It was early morning when the gates of Skyhold opened and soldiers poured into the courtyard.
I watched them from my window, my arm on the windowsill and bleary from waking, only barely able to make out the vague silhouettes of their glinting metal uniforms through the dense, grainy fog that had descended upon Skyhold overnight. Groggily, I dressed, gathered my pack, and descended the tower to watch them alongside everyone else.
The normally still and peaceful courtyard was overcome by shouts, cries, and the clanking of metal. Horses, hounds, the grinding of chains as the elevators ascended to the bridge, all coalesced together into one cacophony that drowned out my thoughts.
A widow collapsed to her knees in the mud. A father swung his child into the air. Outside the infirmary, the bald elf, with blood on his hands and a rag over his shoulder, shook his head and turned away. A sihadow fell over me, and I looked and saw Harding, her lips pressed thin line as, through the fog, she gazed upon the soldiers with one sweeping movement.
I shuffled up next to her. She acknowledged me with a tired smile. Twigs and bits of snow stuck to frazzled, unkempt hair, and the bags under her eyes made them look somehow wider.
“Who are you looking for?” I asked.
“Oh. No one. I was just––” She rubbed at some dirt on her chin. “Just thinking, you know.”
A tall blond human with a fur mantle and a booming voice issued commands to his soldiers, his lieutenants, and the few healers who rushed in for aid on the field.
“What happened?”
Harding patted down her hair. “A lot of us just got back from the Western Approach. The soldiers have been trickling in for weeks, but I think this is the last of them.”
It wasn’t an answer. “How do you know?”
“There, see?” She gestured into the crowd. I followed her hand until I found who she was pointing at. “The Inquisitor. She’s always the last one to get back.”
Gossip travelled quickly among the dwarven families of Kirkwall. When word got out that the eldest daughter of the Cadash family fell through a hole in the Fade, I shook my head and rolled my eyes. But by the Ancestors, to truly see her now, her dark skin plastered with mud and dried blood, innocuous and unremarkable if not for the bright green glowing mark that branded her left hand…
“And in the Approach,” I tried again, “what happened there?”
“...I guess word didn’t reach far, huh?” She visibly hesitated. “Maybe you should ask Varric.”
“What are we asking me?”
I yelped. Varric smiled an apology as Harding faced him, her back to the sunrise, the light shining through wisps of her hair.
“Oh, nothing! We were just––”
“The soldiers in the Approach,” I interrupted.
Harding’s hard look told me what she’d really meant; ask Varric away from me, because I don’t want to be anywhere near him when you do. But whatever she was fearing didn’t happen, and he dismissed me.
“You don’t wanna hear about it, kid. Trust me.”
Harding cut me off. “How you feeling, Varric?”
“Hm?” The question was redundant. His hair, falling out of a haphazard bun, was just as much a mess as hers. A fresh dressing had replaced the old one. “Oh, you know. Just barely escaped Chuckles in the infirmary. It’s a miracle he still has the time to sigh at me between all the limbs he’s amputating.”
Two soldiers raced past us, each carrying one end of an unconscious friend. “It’s that bad?” I asked.
“...Eh. Probably not, but I––I tried not to look too hard.” He poked at the dressing. “Anyway. Got time, kid?”
“For what?”
He shrugged, a little half-heartedly. “A walk. I gotta talk to you.”
Harding looked between us and said nothing.
“No more stairs,” I told him. He chuckled, and said he wouldn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep.
“...Sleep okay?”
Varric’s legs dangled pathetically off the edge of the battlements that overlooked the gardens. They’d been done up for some kind of event, and were mostly empty, save for some Chantry Sisters who gathered large quantities of elfroot into baskets. Varric kicked his heels against the wall.
I didn’t have the energy for this.
“I slept fine,” I said, and it was true. In fact, I’d never slept better. “What did you want to talk about?”
He raised his chin and breathed deep through his nose. The outward sigh made a small cloud that dissipated on the wind. His brow and the corner of his mouth twitched downward before he spoke. “I sent a letter to one of my Carta contacts. Should get a reply in about a week, maybe.”
A week. That wasn’t too long, but how much could I afford to wait? I needed to be home in time for mother to be returned to the Stone. “They must be close by.”
“Eh.”
“You can’t tell me?”
“Yeah. Listen, kid…” He pivoted and faced me full-on, one leg propped on the wall, the other still off the edge. For a dwarf, he wasn’t very afraid of falling. “Shit like this doesn’t get solved over a few letters. He’s gonna wanna meet up.”
I wrung my hands. The back of my neck itched now he was facing me properly. I wished I’d brought my blanket. “Is he dangerous?”
“He won’t hurt you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Varric looked into my eyes. “He won’t hurt you.”
I tore myself from his gaze and peered over the edge of the wall. “Fine.”
Satisfied, he leaned away. “Also, I’ve got a thing going on tonight. So, if you need anything, uh, find Harding.”
“A ‘thing’.”
He cleared his throat. It sounded dry and painful. “A thing.”
“Alright. Is that it, then?”
“Mm?”
“Is that all you wanted to talk about?”
He was quiet. In that moment, his tapping stopped.
“Yep.”
It was a lie. It was always a lie.
I asked Varric where I could find work. In a grumbly, quiet voice, he told me he could just give me the coin, then backed off when I scowled at him. To that end, he directed me to the tavern.
(“Cabot’s gonna have his hands full with the soldiers. Shit’ll be overrun tonight. But, uh, kid, you don’t have to…”)
I was still scowling when I shoved open that door again, and struggled to smooth it over in time to meet Cabot at the counter. Also a dwarf, I realised, now that he wasn’t standing on a crate behind the bar, and I was actually paying attention. A few quiet, contemplative soldiers already occupied the space, and I imagined they would leave before their rowdy, drunken brethren arrived.
“I’m looking for work,” I said.
Cabot raised an eyebrow. “Good for you.”
“...I was told you’re hiring.”
“Could be. Could not be.”
For a bartender, he wasn’t very talkative. For a dwarf… just the right amount. I could work with that.
“I’ll clean the tables,” I declared. “The glasses. The floors. The walls.”
He squinted. “Didn’t you clock Tethras with a mug?”
My cheeks warmed. The scrutiny of his stare reminded me more of a librarian than a bartender; he was only lacking in little round spectacles, by which he would pass his judgement over. A funny thing, to imagine for a bald, rough-and-tumble dwarf.
“...Yes?” I squeaked.
“Hm.”
“He startled me, I––I would never attack ––”
“Three silvers an hour.”
“Huh?”
I stared. He stared back, and shrugged. “Keep the soldiers in line and I’ll pay double.”
I fumbled a half-formed sentence which fell pathetically into gibberish. I could only just comprehend three silvers all on their own, let alone in multiples, and the prospect of double that wage had my knees weak.
Three silvers an hour, twenty-one a day––by the end of the month, six sovereigns with a bit on a side. I could buy warm clothes, a chemise, new boots!
Cabot squinted again. “You look like someone shat in your meal.”
“Oh, I––” had never worked a day in my life. Mind, not for lack of trying, but when you couldn’t reach the high shelves, most employers turned a blind eye to you. It didn’t matter how smart or talented you were. “I’m fine. I’m fine. When do I start?”
Cabot ran most of the tavern all on his own after the previous owner died. I had heard of what happened in Haven, and I wanted to ask more, but he didn’t seem interested in talking about it, so I didn’t.
He introduced me to the other barmaid, a skittish young elf––Iowen––with a wide face and wider ears. Needed someone with more backbone, Cabot said, and Iowen blushed, but said nothing. He assigned me alongside her; delivering drinks, hauling small crates, and cleaning messes. Everything else, he said, he would handle.
It was something to do. More than that, it was a schedule, something worthwhile, something with a purpose.
Harding found me again when the tavern started to fill.
“Arms aching yet?” she teased, leaning against the table I’d just wiped down.
“More my legs,” I admitted. “I’m not used to standing around like this.”
“Aha, you get used to it. I’ve had to spend hours in the same spot when I’m out scouting, and Maker, my legs…”
I moved on to the next table, not because it was dirty, but because I needed something to do. A soldier told a raunchy joke that had a nearby table burst into raucous laughter. “Is that what you were doing this morning?” I asked over the noise.
“Huh? Oh!” She laughed. “Yeah. I was out really late clearing the path on the road. I think I got less sleep than Cullen did!”
“Cullen?”
“Our Commander.”
I remembered the blond human yelling at the gate, and resolved to avoid him. I adjusted a chair and moved on again; Harding followed like a lost puppy, narrowly avoiding tripping over the outstretched leg of an oblivious human.
“So… how do you know Varric?”
“Oh. Um…”
“I guess I thought you didn’t know him. It’s a small world, huh?”
A woman waved me over and ordered a beer, which I fetched from a low shelf in the back. Harding was still waiting for me when I emerged.
“I only met him yesterday,” I said. The woman took the bottle from me with a cheers.
“But…” Harding sat against the bar. “You talk like you’ve known each other forever. ”
I shrugged.
“He knew your name,” she said. “Was he the one you were delivering that message to?” When I turned away, she chased me around a table. Iowen looked at us strangely from across the room. “He was! He was, wasn’t he?”
I pulled out a chair, stared at it, and pushed it back in again. My head felt light. “It’s not very interesting.”
“Now I want to know even more. ”
Her expectant gaze bore into my skull. So happy, so excited, so full of energy, light, and warmth. She waited, and I hesitated again, and again, and again.
“He’s––”
A soldier banged his mug against a table, and silence fell upon the tavern. He clambered upon the table, and stood on it with a wooden prosthetic carved with dozens upon dozens of names and dates.
I'd never been to an Andrastian funeral, but I had seen Kirkwall. There were mourners on the streets, in bars, or hidden away in the darkest dark of Darktown. There were more bodies in alleys than in the graveyards, and more funerals in the streets than in the Chantry.
I knew mourners, the way their eyes shimmered whether they cried or not. The eyes of the soldiers glinted in the torchlight as they watched their brother raise his mug to the ceiling, his legs shaking but his arms steady, as he spoke.
To those we have lost, and those we will lose.
Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker’s right hand, and be forgiven.
I left in the late evening with a heavier purse. Before the market closed, I bought a chemise, a woollen kirtle, and a pair of snow boots. The relief of coin and clothes didn’t lift the heaviness in my legs or from my eyes––nor the memory of the soldier’s bloodshot eyes in the torchlight.
It was bad luck that I ran headlong into Varric. It was funny that he fell ass-first into the mud, and the mockery of nearby recruits echoed off the stone walls.
“Andraste’s––fucking––” He cradled his head with his eyes scrunched tight. You have a real fucking knack––!”
“I’m not sorry.”
He glared. “Kid, you wound me, literally and metaphorically.”
“Apparently I can’t help it.”
“You’re in a good mood.” He stumbled to his feet, and groaned at the mud splattered all over his coat and trousers. A deep black shirt replaced his vibrant red one. “I just washed these damn things.”
“I’m in a mood. Not sure if it’s good or not.”
“You have a sense of humour after all, maybe you really are my––” He hissed and pressed a palm to his forehead. “Shit. That hurt more than the mug.”
“I have a thick skull.”
“Take after me, I guess.” Swaying, he blinked away watery eyes. “Uh, went fine at the tavern?”
I didn’t tell him about the impromptu funeral. “None of the soldiers groped me.”
He blinked, squinted, then frowned. “Huh?”
“I said none of the––”
“That’s a really low bar. You were worried about that?”
I stared.
He was still, at the core of it all, a sheltered silverspoon rich boy.
“I’m very small,” I said.
“You’re taller than me.”
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you’re also very small.”
He shook off his coat and draped it over one arm. “No need to rub it in, kid. Damnit, I have to go change…”
“Where were you going?”
“Oh, you know.”
I waited. And I waited. Varric kicked a stray rock and watched it splat into the mud.
“You know, my thing. The thing. There’s––in the gardens.”
“For a writer, I expected you to be better with words.”
He looked up at me with a flat, placid face, his true thoughts betrayed only by the smallest flinch in the corner of his mouth. His voice was even.
“Inquisitor’s holding a funeral.”
“Oh.” I shuffled my feet. For the soldiers? “Is everyone going?”
“Just the inner circle.”
“Ah.” That didn’t seem fair.
“Yeah. So. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Which was code for no, sorry, you’re not invited either, which didn’t surprise me after I’d just insulted him. And it was fine, of course––but watching him leave, muddy, lumbering, and shivering…
I retired to my quarters and packed away my new clothes. It was ten minutes I sat at the edge of my bed, draped in my chemise, staring out the window and watching the clouds cross the sky as the sun set behind the mountains. A further ten I spent meticulously plaiting my hair, and when I was done, I gathered my blanket into my arms.
Hawke’s blanket. Hawke’s quarters. Hawke in the air that I breathed, as warm and comforting as his smile when I was a child.
I gazed into the mirror. The shattered reflection marred my tired face.
Where was Hawke?
I climbed under my sheets. The weight of my blanket, like the weight of the ocean, pulled me down into a restless unconscious.
Loud swearing and a heavy thud woke me again with a jolt. All was dark, except for the light of the moon, which bathed the otherwise warm room in a dull greyness. I listened, one ear to my pillow, to another series of thuds getting progressively louder, and louder, as someone stumbled up the stairs.
Unsteady footfalls approached then stopped outside my door.
I waited, wide-eyed, for the rattle of the handle that never came. Instead, there was a thump, then a slide, and, in the softest of tones, the unmistakable sound of weeping.
My blanket around my shoulders, I tiptoed from my bed and pressed my ear to the door. I held my breath, waiting for them to stop, or leave, but soon my legs started to ache again, and I sat with my back to the wall.
“You’re very loud,” I said.
There was a cold silence. Then the shuffle of fabric.
“Sorry,” Varric rasped, muffled by the door.
“It’s very late.”
“Sorry.”
I pulled my blanket closer around my shoulders, like a warm hug from behind. The shattered mirror glimmered in the moonlight.
“It was for Hawke, wasn’t it? The funeral?”
There was no answer, and I didn’t need one.
“I met him once,” I said. “I was much younger, um, twelve, I think.”
Varric sniffled. “Yeah?”
“He was very kind. He––” I didn’t know him, he was never my friend, so Maker, why was my throat so tight? “He gave me a blanket. I remember thinking he was very pretty.”
A chuckle, then a low hum. “Yeah.”
“What happened?”
I heard a heavy sigh. At least he wasn’t crying anymore. “It was him or me.”
I remembered the torn parchment on Varric’s desk, his ink-stained hands, and his bloodshot eyes as he looked at me for the first time.
“In the Western Approach?”
“Yeah. I thought… I thought he was gonna come through. I waited for him.”
“And then he didn’t?”
“Don’t even have a damn body to burn.” His voice cracked. “He’d like you.”
“I’m not very likeable.”
He grunted. “Me neither.”