a rest such that they were under the crooks of her own fingers, balancing them there with no coercion.

She paused when he settled the lute in his lap, and froze entirely when his hands closed around her wrists. Her stomach gave an empty lurch, twisting and twisting and twisting. Whatever fickle, feckless nerve she always had around everyone, seemed to crumble apart in the strangest moments, particularly when Rilien was involved. His hands appeared much larger than hers. Had her hands always been smaller? They slowly lifted away from his eyes, and she shifted along with him. Partially because she did not know what else to do. Like a young boy teetering on the cusp of discomfort and boyish clumsiness, Sparrow did not jerk her hands away. The jest she'd been planning during her ascent quivered away like the smile on her lips, and she wondered how he managed this. Hadn't it been for his Tranquillity, she might've blamed magic. A spell, of course. Of course it was.

Rilien had learned, among many other things his Bardmaster had taught him, that of all the visible parts of someone’s body, the hands often indicated the most. Where they were placed, how rough or smooth they were, where the calluses were located, how the fingernails were kept, or not kept, as the case may be. Sparrow’s hands, despite being only slightly smaller than his, with somewhat shorter fingers, were entirely different in character. Rilien’s roughened spots were evidence of carefully-chosen disciplines; he had ones on his fingers from lute strings, and others from the hilts of weaponry and his crafting tools. Hers were nicked and toughened in a much less-evident kind of way. Rilien’s training had been difficult, but Sparrow had had a hard life. This much was clear in their hands in a way that may never show in their demeanors.

Her hands might have been a mess of claws and old distrusts, hardened where the shaft of her mace would have sat and littered with forgotten scars, while his told tales of artistry, of subtle brutality and another man who'd walked a very different path—but, his were still graceful and gentle, as if he were guiding the hands of a skittish creature. For once in her life, when she may have guided those hands as any narrow-eyed deviant would have, Sparrow felt green and out of her element. He only ever offered her blunt honesty; subtle, soft. It did not lessen her surprise. When he spoke to her, it nearly felt as if the world had narrowed down to her, and her alone. Whether or not this was intentional, Sparrow could not tell. He did not speak in riddles, nor did he speak in metaphors, in words she might have to puzzle out.

“And now I see you.” The delivery was the same as his purposefully-obtuse answer had been before, but the character of it was entirely different.

He saw her.

Her.

Sparrow drew abruptly closer, tilting her head, and stopping short of his face. Inches apart. Eyes flagged at half mast; hungry, selfish, stupid. Had it been anyone else, perhaps in the Blooming Rose, she might have... Her expression crumbled as she tipped back on her haunches, hands still poised in his. “You see me?” she quarried between her teeth, though her words softened, “even when I don't see myself?”

Rilien knew an invitation when he saw one. This one, like much about Sparrow, could hardly be called subtle. That established, however, he was unsure what to do about it, in a way he was not accustomed to being uncertain. Perhaps it was because other invitations were always accepted or declined with a long view to an end or an aim he wished to achieve. But what was the long view here? He could not be what she needed. Not anymore. His ability to do anything for her, to be adequate to her demands, lasted up until she required something more than his resources, his intellect, or his patient tolerance could give her. He had always known that—never more keenly than when he had accepted that this state of affairs was necessary to save her.

It was a keen irony, that the version of himself that would serve here was the one he’d given up so she could reach the point where it would be wanted. His emotional self, offered and lost so that she could live as a whole person, who might eventually need someone who could feel for her.

“Often, I see nothing else.”

And it was all he had to give.

Gently dropping one of her hands, Rilien placed his free one on her crown, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead, at the spot between her brows, just above the bridge of her nose. Smooth, unblemished, whole. As it should be. It was not his doing, in the end, but he had been part of it. He accepted this sharp awareness of his own hollowness as part of that, part of the price to be paid. “But merely seeing is not sufficient.”

It was unfair. But when had things ever been fair for any of them? In her youth, she'd thought that no one could afford weakness. That staying in one place longer than was comfortable, was simply foolish. Trust and friendship were blades poised at the bottom of your spine, slavering to sever whatever bonds you'd cooked up in your mind. They were vulnerable spaces, small chinks in her armour, that she'd created over the years. Flaws of her own making—how strange, now, that all of the things she'd promised she would never fall prey to, she was now doing. She believed. She stayed. She trusted and actually had friends. She feared losing them, and always wanted more than they could give.

Stranger still, how he could say exactly what she wanted to hear. Her mouth pinched and then settled into a frown, shoulders slumping like a dramatic actress. Rilien had never held a blade to her spine. Never made her feel as if she were backed into a corner and needed fleeing to another part of Thedas, nor driven her away whenever she made trouble. Sure as hell, there was no end to that. How he managed to keep it all at bay... in his own words, illogical. It might have been easier not to bother. That he did meant something. The lump in her throat squeezed at the words she did not have the courage to speak.

She did not move when Rillien dropped one of her hands. Frozen in place as he closed the distance between them and planted a kiss above her nose, soft and sweet as a kitten. It was Sparrow who rocked back on her heels and plopped herself back on her arse, shying away from the proximity that hadn't bothered her nearly as much as before. Warmth boiled up in her face, spoiling her demeanour. Smooth, savvy, slick. All gone. She tugged at the bottom of her mangled ear with her free hand. Her frown wavered in a thin, quibbling line, bordering on one of her grins. It sat awkwardly on her face, as she eyed him. “Not nearly,” she blurted, cotton-mouthed, “you're unfair, you know that?”

"Not nearly as unfair as you are.” Rilien moved back, content to allow her retreat, and placed his hands upon his knees. His head listed slightly to one side, noting the redness to her face with the tiniest flicker of amusement, tempered even so with the weight of that less-desirable knowledge. The person he had been, could have been, would have felt so much more than that bare spark of a thing. Even now, this was all he could muster.

Perhaps it was better, to skirt around the edges of the subject, allow it to be a matter of implications, all plausibly deniable, but Rilien had never been one to do so. At least, not unless it was necessary. "Why are you here, Sparrow?”

Unfair as you are. Sparrow tilted her head owlishly. She was somewhat surprised by the mild disappointment swelling in her chest when Rilien released her hands. She settled them in her own lap to prevent them from trembling—and found herself incapable of smothering the jittery energy bleating through her limbs. Though, his response gave her pause. When had she been unfair? She swore she'd always been the tortured one. Poor her, in her selfish pursuits. Unless he meant all the trouble she'd brought down on their heads. Like an endless storm, cold sleet shivering down to their bones. Never dry enough. No. Rilien never spoke in riddles. He always made things clear.

She tousled a hand through her hair and dropped it back down. Good question. It was a habit. Whenever she drowned herself, instead of facing her feelings as she should have, she'd end up here. Not here exactly. She'd usually find him, wherever he was. He put her worries at ease. Smoothed the wrinkles from her nose. Made her feel lighter. She supposed she sought him out to make herself feel better, and perhaps, that was reason enough. “I wanted to,” her voice squeaked until she cleared her throat and licked her lips, “I wanted you to understand. What I did, I mean. Why I left. I wanted to explain to you. Just you.” The others might have understood if she explained herself properly. Some of them deserved answers.

“My family is here. I belong here. This is my home. Without everyone, without... There's no returning now.”

"Very well.” Rilien certainly didn’t have a problem with that. She was right, he thought: her home was there no longer. That much was plainly obvious to him, at least. Of course, if she had decided she wished to attempt making a life there, with her parents, he would have arranged everything to best suit that goal, as far as he could, too. Arranging things to suit this decision was admittedly considerably easier, because it involved changing little, if anything, at all. "If that is what you want, if this life is, then you are welcome to it. I suspect no one would disagree.”

Perhaps some would feel that she should have at least told her mother that she was alive, to bring the woman closure if nothing else. But from the looks of things Beragail was fine, settled and certainly not excessively distraught on a daily basis. How much more distress would it bring, to both of them, to open up wounds already closed with no clear way of healing them again? In all likelihood, both would have expectations that the other was unable to meet. He was no expert in such matters, of course, but it seemed a likely hypothesis, from what he had observed of other people in his life.

"I
 happen to concur.” The thought was offered softly, though as with everything Rilien said, confidently. He was nothing if not realistic. "You belong here. That is no shortcoming.” She fit here—and she fit into his life in this way. To lose that would be
 unsettling. Even to him.

Her shoulders sagged. Whatever retribution she believed she would have had to endure seemed entirely fabricated. It might have been a waste of time, trekking so far out into the woods, and turning tail as soon as they found who she was looking for—but she was still relieved that he did not blame her. He understood. All that was left was to somehow apologize to Ithilian for piddling away at his time, and constantly heckling him for information. She was not so sure he would be as understanding but figured that he, too, might agree that she had no place there. A few stern words, at best. Or maybe, he'd surprise her. Stranger things had happened. Even if he did not think so, Sparrow still counted him as one of her friends; and once that was done, there was no escaping her tedious requests to repay her debts.

She wriggled in her spot. When had she been asked to stay in one place? When had she stayed long enough to be asked, more like. Amalia hadn't the chance, and whatever friends she'd made along the way had little more than a glimpse of shaggy hair fading in a crowd. She steepled her hands together, quickly unwound them and settled them down and back up again. His goodness was compelling and stifling and warm as a scarf wrapped around her neck. Did she deserve all he had done for her? No. The answer resounded in her, clear as day. Nothing could be done in return. It was an outstanding debt she would gladly pay with time and friendship. She hoped it would be enough.

The smile twittered back across her lips, still teeming with a gladness she could not wrestle off her face. She scooted beside him and draped her legs over the edge, kicking them back and forth.

“Can you play another song? A slow one.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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An acrid haze filled the air, the smell of smoke and ash thick in Ithilian's nostrils. It wasn't the first time he'd been to the Bone Pit, nor was it the first time he saw signs of dragon activity here, but the one he had helped slay here before hadn't come close to wreaking this kind of destruction. This was the work of a high dragon, and likely a fair number of her brood. There were enough clawed footprints in the sand to confirm that.

They were gone now, though. What they left behind of the mining operation was nothing more than charred and torn bodies, mostly consumed by the hungry dragonlings, and the wreckage of obliterated equipment, things that couldn't be eaten, though some of the bite marks indicated that they had certainly tried for a little while. It was safe to say that the mining efforts here were going to be shut down for some time. This place was heavy with the deaths of many souls. Ithilian didn't need to be a mage to feel it. It could practically be seen.

"Keep your spacing," he reminded the others. "Don't give her an attractive target." She would return soon enough, he didn't doubt. From the looks of it, she was looking to make this place her lair, to settle here and try to raise her young. That would of course be bad news for the city. The Bone Pit wasn't exactly right outside the walls, but it wasn't far, either. This needed to be dealt with. Ithilian wasn't happy about being convinced to come out and battle a high dragon, but it needed to be done, and the job needed the best.

Almost all of the best had been roped in like him. Ithilian wasn't even sure where the effort began. With Sophia, perhaps, or maybe Ashton. Hubert would have either gone to mercenary help, or the guards, depending on who he trusted and if he was willing to pay. Regardless, the word had spread to both groups, and now a decently large strike team had been assembled to go into the dragon's new lair, and remove the creature for good.

Certainly, the advice to spread out was good, but it would make matters a little more difficult for Nostariel. Even her roughest, most widespread heal spells could only be cast over an area so large, and she knew from experience that there were a lot of ways a dragon could injure people in various positions relative to her. Still, that was why she was wearing, along with her usual armor and arms, a leather bandoleer full of blue mana potions. Given that nobody else in the team was much for healing, she knew she had to be prepared to take on that burden herself. A bit further to the left, Rilien stood in an accustomed position near Lucien’s shadow, unruffled as ever. His dark leathers had replaced his usual silks and linens, several more blades than usual sheathed about his person. Not entirely unwarranted, considering the last time they’d done this kind of work, many years prior.

Perhaps out of stupidity or misplaced excitement, Sparrow stood in her allotted position with her top-heavy mace balanced across her now-slender shoulder. Nowadays, it looked out of place. Proper training had enabled her to pick it up again. Good thing, too. She missed it. The weight in her hands, and the momentum she felt swinging it around was bar none. With Aurora's most recent lessons under her belt, she felt as if she could take on anything. A dragon? No problem. Little bone-licking dragonlings scurrying under her big talons, flapping wings, and fiery gullet? Easy as pie. She did not, however, roll her eyes at Ithilian's advice, and promptly distanced herself a little further from the others. She'd also donned Amalia's handcrafted leathers for this occasion. It shifted with her comfortably—no clanking and no discomfort. Perfect for dragon-slaying; and hopefully, strong enough to keep her from burning to a crisp, or being skewered in half.

While Rilien stood to Lucien’s left, a few of the Lions occupied the right. Those who had not already been dispatched for the day, and were therefore able to fight a dragon on short notice. Of course, a few of them were looking a little green around the gills at the prospect, especially Estella, but she seemed placated when he told her that they would be asked to combat the younger ones only, unless things went very, very badly. Cor actually seemed a little disappointed, but Lucien was willing to bet that wouldn’t last very long.

Amalia had come a little better-prepared to this fight than her last one with a dragon, and all of the weapons she carried on her person this time were stout, thick, and sharp, because she stood a better chance of puncturing the creature’s hide than slashing it open. She didn’t make a habit of carrying anything long enough to suffice for the latter. She shifted her weight slightly from one foot to the other, arms crossed over her chest.

Aurora had not come completely unarmed, not against a high dragon. Not only would it had been foolish, but also suicidal. She leaned lightly on her staff and kept herself loose in preparation for the upcoming fight. Her staff was a simple affair, a long, thick wooden rod with a white focusing crystal embedded in the tip. Stretching one more time, she hefted the rod and gave it a spin above her before stopping it as she held it out to the side. It had been a while since she had used her staff, but it wasn't too hard for her to adapt it into her style.

Nearby where Nostariel stood there was Ashton, an arrow already nocked and held at half-draw. On the other side of her was Ashton's sergeant, the woman named Vesper with her shield at the ready and her sword resting on its edge. Behind them, a count of three more guards accompanied them, all patiently waiting for the dragon to make its appearance. "So, I'm calling it now. When we kill her, I'm claiming her head and mounting it. I've already got the perfect spot in mind for it," he said with a chuckle and a wink to Vesper.

"We have to survive first, Lieutenant. Let's do that before you start thinking about any promotions," Vesper replied to the chuckling of the other guardsmen. Of the Guard, he trusted these men and women the most to keep their wits about them and to not shy away from fighting beside apostates. Which wasn't much of a problem, none of them were about to do anything to further the Templars control over their city, much less turn their Lieutenant's apostate friends into them. The trust ran both ways. "Of course, Ves. I plan on it," Ashton added with a grin. Fear was absent in his voice, instead an excitement replaced it as he bounced on his heels, eager to get started.

Sophia wasn't sure if they were hunting, however, or merely offering themselves up as prey. She held a position near Lucien, though she heeded the advice of Ithilian's, keeping a fair distance and preventing any clusters from forming. The last dragon she'd fought hadn't gone cleanly at all, but that was years ago, and she'd only had two allies to help, not the small army here today. The land already looked like a battleground. Soon it would be in truth.

The beast could not hide the sound of her heavy beating wings, though in the center of the Bone Pit, it was difficult to tell which direction she was going to come from, with the way sounds bounced around the cliffsides. Ithilian spotted her approaching from the south, coming over the cliff's edge into view, and immediately called it out, though they had only a few moments to react before she laid down her first blast of fire, an intense blaze being put down right through the middle of the assembled warriors, effectively splitting them in two for the time being.

The high dragon proceeded to swoop around to her left and land before those furthest into the sandy basin at the lowest point of the pit. On the other side of the blaze, a small horde of dragonlings emerged seemingly from the earth itself, coming out of their subterranean domains now that their mother's presence emboldened them.

The Lions were quick at attention, and almost as soon as the younger dragons had begun to emerge, the mercenaries were present, working in tight clusters of two or three, so as to keep their backs covered. All had judged it was better to handle the small ones in melee, save Tessa, whose job it was to act as spotter, finding what little high ground she could and keeping one eye on the large dragon and one on her comrades, ready to direct them to move if anything should markedly change in the flow of events. She also added the occasional arrow to the fray, but in order to avoid drawing any of the dragonlings to her position, she did not fire at full speed.

Lucien, meanwhile, took point. It was, perhaps, a fairly safe assumption that doing so was his job in this situation, and he didn’t mind. Part of him rather relished in the opportunity. Everburn, he slid from its place at his back, the cool metal of the sword slowly heating until it glowed, the enchantment in fine working order thanks to Rilien, the metal tempered strong enough to withstand its repeated use. Though he often wore lighter armor than plate these days, he was presently in as much of it as he could be without sacrificing his ability to move. He knew quite well that fire was not a dragon’s only danger. Rilien ran as he had the last time they faced down a dragon, a step behind and slightly to one side of Lucien, quite literally in his shadow. He carried a blade in each hand, the lengths asymmetrical, both trailing frosty air from the metal of which they were made.

Amalia, split off from that half the party by the initial jet of flames, decided to fan to the left and seek to flank. She’d do best up under the dragon, where the scales were softer, but it would require some ingenuity to get there without the creature noticing.

Nostariel, also cut off from most of the party, chose first to put out the flames, too late to make waiting more convenient for Amalia, but perhaps valuable to those who wished to see the other side of the battlefield. She would be best off closer to the back ranks anyway. When the flames had been extinguished, she drew Oathkeeper from her back and nocked an arrow to the string, treading forward considerably more carefully than most of the others. She would need to keep an eye on as much as possible, and in that sense, her role was not so different from Tessa’s.

Sparrow shrugged her shoulders one more time, and luckily, hadn't been in the direct line of dragon-fire spewed in the middle of the Lions assembled there. It appeared as if no one had been injured, but it was difficult to tell with all the ash and dust flying around them in fat plumes. She squinted at the glinting creature flapping around them. Its wings were damned loud enough to drown out the clanging of metal and shrieks of those dragonlings, but her heart was pounding the loudest. Pure energy—pure excitement bugling through her veins. This was much different then their encounter in the Deep Roads. Betrayal had dampened her spirits, but this, this was a mighty hunt, and she needed to stretch out her muscles. It felt much like waking up.

She, too, struck out on her own, glancing over at Rilien and Lucien dashing forward from her peripherals. She approached around the Lions as a brisk jog while dragging her mace through the dusty terrain, occasionally skittering skulls and bones in its wake, while focusing magic through her upper arms, forearms and fingertips. She focused it straight through the haft of her blunted weapon and into its flanged head. Become one. Strengthen her arms. Surround herself with the Fade's heaviness, until she felt like bursting. Digging her heel into the ground, Sparrow drew back her mace with a grunt, tensed her arms, and slammed the mace across one of the dragonlings gaping gullet. It snapped back with spittle flying, allowing the Lions to pounce.

She did not wait. Instead, she lurched forward again, dragging the mace, spattered and all, behind her. What would it feel like, crushing it against this dragon?

Wordlessly Ashton issued a series of hand gestures for Vesper and the rest of the guard he'd brought. In turn, Vesper replied with one of her own and took the others, and made their way as a group to the Dragonlings in order to aid the Lions. Before they got too far, Ashton called for his sergeant to wait for a moment, "Ves." He held her gaze for a moment before glancing toward Nostariel. Vesper followed his gaze and nodded her acknowledgement before leading the men across the field. "Right," Ashton muttered to himself, moving forward to the High Dragon ahead.

Initially cut off from the rest of the battlefield, Aurora aided Nostariel in snuffing out the flames separating them. Once the path between the sides of the field was open, Aurora tentatively approached the dragon and stopped once she reached a comfortable distance. Unlike her other friends, this was her first dragon, and she wasn't aware of just how big they could get. However, she'd seen Amalia peel off at first to approach the dragon from the flank, and she intended to make sure that she got there in one piece. Swinging her staff in a wide arc, she focused her energy into the crystal at the tip, and into the second arc she flung a heavy stonefist directly at the dragon's maw.

Not too far behind the stonefist, an arrow followed. Ashton pulled beside her, though still a distance away to avoid clustering. He drew another arrow and sent it down field seeking the same effect that Aurora was, though instead of Amalia, he was looking to cover Lucien and Rilien's approach. He tilted his head and nodded at Aurora before going searching for his next arrow.

Sophia had maintained a position somewhat close to Lucien, but the dragon’s initial flyover had put a large wall of fire between them before turning to land on his side, leaving her to be beset by an encroaching horde of dragonlings, very similar to the kind she’d fought here years ago. While Nostariel was working on removing the flames, Sophia moved to guard her back, cutting down one smaller dragonling with a clean slice down into the neck. Soon she was able to maneuver closer to the Lions, holding her position with them and cutting down the scaled beasts as they came.

“Behind you, Sparrow!” she called out, pointing out the dragonling trying to chase down the half-elf from the rear.

Ithilian meanwhile climbed swiftly up to a spot of high ground, a flat rocky plateau overlooking the sandy basin below. Tessa had already arrived there by the time he took up his position, taking out his longbow and crouching down, adding powerful long range shots to their arsenal against the dragon. Unlike the other archer up here, or Ashton below, Ithilian had nothing to worry about other than placing the correct shots.

The high dragon was none too happy with the reception she had received, and wisely refused to remain in place, shrugging off the initial attacks. The stonefist from Aurora however served to get her attention, and when the dragon took off briefly to reposition, her blast of fire was directed at the mage responsible.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Behind you, Sparrow. The warning came early enough to warrant an inelegant jerking-halt towards the High Dragon. She took advantage of her forward-momentum to pivot on her right leg and swing the dragging mace in a wide arc, swinging her around to face the dragonling nipping at her heels. If it weren't for its gaping maw full of scissor-sharp teeth and pulsing gullet shifting embers through its skin, she might of thought it looked like a hound chasing a thief away. Her swing missed a few inches above its head, but pulled her along with it. Fortunately, it's snapping jaws missed the meat of her arm by a few inches, though she felt the heat wafting against her face.

Time seemed to drag—and she didn't have enough of it to swing her mace back around by the time it skidded to a halt and turned its head back towards her. She whipped her hand in front of her and focused her energy into her fingertips, into her palm, willing coldness through her core. It shivered down her forearm and burst forth in a spray of sharp icicles, shattering across the dragonlings head. A startled laughed bubbled from her lips, and she took the opportunity to grapple back onto the handle of her mace, swinging it in an upwards motion, while the creature was dazed. It's jaw cracked backwards, and then, it's body followed. She did not wait to see whether or not she'd killed it.

Aurora realized that she may have been a little too effective at providing a distraction, especially when the dragon lifted off with her eyes turned toward her. Ashton turned toward her with eyes wide like saucers before he bolted out to the side and out of the way of the incoming fireball. Aurora's eyes widened as well, but she took step backward to first set her heel, and then scooped upward with her staff, summoning a thick veil of frost in an attempt to counteract at least some of the fireball so that she wouldn't end up as a charred crater in the sand.

Fortunately, she was not alone. Nostariel, still towards the back and well-protected from any errant dragonlings, had the time to set her feet, and draw her bow, but not enough time to fit an arrow to the string. Fortunately, Sparrow and Aurora were not the only ones who’d been practicing, and an arrow did in fact appear—made entirely of ice. With a softly-released breath, the Warden relaxed her hand, and the magical projectile flew, striking right at the center of the fireball itself, the burst of ice that followed rapidly cooling the dragon’s breath weapon. It would hit Aurora’s ice shield at a much lower temperature, now.

Aurora didn't just wait to see what happened. As soon as she summoned her frost veil, she dove out to the side to clear the blast radius. The fire struck the ice and steamed violently and went out with a bang. Had Nostariel not cooled the fireball with her arrow, then Aurora's veil by itself might not have been enough to save her from being scorched. Rolling to a stop on her knees as the steam fell around her, Aurora swung her staff around and shot off a series of lightning bolts toward the passing dragon from the staff's ambient enchantment.

Ashton for his part followed with more arrows, targetting the creature's leathery wings and the joints that connected them to her body. He wisely chose to not stop moving this time.

There was nothing quite as good for one’s confidence in a situation like this than knowing you had the best of friends at your back and sides. So thought Lucien, in an absent sort of way, as he once again ran after the dragon, eyes to the sky to get a good idea of where she would land. When she did, perhaps out of desire not to have holes poked in her wings by the archers in the party, he was there, meeting a sideswept set of claws with the blade of Everburn, his boots digging deep furrows into the gravelly ground beneath his feet. In the end, both he and the dragon were mutually stopped cold. Rilien occupied himself mostly by weaving in and out of Lucien’s shadow, using the gaps provided by the chevalier’s broader motions to add short cuts and stabs to the attack pattern without presenting much in the way of an additional target. When both drew to a stop, he capitalized, punching the blade of his knife into the dragon’s snout, when withdrawing again just as quickly.

Breaking the stalemate, Lucien stabbed swiftly upwards for her snout, meeting air when she reared her head back in time. Thankfully, she seemed to be fully occupied fending off himself and Rilien this time.

Sparrow rounded towards the dragon's flank as well. She'd seen Rilien and Lucien attacking from the front, adding a large, bulky weapon into the fray wouldn't help them much. Besides, she was not graceful and once she swung—stopping was difficult. She skidded to a halt behind the dragon's left heel and ducked under its sweeping tail, careful not to be on the receiving end of its wild kicks, and dug in her own. Like a lumberjack preparing to fell a particularly large tree, Sparrow tensed the muscles of her arms, and swung her mace towards the fleshy under-part of its foot.

Sophia found herself targeted by a larger drake, matured enough to have sprouted wings from its back, the creature rallying the lesser dragonlings somewhat. It led a charge forward, screeching as it tried to chomp down on the nearest target. Sophia met the charge with a swing of her blade, burying the edge of it deep in the dragon's chest, enough to hit the bone and set a spattering of dragon's blood onto her armor and the ground. It failed to kill the creature outright however, and their proximity became a problem. Sophia was forced to take one hand off the handle of her blade and grab the drake by the throat, to try and keep its snapping jaws away from her. It raked at her with claws, trying to find some weakness in her armor, and thus far failing. But her blade was stuck in its chest, and the awkward pair struggled about in place, trying to gain the upper hand.

Fortunately, help was not long in coming. A well-placed shout from Tessa drew the attention of Donnelly and Idris, and the pair finished off their dragonling foes with haste, moving to help Sophia. Idris, armed with a heavy wooden quarterstaff, beat off the additional dragonlings led to the location by Sophia’s obvious predicament, while Donnelly, broad-bladed sword in one hand and kite shield in the other, moved in to help Sophia, blocking an erratic wing-buffet with the shield before stepping in smoothly under the drake’s guard, swinging his sword with controlled strength for the middle of its neck, using the spikes to guess where the bones must be.

The blade sank about halfway into the neck, far enough to be fatal, and he sawed it forward, extracting it with minimal fanfare as its grip on Sophia slackened and it slowly collapsed.

The high dragon meanwhile was growing frustrated at the offensive thrown against her, several arrows having weakened her wings, a number of solid hits landed up close, magic spells taking their toll. When Ithilian landed an arrow through her forked tongue, her attention was pulled up to the vantage point he occupied with Tessa, and she soon took off, heading straight for them.

"That's not good," the elf muttered, shortly before he was forced to dive off of his elevated position. The dragon landed heavily upon the plateau, turning sharply and stomping around the rise, roaring displeasure. Ithilian landed with a roll below, quickly exchanging his bow for his blades, and taking down the nearest dragonling. Tessa was not as quick off the vantage, taking a moment to identify the next one in range, before the incoming dragon forced her to jump off the incline, the impact of its landing showering her with debris.

From her vantage point, the high dragon began to launch balls of flame from her gullet down at the battle below, flames that would do little to her children, but would cook the would-be dragonslayers if they did not avoid them.

“Damndamndamndamndamn,” Tessa muttered as she rolled to her feet, the word repeating in a frenetic rhythm not so different from the one her feet beat on the ground as she sought cover, imagining, not so inaccurately, that the heat she could feel on her back was a fireball chasing her down.

In the end, it started to scorch, and she was forced to dive sideways into a dip in the ground, covering her head with her hands as the flaming sphere passed overhead. When the heat seemed to her to have gone, she poked her head up from the small dip she’d laid in, then picked herself up from the ground. She could feel that her back had suffered some damage under her leathers, but judging from the lack of crippling pain, it probably wasn’t too bad. It took her a bit longer to reach the new vantage point than she would have liked, but at least the dragon wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.

Ashton's choice to not stop moving proved an intelligent decision. One of the fireballs was aimed directly at the archer, causing him to shift focus from shooting at it to running from it. Turning to the side, he bolted as fast as his legs could carry and as soon as he felt the broiling heat on the back of his neck, he dove. The impact threw tongues of flame all around him, but Ashton had avoided the brunt of the explosion.

He rolled and came to a stop on his knees beside Nostariel, the back of his armor singed, and the bits of cloth in his uniform singed. Smoke was still rising from his shoulder when he nocked another arrow and fired it without a hint of hesitation. Then he paused for a beat, tilting his head toward Nos and said, "We can talk about how heroic that was later," before nocking another arrow. An attempt was made to stand again, but he fell back to his knees, the energy taken out of his legs by his proximity to the shockwave. Though he escaped the worst of it, he did not get out completely unharmed.

“And I shall congratulate you on your unparalleled skill at running away.” Nostariel smiled briefly, but there was no time for much more than that, as the dragon had begun to issue more balls of flame from her mouth, and keeping well away from those was top priority for the moment. In fact, it was about all she had the opportunity to do at the moment, though she did occasionally shoot more icy projectiles at the dragonlings or their mother, to great effect in the former case, and not so much with the latter.

The dragon was, unfortunately, capable of moving much more quickly through the air than Lucien was over the ground, and without someone to distract it, it became considerably more dangerous for everyone. This was something that Amalia did not have to think very hard to know. She could see he and Rilien making their way over, but in the meantime, the battlefield was slowly descending into complete chaos. Pursing her lips tightly together, she drew two knives from her back, short and sturdy, and crouched low to present little visual target, circling around behind the dragon and creeping up on it as it continued to aim and shoot spheres of flame towards the other combatants.

In the end, she didn’t think much about it at all—she just did what seemed most likely to achieve the end she was after. It had to happen quickly, and she could not hesitate. That in mind, she bounded into a sprint, her treads quiet against the sounds of battle, and jumped onto the highest point of the dragon’s tail she could reach, sprinting up the rest as far as she could before the dragon reacted violently, pausing in her assault of the field to try and throw Amalia off her back. It was at this point that the knives came into play; Amalia willingly buckled her knees, plunging one of the knives with all the force of her weight into the creature’s shoulder, sliding it as well as she could between the more armored plates.

This went about as well as one could expect, and the dragon’s attention was now fully on getting her away from it and into range of attack. The second knife joined the first on the opposite side, and Amalia held on as well as her grip and the strength in her legs would allow. It was certainly well enough to maintain her positioning despite the dragon’s thrashing, though she had to grit her teeth in order not to bite her tongue.

What she did not expect was what happened next—rather than try and throw her from the ground, the dragon beat her wings several times and jumped off the plateau she’d landed on, taking to the air with Amalia still on her back. From the ground, it appeared as though she ascended almost vertically into the sky, letting out a horrendous, grating shriek that sounded like stone being scraped against metal. A few of the Lions paused in their motions at the sound, Estella flinching visibly.

The dragon reappeared some moments later, twisting through the air in a series of barrel rolls. Amalia was beginning to feel distinctly sick, but she’d locked her grip and refused to relinquish it, knowing that to do so would mean her death. After what seemed like hours, but had in reality been perhaps a minute, the dragon landed hard on the ground, the jolt dislodging her passenger, who at last slid off one side and landed on shaky feet, promptly falling over when her legs gave out from under her. The frantic flight had clearly tired the dragon as well, however, and she was sluggish in her efforts to turn around and finish off her violent passenger, sluggish enough that Lucien could intervene, striking up at the softer scales between her forelimbs, leaving a bloody gash and forcing her to deal with the more immediate threat.

The dragon attempted to get at Lucien, but his positioning was just close enough to make it difficult, and her predicament was only made more obvious when Rilien intervened, waiting for her to shift in such a way as to bear much of her weight on one forelimb rather than the other. At that point, Rilien took his chance, drawing the longest blade he had and darting into towards the foot, bearing downwards with all his weight.

The blade sank into the dragon’s flesh and emerged from the other end, puncturing the ground and effectively staking her in place. The blade, like the others, had been enchanted, and ice began to coat along her limb, reinforcing the hold. There would be no more repositioning for a while, but it wouldn’t hold forever. Whatever they did, they had to be quick about it.

Tessa, who had tracked the dragon’s movement through the sky, caught something from her peripherals. “Hey, incoming!” The Lions, nearest the new arrival, scattered, diving out of the way in time to avoid being crushed under the landing of a second, smaller, but still formidable dragon, apparently summoned by the high dragon’s call.

“Shit.”

"Don't sound surprised, this is Kirkwall. Shit gets worse before it gets better," Vesper said to Estella. The Guard had been amongst the Lions, doing their part to slay the dragonlings, but with the appearance of the matured dragon, their priorities shifted accordingly. With a bang of her sword against her shield, the four guardsmen formed into a small unit, with a Vesper and another shield bearer standing at the front and a pair of swordsman waiting in the wings behind them. "Get your Lions, or are you going to let the Guard do all the work?"

“They aren’t my Lions,” Estella replied, her tone tinged with something that was almost affront, though it revealed its true nature in the comment that followed. “We are the Commander’s Lions.” Nonetheless, she readied her sword, shifting her grip so that she was holding the curved blade with both hands.

“Damn straight,” confirmed Cor, Taking up a spot at her left. His own sword was considerably larger than Estella’s, built to be wielded always with the strength of both hands, like Lucien’s. Donnelly took up a post on her other side, his shield to the middle, where it would protect both of them to some degree. Idris and Tessa ranged out a little further behind, but they would definitely be tackling this as a unit.

“All right. Let’s go guys.” A series of nods, and the Lions charged, staggering their speed so that the first fireball clanged firmly into Donnelly’s metal kite shield, deflected upwards by the deliberate angle of it. Just like a mage’s spell would have been. Cor and Estella split off thereafter, letting Donnelly take the middle and moving to attack the flanks. Tessa provided cover fire for their approach, and Idris worked his way through a knot of smaller dragons attempting to led assistance to the other, weaving and jumping between them like a man of half his years.

Donnelly’s momentum carried him practically into the dragon, though he managed to avoid getting mauled by dint of excellent reflex, the creature’s forearm slamming into the shield he’d raised just in time. It still hit hard, and he staggered heavily sideways. At about the same time though, Cor reached one of the sides, slashing brutally at a back hamstring. It was hard to drag his sword through all those scales, and so the wound was nowhere near deep as he’d intended, but nevertheless, it was an effective distraction. Estella closed from the other side, her enchanted sword finding a place to punch through the natural armor near the wing joint on her side. The dragon’s spiked tail swung for her in response, and her feet were knocked out from under her, forcing her to somersault backwards in an ungainly pile of limbs to regain her footing, spitting strands of hair from her mouth that had once been in her ponytail.

The aggression from the Lions, and Estella's hit in particular, gave Sophia an opening to get around to the dragon's other side, and when the tail swung away to try and hit the younger woman she moved in for her own chance. Ducking under a flapping leathery wing, Sophia struck low, near the rear leg, stabbing up into the underbelly, needing a great deal of force to actually pierce through. Her blade sank in deep, though, causing the creature a great deal of pain, and soon drawing its ire back on her. Quickly, she withdrew her sword and backed up quickly, just in time to avoid the swing slash of the foreleg that tried to retaliate on her.

The Guard was not about to be outdone by a bunch of mercenaries in their city. Vesper lead the guard at an angle toward the front while its neck was turned and focused on fending off Sophia. They struck as one, four blades piercing its shoulder and leaving behind a number of wounds. The act had also garnered the full attention of the the dragon and it whipped its long neck around, dousing them in flame. They'd expected retribution of course, and prepared accordingly. Vesper and the guard to her side set down their towershields and hid behind them, the other two swordsmen hiding behind them. When the gout of flame tapered off, smoke billowed from the red hot surface of the shields, and the ground was scorched around them, but the guardsmen themselves were unharmed, if a bit warm.

The dragon didn't allow them the time for a counter attack, swiping at them with its forearm. Again, it was met with the pair of tower shields, both individuals grunting under the effort and being slid backward with the force. The swordsmen were quick, and struck not a moment after, drawing deep ribbons of blood from the creature's arm. It recoiled from the shock, giving Vesper and the other guard a moment of respite before their ears were assaulted with a shrieking cry. The dragon began to back out and it beat its wings to make room to take to the air. Vesper had other plans, however.

She spared a glance between the guards and indicated with a nod of her head its wings, each understanding the unspoken plan. They approached the escaping dragon, but before meeting it proper, the two shield bearers turned to face the swordsman and dropped to a knee, bracing the shields with their shoulders. The swordsmen had staggered a moment to make room to get and running start, and once their platforms were set, bolted off. They met the shields with their feet, and were launched into the air and onto the dragon's back. Each taking a wing, they plunged their blades deep into the joints, rending its ability to fly.

The two on the ground followed up by rushing forward and slamming into the dragon's torso with their shields throwing it off of its feet. "Someone kill the damn thing!" Vesper ordered the Lions.

The dragon, however, was quick to its feet, and while hobbled, still a brutal creature with strength in reserve. Clawing its way back to its feet, it roared at terrible volume, great sweeps of its tail and lashes of its limbs pushing everyone back, and disarming several in the process. Gouts of fire followed, threatening to cook anyone unwary enough to be caught, even as it swayed dangerously from side to side, worn down by the numerous wounds that had been inflicted upon its body.

Tessa’s bow was crushed beneath someone she didn’t recognize who’d fallen beside her, one of the guardsmen, she could only assume. Not that she blamed him for it—she was pretty sure he’d broken the worst of her fall, so it was hard to hold anything against the fellow. Looking around, she could spot Estella not too far away, clambering to her feet with her hand pressed to one side of her ribcage, one eye closed and a rivulet of blood carving its way down her face from somewhere just over her left eyebrow. Idris was farther off, not having taken any of the direct hits, but his arm looked to be reddened and blistering quickly. Cor’s sword had been snapped in half—she wasn’t sure how, but maybe the dragon had stepped on it or something.

Donnelly looked to be completely out of commission, if the way his legs were twisted around was any indication. She remembered him taking the brunt of the first few hits in an attempt to let them all get away. She found that her own ankle was in too much pain to move, but she wasn’t sure she had a choice. Minus a cut lip, Cor looked fine, and though she couldn’t hear them, she could tell he was talking to Donnelly, and with a short nod, the elven lad took up the human’s sword, shorter than what he usually used. Thanks to their training, though, she knew he’d know how to use it.

For the moment, the dragon was still trying to regain its balance, but they didn’t have long. Not too far off lay someone’s lost crossbow, and Tessa clenched her teeth. Rolling off the guardsman and onto her belly, she crawled over to it, mostly using her elbows to pull herself along with a bit of help from her knees. “Cor, go! Stel and I will cover you from behind!” Laying hands on the crossbow, she pulled a breath into her lungs and rolled over again, half-rising so she could brace the weapon properly as possible in a half-sitting, half-laying position. She was a fish in barrel if the dragon decided to use fire, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it, if she ever did.

For a moment, Estella was frozen by indecision, but when Cor glanced over at her to confirm, she nodded sharply. There was only one way she could hope to succeed in laying enough cover for him to succeed, and she knew what she had to do. She just wasn’t sure she could do it.

You must.

“Do it.” Cor needed no more incentive, and was off like a shot. Behind him, Estella reached deep into herself, dipping for the first time in years into the half-familiar Fade.

Fire had always been easier to her hands than anything, and it was fire that answered her call now. Not much use against a dragon, but she didn’t have to kill it, she just had to distract it. Her first few attempts fizzled out before they even reached the dragon, one whizzing dangerously close to the tip of one of Cor’s pointed ears, though she doubted he even noticed. With the third, she hit her stride a bit, and though it was hardly masterful, the flames did hit the target, drawing its attention while Tessa pelted it from the other side.

“Over here, you ugly son of a Darkspawn!” The dragon’s much more impressive fireball was its reply, and she had to sprint to the left to avoid it, firing as she was able. Fortunately, she didn’t have to keep it up for long, because she could already feel her reserves drawing close to empty. She’d never been a talented mage.

With a great running leap, Cor looped one of his arms partway over the dragon’s shoulder, gripping one of the spikes that protruded from its upper spine and swinging, locking his legs around the middle portion of its neck. Pulling himself up by this hold, he torqued himself upwards, driving the sword up under the soft part of the throat, under the base of the tongue, a vulnerability that would have been otherwise unreachable. Wrenching the sword back out again, he dropped, landing in a crouch and promptly bolting to the side before the dragon fell, as otherwise it would likely have crushed him. When it fell, it moved no more.

A massive roar from across the battlefield announced that the original High Dragon was still alive, though more injured than it had been. Ashton stood a distance away, having once again found the strength in his legs to get back to moving, though he was noticeably more sluggish. His quiver was also steadily drying up, with the amount of arrows countable with his fingers. They needed to finish this soon, else the dragon would be the one grinding them down-- not the way it was supposed to be. Ashton reached back for another arrow when his fingers brushed against the fletching of one of his specialized arrows. He hesitated for a moment, a plan formulating in his head.

Well, it wouldn't hurt anything. Dropping the original arrow he was searching for, he plucked the one with the burlap sack for a tip. He nocked it and waited patiently. Aurora, much closer than she was initially, stood panting, downing the last of her mana potions. The dragon roared once more and reared her neck back, and Aurora prepared a spell to counteract the gout of flame that was sure to follow. Instead of spitting flame however, an arrow snaked its way through the air and went into the dragon's open mouth, smacking against the back of her throat. A muffled pop and bright flash replaced the fire, and the dragon stopped everything it was doing in a massive fit of coughing-- leaving it stunned.

Aurora watched in confusion for a moment, wondering what just had happened before shaking it off. She was presented with a prime opportunity, and it wasn't one she planned on wasting. Digging deep into her reserves of magic, she dipped into the fade. Thrusting her staff deep into the sand at her feet she used what was left of her mana and summoned a pair of spires beneath the dragon's feet on one side, and forced them to rise as high as she cool manage. The effort expended was massive and when she reached her limit she fell forward on her hands and knees, panting and forcing as much air as she could into her lungs.

The effect was as envisioned however, having her balance shattered by Aurora's earthen spires, the dragon tipped over and fell onto its side, its head bouncing as it hit the ground.

A falling dragon was not terribly difficult to predict a few seconds ahead of time, considering how long it took something that large to actually topple. As a result, Lucien was exactly where he needed to be when it did, standing just beside where its head contacted the ground. Before it could so much as move, Everburn was whistling through the air, and his strength and leverage, as well as the heat of the blade, moved it through the thick protection of the scales and out the other side, severing the head completely from the neck.

With a heavy exhale, he stepped back and lowered his ancestral sword. “It’s done.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The Underground, as Aurora had taken to calling it, was slowly increasing in size. There were mages who still came to her for help in controlling their powers, and only those who needed it were given combat training. However, there were also mages who did not come to the clearing for training, who just tried to keep low and out of sight of the Templars. For those, the Underground was a way to find help, a shoulder to lean on if needed. From finding cheap housing for those who wished to stay in Kirkwall, to helping those who wanted to flee find a safe way out, Aurora and the Underground did more than just train mages these days.

She was careful to keep a close eye on what they did and said, and always made sure that anything they did could not be traced back to magic. Thanks to her caution, to her friends, and sometimes even the friends of those friends, their group was nothing more than rumors and speculation on the street. Aurora would not take even the slightest chance on them being discovered. Some of the mages they helped did not even know they existed. It was not a huge organization, and it was optimistic to even call it an organization. In Aurora's eyes, it was a loosely connected group that sought to help others out so that as a whole they could survive. Like the roots of a flower.

It was a partly clouded day in the clearing, mages were practicing small spells as a concentration exercise, while others simply sat and mediated. Aurora, Pike, Donovan, and Sparrow stood apart from the majority and spoke amongst themselves about recent rumors concerning mages possibly escaping the Gallows.

"The way I heard it, most of them were captured again soon after," Pike said, frowning with the thought, "Though it's possible that others might've eluded their hounds thus far."

"Anything's possible Pike, even the rumor being false," Aurora added. There was not much love for Templars, even among nonmages, there was a very good chance that one of those people simply made it up in order to discredit the Templars. She did not like to deal in possibilities or maybes. "I won't have us go looking for mages that may or may not even exist."

Sparrow was squeezed in between Pike and Aurora, shoulders hunched forward and elbows propped on her knees. She scratched at her chin and snapped her eyes shut for a few moments, the closest thing to rummaging through her thoughts for some other plausible scenario that wouldn't involve not doing anything at all. She didn't like the idea of inaction, even if the rumours were false. But Aurora was right—better to be safe, and all that. She puffed her cheeks out and sighed harshly through her nostrils, “Might be more to go on if we wait.”

Pike visibly grimaced, but said nothing more on the matter. Instead Donovan clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "We will help those that we can, but we cannot be foolish. Impatience will do more harm than good," he said and though his lips lacked a smile, Donovan's eyes were warm.




Rilien refolded the missive and tucked it into the inside of his tunic, taking the few moments necessary to clean his workspace. “Something needing attending to?” The question came from Bodahn, who’d seen the young Templar carrying the message come in earlier, a bit nervous, and hand over the sealed envelope to the shop's proprietor.

The elf nodded slightly. "Yes. I will be out for the remainder of the day, and likely tomorrow as well. Please handle any orders in the usual way.” Bodahn confirmed that he would, and Rilien took a moment to make sure his order sheets were in order and accessible to his dwarven shop-mates before heading up the stairs. It didn’t take too much longer to armor himself in smooth, dark leather, sliding various blades, lockpicks, and potions home in the loops, sheaths, and pouches designed for them. When he was properly attired for his other kind of business, Rilien headed out the front door and made for Sundermont.

He was not usually in the business of outsourcing his more discreet requests, but in this case, he felt that it would be beneficial to all parties involved to bring in Aurora and whomever of her people she desired to have along. The problem was hardly unique, but he was being offered a great deal of discretion regarding his methods, and neither Thrask nor Cullen ever asked him many questions regarding how he accomplished the things they asked him to do. This was for the best. It was enough that when Rilien was asked to take care of a problem, it did not ever become a problem again.

For an elf, he looked rather out-of-place in the wilderness; Rilien wore his city-born nature with, if not precisely pride, certainly an utter lack of shame. A peculiar kind of almost gentrified sophistication was built not only into his wardrobe, but into the way he kept his appearance, and even the way he moved. That said, he passed as quietly as anyone might hope to through the forest, a silent but not invisible shadow sliding between the pillar-like trees and over the irregular landscape under his feet. He had learned of this location not too long ago—Aurora, it would seem, trusted him with the information, and in all honesty, he would have been able to extract it from Sparrow if he’d so desired. But he had as yet left the information unused. He was appreciative, as much as he could be, that Sparrow was finding a sense of community and belonging that had nothing whatsoever to do with him. It made the inevitable future much easier to plan for.

At present, however, he would have to intrude. He approached the clearing unnoticed by anyone, watching with an unreadable face as various mages, ranging from the very young to the rather wizened, practiced their craft in small, precise ways. A cluster including both Aurora and Sparrow stood off to one side, and it was these he approached, breaking the tree line and making a beeline for them. One young woman looked up and started when she noted the new arrival, enough noise to alert the rest to his existence, anyway.

"Aurora.” He waited until he had gained the attention of the speaking group before he continued. "I was recently passed a job from Ser Cullen. I believe it might interest you.”

Sparrow eyed her fellow mages with pursed lips, scuffling the dirt with the toe of her boots. They were far enough from Kirkwall to refrain from being overly cautious, but she still felt itchy. Not even the great trees, weaving back and forth in the wind, could soothe her soft-spoken worries. She'd forgone Amalia's dragon-made regalia for soft-leathers, far more comfortable for treks in the woods such as these, and not drawing unwanted attention. Her hair had grown longer over the months. Forgoing clippers and choosing instead to pull it back from her face into a loose knot, it made her appear much less intimidating. Not soft, but different. She exhaled noisily and stretched her arms over her head, arching her back and settling back into place. It was a nice day.

A noise snapped her attention sidelong. She'd spotted someone jerk backwards, and instinctively drew back her hand, fingers splayed. Warmth pulsed down her arms, and crackled at her palms. It took her a moment, blinking owlishly, to realize that the person approaching them was none other than Rilien. Silent as a ghost. Looking no more nonplussed by their reactions as if he'd been invited all along. Thankfully, no Templars were in pursuit. She dropped her hands dramatically and clicked her tongue, a grin slowly creeping it's way onto her face, “Can't you make a little noise? Or wear a bell?”

"It'd suit him, I think," Aurora agreed with a smile. She was surprised to see him there too, at first, but as it always did when it concerned Rilien, it soon faded away. She'd known him long enough to understand that she had to expect the unexpected with him. She looked past him and waved to the mages, asking them to calm down. "It's okay, he's a friend. Please continue with what you were doing before," she bade them. Even so, she couldn't help but over hear the word tranquil whispered between them.

Pike watched the man carefully, while Donovan stood relaxed with his arms crossed, as if waiting for something. Likely waiting for Aurora to ask what the job was. She turned back to Rilien and chewed on her lip, looking somewhat puzzled. "Ser Cullen is a Templar, is he not?" She asked, looking first to Sparrow and then back to Rilien, "What kind of job would a Templar have for you?" Aurora asked.

"He's asking you to hunt down a mage, isn't he?" Pike said, his frown deepening. "It's what Templars do, after all," He added, as Donovan's hand clasped his shoulder once more. That drew even more looks from the mages collected, and caused Aurora to sigh audibly.

Sparrow's grin smothered itself into a thin smile. Rilien hadn't told her he'd been planning to come up here at all. Neither did he mention needing any help, seeing as it concerned Cullen and who-knows what. Truthfully, she had nothing against him, but he was a Templar, and generally, Templars meant trouble for most of the people she surrounded herself with. Including Rilien, ironically. He didn't owe them anything, so why did they continue dogging him for solutions?

Rilien turned his head slightly, staring down Pike for several long seconds, his citrine-yellow eyes unblinking. "Attempting to see everyone as for you or against you will make you blind.” Blinking slowly, he returned his eyes to Aurora, ignoring the jest that suggested he wear something that would allow others to hear his approach. "What Ser Cullen wants is for me to ascertain the location and activities of two apostates, before Meredith comes to believe the matter one that she has to send a troop of Templars to deal with.” He adjusted the arms in his sleeves slightly.

Pike continued to look at the man for a moment more before his gaze averted, his eyes dropping to Rilien's feet. Meanwhile, Donovan gave Pike's shoulder a gentle squeeze as he nodded in agreement with Rilien's thoughts.

"As long as he hears nothing of them afterwards, he is willing to leave the handling of these matters to my discretion. If they are no longer Templar problems, they do not require Templar solutions. It seemed to me that this would interest you.” He tipped his head faintly to the side to indicate the various mages practicing their skills in the clearing. He did not believe that every apostate possessed the character required to live safely outside the bounds of a Circle, but he also did not believe that none of them did. All that he was required to do was take these two in particular off the Templar radar and out of the rumor mill.

"One of them is named Evelina, and Ser Cullen believes we will locate her in Darktown. The other is Emile de Launcet, and his location is undetermined, but his father, the Comte de Launcet, lives in a mansion in Hightown. It is suspected that he and the Comtesse are hiding their son from the Templars.”

Aurora tilted her head and brought her hand to her chin as she thought about it. Not that there was a decision to be made on whether she was going to help or not, that much was a given. It was as Rilien said: if it were no longer a Templar problem, then they would not be required. Instead, she'd make it a mage problem so that a mage could deal with it. No, instead the thoughts were on another matter entirely.

She turned toward Pike with her arms crossed and spoke, "You're coming with me on this one." She said, "Open your eyes a little, so to speak. It'll be a fine learning experience, I'm sure." Next, she turned toward Donovan, smiling. "Think you can stay here and watch over the others while we're away?" She asked.

The man looked passed them toward the mages who were now all watching them and nodded in agreement. "Aye. I will make sure they get through their regiment," though before he left them he leaned down and looked at Pike, "Do not give them any trouble and do not do anything foolish, yes?" Once Pike agreed with a slight incline of his head, Donovan straightened and went to the other mages.

"Sparrow?" Aurora asked, looking at the woman. A smile soon broke out on her face though as she laughed. "Do I even need to ask?"

The ember-eyed woman knuckled her nose and dropped it down to tap at her chin, feigning thoughtfulness. Even if there were any other options, should Rilien request anything of her—they both knew she'd be there, indefinitely. No other choice, really. If any mages were involved, she wanted to personally see it through. In her experience, even the slimmest chance of salvation was worth pursuing and if they could prevent her friends, these mages, from suffering future troubles, she'd do anything. More than that, she wanted to be involved in these things, in Rilien's secret disappearances. Tight-lipped as he was, she felt a whispering of neglect. She threw her head back and laughed too, slapping a hand down onto Aurora's shoulder, eyes alight. “Course not. Course not.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The four of them, Aurora, Sparrow, Rilien, with the addition of Pike, entered the city and headed toward Darktown. It was a path she travelled more often than not, so she was becoming numb to the stark changes as the environment began to melt away from Lowtown to the slums. However, Darktown was a general location, and a rather large place to be searching for a single individual, especially if they were a mage. Aurora had decided that they should try and find Evelina first. If she had evaded the Templars, then there was no way she could be that easy to find. Though rarely did she expect anything of a similar manner to be easy.

"What's the plan when we find her?" Pike asked. He lagged behind the trio as they walked, specifically behind Aurora. Turning back to look at him, Aurora answered, "We will do what we can for her, so long as she doesn't bother the Templars any longer," She caught the wince on his face, but she clarified, "If they know she's here, then they'll keep searching for her. She can only avoid them for so long before they find her, so we have to find her first." Aurora didn't exactly know what they could do for her, but they'd still have to find her first.

Toward that end, she turned to Rilien. "Did they tell you anything besides that she might be in Darktown? There's a lot of people there, and not all of them want to be found either."

"And that is why they asked me to do this, and not someone else.” Rilien had extensive informational networks scattered throughout Kirkwall, contacts from all walks of life that he could lean on when necessary. The abundant coin that his shop brought in smoothed many of these relationships over, and as a result, any number of his birds were happy to sing what they knew. Down here, he’d be best off inquiring of Tomwise, but fortunately, he knew something of Evelina from his own years living down here, and as such, it likely would not be necessary.

"Evelina is a former Fereldan refugee. She spent the early part of her years here taking in various orphaned or homeless children and caring for them, until begging proved insufficient, at which point she went to the Circle, in an attempt to secure them resources by turning herself in as their primary guardian. That is not, however, how such things work. She broke out of the Circle several weeks ago and destroyed her phylactery. But I do not believe she would have gone to ground without checking on those children she considered her responsibility, so if anyone knows where she went, it would be them.” It should not be too difficult to figure out which were hers—people tended to know things like that down here. And of course, he was still in possession of the coin required to loosen tongues, if that became the issue.

Strange how he knew so much about people, when she, another inhabitant of Darktown, hardly knew anything at all. Not that she really cared to, honestly. She believed two breeds of people existed in the musty underbelly of Kirkwall. Those whose eyes discerned weaknesses, raking across exposed purses, throats, and bangles, to survive and scrape and live. And those who'd already given up. Hunched in darker corners, settling into the shadows. Anyone else unfortunate enough to call this home were just that: in temporary hiding. Over the years, Sparrow had become a reckless creature of light shoving past everyone, while Rilien became something more of a spider weaving its web across Kirkwall in its entirety. Strange how she'd never noticed before.

She licked her lips and walked beside Rilien, hardly looking where she was going. Weaving down these dirty streets came naturally to her. Instead, she listened. Whoever this woman was, she was good in ways that were all too uncommon. Her crime? Freedom. The Circle left a sour taste in her mouth, even if she'd never experienced life in any tower, in any constraint beyond what the Qunari had taught her. It had taken from Rilien, from many of the other mages, and threatened the very same freedoms she'd sought for so long. Templars, too, for that matter. She had no love for them. “Alright then, lead on,” she said with a flourish of her hand, indicating one of the many paths. There were many children scuttling around, and her means of questioning often involved near-throttling them to a stop and roaring in their faces. Softness did not her needs.

Like Pike, all she thought of was what they'd do when they found her.

Darktown, perhaps of all the places in Kirkwall, changed the least with time. The poorest were always the poorest, and it wasn’t as though any of them had the ability to bring any cheer or basic cleanliness to the dirty, half-underground cesspool that was the bottom rung of the city. Rilien, having lived here for three years himself, still knew it quite well, and as such, it wasn’t terribly difficult to navigate to a section of the place where youths were known to gather, mostly to keep each others’ company while their parents—should they have any—attempted to beg or steal work or coin elsewhere.

The particular corridor he led them down was only sparsely occupied at this time of day, but there were two children sitting against the wall, apparently occupied with a game of some sort involving an ill-carved wooden top and some sticks. One of the boys appeared to be considerably older than the others, perhaps twelve, while the younger looked about seven, though given his malnourishment, he might well have been considerably older and merely stunted in growth. It wasn’t extremely uncommon in these parts.

Rilien in fact recognized the elder of the two—he’d paid him a few times to run errands for his old shop, back when he had been based a few blocks over. "The elder is named Walter. I do not know if he is one of Evelina’s adopted, but even if he is not, he is likely to know someone who is.” He was a reasonably intelligent child, as Rilien recalled, and down here, knowing who was whom was a valuable skill.

Sparrow crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at the children, squinting her eyes, trying to place faces and names together. It conjured no familiarity, and probably scared them, but they weren't here to make friends. Had she been born in different circumstances, she might of pitied them as Aurora did. As far as she was concerned, they were as free as she had been at their age. Perhaps, even more so. She glanced towards Rilien, then shifted over to let Aurora through.

Aurora frowned with one arm over her chest and the hand of the other on her chin. She felt sorry for these children, they had nothing. She may have been taken from her parents, but she was never without food or shelter. Looking at her companions Aurora shrugged and took the first steps toward them. Out of all of them, she perhaps had the required demeanor to speak with children. Rilien was, well, Rilien, and both Sparrow and Pike were not the most delicate of creatures. She approached the children and they both stood, the younger one running to hide behind the older-- Walter, as Rilien told her.

"We got nothing here you want, leave us alone," The boy said defensively shielding the younger one. Aurora frowned and seemed a bit hurt, but quickly smiled and shot a glance at Rilien. Walter followed her gaze to the tranquil and upon seeing him seemed to relax a little. "Rilien?" He asked. Rilien inclined his head slightly in answer.

"We mean you no harm, we just want to talk," Aurora said, dropping into a crouch to be at the same level as the children. "We just want to know where Evelina is, do you know her?"

"Evelina, she..." Walter began, though he seemed unsure if he should go any further. Aurora smiled warmly and tilted her head to the side. "We just want to help her, that's it."

"She shared everything with us. She found us when the darkspawn came, when our parents died. She made sure we got to Kirkwall safely... But when she went to join the Circle, they called her an apostate, for leaving the tower in Ferelden. They locked her up..." Walter said.

"Typical," Pike said, rolling his eyes. Aurora shot him a glance, of which he shook his head at. "Why didn't she stay here, with you?" he added.

"She didn't want us to be stuck in Darktown, she wanted to give us a real life. She thought the Circle would help her, but they just locked her up!"

Pike said nothing else, but he visibly grimaced and crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed with the actions of the Circle, and Aurora couldn't help but feel the same way. She sighed and nodded, asking another question. "Can you tell us where she went? You can trust us, we'll try our very best to help her in any way we can."

"No one can help her," Walter said, but the boy hiding behind him stepped forward and began speaking instead, "The Templars made Evelina angry. The made her change. It wasn't her fault, when it was over she was ashamed she ran into the tunnels and hid," Before he could continue, Walter pushed him. "Shut up Cricket! Don't tell them that!"

Aurora dropped her head for a moment, before shaking it and looking at Rilien, then Sparrow. "You can't go there, she'll know we told you and she'll get angry!"

"Angry? I don't like it when she's angry! We have to hide!" Cricket said in a panic before he bolted. "Cricket!" Walter called, following close behind.

"Changed.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the children meant by that, especially since it had been brought on by Templars. Rilien’s expression didn’t shift, nor did his posture alter much, but he knew exactly what would become of this situation now. There was no going back from being an abomination—one case very obviously excepted. "We should find her, before she causes any more damage.”

Abominations. Sparrow swallowed thickly and rocked back on her heels, watching the children scamper away. It was a possibility she hadn't wanted to consider—ever again, really. How many times had they faced things like this? Grim reminders that they were made up of tender things, swaying on the brink of something dark and irreplaceable. Knowing what they were going to face didn't make it any easier, and as her eyes raked away from tiny footpads rounding the bend, back towards Pike, she knew this would be made more difficult with his being here. She swept her fingers through her tousled hair and rolled her eyes up. Fairness played no part in this, anymore.

As much as she wanted to walk away from this thing altogether because of what she'd been to those children... there were no options. She looked down at Aurora and shook her head mutely. She didn't like this either, but she'd killed enough abominations to recognize futility, and wasted efforts only made things harder. “Maybe it'd be best... you know, if,” she mused and cleared her throat, “we dealt with this instead.” The only other option one had was to close their eyes, and if Pike wanted no part in this, she wouldn't blame him. Her hands, however, no longer shook.

"Better us than the Templars who started this," Pike said, spitting to his side. "Dammit," he then cursed under his breath. Aurora turned toward him and nodded in agreement. She had said that they would help her in any way that they could but now... It was the only way they could help her. She shouldn't be left to suffer like that and hurting others. No one would want that.

"Come on, let's do it quick..." Aurora said, standing and making her way toward the sewers.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The sewers, as one might expect, smelled exactly like dead things and shit. If Rilien looked out of place in Darktown, the effect was magnified tenfold here. Still, though his boots might be of fine make, they were functional and watertight, something that was definitely fortunate considering where they’d ended up. So while they sloshed through stagnant, filthy water as deep as their ankles, none of it seeped in. Oddly, most of the sloshing seemed to be left to other people, as even in these conditions, Rilien made little enough noise that he wasn’t heard over everyone else.

Who had deigned to place traps in a sewer passage, he did not know, but he found several anyway, walking in front to better spy the occasional tripwire or pressure plate. He didn’t stoop to disable them, considering the terrain, but he at least warned the others of where they were located, so that they could place their feet carefully. Not knowing where exactly Evelina was in the sewer system meant they had to sweep it, at least until Rilien picked up on ambient magic in the area. After that, like some kind of odd bloodhound, he led them to where he sensed it from, coiling and slithering like black oil on the surface of a dank pond. Corrupted, beyond their capacity to repair.

Slogging through shit so early in the day hadn't been on Sparrow's list of things she wanted to do, either. It seemed as if her day was being plunged into the same muck she was currently drudging through, and no amount of breath-holding would quell the wafting bouquet of fecal matter and cankerous mold that surrounded them. She kept her arms swinging in an odd, chicken-fashion to prevent soiling anything besides her nice, new boots. If she'd known ahead of time, perhaps she would've worn clothes she cared nothing about. She had to admit though, it was a nice distraction to the fact that they'd soon have to slaughter another mage-gone-astray, in a dank gutter that overshadowed all of her good deeds.

The area Rilien led them to was a wider, more cavernous one, the terrain a mix of sodden and completely covered in water, which would mean poor footing for those not used to keeping it. Rather than Evelina, however, what they saw first was Walter and Cricket, who had obviously known more exactly where their former caretaker had hidden herself.

"Walter.” It was perhaps strange that the one word, delivered in nothing other than his characteristic monotone, could produce a sort of instantaneous guilt in the adolescent, but it did.

“I—I thought if we warned her about you, she wouldn’t be angry. But she—”

“Walter
” A feminine voice sing-songed the word, perhaps from up the stairs slightly ahead and to their left.

Walter’s eyes went wide, and he grasped Cricket’s upper arm, shifting the smaller boy behind him. “She’s coming. Run!” The two took off, attempting to mount the stairs, but a figure appeared to be descending them, cutting off the boys’ escape.

It belonged to a woman, her face lined, probably prematurely, with stress, her cheeks hollowed and slightly sunken. Her coloration and build were entirely average for anyone around the area, but there was a malicious light in the way she stared. Rilien knew that wasn’t just a metaphor—it was a reflection of the nature of the magic she harbored. “There you are. Don’t run from me, Walter. You know those are the rules.”

Rilien moved swiftly, insinuating himself between the woman and the children, one of his long knives sliding free of its sheath with a soft ringing sound. Electricity crackled along the surface of the steel, the enchantment waking now that it was properly in his hand. "Get back.” His order to the boys was toneless as ever, but they obeyed immediately nonetheless.

“You play the hero well.” Eveline eyed him speculatively, and then the others as well. “But I see through you. You lived here, once, but you were never one of us. And now you live in Hightown, up there with the nobles and the filth. Never to look at what’s below your feet. I should rule Kirkwall! Then my children will have a whole city to play in!” Evelina’s face and form contorted, bathed in a sickly green light, and no more than a moment later, an abomination stood where once she had been. To her sides, several shades and rage demons appeared from the ground as well, hissing and spitting magmatic saliva and rotten air alike.

Rilien did not hesitate, and sprang for Evelina.

It was Rilien who had darted forward first, shielding the children from who she assumed had been Evelina. An old, withered husk crooning at the head of the staircase. Blabbering about things that made no sense. An empty shell bearing a twisted face, and a well-meaning woman gnawed away by monsters whose sickly-sweet promises had been too great to refuse. She understood that better than anyone, and it made her stomach twist in knots, her mouth swill with bile. She chuffed harshly and unwrapped the mace from her hip. Already, it hissed with heat and spat embers from its flanged fins, mirroring her outrage. It was unfair. All of this. Dirty business fit for the sewers.

She, too, darted forward and nearly fell flat in the mud, slipping in the muck under her feet. She regained her balance, swearing and sweating from heat wafting from her weapon. With Aurora's guidance, she still could not control the measure of magic poured into temporarily enchanting weapons, and at this proximity, the shaft burnt hot against her palms. She gnarled her discomfort into pure energy and planted her feet onto the first staircase, which was relatively drier than the rest of the sludge, and threw herself at the nearest shade, screaming. The sizzling mace swung back behind her head and swept into a large arch focused on the upper portion of its chest, sending her and the shade over the railing and back into the filth.

The satisfying crunch of steel against the shade's face made it worthwhile. It sizzled and crackled in a mess of ash and embers, sweeping up into the air as she passed overhead. She landed shoulder-first and managed to roll back to her feet without kissing muck and grime, another gurgle of rage battling its way from her throat as she stumbled back towards the rage demons.

Next into the fray was Aurora who dashed in low past the two children and directly to the shade on the far end. When she threw her arms back and when she brought them back to her front, they were encased in a thick layer of stone. Her face held a grim edge as she went to work. On her approach, she feinted to the side, which brought the shade's attention there before she broke back to the opposite side, breaking the sightline. Aurora rose up and delivered a heavy uppercut to what could be considered the thing's head, though it required a little hop to reach. Though the onslaught didn't stop there.

Once she reached her feet again, she delivered two more strikes to the demon's midsection before he had the chance to lash out. He brought a horizontal swipe across in an attempt to take her head off, but she leaned heavy to the side. Unfortunately, it threw her off balance, and in the muck of the sewers she lost her footing, and she threatened to topple over. However, her stoneskin hand kept her upright, though partly horizontal, acting as a pillar of some sort. Instead, she swept with her foot, taking the shade's base from it. She pushed herself up and brought her hand in a semi circle, ending in the creature's chest, dispersing it.

She turned just in time to witness a rage demon rear back to belch a stream of lava on to her, but before it could carry it out its intentions, a heavy force picked it up and tossed it to the side. A sidelong glance revealed it to be Pike, standing protectively in front of the children. She spared a nod in acknowledgement before jumping back into the fight.

Rilien had a bit of an uphill battle on his hands, as Evelina had backed up the stairs after his initial lunge resulted in a deep stab wound in her side. Trailing a ribbon of blood, she made to get away from him as quickly as possible launching multiple projectiles at him, as the staircase forced him into a rather narrow path, minimizing his ability to dodge. But he was light on his feet and well-balanced, and so while a fireball managed to catch his sleeve on his way up, he was not seriously injured before he was able to get in close again.

One of the abomination’s arms swept outwards, just clipping his cheekbone as he bent to avoid the worst of it, the thin line of blood trickling down the nearly-alabaster white of his skin, stark if nothing else. Narrowing his eyes, he lunged again, sweeping in low and hamstringing her on the way past, straightening to a stand once he was properly behind her and taking another glancing blast of telekinetic energy to his left shin. Shifting his balance to his other foot, he plunged his dagger into the base of her neck and tore it out the other side, sending her to the ground. Noting that another rage demon approached Sparrow from behind, he drew a smaller knife, this one glistening with ice, and hurled it, striking between what would have been its shoulder blades, freezing it at the core and making it vulnerable to blunt impact. A couple of blows from Sparrow’s mace would probably shatter it.

Sparrow felt, more than heard, the slicing wake of Rilien's dagger hissing beyond her shoulder, and punching into the rage demon skulking at her back. He was backing Evelina back up the staircase, and looked as if he needed no help. Blood pumped through her temples as loudly as drum beats, clamouring and trampling any remaining logical thought as if they were the shoulders of the dead. Her movements were clumsy in the perilous slop, but it did not take her long to take advantage of the terrain and slip under its extended claw and drifting her mace behind her. A wake of destruction hardening the slime it schlepped through, crackling with hoar-frost. Cold enough to numb her hands. Its blueness reflected in her eyes, dancing with the demon's flames, and as she tensed her shoulders and arms, swinging wild and wide, the mace connected with its shoulders and sailed straight through it's neck and torso, sideways.

Unfortunately, its momentum swung her off balance and she plopped onto her side, mace held askew. Her anger sizzled out as if it'd been doused with water—or shit and muck, probably both. The stench reached her nose once more, and she tasted copper in her mouth. She sucked at her gums to realize she'd bitten her tongue. Fortunately, all the other demons and baddies had been slain, and now all who remained was the withering Evelina, the children, and her friends. Stuck in a sewer, sodden with who-knows-what. Even she admitted that she'd need to bathe. She did not immediately stand, but instead shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at Aurora and Pike, grimacing and flicking clumps of mud from her sopping sleeves. How long would it take to get that out of there? She sighed, “Shit. Everywhere.” And then, there was the children: wide-eyed, trembling. Also in shit. Hardly a place for kids.

The last demon was handled not too long thereafter, due to Pike and Aurora's teamwork. Pike used his magic to force the last demon toward Aurora at an impressive clip, who ran toward the demon and punched. With the momentum of her run combined with the demon's own, it slammed against the ground with stunning force, dispersing it instantly. Unfortunately, it lived long enough to make impact with the sewage soaked ground, splashing her with muck and who knew what else. She managed to avoid most of it by turning her head away at the last moment, but even a little bit was far too much for her. She noted Pike bringing his hand to his mouth in an effort to not laugh.

"... Everywhere," Aurora agreed with Sparrow. "Let's... Go somewhere else. Anywhere. I really want to change," she said, trying not to move and spread what was already on her elsewhere.

Quickly as they could, they left the sewers, Pike ushering the children along with them. Before they left Darktown, they had to see children's care, as Aurora nor Pike wished to simply abandon them. "The Templars would let them rot, and that's not what Evelina would want," he said, though no one disagreed. Toward that end, they decided to allow a small charity group that did most of its work in the slums to take kids in, but not before Rilien gave them a few coins.

It was then decided that they would change clothes first, before making their way to Hightown in an attempt to find Emile de Launcet.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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After everyone had taken about half an hour to clean up and get the smell of the sewers off themselves, they met up again, this time in front of Rilien’s shop in Hightown. The differences in their surroundings were so different as to be almost nauseating, but to Rilien’s mind, at least, the amount of perfume on the air, at least around large clusters of people, smelled almost as bad as the sewers. Still, it was in every other way significantly less troublesome, and that included the even cobblestones beneath their feet.

"The de Launcet manse is this way.” Rilien, intimately familiar with Hightown, led the way. By this point, dusk was beginning to fall, the sky overhead growing darker, casting the pale stone most of the buildings were made of into medium greys and blues. A few merchants were closing up shop; others lit various torches and candles to illuminate what was still on offer. Down a side street, they could make out the bright, blush-colored paper lanterns that signified the boundary of the pleasure district. He led them in the opposite direction, however, turning down a few less-used, but still well-maintained, side streets, ending in a rather large courtyard shared by three different manors.

"Left. The Knight-Captain believes that Emile’s parents may be harboring him, but it is a much more complicated matter to level such an accusation at a noble with status and position to wield in retaliation.” Had he set upon this task himself, he would likely not have bothered to interrogate them at all. While he wasn’t ineffective at persuading people to part with information, it was simply easier to find it in more direct ways, and he would have chosen to sweep the house for traces of the mage son and his magic, or evidence of where he might be instead—without the knowledge of the Comte and Comtesse. But they were not him, and the face-to-face approach may serve them well, since their ears were bound to be more sympathetic than his ever could be.

Crisp, clean clothes. Sparrow pinched the fabric of her loose shirt and brought it up to her nose, inhaling deeply, heedless of manners and her exposed belly button. Smelt like lavender, strangely enough. When she thought about it, all her clothes did. It sure as hell didn't come from the musty heap of shirts and trousers she kept just beside her ill-fitting rust-bucket she'd once called proper armour. She dropped her hands back down and smoothed them across the front of her shirt, eyeing the remaining people bustling in the square. People were beginning to drift back home, shutting doors and windows. The smell was noticeably stronger around these parts, but she didn't mind. Not as subtle as Aurora's flower garden, but she admitted to nuzzling a few fragrant jawlines in these very houses.

She followed beside Rilien. While she, too, professed familiarity in Hightown and all of its extravagant estates, it had been for very different reasons—and usually, the interior of houses nor the location of windows out of sight helped. This man's house was unfamiliar to her. She'd never cat-called from beneath his bannister, and had no spidery connections to know of any families. Pretty faces had nothing to do with lineage. She sucked on her teeth and absently watched as candles were lit and hooked onto porches. All in all, Hightown painted a lovely picture in the evening. It also included her old home away from home, the Pleasure District, which she instinctively eased towards, clearing her throat with disappointment when they shuffled down the opposite alley.

“So, we have to... talk to them about it?” Sparrow snorted with a shake of her head, planting her hands on her hips. From her experience, nobles did not take well to anything logical. Tell someone their mage-son was causing a ruckus and drawing Templar's in, as well as endangering all other mages in Kirkwall, and they'd shut the door in their faces. What could be done, anyhow? She glanced back at Aurora. Sparrow might've been smooth-tongued when it came to courtship, but not in confrontations with skittish parents.

"It's always a good start," Aurora teased. She traded in her dirty clothes for the nicest set she believed she owned. If the next stage took place in Hightown, she didn't want to seem too out of place, but it was still undeniable that she wasn't from there. Pike even more so, unfortunately, as he seemed to be uncomfortable even walking through its streets. Walking beside him, along with Sparrow and Rilien, she actually felt like the most ordinary person in the group... Which meant that she was probably going to have to talk to the de Launcets.

The revelation caused her to sigh inwardly. "Actually," she began, "I'm probably going to have to talk to them about it," she finished, glancing at Rilien and Sparrow. Neither of them was much of a... People person. It wasn't something that she looked forward to, and she could have swore she heard Pike snicker at her. Aurora allowed Rilien to lead them to the manse, but she was the one to knock on the door. It was answered by what she assumed was their butler, a man who looked straight ahead without emotion. Aurora caught herself looking to his forehead for the sunburst brand.

"How may I help you?" The butler said in an eerily familiar monotone.

"May we see the de Launcets? We wish to speak to them about their son, Emile. We fear he may be in trouble," Aurora asked, which finally caught a glimmer of emotion from the butler. He looked down to her for a moment before nodded and asking them to wait while he informed the de Launcets.

A minute or two later, he returned and allowed them in, standing in between them and the doorway into the parlor. Aurora stood confused for a moment, before he shuffled to the side and revealed a woman, obviously highborn.

"Good evening Lady de Launcet," Aurora greeted with a bow. It... Seemed like the appropriate thing to do, considering the circumstances.

"I do not believe we have been introduced my dear...?" She asked in a distinct Orlesian accent.

"Aurora," she added, "And these are my friends Sparrow, Pike, and--" Before she could finish, the Lady finished for her.

"Rilien. He is the tranquil that runs the enchantment shop, no? From what we hear of him, his works are masterpieces. Please, come in, I will call for refreshments," she said, leading them into the parlor. Aurora was struck by how big the single room was, and noted that it could fit probably two of her homes in it. She'd never been one to place an attachment on material goods, but she could not deny the touch of envy she felt.

Talia!" She called. A few moments passed without a response before the Lady gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh! She is so slow, this girl. Come, let us chat while we wait," she said, leading them to a small table to the side.

Rilien clearly wasn’t one for chatting, but he did politely move himself into one of the chairs the Comtesse indicated, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee in a gesture of relaxation. It was in small part deceptive—he was habitually ready to react quite quickly to his environment, but he did not believe that the de Launcets posed anyone here an actual threat. They were nobles, not warriors, and he suspected that if they were harboring their son, they were doing it out of no malice. It was not as though they could be expected to want him in the Circle, considering the rumors floating around about Meredith’s authoritarian leadership style, rumors which had grown worse rather than better of late.

Sparrow immediately felt a prickle of discomfort when they were invited inside. It always came in brief moments when she noticed just how different she was in comparison and lasted just as briefly, flitting away in childish curiosity as she glanced into the rooms they passed by. Gaudy furniture and equally fantastic paintings loitered the chambers. While she'd never been to Orlais before, she certainly recognized that outer influences had motivated the furnishings, which were so unlike Kirkwall's rabble. She was also somewhat dumbstruck by the woman's cordiality. Perhaps, a door closing in their faces, or at least harsh, clipped words. She had to admit she'd expected a different reaction, but maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Plopping down in another plush chair, Sparrow settled herself like a lounging cat and fixed the Lady with what she thought was a friendly, enquiring stare.

Chatting seemed harmless, though. “You've got a nice home, then. Pretty things,” she rambled as she plucked something from the nearest table. A small, intricate letter opener. Sparrow turned it over in her hands, and deposited it back where she'd taken it from. Rudeness was an acquired taste—but her comments were genuine enough. She'd never been surrounded by so much wealth before, excluding that time they ventured into the Deep Roads. Her brief flirtation with wealth left her feeling as if it hadn't happened at all. She clucked her tongue and glanced over at Aurora. She racked her brain for something less inappropriate to lean on, aside from the obvious compliments sitting on her tongue. Not appropriate. “Is there anything you'd like to say?”

Aurora looked at Sparrow for a moment before shrugging. "We wanted to talk to you about Emile," she said. All of the niceties and socialization was nice and all, but they had come there with a purpose and Aurora was not too keen on drawing it out for too long. They had come for a reason, and the longer they tarried, the more danger Emile was in.

"Emile? Oh, I have not seen Emile since he was taken to the Circle. He was just six. You do not have to worry, I am sure Emile will turn himself in soon. He is a good boy," the Lady said pleasantly.

Aurora intended to follow up with another question, but she barely opened her mouth before a voice echoed across the cavernous room. "Dulci!" A man called from the doorway, whom Aurora assumed to be Emile's father. "What have you done? You should have told the boy to throw himself at the mercy of the templars." A muffled cough escaped Pike at the notion, who then quietly shook his head. Aurora only shot him a glare in response.

"Guillaume! Darling..." Dulci managed before getting cut off by her husband. It seemed that for the moment Aurora and the others were ignored.

"Do not 'darling' me Dulci. He has been telling people he is our son, that you gave him gold."

"Guillaume, darling, we have guests!" Dulci said, gesturing over to Aurora and others. Guillaume slowly turned his head and stared at them for a moment, while Aurora offered a smile and a small wave. Pike on the other hand, rubbed his eyes. "As you were saying?" he muttered under his breath.

"Look, we just want to help Emile," Aurora said, "We may be your son's best chance for mercy from the templars."

"Mercy?" Dulci repeated in shock. "They would not really hurt him, would they? Oh, you should have seen his face-- It just broke my heart," She continued, rubbing her cheeks. She was clearly distraught. "I gave him some money. Not too much. He said he wanted to start a new life.

Guillaume's head snapped back to his wife. "New life? His new life is spent in Lowtown taverns, getting drunk on cheap wine. It's a wonder the templars haven't found him yet." He then turned back to Aurora and entreated her, "Help us, please. Emile is not a blood mage, just a foolish boy. Don't let the templars kill him."

Upon hearing the words 'blood mage,' Dulci shot out of her seat, while Aurora noticeably sank deeper into hers.The last thing she wanted to hear was blood mage. "Blood mage! Oh Guillaume, do not say that!" Dulci continued, Aurora twitching at another instance of blood mage.

"Please, save my son's life," Guillaume pleaded.

Rilien had not missed family dramatics of this sort in the years he’d gone without witnessing them. As far as he could tell, they had all the information they really required, and he stood smoothly. "Whatever we do, we ought to do it soon, lest the poor concealment Emile is maintaining bring less sympathetic visitors to his side.” Not that he was sympathetic, of course, but one would be hard-pressed to find anyone moreso than the other three. He didn’t understand everyone’s panic about blood magic—Emile’s father had just said he wasn’t one, and the truth of the matter was something they would likely not discover until they confronted the man himself.

Sparrow lifted two fingers together and dropped them back to her sides, swiftly rising from her comfortable perch, “Awkward.” She wasn't sure what to make out of the whole spectacle, and it'd panned out stranger than she'd imagined, but Rilien was right... they needed to find him as quickly as possible. Templars and crocodile tears hardly mixed. Ripping apart families and shoving people into towers was only a matter of business. Besides, they'd sooner have Emile's head erected on a pointy stick, presumably posted outside the Gallows for all to see. She blinked owlishly at the mention of blood magic. Why mention it if there was none involved? Suspicious. She cleared her throat and placed her hand across her heart, “We'll do what we can. Now, we should be going.”

Taverns in Lowtown? Those were places she could actually lead them to.

"Thank you!" Guillaume said, "An acquaintance spied Emile in the Hanged Man not too long ago. He should still be there," He offered.

Dulci covered her mouth in painful surprise, "The Hanged Man? Oh, but that place is so filthy!" Aurora averted her gaze and said nothing about the tavern being a sort of.. nexus of theirs. Of course he'd be in the Hanged Man.

"Come, Dulci. Perhaps you should lie down," Guillaume said, leading her away, leaving Aurora and her friends in the parlor for the moment.

"She's... Not wrong, the place is pretty filthy," Aurora agreed, "Come on, let's hurry before we miss him." With that, she turned and led them out of the manse and back onto the streets. The path to the Hanged Man was one any of them could make in their sleep, due to how many times they've been there. It wasn't long before they pulled up to the familiar door, and Aurora pushed her way in, holding the door for the others to follow.

Upon entering the Hanged Man, Rilien scanned it over. Being a weeknight, it was not as busy as it was at the end of one, when the more conscientious tended to relax their standards a bit without more work to do the next day. That meant most of the patrons were either alcoholics, regulars close enough to it, or those with unusual schedules. It wasn’t too hard to pick out the man in silk who shared his mother’s hair color—he was presently facedown over one of the tables, several empty mugs laying about his person.

If it were possible for Rilien to look even less impressed than the way he usually did, that was how he appeared, his eyes falling half-lidded. Leaning slightly down and slightly over to speak quietly to Aurora, he flicked his eyes in the direction of the passed-out noble. "When you visited the Antivan Circle, did you note that the mages were now required to distinguish themselves with unfortunate haircuts? Because I can think of no other logical reason a person would voluntarily look like that.” His delivery was unswervingly monotone, but there was a faint hint of distaste in it as well.

Aurora tried to stifle a laugh, to no avail. It still came out between her lips, and after that she couldn't stop herself. "No, no they didn't. I'm pretty sure they'd jump off the tower before going into public like that. Who ever thought that hair was a good idea needs to be locked up instead," she said, hiding her mouth with her hand. Emile had a... Bowl cut, of sorts, but that wouldn't have been so bad by itself. What really set him apart was the massive bald spot that sat on the top of his head. Pike was turned around, his back toward the man, though his shoulders were hitched, more from the unexpected joke from the tranquil than anything else.

"You... You're going to have to talk to him, I don't think I'll be able to keep a straight face."

It might have been a quirk of the lighting, but for a moment, Rilien seemed almost to smile with his eyes alone, though if it indeed happened, it passed very quickly, and he looked again as he always did. "Fortunately, ‘keeping a straight face’ happens to be my area of expertise.” He did indeed lead the way towards Emile, or the man who could hardly be anyone else anyway. He had no desire to touch the man—the Hanged Man was fairly unclean—so he inquired verbally, at just enough volume that he should rouse the sleeping.

"Emile de Launcet?” Subtlety seemed hardly required on their parts when the man in question was obvious enough to pass out in a tavern while the Templars were looking for him. He supposed the Knight-Captain might have intentionally held off on the search for this one, if he hadn’t been found already; the Templars were not generally incompetent.

The man, though in truth he looked more of a boy at present, started, shooting upwards sharply until his nausea likely caught up with him, and he swayed a little in his seat. Rilien took a judicious step to the side, just in case he should lose the bellyful of rotgut he probably contained. He seemed to become sensate again, though, and kept the contents of his stomach to himself. “How do you know my name? Did Nella tell you?” His voice was slurred, but not enough to make him incomprehensible. Rilien resigned himself to taking a long time to get to the point, and indeed, Emile kept talking.

“I gave her my Launcet signet ring in exchange for a kiss, and tonight, she’s going to make me a man.”

"Is that so?” Rilien blinked, no more impressed than he was a few minutes ago, wondering distantly if anyone had ever taught Emile how to shave his face. His uneven, wispy facial hair was doing him no more favors than his haircut.

Apparently unaffected by the elf’s dry manner, Emile continued to make a mockery of any attempt to lay low in possibly the history of all attempts to lay low. “Round of drinks, on me? I’m Emile, as you know. And you are
?”

Rilien said nothing, staring him down for a moment, waiting for the realization to kick in. It wasn’t like people wore sunburst brands on their heads for aesthetic reasons. After several very long seconds, what he was observing seemed to catch up to Emile. “You’re with the Chantry! Oh, buggery! I know what this is about. I’m not a blood mage, all right? I, uh
 I started that rumor because
 because I thought it would make me sound dangerous and
 suave.” He stood, apparently more to make room for emphatic gesticulation than for anything else.

At Rilien’s continued silence, he seemed to grow more desperate to explain himself. “I-I mean, it’s not like I’ve told everyone you know. Only people in the tavern. And only women.” The Tranquil was unsure how exactly that was supposed to make anything more reasonable, but he kept his silence. Apparently, that was intimidation enough to wring everything from Emile that he wanted to say, anyway. “You don’t understand. I’ve been in the Circle since I was six. Six! For twenty years I was locked up. Never had a real drink, or
 cooked something for myself. Never stood in the rain, or kissed a girl. I just wanted to live a little.”

Something told Rilien that a few of these lacks of life experience had more to do with Emile than the Circle. He didn’t remember having any trouble with either locating drinks or interested parties with whom to hide in dark corners and broom closets. He chose not to say this, however. Pike on the other hand, simply sighed-- loudly. Sparrow snickered behind Rilien, knuckling her nose in a weak attempt to hide her amusement.

Emile sighed. “Please. If you’re going to kill me, do it. I’d rather die drunk.”

Rilien drew one of his knives, seizing the wrist of Emile’s non-dominant hand. Despite his words, the young man struggled against his hold, but the Tranquil was unconcerned. A flash of the knife, and Emile’s silk sleeve was split up the middle, falling away from his forearm on the underside. The skin there was smooth, free of any wounds or even the light scars that blood mages tended to accrue. The elf’s knife slid home in the sheath at his belt, and he glanced back at the other three, releasing the young de Launcet from his grip.

"The bloody fool," Pike stated, clearly more upset with the thought that Emile had been parading himself about as a blood mage because it might make him more popular with the women. "You idiot, do you know what they do with blood mages? Maybe it's better that you don't..." Pike said, calming down after getting a look from Aurora. "Doesn't matter, no amount of blood magic would help that hair," he said, though under his breath. Aurora couldn't help but hide a grin at that.

However, that grin faded soon after, as they had to do something about Emile. If they were to let him go, then there were no guarantees that he wouldn't pull another stunt like that again. Looking at Pike Aurora shrugged and stepped forward. "Templars kill maleficarum. It doesn't matter if it you were lying or not, Meredith wouldn't take that chance in letting even one escape. You can't stay here," Aurora said, earning herself a surprised look from Pike. It was surprising to see her so blunt with others.

"There’s a merchant ship departing for Rivain tonight.” Rilien raised one white brow ever so slightly. "You may wish to take it.”

Rivain or death—it wasn't as if there were many options for him, and by the slack-jawed expression on his face, he would choose wisely. Sailing into the night didn't sound half bad. She slung an arm around Rilien's shoulder and leered toothily beside him, craning her head to the side and decidedly placing a hand across his bald pate. “You should probably take care of that when you get there,” she suggested as he indignantly slapped her hand away.

If no one else was going to say it.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. On the Loose has been completed.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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"Excellent.” Words of praise were sparing, when their source was Rilien, but he was generally willing to dole them out when he believed they were warranted. Sandal was exceptionally talented at his craft, and Rilien suspected not much longer would remain before there was nothing left for him to teach the peculiar dwarven lad. The thought brought about
 something, and he paused a moment, attempting to identify which shadow of a feeling this was. A little warm flicker, tinged with something soft. His feelings, such as they were, still counted as diluted, so much so that he doubted anyone else would call them feelings at all, but he seemed to have more of them as time wore on. He did wonder about that, from time to time, but as the emotions had not yet reached a level where they caused him problems, he was content to leave them lie, as it were.

Well. That was perhaps not entirely true of all of them. There were some that he was unsure he should maintain. Some that he was beginning to see that he should let go, eventually. He was not blind to the way patterns shifted in history, in politics and the games of nations, and he knew. He knew, without quite being able to articulate, that things were going to change. That he would not be able to remain as he was, here, for an interminable time. To say it bothered him or worried him would be to overstate things considerably, but he acknowledged his own foresight, and he knew it was necessary to begin preparations, for whatever it was that would shake him loose from his foothold here. Eventually.

Sandal smiled broadly. “Enchantment!” Setting aside the hammer they’d been working on, Rilien placed all the tools back on their proper hooks or in the shelves and drawers to which they had long belonged. The shop had an air of meticulous cleanliness about it, and fortunately enough, both Bodahn and Sandal were quite tidy on their own time as well, which made sharing the space with them considerably less labor-intensive than it would have been if his own sense of neatness had required him to clean up after them. While the other two went about the business of closing up the storefront for the day, Rilien faced all the merchandise, which mostly involved sorting the runes on display in a small counter case that sat on the outside of his area, and rotating the potions stock. He’d received a new lot from Amalia earlier in the day, and lined them up next to his own, right above the precise labels he used to differentiate them to those whose eye for alchemy was not practiced.

The task meant that both of the others were finished before he was, and so he nodded as they bid him farewell and headed out the door, leaving him, for the moment, to his own devices.

Sparrow dug her shoulder blades into the alley's masonry, hands planted palm-first against the crumbly surface, not-so subtly eyeing Rilien's shop from around the corner. She absently picked at the bricks, fingernails scraping between the cracks, mainly to keep herself from stepping out and bullying into the store, disturbing his work as she usually did. Over the last couple of days, she'd been trying to catch him doing something she was unaware of.

She couldn't honestly explain it, but there was a pull there, between them, and not in her direction. He hadn't been outright avoiding her, and there had been no odd, speculative conversation on either end, but here she was, eyebrows bunched, hiding in the shadows like a thief seeking purses to cut. Things were different between them, but not how she'd expected. Usually, it'd be all soft touches, lingering kisses, and whispers pressed against collar bones, necks, shoulders. Her expectations have become flight fancies, and she danced around them; foolishly.

She took another breath and crept closer to the mouth of the alleyway, careful not to trip over a snoring drunkard. Her heart skipped at an ugly, adamant rhythm. She had half the mind to slink back home, and wait there, instead of doing this, whatever this was. It felt foolish, being so easily bothered by an itch of a feeling. She'd wanted to consult Nostariel or Ashton, or both, but if she couldn't even sort her thoughts out, what would she ask them? If they'd known about anything Rilien might have been purposely hiding from her, wouldn't they have told her? She might've not proved very reliable over the years, but it was important. This was important. The gruff man snuffled loudly in response, rolling onto his side. It was. As soon as she saw the door swing open, she instinctively sank back against the brick wall, hissing softly.

What would she ask of him?

She tensed her shoulders and drew back her head, staring up at the tattered red cloth, flailing across the wooden parapet. Perhaps, he'd lead her somewhere. Perhaps, she'd get a better idea. Perhaps, this was nothing at all.

It was several more minutes before Rilien exited the shop, though it would have been ridiculous to assume he was unaware of her nearness. He knew the feel of her magic, and it was a thing he would never forget. There were several like that now, so customary to him that they had become unique, easily separable from the rest. Like a taste on the back of the tongue. He hadn’t exactly told her that this was how he was mysteriously able to find her when he needed to, however, so perhaps she was unaware that her attempt at subterfuge was destined to fail. He wondered what it was that she wanted—she would have simply approached him if there were nothing in particular on her mind.

Locking up the shop behind him for the moment, he tucked the bundle for delivery under his arm, turning right and stopping just in front of the alley she hid in, turning his head so that he was looking right at her, blinking slowly. Then he tilted his head slightly, and proceeded on his way. The implied question was obvious:

Are you coming, or not?

The slow trickle of unease became full-blown hair-prickling panic, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, as Rilien approached her chosen hiding place. Not that it'd been that great of one, in the first place. She smoothed the wrinkles from her tunic with her hands, and sniffled softly, knuckling her nose while she conjured up some farfetched fable as to why she was here and not anywhere else. Sparrow stepped out of the alley as if she'd just been on some romantic, moonlit walk, and there, what a coincidence, was her dear old friend, blinking owlishly into the path she just happened to be walking down. She took a moment to look at him and tossed up her arms, dropping them back down in a dramatic flourish, “Oh, Ril! Fancy meeting you here, of all spots... well, I guess, your shop is there, isn't it? I was just going for a walk. Darktown gets stuffy sometimes. Must be the spores. And all the dust.”

She edged closer to him, chewing at the inside of her lip. Nothing was easy between them, not even frankness. She danced around subjects she believed held importance and he simply left her out of things that he deemed too dangerous. Sometimes, she even believed that she'd been the one leading them. She felt an awkward pull at her lips; a lacklustre nerve to continue pretending as if this entire escapade had been accidental. It wasn't as if she could very well follow him now, if he'd been going anywhere of note to begin with. She clinched her jaw and snatched a handful of his sleeve. Though, she did not pull or bully him in any specific direction. Merely walked alongside him. Mind whirring and working through proper conversation and not simply what are you hiding from me?

“So, what have you been doing lately?” Sparrow mused as nonchalantly as she could muster, “Seems like I haven't seen you around lately.” Which hadn't been exactly true, he'd been around. But there it was: a general unease, a prickling feeling crawling down her spine. It felt like the first time she'd seen Amalia in Kirkwall, like things wouldn't remain as they'd been before.

Rilien continued to walk forward in silence for a few moments after the question was asked, not appearing even slightly inconvenienced by Sparrow’s grip on his sleeve. Though
 it was not like her to be so conscientious as to notice something of that kind. Usually she was much more self-absorbed, and scarcely noticed the frequency or lack of his comings and goings, or at least he had believed this. He was forced to entertain two possibilities, neither of which were particularly favorable: either she was more observant than he had believed of her, or else he was not nearly so subtle as he had taken himself to be. Given that he was generally accurate in his assessments of his own skill, he was left to conclude that he had, in some small way at least, misjudged her.

He had always known that she had a certain level of intuition, of course; it was what made her good enough with people to talk her way out of half the trouble she got herself into. The other half went away because it became his trouble. This was how they had operated, since first he ventured into Kirkwall, and found her squatting in what was legally his dwelling.

He did not look at her when he answered, no longer assuming that she would not see all the things he did not want her to know. What else might she have intuited? He didn’t think it was too much, but it was better to be cautious when one had the opportunity. "I have been doing what I always do. I enchant, I brew potions, and I lend my assistance in martial matters when it is requested of me. Of late, this has been more frequent.” It hadn’t. He’d just been spending his spare time differently. Specifically, not with her. All things must end. He, at least, had known that from the beginning. But perhaps he’d almost forgotten, somewhere in the middle.

Sparrow kept her head somewhat inclined and occasionally glanced at the point where Rilien's jaw met his hairline. It had grown longer over the years, falling past his shoulders. Like sheets of snow she'd once seen in her travels. Far longer than her own, though hers was now longer than it had ever been. These changes came to her in small, uneasy morsels. Hard to chew and harder still to swallow. She looked away and focused on their boots. On their unsynchronized footsteps.

It was not Kirkwall that caused these changes. Each person she had met here had dipped their fingers into her once-fluid life. She asserted her freedoms less now. She no longer disappeared when things did not suit her needs. Her course was much different now that she had found somewhere comfortable to perch. Her fingers crooked tighter until she had a fistful of loose fabric, and while she wished he would answer quickly lest she fill the silence with her own suspicions, Rilien's answers always came deliberately. Unhurried. Careful and impartial.

He had hidden things from her before. While his intentions had been to protect her from being devoured entirely, caused by her own missteps... the cave, and his sacrifices, came to mind in a sharp, vivid bloom. And she had barely noticed then. Everything he had already done. It had been already too late when they banished the demon from her body. Only then had the story tumbled out and she had learnt of the life he had willingly given up. A yoke of timeworn reproach bunched her eyebrows together. He had never sworn that he would not do the same sort of thing again. He had never sworn he wouldn't leave her out of future business if it meant keeping her out of danger. She doubted he ever would. Promises were made for trying to predict and rearrange multiple futures. He moved through them like a languid stream.

She exhaled sharply and rolled her eyes skyward. Of course, he was only working. She looked back down and chewed at the inside of her lip. Even if he was leaving out important details, sometimes falsehoods were easier to wash down. Apparently it had been nothing at all. Why had she come out here? “Ah, I see. You've been busy, then,” her fistful of fabric soothed itself back into crooked claw. Their lives intervened frequently, but he was not hers to hoard away. People were not things. A slight smile tugged at the corners of her lips, though her eyebrows remained drawn. Her fingers loosened as well and she finally let go of him, “I must've thought that... seems I was mistaken.”

Their steps, out of sync still, took them down one of the main staircases into Lowtown. Where once upon a time, Rilien would have adjusted his stride so as to match hers with little effort, he did not do so at present. Perhaps someone else wouldn’t have even noticed that he’d failed to do it. Perhaps someone else would have been doing it by instinct, and not be particularly concerned either way if instinct failed once or twice, or laughed and hitched awkwardly to fall back into time. But there was little about Rilien that was instinctual anymore, and what was wasn’t gentle things like this. He never failed to notice any of these little things, because noticing them, adjusting them, presenting himself in a deliberate fashion—these were the ways in which he could blend or not blend as he needed to, blur into a crowd or draw the eyes of an audience. Nothing he did lacked a reason, not even the things he didn’t do.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, he at last looked at her, if only from the corner of an eye. "Everything changes, Sparrow. Nothing is immutable. Not even I.” He wondered if she understood what he was trying to convey to her. He wondered why he hadn’t the courage to just say it outright.

The silence stretched between them as they walked and no matter how much she wished to break it, Sparrow remained unusually silent. What more could she say? Admit that she had been snooping through his belongings and that she'd followed him this evening in hopes that she would catch him doing something she wanted to know about. Lowtown, Darktown, Kirkwall. Nobles, guards, and poor wretches. It almost felt like nothing changed even though so much had over the years. Even she had. Flighty as she was, birds did not usually stay in one place. In her youth, she would have scoffed at anything resolute, anything claiming sameness. Now, her talons found purchase in the people who surrounded her, and of course they would change, as she had. She ground her teeth together and focused on their boots. Once they reached the staircase she hopped ahead and took them two at a time.

She took in another deep breath through her nose. Crisp air. Different from Darktown's usual dust and dirt and musk. And while she did not want to look directly at him, Sparrow shifted when Rilien stopped walking and scrunched her eyebrows. She wasn't sure why, but the words he had chosen to say and the way he was saying them made her throat tighten, balling and bunching around angry words. She took another deep breath, and the air no longer felt crisp. “Immutable?” She parroted and threw her arms out wide. Her hands settled at her hips, dropped and curled into fists. There was a palpable divide between them, and as oblivious as she could be, she could feel it. “What are these changes, Ril? You... I haven't been... I'm not stupid. There's something you haven't told me.”

Just one thing? He wanted to ask it, just to see what she would do. But it was an impulsive thought, and he didn’t enjoy having those, much less did he give into them. No, there were many things he had not said, but most of them did not, could not, matter any longer. Rilien tipped his head up slightly, as if to take note of the jagged piece of sky framed in building roofs, awnings, and street-lamps, few and scattered as they were. "I will not be here forever, Sparrow.” It was strangely difficult, to push the words out with his breath, almost as if they had some mind of their own and did not wish to leave him. Not now, perhaps not ever. But they were the truth, and he had never, not at any point in his life, shied away from the truth, however brutal and unkind it really was.

"I will go back, one day. Back to Orlais. There are things that I must yet do.” He didn’t know how soon that day would be—even his clairvoyance was nothing supernatural. He didn’t know the day or the time, he only knew that it would happen. He read not portents, but people, perhaps the more reliable tell, in all honesty. "Debts that I must yet pay.” Ones that would not, as her debts, be absolved with a few sovereigns in the right grubby palms. "This, here, is what will change.” Whatever it rightfully was.

This was it.

She regretted voicing the question as soon as it tumbled from her lips. She hadn't truly wanted to know, after all. Especially if it confirmed what she feared most. Her world changing. In small increments, or in huge, quaking leaps. Nothing was immutable. That meant things would always change, didn't it? People always would. That's what he was saying. Everything shifted and changed and became much more than it had been initially. Circumstances, experiences, and time, may have changed her. But without him, where would she have ended up?

The false smile shifted from her lips, and curled back from her teeth. They ground together, biting back disappointment. Already, she felt the creeping discomfort of her throat tightening in a raw, throttling lump. Her heart was both a beast and its own gilded cage, and here she was, clawing and tearing against the changes she'd so admired as a young boy. She'd been fine with how things were now, so why then. Why wasn't he?

“Back to Orlais?” She echoed his words, because her own were bitter, tawdry things. Hitched, breathless, ugly. She repeated those words to make them tangible things. Real things. She pushed him. Not hard. And softer than she'd meant to. She had no other place to direct her kindling outrage. It bloomed, desperate and lost. Running away wouldn't solve anything and slinking back to the Hanged Man would only make her feel weak. Its comforts were only temporary. Even she knew that. “You're leaving. And so, what then, you weren't planning on telling me until you'd already left?” Her hands trembled—curled, unfurled, fists and empty hands. She fought the urge to bury them into the collar of his jacket. She could not shake the answers him. Wished she did not know them. Wished he did not answer. Wished she hadn't brought it up. Ignorance was bliss, always.

"I was going to tell you.” Rilien felt that, in this at least, he did not desire to be misinterpreted. "But not until it was simpler.” For her or for him—he found it surprisingly difficult to tell. He’d intended to be further along in this process, this slow detachment that he was very deliberately attempting. He would fade from her life, just as he had faded from others. He would take a small step back, and then another, and still more, until his absence felt more natural to her, to both of them, than his presence. And then he would tell her that he meant to leave for good. When any vehemence in her reaction would have been affected, or for show. When they were strangers again. But she was impatient, just as she always had been. And he—he found himself unable not to answer her.

She felt the muscles jumping along her jawline, and tried easing her expression to something resembling calm. Unbunching her eyebrows, settling her mouth into a straight line. Swallowing the injustices she clutched in her drubbing chest. It failed, miserably. Everything felt tense, discordant. “I can go too. I can go with you,” she tried again, softening her voice.

He tried, again, to imagine that. Parts of it were easy. Parts of her would go over relatively well in Orlais, where the flirting and the inelegant ease of her demeanor would have been amusing diversions. She would have been immediately underestimated, judged harmless, dismissed, or perhaps on the occasion even indulged. But those were only parts of her, and in the end, he knew that the Game would tear her apart. If not because someone falsely perceived threat in her, then because someone correctly perceived threat in him. The innocent were never spared, in his world.

"No.”

Simpler he'd said. She clutched a hand to her stomach, swilling as it was, and bunched her hand into a fist of loose fabric. She snorted in disbelief. Simple had never applied to them in the first place. It was a luxury they'd never been able to afford. Never allowed to have. What with them being so different—Rilien, someone who harboured a remote stillness, and impenetrable principles, was still somehow capable of changing worlds, hers especially. She was a creature of habits, rejecting shifts as stubbornly as a child would. She wanted to say fuck those promises, and all those debts he might have owed in Orlais. Why did they matter now? Shedding her own personal responsibilities had been easier than removing a particularly grimy coat. He was telling her that he could not. And here, lied their differences.

Sparrow wanted to stomp her feet and continue pushing him until he relented. She wanted to raise her voice and become heard. She wanted to scream to drown out his no. She wanted to tear down his convictions, and all the commitments he'd made before coming to Kirkwall. Swallow them both whole. She wanted to tether them down. Beg on her jellied knees, curse and swear and bleat about the unfairness of it all. Instead, she stared at him and dropped her hand back to her side. Hadn't he promised her? No. She fought against the quibbling of her lip and drew her eyebrows tighter, centring herself around the bloom of anger in the pit of her belly. No. And even though she'd already been given the answer, and knew it would remain the same, she tried again.

“Forget those debts. Stay here.”

Rilien drew to a halt, exhaling softly, bringing himself to face her with what seemed almost to be the faintest trace of reluctance. He was long past the point of feeling nothing when it came to the people in his life that called themselves his friends, after all, even if he never did say it as such. Even if he demonstrated it only seldom, and most often with actions rather than words or even expressions. What could such emotions mean to him, after all? He would never feel them in a way that she or anyone else would recognize or understand. He was resigned to being alone in this respect, caught between a man and the shell of that man, neither quite Tranquil nor even close to being whole.

Didn’t she see that his actions, his promises, his debts, that these were all of his former self he had left? Doing had to stand in for feeling, where he was concerned. Gratitude, obligation, friendship, love: these could only be in the things he did, because he was too empty everywhere else. His heart wasn’t porous enough to soak in and hold all the sentiments hers or anyone else’s did. It was just an empty cavern, filled only with echoes of what had once been. He could not abandon these things, he could not stand by and refuse to act when he would be useful, needed, or necessary. He could not stay here, in comfort and idleness, when people he had known would be helped by his presence elsewhere. It wasn’t in him. So little really was.

He shook his head faintly, reaching out to place a hand on the crown of her head. She didn’t need him, not really. She could go, do, be wherever and whatever she wanted. Her attachment to him would fade in time, as would his attachment to her. That, he believed, would be for the best. He belonged where she could not go. They were antithetical to one another, really, and for a time, that had been to mutual benefit. But it would not be so for much longer, and they both had to accept that.

Softly, his fingers moved through her hair, as if to smooth away the ruffled evidence of her earlier distress. Current distress, even—that he was bereft didn’t mean he could not identify it in another. "I will not.” Rilien’s eyes softened, just a bit. "And if that upsets you
 I am sorry.” He hadn’t meant to make himself irreplaceable to anyone, and he did not believe, in the end, that he had. She would discover that, too, eventually.

It was strange how much had changed over the years. He might have thought that this was inevitable. Perhaps, for far longer than she had dared to imagine. That this was an inescapable necessity: this parting of theirs. In days gone past, it had been Sparrow who frequently left. Whether it was after weapon-wielding misadventures, or even, after lingering long enough to form friendships she was destined to ruin. After friendly drinks in dingy taverns or nights spent in the warmth of someone's bedroom. Cold arms, cold pillows. A long list of meaningless, forgettable bodies. And then, came the one who's not meaningless, and not forgettable in the least. Perhaps, she had always known that he would be the one to leave her in this mutual exchange and admitting it had been too terrible a consideration.

Sparrow stood still, tensing her shoulders and neck, as if any sudden movements would shatter and destroy her efforts to keep him stationary. As if it would make any difference. She knew better. She understood him better than that. The tangled knot in her throat tightened as his hand settled across her head. All these years, she had been the one anchored in place, and she wanted everything to remain as it was, as it had always been.The indignant storm brewing behind her eyelids flickered and swam and threatened to expose her as vulnerable, weak woman. What would she do without him? It had never been possibility: an idea, a fleeting thought, a future she imagined. He was not a random, meaningless body occupying the spaces of her life. Not a flickering candle. Not disposable. His existence would matter to her.

She exhaled sharply, breathless. She was brighter and louder against his fluctuating monochrome. Even after everything they'd been through—he would not move, he would not relent, he would not stay with her. Sparrow caught his hand in her own and slowly pulled it against her cheek, tipping her nose under his palm. Cold. His hands were cold. She took a tentative step forward and pulled his arm down, dipping him low enough to crane her head against the side of his neck. What she wanted could never be, she'd known that, once. She focused on the nearest building and cocked her head to the side, “After all these years, you know nothing.” A soft, solemn whisper. There was a pause, and her voice shifted, losing it's edge, “I love you.”

It would not be enough. Drifting away from him, Sparrow released his hands, his arm and neck and stepped backwards. She refused to become a vulnerable, weak woman. Bullshit, she'd wanted to scream. She wanted to call him a liar. Scrape up words he may have used to appease her. She refused to meet his eyes, because she felt her own swimming. Instead, she fled back the way they'd walked.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia
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Amalia shut the door behind her, blocking out some of the wind, and pushed her hood down onto her shoulders. Winter was slowly giving way to spring in Kirkwall, which meant that people, including the Alienage residents, were venturing out of doors more often. At present, everyone the Hahren had moved in with her was elsewhere, save the one he’d allowed in at her personal request.

The truth was, she almost hadn’t wanted to make the request—while by this point, her presence was readily accepted and to some extent even welcomed in the Alienage, and there were occasional human visitors, like Aurora or members of the Lions, that the residents knew not to fear, it wasn’t like humans, or those perceived as human, lived here often. But Sparrow had begged asylum for some reason, and Amalia, with great reservation, had granted it. Not before talking it over with the Hahren, of course, but she expected that he wouldn’t have turned her down even if he’d really wanted to. Half an elf Sparrow may be, but to everyone here, that just meant human. Ironically, Amalia suspected that her oldest friend read as more human than she did, despite her elven mother, because she was so obviously an outsider to this part of town.

Once, it would have been of no consequence to Amalia, but she did care about the comfort and safety of the people living here, and she’d had to weigh it carefully against opening her home to Sparrow. In the end, though, she’d done it—if only after extracting a vow from her that she would not disturb anyone here. If she wanted to carouse and philander and make a nuisance of herself, she was welcome to, but not here and not in such a way that anyone would track her here for any kind of confrontation. Those were the terms.

Of course, despite the sternness of her injunctions against reckless or selfish behavior, Amalia hadn’t missed the current state of her friend’s despondency, obvious as she was being about it. Maybe not to everyone, but it was obvious to her. She even had a decent guess as to the cause, though it wasn’t until she’d paid a visit to Rilien’s storefront that she learned the story in full. Sparrow was, to the nearest approximation she could be, heartsick. It was an emotion that Amalia had experienced before as well, if for different reasons.

Depositing the coinpurse full of her month’s profits onto the sleeping mat within her room, Amalia emerged back into the common space, hooking the iron pot filled with snowmelt over the fireplace. Then she walked herself to the tiny room Sparrow occupied and knocked her fist against the door, loudly enough to be sure she could not be ignored. “Sparrow, I am making tea. Join me, please.” Though it sounded mostly like a request, it was probably also a command, all things considered. Amalia didn’t believe in moping or shutting out the world. She’d never found it to her liking on the few occasions she’d tried, and it was not an attitude she could long sustain.

Leaving the doorway, she headed back into the common room, taking down her canister of tea and the ceramics required for the brewing process, busying her hands with familiar work.

Why had she come here of all places? Admittedly, she'd sought sanctum in other places. As much as she wanted to slink and sulk in Ashton's home, she'd lingered beneath his balcony long enough to realize that he might agree with Rilien. Might send her packing before she could assimilate what had happened. Or else, he would seek out Rilien directly and organize some sort of shame-faced encounter. Not now. She could not bear it. Aurora had been a viable option. She would have wanted to help solve her problems, when there were no solutions. She had too much on her plate already. Dealing with their little mage-group, and keeping them out of trouble. Mostly, she hadn't wanted to destroy the smirking, bright-eyed version of Sparrow she'd come to know. There was comfort in normalcy.

Everyone else seemed far too busy. Far too involved. She needed a silent companion. Someone who would not question her weakness. When Amalia hadn't hastily turned her away, chastising her for being so foolish, Sparrow had been surprised most of all. She hadn't known what to expect. Hadn't even prepared herself for a possible yes. Their relationship remained lukewarm at best, and as much as they had come to resolve, the familiar twang of remorse prospered. She still counted Amalia as a close friend. Someone who would always know best. Staying in Kirkwall for as long as she had was, perhaps, the greatest change of all.

After being subjugated to an impressively lengthy, drawn-out lecture, ending in a solemn pledge that she would not cause anyone trouble while she stayed in her household, it reminded her of being put in Amalia's care as children. She hadn't been customary Qunari material when she'd been rescued, and she doubted it had been any easier dealing with her then as it was now. She promised she wouldn't do anyone any harm. Or cause any trouble. Easy enough. Since, she kept herself cooped up in the room she'd been allowed to use. For the time being. Nothing was immutable. Immutable. It even sounded like an ugly word.

She puzzled over the meaning of his words. Searched for loopholes, or further deceptions. Any possible way she might be able to spirit away with him when the time came to see him off. In her allotted chamber, of course. She lie sprawled across her bed, searching the ceiling for answers. None came. Not that she expected to find any answers here. She didn't want to hear them, anyhow, if it wasn't in correlation with what she wanted.

Pursing her lips, Sparrow hissed an angry sigh through her teeth and scratched at her scalp. Feeding the pain she felt in order to make it real, instead of purely emotional. She stopped when she heard someone... Amalia, knocking at the door. Clearly, not a polite request. Withholding the urge to groan, she shifted up and slipped back to her feet. Tea, now. Brood, later.

Slinking out of her bedchamber, Sparrow stomped down the hallway towards the sound of familiar movement. She ignored the equally familiar leer of unease, swallowed it down under a sour grin. Everything felt off-kilter. Strange and monochrome. She took up residency in the nearest chair and tapped her hands across the wooden grains of the table, unsure where to settle them. It took her a few moments to raise her eyebrows, and her gaze, before sniffling an off-handed, “You need help with that?”

“No.” Amalia’s reply was quiet, almost soft, as she finished preparing the tea. It was a set of motions old and familiar to her, something remembered from the very earliest days of her ability to remember anything at all. She would serve her Tamassran teachers like this. The scent of the spiced tea was both present and past, a memory manifesting in the moment. She wondered if Sparrow remembered it the same way. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been asked to serve it, but Amalia could definitely remember partaking with her, back when things were different. Even someone as practical as she was could keep around such a nostalgic thing, it seemed. Perhaps she had always been more sentimental than she believed.

Setting Sparrow’s simple, unhandled cup in front of her, Amalia set another in front of herself and poured for them both, settling back into a lotus position, which was more comfortable to her than sitting otherwise. She picked up her tea and studied Sparrow over the rim of the vessel it was in, her scrutiny initially silent. Far from causing trouble to the Alienage, Sparrow hadn’t even left her room in days, and it was clear enough to Amalia that she was sulking. Perhaps it was understandable though. Amalia knew little of heartache—but not nothing—but it seemed the kind of thing that caused this, even in stronger-willed individuals.

“I
 do not know how much difference it will make in this case,” Amalia began, her words spoken with a sort of wary thoughtfulness, “but I have learned that pain shared is more easily overcome. If you wish, you may tell me of yours.” She doubted there was anything she could do about any of it, but perhaps listening would be sufficient for now.

No. Supposed she expected the answer before she'd even responded. Even as children, Amalia enjoyed doing things on her own, rather than allow her to muss it all up. Perhaps, she'd been allowed to do it once, and broke a cup or ruined the tea itself. Possibly, many cups. It wouldn't have surprised her if the memory eluded her. She shrugged her shoulders. There was a small measure of relief for not being asked to leave her seat. She knew nothing about tea-brewing or crafting or whatever she was doing over there, shuffling canisters around and pinching spices between her fingertips. It might've been witchcraft for all she knew. But the smell was one she recognized; deep and rich as it was, wafting throughout the entire common room. It reminded her of home, even if she'd been the one to leave it all behind. It did not belong to her anymore.

As soon as Amalia settled the steaming cup in front of her, Sparrow found comfort in placing her hands around it. Warmth spread across the palm of her hands. Far too hot to drink from, and nearly scalding to the touch, she did not pull her hands away. Discomfort grounded her where little else would. This was how things were. She had not slunk home to Darktown. She was not home. This was how things were now. She met Amalia's eyes briefly and turned away to study her own fingernails, and the tea swilling with loose leaves. It was not her scrutiny that cowed her, but the fact that she had nothing more to say. Silence was deceivingly deliberate, and small talk seemed cheap and out of place. She'd never liked it, anyhow.

And yet, Amalia had been the one to break it. She dipped her head lower and blew across the surface of her tea. Watched as ripples formed and disappeared, leaving nothing in their wake, and wondered absently if that was what they were. Unimportant, disappearing ripples. She'd never been known for thoughts deeper than goblets spilling over with cheap ale and nights spent wobbling in the streets or swinging her mace around, but this, this was unusual enough to mull over. A squeamish, cowardly jest bubbled to the forefront, and shortly died before slipping past her lips. She would know better. Pain shared is more easily overcome? It was a concept she wasn't familiar with.

“I thought before, that there wasn't anything I couldn't change,” Sparrow flicked at the corner of her cup, causing more ripples. Changes were necessary. Everything she'd ever known had changed. In increments, in startling dives, “but in this place, there's no end to them. You and I, and everyone else we know have changed. Some for the better, I understand that much. But I thought that he wouldn't. I wanted him to stay, I need him to. How foolish is that? He said he goes where I cannot follow. How could he decide that for me.” Her sour grin faltered. Where would she go, if he was not present. He was home.

It was an uncomfortable predicament. Amalia tried to imagine herself in it, but found that she simply could not. She refused to conjure even the image of a world where she was without the person she leaned on the most, and perhaps that was for the best. However similar the comparison might seem on the surface, she knew that it would not survive past any serious scrutiny. They were all different people, and the dynamics inherently different as well. So she pursed her lips together and considered what she knew, idly spooning a tiny bit of rock sugar into her teacup, stirring it round by gently swirling the cup until there was a tiny whirlpool in it. When the motion stilled, she exhaled, still, contemplative.

“I don’t know him well,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders a bit, “but I know you. If Orlais is as I have learned it is, he was probably right. How do you think you would be received, in the world he intends to return to?” As she understood it, Orlesians thought of their politics as some kind of game, one where subtlety and delicacy were required, neither being traits that Sparrow possessed. Most likely, she would be a glaring and obvious weakness of Rilien’s by the very fact that he brought her along, and if Amalia understood properly, that meant someone would quite quickly exploit the fact. It was disconcerting to think about what that meant, but just because it was unpleasant didn’t mean she would stop herself.

“It seems likely he was thinking to protect you, as well as himself, and by extension, anyone he is allied with.”

Sparrow, too, reached over to the middle of the table, scooped up two, and then, three, pieces of rock sugar and plopped it into her teacup. Instead of stirring it like Amalia had, she merely let it sit and blew across the surface again. She'd always liked sweeter things in youthhood, and her preference, it seemed, still held into adulthood. She blew on it once more, snatched up the cup in her rough hands, and tipped it to her lips. A complex mixture, smoothly spiced and imbued with the expected bite of unmixed sweetness. It was softer than what she remembered. She supposed Amalia had perfected the taste over the years. Perhaps, it had been influenced, as much as she had, upon entering Kirkwall and meeting everyone she had come to know. There was a brief flicker of nostalgia... on choking on a particularly strong brew, finding it too spicy. The thought passed as everything usually did.

Her murky eyes narrowed over the rim of the cup, and thawed just as quickly when she settled the teacup back down. Orlais was an unopened oyster ripe for exploration. While she hadn't known specifically about their culture or how they functioned on a day-to-day basis, it was one place she'd considered exploring when she'd been alone. Back when she had no cares about how she fared in such foreign places. Back when she might've met everything with pure, unadulterated force, bullying her way through any resistance she may have met there. What was so different now? She played no games. She would hold Rilien back. He was protecting her. It made her feel sick. She pursed her lips, eyebrows pinched. “What does that matter? I can change, I would,” she hissed through her teeth, head bowed, “I won't live a life built on his sacrifices.” Damn Orlais and everyone in it.

“I never asked for that,” Sparrow's voice came quieter now, losing its edge. Wishing him the best on his journeys and parting ways, as if they'd been nothing but acquaintances, or a passing fancy easily forgotten. It was not a possibility she wished to entertain, so she did not. Her hands smoothed down across the table. Anger bit jumping muscles through her jawline, provoked her heart into ugly thumps. “What would you do? In my situation, what would you do if Ithilian told you he was leaving? For your own protection.” The implication was clear enough.

“He wouldn’t.” Amalia’s words were immediate, clear, spoken with the weight of unshakeable belief. “That is not a possibility that lies within the nature of our relationship.” It was the same kind of impossibility as a square circle—definitional, intrinsic. The way they protected one another was precisely the opposite. It always had been so, and for it to be otherwise would mean they had become something different to each other than they were. Amalia considered the rest of it though, and when she spoke, it was slowly, perhaps because she felt a bit ill-at-ease speculating on someone else’s mindset.

“You say you would change. Perhaps he doesn’t want you to. What you would have to become
 would you want to be that person?” Her brows drew together, and she took a sip of her tea. Mostly spice, but a hint of sugar. She hadn’t recalled much liking the latter in the past. But everything could change, she supposed. Whether it should was another matter.

“He didn’t say you’d never see each other again, did he? Only that he had to leave? Those are not the same. Did you ask, or simply assume that he was intent on leaving you behind on a permanent basis?” Sparrow did have a habit of jumping to conclusions, thinking with her heart first and her head only afterwards, often when the damage was already done.

Once, Sparrow might have reacted similarly. Once, she might have had the same finality. Of course, he would not. She'd half expected Amalia's resolute response, spoken as quick as the question was raised. And she half yearned for something entirely different—a deciding factor to direct her [/i]somewhere[/i]. What made them so different? Her gaze dropped back down to her hands. When you believed that someone's smile was a question you wanted to answer into infinity... how could it be? It was a two-sided affair that always felt permanent. She'd been no different. She said nothing in response, only settled her mouth into a tight line. Soft voice, hard eyes.

“Yes,” Sparrow accidentally kicked the table, rattling her cup and nearly upending it. A small, fool's of a smile flickered on her face. An apology that couldn't quite leave her lips. Whether she truly meant it was another matter altogether. She fought changes with brutal, wrecked knuckles, and only came out on top when she had someone else to fight for. It was a possibility she was willing to consider, changing into someone she was not. Becoming unlike herself in order to maintain what they had. Who would keep her from making wrong choices? Who would keep her from drifting out to sea? For now, she was anchored. No one was immutable is what he'd said, hadn't he?

True enough, she hadn't asked. She'd pushed him, sputtered and ran. Hadn't listened to a word of explanation, nor had she expected one. There was finality, at least, in his words. A laugh escaped her, bubbled out. Short and cold. She levelled Amalia with a stare, eyebrows scrunched. She would not become a weak, vulnerable woman pining in Darktown's doorway, awaiting letters that may or may never arrive. She would not sit on the docks, growing tired and old, wondering when he would return. It was not in her nature. She'd assumed he meant permanently. It certainly felt that way. “He would have said so,” She paused and sucked on her teeth. Leaving out important details, such as when he would return, was unheard of. Rilien would have made this journey clear to her. He would have assured her, but he hadn't.

“If it's impossible for you to imagine,” Sparrow went on to say, “What more can I do? What can I say?” She leaned back in her chair and cocked her head to the side, studying Amalia's face. Once, she'd had more anchors then she wished to carry. Once, she'd let them go. “I won't stay here, when he leaves.”

Amalia drummed her fingers on the table, not out of impatience, but because she was thinking. “Whatever you do, make sure you understand first. Make sure you really understand him, and what his intentions are. Assume nothing, not when matters are this important to you.” Communication was essential; she’d learned that much. Leaving too much unsaid was like leaving a wound open: eventually, it would all begin to fester and rot, and the mind would be able to think of nothing else. Endless useless speculation, impeding one’s forward progress. “And make sure he really understands you. But once that is done
 do what you want.”

A tiny smile flickered over Amalia’s face. “When have you ever let anyone else decide what you do, anyway? You have wings, don’t you? So fly. Just do not forget that there are places you can land for a while, when you grow weary.” Perhaps she could not figuratively live in Rilien’s world, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t literally pick up and travel to Orlais, if she wanted. Or somewhere else. Or nowhere at all. The future was open to her.

For once in her life, Sparrow listened. She didn't predispose what she thought she meant to say, and she didn't interrupt. Only sat quietly in her chair and accepted her observations, because she needed to hear them. Piecing out her own thoughts while staring heatedly at the ceiling had conjured no answers, and sulking alone would do nothing but bolster her irrational judgements. She wouldn't have admitted it, but she needed to talk to someone, and needed advice beyond allowing things to happen as they were. Inaction was not in her nature, either. She needed movement as much as she needed this.

When Amalia smiled, as quickly as it'd come and gone, Sparrow, too, found herself smiling. And then, she laughed. This time, it was warmer. That smile of hers was something she missed after all these years spent apart—and something she doubted she would see again, after all she'd done. Easy to miss, if she hadn't looked back down. Like Rilien, she did not feel as loudly as she did. Anchor or no, she would fly. Birds did not clip their wings willingly. In one swift motion, Sparrow scooped up the teacup, swallowed the rest of the tea and slapped it back down. Only a sliver of sugar remained on the bottom. She knuckled her nose and sniffed noisily, “You're right, y'know. You often are. I'd almost forgotten that.” Manners. What were those? Ah.

“And Amalia,” Sparrow added, leaning forward with renewed energy. She planted her hand across hers, ceasing the drumming and flashed a crooked smile, “thanks for everything.”

“You are welcome, Sparrow."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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It was, really, a lovely day for a wedding.

Winter had lingered a little longer that year than it usually did in Kirkwall, but by the fourth month of the year, all the vestiges of snow and chill had receded, leaving the fresh green of new shoots and vibrant colors of all kinds of flowers to shade the mountainside in the stead of glaring white. The air was warm, that comfortable kind of middling that permitted most clothing preferences without issue. The spot that Ashton and Nostariel had chosen was, of course, the very same one they had often occupied in the years before—for archery lessons and talks both light and utterly serious. And while the place hadn’t mattered as much as the people, it was still the one in which they’d forgiven themselves, and in which they’d both professed to the feelings that had bloomed in the spaces guilt and grief had left bare.

It had been altered a little for the occasion. Someone—she suspected those of her friends who knew of craft had been responsible—had erected a temporary wooden arch, framing the view down from the mountain of the city, the countryside, and a little of the Coast. Chains of flowers had been woven into the latticework of it, bright bursts of color against the white of the wood. Presently beneath the arch stood the ceremony’s officiate, Lucien, dressed finely but modestly in soft grey, his hands folded behind his back. Considering that this was quite the hike out for most of the guests, they’d forgone any sort of formal seating in favor of large, colorful blankets, spread to either side of the aisle. At the front, of course, were the wedding parties, the groom’s to the right and the bride’s, all in shades of green or blue, to the left.

It was also to the left that a small area had been set to the side for Amalia, whose harp was, at present at least, the sole musical accompaniment to the occasion. She, too, was wearing the nicest items of clothing she owned: a soft, spring-colored tunic and light tan breeches, both close to new from the lack of wear on them. Presently, she only tuned her harp, though she occasionally glanced down the way as though waiting for some kind of cue or signal. The aisle itself was already a carpet of flowers, likely the work mostly of Sparrow, though there was little doubt that Aurora had chosen the blooms themselves.

Near the arch off to Lucien's side, Ashton stood his hands locked together behind him as he patiently awaited his bride. He wore a sparkling green doublet over an ordinary, but fine, white shirt. The blue cornflower (chosen by Aurora) found pinned on his chest near his heart popped against the color. He wisely chose not to wear the outfit he'd worn to Sophia's party, for good reason considering its history. Ashton subtitly shifted the weight on his feet, but otherwise did not let the nervousness he felt show on his face. Though there was a small twitch when the first chords were struck.

The music started up then, something light and sweet, and Nostariel knew that was her cue. It was quite strange—she’d probably been less anxious or jittery during the whole process up to now than Ash had been, but for some reason, she couldn’t quiet her nerves now, when it seemed especially important. Oh, she was happy, of course, and she wasn’t entertaining any particular doubts about the whole thing. The jets of giddiness fizzing around in her thoughts wouldn’t leave any room for that, but
 they were churning in her stomach, too, and that felt a little more like anxiety. Well, she supposed she ought to have been more worried if she thought she had everything perfectly well in-hand.

Her hands tightened slightly on the bouquet Aurora’s skilled hand had grown, made from aster blooms, green carnations, snowdrop, a marigold, and a blue rose, and she started forward. Nostariel didn’t really have the inclination to purchase a gown she was only going to wear once, not when there were so many other things she would rather put such funds towards, but she had decided to alter something she already owned—namely, the dress she’d worn to Sophia’s birthday party some years ago, which was still the most formal event she’d ever been to. In some ways, it had actually been simplified: the line of it was much sleeker and cleaner now, without any flounce that would simply get caught in things like grass or small twigs or the like. It was still the same deep sapphire color, though the corset had been removed, and a few embroidered details added in silver. Overall, she thought it suited the occasion.

Having no living relatives that she knew of and having run her own life from a comparatively young age, Nostariel advanced up the aisle alone. She didn’t belong to anyone else that they could give her to anyone, and what she was choosing to relinquish of her own accord, she was getting back in another form, so it seemed appropriate. Even despite the absence of family, she did not feel alone at all. There were many smiles greeting her on her way up the aisle, from friends and guests and even Stroud, who’d found some way to be back in the Marches on just this occasion. And of course, it was impossible to feel alone on the day one was marrying the person one loved most of all.

At the end of the procession, she came to stand just before the arch, directly across from Ash, giving him a smile that she hoped conveyed all her joy and nerves and everything else, though she suspected there wasn’t really any way to show the whole of it. She had a feeling he’d know anyway, though.

He returned her smile with a wide one of his own, any notion of his nerves getting to him gone now that she stood beside him. He reached out with a hand to wrap around one of hers, and pulled it to his lips. He looked back to her and with an easy smile and wink, shifted so that they both turned to face Lucien. He never let go of her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Lucien smiled at the both of them, moving his hands from where they were behind his back such that it was now obvious that he held a small sheaf of notes. He was no Chantry brother, but then if they’d wanted one of those, and all the official trappings that went with an ordained ceremony, they would have opted for someone else, he supposed. So he’d kept his words simple and neat, addressing those assembled with the rich, slightly poetic timbre of one tutored in oratory, absent needless flourish. On occasions like this, it was best to let the words and the sentiments they evoked speak for themselves as much as possible.

“Dearly beloved, we gather here today to celebrate the joining of two lives we hold in great esteem
” The whole thing was neither long nor overly complicated, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes to arrive at the crux of the matter, so to speak.

“Do you, Ashton Riviera, take Nostariel Turtega to be your wedded wife? To support in times of crisis, to rejoice in times of health, to weather duty and sorrow and suffering, but also to share in triumph and happiness and good fortune, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

Now both of Ashton's hands found hers as the smile on his face threatened to split it in two. Oddly enough, Ashton seemed composed, he didn't sway unnecessarily in the wind, his hands were still and calm, and even his eyes refused to dart instead remaining on the most important woman in his world. Any of the words he might have prepared or thought of preparing vanished as it came his turn to speak, and that was just as well. They were words spoken from the heart

"My pretty little Nostariel, I promise to do all of these things and more for as long as I live and breathe. I am at my most comfortable with you beside me, and you make me feel as though I could take the world on and win. You are my rock and the one who keeps me steady, and I aim to be the same for you. I promise to stand by your side when you need someone to lean on, as you have for me. On this very spot, actually," he added, pointing a finger to the ground below. "I promise to share in your laughter, and in your tears. To share my dreams with you, and bask with you in yours... Like now, for instance," he said with a squeeze of her hand.

"But more than that, I promise you everything I am, everything I can be, and everything I will be, for better or for worse. My pretty little sweetheart Nos, I promise to love you with every fiber of my being for as long as this heart of mine keeps beating."

“And do you, Nostariel Turtega, take Ashton Riviera to be your wedded husband? To support in times of crisis, to rejoice in times of health, to weather duty and sorrow and suffering, but also to share in triumph and happiness and good fortune, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

Nostariel took a deep breath, for a moment feeling as though she teetered on an edge she’d never come back from, if she fell. But, well, that was what she was hoping for, right? Might as well jump off without worrying so much where the bottom was. Lucien’s words were just the official ones. It was left to her to fill them in the rest of the way, as Ashton had just done. Slowly, Nostariel began to speak, the words ones she’d considered for a long time and committed to memory the previous evening.

“For as long as we traverse this life together, Ash, I promise to stand by your side. To lend my strength to your endeavors, and my ear to your words. I promise also to never carry my burdens alone, as I know I do not want you to carry yours. I promise to have the grace to forgive your missteps, and the humility to ask you to forgive mine. To do my best to heal your wounds, whatever kind they may be, and to let you tend to mine.” She smiled a little; that part was mostly metaphorical, considering her particular set of skills, but it was the implication that mattered.

“But more than any of that, I promise to love you. All of you, with all of me. For as long as I live.”

“If any present should object to this union, you are bid to speak now or forever hold your peace.”

There was a pause, but silence. Of course, it was hardly expected that anyone should protest; all those present were close friends of one, the other, or both of them.

“Then by the power vested in me by, well
 yourselves, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” The small smile that Lucien had been wearing flashed wider for a moment. “You may kiss the bride.”

Before Lucien even finished the words, Ashton was swooping in. His hand found the small of her back as he craned his neck to place his lips on hers. He didn't simply stop there, however, as he dipped her lower until she was more horizontal than she was vertical. He kept her there for a moment or two, as the applause continued, though truth be told he never heard any of the clapping, nor was completely aware of their audience. For that moment, there was only them.

As it turned out, Ashton didn't allow Nostariel to get vertical. With little spin and a maneuvering of hands, she instead came up in his arms, held aloft by a positively beaming Ashton. He couldn't say for certain if he'd ever put her down.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The party after the wedding was a much more casual affair than the ceremony itself. Neither Ashton nor Nostariel had wanted anything much more complicated than a gathering of their friends and neighbors, and with that considered, Lucien’s offer of the barracks hall had been quite ideal for their purposes. It was also close enough to the Alienage that none of the denizens there need feel particularly uncomfortable about coming, and indeed Nostariel’s side of the invitees’ list did include a few of those there she knew best, mostly through the clinic.

The furniture in the space had mostly been moved, the doors at the front thrown open so that the considerable space in front of and to the sides of the building could be used as well, and what tables remained were laden with food, spirits, and less-alcoholic beverage choices, for both the younger and more sober elements of the group. The latter included both bride and groom, so that much wasn’t surprising. Nostariel had taken the time to change into something less-formal, though it was still a dress, a paler shade of turquoise this time. It had no sleeves, and fell about halfway down her calves in a loose fashion. Much better for the kind of dancing that was likely to occur here.

Her arm was linked through Ash’s, as it had been for the last hour or so. The first part of the whole thing was accepting the congratulations of anyone who came up to offer them, and there were a surprising number of people present to do so. She supposed that must be the result of living so long in one place, one with a population much greater than the average Circle. But that part was winding down at least, as everyone settled into the gathering.

Ashton beamed the entire time, the usual smile somehow seeming even brighter than ever. He shook the hands that were offered, clasped the shoulders of his friends, and even saluted a few of the guardsmen who'd come to wish them congratulations. Vesper even gave them both a hug, which admittedly surprised Ashton at first, though the faint smell of alcohol and the salute afterwards put everything at ease. He couldn't help but laugh.

Eventually, however, they made their way to their seats, Ashton and Nostariel's obviously stationed front and center to everyone else. The food provided was fine, if not extravagant, but then they didn't really expect or particularly wish for extravagant. It was a simple affair, but delicious nonetheless, made by a few of their friends and friends of friends. During the meal, during a lax in the din of conversation, Ashton turned to Rilien with a glass held up, and gestured toward it. "Toast!" he mouthed. Rilien was one of his best friends, after all, and they always did some kind of toast.

... He also had to admit he was curious to see what Rilien would say.

Rilien was familiar with the basic wedding traditions, both the simple ones employed by commoners in places like Kirkwall and the increasingly-elaborate ones demanded for proper marriages between nobility. The variety was rather staggering, but alcohol and speeches seemed to be rather constant themes. Everyone liked to drink, and everyone liked to hear their friends say flattering things about them. Weddings were ample excuse for both.

He was less familiar with being asked to give such speeches himself. Really, it seemed the kind of thing someone with more
 feelings would have been more appropriate for. He could pretend to infuse emotion into his face or his words, but those who knew him at all would know it for just that—playacting. It didn’t seem the right thing to do, and yet the only choices that left him were to ignore the request entirely or speak as his very Tranquil self.

If Sparrow had to pick one word to describe how the entire wedding ceremony had gone, it would have clearly been sun. Drapes were thrown wide open, as well as doors. And everyone was smiling. Wide, brimming and overflowing grins all around. She, too, smiled. More of a shit-eating grin. She wandered between groups and had a couple... or, perhaps a few glasses of sweet-wine. Enough to make her belly warm. Conversation flowed easily and she even managed to mingle with some of the guards who'd initially chased her through the streets over the years. Strange how things had changed. And while she still had a few things to say to Rilien about what had occured, it could certainly wait.

In a stranger manner of events, she'd chosen fancier vestments as well. Not quite a dress. She'd chosen soft trousers of equally soft colours and a billowy tunic with the sleeves tied above her elbow. Clothes that Amalia had helped in choosing. Previous garish clothes she'd originally picked had been met with a stern frown and a shake of the head. Admittedly, this was fine too. She squirmed in her seat as Ashton cried for a toast. Her eyes followed his. And Rilien took the mantle, slowly coming to his feet.

It was almost with a shade of reluctance that he stood, drawing attention to himself with a bare modicum of effort. That much, he could reliably do. The rest, well
 he did know his way around words, when he needed to. He supposed it could not hurt to put an extensive education in stories, poetic verse, and literature to work here. "I understand that at this point in a celebration, those friends of the celebrated are generally given to speeches, toasts extolling the virtues of those recently wed.” His fingers shifted almost idly on the stem of the glass wine goblet he held in his right hand. "Or, if the speaker is more humorously inclined, he might elect to tell a funny story, or perhaps recount some embarrassing anecdote or another.”

A slightly-narrowed gaze fell on Ashton. He certainly had plenty of embarrassing stories about the other man that he could tell, and with the tongue of a bard, he did not suspect it would be difficult to have most of the room in stitches. Rilien might not be humorous in his manner, but he understood comedic timing and deadpan very well, indeed. He let the look linger for just long enough that Ashton would understand what had almost happened, but then moved it back across the room.

The moment was not lost on Ashton, as he turned to Nos and gave her a nervous and weak smile. He was not so curious any more.

"I will do neither of these things. Embarrassing my friend would be far too simple a matter, and he is likely to do it himself before the night is over anyway.” A small pause, for the chuckling to subside, and then Rilien continued. "And I think that perhaps the virtues belonging to both bride and groom are obvious enough that enumerating them would be more crass than informative.” He inclined his head to both of them.

"Instead I will say only the following: the number of people present for this gathering is no accident. I suspect we represent but a fraction of those whose lives you have made better, because of your friendship, your effort, and your sacrifice. You do not come from backgrounds of glory or nobility, and yet if nobility is a concept with any meaning at all, then you have risen to it. It is my hope, and I believe the hope of those present with me, that you continue to improve one another’s lives as you have improved your own, and ours. That you, in short, are happy. If it can be deserved, you deserve it.” He raised his glass.

“Hear, hear!” Lucien chimed in warmly, raising his in turn. A chorus of clinks and agreements followed.




After the dinner wrapped up, the organization of the event became even looser. A few guests had to say their goodbyes, having ordinary workdays following, but most stuck around, breaking up into smaller groups to linger in the hall or spill outside onto the barracks’ yard. Rilien appeared to have taken the responsibility of providing music away from Amalia for a while, and a few of the Lions with talents in that direction contributed backing to the bard’s lute. After the initial dance, partner or group selection was basically a large, friendly free-for-all, and Nostariel found herself bouncing merrily from one to the next, light on her feet perhaps more due to her mood than any significant uptick in her ability to do any of the steps involved.

Aurora, already on her third glass of wine, found herself tapping her foot along with the music, gently swaying to and fro in tune with the melody. Soon it became not enough, so she stood from her seat and crossed the floor in search of one certain individual. It didn't take long considering who it was she was searching for. "Come on, we shouldn't just be sitting here. It's a wedding!" Aurora beckoned, her hand stretched out for Sparrow to take.

Most unusually, Sparrow had chosen not to drown herself in wine, even if there was some in plenty. Of various flavours, poured from all angles. As soon as Rilien began playing upbeat jigs, people coupled and strayed from their seats—became dancers, all grinning widely, laughing loudly. She leaned forward and watched them twirl and dip and weave around each other, eyes squinted and mouth pulled into a simpering grin. Moments like these were brief respites from everything they'd gone through up until now. As oblivious as she was, it was not lost on her and she, too, felt as if her heard soared and span and danced.

She did drink a couple glasses herself until the familiar bloom of warmth extended from her belly and coloured everything else warm and unworried. A familiar voice broke through her thoughts, accompanied by a sway of hips and fiery hair, and Sparrow's mouth twisted into a wider, mischievous grin. She feigned fanning her face and fluttered her eyelids, as a timid maiden might upon being asked to dance, “I'd be honoured.” Sparrow threw back her head in laughter and took up Aurora's hand, slipping free from the confines of her dreaded chair, “Let's show them how to really dance.”

Much like his newly wedded wife, Ashton bounced from one individual to the next with a smile on his lips and a laugh in his throat. Though unlike her his footwork was a little bit better. It wasn't often that Captain Riviera was able to showcase his dancing abilities, unfortunately, and he enjoyed the opportunities that he got. He even came across Vesper, but the encounter left the tops of his feet sore, though the other guards that attended seemed to fare better on their own feet.

The Lions were also enjoying themselves, this much was clear, though they weren’t by any means sticking to their own group. Indeed, people from all kinds of places in the city seemed to mingle freely here, and perhaps it was in this spirit that Ainsley, one of their newer members, approached Amalia, who had until this point been quite content to remain seated and let other people do the dancing.

“You can’t tell me you don’t know how to dance,” the former raider said amiably, extending a hand in clear invitation. It was true that dancing definitely wasn’t the same as combat footwork, but she doubted that someone with such evident skill at the latter really had no concept of the former. “But I suppose you could tell me you didn’t want to.” The woman shrugged, but her grin belied her words. She was expecting acquiescence.

And, honestly, Amalia saw no reason to decline. Rising, she accepted the hand and let herself be guided over to someplace there was still space. The music was lively, and the dance was one she’d seen other people doing before. Tilting her head to the side, she studied how others were going about it for a few moments, then slid her way into the sequence. This particular exercise required little actual contact with one’s partner, but an awareness of their location, else at times one might blindly crash into them, as some of the less coordinated or more intoxicated dancers were already doing.

"Thought I'd find you dancing," Ithilian commented, approaching his Dalish friend near the edge of the yard. Emerion sat on the wooden fence, feet perched on the lowest rung, and worked through more wine. He offered Ithilian a half-smile as he was joined on the fence, swallowing another gulp.

"Someone should be keeping watch over them. Hard to do that from within them all." He glanced sideways, gestured subtly with his head to where a pair of Templars, their faces hidden behind their helmets, passed by the festivities on patrol. They watched with some level interest, but did not slow their walk. Ithilian watched Emerion take another drink.

"Hard to do it while you're drunk, too. But don't worry about the Templars. They'll be no trouble to anyone tonight." Recent events had often taken Ithilian away from the Alienage, but since returning from Prosper's estate in particular he'd noticed a sort of gloominess in Emerion. "Something wrong, lethallin?"

He was silent for a long moment before speaking. "I never thought I'd find you living this way." He turned to look at Ithilian. "Content. Living in one place. Do you know what I mean?" Ithilian took a moment to consider the words, and then nodded his head slowly.

"I think I do. I always wanted too much when I was younger. I was greedy. I was prideful." He looked out at the dancers, watching the new husband and wife among them. "A lot had to happen to change me. I'm thankful the same didn't occur to you."

"I'm not so sure you should be. I think you're better for it, everything that you went through." Emerion took a long drink, finishing his cup. He slipped off the fence and to his feet, patting Ithilian on the shoulder. "I'll be returning to the Alienage. See you tomorrow, Ithilian."

Though a few guests left earlier than the rest, the party itself wound well into the night hours, the last of the guests finally departing the barracks after midnight. Fortunately, most of them had been courteous, which left minimal mess behind when that was all done. Nostariel and Ashton did their part to clear up after the celebration, and, after thanking Lucien once again for the use of his building, they departed, hand in hand, for their new home on the fringe of Lowtown. It wasn’t too far from the Hightown steps, something they’d decided on so that neither of them had to walk too far to reach their place of work.

The walk was a quiet one, the streets mostly deserted at this time of night, and they weren’t pestered by any of the city’s criminal elements, whether because one or both of them were recognized or just because they didn’t look to be worth the effort, it was hard to say and didn’t much matter. Nostariel swung their arms, interlocked at the hand, between their bodies in a carefree sort of way, the smile she’d been wearing all through the celebration undimmed by the late hour or quieter surroundings.

“I never thought this day would come.” The confession was quiet, but easily heard given the lack of ambient noise. “Even when we were actually planning it, some part of me just refused to believe it would actually happen.” Perhaps that was why she’d been on such an even keel throughout the whole process. She looked up at her husband from the corner of her eye, and squeezed his hand. It was a pale indication of the lightness in her heart, but he would understand. His ability to do so was one of the major reasons they were here at all.

“But I’m so happy it did.”

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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A strange, puzzling letter and a single white feather were two things she hadn't expected to see purposefully arranged atop her pillow—in Amalia's home, stranger still. Her first inclination had been to inform her about this particular discovery, but it did have a name on it. It was addressed to someone she'd been, as of recent, avoiding: Rilien. She brooded over simply discarding it. Perhaps, by throwing it into Amalia's hearth and watching as its corners curled up. The act might have even been satisfying. Of course, she'd thumbed through it's contents, and found nothing else. Nothing revealing it's nature or where it'd come from. She pursed her lips and flicked the white feather behind one of her ears. What choice did she have? Curiosity would not allow her to ignore it.

It was difficult to discount the building dread thumping sickly against her ribs, reminding her that there was much to discuss and she was not prepared to face anything they'd both said. While she'd taken Amalia's advice to heart, she wasn't sure when was appropriate. How would she approach? Would she wait until he was on the cusp of leaving? But now, she had an excuse to see him, at least. Habit took her back to Rilien's shop, threading her steps like clockwork even though it felt like ages since she'd been there. She stopped in front of the door and crooked her hand to knock.

Knock—like she'd ever done that before, she mashed her teeth together and pushed the door open far harder than she'd intended to. It knocked into the wall and rebounded, catching at the elbow she launched out to keep it from smashing back into her gawping face. Sparrow hesitated in the doorway and finally tiptoed inside, feeling more like an intruder than anyone else: friend, visitor, client. Business. She was here for business, and that was it. After dropping off the letter, and making sure that all was well, she'd take her leave. She smoothed clammy hands across the front of her shirt and shut the door behind her, “Rillien!” Much too loud.

It was impossible to miss the slamming of his door back into a wall, or the coarse shout of his name. He supposed it was inevitable that this would happen eventually. Descending the stairs from his apartment over the shop, Rilien paused a moment when he caught sight of the feather in her hand, then blinked, crossing the remaining distance and holding his hand out for the letter, which he received. It had already been opened, which was hardly surprising; Sparrow was nosy even when feeling well-disposed towards someone else. He did not doubt that she would be even moreso when upset with the intended party.

The note this time indicated a more straightforward task. A good Bard knows when to be delicate
 and when to be forceful. There was little mystery about that one, especially considering the earlier note regarding the need for vigilance. Perhaps, then, the games were finally drawing to a close.

"Someone is going to try and assassinate you. Probably today. I’d recommend you remain away from anyone you wish to keep safe.” He folded the letter back into its envelope and stowed it under the counter. "For the meantime, I will be shadowing you, if you are not opposed.” Really, it didn’t matter in the least if she was opposed—he was going to do it anyway. But he didn’t have to do it visibly.

Rilien snatched the letter so quickly from her fingers, she'd sworn that it'd been pilfered from him in the first place. She pressed her lips into a hard line and rocked back on her heels, wondering hotly whether or not it may have been a better idea to simply burn the stupid thing—no explanation whatsoever as he perused the letters contents. She flicked the white feather between her knuckles and obnoxiously cleared her throat. Whatever it was, it seemed far more important than she'd originally thought. Which made even less sense, given the fact that she did not understand its message.

She opened her mouth to inform him that the letter had been found in Amalia's home, on her bed, but promptly snapped it shut. How anyone had known she'd been living there was beyond her, though any doubts she harbored about its authenticity (and if this was just some sort of jest involving Ashton) quickly flew out the window when Rilien leveled her with a somber stare and announced that someone was going to attempt to assassinate her. Her insides twisted. Someone wanted to assassinate her? “What—why?” She sputtered, throwing her hands out wide, “I haven't done anything recently that'd warrant someone wanting me dead.”

Unlike him, her powers of deduction were stiflingly low. Sparrow watched as he tucked the letter away, “How do you know? From that letter?” It sounded more like awful poetry. And now, he wanted to shadow her until her potential-killer skulked from the shadows. Even if she declined, he would do as he pleased. As he usually did. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned, “I can help with this.”

Rilien blinked. "Then our course of action is clear. If we choose the time and place, we will be that much more prepared to deal with your assailants.” He knew anyone Aurelie sent would wait for the opportune moment to attack—the point would be how that moment was chosen. If Rilien and Sparrow could create it themselves, it would hardly be an ambush, and the biggest danger of the situation, its surprise, would be neutralized.

"As for why
 that would be my fault. I am being
 assessed, I believe.” He’d given the situation some thought, and there was no other reasonable explanation for Aurelie’s actions than a desire to take stock of his abilities. She compelled him to take the examinations by drawing him forth with the one sort of thing he would never be able to ignore: his instinct towards loyalty. Everything she’d asked him to do thus far was within the scope of a Bard’s talents, and this test was no exception. As to why she had decided to do this, or why now
 he suspected she would disclose that information herself, should she decide he’d met her expectations.

"Here is what we’re going to do.”




Unattended with teeth-bared and fists curled into whitened knuckles, Sparrow walked down the slummiest places she could think of in Darktown's recesses. Grimy, familiar buildings squeezed together like people hunched in darkness, shoulders knocking together. Even while armored with the knowledge of Rilien walking her shadows, she could not help feel awfully deserted. Unprepared for what would happen next should they choose to attack her in these twisted alleyways.

Would they come from the right or the left? Would they run to her with knives hissing in the dark, or with hands crackling magic? The furrow in her brows would not ease, and her hands tickled and twitched to hold her trusty mace. She could not. It would give away the game. Her heart knocked and thumped and beat all sensations of readiness she might have felt when facing a foe she could actually see.

The request did not go unrealized. There was a flash of motion coming from her peripheral vision, somewhere behind one of the squat buildings. A shuffle of crimson fabric flapped behind someone's, who was clearly not Rilien, shoulder and a blade swept behind like starlight, catching against its sharpest point as the person hurtled towards her. He was not alone. Two figures stalked in his wake, circling to her flanks. A wild, animalistic impulse smothered her inclinations of calm, as her hand slapped onto her mace and tore it from her back just in time to crack it down across the approaching man's unprotected skull. His dagger skittered away into obscurity. Sparrow wheeled around to face the second assailant to her right—no, left. Wrong. She was wrong.

Another knife, closer this time, gleamed towards her face.

That one was brought up short when a blade emerged from the chest of the assassin wielding it. Rilien had not intended to reveal himself so soon, in case there were still others about, but he’d had little choice in the matter. With a tug, he removed the dagger from the man’s chest cavity, leaving only a frosty, bleeding wound behind as the corpse dropped to the stone beneath their feet.

As expected, two more joined the fray then, both of them going directly for him, which was actually beneficial, since it meant only one was left to assault Sparrow directly, and he knew she was more than capable of dealing with such a threat on her own.

He had known right away that these were hired men, not other members of Le Nichoir. It wasn’t a large organization, and survived mainly on the strength and intelligence of its individual agents rather than the number of bodies its matron Cygne could throw at a problem. So sometimes she did hire out for more brute matters of force such as this one. He supposed it was only good sense—she would suffer no great loss at the death of hirelings, whom she had not trained or invested any amount of effort in whatsoever.

A knife flew towards him, and Rilien parried it out of the air with his own, knocking it to the ground where it skittered off and into some dark shadow of the Darktown alley. He stepped in close to the thrower, drawing his knife efficiently over her throat, whirling to meet the next, who had thought to strike at his back while he was otherwise occupied. The clangor of steel on steel sounded into the alley, echoing strangely in the space, and repeated several times in quick succession as Rilien blocked a hasty series of blows, sidestepping a lunge and bringing the pommel of his second dagger down on the back of his foe’s neck as his ill-fated lunge carried him past. Electricity did what work force alone did not, and he was finished with a quick flourish and a severed spinal cord, right at the base of his skull.

The dagger did not meet it's intended target. Her heart jammed in her throat and she instinctively jerked backwards, far too late if he hadn't been there. Another blade yawned through the assassin's breast and the dagger twitched out of his gloved fingers, clattering to the ground. He followed suit, crumpling onto his face. In that moment, she was grateful for his attendance in the shadows. She twisted towards the third assassin who'd circled around her and towed her mace across the broken cobblestones, planting both feet firmly. Hands tight, muscles bunched.

As soon as he darted to the right, Sparrow hefted her mace upwards and missed as he ducked under. She allowed the momentum to carry her in the opposite direction and simply let go of the haft, sending it smashing into the opposite building. She grabbed the mans collar in passing and savagely throttled him into it, as well. The fabric held, and she heard his head crack against the crumbling brickwork. She didn't stop. Grappling for his wrist, Sparrow crushed his hand against the rock enough times to release the dagger from his bleeding fingers, and grabbed his greasy hair instead, dashing his head against her knee.

A few more blows, and he collapsed. She took a few withered breaths and bent to retrieve her mace, hefting it in her hands for good measure.

She turned back to see if he was done, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

“Well, that's that, then.”

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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Several days after his encounter with Aurelie, Rilien was left to conclude that he really did need to set in order his affairs in Kirkwall. He was moving quickly through the paperwork required to officially give the shop to Sandal and Bodahn, and he’d additionally informed his various friends, acquaintances, and business partners of his impending departure. He could not, of course, place an exact date on it; much would depend on Lucien, and the speed of Orlesian politics. That said, it was better to be prepared sooner than necessary than to be caught off-guard when a swift regress should be necessary.

That left, as it happened, one final loose end.

Which was how he found himself standing outside one of the many ramshackle homes of the Alienage, a place he never really went. The door was solid, he noted, with a decent lock on it. It also appeared to have been recently painted, something he noticed was true of most of the entryways in the area. It didn’t concern him and so he chose not to speculate upon it, instead raising a hand to knock. He’d already passed Amalia, and so he knew for a fact that Sparrow, and only Sparrow, was currently present in the lodging. Which was perhaps how it should be, for this discussion.

It was expected. Eventually, Sparrow's welcome would run its course and Amalia would gently guide her to the door with the expectation that she'd use her coltish legs to wander back home and tidy up her affairs like they'd previously discussed. In theory, it was easy. Maybe, shewould seek him out and settle things once in for all. Maybe, she would listen to him. Maybe, she would run away. None of these occurred. Not yet. No matter how many times she fantasized and planned and thought about it—she ended up in the same place: back in their old Darktown hovel. Where it all began. If she had any sense of romanticism, she may have thought it was poetic.

She stood in the dark, weighing her options: wondering whether or not she should just go to him. Should things end there, should things not go as she planned... it would mean an end to something precious. Something she wished to keep here. With her. Someone. She exhaled softly and plopped down on one of the wooden chairs. She did not like endings. They felt like sickly, damning losses. Going to him now would mean facing her greatest fears. Everything would change. She leaned over the table and snapped her fingers above one of the old copper lanterns. Its wick ignited and cast dancing shadows across the walls, scattering an ember glow across her drumming fingertips. She would never be ready. Even so...

There was a knock at the door.

Before she had enough sense to stop herself, Sparrow wandered towards the doorway and settled her hand across the new latch. Perhaps, this was for the best. For who? Him, her, them. She doubted it. She'd long since given up making assumptions when both parties were concerned. Settling on the wind like nomads, traveling far away from one another felt backwards. Unfair. Finally, she unlocked the door and pulled it wide open, only briefly flicking her eyes to meet his. Of course, she'd known he would come. She stepped away and back towards the slip of candlelight. Sparrow occupied the same space she'd sat before. Volumes, spoken between the lines, as per usual. She patted the table and waited.

Rilien entered the unfamiliar home, tracking Sparrow’s movement as she took a seat at the table. For a moment, he studied their surroundings. Amalia’s presence was in evidence here, as was that of one or two people he did not know. Curiously, Sparrow did not seem to have spilled out into every room of this place the way she had in their previous Darktown residence, one he still technically owned, if never used. There was little need to pick his way around anything here, as it was quite tidy, but still he moved carefully, almost as one who does not wish to startle a deer or a rabbit
 or a small bird, he supposed.

With customary grace, he took the chair across the table from her, studying her fingers as they tapped out some frenetic rhythm or another, then raised his eyes to hers, folding his own hands together at the edge of the wooden slab. He knew she would not speak first. That task was his—to be expected, since he was the one that had come here, and not the other way around.

It was a difficult thing to explain, largely because, unlike the rest of the things he chose to speak on, Rilien wasn’t entirely sure he had a full understanding of it. Emotions were, for obvious reasons, not his area of expertise. Still, he’d resolved to offer the best explanation he could, and so here he was.

“Had you said what you did to me three or four years ago, I would have reacted differently.” It was, perhaps, an odd way to start talking about the present, but he believed that she probably needed to hear all of it. “When I had my emotions back, in that cave with the Horror
 I thought of you, and I felt.” He gave the word a delicate emphasis, the break in his monotone reinforcement of the statement itself. “I believed, then, that I must love you, for I had not felt anything of its kind before. I remember that I was almost dizzy with it, like a drunk.”

Rilien seemed taken with the memory for a moment, but then he blinked, and his eyes cleared. “Perhaps, in a way, I did. Perhaps I do. But whatever it is, whatever that feeling was or whatever of it remains
 is insufficient.” It was perhaps a strange coincidence, verging on the ironic, that the reason he knew it to be so was because he now had an understanding of what love, in its proper form, actually was like. Ashton was in love, Lucien was in love, and as illogical as Rilien found it all, there was some reason to it. They had built those connections on something meaningful, something shared and mutual. They were, in some sense, partnerships as well as mere romances. And that made the affection itself something different, or so it seemed to him. It was also something he knew he did not have, had never had.

For a moment, Rilien’s facial expression shifted, just a fraction, but there was something apologetic in the downturn of his mouth, because he knew what he said next was going to be unkind. But it was also going to be the truth. “For some time, now, I have known that I would eventually return to Orlais. And never once did I contemplate bringing you along. It would be foolish, and dangerous, and a risk, not one I am willing to take.” He glanced down at this hands, still unmoving—even when discussing such matters, it would seem he was betrayed by no nervous gesture, no particular feeling of discomfort, though he almost wanted to be. How much sense did it make that while he should inflict harm of this kind, he should receive none in turn?

“I do not want you to misunderstand. I care about you. I want you to be happy and well and free to live as you see fit. I would like to see you again someday in the future, if it were possible. If there were anything you would ask of me that I could give, I would give it without hesitation. You matter, and you always will.” Left unsaid was the obvious: but that is all.

“I am
 sorry.” It seemed like he only ever apologized to her.

This time, Rilien did not trail in with quick words or instructions. No future missions, or awry adventures involving wayward mages and the like. Nothing would be as it was. She supposed she should have already known—what this entailed, exactly. Even still, Sparrow half expected him to puzzle over someone else's problems, as he always did. There was a thin line of familiarity and a much larger boundary of changes she disliked. Nothing to be done, this time. With these new changes came a finality that rattled her core, she'd felt it as soon as she'd opened the door to him. Maybe, this was punishment for what she'd done to Amalia. For anyone else unfortunate enough to befriend her, only for her to fly away. No. She didn't believe in fate.

As much as she wished to delay the inevitable, there was nothing she could do. It would come, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Whatever preparations she'd made with Amalia concerning what she would say when the time came seemed to flit away with the drumming of her fingertips. What could she say now? It was written all over his face. He had already made his decision, and nothing she could say could sway him. It took her a moment to finally raise her own eyes; murky, dark as they were. Even if she followed him to Orlais... what would change? She was a taciturn tornado waiting to be let in and he was the window, finally shuttering closed.

Sparrow's fingers stopped tapping their jarring tune, and she crooked her head: listening for once, in silence. If she were dramatic and poetic, she might have imagined the world falling away and draining of colour—but she was only one of those things, and she could see him clearly. She watched his mouth and the words they formed. So, she'd been too late to find him, after all. She supposed she'd torture herself with those thoughts later: what might have been, how things could have gone differently. She drew her splayed hand back across the wooden table and settled it atop her knee, crooking her fingers towards her palm. Too late, the fault was hers, then.

There was much she wanted to say in return—partly to keep the onslaught at bay, construed of all the things she knew and understood and never, ever wanted to hear, but she found herself speechless. Sparrow gripped her knees, and focused on her fingertips. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to interrupt. She wanted to mean something to him, wanted to be something more than what they were, what they'd been before all this... but it was insufficient and he was composed and collected and would not walk through any wind tunnels with her. Surrounded as she was with companions in love, and working relationships, she only managed a lukewarm vision of what love was. It made no sense. She was an ill-fitting frame that did not fit onto any of his walls.

They weren't the same, she and Rilien. She was feral and wild and fickle and sometimes, so unbelievably ugly. He held a goodness he was not aware he harbored and she hungered after it. After him, she supposed. Her hands clenched in her lap; angry fists, solemn fists. She noted his shifts, his expressions deviating like stiff clockwork. Fractions of a fraction: just there, in a brief flicker. Even though she'd known this, that he would not have taken her to Orlais all along—settled like a cancer in the back of her mind, it was worse hearing it spoken aloud. It made it real. She exhaled softly through grit teeth and slowly stood in front her seat, settling her hands palms down across the table. He'd said his piece. Everything that needed saying at least.

What she wanted? He could not give. He'd said it clear enough.

A creaky, strange laugh chortled from her throat. Alien to her own ears, though she swore that she couldn't grasp all of what she felt. Not in this moment. There was too much information, filtering in from all angles. “Ah, I see,” she faltered momentarily before scratching the back of her neck, much too hard, and dropped it back down to her side. Meticulous even when explaining difficult circumstances, Rilien hadn't left room for any countermeasures. She shouldn't have been surprised, but her eyebrows still drew together: defeated. She'd lost him. And with him: her home. “You said I was unfair once. Y'know, you're much worse.”

There was nothing else she could ask for. Nothing else she wanted besides what she'd already asked of him. An impossible request. She rounded the table, slow and measured in her steps. Fingertips skating across the wooden knots, trailing as she walked. How many times had she heard him apologize, as she took and took from him. What had she offered? Strange, the things she thought of now. She leaned forward and crooked one hand around his back, slipping the other beneath his jawline and shifted his chin towards hers. A first and last kiss: another thing she'd take.

And he parted with it willingly. It was not, after all, so much to ask. One of his hands found the nape of her neck, fingers curling softly into her hair, and this, at least, was something Rilien knew he knew how to do. Even when they parted, he kept his palm there, pressing the center of his brow to hers, so that they were close enough that their eyelashes might almost have brushed. That close, he could see the possibility, and understood in full what he was relinquishing. His fingers fell away, brushing softly over her jawline as though loath to be parted from her skin.

"May you flourish.” It was nothing more than a murmur, but the feeling in it was almost what anyone else might convey in the same situation—laden, heavy, inseparable from the words themselves. Sentiment, in full.

The difference was that it fled as soon as it had appeared, and his expression smoothed out even as he stood, pushing his chair in as a good guest should, and then departing without a further word.

“May we meet again,” whispered just as softly when they parted and finally drew away from each other. She meant it. Because of him, her world had changed. It was a simple, pathetic wish, drumming above the din of her dismal heartbeat.

Sparrow stepped aside, allowing him to pass and slipped back into her previous perch. Steepling her fingers in a tight, tangled weave, she focused her murky eyes on the candle to keep herself from watching him leave.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia
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Even though she had to disallow Pike from continuing to be a part of the Underground, Aurora did not simply forget about him. She'd told her circle of contacts to keep an eye on the man and let her know if he did anything suspicious. It didn't take long for such reports to filter in. She had gotten word that he had been spotted in strange locations around Kirkwall, though it wasn't clear for what purpose. It was a mystery she was intent to solve. It was for that reason that she and Donovan climbed the steps to Hightown on their way to a familiar shop.

They stepped through the threshold into Rilien's shop and Aurora called, "Rilien? I have... a favor."

Rilien, who had been busy recategorizing his shelves to account for new stock, turned to glance back over his shoulder at the new arrivals. Lowering his hands from where he’d been at work, he dusted them off on the stiff leather apron he wore while enchanting, setting the small box containing the rest of his new stock on a lower shelf.

"Then ask it.”

Once everything was explained, it didn’t take Rilien long to gather everything he thought necessary for the task. "You may wish the expertise of at least one other.” While he was a competent tracker, it was difficult to say exactly what they would be dealing with here, and a few more sets of eyes wasn’t a poor idea for the situation.

Aurora nodded, as the same thought that had crossed her mind. However, the one who came up with the suggestion was Donovan. The man rubbed his chin as Aurora explained her suspicions, and he scratched his beard as he spoke. "Aurora. What about your Dalish friend? I have heard that they are supposed to be exceptional trackers-- in case we require his expertise," He offered.

She agreed with his sentiments and even had a suggestion of her own to offer. "Amalia too," she added. Though, truth be told if they had asked Ithilian and he agreed, Aurora figured that Amalia would not be too far behind. "We should be able to find out what he's been doing with both of them with us." She hoped that it would all prove to be a misunderstanding, but Pike's final words before Aurora made him take his leave worried her. He had much anger and hate, it was why she tried to keep an eye on him.

"I hope I'm just wasting our time with this..." Aurora said to Donovan's nodding.




Eventually, Aurora and Rilien had collected the people mentioned, and even one extra. Sparrow had been in Amalia's home when Aurora knocked, and since Aurora considered her a part of the Underground along with her and Donovan, she deemed that Sparrow should also go with them to figure out whatever it was Pike was doing. That, and Aurora did not think she could stop her from coming with them even if she wanted to, which she didn't.

Sparrow nearly bulldozed her way into the assembled group, fortunately with Aurora's unspoken permission. She'd shared many similar views with Pike, and many more of his dislikes. Hearing all these unsettling things about him rubbed her the wrong way and she, too, hoped that it was only a misunderstanding. The somber look in Aurora's eyes, however, spoke volumes. She did not think so.

She had already disclosed her suspicions and worries, and revealed what she had heard. "Some of my sources in Darktown say that they've seen him near the sewers, though they have no idea why. They don't lead anywhere particularly noteworthy," she said. She had checked once with Pike, to see if it could be used to hide mages or serve as some sort of secret passage, but neither worked out. It was a dead end, and the stench was too much to ask someone to stay in for any reasonable amount of time. Which was why it was so suspicious for him to linger around it.

"I'm not sure what we'll find-- If we even find anything," she said with a shrug.

"We're not tracking wolves here," Ithilian said, returning to the group outside of Amalia's home now that he was geared up. "Not sure what help I'll be in locating him. Lots of bootprints in Darktown. Might have better luck wringing it out of his friends, if he has any. I could probably help more with that." It had been some time since he'd threatened a shem's life to acquire information, but this was a good enough cause, he supposed.

Perhaps a few months earlier he'd have been inclined to turn them away and tell them to deal with their own problems, but at this point Ithilian could recognize something that threatened the entire city. If this mage did something foolish and set off the Knight-Commander, all of Kirkwall could pay for it, or more. They needed to wait until Meredith gave them enough cause, and the right opportunity, to remove her through one method or another, not provoke her and make themselves look the villains.

"This Pike have anyone else he would run to that you know of? Tough being alone in Darktown."

Donovan was the one that answered. "None of the Underground, else we would have heard of it," he said with a subtle shake of his head. They would have came to them first if Pike had asked their help, and even then, Pike was not particularly popular among the other mages. "We cannot rule out an unknown source however. Pike is a clever man, and he has knowledge of the safehouses that the Underground has access to," he continued.

"But none of them are close to the sewers, which is why it's strange that he was seen there," Aurora asserted.

“Then we may as well go,” Amalia pointed out. “While it will be difficult to tell signs of his presence apart from those belonging to anyone else, perhaps some of those who dwell there will have seen him—an outsider is sure to be suspect.” After all, few would venture down there who were not forced to it from extreme poverty, fugitive status, or the depths of madness. Someone who didn’t have to be in the sewers was bound to attract the notice of someone who did.

"Let's hurry then, the sooner the better," Aurora decided, heading toward the exit of the Alienage. It wasn't too long of a trip from that part of Lowtown to Darktown. Likewise, it was not difficult to find the sewers, thanks mostly to the stench. Aurora stood near the entrance with her sleeve pressed against her nose and she shook her head.

"No one would head down there unless they had a reason," she said, her words muffled by her sleeve. However, they were a place for those who had nowhere else to go, or for the poverty stricken hoping to find something of value. "Maybe someone's seen Pike, and could tell us what he was doing down here," she added. Aurora looked to be hesitant about entering the sewers first, and a glance up at Donovan pushed the man back away a step.

"So... Who wants to volunteer to go first?"

Only those forced to live in Darktown usually stayed in Darktown, but Sparrow had chosen the location for specific reasons and maintained those notions. It was unsafe, in most cases. Smelly and dank and weeping with hunchbacked silhouettes, too broken to grasp at any snatch of light that may come their way—lost opportunities, squatting in the darkness. It was a place hardly anyone looked. Better that way, she supposed.

Those who lived away from here might not have understood the importance of the sewer system, but she did. The twisting network of drainpipes and sodden staircases served as prime hiding places; perfect for schemes, for plots, for bleeding wrists and feverish whisperings. In less deliberate cases, they were sanctions away from Templars, or anyone else who wanted you dead. Who would venture to such a place? She hardly sniffed when they reached the mouth of one of the sewers, crossing her arms over her chest. If Pike lingered down here, there were fewer and fewer reasons why...

They'd all have to go in eventually, unless they wanted to simply wait at the entrance, and so Ithilian figured the sooner they got started, the sooner they'd be done. He was the tracker here, as well, and this was the part where they needed to find someone that had seen Pike. The sewer entrance was a hatch in the ground before them, large enough for only one person to fit through at a time. Making sure to don his gloves first, Ithilian pulled it open, pulling an old scarf up over his mouth and nostrils just before he began the climb down.

Summer was perhaps the worst time to be down here, in the afternoon as well, and the air was both hot and humid, heavily carrying the stench of the city's barely adequate filtration system. When his feet dropped down to the floor below, they sank slightly, and Ithilian didn't bother to look at what exactly he'd stepped into. Whatever it was, it was covering a fair amount of the floors and walls. How anyone could spend a good amount of their time down here was beyond him.

"This way. Quickly, if you don't mind." It was fortunate, then, that the amount of gunk on the ground was soft enough to easily imprint the shape of a foot. Water passed over it every now and then, clearing most tracks away, but one set of footprints was recent enough, and Ithilian chose to follow it, using the sufficient torchlight to guide the way.

They found a man perhaps ten minutes from the entrance, the going slow due to the poor lighting and uneasy footing. He was huddled almost into a corner, sitting on his rear with his back to a wall, wearing several layers of shoddy, torn clothing. Most of him was hidden from view by his posture of curling into a ball, and he shrank further still when they approached him. Standing before the man, Ithilian gestured up with a hand.

"Get up. Got some questions for you."

He made no movements, before finally shaking his head a little. Sighing beneath the scarf over his features, Ithilian bent over and seized the man by his coat, yanking him up to their height and placing him on his feet. He flinched, as though fearing being struck. When Ithilian confirmed he could stand on his own, he released him.

"This is unpleasant enough for all of us already. Don't make it any worse. My friend's looking for an acquaintance of hers, heard he came through here recently."

"Wu-what?" the stranger sputtered. His face was dirty and gritty, with coarse whiskers growing in splotches on his face. Aurora actually felt sorry for the man, and even winced when Ithilian grabbed him so roughly. Still, he was right. The faster they did it the better, and the less time they'd have to spend in the sewers.

"His name is Pike, about his height," Aurora said, pointing at Ithilian, "Brown hair, brown eyes-- Would look out of place here."

The man glanced between Aurora and Ithilian, his eye twitching in a nervous twitch. There was a hesitation before he spit out another word. "Wh-Who?!"

"You heard her just fine," Ithilian said, putting a hand back on the man's shoulder. The other hand lingered near the hilt of his sword. "If you're afraid of him, don't worry, we're tracking him down to stop him from doing anything stupid." Gently at first, he pushed the man back into the wall, his grip growing steadily more firm.

"If you're afraid of us, well that's good. You should be, if you don't speak up. Give us what we want, and we'll be on our way."

The man paused for a moment, as if running Ithilian's words over through his mind again. At the end of his processing, he smiled, revealing a startling lack of teeth and nodded. "P-Pike you say?" he asked, rattling off in attempt to not anger the elf holding him. "Fella in the nice robes? Yeah, uh, Serah. I saw someone just like that down here. Lookin' for some sort o' smelly rock or somethin'." The man held his hands up submissively and flashed another nervous toothy grin.

Aurora's brows raised at the mention of a... Smelly rock. She had no idea why he would be down there for something like that, nor what he would even use it for. It would probably help if they knew what he was actually looking for, and so she looked to Amalia in hopes she'd have an answer.

For once, Sparrow only needed to cross her arms over her chest and appear intimidating. It wasn't difficult. And probably unneeded, given the fact that Ithilian was doing a pretty swell job himself with his fingers digging into the man's quivering shoulders. She arched her eyebrows, and wheedled them back down. A smelly rock in the sewers? Wouldn't all the rocks down here be smelly? Terrible description. She chewed at the inside of her cheek, anticipation brewing in her gut. He was here, then. She glanced back at Aurora and inclined her head.

“Probably sela petrae.” Amalia’s voice was slightly muffled by her scarf, which she’d decided was wise upon learning that they were headed for the sewers. She did not regret the decision. She glanced at Rilien, the other alchemist in the group, to see if he had any better suggestion, but it really was the most plausible answer, given what it was made of. “It has a number of uses, though none of them are commonplace. He’s not making health draughts.” Of course there were enough uses for the stuff that it wasn’t possible to discern what Pike was up to just from this alone.

“Did he say where he was going? Tell you about anything else he might be searching for?” she thought it unlikely that Pike would have divulged his intentions to some stranger in a sewer, but if he’d been looking for something more difficult to find, he might have asked around for it.

"Yeah! Sela whatsit, that's it. The smelly rock." the man said, eagerly nodding to agree with everyone. "Yeah, yeah Serah. Well. No, but!" he added quickly before Ithilian's grip could tighten. "This, uh, Pike, was it? Yeah, this Pike, he didn't tell me where he was goin'. But he did ask me if I knew where he could get more stuff like the, uh, smelly rock. I told 'em that I'd only tell 'em for a price..." He said, before scanning the faces in front of him. It only took one pass before he flashed another toothless grin.

He scratched his whiskered face as he spoke, "O' course, I'm gonna tell my new friends for free," he said, holding his hands back up. "I told him of some fella set up in Darktown who sells weird stuff like the smelly rock. It's not... Official, he's in some sort of smuggler's cut. If your gold's good though, they'll let you in." He finished with a shrug.

“Greeves!” Sparrow finally broke her silence, sputtering far too loudly. She cleared her throat and dropped her hands back to her sides, stepping forward to that she was closer to the grimy-faced man. Not so close that she could count his missing teeth in his gawp-of-a-mouth, but enough so that her murky eyes danced. Glint, wild, alive. “You mean Greeves, don't you?” Somewhat rhetorical. She needed to be sure. Kirkwall was rife with shady merchants, dealing in shadier commodity. This one, however, sounded familiar enough. Someone she'd dealt with before, when she needed coin badly. Though, it was true enough that she'd dealt with many of them at one point or another. None of them would be pleasant to deal with.

“If it's him, I know where we have to go.”

Following Sparrow, the group made good time. The particular smuggling headquarters they were looking for was still in Darktown, but fortunately for everyone’s olfaction, it was not in the sewers. It was, however, rather remotely located, and by the time they approached, the more civilian-laden areas had long been left behind, putting them in an ill-used series of tunnels. Rilien estimated that they would come out somewhere near the Wounded Coast, but other than that, they could have been any other set of passages in the area.

The anonymity seemed to serve well, however, for when they were eventually deposited in a slightly wider area, they had not seen anyone for a mile at least, but it wasn’t long at all before they were facing down the shafts of no less than a dozen arrows, all aimed from a higher walkway along two of the four sides of the room. Various doors along the walkway led into what were likely storage rooms, and a dock with a rowboat tied to it indicated that at least one part of the passage led out to the ocean directly. It was a well-considered location for a smuggling operation.

They continued to follow Sparrow to one of these doorways where she issued a knock. A latch about eye level unlocked and a pair of dirty brown eyes silently stared at them from behind the door. Aurora felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle, sensing the danger in the air. Smuggler runs were never pleasant places to be, as it turned out. Whatever it was the man behind the door was expecting, he heard it from Sparrow, but forced the group to leave their weapons at the door before he opened the door to allow them into the room. It was rather small, as real estate in the cut no doubt came at a price. Smugglers never did anything for free after all.

A counter was full of materials-- many of them illicit, and the wall behind it held shelves of more items of the like. The man, the Greeves, as Sparrow had said, eyed the group suspiciously. He was an older man, with grey starting to peak through the edges of his hair and salt in his peppery beard. An experienced man, to be sure. "What do you want?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase.

"A man named Pike purchased something from you quite recently.” That was Rilien, who saw no reason to delay. Clearly Greeves was not one for niceties, which suited the businesslike Tranquil just fine. "I want to know what it was and how much of it he acquired.”

For a moment, it looked like Greeves didn't plan to tell them anything of the sort, but then his unflinching glare relented and he shrugged. “Eh, what the hell. Kid tried to lowball me. Damn amateur.” Shuffling to a low table, he picked up what looked to be a ledger of some kind, which from a glance appeared to be written in some form of cryptography, flipping through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. “Here he is. Drakestone's what he bought. Enough of it to weigh down a satchel, so twenty pounds.”

There was silence for a moment, wherein Rilien accounted for all he knew about the uses of Drakestone, and then specifically the ways it might be used in combination with sela petrae. Knowing that Pike was a volatile, angry personality made the conclusion rather obvious.

"Aurora. If Pike could choose any accessible structure in Kirkwall to destroy, which would he select?”

"Ordinarily?" Aurora asked, worried in the shift of conversation. "The Gallows," she answered. However, due to recent incidents it'd be tightly locked down, and nowhere near accessible as Rilien said. "But that's not an option..." she added. Other than that, she truly had no idea.

So it was Donovan than answered for her. "The Chantry," he said grimly. Aurora looked up at the man with an arched eyebrow, a gesture he shook his head at. "I took him to listen to the Chant a few times, I had hoped hearing it would have helped ease his soul... I was mistaken, he only grew more agitated after every sermon." He looked saddened and guilty by the thought but he continued, "The Templars are employed by the Chantry, if he could not strike at them directly, then he may try to strike at their faith."

"Then we need to get there now," Aurora said. She did not truly believe that Pike had it in him to destroy the Chantry, but anger drove many people to do things that they wouldn't expect. And though she did not understand what the combination of ingredients he'd procured would do, she did not like the words Rilien had said.

"Let's go, and fast."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Second Sun has been completed.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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If Nostariel had to guess, she’d suppose that there were nearly forty other Templars with Meredith, which gave them an overwhelming advantage in numbers, at least for now. Maybe Ash or Lucien would be able to do something about that imbalance, but even if they could, there would be a delay, and the Warden’s mindset moved immediately to keeping the others alive and hale for as long as possible. Taking a few rapid steps backwards, she cast an arcane shield over her three companions, hoping that the subtle magic would misdirect blows that might otherwise hit.

Considering that their opponents were Templars, however, she knew she had to keep her distance—Nostariel knew what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a smite, and she did not relish the thought of repeating the experience. Better to do things that they were not quite so well-trained to deal with. From her back she drew her bow and an arrow, charging it with a mind blast spell and firing it to Meredith’s left, planting it in the formation before they could separate too much. Keeping all of them from attacking as a unit would be absolutely necessary.

Vesper swung about face shield first toward the formation of templars. However, she did not have the time to settle into a stance before a rough hand reached into her collar and pulled her back. "Go! Rouse the Guard!" Ashton demanded, pointing in the direction of the barracks. Vesper opened her mouth to argue, but Ashton was quick to dismiss her. "That's an order, Lieutenant! Now!" he added roughly, his brows furrowed. She closed her mouth and nodded. Though evident she loathed to do so, she turned and left the ensuing battle to follow Ashton's orders.

Turning back to the fight, Ashton back-pedalled a few paces to put space between him and the formation of Templars while simultaneously drawing an arrow and nocking it. He noted that his maneuver put him beside Nostariel, and moments after she loosed her arrow, he let one of his own fly. His flew to Meredith's right and struck the first of the templars. It didn't simply stick, instead popping into a thick plume of white smoke, throwing the unit even further into the throes of confusion.

Ashton took a deep breath and offered Nostariel a glance. It wouldn't last long, however, before his attention was turned back to the tide of templars to their front.

In situations like this, where the numbers were so far against them, Lucien’s first instinct was to find a defensible position, preferably with a very narrow chokepoint he could stand in. One that would funnel his foes towards him in a controlled manner, and leave them open to attacks from above and behind him. Unfortunately, they were standing in mostly open space, and while the various larger chunks of rubble might be useful later, for the moment, it seemed that the best option was for him to attack. If he and Sophia could drive a wedge into the formation, starting with Meredith, then perhaps that would be enough to disperse them.

With Ashton and Nostariel on crowd control, they were at least free to try, and when Sophia went for Meredith, he followed half a step behind, intercepting one of the other Templars who jumped to his Knight-Commander’s defense. He was a little too zealous about it, and overstepped himself, presenting Lucien with a clean strike, which he took, Everburn arcing downwards with a whistle through the air and breaking his collarbone with the force it exerted at the juncture of neck and shoulder. He fell, and Lucien didn’t stop to see if he was dead or merely unconscious. There were too many others for that.

Nostariel and Ashton effectively disrupted the center of the Templar formation, disorganized as they were given the suddenness of the fight, but while Sophia and Lucien made their way forward, several Templars on the flanks advanced aggressively. These were many of Meredith's best, and they knew the best course of action was to press forward, and not allow the mages any room to breathe. The mages, on the other hand, were clearly varying in their skill levels. A young woman on the right flank failed to put much distance between her and the Templar advancing at her. A quick smite removed her ability to cast any spells, and a sword soon followed, cutting across her throat.

Orsino responded with a gout of flame from the end of his staff, enveloping the right flank in fire and momentarily preventing the Templars from further encroachment, as the one who scored the first kill was cooked in his armor. More approached from the left, shields up, rushing at full speed to crush the smaller numbers of the mages and their allies with overwhelming force.

Sophia was faced with a similar strategy from Meredith, the two engaging each other in the center of the confrontation. Quickly Sophia learned that blocking the Knight-Commander's swings was not a viable option; her greatsword was far heavier than what Sophia used, or even Everburn, and yet the speed of the strikes also outmatched her own. After having her guard bashed aside on the first block, Sophia nearly had her head removed from the swing that followed, narrowly leaning back and stumbling away to avoid it.

"The Maker is with me, Sophia!" Meredith snarled. "His wrath is my own!" Faced with that wrath, Sophia settled for merely staying alive, fighting defensively. Two more fast swings whistled through the air, missing her by inches. The third she couldn't dodge, the reach of the blade too much for her to avoid the horizontal swing. She put her blade in the way and braced, the greatsword pushing it back and slamming into her right side.

Without armor she likely would've been cut to the spine; even with it she felt wet cracks as ribs broke, her armor dented where the blow had landed. She jumped back a step, and Meredith brought her sword up over her head, about to cleave down. Perhaps she expected Sophia to be stunned longer. She was able to step forward, bringing the pommel of her blade up into Meredith's jaw. The swing interrupted, Meredith lurched back a step, spitting blood from her mouth.

She came down with the vertical swing regardless, forcing Sophia to jump aside. The dodge was clearly expected, as without so much as a pause Meredith stepped in and struck out with her own pommel, driving it into Sophia's side, right where the armor was dented. She cried out briefly, but only gave a half step, gritting her teeth. At intimate range, at least Meredith couldn't utilize her blade effectively. It seemed preferable, even if Sophia couldn't use hers either.

Nostariel’s rate of fire was not especially quick, as she was attempting to read the changing dynamics of the field in order to place her arrows more effectively, and without risk of endangering any of the other mages, who would not, unlike her friends, know to be aware that exploding projectiles might be flying in over their heads at any point necessary. This was made significantly more difficult by the fact that she was a good deal shorter than most everyone involved in this confrontation, and knowing that she’d be much more effective if she could see, she sought the high ground.

There wasn’t much of it to be seen, given the pen area they were in, but a small glimmer of silver lining in the situation was that the large chunks of rubble were, at least in some cases, surmountable, and tall enough to give her vision on the surrounding area, as well as cover, if she needed to jump down in an emergency. Fortunately, the archers among the Templar ranks were few, and she wouldn’t have to worry too much about being shot at in retaliation.

Ceasing her fire for a moment, she glanced behind her and located a likely-looking chunk of masonry. Irregularly-shaped and perhaps five feet tall, it looked stable enough where it had landed to be climbed safely, and though it wobbled a bit when she first put her foot to it, she was able to reach a foothold most of the way up and straighten out into a stand. The extra elevation was exactly what she needed, and the next series of arcane arrows were swift and decisive. One, charge with flame, knocked out a flank formation of Templars trying to gain an advantage over Orsino’s mages, oiling about half of them in their armor and giving the rest severe burns, at the very least. The next one iced over those that were left, providing a temporary shield of sorts for that side of the formation

Everburn laid into another Templar, catching him between the metal neck guard affixed to his chestplate and the bottom end of his helmet. The precision of the blow was matched by its strength, and it bit deep enough to sever his jugular vein before it withdrew, Lucien swinging it around to block the incoming hit from another Templar’s longsword. The pile of bodies accumulating at his feet was testament to the fact that the task of keeping Sophia and Meredith isolated from the rest of the Knight-Commander’s men was an arduous undertaking, leaving him unable to lend much of any assistance himself.

The longsword clanged off his claymore, and Lucien stepped in, muscle memory guiding the progress of its pommel to the Templar’s nose with smooth efficacy, and she too dropped, allowing him to meet the next. Occasionally, two or three moved in at once, and Lucien had the cuts to show for it, but for the most part, he’d learned how to juggle these situations long ago, breaking stances and using the time it took one to recover to deal a harder blow to the other. He made little distinction between crippling, killing, and rendering unconscious: they did not currently have the luxury of doing so. Anything that put another Templar down for long enough to eliminate the threat he or she presented was good enough for present purposes, which amounted to staying alive.

Ashton proved to be much more mobile and never planted his feet for more than a moment at a time. Though there wasn't much room to maneuver too much, he had enough to keep out of reach of the templars' swords, at least for a time. The arrows he fired bit into their armor, but not enough to outright kill. He had to aim for sensitive spots, areas where the armor wasn't as thick, or places where an arrow would hinder their movement. He wove in and out of the battlefield, and dodged a few swords along the way, replying with an arrow of his own. At point, he used a chuck of masonry to launch himself off of and onto a templar, driving him into the ground on his back and ended it with a arrow to the slit in the helmet. It would be no use to try and arrest them now.

Still, keeping mobile only worked for so long before he was beginning to be pressed backward. Eventually, one templar was lucky enough to get inside his range, shield raised and sword resting on its edge, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Ashton then let go of his bow string and drew his sword instead. The templars were better trained and stronger than he was, that was a given, and he remembered it when he tried to fend off the templar's sword with his own. The impact jarred him severely, and were it not for the guardsman's plate and Nostariel's ward, the sword would have bitten deeper than it did.

Ashton, however, had no qualms about not playing fair. While he had the templar's sword locked up, Ashton reared back and issued a kick to the the templar's shin. He clearly did not expect such a juvenile tactic, and relented as the pain shot up through his leg. Ashton followed up by pushing in the knee of his other leg and toppling the templar, and moments later, Ashton's sword found the slit in his helmet. Ashton sheathed his sword and bolted toward the line of mages. Though powerful, they weren't as organized as the templars-- a problem he sought to fix. "Spread out!" Ashton ordered so that a single smite wouldn't nullify multiple mages' magic. "And watch over each other!"

Ashton himself took up a position on the edge of the mage's formation in an effort to provide support where he could. But even his arrows could not be everywhere at once.

The idea to stay in close with Meredith seemed wise at the time, and it saved Sophia from needing to dodge any more sword swings, but the Knight-Commander's strength was clearly enhanced by something, to the point where it was impossible to hold her off on her own. A backhand caught Sophia across the cheekbone, the gauntlet cutting and drawing blood as Sophia was left dazed. A swift kick followed to the back of her leg, forcing her down on one knee. Meredith might have gone for a killing blow next, but with other threats nearby, she settled for gripping Sophia by the throat, and forcefully hurling her backwards.

She crashed loudly to the ground on her back several paces away and struggled to rise. With her out of the way Meredith turned to engage the already preoccupied Lucien, while a smite from a Templar captain rendered an enchanter and her student helpless, the two set upon shortly after by several swords. There were yet more Templars to hold off, the numbers tipping further against them even as they cut them down.

At least until an unexpected group arrived to aid them. A Dalish arrow from behind the Templars was the first to arrive, hitting the back of a man's neck and dropping him. Ithilian followed it into the fray with sword and Parshaara drawn, immediately cutting down two unsuspecting enemies.

A crack of thunder followed soon after, dropping a bolt of lightning from the growing tempest in the sky onto a templar below. The thunder continued to rumble as Aurora made her entrance into the battle, her hands awash in the fade. Her face was painted into a grim countenance, but her eyes were focused and sharp. A testament to the control that she held over herself, considering the events that had transpired. As she waded into the field, she flung a lightning bolt from her hand, striking a templar and arcing to a few others before fizzling out. It wouldn't kill outright, but it'd stun and paralyze, and most importantly, throw disorganization into their ranks.

It seemed far too late to worry about hiding her magic now, not that it would've mattered. Meredith and her templars seemed intent on purging everyone who posed a threat to her, mage or not. The tempest above the battlefield growled dangerously as Aurora readied the next spell.

Though the magical storm Aurora created was loud, there was a distinct undertone, a thrum rather than a rumble, that belonged to something else. The volume of it increased, and at least to those nearest, it was easily recognizable as someone humming, in rhythm and tone with the clangor of swords and rolling thunder, quickening the limbs and heightening the perception of the fewer defenders arrayed against so many Templars.

It had been some time since Rilien had employed the bardic arts in battle; most often, he had left them separate of late. But if there was any time at which they were most useful, this was it—outright melee, with few trying to hold off many. He moved between Chantry soldiers like a bolt of lightning himself, lancing between one and the next in arcs carved in minimum strides, blades flashing as they were swung rapidly, precisely, cutting into armor joints and puncturing leather protections, sliding with little rasps between thick metal armor-plates, coming away sheathed in red, only for that to fly off and spatter on the stone ground when next he moved.

In the clamor of magical storms, and Rilien's measured humming painting a vivid picture of chaos and Kirkwall's world caving in on itself once more, Sparrow roared onto the battlefield, eyes alight with feverish intensity. She hadn't expected to see everyone assembled here, but she supposed it wasn't surprising. When calamity struck in this place, one they had come to call home, they seemed to appear at its center, acting as pseudo-guardians of something much larger than they were. Flanged mace gripped in her calloused hands, rippled with electric, pulsating energy, as she smashed into oncoming chantry soldiers, rather than gracefully navigating around them. She planted her feet and turned sharply, throwing her elbow out and catching a man's unprotected chin, sending him reeling away.

A blade skittered across her chestplate and sliced across her cheekbone, pitching upwards long enough for Sparrow to howl indignantly, releasing one hand from her mace to grapple onto one of his pauldrons in order to drag him close enough to drive her forehead into his nose. Blood gushed from his face, onto hers, but it proved effective enough to propel him backwards. She chased him as he faltered and gripped her mace once more with two hands, swinging wildly—but this time, with fire licking from the flanges. She smashed it into his breastplate, scoring seething dents, and only swung around when she felt another blade clip off her shoulder. Fortunately, Amalia's workmanship held. She snorted, bared her teeth against the copper tang in her mouth and swung towards the assailant.

Amalia, as was her wont, was considerably more strategic in her application of force, stalking the sides of the battlefield, assessing the motion of the fight and darting in to sink a blade or a poisoned needle into a high-priority target, only to sink back into the ebb and flow of bodies and reappear at the fringes once more. Templars who looked to be leading small groups, those too close to the edge to benefit from the protection of her allies, those dazed by Nostariel’s magic—these were dispatched swiftly and cleanly, with neither flash nor fuss.

In all, it was too much for the band of Templars to endure. They had whittled down the numbers of the mages they fought, the least experienced of their enemies, but with the arrival of a flanking force, few in number though they were, the Templars had to back down. Meredith had the presence of mind still to realize this, and angrily shouted for her soldiers to fall in around her, the group forming a defensive perimeter circling their leader. They backed away, shields blocking any arrows or magic that flew after them, until they were far enough separated to pick up the pace, and disappear out of sight.

Ithilian's urge was to give chase, and hunt down the most dangerous of their enemies before they could regroup, but his own side was in no position to move quickly. Several of the mages were critically injured, receiving care from the elder enchanters or Orsino himself. Sophia as well was battered, having been the one to attempt trading blows directly with the Knight-Commander. She rose shakily, clutching her side, and planted the tip of her sword into the ground.

"So it's come to this," Orsino said quietly, staring at the body of a Templar Rilien had cleanly dispatched. He helped a wounded Circle mage up to her feet with him. "I don't know if we can win this, but... thank you. All of you."

"We know the one responsible for this," Ithilian said, gazing up at the crumbled ruins of the Chantry. "He's no Circle mage, but all the same..."

"His work is done. All mages are enemies of the Templars now."

"Not all Templars," Sophia said, wincing. "Surely there are some who can see Meredith's madness. Perhaps they can help us."

"We'll need to get to them, first, at the Gallows. Meredith is surely retreating there, to rally the rest of her Order. We must move quickly." His gaze fell down to one of the slain mages, a young man refusing to let the First Enchanter walk alone from the Gallows. "Before more lives are lost."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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After the battle, Ashton leaned against a chuck of masonry and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was dyed red from blood, some from the scratches he'd sustained, some not. So much had happened so fast that he hadn't had time to process it, and even now with a lull in the fighting it was a lot to digest. Perhaps too much to do it in such a short amount of time. He looked around and saw as mages were tending to the wounded, and everyone readying themselves for what was to come. Eventually, the sound of marching armor lilted through the air, causing him to reach for his bow.

Instead of templars however, he was relieved by the sight of the Guard's crimson. Vesper led a contingent of guardsmen toward them, and though helmets concealed their faces he could tell by their body language that they were taken aback by the carnage around them. Ashton pushed himself off of the chuck of stone and approached the Guard, and was greeted by a wave of salutes. "Good to see you are still alive, Captain," Vesper said. Ashton merely nodded in agreement. "Looks like we're late..." She added, noting the absence of Meredith and her templars. Again, Ashton only nodded.

Ashton looked around him again and shook his head, before his gaze finally alighted on the guards in front of him. "Guardsmen!" Ashton said, causing them all to straighten. "Kirkwall is in danger once more. The destruction of the Chantry and Meredith's madness threatens our home," it was difficult to believe that the Chantry was truly gone, but Meredith reaching her breaking point was not. No doubt the city would soon be consumed by panic, which would not be helped by the fighting between the mages and templars.

"It's our job to protect and guard our city from all enemies, be they thugs and bandits, or templars. Fan out and contain the chaos and fighting wherever you can. Keep our city safe, remind everyone that we guard our city." Shouts of agreements followed after and the contingent broke into smaller patrols to better canvas the city. Vesper however, remained. "And what do you intend to do?" she asked.

"Meredith must be stopped," he answered simply. Vesper nodded and asked, "When do we move?"

"We do not, I need you to stay here and coordinate the guard," Vesper moved to contest it, but Ashton cut her off. "I need someone I can trust to do that, and you're the only one. Besides, I need you here in case things do not... Work out for us," he said with an awkward laugh. "Someone needs to lead the guard."

Vesper glared at him hard, hard enough that it caused his to avert his own gaze. Planning on doing this by yourself?" she asked.

Ashton brought his back around and shook it in a negative, "No," he said, looking at the eight others around him. "Not by myself." She followed his gaze and nodded. "She's never had a fight like the one that's coming," She agreed. "Fine, but I'm not leading the guard. You get your ass back out alive, understand?" She said before turning to leave.

Ashton shook his head and moved toward Nostariel. "Well, are you ready?" He asked.

Aurora and Donovan were among the Circle mages as she watched him healing those that were injured in the fighting. Resting against her shoulder was a staff that she had taken from a younger mage who had no business fighting in the first place. She'd make much more use of it anyway. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he worked and spoke. "Once you are done here, take the mages that can't or won't fight, find the others, and hide." Donovan looked up at her with his eyebrows raised.

"Meredith's gone too far this time, we have to try and stop her." She also felt as if it were her fault, somewhat. Had she done something about Pike sooner or maybe-- she discarded the thoughts. Now was neither the time nor place to wallow in her guilt. Donovan looked up at her and nodded. "I will," he said, "Just stay safe."

With everything thus decided, the remainder of the group picked themselves up and headed towards the Gallows. Hightown was mostly deserted from the looks of things—predictably, those who had walls to hide behind were choosing to do so. Nostariel could not even say she blamed them. It was probably better for everyone that they were out of the thick of things, anyway.

Lowtown was a considerably different story. There weren’t as many walled safe-places to hide in, and the fighting seemed to still be thick here. About halfway through Lowtown, several of the Lions approached the group, and Lucien split them, taking the small team of Cor, Estella, and Farah to bolster the numbers headed towards the Gallows, and leaving Havard in command of the rest, with instructions to cover the Alienage and the rest of Lowtown, push any fighting back and away from the civilians, and then attempt to either broker a ceasefire or stop whomever they judged needed to be stopped. He trusted them to make the necessary calls.

The chaos was resulting in sporadic bursts of violence, though most of it ended when the well-armed group headed for the Gallows arrived. Naturally, given the chaos, there was an excess of criminals on the streets, trying to dodge both Guards and Templars. Perhaps half of the Templars they did encounter didn't even know what was going on. Meredith hadn't encountered them, and they had no intention of immediately jumping to violence. Wisely, they yielded when Sophia or Lucien advised them to. The rest, Sophia didn't doubt, had gone with the Knight-Commander, to perform their grisly work in the Gallows.

The docks had ceased all operations for the night, but when one of the ferry owners spotted the well-armed group with Sophia at the head, he immediately offered to take them across, their need being quite obvious. She thanked him, and they set off. In the distance, lights were flashing in the Gallows, spells being cast, Templars smiting targets. The fight had already begun, though it appeared disorganized. Meredith had almost certainly arrived ahead of them. There wasn't much time.

The moment the ferry touched the docks of the Gallows Sophia was off, blade in hand, her allies following closely behind. She could hear screams even from this distance, crackling fire and lightning, shouting of orders. Not very far up the stairs there were bodies, Templar and mage alike, left where they'd fallen. When they reached the Gallows courtyard, they could see a few scattered mages cautiously retreating back up the stairs towards the Circle tower, ranks of Templars surrounding them. Meredith was approaching from the left, her glowing sword in hand, directing her soldiers into order.

"Meredith, stop!" Orsino called out, bringing the group to the attention of the Templars. There were far more here than the small group they had battled with in Hightown. This was the full might of Kirkwall's Templars, quickly moving itself into organization. There were hundreds at least in sight, and surely more still in the Templar quarters further in. Too many to fight. Thankfully, Meredith was still willing to have a conversation, insofar as she didn't immediately order their executions.

"Let us speak, Meredith!" Orsino continued, stepping forward over the bodies of mages he led. "Before this battle destroys the city you claim to protect!"

"I will entertain a surrender. Nothing more." Meredith turned from the mages backing up the stairs towards Orsino, and approached, her mass of Templars at her back. The fighting lulled to a stop as the two leaders came before one another, a tense silence falling over the Gallows. "Speak, if you have something to say."

"Revoke the Right of Annulment, Meredith, before this goes too far. Imprison us, if you must. Search the tower. I will even help you. But do not kill us all for an act we did not commit." Sophia could see the immediate value of discourse, in preserving their own lives, but even she would not agree with what Orsino proposed. The city could not be subjected to Meredith any longer. Surely there were Templars among the masses here that felt uneasy about this...

"The grand cleric is dead, killed by a mage," the Knight-Commander responded. "The people will demand retribution, and I will give it to them. Your offer is commendable, Orsino, but it comes too late."

Much as she might have wished otherwise, Nostariel could tell that there was no longer any reasoning with Meredith. She was set on this course of action—perhaps she’d even been waiting for an excuse to do something extreme like this. Maybe not, but in any case, that was where this situation was going now. If they had any hope of averting the chaos that would follow, they had to take her footing out from under her.

Already, Nostariel could see faint unease appearing on some Templar faces at the mention of Annulment—it was the most extreme of all possibilities, and she knew that there were Templars here who would not be fond of the idea in the slightest. Some of them were leaders, or at least older, respected members of the order. “No, it isn’t.” She spoke loud enough to draw the collective attention of the crowd towards her, then swallowed. Diplomat, she was not. But hopefully, she wouldn’t have to be.

“No one else has to die tonight. Think about this, Templars. I know that you’re good people. You want the best for Kirkwall, for the Circle, and for your charges, the mages who inhabit it. The Grand Cleric was killed, and our Chantry destroyed, by one man. One man with views and attitudes that do not reflect all or even many mages. You’ve watched over these men and women for years. You know them, and you know they would never condone something like this. So how can you believe that they deserve to die for something they would never approve of, let alone do?”

She cast around, looking for faces she knew in the crowd. “Ser Cullen, Ser Thrask, Ser Emeric. You know that alternative solutions are possible to situations like this. I’ve seen you all seek those solutions, and succeed. This time is no different. Please, stay your swords. This is not the time to react to violence with hatred and fear. We have to be better than that.”

Templars? Mages? Who knew what they were thinking in this moment, anyhow. These were unusual affairs, ones she was inexperienced in dealing with. Any repertoire of charisma she might have had to still their blades, or sway their thoughts, was embarrassingly lacking so Sparrow merely stood there, hands filled with the shaft of her great-hammer should they converge and decide that yes, we'll simply execute them.

She let the others do the talking and prepared herself for the worst of it, eying the stiff-necked Templars, and the quivering mages scampering up the stairs. Squinting her murky eyes, she counted them. Far too many. Hundreds, maybe? Shielded in steel-plates, and glistening metal. And there, Meredith with her glowing blade and damning voice. Even she wasn't foolish enough to leap into shark-infested waters. Right of Annulment? She wasn't sure what that was, but it didn't sound good.

Nostariel's words had a few of the Templars looking to one another, looking to Meredith, or looking away altogether. Sophia didn't think she could have said it better herself. The Knight-Commander, however, spoke loudly and clearly before any sort of action could be taken.

"It is not with hatred or fear that we perform this duty. It is with faith in the Maker, and the knowledge that this Annulment has become a necessity."

Sophia could not simply listen to that. "How long will you spout the Maker's name when it suits you, using the faith of the devout to maintain your grip on power?" She looked to the Templars. "Follow your consciences, what you know to be right. Do not accept the Knight-Commander's will as that of the Maker's. Allow your faith to strengthen you, not blind you."

"I expected nothing less from you, Sophia. You accuse me of twisting the faith of my Templars, only to attempt it yourself in your own quest for power. But enough of this. As I stated, if you stand with the Circle, you will share their fate."

"So what is it to be, Meredith?" Orsino asked. "Do we fight here?" Meredith seemed to consider the idea, but waved her hand back towards the Circle tower.

"Go, prepare your people, or ask them to surrender if they would like it to be swift. The rest of my forces will not be long."

Orsino was furious, and frustrated. He glared at the Knight-Commander. "This isn't over..."




The Circle tower wasn't a place anyone in Kirkwall visited often. The great entry room after the cold courtyard was about as welcoming as the dungeons elsewhere in the Gallows, all grey stone and metal bars. The mages here were terrified; the doors had been locked, and Orsino personally had to assure them that they wouldn't be slaughtered for them to open them up. Once the entire group was inside, they were closed again. The Templars would come through easily enough when they wanted to, and while Sophia supposed they could bar them, there wasn't really a point in delaying. Who would come? The city guard and the Lions lacked the numbers needed to turn the tide, and had their hands full in the city regardless. Only more Templars would come.

The reinforcements they needed were already outside, among the zealots. The reasonable men and women had to stand up to this, or the mages and all their allies would die. If Meredith lost her grip on them, her footing, she would lose her power, and be vulnerable. Otherwise...

While Orsino tried to prepare his mages for battle, Sophia located a small shrine to Andraste set into a wall. She had not done so publicly for quite some time, but now seemed a time when it was most needed. She laid down her sword horizontally before her, knelt, and silently began to pray.

A moderate distance away, Ashton and Nostariel were sitting down on a small staircase. She’d leaned all the way into his shoulder, her equipment resting next to her. Her eyes were shut, but she clearly wasn’t asleep, because her mouth was moving, though whatever she was saying was quiet enough that it didn’t carry far. His head rested against hers, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and his hand holding hers. His equipment likewise was leaned up against the staircase, and he nodded along as she spoke, and replied in the same quiet tone that she used. A gentle smile graced his face every now and then, and he lightly squeezed her shoulders.

Amalia, meanwhile, had taken up a position near the entranceway, and was looking out through the bars in the gate to where their foes would almost certainly be coming through. The steady rasp of a whetstone over steel indicated that she was sharpening one of her knives, but it was more for something to do with her hands than out of any particular need to fine-tune the instrument, since she was quite scrupulous about the condition of her equipment to begin with, and it was already sharp enough.

Lucien stood with his Lions, Rilien nearby as well, and tried to provide a calm counterweight to the nervous energy that he could sense in two of the three of them. Farah seemed calmer, probably in part due to her comparative wealth of battle experience. Cor was working hard to keep his expression more neutral than he really felt, and Estella was standing quite close to Rilien, obviously seeking equanimity in the presence of someone who was never really anything but composed. Her constant shifting of her weight from one foot to another belied her anxiety, though. Rilien, apparently aware of her mental state, set a hand on top of her head in what from anyone else would have been a soothing gesture, his eyes flicking mindfully from this group to Aurora's to Sparrow.

There was no point in reassuring them of the odds, because the odds were extremely grim. But Lucien personally was choosing not to let it get to him—he’d been against bad odds before. Perhaps that steadiness would help, perhaps it wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to lie to them.

If there had ever been a situation where Sparrow's back hadn't been against a wall since living in Kirkwall, she would have been pleasantly surprised. She supposed, this was no different. Thinking back on her many mistakes or kneeling in front of unfamiliar gods or goddesses in the hopes that they conferred them with some kind of tide-turning luck felt foolish enough to participate in. However, she did neither of these things. The palpable tension in the room felt as thick as rain clouds, promising a violent storm instead of new beginnings.

She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck from side to side, choosing to perch a few paces away from Aurora and her fellow mages. Surrounded by all of her companions, in yet another calamity that threatened their lives, felt as natural as breathing—as natural as bristling her hackles when backed into a corner. She would bare her fangs, and swing her mace, as long as she still has breath in her. Settling her gaze on the gate Amalia was seated next to: she understood this with a clarity reminiscent of her days in the Qun.

Sparrow exhaled, calmer than she'd thought was possible in a situation like this, and leaned against the mace cradled between her legs, pressing her cheek against the cool metal. Besides being around people she genuinely cared for, it was the only comfort she could find in such a confined place. Solid metal against the palm of her hands, fingers woven together: grounding her in place. As unusual as this felt, it was real. How she felt about the entire situation? Her inclinations towards mages and all of their ilk aside, it didn't matter as long as her friends were here. Politics be damned.

She tipped her head towards Aurora and cracked a lopsided grin. Whether it was from a steely perseverance or an insistent thirst to get this over with, her smile hardly wavered, as she chirped a crooning, “After all this is said and done, we should travel. See the sights. Become heroes. I'd say we're nearly there, anyhow.” She swallowed around the jittery flutter in her stomach, “I've got a ship too.” Her grin simpered as she unraveled her fingers, and pinched her index fingers close together, ““Fine. Small vessel.”

Because, if death came today. She'd be ready. But she much preferred her flighty vision.

Aurora had been preparing the circle mages among them for the battle ahead. Still, they possessed only a short amount of time and there wasn't much that could be done to turn the handful of mages into a force capable of fighting off the entire Templar order. Instead she focused on things that would help them survive the longest. A grim outlook, and it played out on her face at time among other reasons. In the corner of her mind, she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for this. Perhaps this day was long in coming, and perhaps the conflict between mages and templars would've boiled over regardless, but Pike's actions forced this upon them and she wasn't able to stop it.

Instructing a young mage on how to use her magic best to deal with a group of opponents, Aurora turned as Sparrow spoke to her. Her grim countenance broke into a tiny smile for a moment. "We'll see," she said simply.

It was a lovely thought, one she would've loved to trade in for their current outlook. "I'll get to be the first mate, right?" She said, her smile widening allowing herself that bit of fancy. It certainly was a better thought than the ones she had presently.

Trading responsibilities and doubts for childish conversation fit Sparrow just fine, and seeing Aurora's fleeting smile made everything a little lighter. She wasn't naive enough to believe that they would make it out just fine. No one was going to say it out loud—but their odds weren't good and no amount of back-patting would increase their chances. She did know, however, that she didn't want to see anyone else die. She looked around at the others, noting their activities, or lack thereof. All of them would fight to the death, if need be: Sparrow included. She realized that in moments like this, she never felt more at home.

“I wouldn't have it any other way.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The Templars did not announce when Meredith's patience ran out. They advanced with helmets down and swords drawn, a few lookouts of the mages calling out their arrival. There was only one way in or out of the Circle tower, and the Templars were funneled through, allowed into the long walkway leading into the center courtyard. The mage forces were very light on close quarters fighters, having only their few allies to rely upon, but they had a great deal of long range firepower.

They put it to work on the doorway, showering it with fire, ice, lightning, stone, entropic spells, everything they could throw at the Templars. Even knowing this would hit them, they had difficulty advancing, and for a moment it appeared as though Orsino's mages would hold them back. It was not to last, however. Some of the Templars were able to cast spell-like abilities of their own, causing the harmful magic to wash over them like so much water. They began to break through and rush forward, engaging the group in hand to hand. The mages, unwilling to risk hurting their allies, had to continue focusing their fire on the Templars further back, the ones still trying to advance.

This was not a problem at first for the nine that stood in the forefront. Faced with even numbers or even a slight disadvantage, they were easily able to hold their own, and deal with the Templars that came forward. The mages, however, tired more quickly than they, and couldn't keep up the brutal barrage on the doorway, while fresh Templars with magic resistant armor were able to slip through more easily. A number of them chose to bypass the deadliest defenders in front of them in an effort to reach the more vulnerable and untrained mages.

Steadily the fight descended into chaos, all order of battle lines fallen to pieces. The entire floor had become more red than slate grey as it was covered with blood. Sophia found herself losing track of the others more and more each time she felt compelled to break off and prevent the death of a mage, some person who had not seen beyond these walls for a decade or more, probably. She had only minor injuries to deal with herself, but the Templars seemed endless. They couldn't keep it up forever.

A powerful shockwave then emanated from the center of the room, where Orsino stood, his left arm dripping blood from a neat cut across it. A bloodied knife was in his hand. The force of the wave hit everyone around, mage and Templar, strongly enough to make even the sturdiest person lose balance, and it created a lull in the fight, most of the eyes in the room turning to the First Enchanter. The look in the elf's eyes was wild, distraught. Enough to make Sophia wonder if he had ever been in real battle before tonight.

"I refuse to keep going like this!" he cried. "I won't allow you to kill me!"

Sophia was in the process of getting back to her feet. "No, you can't give up."

"I am not giving up. I am giving in. There is no other way." Templars around him began to close in again, prompting Orsino to slash his arm, drawing a dangerous amount of fresh blood. "Meredith expects blood magic? Then I will give it to her. Maker help us all."

Yellow light and floating blood began to swirl around him, as the freshly fallen corpses began to rise up into the air, limp and dripping blood. He surrounded himself with them, the hands and legs wrapping around his small body, clutching him, covering him in red. Soon he could not be seen at all under the corpses, and the yellow light became too bright to continue looking at. Only the sound remained, that of bodies being molded together, muscle being mutated to form into one larger whole, one larger being.

When the light faded, Orsino was gone, replaced by a massive creature born of his blood magic. It was a hideous monstrosity of flesh and muscle, at least fifteen feet tall, and powerful enough to swipe away the first three Templars that approached, sending them flying across the courtyard. Faces of the dead could still be seen molded into the sides of the thing, ribcages and hip bones. The face, or head, of the thing was a great melting pot of eyes, arms of varying sizes, and one gaping hole of a mouth, which breathed out heavily.

For a moment, Sophia could only look at it in horror, shocked that Orsino had been capable of such a thing.

And then it was all of a sudden as though time moved normally again, and the hideous thing that the First Enchanter had been swung for another Templar, making contact and flinging him across the courtyard. Nostariel, reeling but quickly clamping down on her instinctive revulsion, recognized that this creature was the larger threat, and shot a blast of ice forward, encasing the flesh-mound that served it as forelimb, locking the elbow in place. Unfortunately, she didn’t also get the shoulder, and it took to swinging that part of its body like a club, more clumsily than before but with just as much force, and another two armored figures crumpled under the assault.

She wasn’t sure exactly to what extent Orsino was still in control of whatever corpse amalgamation this was, but her question was answered near enough when it turned its attention towards her, bellowing like any abomination that has become angered. Nostariel backed up, her eyes never leaving it. If it was going to charge, she needed to know which way to dive.

With bugling dragons, blood-weaving mages, and enough selfish mercenaries to last a lifetime, Sparrow had promised herself that she would stop being so surprised when another round of baddies decided to emerge from the shadows. And yet, now, turning around to encounter another monstrosity, who'd once been their ally, with far too many faces and limbs pressed together like the ugliest piece of art she'd ever had the misfortune to lay her eyes on... and the gurgling roar of battle died in her throat. She, too, felt like time slowed around her, as if she stopped entirely, mace dipping low: sluggish as molasses. Everyone turned to witness Orsino's transformation and what little coherence there was shuddered apart when the creature howled and swung Templars across the bloodied, gray-slate battleground.

She exhaled, finally, and gripped tighter on her mace: white-knuckles, speckled with red. No time to discuss what had just happened. She doubted anyone really knew. If this was anything like giving yourself to the Fade, and allowing yourself to become an abomination, there wasn't anything they could do. The monstrosity turned towards Nostariel, and offered his back to her, stomping on any Templar foolish enough to raise its blade against it. Energy flushed through her forearms, crackled electricity down the flanged edges of her mace, as she began her slow trek towards its fleshy hips. It wasn't charging yet, but she could see it lean forward, twitching. Readying itself. Her gaze slid in front of it, and it took her a moment to realize that one of the living-bodies cowering in front of the creature was not covered in metal—was not a Templar. A mage. Inexperienced, terrified. Standing in a puddle of piss.

She hissed a curse, abandoned her position and barely managed to hurtle in front of it, grabbing a handful of his robes and jerking him in the opposite direction. They both tumbled backwards in a tangled heap, a few paces away from the creature's shivering legs. “Get up, get up, get up,” she shrieked, bundling him back to his feet and scrambling further away.

Orsino, or rather, the fleshy abomination that had once been Orsino, began to lumber toward Sparrow and the mage. Its mangled maw hung agape with sharp jagged teeth protruding from the cavity. It roared, dousing them with spittle as it dropped low to begin its charge. It was into the secord or third step of its charge when its trajectory suddenly and violently shifted by a massive boulder of stone, dropping to the ground and sliding away from Sparrow and the mage. Over toward the side, the floor was missing its cobblestones in a perfect circle with Aurora standing in the midde, the fade wafting off the staff she held in the air.

The color was drained from Aurora's face, and though her eyes were set deep, they did not betray her emotions. Even so, it was clear everything that was happening was taking a toll. "Get him out of here!" she demanded of Sparrow. Aurora then pressed her initiative, alternating between fireballs and stonefist with every step forward as the abomination tried to rise to its feet.

Sparrow and the hapless mage stared into Orsino's crooked mouth, drool flicking onto their faces as it threw its head back and roared. Death did not strike fear into her belly—not like it should, but seeing that abomination rear back and stomp towards them made her freeze in place, hand on the mages quivering elbow. Quick as she could blink, Orsino was staggering away from them, pieces of cobblestone clattering around them like rain.

It was Aurora's voice, cutting through the clamor or noise, that got Sparrow moving again. Her grip tightened on his elbow, and she directed him in the opposite direction. The mage stumbled in front of her, relieved to be going somewhere other than in front of Orsino's rampaging path. Her mace dragged behind her, white-knuckles tingling with numbness. She would need to get back in the fight. Sweat trickled down her forehead and dripped off her chin. They would need everything to take this thing down, and still deal with Meredith. She found a small nook by the further wall where the mage could huddle into. Not a woman for soft words, she simply patted his shoulder and turned back towards Orsino, mace hefted back into both hands.

She was not the only one taking advantage of its momentary vulnerability, however, and the abomination shrieked when two long daggers buried themselves in the mounds of flesh covering its back. Amalia twisted her knives, ripping them out with as much extra damage as possible, then darted off to the side before the free arm it swung in retaliation could hit her. A wound bled freely from near her hairline, a smear clear evidence that she’d wiped it away to prevent visual impairment. There was another one on her lip, already clotting slightly, but she appeared to be still in fighting shape, considering.

Unfortunately, even when the situation with Orsino’s magic asserted itself as the greatest threat to everyone’s continued survival, the oncoming wave of Templars did not abate. Many of those trying to push forward were too far back or outside to see what was going on within, and with many of the defenders distracted by the abomination, their already-tenuous control of the entrance itself was weakening.

Lucien didn’t like splitting groups, but it seemed a necessary measure here. “Cor, Estella, Farah! Hold this line! Keep the mages focused, and stay alive!” It would not be an easy order to follow, and he knew that, but it was all the more necessary for that. He also knew that it was equally necessary for him to turn his attention to the monster in their midst, lest it destroy them all from behind, and one-by-one, taking advantage of their inability to commit to one task or another.

“Rilien!” He glanced around until he located his friend, then nodded. They knew how to work together, and it seemed that now was as good a time as any to see just how far that could take them.

Lucien would be heading into the very thick of the fight; Rilien had no doubt of that. He had no objections to wading in that close himself, and so when Lucien moved forward, the bard moved with him, careful to stay out of the way of the dense cover fire Aurora was providing, as well as leaving plenty of room for the skirmishers among them to move in and out as they needed to stay alive.

Everburn made a deep cutting noise as Lucien swung it through the air, and Rilien ducked under the elbow on his off-side, covering a potential weakness and concealing himself until the last moment at the same time, dragging his knives along the abomination’s exposed flesh as he broke off from his spot in the mercenary’s shadow.

While the others turned their focus inward, the Lions were left to try and lead the mages in keeping the other Templars back from the gate. It wouldn’t be easy, and there was no guarantee that the Circle types would even want to follow their lead, but Cor knew some would be a little more willing, and able, for that matter.

“They’re low on juice; what should we do?” He directed the question at Estella specifically. It was, more or less, the first time he’d made open acknowledgement of the fact that she was a mage, but to her credit, she answered without missing a beat.

“We have to volley the fire. Split them into four groups, two on each side, sandwich the Templars in the middle. As soon as one volley’s done, the next one needs to line up and prepare to fire.”

“And the time in between?”

She grimaced, and he knew what that meant. “That’s all us.”

Their plan, basic as it was, in place, they split up to organize as well as possible. Cor went to talk to the clusters of mages who looked more experienced with this kind of thing, for their help in organizing the rest, Estella set about forming the groups as well as she could while combat still raged around them, and Farah climbed up onto a rampart bordering the courtyard, prepared to call for volley changes and add her own arrows into the fray. The frenetic panic of the remaining mages translated into quick assembly, though the lines would be shaky at best, and Farah would have to maintain tight control of them with little more than her voice.

“Fire!”

The first half of the mages, split to border the incoming column of Templars, fired. Several went wide or high, but those that hit did so more effectively than from the front, largely because it was harder for the Templars to use their shields. With the onrush softened, the Lions and a few of the less amateur fighters in the Circle ranks moved in, skirmishing just long enough for the next volley to line up. It wasn’t perfect, and heavy Templar weapons had scored a deep slash in Estella’s side by the end of the first exchange, but they were holding on with their fingertips, and as long as they could keep it up, it would suffice.

Ithilian arrived to shore up their defense, believing his blades better put to use keeping the Templars at bay than hacking at the flesh of a monstrosity. There were enough monster slayers at work, besides. The elf's attacks, when they were needed, were more to keep the enemy back than anything. Templars were difficult to kill swiftly, well defended as they were, and so it was often a hard kick to the chest or shield that was necessary, to send them stumbling back, unable to advance before another barrage of magefire came in.

Soon enough, the flow of Templars into the building was halted, as the great doors behind them were pulled shut. Those on the outside had clearly been given the order to seal the rest inside, with the great and terrible being that Orsino had warped himself into.

Sophia targeted the legs of the thing, mostly, backing away as the others did when she chanced to draw its wrath. By the time the abomination was beginning to seem worn down, all of them were battered, bloody, and bruised. The mages were few in number, those that still had the energy to cast spells fewer still. It was fortunate, then, that Sophia was able to strike a crippling blow, driving her sword entirely through the leg of the beast behind the knee.

It was forced down, taking Sophia halfway down with it, at least until she could withdraw her sword. It made a backhanded swing for her, whooshing with heavy momentum over her head as she ducked under it and dashed in front of the creature. The head region, as approximate as that was, was in reach, and Sophia didn't hesitate to make another plunging stab, sending a torrent of dark blood raining down beside her.

The abomination moaned woefully, reaching back with its unnaturally elongated arm and striking Sophia where she stood. The thing's fist was able to impact almost the entire left side of her body, sending her tumbling back. She refused to relinquish her blade, however, and with it came the entire head body of the abomination, perhaps the mutated form of what had formerly been Orsino, before he molded the corpses of the fallen around him.

The massive corpse form fell with a titanic thud onto its back, while the head screamed and wailed, little frail arms grasping at the blade embedded into it. Sophia found herself unable to rise, merely rolling onto her side and hanging onto the hilt, at least until a Dalish blade plunged in between two of the protruding vertebrae of the wretched creature. It gurgled a final breath, and then became still.

What Templars had been trapped inside had fallen, leaving the Circle tower silent once more, now with the heavy stench of death lingering over it. Ithilian pulled his blade free of Orsino and wiped it clean. Sheathing it, he extended a hand down to Sophia, and helped her back to her feet.

"The Templars have... pulled back," Sophia noted, pulling Vesenia free with considerable effort. She planted the tip of the blade into the ground and leaned upon it for support. "We should take a moment to recover."

"And then?" Ithilian asked.

"Then we must see if the Templars will have words. There are hundreds more out there. At this point, it's that or death."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel
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The mages did not follow their battle-weary, blootstained allies out of the Circle Tower, for they were entirely spent from the fighting, and lacked the morale to push any further now that their leader had given in to temptation. It was a gruesome scene inside, the already horrifying carnage of a magic-filled battle amplified yet more by the slain abomination as the centerpiece of it all. It was going to take a long time to move on from the day's events.

Of course, that assumed that they survived the day at all. As Sophia saw it, their fates rested now in the hands of the Templars, at least the small army of them that waited in the Gallows courtyard. Sophia had faith in the abilities her friends possessed, but despite their accomplishments, they were only mortal, and had never been forced to face so many well trained enemies at once.

And many there were. As Sophia led the group down the steps into the courtyard, her blade sheathed, they parted for her, perhaps respectfully, a sea of steel and crimson and faceless masks watching the few that stood up for the mages. They clearly had orders not to strike just yet, otherwise they would have done so by now. It was as good a sign as any, Sophia thought.

There were many things Sparrow did not understand, and Meredith was one of them. An enigma in Kirkwall's midst’s, standing for all that she hated, and striking those she'd come to care for—that was all that mattered now. When Sophia stepped forward to speak, her shoulders hunched like great gates slamming closed and her fingers gripped her mace all the tighter. This would not end peacefully, that much she understood.

It would end like Orsino had, except in a much less mournful manner. If they tore her to pieces, she'd feel nothing. At least, Orsino had stood for something she considered right. She recognized the telltale glow of red wafting from her blade. Remembered telling her companions to kill Varric's brother because he was too far gone by now, and figured Meredith was the same. It had gnawed whatever good parts might have existed in her, and left a raw, ugly thing in it's place.

"And here we are," Meredith called, breaking the silence of her army. "At long last." She stood with arms crossed among the center of the throng, her ornate armor and red hood separating her visually from her soldiers. The targets of her gaze were escorted directly before her, where all watched, waiting for the seemingly inevitable moment when the bloodshed would resume.

"It does feel as though we've been building to this for some time," Sophia admitted, tiredly. "You wouldn't have had it so, of course, considering all of the others you sent to kill me in your place."

"And you proved a worthy opponent, but do not think this personal. I am here to see order restored, as always. What happens to you and your friends now is your own doing." A few of the Templars without helmets obstructing their faces caught Sophia's eyes. The Knight-Lieutenants and those of higher rank. Some seemed uncomfortable due to Meredith's words. "In defending the Circle," Meredith continued, "you've chosen to share their fate."

One of the Knight-Captains stepped forward to Meredith's side. Sophia recognized him as Cullen. "Knight-Commander," he said, carefully, "I thought we intended to arrest them. The battle is over. The mages cannot continue the fight."

"You will do as I command, Cullen." Meredith's tone was highly agitated. Cullen was clearly uneasy about his actions, but did not back down.

"No. I defended you when whispers began to accuse you of madness. But this is too far."

A rage, terrifying to behold, sprang up in Meredith's eyes. "I will not allow insubordination!" She pulled her greatsword from her back, and it suddenly pulsed with a bright red energy, a gleaming red shard set above the hilt now glowing powerfully. "We must stay true to our path!"

She leveled the sword directly at Cullen's throat, and the Knight-Captain had no choice but to back away slowly. Many other Templars around him did the same. Meredith turned her head slightly to peer at the various members of the group opposing her. "You recognize it, do you not? Those of you that helped to retrieve it. Pure lyrium, taken from the Deep Roads. The dwarf charged a great deal for his prize."

Ithilian's scarred lip was twisted into a cruel snarl as he watched the sword pulse with energy. He did indeed remember it, and the trouble it brought to everyone who came into contact with it. For years it had been corrupting Meredith's mind, taking what faults she already had and driving them to their extremes. "Whatever power it gained you, that shard has taken much more. Even if you cannot see it... I have a feeling your followers can."

The Knight-Commander widened her stance, readying for a fight, eyes filled with hate. "All of you, I want them dead!"

"Enough!" Cullen cried. "This is not what the Order stands for. Knight-Commander, step down. I relieve you of your command!" The look on Meredith's face turned from one of pure rage to utter shock, almost sadness.

"My own Knight-Captain falls prey to the influence of blood magic." As if saying the very words blood magic stirred something in her, her eyes narrowed again, her gaze now darting around rapidly to random soldiers in her army. "You all have! You're all weak, allowing the mages to control your minds, to turn you against me!" She brandished her sword about, pointing it at some of them, and Templars all around her backed away to make some distance, a few of them cautiously reaching for their weapons.

Meredith turned her blade back towards Sophia. "But I don't need any of you! I will protect this city myself."

The opportunity had come, Sophia could see. Meredith's Templars wavered on a knife's edge, and she needed to give them that last push, for any semblance of justice to win out today. "Templars! Your Knight-Captain has relieved Meredith of command. What is your order, Cullen?"

"Restrain the Knight-Commander," he said, with barely any hesitation. And like the beginning of a wave crashing, when enough of the Templars jumped to heed Cullen's command, the rest followed suit. When the first of them approached Meredith, however, she plunged her blade straight into the stone of the Gallows courtyard, easily cleaving through it, and a bright red sphere of energy formed around her, knocking away and burning the hands of those too close.

Meredith lowered her head and spoke quietly, with deadly intent. "Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter!" She pulled her blade back from the ground, the energy in the air appearing to be absorbed into her body, and charged.

On account, perhaps, of being somewhat near the front beside Lucien, Rilien was the first person she targeted, cleaving downwards between the two of them with a strike so powerful it left a rend in the stone when they managed to duck out of the way. Rilien went left, and Meredith followed. Knowing he had little chance of parrying an attack that strong, he left his knives in a relaxed grip in his hands and focused on outthinking her, predicting where she was likely to go and beginning to dodge just a little ahead of time.

It might have worked quite well, were the proximity of the red lyrium not making him sick again. Just as it had when he sneaked into her chambers to slice off her hair, the object was proving to be more a danger to him than the one who wielded it. He faltered, slowing, and the sword caught him a nasty gash in the right shoulder, sending him stumbling backwards, Meredith following like a hound scenting prey.

Admittedly, intervening by trying to body-slam Meredith was quite possibly the worst plan she ever had, but Estella didn’t really think about it. All she saw was that Rilien’s maneuvering faltered, and that she was close enough now to intervene, so she did, lowering her shoulder and trying to catch the Knight-Commander’s elbow or something.

It was just enough to shift her aim to the side, sparing Rilien the next hit, but Estella rebounded off Meredith like rubber off stone, the Templar’s solidity surprising her with just how absolute it seemed to be, as though Meredith were made of granite or planted into the ground like a tree. Wheeling her arms in an attempt to remain upright, she yelped when the red lyrium blade caught her in the left thigh, slicing deep into her flesh. Her leg buckled, and she tried to roll out of the way of the next blow, knowing it was likely impossible.

Fortunately, she was not alone, and Meredith’s blade clanged off another, Everburn interceding on her behalf. Lucien stepped forward, his shadow falling over her, and she scrambled up to her feet, trying to get further behind him. For Lucien, it was clearly a struggle; Meredith was somehow a good deal stronger even than him, and he could only hold their swords in place for a few seconds before his was forced to the ground, sending sparks into the air where it scraped against the stone beneath them.

Even momentarily, an opening presented itself and Aurora sought to take advantage. Her face remained even and betrayed no emotion, even as she swept around to the side. She swung her staff, conjuring a stonefist it the air and whipping it toward Meredith, and sending a bolt of lightning with the back swing. The force of the stonefist moved Meredith only a step, and didn't seem to cause any lasting damage, while the lightning bolt simply glanced off of her red lyrium sword. Meredith then turned her steely glare toward Aurora, and the look she gave her made her take a step backward. Aurora was no blood mage, but Meredith didn't care about the semantics at this point.

Meredith pushed hard off of the ground, hard enough that her foot left a divot in the cobblestones. Quicker than a human could possibly be, she stood in front of Aurora, her sword pulled back to cut her in half. Aurora barely had enough time to throw up a wall a stone between her and Meredith, obscuring the line of sight enough to push herself back out of the killzone. Still, Meredith cut through the stone like paper, and Aurora could feel her mana being eaten away as the sword carved a thin crimson line down her collar. The ferocity pushed Aurora back and caused her to trip onto her back.

It was only her self-preservation instincts that caused her to fling another stonefist toward her face before desperately trying to roll away.

Fortunately, Estella had intervened in time when Sparrow could not. A rattling roar ripped from her throat as she hurtled forward, just in time for Meredith to be pushed aside. A neat spray of blood spattered from Estella's thigh, and Lucien stepped forward to take her place. Things were happening quickly. She'd misjudged Meredith's strength, her erratic speed. Her hair was damp with sweat, already plastered to her head. Sweat dripped from her chin, dripped on the ground. She ground her teeth together and floundered forward, gripping onto the anger as if it were her mace. A wound from the inside of her mouth wept like copper: bitten to keep the fear at bay.

As soon as Meredith rounded on Aurora, another ferocious howl came from her mouth. No clever little words to draw her attention away, only electricity pulsing through the shaft of her mace, crackling from the flanged stars. A war cry that promised death and demise and endings. What little magic she had boiled in her, like small, raging hisses begging to be released. Her slow jog quickened and broke into a shambling sprint. She barely managed to lug the mace behind her. It bounced off the cobblestones and scratched the surface as Aurora tripped backwards, and Meredith hissed in front of her, plunging the luminescent blade through the rocky wall.

Kirkwall was in flames. And its people were faring little better. It seemed as if their worlds had always been shaken by unseen, faceless forces, but now there was a face. Hers. She skidded to an abrupt stop, dug her heels in, and swung the mace up and over her shoulder, directing it towards Meredith's exposed head. She turned, impossibly quick. Whipped around so quickly, she'd expected to crush bone instead of clash against dazzling steel. Sparrow bunched her shoulders, and snarled into Meredith's blade. She would win. And this would all end. She didn't feel the blade slicing into the shaft of her mace, didn't feel the tip of her blade biting through her dragonskin leathers, prickling into her chest.

Sophia interceded before Meredith could do as much damage to Sparrow as she'd planned. Her blade clanged against the Knight-Commander's glowing red weapon, and was actually more effective than she'd expected. The attack was driven aside, and a hard shove of her shoulder drove the woman back a few steps. Sensing an opportunity, Sophia pushed her advantage.

Meredith growled in frustration, and the idol in her blade glowed more brightly for a second, the light soon spreading to her eyes. The clear blue of her irises was soon overwhelmed by a piercing red, glowing from within, as though flames sprang from her very eyes. Sophia arrived before her and traded a few strikes, to find that she was no longer having the effect she briefly witnessed.

The Knight-Commander caught a downward strike of Sophia's and was quick to lash out with a kick to her gut, sending Sophia onto her back. She scrambled back in an attempt to get away from Meredith's blade, but it was Cullen in the end who spared her the next blow, charging in to face his former leader. She parried a few of his strikes before returning one of her own, a powerful smash that rattled his shield and sent him stumbling away. He was clearly feeling shooting pains up his entire arm.

The effort was appearing to take a toll on Meredith, as she heaved for breath. Sophia wondered if using the idol to enhance her abilities was not costing her physically in the long run of the battle. "Maker," Meredith hissed, even her voice altered to be more powerful in volume by the idol, "your servant begs you for the strength to defeat this evil!" Sophia, having risen back to her feet, made another charge for Meredith.

The woman plunged her sword again into the Courtyard's stone, and a blast of red lightning exploded from within her. The force of it stopped Sophia cold, while the arc of lightning that struck her sent intense pain through her body, leaving her limbs shaking and unresponsive. Similar arcs lashed out to anyone else close enough, and one caught an arrow straight out of the air from Ithilian's bow.

The elf had been stalking around the edges of the fight, wary of the Templars watching as much as Meredith herself. He had waited for a shot to present itself, but the fight was too chaotic, Meredith too quick, and his allies too many and too disorganized. Now that he had taken a shot, it was wasted. He watched as blasts of the red lightning bounced in a direct line across the entire distance of the courtyard, knocking aside any Templars that stood in the way. It skipped up the side of a wall and crackled into the body of a great statue in bronze, forged in the image of an ancient Tevinter soldier. The statue was constructed of several pieces, probably twenty feet tall, and wielding a massive bronze polearm in both hands.

It look harmless enough when still, but the idol's lightning infected it with some kind of magical energy, causing the head to start spinning in place, and then the entire body after it. The eyes lighting up with the same malicious red light, the statue leapt down from its perch overlooking the smaller slave statues pinned covering their faces on the pillars. It landed with a terrible crash, shaking the ground, and a more terrible attack followed, when the bronze polearm cleaved the heads of two Templars from their bodies.

The lightning spread to several of the slave statues as well, and they at last showed their unsculpted faces, as they climbed down into the battle, and joined the soldier in attacking the Templars and anyone too close. These were ten feet or so in hand and devoid of any massive weapons, but still dangerously strong. Ithilian defensively rolled out of the way when one tried to stomp him with a massive bronze foot.

Sophia was barely able to move her arms again when Meredith launched forward for a strike. She managed to get her sword in the way, and the block likely saved her life, but the weight of Meredith's blow still smashed heavily into her side, tossing her aside like a small child rather than a grown woman. She clattered to the ground in a heap, losing her grip on her sword, where she could momentarily only writhe in pain.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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As soon as Sophia had fallen, Lucien had stepped in to engage Meredith, more to prevent her from finishing what she’d started than because he had any particular plan about what he was going to do, exactly. Like Rilien, he was finding it difficult to strategize around the fact that what she could do wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before: he didn’t know what her limits were, he wasn’t sure if they could ever expect her to tire and burn herself out, and he couldn’t say if she’d be animating further statues, or if that had been the extent of what the strange sword she carried would allow her to do.

He assumed it best to be as generous in his estimation of her capabilities as possible. Better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. This in mind, he fought defensively, focusing more on weathering her assault than on turning it back around on her. Even that much was proving difficult, but though she was faster and stronger than a human being had any right to be, she hadn’t suddenly grown more adept at choosing her targets or thinking ahead, and like anyone else, she fell into patterns of movement, preferred strikes, predictable reactions to holes he left intentionally in his guard, to bait her to them, and in this way he managed to at least get the situation under control.

Her sword clanged heavily against his, the force of the hit, even deflected, sending pins and needles up his arms. He grit his teeth and endured it—he had no other choice.

An arrow zipped by over Lucien’s shoulder, and though it impacted Meredith square in the chest, where her armor was, it carried the force of a heavy spell behind it, and so when that went off, a crack appeared in the metal, spiderwebbing raggedly out from the point of impact. Nostariel couldn’t risk any of her more destructive spells, not with how closely Meredith was fighting in melee, and she seemed to be capable of shrugging off most of them anyway, so maybe if she could give her friends more effective places to hit with more mundane weaponry, they’d actually be able to wear her down.

The Warden kept herself on the move, not wanting to present a stationary target for any of the augmented number of foes still remaining on the field. One errant hit from one of those statues and she might never wake again—so she wove as well as she could between piles of debris and human bodies, utilizing cover where she could find it, her shots intermittent but carefully-planned.

Ashton stood a little distance away from Lucien and Meredith locked in their struggle, his sword in his hands and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was looking for any opening at all to jump in and strike. It wasn't an honorable tactic, but neither was he an honorable fighter, and it was all moot anyway considering Meredith was drawing strength from her lyrium sword. Nostariel's arrow flew in from over Lucien's shoulder and gave him the opening he needed.

Darting in from the side opposite of Meredith's sword, he came in from the side in the middle of her and Lucien and swung his sword as hard as he could into the cracked breastplate, deepening the spiderwebbing. Still, it wasn't enough to completely shatter the armor, and he caught an armored backhand for his effort. A cut opened up above his brow and obscured his vision as he was forced backward, but he dealt with it by rubbing it on the scarf attached to the Captain's plate. He was not as agile as Rilien, but he'd seen how he and Lucien fought together many times over, and while it would be a pale imitation of the real thing he thought it the best way to aid him.

As Sophia did time and time again when she was downed in a fight, she struggled back to her feet. It took her some time to overcome the initial shock of the blow, and to recover the ability to breathe, but that was what her friends were for. To rely on when she fell, when she could not face something alone. She retrieved her sword once more, resolved to face this with them, to the end.

There was a weakpoint to be targeted, thanks to what looked to be the effects of a spell from Nostariel, and Sophia looked for an opportunity to exploit it. She didn't foolishly rush in again, but waited patiently and circled, keeping her distance whenever it appeared Meredith might turn her wrath upon her. Lucien was better suited to weathering the woman, and Sophia had already taken enough hits.

When the moment came, Sophia did not hesitate. Meredith was mid swing in a string of attacks against Lucien, but she had opened herself too far, and while the opponent in front of her would not be able to take advantage, another combatant could. Sophia stepped forward and used the reach of her blade to spear the point right into the weakened chest plate. Her aim was true, and the blade pierced through the cracked armor, puncturing a short distance into Meredith's chest. Her next breath wheezed, and her attack was halted.

A swipe of her arm knocked the sword from her and away, the end coming away dripping red. Prepared for this, Sophia stepped in aggressively and elbowed Meredith across the jaw, successfully catching her and driving her back a step. Meredith swirled about and slashed widely, looking to cut Sophia clean in half, but she had darted back a step already, and the slash caught air. Meredith growled in frustration, drawing more of the idol's energy into herself.

Fortunately, Sparrow's mace had been spared from being cleaved in half when Sophia jumped in to prevent her from being cut in two. Which meant she wasn't weaponless, and she could still do something to help. Her legs felt weak and disobeyed the graceful steps she imagined in her head as she circled around to Meredith's rear. She lugged her mace behind her as she walked, freeing one of her hands. She slid her fingers across the front of her thick leathers, and they came away slick and warm.

A small seed of discomfort sat like a stone in her stomach. She couldn't help but think how angry Amalia would be when she saw the damage it had done to the leather she'd crafted. She took another withered breath and wobbled behind Meredith. Like the others, she felt drained. Never had she faced someone as relentless and sporadic as Meredith was. Not to mention the animated statues, stomping around them.

Her hand dropped back to the shaft of her mace, and she drew back one of her legs. Prepared to sprint forward—or at least try to, in her condition. From what little she could see from the back, Lucien and Sophia were focusing their attacks on her chestplate. If she squinted hard enough she could just make out spiderweb cracks, splintering at the sides of her armpits. She spotted Ashton ducking between their blows, earning him one of his own. Her face twisted up, and she wheezed out a breath, hurtling in her direction. She was staggering backwards, howling like a beast. Drawing even more power to her if that was at all possible. There was a meager attempt to imbue her mace with electricity, but it ended in a pitiful pop. No luck. She resorted to skidding to an abrupt halt just behind Meredith's right side, and swung the mace like a lumberman felling a tree.

Sparrow’s mace connected at the same moment as Lucien finally landed a hit of his own, and between them, as well as what had already been done, Meredith’s armor at last lost its structural integrity, cracking off in several places, and then in more when the sections those had been supporting fell away, too. In the end, most of her torso plating was gone, leaving her with only a chain shirt, one pauldron, and her gauntlets to protect her vital organs.

Lucien took a hard retaliatory strike for his trouble, the red lyrium sword seeking and finding a gap in his own protection, and Meredith’s blade came away with a coating of his blood sizzling along the surface. He staggered, but managed to right himself in enough time to avoid the follow-up, which would have otherwise taken off his head.

The last arrow in Nostariel’s quiver hit Meredith square between the shoulder-blades, and the ice spell attached released in the same place, spreading frost over the span of her back and shoulders, followed by a thicker sheet of ice which significantly hampered her motion, though the Warden could only hope it would be enough to aid the others, and give one of them an opportunity. Perhaps Ashton, fighting out of Lucien’s shadow, or maybe Sophia, who had better flanking angles. In any case, she was forced to turn her attention to healing, which at this point seemed like it might be for the best, considering the shape they were being worn down into.

She stanched the blood coming from Lucien’s torso wound first, then applied a general healing spell to Sophia, who she knew had taken several hits earlier, though Nostariel did not know to exactly where they had been aimed.

Ashton took the chance to slip out from behind Lucien after Meredith's whiffed follow-up. By doing so, he hoped to buy himself enough time to score a hit and slip back out before it could be reciprocated. He ducked in low and struck forward with his sword, striking Meredith in the belly and cutting through the thin chainmail enough to draw a stream of blood and color his blade. She snarled in response, but the damage done wasn't enough to slow her zealous rage.

She responded quicker than Ashton had envisioned and she came back around with her blade cutting downward. Ashton was fast enough to throw his head back out of the way so that his skull would not be split in half. Still, that left the rest of his body in the path of the lyrium sword, and the sizzling of steel and flesh followed. He cried out in pain as he stumbled backward, a deep gash starting at the collarbone of his plate and ended at the middle of his ribcage, smoke rising from the tear. Instinctively he tried to cover the wound with his free arm to keep the blood where it belonged, but some still seeped out.

Still, Ashton didn't back down, attempting to just walk it off in a circle before returning to Lucien's shadow, arm still applying pressure to the wound.

Sophia, rejuvenated by Nostariel's burst of healing magic, charged forward from Meredith's flank to engage, now that she was the healthiest of those that opposed the Knight-Commander. Meredith was still fighting stronger and more quickly than Sophia was capable of, but her attacks were driven by anger, her state of emotional rage at everything around her making her predictable. Her attacks were regular and easy to see coming. That still didn't make them easy to deal with.

They traded blows, Sophia always being mindful to stay out of the path of Meredith's blade, as she could rarely block it directly. Meredith was slowly being whittled away with small wounds, and Sophia could see it in her eyes, that desperate rage, the need to prevail but the knowledge that events had turned against her. Sophia pressed the attack, making a lunge capable of ending her.

Too soon. She overstepped, allowing Meredith to parry her blade up, step in, and make a hard slash. Her blade, enhanced by the idol, cut through Sophia's armor and carved a deep gash below the breast, spilling crimson down the front of her silver chestplate. Sophia staggered away, onto the defensive, while Meredith pressed her attack, driving Sophia away from her allies to keep them from intervening.

"If I will not have victory," the Knight-Commander growled, maniacally, "I will at least kill you!" It was all Sophia could do to defend herself, constantly giving ground and having her defense bashed aside, until there was no more ground to give, and a back to her wall. She raised her defense on more time.

This time, it held. Meredith's blade lost its glow, the woman herself losing the light in her eyes. Their blades were locked together for a moment, and the Knight-Commander appeared stunned by the halting of her attack. Sophia was not stunned, however. She brought her crossguard up swiftly into Meredith's jaw, cracking it and sending her stumbling into an about face. With her back turned, Sophia didn't hesitate.

Vesenia came down with powerful force, shattering the plate Nostariel had weakened. Sophia followed up with a swift lunge, and her sword pierced straight through Meredith's lower back, emerged from her abdomen covered in blood. She kicked the Knight-Commander away, allowing her to stumble forward and to her knees, clutching the wound in one hand, her sword in the other.

"I will... not... be defeated!" she panted, glaring back at Sophia. Impressively, she managed to rise, holding her sword close to herself. She was losing an alarming amount of blood, but ignored it altogether. "Maker... heed your humble servant!" She called upon the idol once more, her blade suddenly glowing a bright, blinding shade of light red, almost white, before it exploded forcefully, scattering shards everywhere.

Sophia protected her eyes from the blast, and by the time she looked back, Meredith was screaming in agony. She collapsed to her knees, the idol's red energy swirling through the air around her. She howled, the red light bursting from her eyes and mouth, as crystals of red lyrium sprouted from her arms and legs, steadily crystalizing her. She did not remain red for long, as soon her screaming stopped, and her entire body was cooked to a brown crisp, still glowing in place with shards of the red lyrium.

All those remaining in the Gallows Courtyard looked on in horror, but there was silence at last. The fight was over.

The Templars approached their fallen former Knight-Commander with weapons still drawn, but Sophia sensed no hostility in any of them. She didn't see how their minds couldn't have been changed, after what Meredith had demonstrated in front of all of them. Truly, Sophia was beginning to believe that the way things had turned out was perhaps the only way they could lead to peace, without the utter destruction of either the mages or Templars. They had seen now what madness their leader had been driven to in her paranoia. They had seen the cost of such unchecked hatred.

"There's a long road ahead of us, Lady Dumar," Cullen said, gazing sorrowfully down at the twisted form of Meredith before them. "Or perhaps I should address you as Viscountess." He slowly knelt down, bowing his head before her, and the other Templars soon followed suit, until all present had done the same.

Sophia, for once, did not know what to say.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Last Straw has been completed.

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Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega
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The morning sun glistened off of the gently rolling waves of the harbor. Aurora stood on a pier, facing Kirkwall with fingers pinched against her brow. Of course she would be late, Aurora should've expected it honestly. Her hand fell back down to her side as she cast a sidelong glance to the boat behind her, lifting and raising on the surface of the water, an impatient looking man standing on the front of the bow. Aurora offered him a small smile and an apologetic wave, which he scoffed at and turned away moving to check the cargo for the third time that morning. Donovan sat on the railing of the ship, and watched as the sailor left before he returned Aurora's smile himself. Nearby, a few other mages milled about.

Bandages sat on her cheek and brow, and many more hiding underneath her clothes. A reminder of the battle that had only happened days prior. While smoke no longer rose from the city, it was clear that she was still hurting. Aurora felt a little guilt at leaving the city in what felt like its time of need, but she felt that she was needed elsewhere, somewhere where she could be of more use. The actions of Meredith and Orsino would have far reaching consequences, and could not be contained by the City of Chains.

The status quo amongst the mages and templars had changed, and even now, so soon after the battle, her contacts were beginning to relay whispers of an uprising. The loss of Kirkwall's chantry and the Grand Cleric would no doubt cause some parties to seek retribution.

Aurora did not know what she could do to stem the tide, nor even how to begin, but she knew she had to do something. She felt responsible for it, because she had allowed Pike to progress so far in his plot, and be allowed to destroy the fragile balance between mage and templar. She had to do something to make up for it, somehow. Someway.

As it turned out, the next person to approach the dock was not the expected party. Rather, it was Nostariel, decked out in full Warden blues, as she had been almost constantly since the battle. Healing the injured was part of it, but so too was attempting to use whatever authority her position gave her to quell the growing sense of unrest. Though Sophia had support, she could still use the help, and Nostariel was only too glad to do that.

For the moment, though, she had another purpose in mind, and that one wasn’t nearly so complicated. Spotting Aurora, she raised a hand and waved before she came within polite speaking distance. “Oh good; I’m so glad I caught you before the boat left!” She smiled broadly, untying something from her belt, what looked like a pouch about the size of her hand. “I can’t blame you for leaving at a time like this, of course, but I thought you might want a little piece of Kirkwall to take with you when you go.”

Taking Aurora’s hand, she turned it so the palm faced upwards and dropped the satchel into it, her smile dimmed but still genuine. “For when you find someplace new to put down roots.” In the pouch were flower seeds of several kinds, most of them extracted from the clinic’s garden, and the few that remained from the one in the Alienage. “Because you will find somewhere. I know it.” This conflict wouldn’t last forever, and maybe at the end of it, there would be somewhere for Aurora to land, softly, solidly.

Aurora closed the satchel back, the smile on her face threatening to stay permanent. "Maybe..." Aurora said, before shaking her head, "Hopefully," she corrected. She took another look at the satchel before returning her gaze back to Nostariel. Her smile widened as she took a step forward and wrapped Nostariel in a big hug. "One day," she agreed, "And you will come and see them," she said into her ear. The Warden chuckled, nodding softly.

“Of course."

It had taken Sparrow far longer to prepare than she'd thought. As irresponsible as it was, she thought it would be best to silently slink away—no tearful goodbyes, no awful hugs and no whispery promises that they would meet again even when she knew they deserved better. This was what she was good at, after all. Walking away and only leaving fading ripples in stagnant waters. Though, she'd hardly call this place stagnant with all that happened.

Kirkwall stood like a beacon in the night, already licking its wounds with the help of those who stayed behind. She clamped her eyes shut, mouth quirking into a smile. She had no doubt that Sophia and Lucien would have it all in running order by the end of the week. Who better to run the City of Chains than her? It wasn't a job she envied. Vicountess Sophia. Rolling the title in her mouth felt peculiar, but somehow fitting. If anything she was proud to have known her.

The last of her things had already been packed away, but here she was. Idling in the place she once called home, shoving things into the only reliable satchel she owned. Erasing any trace of her having ever been here. She pushed the chairs in and freed the small kitchen of clutter, pausing only to run her fingers across the table that sat in the middle of the room. All imperfect knots and memories of age-old conversations. She remembered the uphill clawing. The good times, too. She was sure that there were those, somewhere.

She plucked at the fabric of her shirt and smoothed her fingers across the bandages that bound the upper portion of her chest. If it weren't for Nostariel, she was sure she'd be long dead by now. And now, it was time to leave. Aurora would be wondering just where the hell she was. Sparrow slipped a small piece of parchment out from her sleeve and smoothed it out across the table. There was no guarantee that he would even return to ever see it. Small as it was, it didn't matter. It was a small promise, even if she couldn't keep it.

[font=garamond]The sea is unchanged. May we meet again.


In ugly, scrawling handwriting. Insufficient for a proper letter. Perhaps, even unintelligible, if he had not known her well enough. There was an old saying in Qunlat, and one she'd only partially written in the letter, but she'd long left those old bones behind. She was not one to wheeze out long confessions. Sparrow took another deep breath and slung the satchel over her shoulder, taking one last look around the hovel before stepping through the door and shutting it behind her. It did not take her long to reach the pier. Whether or not she'd been running the entire time would remain a secret. She squinted into the horizon, and held up a hand to her forehead, shielding herself from the sunlight. Honestly, the farther she got from Kirkwall, the easier it would be to breathe.

Of course, Sparrow noticed Aurora first. Bright haired lass. She broke into another brisk jog and stopped short of the wooden pier when she noticed Nostariel standing at her side. As much as her heart wanted it, she hadn't expected anyone to actually show up. She'd managed to keep as buttoned-up about their sea-side adventure, and their plan to leave, as much as she could. Either was, she was pleased. Her mouth twisted into a lopsided grin. “You're a sight to see,” any other eyebrow-waggling remark died on her lips. Her smile simpered and the corners of her eyes crinkled, “I'm glad you came to see us off.”

“Naturally.” Nostariel’s reply was easy, automatic. And why wouldn’t it be? They were her friends; she’d never simply let them leave. Aurora, she knew, had made a series of other goodbyes already, but she hadn’t had the chance to meet either of them until now, so she came bearing more wishes still. “Ash passes on his regards, too, of course.” Unfortunately, his work with the Guard, now more essential than ever, prevented him from also being here, but at least she could convey the sentiment.

“And you know we’ll all miss you.” She briefly enveloped Sparrow in a hug, too, before pulling back and resting her hands on the half-elf’s shoulders. “Something tells me, though, that this isn’t forever, so I won’t say goodbye, to either of you.” She smiled, the expression gentle and warm. “So I guess I’ll just say take care for now, until we meet again.”

“That'd be too final, wouldn't it?” Sparrow adjusted the weight across her shoulder and offered Nostariel a wink. She would have liked to see the others, even if she hadn't said so. Even if she hadn't seen them on their own, either. Easier that way. Easy. She laughed and swiped an errant hair from Nostariel's forehead: all grins. “Don't miss us too much, or we'll have to run back. Until we meet again.”

Aurora returned the smile, hers just as bright and warm. "Of course," she said with a nod. With that, she cast a glance behind her, the impatient man looking even more irritated, motioning to them that they should hurry. Aurora simply nodded and turned back to Nostariel. Now that it was nearly upon them, she felt... Melancholy. She almost wished she didn't have to leave, but she knew better. They had other purposes, places they could be of more use in aside from Kirkwall. Still, she was glad with the thought and hope of meeting her friends once again, one day.

"Lets go, I doubt the captain will wait for much longer, and after all we paid him, it would be a shame to get left behind now," she said with a small smile. The we in that statement belonging mostly to Rilien, who'd helped buy their passage when she came to him with her farewells. "I'll miss you all..." she said, taking a gentle hold of Sparrow's arm and ushered their way to the ship.

Once aboard, the captain wasted no time in pulling up the gang plank and setting sail out from the mouth of the harbor. Aurora stood on the bow of the ship, waving to Nostariel until she was nothing more than a speck in the horizon.

"Well... We're off. I guess," She told Sparrow, her arm falling and dangling by her side.

Sparrow wrapped an arm around her traveling companion's shoulder and steered her away from their old home: away from Kirkwall. It would do them no good to dwell on everything they missed. She wouldn't spend her time sulking—after all, she'd learned a long time ago that it amounted to nothing. Looking forward. Now, that was the key. She pointed towards the horizon and puffed out an exaggerated breath, murky eyes already wet, “We are. And it's just the beginning.”[/font]