Dragon Age: Inquisition fic -- Three Songs We Don't Sing in This Bar
Maryden the Bard knows there are three songs you don't play around the Inquisition. gen with background pairing Inquisitor/Blackwall, spoilers only through the end of the original game
My Lady Dragon
Maryden has been performing in the Singing Maiden in Haven for a few weeks. As a rule, it’s a good gig. The Inquisition soldiers are like soldiers everywhere, and the townsfolk are glad of some new music. Everybody appreciates some entertainment in a small town in the back of beyond. Maryden has played far wealthier crowds in far larger cities, but this is where it’s happening. This is where change is happening in Thedas. This is where the Herald of Andraste is. This is where the old institutions will die and the new ones begin, and if ever there was a thing that a minstrel needed to see, it’s this.
Not that she knows the Herald, not more than to pass a greeting. The Herald doesn’t spend time in the Singing Maiden. She’s a Dalish elf nearly twenty years older than Maryden herself, and Maryden’s no spring chicken. She’s been ten years on the road, and her playing shows it. But the Herald - I mean, who would have thought the Herald of Andraste would be a weathered Dalish scout whose tongue is nearly as sharp as her arrows? It’s the kind of thing that makes you think Andraste really is involved, because if the Divine Justinia’s servants wanted to keep power by coming up with a Herald who would be their puppet, it’s clear Elleth Lavellan isn’t it. She’s nobody’s puppet, that much is clear.
She came in the tavern once while Maryden was singing some old love song, but didn’t even stay long enough to buy a drink. She’s friendly enough with the tradesmen, so maybe she just doesn’t like taverns. Maker, Maryden’s known some Dalish who don’t even like houses! And it was very crowded that evening.
It’s a couple of days later that she’s coincidentally playing the same song, My Lady Dragon, when Varric Tethras starts frowning.
Your talons my willing heart may rend
And my flesh with delight suspend
Although I know how this will end
My lady dragon.
Maryden finishes, and Varric nods like he wants to talk to her. “Taking a break now,” she says to her audience and lets him lead her over to a table.
He’s to the point. “We don’t sing that song in this bar.”
“What?”
Varric is serious. “We don’t sing that song here. Anything else. Not that song.”
“Why?” The idea that it could offend anybody is ludicrous. “It’s an old chestnut. It must be twenty years old. Everybody’s done it.”
“Not here,” Varric says.
“Is this some kind of elf thing? I mean, comparing a lady to a dragon is poetic license, right? I know they’ve got a dragon goddess, but nobody’s saying that the lady is actually a goddess. It’s a love song. You compare your lover to all kinds of things in love songs.”
Varric crosses his arms. “I’m just saying. We don’t play that here.”
“I’ve got it,” Maryden says. It’s annoying, but Varric is the taste setter. If he goes off her sets, others will follow. And frankly who cares if Varric doesn’t like one old song? Or maybe it’s the Herald who doesn’t like it, or that bald elf who always seems offended. There are a lot of songs in her repertory. “Fine. No more My Lady Dragon.”
“Much appreciated,” Varric says.
The Ballad of Thom Rainier
Oh Thom Rainier escaped the noose
When Chapuis drank the poison down
And as all know he’s on the loose
A fugitive to this sweet day
So traveler, be wary if you may
Benighted sit in some lone wood
And hear a stranger ask for fire
Care you should take let he draw near,
That butchering murderer Thom Rainier!
Maryden brings the song to an end, glancing around the Herald’s Rest. It’s almost closing time and the crowd has thinned out. The Herald’s Rest isn’t a large tavern, but it’s the only one in Skyhold, so it always has good custom. Still, it’s late. Even Sera has gone up to bed. A couple of the Chargers are still nursing drinks and Blackwall is inscrutable in a dark corner, but it’s time to wrap it up. “Thank you, everybody. See you tomorrow night!” She unslings her mandolin.
The young man, Cole, is suddenly beside her. He often listens to her sets from beginning to end, but this time she hasn’t seen him all night.
“You shouldn’t play that song here,” he says, his blue eyes just a little unfocused, as though he is looking at something behind her.
“Why not?”
“It makes people unhappy.”
Maryden blinks. “Because it’s about a murder? There are lots of songs about murders.”
Cole looks at her very directly. “You came to Skyhold because you wanted to help. You wanted to make people feel better and do better. This song makes people unhappy. Don’t play it.”
Maryden feel herself flushing, something she doesn’t usually do at all. “I’m not going to take every song about murder and death off my program. I’d have nothing to sing about but field mice frolicking in the spring.”
“Not all the songs,” Cole says tranquilly. “Just this one.”
There is something oddly compelling about Cole. He understands people. He understands her. He understands why she risked life and limb to stay with the Inquisition after the destruction of Haven. Maryden sighs. “If you say so,” she says.
The Redemption of Thom Rainier
And then a bunch of things happen, and it looks like it’s going to be the end of the world. Even a minstrel takes up sword at need. Maryden is there when Corypheus comes, there when Elleth Lavellan calls the dragon. She sees it like something out of a myth, the blood-red sky and the great green beast, the slight, scarred elvhen woman standing at its side for a moment, her hand on its emerald flank. Mythal’s dragon, Maryden thinks, and the first couplet knits together even as Corypheus’ forces come on. She sees the charge, Blackwall just ahead of the Inquisitor covering her to the left, her bow aimed above his right shoulder, before a stone hits her in the head and all spins down into darkness.
Now she’s back at the Herald’s Rest. She managed to drag herself off the hospital pallet to play at the celebration, insisting that the show had to go on even with a bandage on her head, and if she remembers little of the evening, Maryden can say she played. But that was a week ago. The world is healing and so is she, writing out her verses of an afternoon by a window in the tavern. It’s a quiet afternoon. The Iron Bull is reading something or other at his usual table, and Sera’s voice floats in from the kitchen where she seems to be getting a ploughman’s lunch to take with her.
Another merchant caravan is arriving with more supplies. It will be a busy night, and easy enough to find someone to carry her notations to a sheet music publisher in Kirkwall. The world will be hungry to know what happened here. This ballad is going to be her greatest success.
Maryden smiles, watching the fresh drizzling rain across the courtyard. She turns back to the verse for one more bit of polishing.
Lady, I will be your shield
My body your breastplate
And my heart a refuge
For your beating wings.
It’s good, the best thing she’s ever done. It will be played from one end of Thedas to the other in places high and low. It will tell the story. But she’s sure of one thing: nobody will sing that song in this bar.
My Lady Dragon
Maryden has been performing in the Singing Maiden in Haven for a few weeks. As a rule, it’s a good gig. The Inquisition soldiers are like soldiers everywhere, and the townsfolk are glad of some new music. Everybody appreciates some entertainment in a small town in the back of beyond. Maryden has played far wealthier crowds in far larger cities, but this is where it’s happening. This is where change is happening in Thedas. This is where the Herald of Andraste is. This is where the old institutions will die and the new ones begin, and if ever there was a thing that a minstrel needed to see, it’s this.
Not that she knows the Herald, not more than to pass a greeting. The Herald doesn’t spend time in the Singing Maiden. She’s a Dalish elf nearly twenty years older than Maryden herself, and Maryden’s no spring chicken. She’s been ten years on the road, and her playing shows it. But the Herald - I mean, who would have thought the Herald of Andraste would be a weathered Dalish scout whose tongue is nearly as sharp as her arrows? It’s the kind of thing that makes you think Andraste really is involved, because if the Divine Justinia’s servants wanted to keep power by coming up with a Herald who would be their puppet, it’s clear Elleth Lavellan isn’t it. She’s nobody’s puppet, that much is clear.
She came in the tavern once while Maryden was singing some old love song, but didn’t even stay long enough to buy a drink. She’s friendly enough with the tradesmen, so maybe she just doesn’t like taverns. Maker, Maryden’s known some Dalish who don’t even like houses! And it was very crowded that evening.
It’s a couple of days later that she’s coincidentally playing the same song, My Lady Dragon, when Varric Tethras starts frowning.
Your talons my willing heart may rend
And my flesh with delight suspend
Although I know how this will end
My lady dragon.
Maryden finishes, and Varric nods like he wants to talk to her. “Taking a break now,” she says to her audience and lets him lead her over to a table.
He’s to the point. “We don’t sing that song in this bar.”
“What?”
Varric is serious. “We don’t sing that song here. Anything else. Not that song.”
“Why?” The idea that it could offend anybody is ludicrous. “It’s an old chestnut. It must be twenty years old. Everybody’s done it.”
“Not here,” Varric says.
“Is this some kind of elf thing? I mean, comparing a lady to a dragon is poetic license, right? I know they’ve got a dragon goddess, but nobody’s saying that the lady is actually a goddess. It’s a love song. You compare your lover to all kinds of things in love songs.”
Varric crosses his arms. “I’m just saying. We don’t play that here.”
“I’ve got it,” Maryden says. It’s annoying, but Varric is the taste setter. If he goes off her sets, others will follow. And frankly who cares if Varric doesn’t like one old song? Or maybe it’s the Herald who doesn’t like it, or that bald elf who always seems offended. There are a lot of songs in her repertory. “Fine. No more My Lady Dragon.”
“Much appreciated,” Varric says.
The Ballad of Thom Rainier
Oh Thom Rainier escaped the noose
When Chapuis drank the poison down
And as all know he’s on the loose
A fugitive to this sweet day
So traveler, be wary if you may
Benighted sit in some lone wood
And hear a stranger ask for fire
Care you should take let he draw near,
That butchering murderer Thom Rainier!
Maryden brings the song to an end, glancing around the Herald’s Rest. It’s almost closing time and the crowd has thinned out. The Herald’s Rest isn’t a large tavern, but it’s the only one in Skyhold, so it always has good custom. Still, it’s late. Even Sera has gone up to bed. A couple of the Chargers are still nursing drinks and Blackwall is inscrutable in a dark corner, but it’s time to wrap it up. “Thank you, everybody. See you tomorrow night!” She unslings her mandolin.
The young man, Cole, is suddenly beside her. He often listens to her sets from beginning to end, but this time she hasn’t seen him all night.
“You shouldn’t play that song here,” he says, his blue eyes just a little unfocused, as though he is looking at something behind her.
“Why not?”
“It makes people unhappy.”
Maryden blinks. “Because it’s about a murder? There are lots of songs about murders.”
Cole looks at her very directly. “You came to Skyhold because you wanted to help. You wanted to make people feel better and do better. This song makes people unhappy. Don’t play it.”
Maryden feel herself flushing, something she doesn’t usually do at all. “I’m not going to take every song about murder and death off my program. I’d have nothing to sing about but field mice frolicking in the spring.”
“Not all the songs,” Cole says tranquilly. “Just this one.”
There is something oddly compelling about Cole. He understands people. He understands her. He understands why she risked life and limb to stay with the Inquisition after the destruction of Haven. Maryden sighs. “If you say so,” she says.
The Redemption of Thom Rainier
And then a bunch of things happen, and it looks like it’s going to be the end of the world. Even a minstrel takes up sword at need. Maryden is there when Corypheus comes, there when Elleth Lavellan calls the dragon. She sees it like something out of a myth, the blood-red sky and the great green beast, the slight, scarred elvhen woman standing at its side for a moment, her hand on its emerald flank. Mythal’s dragon, Maryden thinks, and the first couplet knits together even as Corypheus’ forces come on. She sees the charge, Blackwall just ahead of the Inquisitor covering her to the left, her bow aimed above his right shoulder, before a stone hits her in the head and all spins down into darkness.
Now she’s back at the Herald’s Rest. She managed to drag herself off the hospital pallet to play at the celebration, insisting that the show had to go on even with a bandage on her head, and if she remembers little of the evening, Maryden can say she played. But that was a week ago. The world is healing and so is she, writing out her verses of an afternoon by a window in the tavern. It’s a quiet afternoon. The Iron Bull is reading something or other at his usual table, and Sera’s voice floats in from the kitchen where she seems to be getting a ploughman’s lunch to take with her.
Another merchant caravan is arriving with more supplies. It will be a busy night, and easy enough to find someone to carry her notations to a sheet music publisher in Kirkwall. The world will be hungry to know what happened here. This ballad is going to be her greatest success.
Maryden smiles, watching the fresh drizzling rain across the courtyard. She turns back to the verse for one more bit of polishing.
Lady, I will be your shield
My body your breastplate
And my heart a refuge
For your beating wings.
It’s good, the best thing she’s ever done. It will be played from one end of Thedas to the other in places high and low. It will tell the story. But she’s sure of one thing: nobody will sing that song in this bar.