Let Us Make the Best of Dreams
LET US MAKE THE BEST OF DREAMS
I do not own Dragon Age. If I did I would be both rich and very proud of myself since it does all the "shades of gray" things I have been wanting from mah fantasy novels since I was eleven.
***
Cassandra's eyes fluttered open, snug under the warm covers in her bed in Mortalitasi uncle's house, to the sounds of workmen on the street below. They were oddly loud, she thought, considering that his apartments were three floors above Cumberland's streets. What was even odder, she reflected, was the dead giant heaped like a mountain of rags in the corner of her bedroom suite. Its limbs tumbled slackly and the longsword Anthony had given her on her sixteenth birthday sprouted it from its pathetically domed, hairy skull, a flower wrought in scarlet and silver.
One of the workmen heaved a stone away from her. Maker's breath, she wondered, how did all these rocks get into bed with me? He was a barrel chested man, maybe close to his fortieth year, with coarse dark hair and a thick, black beard. The other, large enough to dwarf even this imposing figure, was a Qunari of all things. He pulled away rubble by the handful, sweat pouring off a heavily scarred forehead into one determined, blazing eye. A Qunari! Was he Tal-Vashoth, or whatever they called the defectors from their heathen creed?
Slowly, reality began to reassert itself, as it does. This wasn't the relative comforts of home in Cumberland, but instead the ruins of a Tevinter prison in the Western Approach, a land so Blighted that all the Maker's love might not return it to flourishing. The two burly men digging her out from under the debris of a wall weren't workmen but, instead, Blackwall the Grey Warden and The Iron Bull, a Tal-Vashoth (at least she'd gotten that right, Cassandra mused bleakly) former member of the Ben-Hassrath. Blackwall's face and undertunic were smeared swith blood and sweat--she hoped that their Venatori enemies had donated the former--and tufts of dense, dark hair peeked from under its collar. He shook is prodigiously maned head, swearing in time with each stone he hurled behind him. "What a pig-headed, wonderful, outrageously stupid, incredibly courageous woman..."
She shook her bleary head, trying to knock some of the cobwebs loose. "I must be even more confused than I thought I was. I cannot tell if Blackwall is paying me compliments or insulting me."
Bull laughed, negligently tossed a rock, and knelt beside her. "He means, Cass, that jumping on that giant's shoulders and driving your apostate-sticker into his skull was so very valiant and so very stupid at the same time."
"Yes." The Warden bunched his heavy shoulders and hurled another rock. "That's precisely what I mean. And I could have probably said it without you kneeling down and taking a few minutes' break."
"I'm a big man," Bull said. "I've got stringent energy requirements." He took Cassandra's hand in his, almost enveloping it although she was not a small woman. "You saved Dorian and Varric, Seeker. That big venak-hol was bearing down on them pretty fiercely. He'd have crushed them for sure if not for your acrobatics."
"Trevelyan," she murmured. "Is the Inquisitor... is he all right?"
"Right as rain," Blackwall said. "Or better than you at least."
Cassandra tried to shift her weight, failed, and squirmed again. She felt Bull's big hands on her shoulders. He pressed her firmly but not without the surprising gentleness he often displayed, keeping her still. "Yeah, Cass, you're not going to want to wriggle around to much. Or look down."
"Wh-why is that?"
He made a disgusted face, something which caused fear to seep into the corners of her mind not wadded with cottony lead, coming as it did from a veteran of the bloody campaign in Seheron. "Your leg is sort of like strawberry preserve... with... er... some cream cheese in it, maybe."
She disregarded his suggestion and did glance at the offending limb. Panic did not set in--perhaps he was used to it from the human and elven warriors in his Chargers--but only a species of curiosity as dull as the ache in her thigh. Pulped, nearly purple flesh vied in vividness with foaming, scarlet blood and the ragged, cracked edges of pale blue bone. Cassandra made a disgusted noise, deep in her throat. "I'm not going to run screaming at the sight of a little blood, Bull. I'm not going to be running anywhere for a while, I surmise. Now, where is Mischa? He's more important than me, than any of us."
"Took a bonk on the head," Blackwall said. "He's resting. The lad makes decisions as bad as you, from time to time. That giant was livid."
Varric ambled up to them, looking scuffed but none the worse for wear. "Well, you'd be livid too if someone had been feeding you red lyrium, Blackie. In the literal sense of the word as much as anything else." He nodded to the Seeker and winced at the state of her leg. "Uh, thanks Cass. That was good of you."
She sighed, wondering about what the Maker would really be like as reality receded from the edges of her rapidly blackening vision. Death felt remarkably like floating in a hot bath. "It was... it was nothing, Varric. Life would be most dull without you to torment me."
Grand Enchantress Fiona struggled over tumbled piles of broken masonry, surprisingly spry considering her advancing years. In spite of them she had insisted on coming to investigate the Tevinter ruin with them, citing more years of studying Darkspawn--and especially their queer, powerful magic--than any of the Inner Circle, including Blackwall, could claim. If it was to be the true alliance that Trevelyan had promised, she insisted, then not allowing her to provide them with her years of expertise would show his offers as nothing but the lies she expected them to be from the beginning. Fiona was a tiny woman, only an inch or two taller than Varric and much slighter, with dark, tangled hair, delicate features and the luminous eyes which so many of the elvhen shared. Her presence, as with most Senior Enchanters and even moreso in the case of this small celebrity, far outstripped any lack of stature, age or infirmity. "What is happening, up here? Clear the way. I might be old but I haven't forgotten how to heal."
"Hello, Grand Enchantress." Cassandra had to laugh. How fitting that she, notorious for her faith and mental rigor even within the Seekers of Truth, should pass her last few moments in the physical world surrounded by a big, horned heathen, a short criminal and the fiery little apostate who'd kicked the mage rebellion from murmuring dust storms into the wild cyclone it had become.
"Glad you can laugh." Fiona ran her delicate, pale fingers in the edge of Cassandra's wound, grew more worried when the injured woman didn't even react. "They say it's the best medicine. I've never been sure why. Potions work a lot faster and creation magic heals worse maiming." She squinted, leaning close and pulling ragged flesh away from split femur itself to assess how bad the break was. Cassandra was, thankfully, not so far gone that she did not wrench in Bull's grasp and moan in agony at this intrusion.
"That's better. You're dying from the leg up, Seeker, but you're not dead yet. Maybe."
"So..." Varric said, "do we splint her leg, try to get her back to camp?"
"No, she'd bleed to death." Fiona pointed to where most of the blood was bubbling out of. It was rich, thick and almost black in color. "There's a little tear in her femoral vein. Luckily not the artery or she'd already be about as lively as the rocks laying on her." The enchantress rubbed her small hands together, generating white light and the peculiar prickling sensation that gathering mana elicited in those surrounding... well, at least those who were not dwarves. "I'm going to dump as much spirit as I can into that tear--I've already used a lot to put Inquisitor Treveylan into a deep, natural sleep--and we might be able to follow Messere Tethras' suggestion."
Fiona rested her hands an inch or two above the gruesome, rent flesh and let warm, soothing energy pour form the veil, into Cassandra's leg. She offered the wry, lopsided grin that made some humans find elven faces inscrutable and beguiling all at once. "If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be using my precious healing spells on a Seeker of Truth I'd have told you that you'd gone barking well mad."
"There has been, in the past year, a giant hole ripped in the sky and one of the Magisters of ancient Tevinter striding abroad with his pet Archdemon. We are all of us living in madness."
"Too true, Seeker, too true. Now..." Fiona shut her eyes to concentrate. "Just lie back and relax. You'll be safe in Skyhold soon."
***
When Cassandra awoke she was, good to the Grand Enchantress' word, safe and sound in the broad, four posted bed in Trevelyan's quarters at Griffon Wing Keep. Three elven women were solemnly shifting around the room, at her bedside and in corners. If she had not recognized them it would have been tempting to consider this another fever dream. Those had drifted hazily through the blackness during this time of recuperation. The one nearest her bed, preparing an infusion of pink healing elixer in a glass vial, was the Grand Enchantress. This wasn't surprising, really. She had been a healer in the Wardens and rebellion, as much as a battlemage, and had mentioned being frustrated that she had found few opportunities to ply her trade of late.
One of the others, Minaeve, had been their researcher before Helissma, the Tranquil, took over the role in Skyhold. The rabbity little Dalish seemed ever unsure of herself, worried that possession might creep up on her at any instant. This, and her predilection for research over passionate concerns, had left Cassandra with the distinct impression that Minaeve would have opted for the Rite of Tranquility instead of facing a demon during the process of Harrowing. She never would, now. For better or worse Trevelyan and Cassandra herself, trained by an order that developed the Rite and its cure, subjected its own initiates to it, were hard at work to outlaw the practice for good in Thedas.
The final woman, Merrill, was a Dalish apostate who'd come to the Inquisition after her husband, Hawke. Her presence made the big, shambling man's broad shoulders a little straighter and brought light flashing into those intense, whiskey brown eyes. Only his little sister Bethany, could do the same. Although Merrill possessed no healing magic she was regarded as an asset to the medical efforts, here, partially due to to her knowledge of healing herbs (one did not live long among the Dalish, Cassandra presumed, without developing some of said knowledge) but, mostly, to an innatelysweet and gentle nature. She had a good heart, Cassandra reflected, even if her casual practice of letting its blood out made the Seeker's skin crawl.
"Grand Enchanter," Cassandra said. Maker how hoarse she was! "You're still with me."
"I usually am. It's the place for a healer, after all."
"Saving my life was one thing, but I am surprised you didn't turn me over to the surgeon. You did not have to do all this."
"No, but I did. Your Inquisitor saved my people when he could have enslaved them, and more. There was once a comtess who didn't have to help me, either, but she chose to instead of letting me die in a puddle of blood, tears and my own sick. She rescued me, sent me to the Circle, and here I am after many adventures that should have killed me but could not have if not for her tiny act of kindness to a knife-ear child." The older woman snorted. "Consider this my repayment to the shemlen of the world."
"I don't mind Templars, Seekers, the Circle or the Chantry." This was Minaeve. She brought a vials of crushed embrium and a plate of chopped royal elfroot to Fiona. The fever must have been persistant if spindleweed and common elfroot had not been enough to quell its ravages. "When I was a child also, and had just been expelled from my clan, two Templars saved my life when a mob of villagers would have ended it most horribly." She sighed, closed her eyes and sank into memory. "The man was enormous, bigger than the Inquisitor or Hawke even. His cloak was was scarlet, held in place by a silver bulldog broach. The woman was imposing, too, epsecially in her silverite armor, but had the warmest brown eyes. She reminded me of Messere Hawke's sister, a bit. She wore an olive colored cloak with trees embroidered on it."
"They purged the flaming, primal rage and fear magic I had begun to spontaneously sprout and stood between me and the mob. Without even drawing his sword or raising his voice the man sent them home, dispelled the crowd as surely as he had done my spells. The woman knelt by me, comforted me, dried my tears. They took me to the Circle that night, fed me, dressed me, gave me a warm place to sleep." She shrugged. "I never knew their names, actually. Isn't that sad?"
"I guess, all told, that's why I feel like I do towards the Tranquil. They have no one to protect them, just as I didn't when I was little, and so I try to look out for them, like those Templars did for me." She chuckled, in the curiously low, husky manner common to so many elves, especially since most of them were so slight. "I guess if I could have been a Templar I would have. A Templar mage? It's a contradiction in terms but a funny one, at least."
"Olives, olive trees..." Something seemed to be bothering Fiona. "That could have been Ser Claire Lune de Olivette, I think." She nodded, grinding the royal elfroot and embrium into a paste with a little spirit extract. "She was a good woman. I knew her in the Montsimmard Circle. I believe that she has died now, killed protecting refugees from a mage who became an abomination, himself a refugee from the Kirkwall Circle, outside of Starkhaven. Standing against one so powerful taken by a demon of despair is poor odds, even if you are a practiced Templar."
"From his bulldog amulet the man sounds like Ser Richard Connleigh. I didn't know him as well, just by reputation. When their partnership split he went to Cumberland, but was gone before I reached the position of Grand Enchantress. They called him a taciturn fellow, firm, fair and fierce."
Minaeve let the information sink in, and Cassandra could not tell if a silvery tear was standing in one of her large, blue eyes or not. "I grieve to hear about the fate of Ser Claire Lune, but am glad that she died as she lived."
Not one for affectionate gestures, Fiona stopped grinding a moment to awkwardly pat the young woman's hand. "I don't know that she's dead, Minaeve. It's such chaos out there that it could have been another woman. Lady de Olivette could be alive and well, fighting the good fight even now. Perhaps the Inquisitor could prevail upon Commander Cullen or Sister Nightingale to seek her out."
"I haven't known many Templars myself," Merrill said. "None at all before I left my clan. Or humans of any kind, for that matter. Most of the ones in Kirkwall were a bit mad. Knight-Commander Meredith was, certainly, and only madmen follow a madwoman." She pondered a moment. "Your Cullen isn't a bad sort, though, even if he did drag our Bethany off to the Circle. I'm not sure that counts since she wanted to go. Besides, I think he's a bit sweet on her and has been for ages." Merrill giggled. "My how I do go on!"
Fiona popped a silver spoon of the royal elfroot and embrium mixture into Cassandra's mouth. "You do, dear, but I rather miss the chatter of apprentices. I don't mind."
"Oh, that's good. I'd hate to be a bother." She fidgeted with her white robe. "You remind me a bit of my clan's late Keeper, Marethari."
"Truly?"
"Yes. Well..." Merrill fidgeted. "Your hair is dark instead of fair, and you don't have vallaslin or an accent like one of the People, and you're a bit gruffer and not possessed or dead... but you are very caring and thoughtful. That's just like her."
Cassandra sighed and grunted, one of what Varric had dubbed her "famous disgusted noises." Merrill had a tendency of prompting those. Fiona, perhaps as the result of a long and overly exciting life well lived, knew just how to respond. "I know a compliment when I hear one, Merrill, even if it's a bit garbled. Thank you." She went to work addressing the Seeker's bandages. They had to be changed frequently, to prevent the onset of any putrefication. Cassandra felt no pain, blessedly, and slipped into oblivion, letting the rare, powerful herbs do their work.
***
When Cassandra woke again--she had no idea if it had been moments, hours or days--the elven women were gone but she found two more visitors, Varric and the Inquisitor himself, sauntering towards her bedside. Varric flashed a bright, blue wink her way. "You're not going to get away from me that easily, Seeker. Besides, I owe you one now."
She snorted. "You owe me several. This one is just the most recent and impressive."
"It is that, indeed." Trevelyan sat beside her and laid a big, callused hand over hers. "It's been... awhile since Coracavus. You slept for so long. I... we, that is, weren't entirely sure you'd be waking up."
"I could say the same for you." She gestured, with her free hand, towards the bandage wrapped around his shaggy, dark hair. "Bull said that the giant struck your head. Were you neglecting your barrier?"
"Er..." he hesitated. "I could tell you what happened but I'm not sure shouting at me would be entirely in the best interest of your health. I mean, I'm only doing this out of care and concern."
"Really."
"What he means, Cass," Varric said, "is that when he saw you flipping end over end like a drunk's dagger in a tavern brawl he dropped his own barrier and threw one around you. That big devil clipped him during the confusion. Not a direct hit, thank Andraste's sweet firm ass, or we'd have a headless Inquisitor. It was almost enough as it was."
"Foolish. I am replacable, Mischa; you are not."
"Hey now, give him a break." Varric knocked on his own head and crossed his eyes, miming the giant's attack. A near death experience had not, so Cassandra had noticed, given the irrepressible surface deshyr much pause. But those were old hat to him as much as any of them. Perhaps even more so, she reflected, considering he was born and bred in the cesspit known as Kirkwall and a dwarven family of noble extraction. "That giant sure did. Both of you, come to think of it."
Trevelyan leaned over and kissed her forehead, concerned at the clamminess but impressed with how her tenders had kept fever at bay. "You're most certainly not replacable, Cassandra Allegra Portia Filomena Pentaghast. They say that without me there is no Inquisition... well, without you I do not think there would be a me. Not anymore, at least."
"It is true, you know." Before she could argue with him Solas oozed from the shadows, behind his voice, like a wisp of veilfire smoke. "Here we are: the four that started it all, and you two the first of us. The Inner Circle of the Inner Circle, if you will." He smiled in his infuriating, enigmatic way and traced a softly glowing green rune in the air. It transformed, turned and fled for the shadows. Cassandra realized, through Seeker training or just several months of having gotten to know Solas, that it was a tiny wisp he had summon for reasons unknown. The Veil was that thin here, or maybe his magic was just that subtle and powerful. "None of us would be who we are, without any of the others, nor would there likely be a world for us to be different in. Or at least not one we would care to consider."
"Right," Trevelyan said, "because there's nothing like a 'great giant friggin' Archdemon' to ruin your party, to quote Sera."
Solas actually laughed, a deep noise that caused his slender shoulders to shake. It was unusual enough to draw Varric's concerned glance. "Are you all right, Chuckles? I kind of meant that nickname to be sarcastic, you know."
The tall mage regained control of himself. "It's just that I never thought I would have to say these words... but Sera spoke most wisely indeed, concerning that." He flicked a nervous glance towards the ceiling. "Now I expect the Maker, all of the gods of Elvhenan and the remaining dragons of the ancient Magisters to come crashing down on us right now to announce their new accord and then commence an eternal orgy on the Seeker's sickbed."
"And I though that my creative comments regarding Andraste's anatomy were bad." Varric nodded in approval. "You may have just described the most amazingly blasphemous tavern brawl in all of recorded history. If I would ever consider disarraying these fair locks by wearing a hat, Chuckles, I might just doff it to you."
"Thank you, I think."
"For what it's worth I'm just glad that we were not taking part in the national passtime of the kingdom of Nevarra. I do not think that an Hiveral or Kaltenzhan would have allowed for as much leeway as that poor, stupid beast gave you, tortured by the Venatori as it was."
"Are you telling me in your roundabout way, darling, that you want me to take you on a dragon hunt?" Cassandra could never just ask for anything, and blunt, even brutal, criticism could at times pass for flirtation on the stony, treacherous territory of her mind. Was it a result of being made Tranquil, however briefly? No one could know, nor likely ever would.
"No, darling; I am telling you that a dragon hunt would probably end with both of us as little sooty smears of blood on the rocks of her nest. Besides..." Cassandra shifted into a more comfortable position in her covers, also surreptitiously--but probably not unnoticed by a perceptive little gnome like Varric, she reckoned--nestling closer to Mischa Trevelyan's powerful, muscular side, "I think that Sera and Iron Bull are much more interested in seeking out and waging war on the dragons of the world than I am."
"It would be their kind of hobby." Varric nodded. "Noisy, dangerous and apt to end in an actual, literal rainstorm of blood."
"So let us stick, then, to books of poetry and the cunning words therein." Her lips curved like the blade of a knife. "I seem to recall that you can make them sharper than any serpent's tooth."
"Yeah, that's the kind of smile that says I ought to be going." Varric bobbed in the funny little bow that Cassandra had seen so many dwarves, both surface and Orzammar varieties, engage in by way of greeting and leave-taking. It was curious how many customs survived exile, in one form or another. She supposed that there would probably still exist similarities in speech and manner between her and many of the Pentaghast scions of Cumberland.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it used to be your 'Varric punching smile,' which I avoided for reasons that would be obvious to the most foolish among men. Now it's your 'Trevelyan kissing smile.' Since I don't get any thrills out of watching two humans try to eat each other's faces I'll go and handle some letters I need to write."
"Tethras family business concerns?"
"One letter of reference to get Josie's little sister an apprenticeship in one of our accounting houses, yeah, but mostly just Hard in Hightown fan mail." He bowed again. "I'll see you folks later."
Solas, also, took his leave. The strange elf did not bother with anything so pedestrian as goodbyes, however, and just sort of faded into the shadows from whence he had come. Cassandra peered into the deep gloom of the chamber's corner, half expecting to find that he lingered, but through means magical or mundane he had made an exit. The Seeker turned her head, seeking the warmth of the Inquisitor's shoulder. "I wonder if he was here at all or just some walking fragment of a dream."
"Yours or his?"
"Does it matter with Solas?"
"You make a good point."
She sighed and leaned more fully into him. Her eyelids felt heavy. "Perhaps this is all a dream, or I truly am dead--though I'm not sure what sins I might have committed to warrant Varric pestering me even in the afterlife." She shivered. Desert air made for cool nights and the sun was even now sinking below the Abyssal Ridge.
He wrapped her in his arms and let a tiny pulse of fire magic surge, flooding her body with warmth, rocking her as gently as one might a tiny, wounded child. "If this is your dream then it's mine, too... let's make the best of it we can." Neither of them mentioned that in no reasonable person's dream would one lover be recovering from a shattered leg. This seemed beside the point and, furthermore, the precise opposite of romantic. Silence stretched its plush blanket over them and the Innermost Circle of the Inquisition slept, curled together in a ruined fortress at the arse end of the world.
I do not own Dragon Age. If I did I would be both rich and very proud of myself since it does all the "shades of gray" things I have been wanting from mah fantasy novels since I was eleven.
***
Cassandra's eyes fluttered open, snug under the warm covers in her bed in Mortalitasi uncle's house, to the sounds of workmen on the street below. They were oddly loud, she thought, considering that his apartments were three floors above Cumberland's streets. What was even odder, she reflected, was the dead giant heaped like a mountain of rags in the corner of her bedroom suite. Its limbs tumbled slackly and the longsword Anthony had given her on her sixteenth birthday sprouted it from its pathetically domed, hairy skull, a flower wrought in scarlet and silver.
One of the workmen heaved a stone away from her. Maker's breath, she wondered, how did all these rocks get into bed with me? He was a barrel chested man, maybe close to his fortieth year, with coarse dark hair and a thick, black beard. The other, large enough to dwarf even this imposing figure, was a Qunari of all things. He pulled away rubble by the handful, sweat pouring off a heavily scarred forehead into one determined, blazing eye. A Qunari! Was he Tal-Vashoth, or whatever they called the defectors from their heathen creed?
Slowly, reality began to reassert itself, as it does. This wasn't the relative comforts of home in Cumberland, but instead the ruins of a Tevinter prison in the Western Approach, a land so Blighted that all the Maker's love might not return it to flourishing. The two burly men digging her out from under the debris of a wall weren't workmen but, instead, Blackwall the Grey Warden and The Iron Bull, a Tal-Vashoth (at least she'd gotten that right, Cassandra mused bleakly) former member of the Ben-Hassrath. Blackwall's face and undertunic were smeared swith blood and sweat--she hoped that their Venatori enemies had donated the former--and tufts of dense, dark hair peeked from under its collar. He shook is prodigiously maned head, swearing in time with each stone he hurled behind him. "What a pig-headed, wonderful, outrageously stupid, incredibly courageous woman..."
She shook her bleary head, trying to knock some of the cobwebs loose. "I must be even more confused than I thought I was. I cannot tell if Blackwall is paying me compliments or insulting me."
Bull laughed, negligently tossed a rock, and knelt beside her. "He means, Cass, that jumping on that giant's shoulders and driving your apostate-sticker into his skull was so very valiant and so very stupid at the same time."
"Yes." The Warden bunched his heavy shoulders and hurled another rock. "That's precisely what I mean. And I could have probably said it without you kneeling down and taking a few minutes' break."
"I'm a big man," Bull said. "I've got stringent energy requirements." He took Cassandra's hand in his, almost enveloping it although she was not a small woman. "You saved Dorian and Varric, Seeker. That big venak-hol was bearing down on them pretty fiercely. He'd have crushed them for sure if not for your acrobatics."
"Trevelyan," she murmured. "Is the Inquisitor... is he all right?"
"Right as rain," Blackwall said. "Or better than you at least."
Cassandra tried to shift her weight, failed, and squirmed again. She felt Bull's big hands on her shoulders. He pressed her firmly but not without the surprising gentleness he often displayed, keeping her still. "Yeah, Cass, you're not going to want to wriggle around to much. Or look down."
"Wh-why is that?"
He made a disgusted face, something which caused fear to seep into the corners of her mind not wadded with cottony lead, coming as it did from a veteran of the bloody campaign in Seheron. "Your leg is sort of like strawberry preserve... with... er... some cream cheese in it, maybe."
She disregarded his suggestion and did glance at the offending limb. Panic did not set in--perhaps he was used to it from the human and elven warriors in his Chargers--but only a species of curiosity as dull as the ache in her thigh. Pulped, nearly purple flesh vied in vividness with foaming, scarlet blood and the ragged, cracked edges of pale blue bone. Cassandra made a disgusted noise, deep in her throat. "I'm not going to run screaming at the sight of a little blood, Bull. I'm not going to be running anywhere for a while, I surmise. Now, where is Mischa? He's more important than me, than any of us."
"Took a bonk on the head," Blackwall said. "He's resting. The lad makes decisions as bad as you, from time to time. That giant was livid."
Varric ambled up to them, looking scuffed but none the worse for wear. "Well, you'd be livid too if someone had been feeding you red lyrium, Blackie. In the literal sense of the word as much as anything else." He nodded to the Seeker and winced at the state of her leg. "Uh, thanks Cass. That was good of you."
She sighed, wondering about what the Maker would really be like as reality receded from the edges of her rapidly blackening vision. Death felt remarkably like floating in a hot bath. "It was... it was nothing, Varric. Life would be most dull without you to torment me."
Grand Enchantress Fiona struggled over tumbled piles of broken masonry, surprisingly spry considering her advancing years. In spite of them she had insisted on coming to investigate the Tevinter ruin with them, citing more years of studying Darkspawn--and especially their queer, powerful magic--than any of the Inner Circle, including Blackwall, could claim. If it was to be the true alliance that Trevelyan had promised, she insisted, then not allowing her to provide them with her years of expertise would show his offers as nothing but the lies she expected them to be from the beginning. Fiona was a tiny woman, only an inch or two taller than Varric and much slighter, with dark, tangled hair, delicate features and the luminous eyes which so many of the elvhen shared. Her presence, as with most Senior Enchanters and even moreso in the case of this small celebrity, far outstripped any lack of stature, age or infirmity. "What is happening, up here? Clear the way. I might be old but I haven't forgotten how to heal."
"Hello, Grand Enchantress." Cassandra had to laugh. How fitting that she, notorious for her faith and mental rigor even within the Seekers of Truth, should pass her last few moments in the physical world surrounded by a big, horned heathen, a short criminal and the fiery little apostate who'd kicked the mage rebellion from murmuring dust storms into the wild cyclone it had become.
"Glad you can laugh." Fiona ran her delicate, pale fingers in the edge of Cassandra's wound, grew more worried when the injured woman didn't even react. "They say it's the best medicine. I've never been sure why. Potions work a lot faster and creation magic heals worse maiming." She squinted, leaning close and pulling ragged flesh away from split femur itself to assess how bad the break was. Cassandra was, thankfully, not so far gone that she did not wrench in Bull's grasp and moan in agony at this intrusion.
"That's better. You're dying from the leg up, Seeker, but you're not dead yet. Maybe."
"So..." Varric said, "do we splint her leg, try to get her back to camp?"
"No, she'd bleed to death." Fiona pointed to where most of the blood was bubbling out of. It was rich, thick and almost black in color. "There's a little tear in her femoral vein. Luckily not the artery or she'd already be about as lively as the rocks laying on her." The enchantress rubbed her small hands together, generating white light and the peculiar prickling sensation that gathering mana elicited in those surrounding... well, at least those who were not dwarves. "I'm going to dump as much spirit as I can into that tear--I've already used a lot to put Inquisitor Treveylan into a deep, natural sleep--and we might be able to follow Messere Tethras' suggestion."
Fiona rested her hands an inch or two above the gruesome, rent flesh and let warm, soothing energy pour form the veil, into Cassandra's leg. She offered the wry, lopsided grin that made some humans find elven faces inscrutable and beguiling all at once. "If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be using my precious healing spells on a Seeker of Truth I'd have told you that you'd gone barking well mad."
"There has been, in the past year, a giant hole ripped in the sky and one of the Magisters of ancient Tevinter striding abroad with his pet Archdemon. We are all of us living in madness."
"Too true, Seeker, too true. Now..." Fiona shut her eyes to concentrate. "Just lie back and relax. You'll be safe in Skyhold soon."
***
When Cassandra awoke she was, good to the Grand Enchantress' word, safe and sound in the broad, four posted bed in Trevelyan's quarters at Griffon Wing Keep. Three elven women were solemnly shifting around the room, at her bedside and in corners. If she had not recognized them it would have been tempting to consider this another fever dream. Those had drifted hazily through the blackness during this time of recuperation. The one nearest her bed, preparing an infusion of pink healing elixer in a glass vial, was the Grand Enchantress. This wasn't surprising, really. She had been a healer in the Wardens and rebellion, as much as a battlemage, and had mentioned being frustrated that she had found few opportunities to ply her trade of late.
One of the others, Minaeve, had been their researcher before Helissma, the Tranquil, took over the role in Skyhold. The rabbity little Dalish seemed ever unsure of herself, worried that possession might creep up on her at any instant. This, and her predilection for research over passionate concerns, had left Cassandra with the distinct impression that Minaeve would have opted for the Rite of Tranquility instead of facing a demon during the process of Harrowing. She never would, now. For better or worse Trevelyan and Cassandra herself, trained by an order that developed the Rite and its cure, subjected its own initiates to it, were hard at work to outlaw the practice for good in Thedas.
The final woman, Merrill, was a Dalish apostate who'd come to the Inquisition after her husband, Hawke. Her presence made the big, shambling man's broad shoulders a little straighter and brought light flashing into those intense, whiskey brown eyes. Only his little sister Bethany, could do the same. Although Merrill possessed no healing magic she was regarded as an asset to the medical efforts, here, partially due to to her knowledge of healing herbs (one did not live long among the Dalish, Cassandra presumed, without developing some of said knowledge) but, mostly, to an innatelysweet and gentle nature. She had a good heart, Cassandra reflected, even if her casual practice of letting its blood out made the Seeker's skin crawl.
"Grand Enchanter," Cassandra said. Maker how hoarse she was! "You're still with me."
"I usually am. It's the place for a healer, after all."
"Saving my life was one thing, but I am surprised you didn't turn me over to the surgeon. You did not have to do all this."
"No, but I did. Your Inquisitor saved my people when he could have enslaved them, and more. There was once a comtess who didn't have to help me, either, but she chose to instead of letting me die in a puddle of blood, tears and my own sick. She rescued me, sent me to the Circle, and here I am after many adventures that should have killed me but could not have if not for her tiny act of kindness to a knife-ear child." The older woman snorted. "Consider this my repayment to the shemlen of the world."
"I don't mind Templars, Seekers, the Circle or the Chantry." This was Minaeve. She brought a vials of crushed embrium and a plate of chopped royal elfroot to Fiona. The fever must have been persistant if spindleweed and common elfroot had not been enough to quell its ravages. "When I was a child also, and had just been expelled from my clan, two Templars saved my life when a mob of villagers would have ended it most horribly." She sighed, closed her eyes and sank into memory. "The man was enormous, bigger than the Inquisitor or Hawke even. His cloak was was scarlet, held in place by a silver bulldog broach. The woman was imposing, too, epsecially in her silverite armor, but had the warmest brown eyes. She reminded me of Messere Hawke's sister, a bit. She wore an olive colored cloak with trees embroidered on it."
"They purged the flaming, primal rage and fear magic I had begun to spontaneously sprout and stood between me and the mob. Without even drawing his sword or raising his voice the man sent them home, dispelled the crowd as surely as he had done my spells. The woman knelt by me, comforted me, dried my tears. They took me to the Circle that night, fed me, dressed me, gave me a warm place to sleep." She shrugged. "I never knew their names, actually. Isn't that sad?"
"I guess, all told, that's why I feel like I do towards the Tranquil. They have no one to protect them, just as I didn't when I was little, and so I try to look out for them, like those Templars did for me." She chuckled, in the curiously low, husky manner common to so many elves, especially since most of them were so slight. "I guess if I could have been a Templar I would have. A Templar mage? It's a contradiction in terms but a funny one, at least."
"Olives, olive trees..." Something seemed to be bothering Fiona. "That could have been Ser Claire Lune de Olivette, I think." She nodded, grinding the royal elfroot and embrium into a paste with a little spirit extract. "She was a good woman. I knew her in the Montsimmard Circle. I believe that she has died now, killed protecting refugees from a mage who became an abomination, himself a refugee from the Kirkwall Circle, outside of Starkhaven. Standing against one so powerful taken by a demon of despair is poor odds, even if you are a practiced Templar."
"From his bulldog amulet the man sounds like Ser Richard Connleigh. I didn't know him as well, just by reputation. When their partnership split he went to Cumberland, but was gone before I reached the position of Grand Enchantress. They called him a taciturn fellow, firm, fair and fierce."
Minaeve let the information sink in, and Cassandra could not tell if a silvery tear was standing in one of her large, blue eyes or not. "I grieve to hear about the fate of Ser Claire Lune, but am glad that she died as she lived."
Not one for affectionate gestures, Fiona stopped grinding a moment to awkwardly pat the young woman's hand. "I don't know that she's dead, Minaeve. It's such chaos out there that it could have been another woman. Lady de Olivette could be alive and well, fighting the good fight even now. Perhaps the Inquisitor could prevail upon Commander Cullen or Sister Nightingale to seek her out."
"I haven't known many Templars myself," Merrill said. "None at all before I left my clan. Or humans of any kind, for that matter. Most of the ones in Kirkwall were a bit mad. Knight-Commander Meredith was, certainly, and only madmen follow a madwoman." She pondered a moment. "Your Cullen isn't a bad sort, though, even if he did drag our Bethany off to the Circle. I'm not sure that counts since she wanted to go. Besides, I think he's a bit sweet on her and has been for ages." Merrill giggled. "My how I do go on!"
Fiona popped a silver spoon of the royal elfroot and embrium mixture into Cassandra's mouth. "You do, dear, but I rather miss the chatter of apprentices. I don't mind."
"Oh, that's good. I'd hate to be a bother." She fidgeted with her white robe. "You remind me a bit of my clan's late Keeper, Marethari."
"Truly?"
"Yes. Well..." Merrill fidgeted. "Your hair is dark instead of fair, and you don't have vallaslin or an accent like one of the People, and you're a bit gruffer and not possessed or dead... but you are very caring and thoughtful. That's just like her."
Cassandra sighed and grunted, one of what Varric had dubbed her "famous disgusted noises." Merrill had a tendency of prompting those. Fiona, perhaps as the result of a long and overly exciting life well lived, knew just how to respond. "I know a compliment when I hear one, Merrill, even if it's a bit garbled. Thank you." She went to work addressing the Seeker's bandages. They had to be changed frequently, to prevent the onset of any putrefication. Cassandra felt no pain, blessedly, and slipped into oblivion, letting the rare, powerful herbs do their work.
***
When Cassandra woke again--she had no idea if it had been moments, hours or days--the elven women were gone but she found two more visitors, Varric and the Inquisitor himself, sauntering towards her bedside. Varric flashed a bright, blue wink her way. "You're not going to get away from me that easily, Seeker. Besides, I owe you one now."
She snorted. "You owe me several. This one is just the most recent and impressive."
"It is that, indeed." Trevelyan sat beside her and laid a big, callused hand over hers. "It's been... awhile since Coracavus. You slept for so long. I... we, that is, weren't entirely sure you'd be waking up."
"I could say the same for you." She gestured, with her free hand, towards the bandage wrapped around his shaggy, dark hair. "Bull said that the giant struck your head. Were you neglecting your barrier?"
"Er..." he hesitated. "I could tell you what happened but I'm not sure shouting at me would be entirely in the best interest of your health. I mean, I'm only doing this out of care and concern."
"Really."
"What he means, Cass," Varric said, "is that when he saw you flipping end over end like a drunk's dagger in a tavern brawl he dropped his own barrier and threw one around you. That big devil clipped him during the confusion. Not a direct hit, thank Andraste's sweet firm ass, or we'd have a headless Inquisitor. It was almost enough as it was."
"Foolish. I am replacable, Mischa; you are not."
"Hey now, give him a break." Varric knocked on his own head and crossed his eyes, miming the giant's attack. A near death experience had not, so Cassandra had noticed, given the irrepressible surface deshyr much pause. But those were old hat to him as much as any of them. Perhaps even more so, she reflected, considering he was born and bred in the cesspit known as Kirkwall and a dwarven family of noble extraction. "That giant sure did. Both of you, come to think of it."
Trevelyan leaned over and kissed her forehead, concerned at the clamminess but impressed with how her tenders had kept fever at bay. "You're most certainly not replacable, Cassandra Allegra Portia Filomena Pentaghast. They say that without me there is no Inquisition... well, without you I do not think there would be a me. Not anymore, at least."
"It is true, you know." Before she could argue with him Solas oozed from the shadows, behind his voice, like a wisp of veilfire smoke. "Here we are: the four that started it all, and you two the first of us. The Inner Circle of the Inner Circle, if you will." He smiled in his infuriating, enigmatic way and traced a softly glowing green rune in the air. It transformed, turned and fled for the shadows. Cassandra realized, through Seeker training or just several months of having gotten to know Solas, that it was a tiny wisp he had summon for reasons unknown. The Veil was that thin here, or maybe his magic was just that subtle and powerful. "None of us would be who we are, without any of the others, nor would there likely be a world for us to be different in. Or at least not one we would care to consider."
"Right," Trevelyan said, "because there's nothing like a 'great giant friggin' Archdemon' to ruin your party, to quote Sera."
Solas actually laughed, a deep noise that caused his slender shoulders to shake. It was unusual enough to draw Varric's concerned glance. "Are you all right, Chuckles? I kind of meant that nickname to be sarcastic, you know."
The tall mage regained control of himself. "It's just that I never thought I would have to say these words... but Sera spoke most wisely indeed, concerning that." He flicked a nervous glance towards the ceiling. "Now I expect the Maker, all of the gods of Elvhenan and the remaining dragons of the ancient Magisters to come crashing down on us right now to announce their new accord and then commence an eternal orgy on the Seeker's sickbed."
"And I though that my creative comments regarding Andraste's anatomy were bad." Varric nodded in approval. "You may have just described the most amazingly blasphemous tavern brawl in all of recorded history. If I would ever consider disarraying these fair locks by wearing a hat, Chuckles, I might just doff it to you."
"Thank you, I think."
"For what it's worth I'm just glad that we were not taking part in the national passtime of the kingdom of Nevarra. I do not think that an Hiveral or Kaltenzhan would have allowed for as much leeway as that poor, stupid beast gave you, tortured by the Venatori as it was."
"Are you telling me in your roundabout way, darling, that you want me to take you on a dragon hunt?" Cassandra could never just ask for anything, and blunt, even brutal, criticism could at times pass for flirtation on the stony, treacherous territory of her mind. Was it a result of being made Tranquil, however briefly? No one could know, nor likely ever would.
"No, darling; I am telling you that a dragon hunt would probably end with both of us as little sooty smears of blood on the rocks of her nest. Besides..." Cassandra shifted into a more comfortable position in her covers, also surreptitiously--but probably not unnoticed by a perceptive little gnome like Varric, she reckoned--nestling closer to Mischa Trevelyan's powerful, muscular side, "I think that Sera and Iron Bull are much more interested in seeking out and waging war on the dragons of the world than I am."
"It would be their kind of hobby." Varric nodded. "Noisy, dangerous and apt to end in an actual, literal rainstorm of blood."
"So let us stick, then, to books of poetry and the cunning words therein." Her lips curved like the blade of a knife. "I seem to recall that you can make them sharper than any serpent's tooth."
"Yeah, that's the kind of smile that says I ought to be going." Varric bobbed in the funny little bow that Cassandra had seen so many dwarves, both surface and Orzammar varieties, engage in by way of greeting and leave-taking. It was curious how many customs survived exile, in one form or another. She supposed that there would probably still exist similarities in speech and manner between her and many of the Pentaghast scions of Cumberland.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it used to be your 'Varric punching smile,' which I avoided for reasons that would be obvious to the most foolish among men. Now it's your 'Trevelyan kissing smile.' Since I don't get any thrills out of watching two humans try to eat each other's faces I'll go and handle some letters I need to write."
"Tethras family business concerns?"
"One letter of reference to get Josie's little sister an apprenticeship in one of our accounting houses, yeah, but mostly just Hard in Hightown fan mail." He bowed again. "I'll see you folks later."
Solas, also, took his leave. The strange elf did not bother with anything so pedestrian as goodbyes, however, and just sort of faded into the shadows from whence he had come. Cassandra peered into the deep gloom of the chamber's corner, half expecting to find that he lingered, but through means magical or mundane he had made an exit. The Seeker turned her head, seeking the warmth of the Inquisitor's shoulder. "I wonder if he was here at all or just some walking fragment of a dream."
"Yours or his?"
"Does it matter with Solas?"
"You make a good point."
She sighed and leaned more fully into him. Her eyelids felt heavy. "Perhaps this is all a dream, or I truly am dead--though I'm not sure what sins I might have committed to warrant Varric pestering me even in the afterlife." She shivered. Desert air made for cool nights and the sun was even now sinking below the Abyssal Ridge.
He wrapped her in his arms and let a tiny pulse of fire magic surge, flooding her body with warmth, rocking her as gently as one might a tiny, wounded child. "If this is your dream then it's mine, too... let's make the best of it we can." Neither of them mentioned that in no reasonable person's dream would one lover be recovering from a shattered leg. This seemed beside the point and, furthermore, the precise opposite of romantic. Silence stretched its plush blanket over them and the Innermost Circle of the Inquisition slept, curled together in a ruined fortress at the arse end of the world.