“I’m seein’ doubles.”
Varric squinted and un-squinted his eyes at the wall of the infirmary, a beaten-down overfull hovel with soldiers desperate for care groaning in dissonance with the moan of creaking wood. One healer—a bald elf—deligated himself to sighing heavily, shaking his head, and grumbling under his breath as he stitched and dressed Varric’s wound.
Varric, meanwhile, had a sheepish, pained grin the whole time.
“I am hardly surprised,” the elf sighed, again, his gaze briefly passing over me, entirely placid yet simultaneously scrutinising. I sunk into my seat, hiding under my blanket, heavy and warm against the world. “Somehow, when there is trouble, it is always you at the centre of it.”
“Ack. You know me, Chuckles. I can’t help it.”
“Indeed.”
Between disgruntled jokes and forced laughs, there was a permeating silence that made me shrink further and further under my blanket.
Varric didn’t look at me at all.
Apprehension, dislike, fear… I couldn’t say, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t need his approval or his care, but to watch my last attempt at normalcy stream into the drain like the floodwaters on the streets… and to know it was my fault?
“You’re not to—Varric. Varric?”
“Huh?”
“You’re not to sleep until the symptoms pass.”
Varric scoffed. “As if I could anyway.” The elf slapped his hand away from the dressing when he attempted to poke at it. “Why are you even down here? Why aren’t you, I dunno, reading, or dreaming, or… whatever it is you do.”
“I would be remiss not to lend my services as a mage to the returning soldiers.” The elf lent him an accusing stare. “Why are you cavorting in taverns and being assaulted by dwarven women?”
“Aw, Chuckles, it’s like you don’t even know me. Being assaulted by women is my favourite pastime.” Under his breath, he grumbled, “Just ask the Seeker.”
The blanket covered up to my nose now, and my voice was muffled and high-pitched. “Is that what she was apologising for?”
He finally looked at me.
Beady brown eyes, still slightly red, raked over my half-concealed face, so suddenly focused he didn’t flinch at the elf applying elfroot paste to his dressing.
“Huh. I forgot you were there for that.”
“Most people do,” I said. “Is it…” I squinted over the blanket. The elf squinted at Varric’s head. “Is it bad?”
“Huh, the wound? Nah, it—” he did flinch this time, “—it probably looks a lot worse than it actually is.”
I nodded. He continued.
“That’s usually how it goes. They bleed, and they bleed… one time, Hawke and I were—” he faltered, humming then continuing, “drunk. And he got startled so easily, you know? Some poor kid bumped into him on the street, and before he knew it, kid was on the ground, wailing, because Hawke’d lit his hair on fire… so, you know, as far as things go, the mug wasn’t so bad.”
I stared. “Was the boy alright?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, ‘course. Blondie doused him. Didn’t even leave a scar. A physical one, anyway.”
“And ‘Blondie’ was blond?”
“He told everyone he was ginger! I had to set him straight somehow.”
“I suppose it’s a better nickname than Rocky.”
“ Most nicknames are better than Rocky,” the elf said. “I’m finished. Do not touch the—look at me, Child of the Stone, do not touch the dressing. ”
“But my wandering hands!’
“Varric.”
“Fine, yeah, whatever. I can go now?”
“No drinking.”
“You have my word, Chuckles.”
The elf grunted. The nickname seemed a bit ironic. “I would not trust your word as far as I could throw you.”
A smart man.
Varric stood, slowly, swaying slightly, using the wall behind him as a support. “Give yourself more credit. That huge staff you swing around has to be at least as heavy as some dwarves.”
“Some, certainly. Not you.”
“Ouch. You could lift me. On your shoulders, maybe?”
“No.” The elf gestured to the door in a plea for us to leave.
“Hmph.” Varric dragged his feet, and me after him. He gazed straight past me. “I’ll just ask Tiny.”
“You will absolutely not. ”
The door closed behind us.
The cold air, the way the breeze hit my skin—it wasn’t a reprieve from how he looked at me now. Distant, a little. Glazed, unfocused, and so, so, so large.
He dug something out of his pocket.
“It’s—” He fumbled with it, mother’s letter, in trembling hands. “Isana, right? Am I pronouncing…”
“Ee-sah-nah.”
“Isana. Isana. Kinda sounds—”
“It’s dwarven.” I held the blanket closer around my shoulders. “It means lyrium.”
He made a gargled, choking noise. “ ‘Course it does. Shit. Are you—” another noise, but different this time, apprehensive and maybe even afraid. “Are you sure?”
“Sure?”
“That you—that you’re—”
“Mother was sure.”
“Right.” He looked down at the letter again. Spindly words, just out of reach… I still didn’t know what it said, but he was shaking. “Your mother.”
“She’s dead.”
“Yeah.”
Yeah.
Not ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘my condolences’... just acknowledge, and move on? I clenched and unclenched my fists under the blanbket. “The Carta killed her.”
His eyes darted up. “The Carta?”
“They’re after me too. Kirkwall isn’t safe, so I’ll go back for her funeral, and then I’m gone, I suppose.”
His jaw was clenched and his eyebrows were sad. “Where’ll you go?”
I didn’t know. “Starkhaven?”
“Nah. That’s crawling with Carta. You’ll need to—” He made a frustrated noise. “You got coin?”
“A few coppers. I spent my remaining silver on passage and I think the captain swindled me.”
He grumbled, folded the letter into his pocket, and adjusted his coat collar. Why wear a coat at all if he was going to flash his whole chest like that? “Let’s talk somewhere else.”
‘Somewhere else’ meant his private quarters, which sat in a tower up too many flights of stairs. Huffing, he sighed with exasperation and relief when he finally unlocked his door.
“I’ll figure something out for you. I have contacts in the Carta, I’m sure I can…”
“What, talk to them?”
“Eh, it’s what I’m good at.” He grinned lopsidedly, tossing his keys onto an ink-stained, parchment-covered desk. It looked like a hurricane had ripped through it, but peering closer, I could make vague send of some sort of—admittedly insane—organisation system.
“So I heard.”
“You heard?”
“From varying people.” I sighed. The room was cold, and dark, and a little bit musty, but I didn’t think it was his fault. Such were old castle ruins, decaying after centuries of disrepair. A dishevelled bed have been shoved into one corner, its blankets askew and the pillow stained. He sat down on it.
“Yeah?”
“From mother, merchants, back-alley backstabbers, drunkards—”
“I get the picture.”
“—a few noble ladies, once, but I don’t think they cared so much about your words, more your mouth.”
He chuckled. “Noble ladies, huh?”
“Human. Your type?”
“Usually not.”
I reclined into his desk chair—made for a human, but he’d shortened it by chopping the legs down. I folded the blanket into my lap. He eyed it. Or eyed me. I couldn’t tell, with how the dark room shrouded his gaze.
His bed creaked as he crossed his legs. “Can you fight?”
I considered this. I knew how to stab, but not where. I couldn’t throw a punch or aim an arrow or a bolt; the daggers on my belt had never been used for anything other than cutting rope.
He sensed my hesitation. “If someone came at you with a knife…”
Could I defend myself? Could I defend someone else? Had I defended mother?
“No.”
He blew out a breath through his teeth so it sounded more like a hiss. I felt I could read his thoughts from his expression; waste of time, stupid mistake. He kicked his heels against the bedframe in a rhythmic tapping, like water from a stalactite, before breathing in again.
“Okay,” he said. “You need to stay here.”
“No.”
The tapping stopped, started, then stopped again. “No?”
“I can’t. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Kid—” He clutched his hands together, the tapping faster. “There’s nowhere you can go that the Carta won’t find you, except right here, in Skyhold.”
“Are you saying there's no Carta here?”
“Not… exactly. But the Nightingale vets everyone who walks through those gates, even you. If there’s Carta, she knows, and if they’re the type to cause trouble, she knows that too. You’re safe. Why are they after you, anyway?”
I stood and crossed the room. The blanket thudded to the floor. I picked up a stray vase, chipped on the rim, completely empty aside from some dry algae at the bottom from when there used to be flowers. What kinds, I wondered? Could flowers grow in the snow?
“Will you be angry?”
A brief pause. “I—I can’t see why I would be?”
I looked at him, then the vase again. Sometimes flowers grew between the cracks in the tiles in Lowtown. Small daisies in the aftermath of hurricanes, nothing fancy or beautiful, but it was a picture of nature that, as a child, was everything to me. A reprieve from the ire of the world. The beauty after the storm.
Varric didn’t seem the flowers type.
I thumbed at the chip in the vase. “There was a human.”
He grunted. “Tends to be.”
“He treated me kindly, so I trusted him.”
“Okay.”
“I told him about you. About me in relation to you, I mean, but… but the Carta offered him coin.”
Varric swore. I looked up briefly enough to watch him drag a hand through his hair and then pull on it. Hard.
“What, to, to get to me? Because they thought—”
“Thought I mattered to you?”
He looked down then away. Shame, guilt, things I knew all too well, and in the pit of my chest I was glad to see him suffer them too. I rejoiced in the hunch of his shoulders and the nervous tap, tap, tapping, a rhythm that faltered when his breath stuttered.
“This human,” he finally grumbled, “used to be a friend?”
I hesitated. “Something of the sort.”
“Uh… a lover?”
I clutched the vase tighter. I choked the neck of it. “Sometimes.”
“Name? Description?”
“Already dead.” Cold and blue. “I—” I let go of a deep breath. “The Carta killed him.”
Varric poked at his dressing in subconscious motions. Constant shifting, unable to be still, be silent. Did he like the sound of his own voice, or was it painful to stop?
He sighed. “Alright. Ultimatum. Stay here long enough for me to figure something out. It’ll be a good distraction for me anyway, so no loss, right?”
I knew nothing and no one. I had no employable skills, nothing to give, and no reason for people to want me to stay. In what world was that safe?
And beyond that—there were qunari here. I was glad when the last of the oxmen were driven out of Kirkwall, when the provisional viscount expelled the remaining remnants from the city. Sleepless nights had been spent under the cover of my blanket, shivering and staring out the window, waiting for a pair of pointed horns to block the light of the moon, and I couldn’t—
I couldn’t do that again.
“The qunari in the bar…” I murmured.
“You mean Tiny?” Varric sounded amused. “He’s a lot, but you get used to him.”
I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t.
I put the vase down.
“Who do I talk to about lodging?”
“I––I know it’s short notice, Ruffles, but maybe something comfortable for her?”
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Lady Ambassador. Someone stern, hard and harsh enough to handle sleazy nobles without insulting or disrespecting them, but following Varric into her office and being overcome by coffee, floral perfume, and a frilly, preppy Antivan; I didn’t know how I could’ve expected anything different.
“I’m sure something can be arranged…” She scribbled something down, serious furrowed eyebrows contrasted against the ‘everything else’ about her. “We are short on rooms, but I believe there is a new vacancy above the gardens.”
“Those rooms barely have proper locks. I checked.”
“You mean, you broke in?”
He shrugged. “When we arrived. Is there anything with more security?”
The Ambassador looked at me and hummed. Varric hadn’t given her the specifics, or told her about our relation; just that there was Carta, and I needed safety. She probably assumed I was a whistleblower. I was okay to let her believe it.
“Mm, I’m afraid not. Unless––ah, no.”
“Unless…?” Varric gestured expectantly with his hands.
She lifted her head from her parchment and thinned her lips into a fierce line. “There is… a new vacancy. Although… some things shall have to be moved…”
“Spit it out, Ruffles.”
There was something suspiciously skittish about her face, and Varric saw it too. His frown was deep, and her eyes were avoiding his.
“ If you do not mind, the room across from yours…”
“What, Hawke’s––?”
His face fell and his shoulders dropped. He looked at the wall, jaw clenched, and then back up at the Ambassador again like nothing had changed.
Hawke? Was he here?
“Yeah, sure,” Varric rasped. “Good to keep her close, anyway.”
“Then I will make the arrangements.”
He nodded tersely and dismissed himself without another word. I watched him for a moment before figuring I should follow, but the Ambassador stopped me.
“Miss Isana, was it?” She smiled sweetly just as the door behind me clanked closed. I liked the way her accent pronounced my name. “The situation sounds precarious. Perhaps you would consider speaking to Sister Leliana?”
I cleared my throat. “A Chantry sister?”
“Ah, forgive me. Leliana is our spymaster.”
Oh. The Nightingale, she meant. “It’s a dwarven matter. And personal.”
“I quite understand. Regardless, I do hope you enjoy your stay in Skyhold.”
She smiled again then turned away, something I took as my signal to leave. Varric was leaning on the wall outside the door when I emerged, and looked up at me with eyes glinting in the torchlight in a way that reminded me of the lost children in Darktown. The illusion was swept away the moment he stood and, the mask falling over him again, he grinned.
“Good?”
“Considering the circumstances…”
“I know the feeling. Let’s go.”
Hawke’s old quarters were quiet in that unnerving, desolate way I’d come to know from abandoned estates. A cold sensation crept from all corners of the room, oppressive, suffocating, and smelling of wet mabari fur. A smashed mirror lay face-down on the wood. The shards cracked under Varric’s boots. He made a show of dusting off a set of drawers that didn’t need dusting.
The room couldn’t have been abandoned for long, and all of his belongings were still here. If he was coming back, why give the room to me?
“Sorry, kid, I know it’s not much.”
“It’s better than what I’m used to.” I hesitated, struggling to form the right words. “But I’m confused.”
“Yeah?” He’d turned away to rummage inside the drawer. His ponytail had come loose, nearly completely undone.
“Where is he?”
The sounds of rummaging stopped. Even with his back turned, I could still see how his chest heaved with heavy, unsteady breaths. It was a long breadth of silence broken only by the distant murmuring of conversation halfway down the hall outside. One of them said something funny. The other laughed. Varric was still silent.
Was it the wrong question?
“Will he be coming back for his things?” I tried.
He closed the drawer and gripped the edge with white-knuckled force.
“No.”
I’d done something wrong, and I didn't know what. The sensation wasn’t new to me, and yet, nausea settled in my gut. A spider’s web dangled above Varric’s head.
“Okay,” I said. He relaxed. When he faced me again, it was like nothing happened at all.
“Need help unpacking your shit?”
“Oh. Not really. Everything I own is in my pack.”
“Okay. Sure. Then I should,”––he swung his arms––“get back to what I was doing.”
“I was sorry to disturb you,” I said, meaning it this time. “And about the mug.”
“Nah. You’re good.” He smiled. “Harding’ll come check on you. If that’s––can I––should––” He flushed bright red. Stumbling over his words didn’t seem like a common occurrence for him. “Can I tell her?”
I gazed out the one window in the room. It overlooked the courtyard and the gate, where the group of refugees I rode in with were still sitting, an hour later.
“I couldn’t stop you.”
“That sounds like a no.”
I grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“My lips are sealed, kid.”
“Thank you.”
After unpacking, I sat on my new bed. I’d a whole fortress to explore now, and yet, staring out the window, listening to the birds, the conversation, the wind; I felt trapped.
For now, this was my home. Why shouldn’t I look around? But my legs wouldn’t move. The cold dread of the room hadn’t left, and the little brown spider in its pale white web seemed to mock me. It must feel so tall, I thought. So big.
“Are you my roommate?” I asked it. It didn’t reply. I stood on a chair to look at it better, then fetched a broom to swipe it away, but stopped. “If I let you live, you catch flies for me. Yes?”
Instead I corralled the broken mirror shards into one large pile. The mirror was hefty, but I lifted it, realigned it, and stared into the shattered reflection.
Ancestors, but I was a mess. It was no wonder Harding took pity on me, the frightened little girl shivering out in the cold. She offered warmth and shelter, just like Hawke had done, and now I was in his room, with no sight of him. Had he and Varric fought?
I reclined into the bed with my sketchbook on a fresh page. I sketched a vague impression of Varric’s face, and then stopped, my charcoal hovering above the parchment. How did I normally draw him? Grinning, teeth bare, youthful and cocky.
That wasn’t who I saw today.
I chewed on my bottom lip. What did I see? An old man. A tired old man, freckled with rosacea, something that was left out of his official portraits. A scar across his nose, which was crooked, and watery, red-rimmed eyes that widened when he saw me.
Who did I see?
A tired old man who was very afraid and very alone.
Sighing, I put away my charcoal, wrapped myself up in my blanket, and slept until sundown.