Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s raining again, in Dock Town.

But then again, it never really stops.

A light chuckle fills the air between them when a playful foot slip upon the wet stone pavement dangerously— an accident prevented by by Neve’s quick reflexes as she grabs hold of her companion’s waist and pulled her closer.

“Forward, are you not?”

“Just careful,” Neve said with a smile, aware that her voice unintentionally dropping a register because of how intoxicated she feels with this woman in her arms. “You’ve been slipping more than once ever since we stepped outside.”

“Well, what can I say? I keep falling for your charms.”

Neve hates that she laughs at the dumb pun. Maybe it’s the alcohol—or maybe it’s the gentle hand caressing her cheek before pulling her back in for a kiss. They’re pressed against the dingy, dirty wall behind the tavern with the faint music of the piano filling the cold air around them—so far away from the word romantic, and yet she could feel her heart skip in exhilaration with such a simple touch.

The kiss that started out playful became deeper, and Neve finds herself yearning for more, gasping against the mouth pressed almost desperately against hers.

They took their time separating, and Neve’s straying eyes lands on the exposed skin of this stranger’s toned arms. Her mouth quirk up at the sight of geometrical blue lines etched upon the fair skin of woman’s upper right forearm, leading up to her shoulder.

“This is beautiful.” She traces the lines with curious fingers, aware of the mouth peppering her neck with hungry kisses. “I ah—I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Is that so?” The woman pulls away for a bit and intentionally flexes said arm so that her muscles move and the blue lines ripple under the dimmed light. Neve laughs, but she could not deny that the sight stokes the embers of arousal in her belly. “If you want, I can let you take a closer look at it.”

Her laughter tapers off as their eyes met once more, the unspoken offer loud in the air.

Neve is not drunk, but maybe on the way there, and she’s…lonely.

She’s no stranger to loneliness, and yet there are days where it hits her harder than most. When her body yearns for the warmth of a touch that isn’t her own.

So, what’s the damage, right?

She brings their lips together in a kiss as an answer, leaning up a little to close their small height gap so she could suck on that plump bottom lip like she’s been meaning to since how many hours ago.

“I’ve got a place close by. Do you have enough time?”

“For you? I have forever.” The blue eyes glints with unspoken promise under the red light of the tavern signage and the small voice in the corner of Neve’s mind that wishes for more is begging for her to take this chance.

So, Neve smiles, and tug on a calloused hand before leading them both down an alley that she knew by heart.

//

The memory of that night stays with Neve for the following days, and if there is one thing that she regrets following that dalliance, is the fact that Neve never really asked for that woman’s personal details afterwards.

Not that there was any chance, as the woman left Neve’s apartment before dawn, perfectly timed as if she knows that a Neve who’s knocked out after a good romp in the bed is a Neve that will sleep for more than two hours.

The detective woke up alone to her messy bed, the combined scent of her leftover incense, crappy wine and lyrium in the small box that is her apartment, along with the faint sense of loss.

//

She doesn’t dwell on the memory of that night, because Neve might be a sucker but she’s not a sap.

…But Neve is also mature enough to admit that she finds herself scrutinizing the Imperial Templars much closer after that night, as if trying to find which one of them is the one responsible for giving her her last good romp before the skies starts raining demons. She’s using that faint sense of lyrium as her only clue, because Neve knows that it’s not the kind that she herself uses. The smell is peppery thick when it’s left in the air— a less potent version of the liquid cold one she uses daily. It’s probably not made in Tevinter, so maybe imported or a gift, from outside of the country.

She doesn’t even know why she’s obsessing over this clue, and what she’d do even if she finds the woman responsible for it. Thank her? Scold her for not leaving her personal details behind for Neve to contact in case she wants a repeat? Neve couldn’t even get a name out of the woman—when she’d asked for it, the blue-eyed stranger only smirk and said ‘You can call me God in bed. Or Maker, if you want. Anything than Dumat, preferably.’

It was infuriating and usually Neve wouldn’t fall for lines like that but that infuriating woman said those words with her face between Neve’s legs, and she wasn’t quite in the right mind to quite scold her for it. That charming smirk did her in, and well, now Neve’s left maudlin after just one night.

Which would be fine if it is any other day, but…the memories have chosen the worst time to pop back up in the detective’s mind…and it’s making it really hard for her to concentrate on the meeting.

“There’s another moving part in this. Mythal.” Her hands tightened around the cup of coffee she’s been nursing as everyone’s attention turns to her. “She was keeping the peace.”

“Mythal and Solas were close,” Harding said from her right, eyes lost in memory of the past. “The Inquisition found a temple to Mythal, and there were wolf statues everywhere.”

“Then she sides with Elgar’nan over him. A betrayal.”

The team are gathered in the library, mulling over the memory of regret they saw when they put one of the Wolf Statuettes upon the altar on the second floor. There are many things to talk about, and everyone’s putting their head in together to try and piece out the past to know more about their adversaries.

And yet…Neve’s mind is…distracted by something else.

Rook’s sigh from across the table pulls her back from her musing, and Neve watches quietly as the Warden roll up her sleeves, gathering her thoughts before speaking. “I think I get where Mythal is coming from.”

“Really?” Bellara sounds out in disbelief, and the Warden gives her a small bitter smile, before nodding.

“Yes. You’ve just…finished some big war, everyone is exhausted, and now Elgar’nan won’t give up power. If Mythal had sided with Solas, would Elgar’nan have backed down?”

“Not a chance.” Davrin scoffs from Rook’s left, and Harding is in agreement.

“It would have led to another war. Mythal tried to keep the peace.”

“And Solas must see that, but still can’t accept that she chose peaceful politics over his ideals.”

“Perhaps…these murals aren’t simply memories. They’re what Solas wishes to forget.”

Neve’s small snort is lost under Lucanis agreeing with Emmrich, and she’s glad for it. Truly, this must be the fade messing with her because what kind of timing is this?? For her to be getting a flashback of her own memories the same time they’re watching Solas’?

It’s some kind of sick joke.

She too wishes to forget, if given the chance, but alas—she’s haunted by them just as Solas is haunted by his.

And Neve is annoyed, because the reason why her mind is spiraling back to the past is sitting right across of her at this moment. Her eyes went straight to the inked forearm the moment the sleeves were rolled up; focused on the familiar blue ink etched upon fair skin, gleaming playfully under the dim light of the library.

What awful timing to have a clue pop out at you.

Out of all times…why here? Why…now?

“— keep your eyes on the Crossroads,” Rook’s words pull Neve’s attention back to the meeting just in time for it to end. “If there’s a way to restore the rest of these murals, Solas would have kept it in his hideaway. It would be nice to get into his head for a change.”

There’s a general murmur of agreement as the meeting ends and everyone is leaving their seats. Neve leaves the sofa she shares with Harding and thinks about going back to her study to continue debating what to do with this piece of information she’d just gotten because right now, she’s almost 100% positive about the identity of the stranger she shared a night with a few months ago.

Yet instead of excitement of having once more solving a mystery, she’s instead full of dread.

Dread and anxiety, resentment and regret.

It’s nothing good, as usual.

Because having uncovered that woman’s identity right now is only making her life even more complicated than it already is.

“Neve?”

Rook’s tentative voice stops her in her tracks before Neve could leave the library. She turns around as the rest of the team passes by her, turning to the Warden with raised eyebrows.

Her eyes flick down towards the stupid lines on Rook’s forearm for a moment before they flick back up to meet expectant blue eyes. “What is it?”

“Davrin and I received a request from a Warden Vesta in Dock Town about darkspawns in the catacombs. I wonder if you’d like to come along with us after this.”

Neve takes a moment to consider the offer, her mind whirring loudly inside her head.

A part of her wants to say no to this, to turn down the offer of the mission because working closely with Rook so soon after her return—after everything— is too much…and yet, this is a mission set in Dock Town. And it’s not something like catching thieves, or finding missing people—it’s darkspawns, down in the catacombs.

It’s basically a timed bomb waiting to explode and they’re racing against time if they don’t want Minrathous to be in any more trouble than it already is. The city might be half ruins and ashes after the dragon attack, but Neve would rather suffer hours in close proximity with Rook than let her home be beset by those infernal creatures.

“I’ll come. Give me a few moments to prepare.”

The usual confidence that Rook used to have around her are absent as she gave Neve a smile. “Of course. Take your time. We’ll meet at the Eluvian room in an hour.”

She nods and let the library door close behind her with a definite snap as Neve steps into the courtyard and head straight towards her study.

Their conversation didn’t used to be like this in the past—cold and professional. She used to be coyer with her words towards the Warden, teasing and inquisitive, curious about this person Varric spoke highly about. Rook took her teasing in strides, sending back lame lines and a hurricane of puns that made Neve roll her eyes so far to the back of her head that she’s afraid they might be stuck like that.

They were friends…for the most part. Close colleagues at least, because they’ve braved a destroyed ritual together right after their first meeting—Neve coming out of it bruised and battered and Rook bleeding and saddled with an Elven god inside her mind. That’s more than what some people share in a lifetime.

And yet this easy rapport between them shattered in an instant the moment that blighted dragon attacked Minrathous.

Rook made her choice with choosing Treviso, and Neve didn’t blame her.

Not completely.

She understands, she really does, but her heart and her mind have always been at war against each other ever since she started this line of work, so it doesn’t even surprise her when Neve comes out of this situation with resentment in her heart and the lingering taste of betrayal on her tongue.

When she finally returns to the Lighthouse, her walls are up and her mask of professional veneer was back on. There was clear hurt on Rook’s face at the cold dismissal Neve gave her when the leader dropped by her study to personally welcome her back…and well, that was that.

Choices were made, and now they have to deal with the consequences.

//

It’s easier to say than done, of course, especially in light of the recent revelation thanks to some dumb tattoos that sends Neve back spiraling into a memory she’s closely locked away in light of everything that happened after that botched Ritual.

If this was…before…Neve might say something about it. Test out the waters, gauge if Rook remembers her the way she remembers the Warden—all blurry and vague thanks to the influence of alcohol and relaxing incense that they had light up that night. But now? Now that she’s almost sure that Rook was the woman in her memory, the person she shared a bed with??

After everything that had happened…she wishes that this mystery would stay unsolved.

“Neve, move!”

Rook’s warning is right on time because Neve saw something black and fast coming in from her peripherals the the moment the panicked yell resounded against the cavern walls. She throws herself to the ground as fast as she could the moment the words registered in her head and watch with wide eyes as a jagged axe cuts through the air at the place where her neck has been moments before.

That was way too close, where did this big one come from?

The catacomb was not big enough for random darkpawns to be able to flood through, but a glance to a corner of the room reveals a side of the wall that’s blown in by their fighting and thus create a new passageway for these things to come through. The throbbing tendrils of red extends to somewhere outside the passageway and Neve clicks her tongue in annoyance. These boils really have to go.

Assan’s loud squawk of warning pierces the air and Neve instinctively rolls sideways as the large Hurlock comes at her for a second try for her neck. She’s ready this time around however, and she raises her hands towards it, the green gem of her scepter glowing in the shadows of the cave. A cold blast of ice and snow shot from her hands and hit her incoming opponent right on the face. The element of surprise and the extra power she put into her spell means this stupid Hurlock flies through the air before slamming against the cavern wall across the room with a sickening crunch.

That’s what it gets for going after her personally.

Neve huffs as she gets on her knees, and then there’s a hand poking into her line of sight.

“You alright?”

Rook is there, attentive and ready to help like always, offering a hand like there isn’t an ocean of distance stretched between them. The last thing Neve wants is to appear weak in front of this woman, but her right knee is a bit sore from the rough landing, so she honestly needs the boost. The detective accepts the hand gratefully, quietly, and stands up with Rook’s help, breath shaky as she iced the junction where her knee meets her prosthetic.

She’s aware of the eyes watching her, but neither of them says anything. If this is before, Rook would have cracked a joke, made a pun about knees or something to lessen Neve’s bruised pride. But things are different now, and though she knows Rook is worried, Neve isn’t in a state where she could accept looking weak in front of people easily.

Especially her.

Especially Rook.

“I’ll get that Hurlock,” Rook says after a while, when Neve’s done tending to her knee. “Can you get the last boil? Davrin got the one on the ceiling, so there’s only one left. I’ll get you a clear shot for it.”

The last one that’s hidden behind the wooden mining contraption in the middle of the room. It’d be an easy target if that Hurlock can be pulled away from Neve for a moment. The ice mage nods easily, and pulls their still entwined hands apart as they both move into position. Davrin is holding all of the Hurlock’s attention as Rook went to help her, but they should not leave the Warrior with that thing for far too long—that shield of his may be durable, but it still has limits.

The warmth from Rook’s hand lingers as Neve casts a spell to pierce the last boil, and she rolls her eyes at herself. Truly not the time. The last boil explodes with a satisfying squelch as Neve’s ice spears pierced into it, and now with that done, she turns and prepares herself to aid the Wardens with their last opponent. This Hurlock is one tenacious bastard—coming back to its feet even after Davrin slams it into the ground repeatedly, and continuing to rush towards them even after Rook’s mines destroy parts of its feet.

Ghilan’ain made these bastards to be even more durable and Neve fears for the regular people having to protect their homes from them. If the Wardens are struggling, how can regular people survive against them?

Rook’s taunts grabbed the Hurlock’s entire attention as she pokes and prods at it with her twin blades and her exploding traps. The little mines she threw at the Hurlock sends flying shrapnel up its face, little poisonous shrapnel if Neve remembers correctly, making the monster let out a pained roar that reverberates around the cavern. Davrin and Assan work together in chipping the Hurlock’s health from the safe zone Rook provided by taking all the agro, and though it takes a while, their teamwork is working well.

It's just—it’s not fast enough.

This stupid thing is regenerating the longer it stands in the blight puddle that’s all over the room, and though the puddle can’t create any more darkspawn with the boils pierced, it apparently has regenerative effects on the darkspawns standing around in it.

Neve tugs on the veil a little harder than usual and starts building a pike with all the ice that she summons using the water in the air. She positions it at a particular angle, placing it in the trajectory of the movement of the persistent Hurlock that’s chasing after their elusive leader. Rook is the fastest rogue in their roster, and though she can continue dodging and evading, she wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever. Neve could clearly see her straining now, her footing getting sloppy and letting herself clipped by the edge of the jagged axe several times.

The curse slips under her breath as she finishes her pike, sturdy and sharp, and calls out for Davrin. The senior Warden turns to her, and one glance from him at the ice pike protruding from the ground and he understands immediately.

“Rook, keep leading it to your southeast! Neve’s got a pike!”

Assan flies over their heads and lands beside Neve with a thud, talons clicking against the ground with his eyes on the Hurlock. He’s in place, a backup arrow to pierce through the darkspawn if Neve’s pike is not enough.

What a smart boy.

Things are set, and Davrin help Rook direct the Hurlock towards the trap—

But of course, things tend to go sideways in missions like this.

“Fuck!” Rook’s foot slips on the blight puddle and she falls to the ground in a splash and a thud. The Hurlock roars, seeing its chance, and to the others’ horror begins to speed up towards their fallen comrade. Davrin and Assan shoots forward instantly and Neve isn’t far behind them.

A wall of ice curves protectively around Rook at the same time the Hurlock’s claws shoots down aiming at her head. The attack shatters Neve’s shield, but it doesn’t stop the darkspawn from trying again. There’s no chance for another attack, however, because in the instance where that thing is winding back up for another hit, Davrin’s sword, Assan’s talons and Neve’s pike of ice lands into its torso from three different directions.

The simultaneous attacks tear the Hurlock to shred, and it explodes in a shower of melted ice water, blood and blighted gunk—

And splashing down upon Rook who is still lying on the ground.

When everything has dissolved into a useless puddle, Rook is covered head to toe in liquid of all sorts and if it isn’t for the fact that she’s coughing and sputtering and the bright blue of Grey Warden leather that she’s wearing, Rook could be mistaken as a talking, coughing, mound of black tar.

“I’m—I’m going to need a moment.” The rogue says before making a face and sneezing towards the side.

Ugh. Rook needs a moment and a bath from the looks of it.

//

Rook has to take a quick emergency shower in the end

Neve and Davrin ends up donating their water to save Rook from the indignity of having to jump into the sea to clean herself. They’re not that far off from the docks, but Rook says the seawater might cause the gunk to congeal around her even more, and Neve wrinkled her nose at the picture. Rook can’t swim too, so it’s going to be even more of a pain if they have to fish her out of the dark depths of the sea water.

So, yes, an emergency shower.

Right there in the cavern, at the area where there’s less blight puddle on the ground.

Why is Neve here, again?

“I’m going to scout ahead. Do you need any more of my water before I have to go?” Davrin offers his half-empty waterskin and Rook makes a face before shaking her head with a sigh.

“No, keep it with you in case you get lost. I have my own.” Rook raises her own waterskin with two fingers, trying not to get any gunk on it. She’s been pouring water on herself to try and get the gunk out of her hair and face as best as she could.

The senior Grey Warden snorts as he watches the rogue peel off the outer layer of her Warden-issued leather jerkin before pouring even more water over her head. “Wardens don’t get lost. We get adventurous. Also, you gotta peel off everything or the gunk is going to stick on the inside of your shirt. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.”

“Ugh, fuck these blight boils.”

“You can say that again.” Davrin turns to Neve, who’s been silently listening to the other two conversing while ruffling the preening Assan’s feathers. “Neve, do you mind staying behind and keeping this one out of trouble?” he jerks his head towards their wet team leader and Neve tries to kill her knee-jerk reaction of saying no immediately.

Again, she’d prefer to not be left alone with Rook after—after.

But damn her soft heart. She sees the bruises on Rook’s abdomen and the cuts on her arms from taking the Ogre’s entire agro and she could feel the ice around her heart melting. “Sure. You should bring the map Vesta gave us with you. Between the two of us, you’ll need it more.”

“No doubt about that, thanks. Play nice you two.” It’s said in jest, but feels like a light scolding to Neve as she watches him and Assan leaving through the newly opened passageway.

The detective knows that their entire team could see the tension between her and Rook—she notices the worried glances Bellara keeps shooting the two of them even though she pretended otherwise. Nobody had really made comments about it, but Lucanis was the closest one to almost say something about the elephant in the room.

Way back when they first met, Neve found him attractive and charming during her cautious observation of the assassin. But then after the dragon attack…the interest that was there for him died a swift death. Rook chose to save his city and left her to struggle with saving hers, and though it was neither Rook’s nor Lucanis’ fault, this illogical feeling of resentment stays with her.

And now that she’s staring at Rook’s naked back as she takes off her inside shirt to squeeze dry after all that quick wash with the water, the resentment that’s in her is starting to bubble to the surface.

The sight of that damn blue ink on Rook’s forearm, the geometrical lines leading up to her right shoulder—it’s a griffon. A geometrical picture of a damn griffon that’s drawn on Rook’s skin, and Neve hates that it’s only now that she’s able to put the pieces together. If she had paid a closer attention to the tattoo that night, she would have solved the mystery of her stranger a lot sooner. But Rook wears long sleeves in the Lighthouse, and Neve never really pays attention to her arms before.

Until that day when Neve catches sight of the blue lines when Rook rolls her sleeves upwards.

And the pieces of the puzzles slowly falling in place and leading up to this moment.

Neve’s not even sure how to feel right now…but her mouth is faster than her thoughts, for once.

“How long are you going to play pretend, Rook?”

Her words are sharp and accusing in air around them and Rook stiffens like she’s being caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“How long are you going to keep this up? Pretending like nothing happened between us before the drag—” her voice cracks and Neve tries again. “Before that day…before even the ritual.”

It’s accusing and she goes for the jugular, but Neve thinks she’s allowed this at least. The clues have pointed something else at her when she looks back on their recent interactions, and it’s only making her angrier.

She watches as Rook relaxes her posture, still stiff, still aware of everything around her, but there is acceptance in the way she lowers her shoulders. She knows she’s caught, and there’s no way she could get out of this with a joke or a smart line.

“How long have you known?” Came the rogue’s quiet voice, still keeping her back to Neve.

“Not long enough. You played dumb really well.” Neve can see it now, the way Rook watches her. There’s always a small knowing smile on her face whenever Neve meets her eyes, as if she knows a secret about Neve that she’s not interested in sharing. How Rook knows where to physically support her when she staggers during battle and how she keeps an eye on Neve’s right side because she knows that Neve is most vulnerable there.

There’s a familiarity in the way Rook handles her…and it annoys Neve that it takes her a while to find out the reason why.

“Not well enough, if I ended up getting caught by you.” There’s a sigh, and Rook wears back the half-dry shirt before turning around to look Neve in the eyes, not even caring if the buttons are undone. “I thought I could pretend longer.”

Neve’s jaw clench as she crosses her arms. “I’m a detective, Rook, I’ll find out sooner or later. It’s just really annoying that it’s taken me longer than I thought.”

Rook’s eyes are soft and vulnerable under the limited lighting in this damn cavern. “You were preoccupied. There are gods on the loose, and you were injured. Honestly with all things considered, you caught on to me pretty fast.”

It’s said jokingly, an effort of levity.

It doesn’t work this time.

“You played me for a fool.”

She hates how vulnerable she sounds. All soft and hurt and gods, this is not the time to have this kind of discussion with this infuriating woman.

But then Neve sees Rook’s mask crumble to show all the regret she’s hidden away and the vindication that she expected to feel having to call Rook out on this disappears into thin air.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just—” the Warden ran a hand through her wet hair, desperately searching for words. “I didn’t want to rock the boat. Things started out so messy—I got you injured, Neve. All the things that I wanted to say the moment I caught on about—about that night, about who you are—everything goes away the moment I saw the extent of your injuries.”

Rook means well, not wanting to add to Neve’s problems along with everything that happened. But keeping it off like this isn’t making things any easier.

“You should have said something, still.”

The rogue deflates with that one sentence. “I know. I’m sorry, Neve. About this. About everything.”

Neve’s fingers dig into her arms at the apologies.

It’s too late for apologies, now. There’s a big chasm stretching between them and whatever possibilities that might have existed have been blown to bits. Neve’s not even sure if they could still stay as friends—but Rook seems to think otherwise. Neve stiffens as the rogue took several steps towards her, stopping just enough distance away to be close to the mage but far enough to give Neve her space.

“I will make it up to you, I swear.” Rook’s face is determined and hopeful, blue eyes resolute as they look unflinchingly into Neve’s cold ones. “I know I broke your trust that day, but I’ll earn it back. I’ll work hard so that one day I can look at you and not see that betrayed look in your eyes when you look back at me.’

‘And then when that day comes, we can go back into talking about this properly.” One of Rook’s hands reaches up to cup her face, and Neve flinches, stepping back and away from its reach. Rook’s hand falters in the air, unwelcomed, and the rogue quickly brings it back to her side. “I just—I don’t want things to end like this between us. Not when it hasn’t even started.”

By this time Neve knows her enough to know that Rook isn’t one to say things without meaning it. Her actions match her words, and now that she’s decided to redeem herself to earn back Neve’s trust, Neve knows that Rook will do everything to make sure that this will come true eventually.

She says nothing though, unsure if she should encourage Rook or to nip things in the bud, here and now. Neve doesn’t exactly need an extra problem to obsess over because Dock Town comes first before everything—before this. The last time she lets down her guard, Dock Town pays for it, and now…

Davrin saves her from making any rash decision by coming back into their cavern with loud footsteps and a talkative Assan on his heels.

“Right, so there’s another room next door blocked with boils and that’s where we need to—woah,” He immediately look away when he sees Rook’s half-dressed state, dripping steadily into a water puddle across from Neve. “Uh, Rook? Get dressed first?”

The private moment between them is instantly broken as Rooks scrambles to button up her shirt. “Oh, shoot. Yes, sorry, give me a moment.”

Neve turns around to leave the rogue to deal with her clothes and weapons and walk ahead to the mouth of the passageway to wait for the other two members of her team.

There’s time later to continue this, she’s sure, because Rook being Rook will not let her leave things hanging like that.

And well, maybe, just maybe, Neve is looking forward to the conversation a little, whenever it may be.

Chapter Text

The walls of the apartment rattled loudly when the it was slammed shut by force. A whistle in the air, and then the next thing she knew, the doorhandle was frozen solid, effectively locking them from the inside.

Rook has never seen such a casual use of magic like this before. The mages up in Weisshaupt comes from multiple backgrounds, but there are a lot of them that comes from the South thanks to the Mage-Templar war years ago. They treat their magic like it’s a double-sided blade—a dangerous weapon to not use frivolously. They live in constant fear that their magic will betray them, and keeps it an arms’ length.

This woman isn’t like that.

The way she uses her magic is like it’s a part of her, an extension of her limbs, her body, to use in daily life.

It’s new to her, this way of using magic.

It’s interesting.

She is interesting.

Rook chuckles as teal painted fingers tug at a stray lock of hair, trying to get her attention. “Your mind is wandering, again.”

“Sorry, I was just in awe.” The rogue drops a kiss against a quivering thigh before looking up between the parted legs at the woman on the bed before her. “To think that one of the most beautiful women I’ve met is also a very accomplished mage…Truly my lucky day.”

The woman lets out a breathless laughter in responses; Rook can sense the fond exasperation in it even though she knows her words aren’t taken seriously. It makes her smile. “So, you say. To me and five other women in this city.”

“Ouch. Five? What kind of person do you think I am, a philanderer?”

“With that kind of tongue? I strongly suspect so.” Rook wants to defend her honor, but then this woman ran a hand through her hair and gave a tug in the way that makes her breath stutter. “Come here.”

It’s a summon. A command. Rook’s not one to follow orders easily, but she finds herself complying happily to whatever this woman wants.

A splay of ink black hair on messy off-white sheets. Brown pupils blown wide with arousal. The smudged make-up that Rook smugly takes responsibility of.

What an exquisite site. Rook can get drunk off of this image.

The brown eyes roll playfully before the owner tugs her down for a kiss. Mouths meet messily and a moan escape one of them. Rook could feel that now-familiar hand trailing up her right arm again, fingers tracing the blue ink on her skin like she has the shape memorized.

“You smell like lyrium,” the woman says lowly, their lips still close enough to brush as they talk. It’s driving Rook crazy.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Seeing I have a beautiful woman in my arms, I’m inclined to say yes. Worked like catnip to a mage.”

Another breathless laughter slips into the air, muffled against her bare shoulder.

It’s dangerous just how much this little action makes Rook’s heart skip.

Is it okay to want to be able to hear this laughter forever?

Instead of only for the night?

//

“Rook, I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

Rook turns to the Professor, lowering her waterskin attention. They’re currently taking a small break somewhere in Hossberg Wetlands during a trip of sample gathering for Antoine. Sitting up on a hill that overlooks most of the swamp, it’s not exactly a romantic place to gaze into nature, but it’s better than having conversations besides smelly, murky water.

The necromancer is looking at her expectantly with serious eyes, so whatever he has in mind has probably been lurking around in there for a while. Rook easily shrugs.

“Of course, Emmrich, go on ahead.”

“Feel free to not answer if you feel that I am prying too much into secret Grey Warden business.”

That made the rogue chuckle. The Order does have many secrets; she’s not even sure she knows even half of it.

“Sure. What is it?”

“It’s about…the Calling. If I may ask, how close are you to hearing it?”

That question has everyone in vicinity freezing in response. Rook, as the person being asked, and even Neve, who’s sitting quietly just a few feet away from them. Out of every question that could have been asked, Rook definitely doesn’t expect this one.

“What brings this about?”

Emmrich chooses his words carefully. “Well, it comes to my attention after listening to Warden Antoine earlier, about there being another voice in the blight’s song. The Calling comes to mind immediately, in its similarity.”

“You’re familiar with the Calling?”

“The general understanding of it, yes. Many speaks of the Grey Warden’s ritual when their…journey comes to an end, and I believe there are mentions about it in songs and story books. It made me wonder if you are close to hearing yours…” he looks bothered at bringing this up, but Rook doesn’t mind it.

She doesn’t really think about her Calling, but definitely can’t say that it’s never been on her mind. “Oh, well. I’m not close to hearing mine. I’m considered a Junior Warden, so I still have like ten, twenty years down the line if things go well.”

Emmrich’s eyes brightens at the news slightly “Truly? And Davrin? Do you know?” Rook tilts her head at this, trying to remember the conversations she’s had with the senior Warden about this particular topic.

“He Joined the Order ahead of me by a few years, but we’re of similar age so it’s safe to say he’s got a handful of years before his Calling as well. What’s got you so concerned?” the rogue smiles at the dramatic sigh the necromancer lets out. It’s nice to have someone worrying over her like this, she’s not going to lie, but this concern has to be caused by something pretty significant for Emmrich to obsess over it this long.

“It’s the Blight, mostly. Because of the way it’s been changing, I was thinking that it might affect the Calling as well.” Emmrich looks thoughtful but grave, and he raises a finger, tip glowing with a green light, and starts drawing glowing green diagrams in the air against the black backdrop of the swamp. The view actually makes an effective black board.

“From what we have witnessed before, Ghilan’nain’s sheer presence and influence is changing the rules of how the Blight is supposed to work,” the mage begins as if he’s starting one of his lectures “Darkspawns have changed shapes due to her recent experimentations, and now we are facing a version that is much more durable with a slight rise of intelligence compared to the ones we have before. I am afraid that with everything that has been happening, things that should have worked in combating the blight and the darkspawns in the past would cease to be effective from this point onwards. First, there is another song heard coming from this new Blight as Warden Antoine pointed out earlier. What other changes will come next, then, after that?”

Rook stares at the glowing diagram with a frown on her face, mind racing as she contemplates Emmrich’s words. The man is not wrong about this, because even though they haven’t said anything, Rook knows that somewhere in the back of their minds, Evka and Antoine have thought of this possibility. The Wardens as a whole have been extremely careful about voices that they can hear imitating the calling thanks to that incident with Corypheus ten years ago, so this new voice that Antoine has been hearing is rather alarming for everybody who’s in the know.

Once more, will the Wardens be leashed by their supposedly early Callings?

Rook doesn’t like that possibility.

They really have to bring the samples back to Antoine and get to the bottom of this.

“Well, if that’s the case, maybe there’s also a change in the condition of resisting the blight,” Rook could feel a slight headache coming thanks to this discussion, but it’s the good kind. “I’m putting my hope in that we’ll get positive changes along with the negatives, but you raise a good point Emmrich. Still, whatever comes next, we’ll be ready for it. We’re coming in prepared, this time.”

Emmrich seems to be satisfied with her words, chuckling and shaking his head. “Ah, Rook, always the optimist. Though I too agree with you. I would like nothing more to see a speck of hope in the midst of this bleak darkness. Thank you for indulging my curiosity, my friend.”

Rook bows her head in acquiescence before stretching to pop her back as the necromancer goes to clear his glowing diagram from the air. It’s a neat little trick that he pulled there, Bellara would have been delighted if she was here to see it. She then turns to her left, as subtle and rogue-like as she could be, to go back to her hobby of staring at a certain frost mage—

— only to freeze in place when she sees wide brown eyes already looking back at her.

Oh fuck, was Rook caught?

What to say what to say?

Was Neve listening?

Rook’s not sure how to ask. The ice between them melted somewhat after that conversation they had in the cavern. The cat’s out of the bag, both parties are clear on where they stand as of this moment, and they’re slowly getting back to small, strictly professional, banters during missions.

But Rook still finds herself hesitating when it comes to this woman. She doesn’t want Neve to get even more disappointed with her.

She tries for a joke, a levity. “What’s wrong? Worried about my Calling as well?”

For a split-second Rook swears there’s something like worry flickering past those brown eyes but then she blinks and the detective’s face was back to being unreadable. “I was just contemplating on a few things. Can’t have you dying on us just yet before we finish this job. There’s a lot to do.”

Ah.

Right.

The job.

The rogue nods, trying not to let the twinge of hurt get to her. “Of course, I understand. Any dying from me will come only after we get things done. Anyway, if you’re all set, we should get that last sample for Antoine down and then we can all go home to where it’s warm and dry.”

When Neve stands up to straighten her coat, Rook lets out a deep sigh that goes unheard in the night air.

What was Rook expecting back from her by asking that? Pity? Some fussing over?

Honestly, the way this woman has her maudlin after one night together is insane. Every time they talk, with each small conversation that they share, the yearning in Rook’s heart gets worse. Neve is upset with her, but she’s a professional through and through so she indulges Rook with things even when it looks like it’s the last thing she wanted to do.

It hurts slightly to see the frostiness in which Neve treats her with compared to their other friends, and Rook misses the days when it was so much easier to get this stoic detective to give her that teasing smirk and smoky chuckles. Anyway, Rook better finds a way to defend her heart from these constant stings caused by this woman soon or she’d be in for a hard time if this keeps up.

Calling or no Calling, Neve Gallus might just be the end of her one day.

//

Neve could not say when her interest in Grey Wardens started, but she knows that this interest was more or less cultivated by her uncle. Oratius Gallus, her father’s younger brother, has always been one who doted on her, the only other mage besides him in their immediate family. Whenever he came to visit her, he would always bring new stories of the Grey Wardens along with him without fail, animatedly sharing them with Neve as she grew up.

Fantastical stories about Griffins, and about how they work side by side with the Wardens as they protect Thedas from dangerous darkspawns and Archdemons in their shining armor made of silverites steel and azurite blues. Looking back, those stories might be fictional to a degree, but there’s no denying that they strongly influence the way Neve sees heroes and justice. And deep down, maybe this played a lot into the decision why Neve ended up becoming Dock Town’s somewhat of a protector in the present.

But not even the lens of nostalgia is able to obscure Neve’s critical eyes of the real condition of the Grey Wardens in the present. Whatever fantasy she had about them diminished when she started to deal with them in real in her line of work…especially very recently.

Neve watches as Rook hands over the blight samples they gathered to the elven Warden Antoine, who received them with contained glee. She and Emmrich are staying back a bit, to let the Wardens converse in case there are Warden secrets being discussed. The Order has so many secrets to the point Neve grew tempted of unearthing them herself. It was a fleeting thought—Neve knows enough now that regardless of what she does, she will doubtlessly hit a wall in the end.

The Wardens hold their cards close to their chest—even in death.

This is why she’s feeling rather vexed as the very reason why Neve came along in this excursion is to find a way to cure the Viper of the Blight.

The man was blighted during the dragon attack in Minrathous, and from words Neve heard through the grapevine, he’s not doing well. The Viper is one of their main points of contact in the Shadow Dragons—one of their leaders who paves the way for the rest of the group. The group will suffer a big loss with his death, and Neve cannot imagine the Shadows surviving the current Dock Town without his presence. He’s been vital with pushing the Venatori’s presence back in the capital, and now with him blighted and vulnerable, the cult has been treating the city like it was their playground.

And it infuriates her, this helplessness to do anything about it.

She wants a direct answer, and she had asked Davrin about it, when they were out together on a mission. To her disappointment, not even Davrin was sure if there was another way to save him from it. With how the blight is changing, everybody is going into this blind.

Emmrich also added a bit into her concern with his words earlier, about the same thing the man’s concerned with.

The Calling.

Neve knew about the general idea of the Calling; her uncle had told her about it many years ago. The romanticized version of course, about the Wardens meeting their end heroically fighting in the Deep Roads and forever immortalized in songs and stories. The idea sounds grand and all—until one looks closer at the details. Neve has heard the reverent way the wardens talk about the Calling during the times she visited this outpost. Reverent and also haunted. Whatever the Calling is, it’s definitely nothing pleasant.

And Rook…will experience this as well, won’t she?

When Emmrich asked about how long Rook has till she hears her Calling, it hits Neve suddenly that their journey that they are sharing could end earlier than any of them expected. It’s proven true for Varric, who died the night the botched ritual took place. He was supposed to lead them…but he was gone, and Rook took his place.

What will they do if Rook is gone?

Dread crawls up her spine like a spider and Neve doesn’t like the what if’s that comes through her mind.

Neve is—

Worried.

About the job, of course, because everything is about the job. The big job that started everything and ruined her beloved city.

But also—

About Rook.

She sighs.

Everything keeps coming back to that woman.

As much as Neve wants to keep her distance, to keep everything strictly professional between them, Rook proves to be very good in slowly chipping away at her walls. She’s been working hard in…redeeming herself, after their talk down in the catacombs. It’s been small things, but Neve notices. Rook has been visiting Dock Town a lot since then to lend a hand to the people that needed help. Rana has been keeping Neve updated indirectly when she sends news back to Neve’s office at the Lighthouse, and it was from reading between the lines that the detective deduced that a certain rogue has been working through the requests pinned on the job boards all over town.

Rook has brought Neve with her back to Dock Town on missions of course, like that trip down to the catacombs to fight Darkspawn and that time they uncover a demonic ritual from a request to find a missing person. But it turned out Rook has been busy solving other problems there in her own time even without Neve’s presence.

There’s little wonder why the atmosphere back home feels a little less…oppressive lately even with the Venatori presence still hanging over their heads.

It’s some weight off of Neve’s shoulders…and she’s pleased, even though she doesn’t mention it out loud. The wall of ice that Rook’s been chipping at persistently is slowly and steadily breaking…and Neve is both terrified and hopeful about it.

Which leads to her current turmoil.

One doesn’t need to be a good detective to see how Neve hurts Rook when she deflected that playful question about worrying about Rook’s calling earlier. It’s not intentional—Neve was panicking. Rook caught her in the act of staring and she just blurted out the first thing that comes to mind. A careless and callous thing, but professional, like she had originally wanted. Something Neve instantly regretted when she saw the look of hurt that came in response to it.

Rook then joked back about dying only after everything is done and Neve hates that picture even more.

She’s not one to believe in good endings, but a part of her won’t say no to something of the sort at the end of all of this. Maybe like a vacation.

“Hey, are you the one that came with Thorne?”

The new voice pulls Neve out from her thoughts and she turns her left to see a woman clad in a well-worn Warden’s armor stepping beside her.

A faint hint of Orlesian accent and a pretty face. Brown hair, sharp eyes and tanned skin which says enough about long exposure to the sun. A good standing posture, elegant but also confident. Nobility? The battered sword handles jutting out from her sides means this woman is an experienced rogue in the Order regardless. Neve decides to humor her out of curiosity.

“Thorne? Who might you be talking about?”

The woman jerks her chin towards Rook, Antoine and Evka who are standing together on the other end of the corridor. “Thorne, that one you come with. Well, I hear she has a new name now—Pawn or something. A chess piece.”

“Rook.” Neve supplies, and the stranger snaps her fingers.

“That’s the one. Why Rook? She feels more like a Bishop.”

“The one who gave her the name said it’s because she tends to think in a straight line.” The woman chuckles at Neve’s explanation and she smiles a little. “You know Rook?”

“Unfortunately,” says the woman, but her face shows nothing but fondness. “We Joined the Order at the same time, so we went through training together. The last I heard of her she was in trouble because she pissed some of the noble wardens off. Is that right?”

Oh? This is news to Neve. Now that she thinks of it, she doesn’t really know much of Rook’s background after all. There was no time to ask Varric about it and even Harding doesn’t talk much about Rook’s situation before Varric recruited her. is it time for her to fish?

“Is that what happened? I thought the Wardens don’t care about statuses.”

The stranger snorts derisively at her words, shaking her head like she cannot believe Neve is falling for this. “People might have put that on the Warden recruit bills but that’s definitely not how it works. Statuses matter regardless what organization you join—the Grey Wardens is not free of this. Nobility presence still brings weight into decisions even if they’re outnumbered. It’s frustrating.”

 “Are you not one yourself?”

Neve receives an impressed look from her companion, who then crosses her arms and faces her fully. “Non non. Former noble, thank you. My voice weighs as much as a peasant in their eyes for all it’s worth. If this wasn’t the case, I would have—” the woman lets out a shuddering breath and Neve has to strain to hear her next words. “—I would have backed her up.”

What went on back then? What happened that Rook ended up being recruited by Varric instead of continuing to work for the Wardens?

“Quite generous, you telling me all these.” Neve ends up saying, keeping the smile on her face friendly even though her mind is racing like a wayward wagon. “Is there something you wanted?”

“Nothing in particular… I just wanted to see the kind of people she has in her team now. Just in case there are annoying nobles like the last time.”

This time it’s Neve’s turn to snort in disbelief. It’s almost an automatic response because, please, that is so far from the truth. “Oh no, definitely not.”

“Good.” And yet Neve is still heavily scrutinized by this woman. She has half a mind to excuse herself and join Emmrich in his enthusiastic haggling of…something by the Merchant’s cart, but an unexpected savior comes to her rescue instead.

The familiar smell of faint lyrium mixed with something peppery sharp signals Rook’s entrance into the conversation, eyes looking between the two of them with interest. “This is definitely not the combination I was expecting to see. Why are you two holed up here in the corner?”

“Girl talk,” the brown-haired woman replies with a careless flick of a hand. “Not that it’s any of your business, Thorne.”

Rook’s eyeroll is instantaneous as she fires back, “It’s Rook now, Geneviève.”

The immediate threatening growl that comes from the former-noble who’s apparently named Geneviève is rather impressive. If they’re not in public, she would probably be strangling Rook’s neck right now. “It’s Jean, you stupid—”

“Has she been bothering you?” Rook completely ignores the fuming woman and turns to Neve, “I can get her to kick rocks if she is.”

Neve’s smirk comes unbidden, one hand moving to lean on her hip. “I’m a big girl, Rook. I can take care of myself.” This feels like an echo of a conversation they had before, but instead of Taash, they have a fuming Geneviève in their midst.

Rook seems to remember that same moment too, and a small smile appears on her face. It looks nice on her.

Jean clears her throat loudly and both Neve and Rook let out a sigh before turning back to her. She rolls her eyes at them. “You two are being weirdly in sync. Anyway, it’s nice to see you’re still alive, Rook. I thought the nobles kicked you so far up north you died in the sun.”

“Nope,” Rook pops her P loudly, hands on her hips. “I’ve been…relocated but I’m still here to ruffle the bosses’ feathers.”

“Lucky them,” Jean says wryly, but her body language relaxes as if she’s relieved. Neve is…curious. “Take care of yourself, okay, chérie? I still owe you—” Rook’s hand shot out lightning fast, palm upwards.

“Pay up.” the rogue says without holding back and Neve has to look away to hide her snort. Rook has a bad habit of rolling bodily into crates and barrels to look for dropped coins and it’s as annoying as it sounds. She’s like a magpie with shiny things sometimes, but it’s interesting to know that she’s always been like this.

Jean scowls as she slaps the damn hand away from in front of her face.

“Drink! I owe you a drink!”

“I take sovereigns too.” Rook deadpans, and by now Neve is having problems with holding in her laugh. Jean turns to Neve in disbelief and points a finger at the woman with the griffon tattoo accusingly.

“You see? This is why she gets kicked up north.”

Neve fights to keep her face flat and grimly nods back. “I understand.” She knows she’s not doing a good job because even Jean’s face is twitching before she breaks and shakes her head at the two of them.

“Right, whatever. I’ll just let you go back to whatever you’re doing. Nice to meet you, madam. Be careful of your purse around this one.” And with a careless flick of a hand, Jean goes away just as quietly as she had arrived.

Neve watches her go before turning to Rook accusingly “I can’t believe you looted your own fellow Wardens.”

Rook makes a noise like she’s been knifed and sputters back at her, scrambling for words before Neve’s disapproving, judging eyes. “I—I didn’t—I thought she wasn’t a Warden! Nobles have their purses hanging out and—” she keeps up her lame excuse for a minute before her shoulders slumped, defeated. “Whatever. You know I like coins anyway.”

“To an unhealthy degree, yes.”

“Why do you have to meet her out of all people in this damned outpost?”

The detective shrugs, not even bothering to question it at this point. “It’s nice to meet people you know for a change.” Rook has met Rana and Halos in Dock Town; Neve was eager to even up the score. “You two are close.”

Rook’s eyes flick back to hers quickly at the observation. “You think? I think it’s normal.”

She would be convincing if it wasn’t Neve she’s talking to. Rook’s eyes are searching as they look back at hers, but Neve’s not sure what she wants to see. She deflects, like usual. “What did you come over for in the first place? Weren’t you talking with Antoine and Evka?”

“Oh, shit, right. We got carried away. Antoine’s got a few words after taking a quick look over the samples. I’m supposed to grab you and Emmrich—” the two quickly jogs back to the people waiting for them, not even aware that in just a handful of minutes, the First Warden is going to butt into their conversation and derail their discussion.

Looking back, Neve should have known that this argument would spiral into something big by the time they arrived in Weisshaupt a week later.

Chapter Text

Neve was working her way down a toned arm, teeth scraping lightly against the etched blue lines upon the skin. She’s starting to think that stupid joke with the lyrium catnip for mages might just be a thing, because she’s having difficulty of letting go of this stupid tattoo. She’s always had a soft spot for griffons, and these geometrical lines seems to resemble one if she squinted her eyes just right.

What a marvel.

“You know, this is usually the time when I ask my bedmates for their names.”

That got her to smirk. “This late in the game? And bedmates? I knew you’re a philanderer.” Neve takes her time sitting up to look at the woman she’s straddling. She lets her eyes roam shamelessly all over the exposed skin, admiring every inch of the toned body, heaving and out of breath, like she’s a Faustina statue made of gold.

She doesn’t usually bring this kind of people onto her bed—traveling strangers with weapons hidden up their clothes. Neve’s taste usually lies with people with possibly little to no connection to her job.

This night seems to be an exception.

The stranger beneath her shake with laughter. “I want to be offended, but you seem to be having the boon of my…philandering ways, so I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Well, I have no complaints. So far.”

Neve likes the way those blue eyes lit up with obvious want for her. It’s nice to be looked at like this by someone for once. She can get used to it.

“So? Are you going to tell me your name?” the stranger folds her hands behind her head, looking like a contented cat. “I can’t keep calling you ‘beautiful woman’ in my head as we’re doing this.”

Hmm…should she?

It’s tempting, but the ever-vigilant side of her is still cautious even if she’s slightly drunk from all the orgasm. Even though this woman was a good lover, and hasn’t tried to kill her just yet, a part of Neve still can’t freely let go.

She decides to be coy. Neve shimmies her way up her lover’s body, leaving a slick trail of want along the abdomen, a proud smile stretching on her face when she hears the sharp inhale from underneath her.

“Let’s see how that mouth work one more time before I make up my mind.”

Her bedmate lets out a moan before making a grab for her thighs to help move Neve onto her face.

“You won’t hear any complaints from me.”

//

“Neve, have you seen my coffee pot? The one with blue porce—ah.” Lucanis stops when he catches sight of the aforementioned pot in the detective’s hand. “Is that my brew?”

“No, sorry. I finished the entire thing, and then I made my own.” Neve raises the porcelain pot at him. “Would you like a cup?”

The assassin hesitated for a split second before firmly shaking his head, and Neve smirks. “Suit yourself. It’s Minrathous brew, I added spices into it for once.”

“I…have never tried it before, but it sounds interesting.”

“You should try a cup sometimes. It will get you to see sounds.”

Lucanis chuckles, full of doubt but letting it slide. His eyes sweep over the mess of notes on Neve’s table and his brows creases in a slight frown. “That looks familiar. Venatori?” he jerks his head at one of Neve’s notes.

“Which one?” Neve waves a hand at him to beckon him closer. “I’m working on a few Venatori cases at the moment, but they’re on hold. If you have a lead on any of them, I can push it up the list.”

“There’s a list?” Lucanis asks as he slowly goes through Neve’s mess of notes, trying to find the one that caught his eyes earlier. His question had Neve sighing out loud in exhaustion.

“Oh, yes. After the dragon attack in Minrathous, the number of cases that goes my way are endless. The cases of missing people especially. Some are the Shadow Dragons.” Her eyes darken at the memory of her friends. Ever since the group scattered into the air post the raid on their headquarters, Neve has been tracking them down one by one. Each and every member of the organization had been given a safe house to hide at the moment they join, but the safe houses aren’t known to everyone in the group in the case of traitors.

It's a boon for when someone needs an emergency place to hide out in—but for cases like this, it gets exhausting tracking them down, one by one. Neve have managed to track a few people down after the raid, but there are several key members who are still missing and she cannot get in contact with; Viper, Tarquin and Maevaris among them. With how the Venatori are hunting the members down like dogs, the fact that Neve isn’t hearing a peep from them means good news. As long as they don’t turn up in one of the body dumps, that means they’re…mostly safe.

Maybe maimed, Neve’s not really good with being optimistic.

The crow’s eyes flick up at her at the mention of the Shadow Dragons. Maybe it’s because they’ve been working together for a while, but Neve could sense his turmoil from this up close even though the air on his face does not change. “My condolences. I saw some of their bodies when I went to Minrathous with Rook. The innocents are always the ones suffering in cases like this.”

Neve hums in agreement, but she doesn’t really want to get into this topic—especially not with him. “Well, you know Venatori. They are ever theatrical.”

A cult based on ideologies always operates with the aim of sending a message, and theirs have been an open threat towards the Shadow Dragons and people sympathizing with them.

“Have you not found all the Shadow Dragons members yet?”

“Only some of them. I’ve been thinking that no news is good news after these past few weeks.” Neve tries to sound flippant, but she knows that the man across of her doesn’t buy it. He’d witnessed firsthand her anger and frustration ever since her first day back at the Lighthouse.

“If you need an extra pair of eyes—”

“I appreciate it, but I have it under control.” Neve holds down the bubbling feeling of envy in her chest. Talking to Lucanis about this has been as hard as talking about it to Rook, but it’s not because of the man personally. She’s just—not dealing with it well around the person whose city was chosen over hers. “I would rather if you could help me with the Venatori instead.”

Lucanis bows his head in acquiesce. This isn’t his first time offering his skills to Neve outside of their team missions. At first, she was angry, because it was like he was rubbing Treviso’s safety in her face as she deals with the Venatori’s mess. But once the anger abated, Neve sobered down when she realizes that the man was just trying to help out of the goodwill of his heart. Maybe he felt sorry for her, or for Minrathous, she doesn't know. She’s not quite there yet with him helping her personally with her city, but Neve could take discussing about the cult with him as another expert in the topic.

“Of course. It’s this one. I’ve seen this before.” The Antivan slides a paper across the desk over to Neve, an unfinished magic circle sketched against the surface. The frost mage frowns when she looks back at him, finger pointing at one of the empty spots in the broken circle.

“Are you sure? Because this is an unfinished ritual circle. I found it down in close to a body dumpsite in Dock Town.”

“Yes, I recognize the circle. But the problem is, the one that I saw was completed.” Lucanis grabs the quill lying on the desk, and dips it in ink before he looks up at Neve. “May I?”

Neve immediately nods, grabbing a spare paper before sliding it over the original. “Here, draw it here. I’ll use the other one for reference.” She watches quietly as Lucanis draws over the ritual and filling in the empty spaces. The runes used aren’t exact, as he’s not a mage, but the shape is familiar. Neve has seen similar ones like these before.

When Lucanis is done, Neve takes the paper from him and brought it closer to face. She traces his tidy lines with a finger, a spell murmured under her breath, and watches as gold light slowly spreads throughout the black ink, morphing the unintelligible rune shapes into its proper shapes and turning the magic circle legible. By the time the golden light subsides, she’s cursing, and Lucanis frowns.

“Not good?”

“No. This is a variation of an advanced demonic ritual circle. It uses human sacrifices as conduit, and the runes are made with blood magic. It’s not your usual circle used by a regular mage,” She slips the paper with Lucanis’ version in between the pages of her leatherbound notebook, right in the Venatori to-do pile. “Where did you see this?”

“You’d never believe it, but the Hossberg Wetlands.”

Neve stares at him blankly. “What?” that’s the furthest place in Thedas she’d ever guess the Venatori would go to.

“We had a request asking to check on a Manor belonging to an old family. The man said the owner hasn’t been seen in a while and that suspicious activities have been heard coming from the place. When we arrived there, the Venatori was waiting.” They only went there to help in case some people needed evacuation from the darkspawn, they ended up stumbling upon a ritual site instead. There were puzzles waiting, like always, but Lucanis left it to Bellara and Rook instead as he knew the two had more fun with these things than he does.

“They had Venatori crystals and wards set up, so there’s nothing pleasant waiting for us.”

“What did you do with the wards?” Neve is the expert for wards in their group—her specialty and something that she’s known for during her time in the Circle. How did they manage to get through the wards without her?

Lucanis smiles at this as he folds his arms, eyes teasing. “You will be happy to know that Bellara was the one unbinding them. She had notes from you with directions, and it took a while but she got them all down. We didn’t have to double back because of that.”

This knowledge does make Neve happy, especially when she remembers what brought that on.

Her first day back from Minrathous, the still grieving Neve was pulled aside by the elven mage, who then hands her notes. Bellara said she’d taken notes on things Neve have missed, because she noticed how much Neve loves her notes. They’re all about the things Neve missed or things she would want to know. It was…a very kind gesture. One that quells a lot of the suppressed anger Neve tries to keep hidden so that it won’t hinder her ability to work with this team.

She had wondered back then how to pay Bellara back a little for this thoughtful gesture—and after a short discussion, it was decided that Neve share the basic of undoing wards with the elven mage. Warding is a complex topic, not one you can teach in one night, but Bellara was eager to learn and Neve was more than happy to share her knowledge with her.

The knowledge that Bellara managed to put that newly acquired skill to use had Neve burning with pride inside.

“But, undoing the wards—” Lucanis’ face darkens. “We found a missive from Zara in the same room where that ritual circle was located.”

Zara Renata, the woman who pulled the strings to put Spite inside Lucanis. Neve doesn’t like how things are connecting like this. “Is she not a blood mage as well? Do these Venatori blood mages know each other well enough to travel to random locations in Thedas together?”

“It appears so. There were a lot of missives, but there were only two people the lord of the Manor was consistently in contact with. Zara, and a mage named Aelia.”

The notebook in Neve’s hand slips at the mention of the name, and would have knocked the pot of ink aside if it wasn’t for Lucanis’ swift hand. “Neve?”

Shit. She didn’t expect to hear that name so soon. “Out of anyone in the Venatori, it just had to be someone with the same name…”

“If it’s a Venatori someone, then it might even be the same person.”

“I feel the same way.” Neve immediately buttons up her shirt and ties up her scarf before going to her coat hanger. Her mind is whirring, putting the puzzles together but still missing a few key pieces. This news about Aelia is a big one, and Neve knows better to hope that Lucanis is wrong. She has to prepare—things that needs to be double checked. “Thanks for the tip, Lucanis. I’ll bring you some fried fish when I get back.”

“Do you need a hand?” Lucanis asks after a while of consideration, and Neve turns to him with a smile, teal coat around her shoulders.

“Being sweet or do you want a piece of this Venatori?”

The crow chuckles, hands on his hips in a way that reminds Neve of a certain someone. His has less swagger in it—more awkwardness. “Let’s call it both. But I would not mind if you need a backup. If this leads me to Zara, it will even be on the house.”

Hmm, tempting. She heard about Crow contracts being very expensive, so a free offer of a kill of her choice hmm… “Maybe after I’ve gathered more clues. I’d like to come in prepared. What?” she frowns at the small grin that appears on Lucanis’ face.

“Nothing. You just sound like Rook for a moment there. ‘Come in prepared.’”

Oh. Did she?

“Well, she’s not wrong.” Neve’s not really sure what to say about this. Has she been paying attention to Rook too much or did they spend so much time together that she’s starting to pick up her way of talking? Either of those two makes her feel rather uncomfortable for some reason. She clears her throat before her neck could get any warmer. “Let Rook know that I’ll be unavailable until tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry about it, she’s not around either.”

The detective stills, a hand on her doorknob. Neve turns to Lucanis slowly with a frown. Rook? Gone? “Where did she go? By herself?”

“I do not know, and yes, by herself. She left after Emmrich yesterday. Said she will be back in less than three days, so it’s break time until then.”

Well, isn’t that pleasant?

For everyone but Neve, that is.

//

“Hey, get up.” A sharp kick hits the side of her leg and Rook swallows a growl. “We’ve got a name. Time to hunt.”

Sending a glare at the asshole through the visors of the Venatori helmet that she’s wearing, Rook takes her time standing up just to annoy him. “That’s fast. Whosits.”

“None of the big fish. A small fish. Someone saw her by the docks. Move your ass or the magisters are going to curse one of us again.”

“I’m gonna need a drink after this.”

The warrior grunt snorts, his blood shield dimly glowing red in the darkness of the cavern. “Don’t we all.” He heads outside of their little hideout grumbling about low pay and Rook waits until most of the people in the room ambled after him in in differing state of sobriety. Once most of everyone was out, she heads to the corners of the room and kicks in all of the hidden blood crystals—destroying the blood ward hiding this place.

That’s one down.

Rook sighs and swipes up her pair of double sickles from the ground before heading out to join the rest of the Venatori troopers.

It’s been a few weeks since Rook had this all planned out—this personal infiltration job that she’s taking up all by herself and without a backup. It’s rash, and she knows Varric will give her an earful about this if he knows, but having more people in the know would add complications into it that she cannot afford. It’s better for Rook to do this by herself since she’s the one with personal experience in this.

If Neve knows…well, she won’t be happy for multiple reasons.

But this is something that Rook has to do—a part of her redeeming herself not to just Neve, but also to Minrathous who bore the brunt of her decision that eventful day. That dragon attack is something that Rook has not moved on from. The guilt and remorse from that day still stay with her even though she knew that even if time was somehow rewound, Rook won’t change her decision. Helping out with requests posted on the job boards and cleaning out catacombs from the darkspawns helps the city, but not in the big ways that Rook wanted. The Shadow Dragons are gone, scattered in the wind, because the Venatori raided their headquarters and have been hunting them down like dogs since.

Rook hasn’t been able to get a wink of restless sleep ever since she found out that the Venatori’s been holding public executions for the members that they’ve found.

Her mind was set the moment she saw their bodies, dangling on the gallows placed all over the town. If there’s a way to make a meaningful difference to Dock Town, then it starts with taking care of the Venatori problem first. But that’s where the problem lies. Rook is no tracker like Harding is, so she’s not that good with tracking down the Shadow Dragons members to help them in any way how. And unlike Lucanis, the famed mage-killer, Rook has no extra skills that helps her kill Venatori magisters, and it would be stupid of her to even try without backups.

The precarious situation in Dock Town means that she can’t act rashly, and obviously, without Neve by her side in the case that she’s messing up with the already fragile power balance.

So, this is where she plays to her strength, which is infiltration. Rook wears identities like a second skin—at this moment she’s Rook, and before this she was Warden Thorne, a former thief recruited by the Grey Wardens after the dungeon holding her was besieged by darkspawns.

And before that, she was—

Well, anyway, it’s like the stars have aligned, or whatever the bards say—Rook never imagined that her past would come back to haunt her in this shape and form.

It’s feels awfully like getting back on a horse after a bad fall. A very bad and traumatic fall.

Rook still remembers how these things go—she still remembers the procedures, all the chants and twisted prayers. But not even the years since can get rid of the disgust when she wears these colors. And yet, for the sake of alleviating Neve’s worries, Rook would suppress all revulsion if it means getting leads and saving the Shadow Dragons. Her heart hurts when she remembers the friendly faces greeting her back in the shop.

She couldn’t get them all back, but she’ll try anyway.

The Venatori troopers walks down the streets of Dock Town like they own the place. Rook watches as the people look away when they see the uniformed blood-red colors, scurrying away like frightened mouse and making themselves look small to avoid preying eyes. It’s sickening to look at Dock Town from this point of view. Rook much prefers it when Neve was showing her around. All the friendly faces greeting the mage, the smiles and people from every walk of life greeting Neve by name…

Rook can never stop thinking about it. Neve is such an admirable woman—the respect Rook has for her is unending and it makes her fall harder. She wanted so much to have a chance with her, to be able to hold her hand and tell her that she’ll always be right there to have Neve’s back as she goes around protecting Dock Town. Honestly, Rook won’t even mind just standing around holding Neve’s notebook as she catches bad guys and saves a maiden in distress or whatever.

Call her a sap but, even just being around Neve gives her contentment like nobody else could.

She wants this mission to work so much, because both of her personal and professional redemption arc depends on it. So, when the troopers arrive at a small port-side house, a bit run down but also homey and lived in, Rook has to forcefully grit her teeth and fight against instinct as she watches the troopers kick the door down and rushes inside following a woman’s scream.

//

“Huxley?”

Neve frowns when she sees the splinters of wood scattered on the street outside the house. She toes some of the splinters apart, studying the break. They’re uneven—heavy blunt force. Kicked down?

None of Huxley’s neighbors are around, probably off working in the shipyard since it’s the late morning. But still, the quietness around this area…it’s not normal. There should be people yelling out loud selling papers at this hour, or kids running around yelling about fish as they came back from doing errands for their parents.

There’s none of that.

Feeling dread creeping up, Neve quickly runs to Huxley’s house. She doesn’t even have to open the door because there was a huge hole in the front door, which leads to the sight of the inside of Huxley’s house in disarray. The shattered pieces of Huxley’s favorite vase holding the flower of the day, the puddle of porridge, leftover from her breakfast and the side table where Neve and Huxley used to share drinks over now lies on its side. There are clear signs of a fight, so Huxley didn’t come willingly.

It takes her just a short while of poking around, but Neve finally finds answers. Her searching spells finds hidden blood crystals in the four corners of the street leading up to Huxley’s house. There’s only one cult that uses blood crystals this frivolously, and her heart burns with rage.

If Neve moves fast, she can track down wherever Huxley was taken to. But she can’t move alone, Neve learns that lesson the hard way, so she goes to get Rana. The Templar takes one look at her and her jaw tightens. They know each other too well sometimes.

“Who is it?” Rana asks, already going to grab her coat and sword.

“Venatori. They’ve got one of my informants, Huxley. Her breakfast was still warm, so she was taken just less than a bell ago. If we move fast, we can find her.”

“Where do we start looking? The Venatori don’t bother taking people in anymore after the dragon attack. They go straight to the gallows.”

Rana’s not wrong, and Neve hates it. In their eagerness to spill the Shadow Dragons’ blood, everyone that they can find, even sympathizers, goes straight to execution. It’s basically murders in the daylight, but the city guards were paid and they look away when it matters the most. This is why Neve never runs out of jobs in this place.

“I’ve got a hunch,” Neve says, raising the small shard of the Venatori blood crystal held between her pointer and middle finger with a smirk. “We’ll trace back their steps. If they’re going to hold an execution, it’s probably at sundown.”

The templar snorts as she locks the door behind her. “Typical Venatori. Stupid show-offs.”

They really are. Show-off and careless, which works well for Neve’s benefit. Using the resonance from the crystal, Neve follows the trace of the Venatori backwards using Huxley’s house as the beginning point. The resonance leads her to the docks, and then, a cavern. It’s a momentary hideout, a short-term holding place to gather the troopers at so that they can move out on short notice. Neve’s found a few places like this when she’s out adventuring with Rook, and it’s always at the hidden, darkest and dampest places imaginable.

The Venatori has money but they don’t bother to even acquire a proper hideout for the troops. Blind loyalty and zealous faith in false gods truly are the things that they live on.

“Hm?” her foot kicked something solid and she bends down. Broken blood shards? She follows the trail of the shattered pieces and broken crystals on four corners of the cavern, all in hidden locations. Did someone break these ahead of them? If so, then who? The Venatori mages spends a lot of blood to make these crystals, they prize these things higher than the lives of their grunts.

“Neve,” Rana’s footsteps echoes against the walls. She’s holding something gingerly in her hand, a scrap of something. “Found this slipped under splinters of destroyed crates outside. it’s like someone was thrown onto them—the things were in pieces.”

“What?” Neve leaves the broken crystals and meets Rana in the middle, taking the scrap of torn cloth from her and frowns at the writing. It’s messy, but it’s not written in blood, so nothing desperate. The handwriting looks hurried however, so whoever left this was definitely working against time—or they were writing this in secret. “Where did you find—”

The Templar leads her to the place and sure enough, the crates were in pieces. Neve looks at them with mild amusement. “It’s like Rook’s been here. She loves her crates and barrels.”

Rana looks at her like she’s lost her mind. “What?”

“No, nothing. Never you mind.” The crates were in the general way from the mouth of the cavern. If the grunts were leaving hideout, they would definitely pass by here. It’s the right amount of distance, and quite a good location, to be able to drop something and not have random people finding it. Hidden in plain sight, in short. They would have missed this had Rana not been physically scanning the ground for clues with her hands. “What do you make of this?”

“It looks gibberish.” Rana narrows her eyes, trying to read the messy writing. “…Stylish…bare…”

The laugh slips out of Neve before she could stop herself and her friend sends her an ugly look. “Hey, you asked.”

“I did yes. Why did you read that as an S?”

“It’s squiggly, isn’t that an S?”

“I read it differently.” Neve takes the cloth back and trace the writing with a finger. “Try reading it another way. Think of that squiggly mess as a handwriting quirk. If you do that, then the rest of the message is legible. This message would then read Glandivalis—"

“—Square.” The look of dawning realization on Rana’s face is always good to see. “No. It can’t be too easy. It’s a trap.”

There’s a hum coz that’s definitely Neve’s knee-jerk reaction when she saw the writing on the cloth when Rana handed it to her. “There are broken ward crystals in the cavern, which is why we could trace back to it. There’s also this scrap of cloth with a location site hidden in plain sight just outside of it. Someone’s deliberately left us signs.”

Rana looks at the cavern with a frown, thinking back to their past Venatori encounters. “They’ve got a traitor in their midst?”

“I doubt it. The Venatori is made of zealous loyalists,” Neve carefully folds the cloth and slip it inside her coat pocket. “They don’t hire thugs off the street who backs down when they get scared.”

“Then, who?”

The detective shrugs. If she gets a gold for every time that particular question is asked in her line of work, she could have bought a manor by now. “Hopefully, a friend. But let’s put that aside. We need to double-check this message. Look for clues around the square. Seeing from past events, I don’t think Huxley is their only victim today.”

//

There are two victims following the Shadow Dragon member that the Venatori went after today. Rook has to hold back during their captures, because everything in her is screaming for her to jump in and save them. The only thing that kept her back from doing anything is the fact that if she makes one reckless move, this whole operation is ruined. She would put not only herself in danger, but also the victims. The three people are transported in an enchanted cage, placed on a wobbly wooden cart, to the way to the location of the execution.

Rook has dropped a clue of where it would be near the hideout where she had broken the crystals earlier. With luck, a comrade-in-arms would find it. Maybe Rana—she’s really hoping for Rana. And if her luck is good, maybe Rana can get Neve!

She really should have gotten Neve. Things have spiraled out of her control. She’d expected the Venatori would put the captured people in a location or something and leaves the execution for another day. Man, was she wrong. It turns out it was a straight track to execution after capturing the day’s list of people. These people are eager to send a message, they’re even singing some crazy song about blood and old Gods and whatever. It’s new, Rook’s never heard it before.

These people are stupid, and that song is stupid catchy.

The rogue is scowling as she lags behind in the march, dropping her mines along the street leading to Glandivalis square. She’s doing her best to plant all these rigged traps under the guise of looking for coins and valuables, but these grunts around her got interested as they poked into her business so now there’s a bunch of them breaking crates alongside of her, looking for the same things.

She’s going to loot their dead bodies later—those are hers, dammit! She has to provide for a family of nine!

They stopped in Glandivalis Square, earning the eyes of everyone in vicinity. The looks of fear and horror, and the sight of people running away in a panic at the sight of the Venatori setting up for today’s execution. This is going to spread faster than wildfire. By the time they finished setting up the gallows, the message would probably have spread all over Dock Town.

That one Shadow Dragons member is today’s star—there’s no way the Venatori’s not urging people to spread the news faster. They needed to fish the big fishes out of hiding, after all.

Rook steps into the shadows during the time when the Venatori troopers were gloating, strutting around the square like a predator showing off their kill. With their attention off of her, she could rig the place better. She’s not hoping to pull off a one-woman rescue, it’s much too risky without a backup.

The best thing she could do by herself is to create chaos around the execution place, contained chaos, so that the captured hostages could hopefully escape in the confusion.

She has the mines and traps and rigs down easy—but the next thing to tackle is the enchanted cage. Rook has nothing like an enchanted lockpick to pry the thing open. Does such thing exist? Should she ask Emmrich? Bellara? Rook tries nonetheless, stepping behind the cage in an angle that hides her from the general view and picks at the lock with her personal lockpicks, earning suspicious and bewildered looks from the three hostages inside it.

One of the two humans in the cage was going to say something at her, but the Shadow Dragon member elbows him sharply in the gut, shutting him up before his voice could alert the troopers standing close by. Rook managed to get through the guards by using the excuse of being there as extra eyes, and they let her ithrough without even checking in with the others.

Bird brains.

“This isn’t working.”

“It’s enchanted.” The Shadow Dragon member murmurs low enough for only the four of them to hear.

Rook sighs, pocketing back her lockpick. “I wish I was a mage.”

The Shadow Dragon member, the woman with straw-colored hair, looks at her with amusement even in light of her situation. “Then you could get a promotion. This cult prized their mages than anything else.”

“Hah. That promotion leads to early death, I’ll have to pass.”

“You’re not one of us, are you.” The woman’s eyes are sharp as they scrutinize Rook’s every move. By us Rook thinks she means the Shadow Dragons.

“I’m a friend.” A failure of one, but she’d like to think that she stays a friend nevertheless to the Shadow Dragons.

“Neve’s friend?” Rook’s hand stills, still trying to pry apart the locks by force. “Well, Neve has a lot of friends, so I can’t really tell who you are.”

Neve knows the whole damn town from the looks of it and Rook grins from under her visored helmet. “Just think of me as a little bird. A pawn of a bigger player. A swindler.”

The woman groans lightly, stilling when the guard’s eyes turn to her and only responding when he looks away. “Maker, you’re definitely her friend. Neve likes her puzzles. I’m Huxley, by the way.” She adds, after a moment of consideration. “Not the best time to meet a friend, but well, it’s still nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Huxley.” Rook’s mind is whirring hard as she thinks of a plan now that the lockpicking is a bust. “I’ll get you three out of here. Just give me some time.”

Huxley sighs before leaning back against the back of the cage and closing her eyes. “You have until sundown. They’re hanging us by then.”

“Plenty enough for me.”

Rook can work with that much time left.

She’ll bet it on all the coins she has in her pockets.

//

“How is it?”

“No luck,” Rana comes in huffing angrily like a druffalo, a vein on her temple throbbing dangerously. “I can’t get the clearance to take troops out. The Knight-Commander said no and everything fell through.”

Just like always. There’s something corrupting the Imperial Templar order from the inside out and both Neve and Rana are familiar with it. Doesn’t make it any less annoying, however. “We can’t do it just by the two of us.” Neve’s voice is low, haunted, and Rana’s brows furrows deeper.

Brom.

The last time Neve acted alone without proper backup, Brom is dead. She doesn’t want a repeat of this particular part of her past. She can’t lose—

“Can’t you get any of your new friends to help out?” Oblivious to Neve’s brooding, Rana looks out the window of small storage they’re hiding out in.

The place has got a great vantage point looking down at the spot in the Square where the Venatori are setting up the gallows for tonight’s execution, one of Neve’s little hidey holes. The detective has been watching here during the time Rana ran back to the Imperial Templar headquarters to ask for backup—which leads to their current discussion.

Neve looks at her friend in thought, remembering Lucanis’ offer before she left for Minrathous this morning. Is there enough time? “Most of them are away, since we’re currently on a break—”

“And Rook? She likes to stop by even without you.”

“Rook isn’t around.”

Rana curses, fingers tapping against her sword handle impatiently. “It’s close to sundown too. We’re running out of time.”

“We’ll have to play it smart, just the two of us.” The mage lets out a breath, mind racing as she maps out the site. “There are people watching. Maybe we can use the chaos to rush them.”

“If you can get me close enough, I can cut them down from the noose. You said that cage is enchanted, right?”

Neve nods, she can see what kind of enchantment that cage is under just from a glance as a ward expert. “Layered enchantments, I have to get close to undo it. I don’t think they’d let us close enough for me to do that.”

“Well. I’ll follow your lead.” It’s a nice show of trust from Rana, but Neve can feel the pressure weighing down on her. She can’t imagine how Rook feels, replacing Varric as team leader immediately after his death without preparation. She sighs, and heads out of the room.

“We can’t do anything to the cage from afar, so let’s wait until they’re out to strike. I’ll use my Time Spell, and you cut them down.”

“And after that?”

“After that, we’ll play it by ear.”

//

The crowds have gathered in Glandivalis Square once the sun got close to setting. An eclectic mix of terrified people there brought there against their will, Venatori sympathizers, Shadow Dragons sympathizers—it makes a chaotic crowd. The place is full, which is good and also not good.

Good because Rook can slip out of her disguise in the middle of this chaos and get into position, not good because if a fighting breaks out, these people are going to get caught in the fray. But still, this number of people makes a good cover. Huxley and the other two can disappear quickly once she cuts them off the noose.

This is why Rook is now scaling up the side of the tallest building in the area—to get somewhere where she can have the good vantage point of the gallows. She does better with fighting from a distance, and now that this square’s rigged with traps, this entire place is under her control.

She’ll make these people dance to her rhythm whether they like it or not.

The Venatori makes a show of opening the cage to the jeers of their supporters in the crowd. There are several people trying to fight their way to the gallows—and the troopers all put them down mercilessly. Obvious attacks don’t work as these people are ready for clear oppositions. It only adds to the terror to the rest of the people watching.

It was during this, as Rook takes a sweep of the crowd with her eyes while prepping her arrows and the jerry-rigged triggers for her mines, that she catches side of a familiar hue of teal.

Her heart skips.

Is that—?

It is!

Neve, with Rana by her side, are amongst the people watching the execution. They’re mingling with the crowd, and Neve even has her hat off to avoid catching extra attention, but Rook’s sharp eyes still caught her. The two are making their way slowly but surely towards the gallows, and Rook immediately knows that their goals align.

Did Rana get her clue? Did she go and get Neve?

Well, details, but the important thing is that Neve is now here and Rook is ecstatic. The chance of this mission’s success just shot straight up, and Rook’s goal shifts from creating contained chaos to backing up Neve for whatever she has in mind.

That woman has a plan inside that brilliant head of hers, she’s sure, and she knows Dock Town better than Rook ever will. The best thing to do is to support Neve using everything that Rook has set up in place.

She’s ready.

A Venatori priest walks up the wooden platform of the gallows, and raises both of his hands to start his twisted prayers.

Rook nocks an arrow, aims—

And waits.

//

The prayers have started.

The executor is prepping the noose while two grunts are unlocking the cage. Neve glances at Rana, who’s moved away from her to get into a position that’ll let her rush up the gallows faster. The templar looks back at her, one hand pointing down at her sword, which is out of its scabbard.

I’m ready.

Neve nods and points at the Venatori priest, and puts 4 fingers up at her friend.

Four prayers. Go at 4.

Rana nods, and moves away. Neve positions herself in the middle of the crowd, where she would cast her Time Spell from so that it would encompass the entire square. After this, it’s a waiting game.

One prayer. Two. Three.

The noose is around Huxley’s neck, but the woman’s eyes are nothing but of defiance as she glares back at her would-be executor.

Four.

Neve puts her everything into it as she casted the spell—and time slows down to a trickle.

Time Slow spreads from her fingertips, slowing everything around her down to cold miniscule seconds. She watches as Rana, the only one she exempted from her spell, run as fast as she could up the wooden gallows and cuts her sword through the ropes one by one, moving carefully so no harm comes to their neck. Neve strains as she keeps her spell steady, the burden of enveloping the entire place in it is getting to her.

And of course, just like always, once things are going too well, something has to go wrong.

“There’s a mage here! Get them!”

“It’s that woman! It’s Gallus!”

The spell breaks with the sound of shattering glass as the Venatori troopers in the area rushes towards Neve. Someone in the crowd screams, and then it was an all-out chaos as people run in every direction to avoid the fight. Neve chances a glance up at the gallows and sees Rana in a struggle with the Venatori executor and his double sickle. She’s trying to cut him down before he could execute Huxley, the last one with a noose around her neck.

Shit.

“Die!”

Icebreaker tears through the air like knife through butter, catching the grunts right in the vitals. Neve avoids the blood sprays as she raises an ice wall to protect her right side where a Stalker is aiming for her prosthetic leg, cutting off her balance. It’s their favorite tactic to use against her—by aiming for the dwarven metal that makes up her right leg to unbalance her, and then swarm on her like flies to a corpse.

This would work if Neve isn’t such a competent mage.

A flurry of ice blizzard envelops the area with Neve as the epicenter as she moves closer towards the wooden gallows. She couldn’t keep this spell forever, and creating an ice dome around this place is impossible without freezing everyone in it to death. There is still Rana and the hostages to think about, and Huxley is still up there—

“Ignore her! Kill that last one! Open the trap door!”

“Huxley!”

The executor has Rana’s sword running through his torso, but his arm reaches for the lever at the last moment before he dies. The trapdoor opens with a bang, and Neve feels her heart stop—

An arrow cuts through the air, a controlled trajectory, and flies straight towards the last noose. The sharp arrow tip digs into the rope, and Neve watches as it severs the noose into two before embedding itself on the wall behind Huxley. There’s a yell as Huxley falls into the opened trap door below her, and a thud, and then Rana runs towards the hole to check.

“She’s fine, Neve!” Rana’s voice reaches Neve just in time before her mind could spiral somewhere dark. “They’re all fine! Watch out for yourself!”

“Get them, Neve!!” Huxley yells out in a hoarse voice as Rana helps her out of the trap door.

The sound of Huxley’s voice loosens the tightness in Neve’s chest, and suddenly, she could breathe better. She took this time to down a lyrium potion, and feels a new surge of strength running through her veins.

It’s her turn.

Neve creates a gigantic wave of ice wall covering Rana and the three hostages as they make their way out of the square. The Venatori not trying to kill Neve are still trying to get to them, so she happily gives them cover and while grabbing all of their attention. Once Rana and the others have escaped into one of the alleyways, Neve blocks out the remaining exits to stop the pursuing Venatori. Her ice walls will stay standing until either she loses consciousness or she undoes her spell, so they either have to physically break them apart or go after her to take them down.

She wonders which they would choose?

“Shit, this is taking too long. Get the Blood Forge!”

Ah. Right. That thing.

The unmistakable graceless stomping that could only belong to the overly triangled blood-powered mechanical contraption are echoing harshly against the walls of the narrow alleyway. That abominable thing definitely could blast her ice walls to shred with one of its light beams. Neve remembers Rook’s moaning about it on their first fight against the Blood Forge. The rogue said that it’s such a waste that a thing this wonderful is powered by blood magic, because imagine if they use this technology to good use. Maybe they could make something that will rival the creations of the old Elven Empire.

Bellara had gotten so excited at the thought and Neve remembers watching these two tinkerheads actually sitting down together and making diagrams and calculations about it more than once. It all sounds wonderful, but that doesn’t lessen the annoyance that comes with fighting it. She’s going to have to escape before the Blood Forge joins her on stage or she’s screwed, because fighting that thing requires her entire team…who are not here with her.

As if agreeing with her, a loud explosion shook the ground. Everyone’s attention turns to it, especially once that one explosion is immediately followed by another, and another, and another as if they were perfectly timed together. The loud stompings of the Blood Forge has stopped, and chaos erupted in the alleyway where that contraption was coming from. Neve could only see blurred shapes moving around through the thickness of the ice wall that she erected to block the exit, along with very bright lights—but the explosions tell her enough that whatever was happening on the other side of that wall, it was meant to stop the Blood Forge in its tracks.

Every Venatori trooper that was after her keeps glancing distractedly towards the Blood Forge's direction, and the look on their faces shows that they’re torn between wanting Neve’s head or to go support their magical contraption.

Their indecision was enough of a chance for Neve to make her move. She raises her scepter and pushes her Blizzard to its outmost limit, enveloping everything around her in ice, starting from the leg up. Once the cold mists of winter descend upon Glandivalis Square, Neve Gallus has disappeared from their midst.

//

“Neve!”

“Oof.” The detective laughs as Huxley tackles her in a hug, squeezing her really tightly that her ribs ache. She hugs back lightly, before pulling away as gentle as she can. “Okay, lighten up, my ribs hurt a little.”

She was the last one to get to their meeting point, a small hole-in-the-wall hideout that Neve receives from the Viper, located behind the pawn shop. The moment she enters the place, Huxley jumped at her, and the other welcome her with a mix of claps and cheers.

The lone elven woman among them looks at Rana with wide eyes. “Should I hug her to thank her too?”

Rana grins. “Sure. She loooves hugs.” Neve points at her with a threatening finger from Huxley’s side.

“No, I do not and, no, you don’t have to.” She said to the elf who ends up grasping her hands, and shaking them vigorously instead. “You’re welcome?”

The last of the hostages, the human male, gives a small chuckle before taking Neve’s hand next after the elf and shake it the normal amount. “Yes, thank you. This is my half-sister Nesaya and I am Arno. You really had our backs there, miss. I thought our time was up.”

“Yes, it was close.” The templar says with an exhausted sigh, one hand massaging the bridge of her nose. “I was almost too late cutting Huxley’s noose. Did your spell break?”

Neve shakes her head. “They had a spellbreaker, and I was straining to cover the entire square. There were too many people there.” Usually, it takes more than that to forcefully break her spells, but well, the thread was already fraying there that the Venatori didn’t really have to do anything but to poke at it to get it to snap.

“Should I be happy about my popularity that it brings all the townspeople into the square at a mention of my name?” Rana and Neve look at Huxley dryly and she raises her hands with a chuckle. “Okay, too soon for jokes. I get it.”

“How did you find us?” the man, Arno, turns to his saviors with curiosity. “When the Venatori captured us, they put wards over our house to stop people from checking on us. We thought nobody would follow up.”

Nobody but Neve, that is. “We’ve…got a friend helping us.” The detective says instead, remembering something. “What did you do to make the Venatori capture you?”

“Oh, we’re Shadow Dragons sympathizers. Nesaya put up posters on the job boards the other day,” Arno turns to his sister with a smile. “It’s nothing harmless, just a picture of flowers with a message. We wanted to get people to stay hopeful in light of the Shadow Dragons’ disappearance. The Venatori didn’t like that. They grabbed us as we were setting up shop for the day.”

Nesaya glances at Neve from beneath her bangs, adding quietly. “We sell flowers. And flower-made products like dyes and perfumes and such.”

They’re literally harmless. The Venatori hounds people like them down and hang them just because they don’t succumb to fear and terror. Neve itches to pay them back for every people like this that they’ve taken away from them.

“Well, now that you’ve caught the Venatori’s eyes, you guys need to lay low. Do you have anywhere for them to go?” Rana turns to Neve with raised brows from where she’s guarding the entrance. “We can send them away until the cult forgets or—”

Arno raises a hand, earning everyone’s attention. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about that. We have an aunt that lives in Nessum. We can go there to hide out.”

Neve can’t remember if Nessum has a heavy Venatori presence like Minrathous, but what’s important is to get them away from here. Even if there are Venatori there, there are little chance of them knowing Arno and Nesaya’s faces. They can mingle with the locals as long as they can keep their head down. “Right, then you two should go th—”

“I know a smuggler that can get you two out of here.” Huxley cuts in, one finger tapping her chin in thought. “They’re a fisherman, so the soonest you can leave is tonight, when they go out to fish. What?” she shrugs when Neve turns to her with a face that’s close to scolding. “Look, I’m still a Shadow Dragon, captured or not. Let me pull my weight here, Neve. I’m still your informant, you know?”

She’s getting a headache. “Fine, but you’re going to need to hide away too after tonight.”

“Yay.”

Rana snorts at the two. “Glad that’s settled. Everyone stays here until the coast is clear, and that means until these two can get a trip out of Dock Town.”

“I’ll talk to your smuggler friend for you, you stay here and let me do the job.” the tone of Neve’s voice brook no argument and Huxley nods immediately.

“I’ll get you some food and drinks. Neve has a horrendous diet, there’s nothing to eat in this place.”

Neve frowns after Rana’s disappearing back as door closes behind her. That’s low, she eats proper food!

Well, after Bellara and Lucanis fixes her diet…but still…!

She gives the three the spare clothes she keeps on hand in her hideout, and prepares to meet the smuggler friend Huxley mentions to get exits for these people. Before she leaves the room though, Huxley caught her by her arm and pulls her aside. She raises her eyes at the woman. “Do you need anything else?”

“Can you send a message to your friend? Tell her thanks.”

Neve stares at her. Huxley stares back.

“My friend? Rana?”

“No, your other friend. Uh, the one in the Venatori.”

“…Come again?”

Huxley scratches her head. “I don’t know, she was with us earlier—” she tells Neve the story of a Venatori Stalker who slips gauzes and ointments through the cage bars during the march to the execution site because Arno’s side was bleeding. The same Stalker who tried to pick the lock of the enchanted cage, and then prying it open by force when her lockpick did nothing to it. The person who told the three of them to keep their calm when they hear explosions, and to use the chaos and confusion to escape their captors. “—we didn’t know how to tell her apart from the rest of the troopers, but, you know, if you see her again. Tell her thanks, from us.”

Was this the same person to the one who left that clue and who broke in the crystal wards in Huxley’s house and the cavern hideout? “Did she ever say what her name was?”

Her informant shakes her head. “No. All she said was to think of her as a little bird. A pawn of a bigger player. A swindler. That kind of confusing answer was enough to convince me that she’s a friend of yours.”

A bird. A pawn. A swindler.

Neve lets out a surprised laugh and covers her mouth in disbelief.

Rook.

So many questions enter her head. Is this why Rook’s been away since yesterday? Has she been working on a mission on her own, and it’s this rescue mission? She infiltrated the Venatori? Oh, she’s going to squeeze answer from that woman the next time she sees her.

“What a troublemaker.” Neve rubs her face to hide her smile. The number of times she wished she had Rook’s support during all this—only to find out at the end that she did have the Warden’s support right from the start. Without her even knowing about it. Her heart squeezes with a number of emotions Neve is afraid to name, but she’s happy. So happy.

And grateful.

Huxley’s smiling face was looking at her when she looks up from behind her hands. “Yes, she is my friend. I’ll let her know that.”

“I don’t know, Neve. With your face looking like that, the term friend might not be accurate.”

That’s a joke, Neve knows, but listening to it still makes her cheeks warm up anyway. She rolls her eyes as an automatic response and left before Huxley continues on with her teasing.

//

Rook heaves out a sigh as she puts away her now shiny turret and the bottle of gear oil.

She’s been cleaning her gears to take her mind off of things after returning to the Lighthouse, but she still couldn’t stop obsessing over the mission earlier.

Because that was close, way too close.

The fault lies with her, Rook didn’t see that spellbreaker coming. She thought he was just a regular mage—for one second she forgets that spellbreakers exists, and that the Venatori employs them. That bastard broke Neve’s spell like stepping into a fragile ice patch and shattering the entire thing, and then things went off the rails.

Huxley was close to dying thanks to that stupid trap door opening. If Rook’s arrow had missed—

Well, let’s not go there.

She should really stop counting her chickens before they hatched. She was too happy too early just because she saw Neve and Rana and almost ruined everything. That was sobering—Rook has to try better, be better, to not repeat this in the future. She can’t put her friends in danger like that again.

With her failure in mind, Rook held back from going back to the Lighthouse immediately after the execution was foiled. She had clean ups to do after carpet bombing the Blood Forge like it was Satinalia day and she had extra firecrackers left for celebration. The only thing better was to stuff that thing with her mines and see it explode and tear through the sky like a Chantry mother’s knickers on fire. Rook was rooting through its scraps earlier to see if she could bring something back with her, but nope.

That stupid thing runs fully on blood-magic, so its innards are all magic-dependent, which is useless for someone like her. Rook was thinking that she could salvage the scraps to use in her current project, but after seeing all that, she didn’t think it’s a good idea anymore.

And that was a few hours ago. She hid in the shadows after her cleanup, wandering around the square and the Venatori hideout to keep an ear out in case they make another move to chase Huxley and the others. When nothing happened, and she’s starting to get bored, Rook returned to the Lighthouse with a new bag of lyrium-based explosive powder she got off one of the smugglers in town.

This is the reason why Rook smells strongly of lyrium even though she’s not a mage. As much as she liked to tease Neve about lyrium being catnips to mages, it’s really not because of that. She smells like this because the explosives that she uses in battle are all dwarven-made lyrium-based explosives. They’re easy to use in contained explosions, and the powdered substance aren’t as sensitive compared to other alternatives, being a tried-and-true matter used for ages by the dwarves.

But lyrium has been a bit harder to acquire lately, ever since the Gods were loose from the Fade prison. Rook has been looking for a substitute…but no success yet on that part. She’s been trying to mix in her own components, but it takes a lot of time, of which she doesn’t have.

She eyes a long tube in the corner of the meditation room which now doubles as her workspace. Her current project needs a lot more power for it to work, and Rook’s wondering if there’s a way to get her hands on some…Gaatlok powder from the remnants of the Antaam weapons. Would Taash help her gather some up? Or would she get yelled at by them? Her mind whirrs with calculation before a series of knockings against the double doors pulls her back.

Rook stills.

Who would that be?

It’s hard to tell time in the Fade, but when she arrived at the Lighthouse, it was past midnight. And it’s only been a handful of time since them, so it's not even sunrise. She lives with a lot of insomniacs, and usually she'd be happy to welcome late-night visitors if they want to chat, but this time...Rook’s not really feeling like having a guest over.

The knocks persist, louder this time.

She sighs, wiping her oily hands on a rag. “I’m awake. Come on in.”

The heavy steel doors groan open, and Rook’s brows nearly flies off her forehead when she sees Neve stepping into the room. The sound of her metal prosthetic grinds against the stone floor in a melody familiar to Rook’s ears, and she scrambles to her feet in a hurry. Seeing Neve’s face at this time of the night is making her mind go blank and suddenly Rook feels unsure with what to do with her hands.

She puts them on her hips in the end.

Neve looks like she wants to break into a smile at her action, but she holds back.

“Hi. Do you—” Rook clears her throat, composure leaving her by the second. “Do you need anything?”

“Something like that.” Brown eyes sweep over the messy meditation room and Rook suddenly has the urge to clean. “Can’t sleep? I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, you’re fine. Couldn’t sleep anyway.”

Neve’s eyes look back at her in understanding. “I can relate.” The woman looks like she knows something that Rook doesn’t for some reason, and it’s making Rook sweat under her Warden fatigue. Did she do something? And Neve found out? Rook can’t really remember. What is this about?

They spend a while just looking at each other before Neve tears her eyes away, clearing her throat. “Well, I went back to check on Dock Town earlier today.”

“Oh?” Rook knows. She was there.

“And something came up.”

“A…bad thing?” Should Rook play stupid? Why was she hiding this from Neve anyway, Rook can’t even remember why she’s doing this in the first place. Her mind is empty and there’s a cow mooing in there.

The mage shakes her head. “A…good thing, even though it started out bad.”

“Oh, good.”

“I agree. Short story is, a friend of mine got caught in a sticky situation. She’s safe now though, along with her two other friends. They’ll be in hiding for a while to get out of the Venatori’s eyes, but, they’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”

The sigh of relief that breaks out of Rook is immense. She didn’t realize it, but the unanswered question about Huxley and the others’ fate following the foiled execution still bothers her. Neve brought her the closure that she never knew she needed to hear. “That’s—that’s great. I’m glad. I’m happy for them.”

“You are, aren’t you?”

Rook tilts her head. Why’s Neve saying it like that. “Yes?”

That small shadow of a smile on Neve’s face is lovely, but Rook still don’t like that air of I know something that you don’t that this woman has around her right now. “Also, I have something of yours.”

“Did you borrow something?”

“No, not exactly.”

The detective slowly brings out an arrow from behind her back. Rook was too busy internally panicking that she didn’t even realize that Neve is holding something behind her back the entire time.

The black fletching, the silverite tip and the Caretaker’s glowing enchantment along the body—it’s the arrow Rook used to cut off Huxley’s noose back in Dock Town.

Ah crap.

She knew she forgot something during the clean up earlier! She left this one stuck on the gallows!

Neve looks at her expectantly, arrow placed on her palm delicately between the two of them. “Well?”

Rook is caught, there’s no other way about it. She knows it, and Neve knows it. But the woman’s face is unreadable, with that knowing smirk on her face like a cat cornering a mouse. Or a bird, in Rook’s case, maybe.

“Yes,” she relents in the end, stepping closer and reaching for the arrow. “That’s mine.”

Their fingers brush as Rook takes back her arrow, and her heart almost jumps out her mouth when Neve grasps her hand before she could fully pull it away. She looks up at the older woman with question on her face.

Neve looks just as surprised as she is at the action, looking conflicted as she stares at their joined hand. But it was brief—and then she gives Rook’s hand a tight squeeze.

“Thank you.”

The words are soft, and only for the two of them to hear, but it comes with the weight of memories unspoken. It’s more than just the arrow—and Rook understands. She’s never heard Neve like this, but she gets it. She gets the things that Neve couldn't say out loud.

“You’re welcome.”

Neve gives her hand another squeeze before pulling it away, and Rook swears she could feel the warmth of her hand still along the arrow that she’s now holding. The mage delicately clears her throat and takes a step back.

“Well, I’m going to try and get some sleep.” At Rook’s bewildered look, she chuckles. “Might get a good night’s sleep after a good day, you know.”

“Ah, yes. Sounds good. Um, good night?”

“Good night, Rook. Try and get some rest.”

Rook watches Neve leave the room with a complicated feeling raging in her chest. She doesn’t really want to name it, and jinx it, but that was— that was—

She struggles to form thoughts, still reeling from Neve’s surprising appearance and at having been found out at the same time. This was like when she was caught stealing, but so much better because instead of a dungeon, Rook was thrown into a cloud full of wonderful feelings.

For one second there, Rook gets a taste of that sweet side of Neve and she’s—

She’s—

Not emotionally equipped for how sweet that was.

The rogue crumples onto the floor, face-first, heart racing fast like a wayward horse.

She wants—she wants—

So much.

She hopes—

And for once, it doesn't feel as scary to hope for more in the future.

Chapter Text

“The gate’s been breached! They’re coming!”

“Plug it! Flood the tunnel!”

“We can’t! They’re coming in through the waterhole!”

“Get the oil! Burn them!”

Varric stares out at the people rushing to barricade what’s left of the inner gate of this little town. He heaves out a sigh; he’s heard from Hawke before that small towns and villages have the worst of it when it comes to fighting darkspawn hordes—and now, he’s seeing every bit of her story with his own two eyes. Varric should have asked her for details—she survived the Fifth Blight, didn’t she? How did she ever manage to escape these…mass of crawling darkness?

“It’s not looking good out there, Kid.” He speaks up when familiar footsteps reach his ears. The man turns from the window to the woman entering the half-destroyed room of the belltower. “Did you get a reply? That was fast.”

“They used their fastest bird—it’s a no go, Varric.” The rogue Warden kicks aside a broken chair in her frustration. “They told me to stay put and wait for reinforcements. That was my third bird in two days, I told them that we won’t be able to hold on for another day! These people are running out of food, and we’re running out of wood to fix the barricades. I don’t want to say this is the end for the town, but….”

“Indeed. Death is knocking down our doors.”

When Varric arrived in this little town, sometime less than two weeks ago, it was because he’s chasing down a lead for Solas. He and Harding had split up to chase different leads, with Harding heading out towards a village called Raven’s Brook, and Varric to a small town called Wandermere in the Anderfels. He arrived in a charming town and was pleased to see a place not infested with terror and horror for onc., It almost feels like a holiday if he closes his eyes and enjoys the soothing sound of the river water rushing by his tavern room.

Unfortunately, this peace didn’t last long enough for his liking.

Anderfels being the Anderfels means that darkspawn will come knocking to your door sooner than you can win a game of Wicked Grace without cheating, and before Varric knows it, he’s knee-deep in a fight with these things— fighting alongside the townspeople in their attempt to defend their home.

It was during this chaotic struggle against the darkness that he comes across this woman—a Warden Thorne, who is amongst the small group of travelling Grey Wardens arriving in Wandermere just a few days after he did. These Grey Wardens are nothing like the ones he knew from the Orlesian chapter of the Order who became Corypheus’ enforcers back during the Inquisition. These Grey Wardens are much more…vicious and pragmatic than Varric expected. It speaks of their experience with fighting horrors as the Anderfels have the greatest number of darkspawn out of anywhere else in Thedas even outside of the Blight.

With the Wardens in command of the defense of the town, Windermere fared better than it should for a town its size. But a siege battle against the darkspawn is basically a one-sided battle of attrition—Windermere’s supplies would not last forever. After three days of defense, their system is starting to break down. The Wardens have lost half of their already small number, and a third of the town has been overrun, leaving the survivors retreating to the inner walls.

Warden Thorne, one of the four Wardens left in the group, went to ask for reinforcements from Weisshaupt in light of this situation. Their answer is, well, not the best. Varric lets out a hum, one finger tapping on Bianca, as he wrecks his brain for a plan. He knows they’re pressed, but he won’t give up just yet. This is all Hawke’s influence, he thinks with a smile on his face, that woman doesn’t know when to call it quits even in the worst situation.

“You know what,” Thorne calls out from her corner of the room. “I'm done with waiting.”

“Uh…Kid?” Varric watches her as she grabbed what’s left of the weapons in the room—this belltower used to be a watchtower with one Warden posted in it to function as Windermere’s eyes. The place was destroyed by one throw of a flaming rock by a humongous Ogre, and that one Warden now lies dead on the ground with only half of his body left. His weapons are still there however, and now Thorne is putting everything that she could get her hands on inside her utility belts and numerous pockets. “Kid, this is no time for a suicide mission.”

Thorne makes a face at him. “It’s not? Look, I love your tragic novels and all but suicide missions are stupid. I have a plan, and for that I need to move alone.”

Yes, like that plan is not at all stupid. The look on Varric’s face must have said this out loud because the woman grins back at him. “Hmm, I’m not buying that. Look, I don’t want to be a witness to your heroic death just yet—lay the plan out to me and I’ll see if I can back you up.”

He got a look of gratitude back in return and Thorne immediately explains to him what she’d come up with in her mind when she was huffing and puffing in frustration earlier. What Varric hears nearly adds to his hairline loss even more, and by the end of it he’s already nursing a headache.

“How’s that? Now give me all the mines and bombs you have; I know you have good ones I saw them there—”

“Wait, wait, wait, let me get this—you’re going to rig the townhall’s foundation with mines and lead the darkspawn under it…and then you’re gonna drop the entire thing down on them?”

Thorne nods. “We can use the waterway to keep them off the streets. Antoine has these fire bombs he can use to herd the darkspawn down the waterway and Evka can lead a group to plug the waterway exits once most of the darkspawn are down there. If things go well, we can take out a big chunk of the horde.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then you lose one Warden and one empty half-destroyed townhall. Very easy to follow, yes?”

Maker’s breath, it’s like dealing with Hawke again. Thorne’s grinning face looks eerily like Hawke’s before the mage pulls yet another hare-brained plan with the rest of the crew. Ah, is this his fate? To be the support and backup to these women with penchants of reckless strategies until the end of his days? Varric rubs his face with exasperation before letting out a long sigh.

“Well…it’s a straight line to an objective, but so many things can go wrong.”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

“…it’s not a no.” The dwarf chuckles before shouldering his trusted partner, Bianca, once more. “I’m not one to sit around waiting for death, so if your fellow Wardens gives the OK for your plan, my mines are yours.”

Thorne gives a little happy clap. “Yessss. You can give me Bianca to—”

“That’s never gonna happen, Kid.”

“Aw, boo.”

“Right. Let’s go talk to Evka and Antoine.”

“They’re at the Chantry with the acting-mayor right now. I’ll help you climb down the stairs, Old Man.”

“Hey, I’m not that old.”

This Kid’s got guts and a shrewd mind, and even if she is a bit mouthy, she isn’t someone who gives up even in the darkest hours. Her mind tends to work in a straight line, like an arrow cutting into the heart of the enemies, but that’s not a bad thing when going against a Trickster God. The Inquisitor said to Varric once, that in this chase for Solas, that they’re going to need people who that man won’t see coming. A fresh face, a new blood—

Varric thinks he’s finally found one.

He watches the back of the rogue running ahead of him as they head down to the Chantry and thinks of a name for her. She’s going to need a codename once Varric gets her to join—the first of many protections he could give her to keep her away from Solas’ sight.

“Rook.” Varric says out loud into the night, his voice drowned by the cacophony of noises in the streets of Windermere.

One of the strongest pieces of the board.

Yes, that’s a good name.

//

Rook retches over the battlements, heaving and sputtering and coughing and trying not to think how much of that black sludge that’s coming out of her. Thank fuck she’s a Warden—if she’s a regular person, she would have died from having that boil bursting in front of her face like that. Fuck that stupid Hurlock and it’s stupid timing, tossing a javelin right into that boil before she could even move.

Warmth suddenly appears on her back, spreading through her skin and calming her irritated nerves gently. “Take a slow deep breath, my dear. It’s going to be all right.”

Emmrich. He’s safe.

She spat out black blood over the rocks and turns to him, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “Are you okay? How’s Davrin?”

“I’m fine—” Davrin’s gruff voice answers before Emmrich could, squatting nearby as he’s cleaning some of the gunk off of Assan’s feathers. “But Assan is filthy. I’m gonna need a moment to clean him up, he won’t be able to fly with all these on his wings.”

“Take as much time as you need. Thank you, Emmrich. That helps.” Whatever spell Emmrich casted on her, it calms Rook down immensely. Her nerves don’t feel like they’re on fire anymore. The Necromancer gives a bow of his head, accepting her thanks.

“You are welcome, but please do be careful, Rook. I know we are in a hurry, but we should move with precise yet careful steps even still.”

Rook sighs, feeling chastised. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m just feeling impatient. This situation is bringing back memories.”

“Not good, I presume?”

“Not at all. I experienced something similar to this situation in the past and I thought it was the worst siege I have experienced—only to once again be proven wrong because here we are now, in the middle of an even worse siege battle.” Rook says with a sweep of her hand, indicating the battlements full of blight gunk and dead darkspawn and the entirety of Weisshaupt that’s under attack by the millions of darkspawn.

She had expected something horrifying when Davrin told her about Weisshaupt recalling back the Wardens to prepare for siege…but she never expected something like this. The magnificent Fortress’s defenses were in the middle of being breached when she and her team arrived, and the sight of the Wardens struggling against the horde brought a lot of anxiety back from the recesses of her mind. How did the darkspawn break in? This fortress has been rigged with every weapon possible to fight them all off—so, what happened?

Ghilan’nain happened.

She personally took part in this siege, and enveloped the fortress in blight, thus giving her darkspawn a way in by using the Blight boils. The blight tendrils are now seen crawling all over the place, and the number of darkspawn crawling in towards the fortress has basically become innumerable. If one looks outside of the walls, it’s just a massive endless mass of wriggling darkness.

This must what the end of the world must have looked like.

Varric would have hated this if he was here.

Razikale roars above of their heads and the grounds tremble beneath their feet. Assan shrieks back in defiance, feathers ruffling up as if he’s ready to fight the Archdemon face-to-face. Rook likes that courage; Assan is a Warden’s partner through and through. Davrin seems to agree with her, standing up and tightening the strap of his shield around his off hand to prepare for their next move.

“Assan’s right, we’re not done yet. You ready, Rook? Emmrich? It’s a long way to the Dragon Trap, but I say we take the scenic route around to thin out some of these darkspawn as we go.”

“A splendid idea.” Emmrich says as he thumps the butt of his staff against the ground. The eyes of the skull at the end of his staff glows brightly in response. “A little difference in numbers might help the Grey Wardens cleaning up later on. Let us move, Rook.”

“Right.” Rook stares out across the sea of endless black at the other side of the battlements, where the rest of their team is. “We’re meeting up with everybody at the Trap, yes?”

“That’s the plan. Lucanis is scouting for a place to get Ghilan’nain, so we might even meet up before then.”

“They will be fine.” Emmrich adds gently, as if he knows what Rook’s worrying about. “Evka and Antoine are with them, along with the rest of the Wardens.”

Rook knows, she was there when they came up with this plan to have the rest of her team aid the Wardens in prepping the Dragon Trap while her, Davrin and Emmrich takes the other way around to the Trap to act as reinforcement to the Wardens protecting the battlements. It’s a lot faster to move in a small team, and even though a big part of her wants to take Neve with her, to want her close by so Rook can watch out for her, the Warden side of her insists that Emmrich is a better choice because of his choice of spells.

The Necromancer is a boon when fighting a large number of enemies—his summoning of the undead to help them in the thick of battle is a big advantage when fighting an endless wave of darkspawn.

The rogue takes a deep breath, before she harshly slaps her cheeks to get her mind in order. “Right. You’re right. Okay. Objective: clean up the blight boils and head to the Dragon Trap. Take out as many of the darkspawn as we could on the way. Davrin, whenever you’re ready.” She lets the tank of the group take over the lead, and Davrin nods, raising his shield and sword.

“I’ll kick down the gate in the count of three, so be ready to rain arrows and spells once it opens. There’s going to be a lot of shit waiting for us on the other side, hold nothing back.”

“Got it.”

“Understood.”

“One. Two. Thr—”

//

The walls explode with a boom and a shower of rocks and plasters when Bellara’s spell goes off. One big chunk of a rock beans Taash on the head before Neve could finish erecting the ice wall to cover their little group.

“You okay?” she calls out to the Qunari, one hand already on her potion belt.

“I’m fine! Stupid rocks.” Taash backhands an incoming ghoul without even looking, sending it flying off of the battlements. “Where’s Lucanis?”

“He flew ahead of us!” Harding yells out in Neve’s place from her perch up a wooden scaffolding, picking off the darkspawn with ease like death from above. “Antoine got him scouting ahead in case we’re going to need to send some more people to go with Evka.”

Bellara comes around the bend with explosions following her every footstep going eep eep eep. By the time she arrives by Neve’s side, she’s half covered in soot, and the frost mage smiles at her exasperatedly before taking out what looks like wood splinters from her hair bun. “Got the timing wrong?”

“Rook said it’s ten seconds each per mine but they went off before it even reaches ten seconds each!” the elven woman said with wide eyes, but she looks ecstatic for some reason. “The new mix works better! Well, they’re more sensitive, but also better! I think it’s the Gaatlok powder, it’s actually acting stabler than we thought but that makes it a lot more unpredictable, but wow did you see how big the explosions were? We’re going to have to run faster unless we can launch them further away without using our own two hands—”

She’s lost Neve halfway through her explanation. All Neve knew was that Rook shared some of her mines with them before they left for Weisshaupt, with precise directions on how to trigger them. Apparently, she’s using a new mix of explosives, with Taash and Bellara’s inputs, so this is the first time they’re going to try this mix in battle. Neve thinks it’s reckless to use it without testing it beforehand, but after seeing the result, she’s just glad they’re not testing it at the Lighthouse.

She’s not looking forward to putting out the fire that’ll come from it.

“Was that good?” Taash asks, looking at Bellara with raised eyebrows.

“Yes! The best! Just as long as you run after you throw them, we’re good to go!”

The two look at each other before slapping their hands together in a high-five, wide grins on their faces. Neve feels a headache coming just from seeing these two looking so excited.

“I’ll see if I can get more Gaatlok powder the next time we stop by Rivain.”

“Ooh, take me with you!”

“For some reason I’m…getting a bad feeling listening to these two talk about explosions.” Harding said after sliding down a wooden beam and stepping besides Neve.

The frost mage sighs. “That makes the two of us.” Should she be mad at Rook? She should be mad at Rook. It was the Saboteur’s idea to put Gaatlok powder into her new explosives, and now with these two enabling her, Neve foresees a lot of explosions coming in their future. “Well, whatever happens, they’re not testing it near my off—”

The ground shakes as a large dragon flew over their heads. Its screech pierces the air, like a crack of thunder splitting the sky, and everyone groans as the close proximity sends their eardrums throbbing in pain. The Grey Wardens around them seems to be in even more pain than the team, some of them retching onto the ground at the noise, as if the Archdemon’s screech has another effect that could only be felt by them.

Neve stares out at the black shadow in the sky that is Razikale flying away from them and lets out a trembling sigh.

What a fearsome sight. She had seen statues and drawings of the dragon before all over Tevinter, but the real thing was just…something else. She’d never expected to fight one of the Tevinter Old Gods personally like this before, but this job keeps throwing new experiences at her, and not in a good way.

How is Davrin going to kill that? And how is Lucanis going to kill a God, whose entire face was up in the sky?

She has fought in hopeless battles before ever since joining this team, but this fight—this Siege of Weisshaupt, seems to be the most hopeless of all. The magnificent fortress of Weisshaupt, the very heart of the Grey Wardens in Thedas, have been breached by the darkspawn led by one of the Evanuris herself. It’s something out of a nightmare, and the worst part of this is that Neve couldn’t wake up from it even if she wanted to.

They arrived expecting the worse, and they received that and so much more.

Rook had taken Emmrich and Davrin with her as they take Ghilan’nain’s entire attention and play the diversion so that the rest of them could prepare the Dragon Trap to kill Razikale. Once her Archdemon is dead, the hope is that Ghilan’nain would revert back to being mortal, and Lucanis can do his job and take her down.

The plan is simple, but now that Neve is here, facing the endless black mass which is the waves of darkspawn that’s climbing up the walls of the battlements, everything feels a hundred times more difficult than usual.

There isn’t even a time to slow down and take a break. They have to keep moving, to keep going forward, so that the deaths of the Wardens leading up to this point wouldn’t be in vain.

Suddenly, two loud blasts of the horn were heard resounding through the air. Every one of the team look at each other in question, once more in the dark about these Warden signals.

Antoine’s brown head pops up from under a rubble following the horn, looking dazed and a bit sick, but still holding tightly to his bow. “Is everyone all right?”

“Yes! Antoine, what does that mean?” Harding offered him her shoulders in case he needed a boost, but the elven rogue shook his head. “Two horns now instead of one.”

“It is a signal of retreat.” The elven Warden answers through gritted teeth. “The outer defenses of the fortress have been breached. Evka must have ordered it. Merde, I did not expect our defenses to fall this fast!”

None of them did, but it’s quickly made clear how much the darkspawn are overwhelming them in spite all their preparations.

“We have to move.” Antoine said again, looking out into the battlefield in a way that resembles Rook when she’s calculating something inside her head. “This place will soon be flooded with darkspawn now that the outer rings have fallen. Let us head to the library, it is only a short way from there towards the Dragon Trap.”

Everyone turns to the building he’s pointing towards, a tower in the distance in the midst of black and fire. It looks like it would be a fun journey getting there.

They move as one after a quick heal of everyone in the danger of dying, and make their way through the streets of the Keep to save on time. They could see the furious battles taking over across the Keep from this up high, right where Rook and the others are. Neve worries, deep inside, because she knows that a reinforcement made up of three people isn’t going to do much against an endless sea of darkspawn.

But there was no other choice—they have to keep Ghilan’nain’s eyes away from their true objective in order to make this work.

Their group runs through broken buildings and climbs up ruined walls. The Grey Wardens taking the lead are taking the full brunt of bull rushing the darkspawn as they move, shields up and steady as the rogues and mages fires upon them from the safety of the back. They could pull this move with their big number and the element of surprise, but they can’t keep it up forever.

Suddenly Bellara, holding a torch in hand, runs ahead of them towards the edge of a half-ruined house. Harding seems to have noticed something as well, and immediately follows after her.

Neve was wondering what’s going on until she hears Bellara shouting into the air, waving the torch above her head vigorously. “Rook! Up here!”

“Bellara!” The sound of Rook’s voice, the relief loud and obvious, brings warmth into Neve’s being. She found herself running to join them, and her eyes caught sight of the other three of their group standing on a street below them. “We’re trying to find a way out of this!”

“Follow the torch! Be careful of the darkspawn! There are loads ahead!” from their vantage point, they could see a large swathe of black waiting for Rook and the others in their path. Bellara throws the torch that was in her hands at the direction of the safer path.

“The Wardens are rallying at a bell tower!” Harding shouts after her, “You can get out there!”

“I’ll see you soon!” Rook yells in response, her voice fading into the night air as they watch their team leader climbing up the wooden walls to get to the other side. The bell chimes loudly as they move, and Neve took one last glance at the other group before joining the rest of her people in their trek towards the library.

Just seeing that the others are fine is doing a lot of good to her mind. The three looks disheveled, but they’re whole and alive, and that’s all that matters.

The mage keeps her eyes on the areas around her, just in case Rook and the others needed directions. Neve’s currently at a good position to be the eyes in the sky, which gives her a good vantage point of their location, and now she understands fully why all three rogues in her group loves perching on tall buildings. You can really see everything from this up high.

Her group’s path crosses the ruins of the bell tower, and Neve makes the split decision of going on a small detour as the others ran ahead of her.

“Rook,” she calls out. The close distance between her and the ground level where Rook’s clambering onto right now isn’t as far as it was earlier, so keeping her voice level would reach the rogue. Rook looks up at the sound of her voice, eyes wide as if she didn’t expect to see Neve in the middle of this mess. She smiles. “Keep moving—the others ran ahead. Fingers crossed for another way out!”

The rogue lets out a bark of laughter even though Neve basically said that her path is hitting a dead end. “Yes, no worries. We’ll find another way. Are you alright?”

“I’ve been better, honestly.”

“Same.” Rook’s eyes are searching as they look her up and down, as if trying to assess her injuries from this distance. Silly woman. “Got a torch or something to lead us through?”

“I don’t think you’re going to need a torch to help you see what’s waiting for you.” Neve points at an incoming horde heading Rook’s way. “They aren’t exactly hiding.”

“Oh fuck.”

Neve feels that in her bones. She turns to the rogue one last time. “Don’t die. I’ll see you later.”

Rook doesn’t answer because a blight bomb flew her way, and the rogue threw herself sideways to get out of the range of the explosion. The horde doesn’t give the rogue time to answer, and Neve has to fight her instincts to jump in and join Davrin and Emmrich as they run after her.

She forcefully tears her eyes away from the fight and pumps her legs to catch up with her own group. She could hear Antoine’s voice from here, so they’re not that far ahead of her. There were a lot of people yelling along with him though. What’s happening?

“Shit, that’s Marson’s group!”

“Cut through the courtyard! They’re getting overwhelmed!”

“Hang in there! We’re coming!”

Neve sees the glow of Spite’s wings as Lucanis flew over them to another direction with Taash following him. She’s tempted to follow, but she went with most of the group instead. They were heading down the courtyard where a small group of Wardens are valiantly fighting against a horde that’s outnumbering them three to one. The group wasn’t doing well, and Neve watches with her own two eyes as a mage Warden was bisected in half with one swing of an Ogre’s maul.

“No!” Bellara’s screams tear through the air as her storm spells shot towards the Ogre mercilessly, enveloping it in crackling thunder that sets it on fire. The monster roars, and the sound of its voice calls upon the attention of its brethren, who all turns toward this new group of people. The horde changes targets, and Neve grips her scepter tightly as she casts a spell under her breath.

The two groups meet with a resounding clash of steel and claws. The Grey Wardens roars out as they fought in defense of their struggling comrades, swords cutting into blighted flesh and spells flying through the air. Harding’s arrows rains upon the ghouls, sundering them, and Neve immediately follows up with her Icebreaker. Ice shards rains from the sky, tearing through sundered blighted skin, freezing everything they touch into ice before instantly shattering them with a snap of her fingers.

It was automatic for them, for Neve and Bellara to work in tandem with Harding, creating chaos and explosions throughout the battlefield. Their experiences of fighting together against different adversaries does not pale in light of the Grey Wardens’ teamwork. It was during this, as Neve pulls back to down a bottle of lyrium potion, that she sees a singular mage warden working on the group of injured who have been taking cover behind a large destroyed statue of a griffon with a broken wing.

The frost mage instinctively summons a wall of ice to put some distance and protection between the fighting group and the injured Wardens and follows after Bellara who ran in to help the mage warden without prompting. The elven mage’s hands are shaking as she starts healing someone with a large hole on the side of his body, and Neve immediately reaches for another lyrium potion at the sight of her pale face.

“Bel,” she calls out. Bellara turns to her and sees the bottle in her hands. “I’ll help you.”

She pops the cork and carefully help Bellara drink the liquid even through the elven mage’s healing session. Healing spells uses mana depending on the injury the caster is healing. Bellara is singlehandedly trying to regrow a part of this man’s body, and though Neve doubts she could completely fill in that large hole, she could probably manage to stitch the flesh together so that the person would stop bleeding.

Bellara is having the worst time out of all of them in the face of this much death and destruction. Neve is hoping that she’s not going to be permanently impacted by all these when they get out of these mess.

“You—” a broken voice followed by a cough caught her attention. Neve turns to one of the Wardens on the ground, a woman with a mangled leg and broken body, one eye shut and bleeding. “I’ve met you—before.”

Neve frowns, and it takes her a few seconds, but things finally click in place.

No!

She stumbles onto her knees on the ground besides the woman, eyes assessing her injuries. Vanhedis, it’s really bad. Neve can’t heal, especially something this serious—her cold fingers reaches for the healing potions on her belt, aware of the one good eye following her every move.

“You’re Gene—no, Jean.” This woman is someone that Neve talked to at the Hossberg Wetlands Outpost just a week ago. The woman who’s also a Rook’s friend from way back when. Shit. “Wait, let me get you some potion. You have to drink—”

Jean lays a bloody hand on hers, stopping her.

“Keep that for yourself.” Jean’s voice is weak and quiet, so very different to the confident woman who stared Neve down in judgement, and Neve hates it. “Are you—is Rook—”

“She’s here. She’s somewhere else, but she’s here.” the mage looks around for Harding. Harding has Emmrich’s strongest potions, she could get Jean up in a second if Neve could find her in the middle of this chaos. “We’re meeting up later, so let’s get you up—”

“There is no later. For me.”

Neve closes her eyes as the damning words washes over her. She knows. She knows. Jean’s body already took too much damage that the fact that she’s even talking right now is already a miracle. Even with Emmrich’s potions there is still little chance that she’ll be able to live through the night.

How is she going to tell Rook?

“Hey, can you—” Jean hacks up blood, her body lightly seizing before Bellara casts a healing spell as she comes over. The elven woman is looking at Neve with distraught, knowing what’s coming for this woman. “—do me a favor?”

“You shouldn’t talk—” Neve tries to say, but Jean grabs her hand and squeezed hard to get her attention.

“N-no time left. A favor?”

“…Anything.”

“Take care of Rook. She’s—a blockhead, but means well. She’s going to—take this badly. Don’t let her—be reckless.”

“I won’t.” Neve promises, in more ways than one.

Jean nods at her words, satisfied. Her eyes stray over to meet Bellara’s tearful ones, before returning back to Neve’s. She smiles through the blood in her mouth. “Thank you for coming. For me.”

“I will stay with you.”

Neve holds the trembling hand with both of hers, hot tears running down her face as she watches the Warden takes her last breath. When the hand goes slack and the chest stops breathing, Bellara lets out a gasp, and a pair of arms move to engulf her in a hug.

“Oh, Neve.”

Neve never knows how to cry loudly.

She’s always been a quiet crier ever since she was a child. Maybe out of habit, maybe out of necessity, she doesn’t know.

Even now, in the face of this death, no sob escapes her even though Bellara is sobbing against her shoulder.

Neve’s heart is twisting itself with sorrow, but the only thing that could show for it are the tears running quietly down her face.

The battle rages on, oblivious to this tragedy, and steel continues to clash against blighted claws in the darkest of night.

//

“Is he okay?”

Rook peeks around Harding as she helps Emmrich drink one of his strongest potions. The Necromancer was in bad shape. A Hurlock caught him by surprise in a running tackle, and though he was only clipped, the inertia was enough to send him flying against a stone pillar, breaking a few of his ribs.

She heard the nasty crack even across the grounds. She thought that it was it for the man, but thankfully Emmrich proved her wrong. He’s pretty durable for someone his age, and she was able to get to him with Davrin providing them cover as they retreated with their backs against the wall in the front steps of the library.

They were so close!

And then the library doors groan open, and Taash’s voice rang through the air, giving them an out.

One gigantic drawbar placed behind the heavy steel doors of the library later, they finally found time to take in a breather inside the main hall. Harding and Bellara immediately went to heal Emmrich, while the others got Rook and Davrin caught up on what’s been happening.

Holden, one of the Grey Warden’s blacksmiths, has an idea with using the Eluvian as their way out of here. Rook’s up for it as long as they can fix it.

“He’s fine.” Bellara is the one answering her question instead of Harding. “I casted a spell over him once you stepped inside the library earlier. It’s like, a preheal? Well, anyway, it’s going to speed up the potion’s effects from the inside out. But, he needs to rest.”

“I know.” There’s no way Emmrich is going to be able to run with that injury. Rook bites her lip, mind whirring. “But we’re going to need a mage from here on out. Can you—”

“I’ll go with you.”

Everyone turns to Neve as she walks towards them, metal leg ringing against the stone floor. Her eyes are set and her face is hard and Rook wonders why she’s looking like a woman who’s ready to punch death in the face. “Are you sure? You’re injured.”

Neve looks down at herself, at the blood staining the front of her coat, and she takes a deep breath before shaking her head. “It’s not my blood.”

“What?”

“Look, Bellara needs to stay with Emmrich and then fix the Eluvian so that we can get out of here.” Neve’s voice is firm and commanding and Rook’s instincts is telling her to listen. “I’m in better shape than you two Wardens, so take me with you.”

Rook is full of questions. What happened? A part of her wants to say yes immediately, but the inquisitive part of her needs to know why. Davrin seems to read her mind because he gripped her shoulder strongly, grabbing her attention.

“There’s no time to argue, we really have to go. Did Lucanis give you the dagger?”

“He did,” Rook nods, relenting. “We’ll have to play it smart so that I can pass him the dagger, later on.”

“Good. We’ll go through the west wing. The dragon trap is close.”

“Go.” Taash said when Rook turns to them. The Qunari’s axes are dripping with blighted blood on their hips. “I’ll protect Bellara and the others as they fix the Eluvian. Make sure to kick their asses extra hard for me.”

“Count on it.” Rook takes one long look over at her team members, her friends, and grits her teeth as she turns away. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Her footsteps echo against the stone walls as she makes her way through the main hall. Shelves of Warden Records and glass cases of relics lines the room where it holds proof of the Warden’s long history of existence across Thedas. It hurts her a bit to think that this might be the last time Rook is going to walk down these hallowed halls, because she knows that just in a matter of hours, the darkspawn is going to come here and destroy everything.

The Keep has fallen, and all they’re doing right now is making sure that they’re not going down without a fight.

As long as they can kill Razikale or Ghilan’nain, or both, then every death—every destruction—would not have been for nothing.

Rook’s eyes landed on a silver chalice lying on the floor and she frowns, speeding up ahead of her two companions to reach for it.

Ugh. This relic is a precious thing. She hopes Holden will bring this with him when he leaves. Rook uses her sleeve to carefully wipe dust off of the chalice as best as she could, and gently place it back on its altar.

Joining Chalice. Recovered from Ostagar, Ferelden.

A remnant of the Fifth Blight is standing tall and whole even in the middle of all this mess happening during the Sixth, and last, Blight. There’s something poetic about it, Rook thinks, but she’s no time to ponder on it.

“Rook.” Davrin calls from the elevator, and Rook immediately follows.

//

The west wing of the library is overrun by blight boils.

It’s like Ghilan’nain is focusing all of her nasty boils into this place, and there is no space at all where the precious books and relics aren’t free from the sprays of the blighted gunk. Rook stares at them in sorrow, wishing that she’s a mage so that she could clean all of these nasty things up with one cast of a spell.

“Don’t think about it.” Davrin’s voice calls out to her and she looks at him with raised eyebrows.

“Think about what?”

The man’s face is flat when he looks back at her. “You’re thinking of smuggling some of these books to bring back to the Lighthouse. Again, don’t think about it.”

“Why not? They’re going to rot in here otherwise.” Rook grabs a thick tome of Stalata Negat: The Stone Unheld: A Commentary on the Roll of Years and cringes when gunk drips off of its pages. “Look at this! This thing costs more than my best bow in the black market!”

“Don’t sell it!”

“I’m not planning to! I’m just saying, we could do with more books in Solas’ library. Also, these books go back to the First Blight,” the rogue looks around at the blighted library with a heavy heart. “Do you really want to watch all these precious history of the Grey Wardens go up in smoke?”

Davrin’s sigh is half exasperation and half frustration, and he stops hacking at tendrils to turn to her.

“No. I’m just as frustrated as you are to see the state of the library like this. But there’s nothing we can do about it. I think a lot of people would agree with me when I say we should let the past burn so that we can save the future.”

Let Weisshaupt fall as long as they can take down Razikale and Ghilan’nain both.

The rogue lets out a frustrated sigh. “This is really hard for me. Finally, I get free reign of this damned library, and of course it’s the night when this place is going to be run down to the ground with darkspawn.” Her fellow warden laughs at her, before continuing his fight against a massive boil.

“What, you never got library duty before? They had me polishing the chalices and trophies after a training gone wrong.”

“I wasn’t here for long, and they got me on latrine duty after messing up with the explosives one time. You should have seen Warden-Constable Elliot’s face when I set off a chain of explosions along the battlements by accident. One end of his moustache was on fire.”

The elven warden snorted, hard, at the image and his sword lances through the boil with a disgusting squelch. Rook laughs as she moves out of the spray range of the thing. “Hey! A little warning!”

“Fuck you, Rook.” Davrin says with feelings as he drips with blight gunk from neck to toe. He raised his arms just in time to block his face from the spray. Rook snorts at the sight and waves her fingers at him.

“Have fun cleaning up, Senior Warden. I’ll go take care of that big one in the middle of the room. I spy a chest with my own two eyes.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t!” the rogue sing songs as she moves to the aforementioned blight before stopping in her tracks when she saw Neve in the peripheral of her eyes.

The mage has been quiet ever since she joined up with them earlier. Neve isn’t usually one to joke around, but she’s…been even more quiet than usual. She’s piercing the blight boils with twice the gusto of Rook and Davrin combined as if she’s venting about something. Rook understands venting, but she’s getting worried.

There hasn’t been this much silence between them ever since they slowly start talking again.

This awfully feels like Neve’s first day back from Minrathous after the dragon attack, and it’s bringing back bad memories for Rook.

She takes a deep breath before approaching the mage, making sure her footsteps are loud so that Neve isn’t surprised. “Hey.”

Neve’s eyes flick up to meet hers, but the mage isn’t stopping her work of cleaning her corner from the boils. “Hey. How’s Davrin?”

“Dripping with blight gunk. Are you okay?”

The mage nods, wiping her face with the sleeve of her coat. “I’m fine. I’m keeping safe like you said—mouth shut so that none of these thing gets inside when I pierce them, and keep my distance.”

Nobody could really know what will happen if these gunk gets into someone’s body, and neither Rook and Davrin wants to chance it as their team continues to fight the blight. They’ve developed a system together that will let their friends pierce the boils safely. While Rook and Davrin can afford to be a bit more reckless in their fight against the blight, they’re not exactly enthusiastic about the thought of conscripting any of their friends in the case that they get blighted.

Rook nods back at Neve in response to her words. “That’s great, but that isn’t what I meant. I was asking if you are okay in general. You’ve been…really quiet.”

“I’m just focusing.”

“And you’re avoiding me.”

Neve lets out a small chuckle—but it sounds wrong. “I’m here cleaning up blight boils with you in the library. How am I avoiding you?”

“I don’t know, but you’re being really distant. And I’m now worried that something bad happened to you.”

Quiet wraps around them like the touch of cold, clammy, fingers—broken only by Davrin’s grunts as he cleans up the boils on his corner of the room.

Rook keeps her eyes on Neve’s back, mind bursting with question over what had happened on Neve’s end of the journey to the library. She thought she needed to press even more, but then Neve’s shoulders relaxed, and her body language changes.

The rogue frowns.

“I’m fine, Rook.” When the detective turns back to her, her face was close to normal. The persisting frown that was there ever since she joined up with Rook and Davrin is gone like it was never there. “I was just thinking that we only have a few things left to do after this.”

?

“Killing Razikale and Ghilnan’nain, you mean?”

“Yes, and it’s got me thinking. When we trap the Archdemon,” Neve starts, as if trying to change the topic, “a Grey Warden has to kill it. Is that how it works?”

Rook wants to move the conversation back to what they were talking about before, but the tone of Neve’s voice was serious and she knows that their brief moment of personal talk is over. She sighs and privately mourns the moment. “Yes. And die doing it.”

She’s used with the reaction that follows this question, so the wide-eyed look on Neve’s face that comes in response to her answer didn’t take her by surprise.

“What?” the mage utters, incredulous, looking at Rook as if she’s expecting the rogue to laugh and tell her it’s a joke.

It’s not.

The resident monster hunter comes to her rescue like usual, his armor now close to being gunk-less. “It’s complicated. But every Warden has trained and prepared for the sacrifice. I’m ready.”

Whooooaaa—hold on a minute.

The Saboteur turns to the man with a frown, raising her arms in disbelief. “Hello? I’m a Warden too, remember? Why are you counting me out of this?” He’s not the only Warden around here ready to die to do their duty. Rook may not be the best Warden when it comes to blindly following orders, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to stand there and watch as someone else do her job for her!

Davrin looks at her like he’s looking at a kid throwing a tantrum. He lightly kicks at her shin, a friendly gesture, meant to calm her down. It works, but Rook frowns at him still, and he sighs. “Because you’re the Warden leading this outfit. People need you alive. This is something only you can do, Rook, while killing the Archdemon is what us Wardens have been preparing for throughout our lives”

He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean that Rook likes hearing it.

“Besides,” the elven man continues, looking lighter than before after accepting his incoming fate. “I’m looking forward to having my portrait hang in here someday. Framed in fancy expensive gold, like what they have for Garahel’s.”

“Watch me draw a stupid mustache on your stupid portrait.”

“Don’t you dare.”

The two Wardens glare at each other for a bit before breaking out in small laughter. Rook raises a fist, which Davrin bumps with his, and she knows that whatever happens, if either of them dies in their duty, the other will keep on moving forward and honor the sacrifice.

Neve is the only one of them looking unamused, looking at the two Wardens like they’ve lost their minds.

“And Lucanis? He still needs a shot at Ghilan’nain.”

“That’s why we’re here. The highest point of the keep.” Rook bounces on the tip of her feet. “Dragon trap is just ahead, right Davrin?” the elven warden nods, pointing at the big double doors at the end of the corridor, now mostly clear of the blight.

“Have you thought about the how? Because she’s in the sky.” Neve points up at the ceiling of the library. “Her face was right up there with the clouds. How is he going to stab it?”

Ah, the million-gold question. “Well, Spite’s got wings...so…”

“You’re being flippant about this.”

“Truly not. I’m actually stressing out. Ask him, I threw up earlier on the way here.”

“She did,” Davrin said without looking as he heads to the door ahead of them. “Twice. Emmrich had to cast a calming spell on her because he’s afraid she’ll throw up a lung.”

Neve pressed a hand against her forehead like she’s nursing a big headache, and Rook looks at her with a small smile. She’s actually a bit embarrassed at having revealed to Neve that she…threw up…a little…from the stress of this mission. But hey, Neve doesn’t look like she’s carrying the weight of a dead world on her shoulders anymore.

Rook would rather have her look at her with exasperation rather than see Neve looking all doleful like earlier. She steps closer to Neve, and her heart lurches in her chest when their eyes met. Their small height difference means the scar on Neve’s forehead is at Rook’s eye level, and the sight of it forcefully reminds her of the incident that was the start of everything.

“Are you ready?” her voice drops low in this close proximity with the woman who sends her heart in a tizzy every goddamn day. “We’re almost at the end of this.”

“Are you?” Neve’s brown eyes are searching hers, but Rook’s ready with a response.

“Sure. We’ve been preparing for this. We’re going to come out of this fight with a success, one way or another.”

The look on the mage’s face is a bit bittersweet at her words. “Aren’t you optimistic?”

“I don’t know how not to be.” The rogue replies, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. She’s always been this way, and Rook remembers Varric lightly complains about it. Hah, that man is always complaining. “Let’s catch up to Davrin.”

She turns to follow where the senior Warden has gone to, but before she could go too far Neve’s hand shot out to grab her forearm, holding her back. Rook turns to the mage with raised eyebrows.

The detective’s face is conflicted as she looks back at her. “Rook. I—there’s actually—” Neve bit her lower lip, choosing her words carefully, and Rook waits (im)patiently with a racing heart.

What? What?

What’s going on?

Hope fills inside her and Rook immediately quenches it to stop herself from being disappointed.

Neve isn’t the type like that—to get all personal during a job like this. There’s no way,

Right?

She was right because after a while Neve eventually lets go of her arm and gives her a twisted smile that tells Rook nothing. “I’m sorry. This is not the right time.”

See?

“It’s all right. Take all the time you need; we can talk later.” Rook means to comfort her, but it only made Neve look even more miserable. What’s happening? She wants to press but she didn’t want to push Neve away. The sound of something solid hitting the floor somewhere above them shook both of them out of their reverie, as if tired with this push and pulling, and two pair of eyes turns to the direction where Davrin disappeared to with alarm.

“Davrin?” Rook calls, one hand reaching for an arrow from the quiver on her back.

There’s a moment of silence, before her friend’s voice calls back. “That was me. Sorry. Found a weapons chest, and it has some goods in it. There’s a bunch of arrows, Rook, if you want to refill your quiver. And some lyrium potions for Neve.”

Rook and Neve let out a collective sigh of relief before the latter responds, raising her voice. “I’ll have them, thanks. We’ll be right there.” Her eyes still looks like they’re holding something back when she looks back at Rook. “Come on. Duty calls.”

Right. Duty.

Always duty. Always the job.

One of these days Rook will make sure the two of them have time to sit down and talk properly because this is driving her crazy.

//

Neve doesn’t know how to do it.

She doesn’t know even where to start.

How to break the news that one of Rook’s friends died and Neve was present when she breathes her last.

Logically she knows that this isn’t the right time, but really, there isn’t going to be a better time about news like this. It’s better to do it immediately—to pull the plug and let the grief flow immediately.

But they’re fighting an Archdemon and a God—Neve cannot risk compromising Rook emotionally when they all need her to be steady in this fight. Rook is playing the bait again, this time using that damned Lyrium Dagger to get Razikale to land on the trap.

Neve won’t ever forgive herself if her revelation would lead to Rook to get maimed or worse die, in the attempt of fulfilling the mission because she’s distracted.

It will have to wait, there is no other choice.

The news will hurt, and like Jean said, Rook might take it badly, but Neve would much rather have an angry Rook than a dead Rook.

For now, Neve’s going to have to concentrate, and she waits with baited breath for the moment when Razikale would step on that hidden panel on the ground that activates the Dragon Trap.

They’re almost at the end.

And like always, this is right when things go wrong.

Chapter Text

“Are you leaving?”

Rook stops trying to grab the fallen blanket on the ground with a foot, and turned to the woman in bed with her. This woman looks very erotic even from the back, luscious skin glistening with the remnants of sweat. Rook wants to press her lips against every inch of it, and marks her for her own. “Do you…want me to stay?”

“…Do you want to stay?”

The rogue chuckles. “So many questions.” She abandons the blanket and throws an arm around the woman’s body. The woman stiffens, for a second, but then relaxed with a contented sigh. Rook smiles against the back of her head when she feels her arm being tugged, pulling her in closer so that she’s now full-on cuddling her from the back.

Hah. Cuddling a one-night stand like this. First time for everything.

“People usually leave after I fall asleep.” The woman said after a comfortable quiet between them. Rook is fighting sleep herself, and almost missed her words.

But she still caught it, and she’s so tickled because this is such a roundabout way for this woman to ask her to stay.

“Sure.” Rook agrees easily, not really having anywhere else to go. She feels a kiss pressed against the back of her hand that this woman has taken hostage, and she smiles. “You’re making a pretty good argument to get me to stay, looking like that.”

Deep muffled chuckles were her response, and then a hand reach behind her to blindly pat Rook’s face, as if trying to get her to shut up. “Shh. Sleeping.”

There aren’t any more words between them after that, as they bask in each other’s warmth and try to enjoy the rest of the time that they have together.

Rook loathes to leave, but she has to.

She truly hopes that she’ll find this woman again in the future.

If she gets another chance with her—she won’t let go, that time.

//

“Dodge, Rook!”

Rook throws herself bodily onto an incoming ghoul to escape one of the Archdemon’s heads as it shot right at her at lightning speed. She narrowly misses getting stabbed by the tip of the spikes on its split mouth by like a hair, but it still grazed her vulnerable off-hand side. White hot instant pain spreads through her body like poison and she falls to her knees, fresh blood splashing upon the ground.

The ghoul she landed on screeched in complaint—probably because of the extra weight she’s carrying, and many of its fellow rushes at Rook like flies swarming a corpse. It’s like they know that she’s open and vulnerable, going straight for the bleeding wound by her side.

Fuck, she won’t reach her mines in ti—

Ice blooms around her like a protective shield, blasting cold mist onto her face, and Rook watches with awe as ice shards tears the ghouls chasing her into bloodied pieces on the other side of the shield. There’s a hand on her elbow, pulling her up, and Rook staggers to her feet with a grimace with Neve’s help.

“Where did it get you?” There’s a trail of blood running down from her temple, but the woman’s eyes are still burning with resolve.

“My left side, it’s—” Rook hissed as Neve presses her hand against it and the rogue feels the prickling feeling of a patch of ice spreading over the wound, stopping the blood. The ice numbs the pain, and it clears her head a little bit. “Thanks.”

“Don’t stop moving, the darkspawn are all aiming for you.”

“I know. It’s because of this damned dagger.” Rook’s half-plate half-leather armor is in tatters from the onslaught of attacks. Not only are Razikale’s three heads aiming for her, the darkspawn that Ghilan’nain summoned are also after her ass too. It’s like she’s running away with freshly cooked bacon from a dozen hungry dogs— these things are annoyingly persistent.

“I’ll be fine.” She said again, wiping her bloodied hand against her leathers before nocking another arrow. “Let’s stick to the plan. Cut down Razikale’s heads.”

“All three of them at once?” Neve’s voice wavers as she tries to joke and Rook actually lets out a laugh at the image. Ah, the dream.

“If you can do that, I’ll treat you to dinner.”

She didn’t wait for Neve’s response—she couldn’t—because Razikale’s three heads came at her again and Rook pushes Neve away as hard as she could before the mage could get caught in the attack. The Archdemon’s heads crashes against the ground at differing times but with similar impacts that sends rocks flying. Rook has to force her abused muscles to move as she let loose arrows one after another at the damn thing as she flipped and dodged and hope they land in its eyes.

One would ask, how did Rook end up in this situation?

Well, Rook isn’t sure too, because she swears when she signed up to this Grey Warden business, it’s to kill Archdemons with one head each.

It’s just her kind of luck to have Ghilan’nain do something to Razikale so that it has three heads and now everyone’s scrambling around to adapt to this new development. Solas did hint that something’s been done to Razikale when Rook went to talk to him before, but, well, let’s be honest. There’s no way she would have expected this outcome.

The First Warden was dead—killed personally by the God as she makes her personal entry into the fray, and now she’s conducting her beloved Archdemon like a maestro of doom in all her tentacled glory. Rook has seen really horrifying shit before down in the Deep Roads, shit that makes her wake up gasping in cold sweat, and after knowing that this God is the very creator of the blight, darkspawn and everything it entails? The fact that she physically looks like this suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Rook isn’t unfamiliar with Ghilan’nain’s type—the ambitious, brilliant researcher type that has little to no morality. They are always in want, in need, of things to experiment on, and most of the time that includes the people closest to them…or even themselves. This tentacled being must be her perfect form, instead of that face in the sky that she used to taunt them with earlier. All that power—that sheer arrogance…it makes Rook burn with righteous anger whenever she thinks that this twisted being is the reason Minrathous burned.

The reason that Neve is suffering still.

If they can just—stab her, somehow—

“Davrin!”

The senior warden whistles for Assan once one of Razikale’s heads is engulfed in multiple layers of ice. Neve is straining, she’s avoiding the ghouls and Hurlocks while keeping her spell steady, eyes on the frost spreading upon Razikale’s skin like a spider spinning its web. Rook’s providing cover fire, arrows dwindling down as she tries to keep the other two heads from coming after Neve. It’s really frustrating— it’s like Rook’s pelting the heads with needles— it doesn’t seem like any of her enchanted arrows are making noticeable damages.

Assan tears through the air with a ferocious screech, magnificent wings leaving a phantom image of a blazing flame from the velocity of his fall. He aims himself at the frozen head like the arrow he’s named after, and when he makes contact, the griffon crashes against the surface of the frozen head with a loud bang, sending the half-shattered head slamming into the ground with a force that sends Neve flying off her feet. Davrin caught her by the elbow just in time and pulls her under his shield as a jagged rubbles and blighted water rained above them. The other two heads let out ungodly wails of rage and launches themselves at the two who are momentarily stunned from defending.

The jagged spikes on Razikale’s split mouth are laced with poison, and Rook has first-hand experience with it. They have to dodge because not even Davrin’s armor could withstand the impact!

Rook runs as fast as she could towards them while pulling out two well-oiled palm-sized wooden balls from one of the pockets on the leather strap strung across her armor. She throws them as hard as she could towards the space between her friends and the two heads, and watch as the balls hits the ground, bounces, and then starts assembling itself in mid-air.

The furious clicking and ticking of gears fills the air as Rook’s mechanized contraptions assembles themselves into a pair of portable and foldable turrets that immediately starts firing bolts at the gaping maws. The bolts explode the moment it makes contact with the inside of Razikale’s mouth, and the effect was immediate—its shrieks of pain reverberate painfully through the air. The turrets don’t stop firing after that first shot—it continues pelting the two heads with projectiles over and over again as the Archdemon thrashes around in agony.

Rook’s put a mix of itching powder and Rivain’s worst chili powder inside each bolt—the pain isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. She might be out a lot of gold from upgrading her turrets, but if they’re able to save her friends, then they’re worth every coin.

“Move!” she bellows at Neve and Davrin, who snaps back to attention at the sound of Razikale’s shrieks and quickly puts some distance between them and the three heads.

With the deceptively heavy portable turrets out of Rook’s pockets, the extra weight that she’s been carrying around has lessened, though not entirely. She’s saving her ace for the perfect time, because once she uses it, there is no reloading. Rook is out of arrows, and she has only less than half of her mines left. If this battle keeps on going like this, it’s going to be their defeat.

The other Wardens had tried to help from their platforms up in the trap controls, but Ghilan’nain’s blighted walls were too thick and their arrows cannot reach past the barrier. These surviving Wardens are pretty much spectators in this fight, the horrified silent witnesses to Ghilan’nain’s bloody victory.

She’s been rigging the stage from the start and Rook hates it. They have to cut down Razikale’s three—

Wait.

Three?

No, two.

Neve and Davrin shattered the middle head to bits with their combined attacks. Those magnificent bastards!

Rook raises her arms and honest-to-goodness fist-pumps in the middle of the field before immediately getting tackled aside by Davrin as one of Razikale’s heads lets out an acid spray right at the spot where she was standing. The two crashed onto the ground and rolled until they hit a blight wall, and Davrin, expectedly, yelled at her when they got their bearings.

“Don’t celebrate in the middle of a fight, idiot!”

Rook laughs, not even feeling bad about it. “You fucking shattered the middle head! That was amazing!”

“We still have two, left!”

“Yes, but that’s one less and that’s progress!”

She knows her friends are sometimes bewildered with her optimism even in the bleakest battle, but sometimes you gotta call a spade, a spade. They killed one head, and there are two left—that’s already better than what they’re doing an hour ago. Progress is important. Progress means that they’re making a change in this fight—

They’re not just sitting ducks.

They’re actually fighting back!

That’s a lot of weight off of Rook’s mind and suddenly she could see the possibilities. She can start thinking of ways to attack instead of staying defensive. Neve runs up to them during all these and eyes the two Wardens warily. “If you two are arguing in the middle of battle, I swear I’m going to bang your heads together.”

“Yell at Rook, she’s being a reckless idiot.” Davrin huffs as he stands up, grabbing his fallen sword from the ground. The frost mage turns to Rook with a glower, but Rook won’t let that cower her.

“I was just taken by the atmosphere. Won’t happen anymore, no worries.” The rogue turns her attention to Ghilan’nain, who’s for once quiet and watching them with observant eyes from across the blighted moat.

That God recalled Razikale right back after that acid attack, probably knowing that her Archdemon couldn’t take any more direct assault. With how she’s not immediately healing that shattered middle head after Neve and Davrins’ attacks, it’s either Ghilan’nain is running out of spare blighted flesh to re-grow that extra head…or Razikale itself has a limited number of regrows and wasn’t able to. It’s like the tail of a gecko—you cut it off once, and it’ll regrow, but there is a hard limit to the time when it can grow again.

Going by this logic, this might be the last time Ghilan’nain is able to pull Razikale back like this. She’s definitely going to use those last two heads to go for the immediate kill now instead of toying with them. They’re chipping away at her shields and she is afraid— and cornered animals are the most dangerous.

They have to end it soon, before Ghilan’nain grows desperate. There are darkspawn climbing up from the water, and Rook knows that the hourglass has turned and they’re running out of time.

She turns back to her two companions and flinches when she sees them already looking at her expectantly. “W-what?”

“You’ve got a plan thought up, haven’t you?” Neve smiles, a finger pointing up at her brows. “We’re familiar with that look on your face.”

“We’ll follow your lead, Rook. Just as long as you’re not doing something stupid.” Davrin adds, narrowing his eyes at her suspiciously.

The amount of trust they have in her is making her heart swell with emotion and Rook burns with the want to not let them down. “I’ve got something, but you two need to trust me.”

It’s almost comical how fast her friends’ faces shift from assured to immediate concern at her words.

//

“How are you doing? Can you hold on if this fight gets any longer?”

“No. I’ve only got one lyrium potion left. You?”

“Same. I’m out of arrows, and with only, two, four—eight of my mines left. And an extra.”

“An extra?”

“My shield is banged up and this sword is chipped. Assan is exhausted. We have to end it soon.”

“I know. This is why we’re going to split the job from now on. You two will need to pull that same trick on the left head, and I’ll take care of the right head.”

“Alone? Are you insane?”

“Look, we just need to take out one of the heads so that Davrin can get his kill with the last one. I can’t destroy it like you guys did by myself, but I can knock it out and buy him time.”

“Ghilan’nain isn’t going to be happy.”

“Definitely not. But it might give Lucanis his opening.”

//

Davrin has an inkling of an idea that Rook might be a bit insane ever since the first time they met, but he never really processes that insanity until this battle in Weisshaupt.

It’s nothing bad because he knows that being a Grey Warden means that you won’t be entirely right in the head anyway, but really, Rook is something else.

He’s both afraid and in awe of her sometimes.

“She’s insane!” he found himself saying out loud after Razikale’s left head shatters the same way the middle head did. He and Neve immediately move to support Rook once their quarry is down, but that woman—

She didn’t even give them a chance.

Davrin doesn’t know where on Thedas did she hide that thing during the time they were running around the keep, but Rook is now holding an expandable long…Gaatlok launcher-like weapon that’s currently bombarding the right head with projectiles. Every projectile explodes with a crashing boom against the head, showering it with combusting black powder that sends the monster reeling.

It’s nearly time.

“Lucanis!” Davrin roars out as hard as he could. “Be ready!”

A flash of unnaturally bright wings appears in the peripheral of his eyes, and he knew that the assassin is bidding his time. “I’m ready!”

Davrin turns back to Rook, sword gripped tightly in his hand. Like her arrows, her new weapon doesn’t seem to have an infinite number of projectiles. Rook’s already straining from supporting it, she keeps getting pushed backwards by the recoil of every shot, and the moment that her grip slackens, Davrin knew that she’s running out of projectiles.

The bombing stops after raining an endless stream of explosives upon their enemy, and Davrin lets out a good laugh when he sees Rook heaves, and then throw even the heavy weapon itself at the stupid head as a last resort, as if not happy that she’s running out of explosion at the last minute.

That thing actually beaned Razikale with a loud satisfying bonk and he ran as fast as he could when that last attack finally did it in.

The last head of the Archdemon Razikale came crashing down upon the ground, dazed, but still very much alive.

Though not for long.

“Kill it, Davrin!”

His leader’s voice prompted his legs to go faster, and Davrin launches himself to the top of Razikale’s head with one running jump. He raised his sword with two hands, and then drives the blade down through blighted flesh, pushing it as deep as it could go through the skull and into the brain. He twists the blade with every bit of his strength, making sure to scramble the inside of the skull, before pulling it out with relish. Cursed black blood sprays out of the fatal wound, drips down the length of his blade, and he withstood the hiss of acid burning against his armor.

He expected death to follow immediately—like going to sleep, except maybe with an extra dose of excruciating pain. Davrin has thought of this exact moment numerous times before, and he knows he’s prepared for what follows. He had accepted his death from the moment he and Rook talked in the library before the battle.

Evka is right. Rook may be one rebellious little shit, but she’s one hell of a good Warden.

He’s more than content dying in his duty knowing that someone like her is around to finish the fight against the Gods.

Davrin is ready.

But then—

Why is nothing happening?

//

The night follows a script with twists that none of them could have ever seen coming.

Razikale is dead, but Davrin is not.

Lucanis failed to kill Ghilan’nain, and the God fled.

Weisshaupt fell to the onslaught of darkspawn and the surviving Wardens took refuge in the Hossberg Wetlands Outpost.

The casualty numbers from the Siege climbs above three digits even after the mass evacuation, and Neve knows that it’s going to keep going up until things settle down.

If they ever will.

Tensions are running high following their arrival in the Lighthouse that even Bellara and Rook lost their cheer and turned grave and quiet. Everyone agreed to take a small break before convening at the dining room for a post-Weisshaupt briefing, and Neve finds herself in her office, trying to calm herself down enough so that she stops shaking.

It goes without saying that there are three people here that suffered the most out of the result of the battle: Rook, Davrin…and Lucanis. All three of them feels differing levels of guilt and frustration from the fall of Weisshaupt, and even without saying anything, Neve could see the blame they put on themselves. Neve would never blame them for anything that happened that night—she couldn’t—because she’d seen how hard all of them have fought throughout the mission.

Rook took charge as best as she could from the front like always, pulling out tricks to keep one-upping their enemies and turn the flow of the battle to their advantage. Davrin was ready to die to do his duty, courageously going after the Archdemon even with his life on the line. Lucanis scoured the sky like something out of the Fade, raining death to unsuspecting darkspawn from above and saved so many Wardens even during the time he’s chasing after Ghilan’nain in the sky. They all did their best and more—

But sometimes, things just tend to go sideways.

Neve have experienced that with Minrathous multiple times before, so when things turned out this way she was greatly disheartened…but she was not surprised.

The tables always turn, in the end.

The team arrived at the dining room in differing conditions, but all of them are exhausted and injured, with Emmrich being the worst out of them all. The Necromancer is wincing with every movement, and Bellara and Harding keep their eyes on him in the case that he needed support. Taash sits with their chair slightly adjusted towards his for this same purpose.

There was nothing but quiet the first five, ten, minutes of them sitting there in the dining room table. Only the crackling from the fireplace filling the air because all of them were still reeling from everything. It was hard to determine the outcome of that battle. Did they lose the battle and win the war of attrition because they downed Razikale and turned Ghilan’nain mortal?

Or did they win the battle but…loses the war in the long run? Because the casualty itself is massive, and with how they would be needing the Grey Wardens to help them fight the Blight from now on, this is just—

This is a very heavy loss.

The haunted look on Davrin’s and Rook’s eyes are frightening to see, and Neve is forcibly reminded of the similar looks in the eyes of the survivors of Minrathous’s dragon attack in the following hours of the city’s razing. She’s seen the same look in her own eyes when she looks at her reflection in the water and, well.

She understands. So much that it hurts.

Rook’s voice broke when she begins the meeting. Neve can see her struggling to keep her emotions out of her voice so that she could lead their discussion as neutrally as possible. It takes a herculean effort, the frost mage knows, because she wasn’t able to do the same when she had to interact with people following the destruction of her home. The anger had leaked from her every pore, and it took everything in her to keep them contained, away from the others…but there are times when she wasn’t able to. When that anger leaked out and burns others in spite of her efforts.

To her guilt, and shame, Neve is very aware that Rook was one of the people who has taken a splash of her anger.

She listens quietly for the most part, most of them do, with Emmrich responding to Rook the most among them because he’s always been an observant one even through his injuries.

And then Davrin speaks up—

And the tension broke.

//

“—And the Wardens are in Lavendel too.”

“What’s left of them, you mean.” Davrin’s voice is bitter and anger laced his words. Rook can feel the bite even from the head of the table. “Over a thousand…that’s how many fellow Wardens Rook and I had. And now…One God. One Archdemon. That’s all it took to nearly wipe out our entire Order.”

It still doesn’t seem real even now, the fact that the Grey Wardens is a hair’s breath away from extinction. Rook feels sick whenever she thinks about it, and she fears for when the weight of this outcome washes over her in its entirety. She’s doing her best to push these aside so that she can focus on her team.

“Davrin, those Wardens fulfilled their oaths. They saved lives. If not for them, we would have had a lot more deaths on our hands.” They evacuated the villages around the Keep before the darkspawns arrived and that one single decision makes a lot of difference. But still… “In death, Sacrifice. That’s what our oaths says. We all took it.”

“But it starts with ‘In war, Victory’. I don’t have much hope for victory, here.”

“No, but this war is a continuous battle of attrition; there is no way to avoid the deaths. The thing is, we may have lost this battle, but there is still hope for us to win the war now that Razikale is dead.”

Davrin’s hand clenches onto a fist upon the table, and his words are spoken through gritted teeth. “You say this like you aren’t affected by our friends’ death. Are they just fodder to you? A means to the end? As long as we get a kill, this much death is acceptable?”

Ah, there it is. Rook was wondering if he’s blaming her for their loss. “I don’t barter victories with lives, Davrin, but this is a normal outco—”

“There is nothing normal about this much death!”

The man is on his feet, heaving, and the silence in the room that follows is loud.

“It’s not.” Rook says with a calmness that’s alien to her. Her entire body is cold and her ears are ringing. “It’s abnormal, but it’s the truth we have to face. We are facing forces like nothing anybody has ever faced before in history. It’s only natural that this much death and destruction follow.”

“You—!”

Bellara’s chair scrapes against the floor suddenly, taking everyone’s attention, and they turn to her, pale and stricken-looking, eyes flitting nervously between Rook and Davrin. “L-look. We killed Ghilan’nain’s Archdemon, though. That’s still something, right? The deaths aren’t in vain because of this.”

Varric agrees with her from behind Rook’s shoulder. “She’s right. That’s an incredibly rare accomplishment already. A lot of people have died to accomplish it, and I’d say it’s something to be proud of.” His words, which normally would have been comforting to Rook, only makes her feel colder inside.

“That doesn’t make losing hundreds of Wardens any better, Bellara.”

“No, but that Archdemon turned from a dragon to a snake with too many heads,” Taash clicks their tongue with annoyance, frown digging deep into their face. “It’s already not normal. Rook is right about that. Fighting something like that isn’t going to lead to a normal aftermath. If all Blighted dragons act like that then I don’t know how the heck are we going to fight the next one.”

“No, Solas said that Razikale’s mutated form is something specific to Ghilan’nain.” She’s aware of everyone’s eyes flitting towards her at her quiet explanation. “The Evanuris bound their dragons to themselves, and I believe this is the result of being bound to a mad researcher like Ghilan’nain. Everything we’ve seen connected to the blight is her creation. It’s almost a given that her Archdemon is going to be the worst one out of them all.”

“So, the other god’s dragon is going to be a normal dragon?”

Rook doesn’t know the answer to that. “Probably not.”

Emmrich clears his throat lightly. “Well, mutations aside, at least now we have made her mortal.”

“Mortal or immortal doesn’t matter if we can’t get close enough.” Davrin scoffs. “We had our shot at her. And we missed.”

It was a bait. A purposefully placed bait and Root closes her eyes and grits her teeth when she hears Lucanis’ reply to it. “Say what you mean, Davrin. I missed.”

She wished Lucanis would have stayed quiet. But Rook knows there’s no way he’s going to take this lying down.

“Nobody blames you for that, Lucanis.” Harding follows quickly, sending a warning glance at Davrin, which he purposefully ignores.

“That so? Well, maybe I do. The crow has a demon inside him, right?”

“Now, that’s not—”

“How do we know we can trust him? Maybe the demon pulled his punches. Your little miss leads to hundreds of Wardens dying.”

“Okay, now hold on, we’re getting—”

“And you, Warden?” the Antivan’s voice is smooth like poison going down one’s throat. “How about the blight running through your veins? The same blight that Ghilan’nain commands so effortlessly. Can we trust you to stay yourself around her?”

“Just a moment, please—”

“Enough.” Rook doesn’t bang the table, but the light slam of her open hand against the wood might as well been a Gaatlok explosion as everybody shuts up immediately upon hearing the noise. “Is this how it’s going to be when we face losses from now on?”

Nobody answers, which is fine because Rook has had enough. “Arguing and arguing, throwing around accusations. If this is going to be how things go, then let’s settle this argument right here, right now, and get things out of the way.” She doesn’t give time for Davrin to answer as she continues on, a wagon on fire rolling down a hill—

Unstoppable.

“You want to know who’s at fault with everything that’s happening? I think I can safely say that some of us here are responsible for the outcome. Like my decision to take out the First Warden from battle. If he hadn’t been taken out of the fight, we might’ve been able to regroup faster under his command. If he had been around, then Weisshaupt might have not fallen. So I admit that my judgement might have played a hand in the fall of the Keep. Lucanis,” the Saboteur turns to Lucanis, not even sparing him.

“You speak about the blight that runs through Davrin’s veins—the same blight runs through mine as well. If he had been controlled by the blight to hold back his attack on Razikale, then it would not have fallen. And if there are possibilities of the two of us falling under her thrall, then you have my approval to strike us both down. And Davrin,”

She saves him for last because Rook knows why her friend is acting this way.

“Just because you’re furious with yourself for failing does not give you the right to lash out at everybody else.” Rook sees the shame that flickered past Davrin’s face and she knows that he understands what she’s not saying. “Lucanis took that shot at Ghilan’nain and his strike was true. He missed, but even that one instance of wounding her is already a victory for us. It is the proof that she is now mortal, and finally vulnerable.”

“Your optimism blinds you to the truth.” The monster hunter says quietly, and Rook scoffs.

“No, definitely not. The fact stays that Lucanis missed…but he’s only mortal and mortals make mistakes. But obsessing over these mistakes won’t do anything good for us in the future. We still have a job to do. Two gods are still on the loose. They’ve got plans for the world and we are falling behind.” They have only been reacting to the Gods’ moves so far—they need to be assertive if they want to get one step ahead of them. “Unless someone is actively stopping them, Weisshaupt is going to be just a start to their reign of blood.”

“We’re all in agreement on that point, Rook.” Emmrich says, immediately. “But the question still remains—how? We barely survived against one of the gods.”

“I nearly had her.” Lucanis growls, and the Necromancer lets out a sigh at his words. That nearly was damning.

“Nearly…but it’s not good enough. You and Spite are not of one mind, Lucanis. The two of you are fighting for control, it’s no wonder you missed such a rare opportunity.”

Harding lets out a sigh at his words. “I think we’ve all been distracted.”

Her words ring true for everyone in the room as their grimaces and flinches shows. Rook stays quiet even though she agrees. It hasn’t escaped her notice that her friends all carried with them baggage from their personal life into the job. She’s been helping them with it after all, and she didn’t really make a big deal about it because up until this moment, their baggage never really compromised their ability to fight the gods.

But then the Siege of Weisshaupt shows that evidently, this is not the case.

“Until those problems are resolved, we will not be prepared to face the gods.” The Necromancer speaks the truth as he addresses everyone in the room. “A moment of inattention—a single lapse— could prove fatal. And the gods will allow no second chances.”

Varric turns to her with a small hum. “He’s right, Rook.” Rook flicks her eyes up at him before looking away. It makes sense that this man would speak up to this. He experienced the same thing during the night of the ritual. Varric’s decision to speak to Solas as a friend, a lapse in judgement if you ask Rook, led to him getting maimed and taken out of the fight.

Fatal, indeed.

She sighs, feeling ten years older. “Emmrich is right, and thankfully we are not in this fight alone. We have friends and allies that we can fall back to for help.”

“But it won’t do much good if we can’t find the gods.” Bellara says, her voice timid. Rook nods at her before turning to Harding, their scout.

“Can you send words to Evka? See if she has any rested scouts?”

“Scouts? Why?”

“Darkspawns that attacked Weisshaupt had to come from somewhere. I bet they’re headed back up there after running the keep to the ground. If we follow them, chances are they’ll lead us to the gods themselves.”

“Got it.”

“As for the rest of—”

“Look, nothing against Emmrich,” Davrin starts up again, but thankfully his voice is less confrontational this time. “He’s right about needing focus. But what happened at Weisshaupt…that was more than a distraction.”

“So is what happened to Minrathous,” Neve speaks up for the first time and Rook’s heart jump. She ignores it. “What the Venatori have done to my city, what they are still doing to it…”

Lucanis turns to Rook in support of her. “These are more than distractions, Rook.”

For some reason, the fact that he speaks up for Neve…it grates on her nerves.

Rook’s jaw clenches tightly and she makes sure to look the assassin in the eyes when she responds. “Did I ever say they were?”

Lucanis doesn’t answer.

Her eyes sweep over the table. “D’Meta’s Crossing. Minrathous. Weisshaupt. These are nothing but reckonings, and I don’t doubt that there will be more of them in the future. Either way, we all need to step back and clear our heads. I would like our next meeting be professional without accusations flying about. We can’t afford to be dragged into arguments when the gods hold Thedas in hostage.”

Her words are a warning and she means it. Rook waits for a response, but there was none.

The rest of the table silently clears out as the meeting is adjourned, but Rook stays in her seat until the last person, Lucanis, left the room.

Only when the door shut after him did she sag down in her seat, and bury her face in her hands.

“So, how do you think that went? “Varric’s voice has this ‘that was a shitshow’ quality to it that Rook’s heard several times before. Usually this would amuse her, but Rook is just.

Tired.

“That went fucking brilliantly.”

//

The kettle is taking its sweet time to boil.

Rook is agitated.

Her entire body is cold, and her ears are ringing.

She just wants a cup of hot chocolate—why is even the kettle is testing her today?

Things had gone so wrong after going so well…and Rook is frustrated to have been lulled into a false sense of security. She thought things would look up after Minrathous—that they could finally land a blow at the enemy to counter all the losses they’ve taken.

Little did she know. It was only going to go downhill from there.

There’s this storm of emotion raging in her chest and she’s trying her best to ignore them. She can’t break here, not now, not when her team needs her the most. That disastrous meeting earlier tells her enough that everybody was not in their right minds. They need a stable ground to help them get back on their feet so that they could keep on going.

Ghilan’nain fled after the battle, but Rook knows that she won’t stay away for long.

People like her burns with the need of revenge even from a small slight—and what they did to her was basically a complete humiliation.

She will return, more desperate than before, and most probably bringing more of her blighted weapons along with her. The big questions lie in the what, who, and then where. Where would a prideful God like her strike, so that she could feel the most satisfaction from her revenge? Who would she go after in response to that humiliation? And how much blood would she spill before she calls it enough?

No, Rook’s wrong. Someone like her would never think of enough. She is a creature made of greed, and Solas agreed with her. Greed and pride and ambition…they are a deadly combination. The one mercy that’s given to them is the small fact that she is now mortal, like Emmrich said.

To see that she could bleed brought relief to Rook in the middle of everything that happened in that moment.

They really have to be prepared for their next encounter with her.

There can’t be any repeat of this incident.

“Rook?”

The sudden voice cutting into her thoughts made Rook jump slightly in surprise. Her neck cricks when she turns to the newcomer, and Bellara’s face looks back at hers in chagrin.

“I’m sorry if I surprised you! But the kettle has been making that noise for a while…are you alright?”

What?

Rook focuses her hearing away from that persistent ringing and—

Yes. The kettle is whistling loudly. The metal is red, hot and angry from how long Rook’s kept it sitting on the stove. She grabs a rag and quickly moves it off the stove, cursing when the heat of the metal still sears through the thin cloth.

The whistling stops, but the ringing in her ears stays.

“Sorry, Bellara. I didn’t realize—did I bother you with the noise?”

The elven mage shakes her head, before gently taking Rook’s stinging hand into her own and casting a healing spell on it. “No, I was on my way to the kitchen when I heard the kettle going off. I thought someone’s left it boiling on the fire. I didn’t expect you to be here and lost in thought.” She peeks at Rook timidly and her wide earnest eyes hurts to see from this up close. “Are you okay?”

Rook looks away. “I’d be lying if I said yes.” And her answer had Bellara smiling bitterly in response.

“I know what you mean.”

The two of them stands there in the quiet, save for the crackling of the warm fireplace close to them. Rook takes her hand back with a thanks when the stinging on her skin goes away, and looks at her friend. “Coin for your thoughts?”

“Huh?”

“You look like you have a lot going on up here.” Rook taps her temple with a finger. “I know how it feels when the head gets too loud. I can listen, if you want. If you’ve got something to say.”

“Oh. But…” the hesitation is clear as Bellara twists her fingers, eyes flitting about. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Rook wonders if she had scared her earlier.

“You say that, but I will still worry, regardless.” Rook gives a smile she doesn’t feel so that her friend could be at ease. “You’re my friend, Bellara. If something is bothering you, then I’m happy to lend you an ear.”

Bellara looks at her, and then nods. She turns to look at the fireplace and takes a deep breath, before letting it out in a sigh. “Right. Okay. I just—it’s um. It’s the elf, thing. I’m still not over the fact that we’re fighting gods. Our Gods. Mine and Davrin’s, I mean. It’s just…it feels a little, surreal.”

Hmm, she can’t imagine. “I get it. They were the figures you two were raised to worship. Does it make you feel better to fight them knowing that they’re evil? I know it’s insensitive of me to say that, but—”

“No, I understand. It…helps me a little, to think of it that way. But still. They are still my god, the elven gods. They did a lot of unpleasant things. It makes me wonder if the people’s treatment of the elves—of my people, is actually deserved. A lot of them don’t trust us…and maybe they’re right. Maybe they shouldn’t.”

Bellara’s bright spirit is dampened by reality and it breaks Rook’s heart a little. And honestly, she could not disagree more. “I’m going to be very frank with you right now, okay? But that? All you’re saying right there? That’s a bunch of druffalo droppings. Dragon dungs. Fennec feces. Griffon gunk—should I keep going?”

The elven woman is giggling, pushing her hands against her mouth to stop her mirth but no, they still got to her. Rook smiles, this time meaning it. “No, I get it. I get the idea. Please don’t start making poop puns.”

“Heh. Poop puns.”

“Rook!”

Rook laughs under her breath. “Right, well, what I mean is, I cannot disagree with you more. The mistreatments of the elves? There is nothing in this world that would justify and make that okay. So what if your gods wake up and decide on a coin’s toss that it’s a good idea to destroy the world? You aren’t them. Your people aren’t them. The Elves haven’t been them in centuries, and I don’t think they ever were.’

“The time between then and now stretched too far and too wide to be able to put the ancient elves and the present elves on a balancing scale and call it even. It’s like trying to compare a griffon to a chicken and then people blame the chicken for not being able to fly when they’re not made for it even though they are both birds.”

“But that feels too easy. It’s like we’re not taking responsibility.” Bellara lets out a shuddering sigh, looking down at her feet despondently. “And, I don’t know. I feel guilty. Anytime I think about it, really.”

“Sins of the father.”

“Huh?”

The rogue shrugs. “Someone said that to me once. Sins of the father. It means children suffers for the things their parents do. I feel like this is one of such case.”

“Oh.” The elven mage’s blinks are coming in quick as she’s slowly putting things into perspective. Rook takes this time to consider her words, not wanting to…say too much.

“I am…not unfamiliar with it. Of suffering under the sins of someone who came before me. Of shouldering their burdens even after their passing. It’s suffocating. It’s like there’s a leash holding you back, reminding you that everything that you are comes with the spilled blood of so many others before you.”

The look on Bellara’s face is devastating. Rook scrambles for words in half a panic. “That doesn’t mean to say that you’re responsible for them, oh no. I just mean that, uhhhh, what happened with the Evanuris is their fault. Your people now exist because the ancient elves existed, but that doesn’t make you them. Your people survive in the aftermath of the destruction of a civilization. The elves rise up even in the face of hardship and manage to forge a new path. Their faults may feel like it’s your burden to bear, but…it’s really not. And if you still think that it is…well, redemption exists.”

“Redemption?”

Rook crosses her arms and smiles. “What you’re doing right now? With the Nadas Dirthalen? It feels like a redemption. Imagine the looks on your Gods’ faces if they know that you’re using one of their technologies to defend Thedas from their machinations. Making up for the ancient elves’ wrongs by using their own wisdom against them. Would that make your guilt feel smaller?”

The look on the elven woman’s face is lightening up. “Well…maybe a little.”

“That’s a good start. It gets smaller each and every day.”

“You talk like you’re doing the same thing.” Bellara tilts her head at her and Rook scrunches up her nose.

“Why do you think I’m a Grey Warden in the first place?”

One beat. Two beats.

Bellara gasps. “What did you do?”

“I accidentally set a dragon loose on a village and set people’s houses on fire.”

“What? Really?!”

Rook waves a hand. “Nah. Of course not. I’m not that careless. Ow!” she laughs when Bellara smacks her on the arm. “Hey, that stings!”

“I was being serious!”

“I know! It scared me! I have to put a joke in there somewhere.” Bellara scowls and Rook tries not to grin too widely. “Okay, sorry, that was a fib. But I am in the process of redeeming myself, this part is true.”

Bellara’s eyes are still narrow with suspicion as she considered Rook’s words. In case she’s messing with her again. “What for…if I can ask…?”

“Minrathous.”

The suspicion is gone from Bellara’s face in an instant. “Oh, Rook.”

The look of pity and understanding on Bellara’s face is too much. Rook has to look away. “It’s…an ongoing thing. I know people keep saying that it wasn’t my fault, but I feel differently. The decision was still mine, in the end.”

“It was a ruthless choice to make. Neve doesn’t blame you.”

Oh, that’s where Bellara is wrong. “She does, and I don’t blame her one bit. The blood that was spilled, is still spilling, it is all on me.” Whether it be a dragon, or the Venatori—the fact that Minrathous is still suffering even weeks after the attack means that Rook’s job isn’t done. She still has a lot to make up for.

Bellara doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she just, awkwardly pats Rook on the shoulder. Pat pat. it’s cute.

But they’re getting off track.

“Look, what I meant to say…is that guilt aside, you are a kind and compassionate person. Don’t let that drop of guilt take all that away from you. Your kind heart and brilliant mind makes a lot of difference to many people. I should know because I’m one of them.”

Bellara’s bottom lip is wobbling and she can’t even look at Rook straight. “That…means a lot, thank you.” She sniffs. “Thanks for talking to me, Rook. And for listening. This really helps.”

“Hey, would you look at that. I’m useful.”

The small sniffs turn to a laugh. “What do you mean? You’re always useful!”

“Like a spoon to a soup dinner. I’m here if you ever need an ear, okay?”

“Okay.” Bellara heaves out a sigh and after nothing comes from her Rook starts to wonder if it’s okay to go back to her now cold kettle to boil some water again.

But then Bellara calls her name, and Rook was taken aback by the sorrow that’s in it “Sorry, what were you saying? I was zoning out.”

“I said, I’m sorry for your loss.” Bellara’s twisting her fingers again. “That Grey Warden who died, Jean, I think? She was your friend, wasn’t she? Neve told me. I’m so sorry.”

Rook stares at her blankly as the ringing in her ears comes back with a vengeance.

“…Excuse me?”

//

Neve was deep in her re-reads of her Venatori casefiles and pinning out clues on her board when the door to her office opens with a bang.

She’s not usually a jumpy person, but her nerves are shot after the events at Weisshaupt, so really, can’t blame her if she jumps at the noise. A growl comes up from her throat—

But it dies immediately when she caught sight of her intruder.

And the very look on Rook’s face.

“You accused me like I was a criminal for pretending to not remember you from that one night we shared together, and yet here you are doing the same damn thing. Playing fucking pretend. Is that how it is? It’s only wrong when I do it?”

The usually easy-going rogue is furious and her face is hard, betrayal in her eyes. Neve, for the first time in a while, feels like she’s grasping in the dark. It’s not a feeling she’s familiar with. “Rook, what—”

Rook tosses a bunch of papers at Neve’s desk, scattering them messily on top of Neve’s already messy piles of notes and sending some fluttering down onto the floor. The wisps around them scatters in a panic, trilling loudly in the face of the sudden aggression. Neve approaches her desk like it has one of Rook’s mines on it and gingerly picks up one of the papers.

She could feel the blood drains from her face when she reads the top print.

List of Warden Casualties: Weisshaupt Fortress.

Oh. Oh no.

“Jean is dead.” Rook spat the words out like they hurt from the inside out. “And you were there when she died. Are you ever going to tell me? Or are you going to stay quiet so that you can pretend to be surprised when I see her name in that fucking list?”

Jean was right, Rook is taking this badly. Neve has never seen her like this, so angry that she’s basically spitting venom like the very animal carved out on Neve’s prosthesis.

The detective wonders where she should start. “Who—”

“Does that even matter?”

No, she supposes not. Neve takes a deep breath and crosses her arms, choosing her words carefully, but Rook isn’t giving her time to respond.

“I thought we’re friends. Colleagues. And you can’t even do me the courtesy of delivering the news of my friend’s death. You know, being a detective, I thought you’re used to this. Delivering news about death.” Rook adds with a sneer, pacing agitatedly in front of Neve’s desk like a wounded animal.

Neve tilts her head slowly, trying not to rise to the bait because Rook is trying to pick a fight, but her heart is racing inside her chest. “She’s not just a friend to you, is she?” She observes. With how bad Rook is taking this, Jean was definitely something more.

The laugh Rook lets out is bitter. “Now? You choose to be jealous, now?” she keeps laughing but they sound disconcertingly like sobs. “Fuck your timing, Neve.”

The metal of her prosthetic clinks against the stone floor as Neve rounds her desk to where Rook is standing. She stops enough at a distance so that they don’t have to yell at each other across the room anymore, but also enough to put some space between them.

“Believe me when I say that I didn’t keep this from you because I wanted nothing to do with it.” The detective starts, keeping her cool by shoving all her unwanted emotions aside into an internal glass case. She needs to keep a cool head. “I just didn’t want you emotionally compromised on the job. Now that I see you acting like this, I think my decision was wise.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Rook’s face contorts with pain in a way that lets Neve know that the next thing she say will cut into her.

“Job this. Job that. For someone so professional you sure know how to sleep with the boss of that same damn job.”

The internal glass case shatters like ice. Damn that cool head.

Her hand moves before she could think about it, and the slap rings loudly in the quiet of the room. There was a faint gasp from somewhere, but Neve ignores it.

Her palm is stinging because she wasn’t holding back, but the look of shock on Rook’s face was worth the pain. It’s surprising, how much this woman could affect her even after all the efforts she’s put into keeping her at a distance.

Neve hates it.

“I wish you stayed a faceless stranger and nothing more after that night.” Her voice wavers with suppressed anger. “Leave.”

She was ready to use force if Rook doesn’t leave, but thankfully she did, without any further arguments. The rogue briskly leaves Neve’s office and bumps into a stricken-looking Bellara, who looked like she’s been standing at the base of the cobblestone stairs for some time during their argument.

Neve watches the Warden head towards the library before turning her eyes to her friend. “Bellara—”

“Neve, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you haven’t—”

“Not now, Bel, please.”

The elven woman nods, biting her lip to stop herself from saying anything more. She takes one last look at Neve before leaving to her own room, and Neve closes the door of her office securely before freezing the handle.

Chapter Text

The Outpost is bustling even at this time of night, a startling contrast to how it used to be before the fall of Weisshaupt. When before you can hear the calming sound of fire crackling against the cold of the night as the villagers settle for the day, they are now buried under the cacophony of sounds of armors clanging, heavy footsteps, and sharp steel clashing against each other.

Almost all of the Grey Wardens that survived Weisshaupt are currently present in the area, but their number is too many for the small outpost to hold. In the end, most of their recruits have flooded into the rest of the village of Lavendel, with the wounded staying close to the post within easy reach of the limited number of healers. For once Rook is not worried about some of the more ill-mannered Wardens harassing the locals or challenging them to games of Wicked Grace which might lead to a brawl—

Everyone’s much too injured to do anything but lick their wounds and sit there in pensive and regretful silence.

Evka had sent a missive to the Lighthouse addressed to her earlier, and it was an invite to this meeting. She had attached with it the list of casualties from the Siege, and well, let’s just say Rook didn’t take the latter as calmly as she should.

Her cheek is still stinging against the cold wind of Hossberg Wetlands, but Rook is here, answering the summon of her senior.

And…sort of…running away.

Neve did tell her to focus on the job, right? So here she is, doing her job.

The Inquisitor had sent her a missive as well after the fall of Weisshaupt, and what she’s written isn’t really helping Rook’s current state of mind. According to the Inquisitor and Morrigan upon their meeting at the Cobbled Swan, the south has been beset by waves and waves of darkspawn in the absence of the Grey Wardens. Rook knows enough about what happened during the Inquisition that led to the banishment of the Orlesian Grey Wardens, but she never quite gets how fatal that decision is now that the darkspawn has come knocking on everyone’s doors.

Now that the Ferelden Grey Wardens have been recalled back to aid in the Siege, the south truly has no Warden presence left, save for a few stragglers. This felt like a repetition of the Fifth Blight, but a lot worse because of the Gods’ presence. The Inquisitor had also written about her efforts to make up for the lack of the Grey Wardens by encouraging people and notable groups to band together to defend their land. It’s working so far…but how long can they hold on? This new blight is even more resilient than the last, it’s extremely worrying.

The current meeting, the urgent meeting, is being held to tackle this problem, amongst many. Rook could grasp a vague picture of what the rest of the meeting will be about just from seeing the attending Wardens, and wonders why did Evka even bother inviting her to this in the first place. She’s just a dang Junior Warden, she’s got no business here.

Heavy footsteps stop by the crate Rook’s leaning against and the clicking of talons against the stone floor that comes with it, followed by a chirp and a nudge against Rook’s leg from a friendly griffon, told her enough about the new arrival. So, he did get an invite as well, then.

“Rook.”

“Davrin.”

Quiet falls between them, filled only by the ambiance noise of the Grey Wardens moving around them as they prepared the post for the meeting.

Rook’s not even going to try to start a conversation with him. She’s tired. And they didn’t really leave that briefing on a good term. Davrin’s accusation about how Rook is basically heartless stings even though she tries not to show it.

“Look, Rook, I’m—”

“Not now.” Rook looks up from the Inquisitor’s letter with a sigh, her other hand reaching down to pat Assan on the head. “Later. Let’s get through this first. The surviving Warden-Commanders and their Constables are convening. Nothing good is coming out of this.”

“What?” Davrin looks around the room and curses under his breath when he sees familiar faces that he usually sees less than three times a year, maybe only during his visits to Weisshaupt. “Why are we even here, then? Evka said this is an emergency.”

“Apparently it is. And, aren’t you a Senior Warden?” Rook raises her brows at him. “Monster Hunter and Griffon Protector? You are supposed to be here. The better question to ask is, why am I even here with you lot? I’m just a normal Warden.”

Davrin tells Assan to go hunt and watch the griffon fly away towards the trees before turning back to his team leader. “You ceased to be a normal Warden when you start fighting the Gods. Little bit too late for that.”

“He speaks the truth.” Evka’s voice joins them as the dwarven Warden arrives at Davrin’s side. She takes a look at them both. “You two look like crap.”

Davrin snorts and Rook rolls her eyes. “Pot, kettle.”

“Yes, all that.” Evka pats her left arm gingerly, bandages peeking from under the sleeve of her fatigue. “Anyway, thanks for coming. We’re beginning in a few.”

Rook raises a hand. “For what it’s worth, I am not happy to be here.” the long-suffering sigh that comes from her senior Warden is something she’s very familiar with.

“I know, Rook, you’re not exactly hiding your feelings about it.”

“I don’t know why I’m here either, I worked with the griffons.”

Evka points a finger at Davrin. “You did, before. Now, you work with Rook. You two are a packaged deal in these people’s eyes. The First Warden didn’t exactly make his displeasure towards the two of you a secret.”

Rook clicks her tongue at this unwanted information. This is starting to feel like the last place she should have run away to. “Great, so we’re surrounded by the First Warden’s posse. Warden Ivo, permission to leave.”

“Denied. If I have to be here, then you two are too.”

Davrin sighs and stares blankly at the ceiling. “Misery loves company, but not like this.”

Antoine comes to them chuckling, probably the only one out of the four of them that looks actually happy (or the closest to it) to be there. His smile is refreshing to look at, but Davrin and Rook are too grumpy to respond back similarly. Evka softens at the sight of him. “Antoine. Everything ready?”

“Almost.” The elven Warden nods at Rook and Davrin in greeting. “I just had to drop by when I hear your voices. Hearing you and Rook talk is always entertaining, my Love.”

“Unfortunately, Rook hasn’t stopped being a comedian even after she changes missions.”

“Hardy har har.” Said rogue rolls her eyes as Antoine laughs. She gets along well with these two, so she doesn’t mind with being the butt of their jokes at all.

“Rook, do you know that there’s a handprint on your cheek?” Antoine asks, eyes on said handprint curiously.

Rook sighs. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes, it’s red.” Davrin gives her a knowing look, but he doesn’t elaborate on it, which Rook is thankful for.

“Do you want me to get a healer?” Evka offers, and Rook shakes her head. It’s not really a big deal.

“No, just leave it be. It’s my badge of dishonor. I’ll carry it until the day it fades away.”

Evka and Antoine slowly turns to each other with raised eyebrows and Davrin mouths at them from behind a raised hand.

Girl problem.

Rook rolls her eyes and kicks at Davrin’s shin, which made the elven man grunt in surprise.

His thicker armor means he can handle light attacks like that no problem. Rook was wondering if she should exact more punishment because of the teasing looks Evka and Antoine are giving her but then another person approaches them, this one with the lack of cheer and air of friendliness that the other newcomers had.

“Wardens,” the man in the well-polished yet slightly worn armor looks at each of them in the eyes, his steel gray eyes serious. “Please convene closer to the war table. The meeting is about to begin.”

The epaulette and decorations on one side of this man’s armor pauldron shows that he’s of a higher rank above all four of them, and Rook wonders if they’re really running out of people that they got ranked Wardens like him assembling people in for a meeting.

“Yes, Ser. After you.” Evka answers for the sake of the little group, and Rook leaves her comfortable crate as they all follow after the ranked Warden to the cluttered war table at the far corner of the corridor, where Evka and Antoine usually waits for her after a mission out in the wilderness.

“Rook,” Evka falls back to walk besides her. She turns to the dwarf with a quirk of her brows. “Whatever happens…”

It’s a cautious warning. Evka knows her well. The younger warden lets out a sigh, before she nods back.

“I know, I’ll hold my tongue.”

Rook has a reputation of being a rebellious little shit ever since her mission mishap almost a year ago now. Evka and Antoine lets it slide because they were there with her during that mission, they know how her decision was the critical point of their victory. But all these people present in this meeting right now? They’re not familiar with Rook’s work. They’ve always seen her as a problem child, and Evka has let her know numerous times to be careful with what she says when they’re around.

It has been so long since Rook has been in a place with these many important wardens in one place. It’s no surprise why Evka, previously Rook’s commanding officer, is wary after what the rogue pulled back at Weisshaupt with the First Warden.

Evka’s words explains enough though about the reason of all the unpleasantness of today’s meeting.

It’s all the damn politics.

Rook will have to watch her words if they want to have the Grey Warden’s support to fight against the Evanuris from now on.

//

Neve’s breath creates a faint mist in the middle of the humid Dock Town rain.

It’s a bit colder today, one of the rare days when the temperature dips a little in the afternoon that signals that they would be having a warm night.

She doesn’t quite hate it. Neve has a fondness for cold things after all, bias aside.

“Gallus.” A familiar voice reaches her ear as an old woman in her 60s comes to stand on her right, looking up at the same thing. Neve’s mouth curls in a smile.

“Madam Philippa. It’s good to see you unharmed.”

The old woman snorts. “Fasta vass. If this is what young people call unharmed these days.” She slams the butt of her cane against the ground. Neve did see her limp when she came over earlier. An accident on her part, probably during the dragon attack.

“Well, you still have both of your legs, at the very least.” Neve raises her dwarven right leg slightly and wiggles it. The old woman softens at the sight, nodding begrudgingly.

Leg injury, then.

Philippa turns to her with narrowed eyes. “Here for a case? Or here to check on the apartment?”

“What’s left of it, you mean.”

“As long as it is still standing, it is still livable.”

That stubbornness is impressive. Neve’s apartment now has only an eighth of its ceiling left, and most of its walls collapsed in. It’s not easy to see her home like this, but Neve didn’t have it in her to be mad about its condition because this is already better than most of the homes that were razed down by that damn dragon.

This apartment building caught fire during the attack, but Philippa, her landlady, worked fast to mitigate the damages as soon as she found out. The old woman somehow wrangled the dockhands that were nearby to help her put out the fire as best that they could, using a combination of seawater and also some alchemical component that that one smuggler down the street has that actually creates fire-extinguishing foams. Her landlady’s decision saved many lives.

The detective waves a hand up the half-destroyed building. “May I take a look?”

“Suit yourself. Watch where you step.”

“Of course.” Neve gives her a nod before she goes up the stone stairways towards her room on the third, and top, floor of the building. There are two units per floors, and Neve was lucky enough to have the neighboring unit to her room empty during her tenancy here. The quietness helps when she needs to work on her many, many, cases.

She lets out a sigh when she reaches her room—now just a shadow of what it used to be. The door was hanging off its hinges, and Neve had to duck to avoid a fallen wooden beam as she tries to get to her living room. Her books are destroyed and its burnt papers all over the place, and her pinned board full of clues and leads is burnt and in pieces. Her desk, where she used to spend most of her time at, is half-destroyed by a piece of the ceiling falling on it. Neve knocks on its wood as she passes by.

The kitchen is also a goner, but Neve has to smile when she sees some of her dishes somehow survived. One of them is her trusted coffee cup, a companion during difficult nights.

Neve carefully walks through the rubble as she heads to her bedroom and—

Hm.

When was the last time she was here, again?

She couldn’t remember, but most probably before the ritual day. She was chasing down the Venatori days before it, and then was ‘kidnapped’ by them during. Which was when she met Varric, Harding and Ro—

Her brows furrowed at the memories of the rogue, and their argument.

It was worse than she had expected. Neve thought that she would be able to handle an angry Rook—but in reality, she was still taken very much aback by that much anger showed by the usually easygoing rogue. Rook was hurting after Jean’s death and Neve gets it, but the woman’s cutting words at her still hurt even though she had seen them coming.

Embarrassment, humiliation and then anger, washed over her after the implication of Rook’s words settles in. Neve’s instant reaction was to hurt her back and well, she succeeded.

Her palm doesn’t sting anymore but the hurt stays nonetheless. It’s nothing new, but it’s been so very long that Neve had taken emotional damages like this. There was a reason why she keeps people at a distance, and she doesn’t understand why she’s failing really badly this time around.

Rook left the Lighthouse after that fight and Neve hasn’t seen her since.

You’d think she would be the one running away but no, apparently, it’s Rook.

Since there wasn’t anything to do back at the Lighthouse as everyone was recovering, Neve decided to check back on Dock Town and her apartment to take her mind away from things.

And in the aftermath of everything she forgot that this very apartment was the same place where she and Rook—

Well.

Yes.

“Damn this.” Neve sighed when she sees her destroyed bed. Out of every memory that comes at the sight of it, of course, the ones from that one damned night are the most prevalent. Now that she’d put the pieces together, she could remember that night as vividly as one could a fond memory.

Maybe it’s a good thing that her apartment was destroyed like this. It means Neve could start anew—purge all the unwanted memories out and—and maybe fill in the new space with new things. Things like a new desk, a new clue board, basically everything new that Rook has not touch, seen, sat at, slept at—

She plops down on the remnants of her bed, reaching for the torn blue cloth that used to be her blanket lying on the edge of it.

Wishful thinking.

Even if she wanted to, Neve can’t get rid of what had happened between her and Rook. That woman had slipped through her defenses without a warning and her presence permeates even the little crevices of Neve’s life. Shadows of her presence follows even here in the remnants and rubbles of Neve’s home—her haven and sanctuary that she usually keeps private.

They hadn’t known each other for that long, and Rook started as a faceless stranger in her bed—

But why is Neve feeling like this? Shouldn’t she be glad that she’d gotten rid of her? Of what is starting to become a distraction in the face of everything?

She had always been a job first person, and here comes this person who, for the first time, almost got Neve to say fuck it to the job and take the plunge for once.

But she couldn’t. Not when there was a lot at stake.

First it was Minrathous, and then it was Weisshaupt. There would be many more in the future the more they go down this path and—

There should not be distractions.

//

She goes to that café down the street that serves that sweet coffee drink that makes Lucanis balk when Harding told him about it. Neve’s never tried it before, but notice that it is quite popular among the sweet-toothed population. Her usual go-to when she comes here is their regular black coffee and the cheap bread basket that is their specialty.

Her favorite supper is always Hal’s fried fish, but Neve likes to get a bite here when she craves variety.

Also, this place lets her smoke, so this is always a plus.

Neve blows smoke rings out from her mouth and watch them disappear in the air before taking another puff from her rolled tobacco. A luxury she doesn’t indulge a lot, but after seeing the state of her apartment Neve thinks she deserves a stick.

Someone pops her head in in front of her without warning and she chokes on the smoke in surprise. Coughs and sputters inelegantly as sympathetic hand gently pats her on the back.

“Don’t do that.” Neve scolded with watery eyes, but the woman only smiles back at her.

“This is why I keep saying smoking is unhealthy. But did you listen to me? Nooo.”

The woman sits down primly on the empty bench chair besides Neve and the detective could only sigh because she knows that nothing that she’ll do will get rid of this woman once she sets her sight or mind on something.

And that something is Neve.

“Aine. What are you doing?”

“Eating your bread.” Aine smiles at her innocently, nibbling on one of the breads from Neve’s half-eaten basket. “What are you doing, sitting in the dark corner like this? Do you have another case? Anything I can help with?”

Neve raises an eyebrow at her. “You know I don’t want help from—”

“—from people close to you, I remember. I think that’s stupid.”

“I think that’s prudent.”

“This conversation feels very familiar.”

At this, the detective chuckles. “We had a lot of this when we were together.” Aine went ah and leans back against the wall. Their shoulders touch in a way that reminds Neve of their past relationship, but she’s very aware of the fact that she feels nothing but platonic comfort coming from being around this woman. This…this is new.

“How are you?” Aine asks after a pleasant quiet. Neve lets out a chain of smoke rings before answering.

“Hanging in there. You?”

“Better than expected. Did you know that there was a dragon in Minrathous a while back?”

“I know. I was there.”

“Oh, of course you were. Never far from the action, are you.” Aine smiles, and Neve knows that she means it in nice way but what comes to mind are instead the things that happened at Weisshaupt instead. “Hey, what’s wrong? Your face just—look all sad all of a sudden.”

Oh, if only Neve has the time to list down of the things that went wrong. “Just work, as usual.”

“Not going to tell me?”

The detective smiles. “Top secret.”

Aine smiles back because this is a rehash of their usual conversation from back when they were together.

Whenever Neve comes to meet Aine in the past, the brunette would always prod gently at the detective to get her to ease up and share all the burdens that she’s carrying around. It rarely works because Neve was never good at sharing, before. She’s still somewhat bad at it now, but Neve likes to think she’s getting better thanks to Bellara’s influence.

Aine watches her observantly for a moment before picking up another bread from the basket “Then…how about…not work? How’s that going for you?”

The woman tries for innocent but Neve knows that she’s curious to all heavens from the way she’s fiddling with the bread instead of eating it. Neve is amused. Should she share? She didn’t really want to, but…her head feels like a room with too many people in it. She needed to let some people out.

Besides, this is Aine. She’s still a close friend even if their relationship didn’t work out. She won’t judge…much.

“If I say things are going to shit, what would you say to it?”

“I would tell you to spill and I will share with you my wisdom after hearing everything.”

That got her to laugh, and Neve puts her half-finished smoke stick aside before she starts speaking. She didn’t want to choke on smoke again during this—Aine has a tendency to be very liberate with her reactions and Neve has to be ready to contain her.

She tells Aine of a variation of her…trouble with Rook, but she keeps the names and details out of the story. It shows that Aine is very used to Neve censoring her stories with how the other woman keeps on nodding in understanding even though the lack of details makes things very vague. Neve tries her best to appear unaffected, but she knows she’s failing because the concern on Aine’s face that was for her is clear to see.

When Neve was done, she takes a sip of her coffee and waits for whatever this woman has for her. Aine takes her time thinking, playing with the same piece of bread that she has in her hand still.

“Well, I think you should stop sabotaging yourself.” Aine says after a while, and Neve has to lower her cup midway to turn to her in slight disbelief.

“Sabotage?”

“Neve, you can’t tell me you don’t realize this. You have a tendency to self-sabotage when it comes to people getting close to you.” Aine puts down the bread, her face now sporting a light frown. “You did it with me too.”

Oh, that feels like a stab in the heart. Aine pats her hand gently to take the sting off her words.

“I’ve moved on from it, so it’s okay now, but back then it was very frustrating. But after everything that happened to you, I understand. You lost Brom,” she casually drops that one fact with similar force to one of Razikale’s head shots. “And you didn’t want to lose me too. I understand now why you pushed me away.”

Brom died because of Neve’s misjudgment, and everything spiraled from there. She pushed Aine away because her fear of losing yet another person close to her became too much and ruined what was a good relationship between them. Probably one of the better ones Neve’s ever had.

Neve already keeps her walls high normally, but this was the point where things got really bad.

“How long has it been, since then?” Aine’s voice asks quietly. “I thought that things would have gotten better for you…but it seems that I’m wrong.”

She stays quiet, because what can she say to that?

“You know, even though you two hurt each other, I’m actually glad that it happened.”

Now Neve’s eyes popped wide open. She stares at her friend blankly. “Why??”

“Because you two are able to argue with each other. It’s a sign that you see her as an equal. It wasn’t like that with us.” Aine points out with a faint hint of bitterness that brings buried guilt forth from inside of Neve. “You kept me in the dark when it comes to your cases, and I was fine with it. But I sometimes wish that I could be the person that you could talk about work with. I see you come to me with all these bruises and I have to bite my tongue so that I don’t ask too much. It was hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

The brunette nods. “You are forgiven. I told you; I understand now. But you know, if you want to listen to a sage advice—”

Neve’s lips quirk in a smile. “Of course.”

“Give yourself a chance and let things happen for once. Stop trying to push aside all these ‘unwanted feelings’ just because you’re panicking that someone got close. Be kind to yourself. You are a good detective and a very good mage, but you are also human. You can’t stop connections from being formed—the fact that you’re affected by this argument means you’re already in deep.”

That’s the last thing Neve wants to hear and she groans, burying her face in her hands. Aine’s amused laughter comes merrily from her side.

“These things are distractions.” She says in a muffled voice, and Aine hums.

“Sure. But they can also be your salvation.”

“Aren’t you a wise one?”

“Marriage does that to a woman, I tell you.”

Neve lets out another laugh at this unexpected response. Aine looks smug for getting her to laugh and, well, okay Neve had to give it to her. “Of course. Give my thanks to Cassius for turning you into a wise woman.”

“Noted! I’ll let him know in a bit. I was back from shopping when I see your brooding face. Had to drop by and bother you.”

“And steal my bread.” Neve eyes her now empty bread basket and her companion grins.

“Payment for my wisdom. Let me know when you get the girl, okay?”

“Look, it’s not like that—” she tries to explain but once again Aine waves her reasoning aside.

“I know, it’s complicated. I don’t know the details and the two of you have serious things to talk about before you can get anywhere with this thing of yours. But, you know, I kind of want this to work out for you. You deserve good things, Neve.” She pats the detective hands gently. “Just like how that woman deserve a good smack for basically calling you a whore.”

Neve snorts. Rook might have yet another slap coming in her future if she ever meets Aine. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’re very welcome.” The bench makes a scrape against the ground as Aine stands up and grabs the cloth bag that she had with her. “I’ll see you later, okay? Don’t be a stranger and come say hi for once. Our door is open to you.”

“I’m busy.” Neve says, but she’s already making plans to visit Aine and Cassius when she gets a long enough break after everything with the Evanuris is done. Aine goes to leave, but then doubles back, one finger tapping on the table in front of Neve.

“You know, I still have that oil lamp that you bought me.”

Ah, that little gift. “Throw that old thing away and get a new one.”

“Neverrr.” Aine stuck her tongue out as she walks backwards to the exit. “I’m keeping that forever, Neve Gallus.”

Neve only smiles and raises her hand in a wave as the hurricane of her life finally left. With everything that had happened between them, Neve is so very glad that she still has Aine’s friendship. Neve doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends. Informants, yes. Friends? Not so much. She learns to appreciate what she has left, and she keeps a tight hold on them so that she doesn’t lose more.

But, it’s always difficult to hear painful truths from someone who knew her intimately, especially someone like Aine whom she had spent a good year with before things blew apart.

It’s enlightening to hear Aine’s point of view of what happened between her and Rook even with the details omitted, but it’s also stressful because Aine points out things that Neve tries not to think about. And now she has these things out in the open and Neve has no choice but to face them.

She sighs, drinking the last of her coffee.

Well, whatever happens, she’ll keep her friend’s words in mind. Whenever they get over the hurts they’ve inflicted on each other, Rook and her really have to talk and clear the air. It would do both of them a lot of good.

//

The meeting…is very dry, as expected.

Rook is trying so hard to focus but these people are talking about numbers and budgets and nobility influences and well, as someone who’s been in the bottom ranks of the Order for the last seven years, these don’t really matter much to her. That last thing means nothing to her in particular, but there isn’t any escape from them still even in this organization.

Evka knows that her mind is elsewhere and discreetly signaled Antoine, Rook’s fellow junior warden, to step on her foot to stop her from zoning out. The elven rogue stepped on her foot apologetically, and Rook just flashes him a thumb’s up in thanks. Davrin is doing better than Rook, right where he’s standing with Evka and the rest of the senior wardens, but she could see his eyes keeps flicking up towards the tree where Assan is observing them from up a high branch like a watchful protector.

Wow, even Assan is finding this meeting dull. He kept yawning.

Rook can relate.

Her mind keeps flashing back to that argument with Neve. Rook knows she’s in the wrong—but it was—she was hurt. It doesn’t justify it, but…Rook doesn’t deal well with grief. It is a feeling that is relatively new to her, and one she hasn’t learned to handle properly. Jean’s death hurts, but…Neve holding back the truth from her hurts even more.

She thought they were friends. But then Neve went and told her that she’s worried about Rook compromising the job and—

Well. That is probably the coldest thing Rook has ever heard coming out of this woman.

The fact that Neve puts their job over their friendship stings, and this coming from a Grey Warden, who was told from the start to put duty over everything. At first Rook was of similar mindset. She came to the Grey Wardens with no name, no coin, no family to speak of and she was looking for a new start. A good start. Keeping people away seems like a good thing because people will only try to use you, and someone like her will once more stay a puppet strangled on her own strings if she’s involved with the wrong kind again.

And then she met Antoine and Evka.

She’d seen how they act with each other. See how much love they have for each other, even in the middle of these nasty and back-breaking Grey Warden businesses. They trek through the most difficult locations and come out covered in the most disgusting things possible and these two would still be smiling each other like they’ve been on a stroll through a flowery garden.

What they have with each other takes a lot of the darkness out of this occupation, and, well, maybe Rook wanted that too.

Maybe just a bit of what they have, she’s not greedy.

She probably has fucked up her one and only chance of getting anything like it though.

What she said to Neve was disgusting and she’s ashamed of herself for sinking that low. Feeling hurt and betrayed didn’t justify it. If Neve hates her, and wants nothing to do with her after this, she would understand. Neve came into this to finish the job Varric hired her to do, and her beloved city was caught in the crossfire. She’s had enough on her mind without Rook and this drama.

But Rook is already in too deep to start pulling away. She doesn’t know how. Even when Neve was upset and blaming her for Minrathous, Rook still finds a way to get back in her good books.

Now though…she’s not sure anymore.

“…King Alistair have sent requests for Grey Warden presence…”

Wait. What?

Rook tuned back in, putting aside her personal problems to focus. That’s a name she recognizes—one of the Heroes of the Fifth Blight.

The meeting has moved into discussing the situation in the South and how they’re faring against the darkspawn. Apparently, King Alistair of Ferelden has requested that the Ferelden Order of the Grey Wardens to stay behind when Weisshaupt had recalled everybody. His request had been denied, as expected, and now Weisshaupt has fallen. The man didn’t stop with his missives, however, as he reached out to the remnants of the Order about relocating to the South with the promise to welcome them as refugees if they would help with the darkspawn.

That had Rook on alert because if the rest of the Order is going to the South, then they would lose a lot of the numbers they needed to go against the Evanuris. This is truly dire, Rook turns to Evka to see if she’s thinking the same thing Rook is, but the dwarf isn’t looking at her. Evka is listening attentively and there’s a scary frown on her face.

Rook wanted to speak up but she’s a small fish amongst these big players. She hates this stupid ranking system that keeps her silenced.

She feels for the South, but the Inquisitor said they were doing relatively okay for now. She did say things have largely been kept at bay. Ferelden and Orlais are still in a spat, and Rook wished they’d stop that because everyone needed to be together to fight this. They needed the Wardens more to go chase the blight at its very heart—

Ghilan’nain.

“Warden Ivo, step forward.” The voice of Warden-Commander Karstoff of the Nevarran Order rumble through the room. He is the highest-ranked Grey Warden that survived Weisshaupt, and is the de-facto leader now that the First Warden is dead. Evka stepped forward as commanded and stand straight. “I believe you have news to share with the Order. I permit you to share your report.”

“Yes Ser. As per my previous reports given to the First Warden, the center of everything that happened with this new Blight, and Weisshaupt, lies with the Evanuris—” Evka spoke of what she had told the First Warden before, and what he ignored outright. The stark difference is that now people are listening to her instead of ignoring her. They have seen what Ghilan’nain and Razikale did to Weisshaupt first hand, so now they understand the weight behind Evka’s warnings.

Too little too late for that, Rook thinks bitterly.

She told them about the new song that Antoine heard coming from this new Blight, and about Rook’s request for Grey Wardens support because she and her team have been chasing for the very person who’s responsible for the blight itself. Rook’s hands are sweating when Evka got to this part because this is it. She met Davrin’s eyes across the room, and he’s in the same stressed state as her.

They have to get this support or they won’t be able to make a move.

“—and so, in light of these revelations, I would like to request that Grey Wardens support be extended to aid Rook’s team in order to chase down the perpetrators of the fall of Weisshault.” Evka finishes, not even looking uncomfortable under the scrutinizing eyes of her superiors.

“We shall take your request into consideration.” Karstoff says decisively and Evka moves back into her previous position. She did her best, and now it’s time for the top to make their decision. The higher ranked Wardens begin to murmur under their breath, looking all serious and pointing to the map, and Rook’s too far away to hear what they’re saying. She could read some of their lips saying Ferelden a few times though, so they know they’re considering King Alistair’s request.

Rook can’t imagine what would happen if their team don’t get the Grey Warden support. And just imagining herself and her team on their lonesome going after Lusacan is making her want to scream. They’ll die before they can even go past the millions of darkspawn Ghillan’nain will throw at them.

“Warden Ivo,” Karstoff spoke up after that it feels like forever. “We have reached a decision.”

Rook straightens up even though he was addressing Evka.

“We grant your request of extending aid to Warden Thorne to follow up in regard to this elven god. We have seen what she is capable of first-hand at the Keep, and that much power is much too dangerous to be left unchecked. And as Grey Wardens, it is our responsibility to handle the blight which she freely controls.” Karstoff turns to sign a parchment, pressed a wax seal on it, and then hands it out to Evka, who stepped forward.

“From now on you are Warden-Commander Evka Ivo in command of the Lavendel Branch of the Order. Take all the surviving Anderfels Grey Wardens with you to aid Warden Thorne and her team. Talk to my Constable after this, we shall spare no effort for our next move against them.”

The flabbergasted look on Evka’s face is glorious and Rook had to grab Antoine’s arm because the Orlesian is looking rather faint at the announcement. She could see Davrin subtly clenching his fist in celebration and she herself is holding back the urge to cheer. This is good news!

And then Evka had to ruin all of that.

“Yes, Ser. As Warden-Commander, I have another request in regard to my new mission.”

Karstoff nodded, motioning her to continue.

“I would request Warden Thorne be made my Second as we move against the Evanuris. She has led her team against these adversaries for the past year and I believe her knowledge and expertise in the matter would greatly influence how we should proceed from this point onwards.”

Warden-Commander Karstoff’s eyes slowly move to where Rook is standing with the Junior Wardens, and the rogue’s blood ran cold.

Evka, you idiot! What have you done!

//

“Congratulations. You’ve been promoted.”

Rook scowls at Davrin’s dry voice after the meeting was adjourned. Whatever had taken place at the last half of that meeting still feels like a blight-induced fever dream.

Evka had thrusted Rook into the limelight, and now she’s involved in the politicking part of the Order. Rook is not happy at all about this. She was doing fine with moving in the background, because the less eyes on her the better. She doesn’t need all these nobles scrutinizing her every move.

“This is the worst outcome.”

“Hey, at least you didn’t get made Warden-Commander.” Davrin leans against the wall and lets out a long sigh. “There’s only three of them left, four with Evka now, and one is actually missing. Evka is going to have a lot more work coming for her.”

“She can do it. Evka did really well at Weisshaupt.” As much as she’s annoyed with her senior, Rook admits that the dwarven woman makes a good field leader. A much better one than the First Warden at least. They came this far with her taking the lead and it’s going to be easier to connect with Evka than if it’s anybody else in her position.

“Geez, thanks for the vote for confidence. And before you can start with your complaints,” Evka arrives holding a hand up, stopping Rook from her prepared tirade. “Understand that I did all that because I have to.”

Rook frowns. “Explain.”

Evka nodded as Antoine arrives, and bringing with him a similar scroll to the one Evka received from Karstoff. Antoine extended the scroll to Rook with a smile, the same blue wax seal on it, and Rook accepts it quietly with nothing but a sigh.

“The reason that I want you to be made my second, is because I want you to have all the privileges that comes with it.” Evka starts after getting everyone’s attention in their little group. “From here on out, we’re going to be moving with the Order’s full support and people are going to return to following the chains of commands on the field. This is where you being a Junior Warden is a problem—you don’t have enough power to call the shots.’

“But now that I’ve made you my Second, you get to call the shots in the events that I die—”

“Don’t say that,” Rook groans out but Evka pushed through.

“— and take over the Wardens under my command. This is a strict if I die, mind you. I can promise that I won’t die that easily.”

Antoine nods confidently from her side. “I will watch your back, my Love.”

Rook is still feeling dissatisfied. “That tells me nothing but you giving me your job if things go sideways.” The dwarven warrior rolls her eyes at this.

“I’m not finished. Anyway, the other reason is that with your new rank, you will be equal to Davrin. You get the special privilege of moving yourself and a small group of wardens to undertake critical missions without permission from me or the First Warden. With your team being how it is…this would be a great boon, would it not?”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Basically, Evka is giving her a free reign to continue with how she’s been working with her team but now with the addition of all that Warden support and resources that they’ve been going without so far. Rook has no need to talk to any of the big wigs from now on if she needed something, so hopefully there would be no more incident like with the First Warden. No more ranked Wardens being obstructive, deliberately pulling ranks, and ostracizing them out of pure spite.

Basically, freedom.

Rook turns to Evka, who’s waiting with a smug smile, and then she gives a salute.

“Thank you for your consideration, Warden-Commander Ivo.”

Evka lets out a longs-suffering sigh at the mention of her new rank, even though the other two Wardens with them smiles at Rook’s reaction. “Well, now this is settled, we can all move forward with the mission. You were asking for scouts, right Rook?”

“I was. You got Harding’s missive?”

Antoine answered in Evka’s place at her question. “Yes, we received it just a while ago. We have a few scouts out searching right now, not a lot, so it might be a while until we can get word back.”

“That’s fine. We all need to recover after everything at Weisshaupt. There’s…a lot of unfinished businesses, and new problems coming up.” Davrin has a complicated look on his face and Rook wonders what kind of news did he get when he caught up with his fellow senior wardens earlier. “Hopefully we can move ahead of them this time around.”

“I agree, we’ve been taken aback by their attacks so far. It would be nice to one up them for once.”

“There is only Lusacan left, yes?”

“Him, and also the blighted dragons that attacked Minrathous and Treviso. I don’t doubt that Ghilan’nain would bring them out to play now that Razikale is dead.”

Rook is scanning her scroll during this conversation and she’s pleasantly surprised with what she sees written on it.

“Oh. You didn’t make me a Constable. I’m a Senior Warden, instead.”

“If I make you a Constable I’m going to start fearing for my life.” Evka said with a small roll of her eyes. “Antoine is my Constable, and I got Davrin to be your Second, Rook.”

“I can’t believe we all got promoted. All at once.” Davrin mutters but with no cheer in his voice. Everyone turned grave at his words because they feel the same way.

That the reason why all of them have been promoted this fast is because Weisshaupt’s fall leaves a big hole that needs to be immediately filled in the Order. They know that fast tracking promotions like this is normal during extreme conditions like during the Blight, but still, having to experience it first hand is very sobering.

Evka let out a sigh. “Well, what’s done is done. The meeting is done so you two are free to go. Antoine and I have to talk more to some people and get things moved around so that the Anderfels Wardens, no, Lavendel Wardens now, will be ready whenever you need us to move.”

Davrin and Rook look at each other and the latter nods. “Right. We’ll take our leave. Thanks again Evka, Antoine. Hope to hear something from you soon.”

The two gives them a wave as they make their way to the Eluvian and Davrin whistles for Assan to come and join them. The griffon lands with clatters of his talons against the ground, and the sight of him seems to remind Davrin of something.

“Rook, I’ve got something to tell you that I just got from my contacts. About the Gloom Howler.” He explains at Rook’s confused look.

The return of that monster’s name make Assan let out an angry squawk. No wonder Davrin looked like that earlier. Someone must have given him a lead.

“Right, I’ll listen to you once we get to the Lighthouse.”

“I appreciate it, thanks. You can talk to me about your girl problems if you want. I can lend you an ear.”

Rook frowns at him as they crossed the mirror into the Crossroad.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because…if I have my clues right, then I suspect I have an idea of the very person who is responsible for that red handprint. And, I don’t know, knowing that person, I might just be able to give you a hand.”

This man is smirking so smugly at her that she wanted to smack him, but at the same time Rook is grateful that they’re not yelling at each other like they were during their team briefing the other day. It’s obviously an olive branch, and it’s one that she grasps at willingly.

But they do still have some yelling to do because Rook hasn’t forgotten about what upset Davrin, and his words to her still hurt, but…maybe it could wait a little longer.

For now, she’s just going to appreciate the fact that her team came out of Weisshaupt mostly unscathed and that Evka and Antoine had given them the full support of the Grey Wardens from here on out.

Things…might just be looking up.

Chapter Text

“You know, for someone delicate-looking, your hits really pack a punch.”

“Yes, I get that a lot. The First Warden would agree with you too…if he’s still around.”

“Ouch.” Two wooden mugs filled with sweet-smelling drinks are placed on the short stump standing between them that makes for a table. “Heard you like the sweet ones.”

Rook reaches for a mug and smiles when she noticed the delicate varnishing on it. Handmade. “You really don’t have to crack open a new bottle for this. I’m good with the nasty one you’ve been drinking.”

Davrin throws himself onto his armchair and lets out a sigh. “Nah, that would defeat the purpose. Think of this of my apology.”

“I thought our punching each other is your apology?”

“…No…that kind of just happened…” the elven man turns to his fellow Warden who’s sitting on the high-backed chair he’d dragged from his desk to the front of the fireplace. “I was surprised when you took a swing at me the moment you stepped in here.”

“Me? You elbowed me right in my injuries first when I knocked on the door! Everything after that was just self-defense.”

“That was an accident, Assan was standing on the way—”

The griffon squawked in affront from his position flopped down on the floor by Davrin’s feet and the two Wardens snorts at his reaction.

There was a funny chain of events when Rook came by Davrin’s room to talk to him a while ago. What was meant to be a follow up to Davrin’s request to talk ended up into a small brawl because of…well, Rook’s not even sure anymore. At the end of it Davrin and her both have black eyes and Assan lost quite a few feathers.

And now they’re all sharing a drink in front of the fireplace.

Funny how life is sometimes.

Rook takes a small sip of the drink, smacks her tongue to check the taste, and them hums lightly in approval. “This is good. I’m not one for alcohol, but I like this.”

“How did you get through Warden training?”

“Spite and a lot of pent-up anger.”

Davrin nods in understanding. Rook is sure that she’s not the only warden who survived training that way. A lot of people come into the Grey Warden with baggage and sometimes, they’re what keeps you going. She turns to her friend after a comfortable quiet, watching him quietly.

“You know, for what it’s worth,” Rook waits until he turns to her. “I’m glad you didn’t die. I know you feel like you failed your duty, for not dying when you killed Razikale, but I disagree. You did everything right that night. I’m willing to bet that the reason that you’re still alive right now is her.”

Ghilan’nain.

The mother of the Blight herself. What was supposed to be the norm has changed, because of her. Emmrich was right in the sense that everything they know about the blight is changing just because she’s now around. The look on Davrin’s face was one of agreement.

“I’ll take that bet. Ghilan’nain is definitely changing all the status quo.” He lets out an exhausted sigh. “What a night. I can’t believe we lived through that.”

The worst large-scale battle the two of them have ever experienced, and of course it’s the one where the base of their very Order fell to darkspawn. It’s only been less than a week since, but it feels like yesterday when they were fighting for their lives.

“Not everybody did.” Came out of Rook’s mouth without her realizing it, and she starts. Her eyes turn to Davrin who freezes at her words, and for a moment she thought he’d start getting angry about it again. But no, he froze for a short moment, before slumping against his seat with a sigh.

“We lost a lot of good people there.” The two of them received a long list of names of the deceased. And though they don’t know every one of the Wardens, they were comrades all the same. “I’m sorry about Jean. Evka told me she’s a friend from your Joining. Saw her name on the list.”

That name coming out of Davrin’s mouth was surprising. Mostly because Rook Joined later than he did so she never knew how he got Evka telling him all this. Her mug shakes slightly in her hand, but Rook keeps her voice steady. “I—thanks. I’m sorry too, about Rounald, and the others. I think they would love your carvings.”

Davrin gave a grateful nod before bringing his mug to his lips and taking a big swig from it. There was quiet between them, before a small chuckle came from him.

“Glad to know you’re not entirely heartless.”

It was said in jest, and Rook rolled her eyes. He’d apologized, so this doesn’t hurt anymore, but still. Rook reached out her leg and hook a foot his around his ankle, taking him by surprise that he almost drops his mug when she tug that foot back. The liquid inside it sloshed and dripped on top of Assan’s head, who squawked in protest.

“Asshole.” She grins when he glares at her.

It’s nice, having Davrin around. He’s like a brother Rook can tussle with without worrying she’d rearranged his insides. The others in the team aren’t this type—and Taash would toss her over the cliff if Rook ever tries to tussle with them. Their strength difference is insane, Rook has no chance.

She turns back to staring at the fireplace and leans her elbows on her knees. The mention of Jean’s name brought her back to that…dark headspace that Rook hasn’t exactly moved out of. There are so many emotions raging inside her since that night to the point that she’s been feeling like a tightly strung lute ever since they got back from the Keep. Her ears had stopped ringing with stress, but the all-encompassing guilt from the failure still stays regardless to the fact of how hard Rook tries to keep them all away.

“I fucked up.” she said quietly, but loud enough for Davrin to hear. “At Weisshaupt.” Rook elaborated when no reply came. Davrin’s looking at her in attention, but he doesn’t look at all surprised at her words.

“You keep saying that, but knocking out the First Warden wouldn’t make a big difference. He hasn’t been on the field in years. His presence won’t change the outcome.”

“Yes, but—” like a stone’s ripple on a pond. Maybe if she could change this one bit—! But her friend shook his head, looking the most serious she’s seen him since Rook got here.

“You can’t think about the buts or the ifs. What’s done is done. A miss is…a miss.” Davrin lets out a bitter chuckle, and Rook knows he’s remembering his and Lucanis’ argument during the meeting. “Speaking of, have you checked up on Lucanis?”

“Not yet, why?”

“He must be feeling the worst out of us right now.” Now that his head is clear from the anger of his failure of dying in duty, Davrin was able to look at things objectively again. “He missed, but you were right. That was a damn incredible shot he took at Ghilan’nain.”

Bright wings unfurling against the night sky, Lucanis flies through the air like a figure from the story books with the Lyrium Dagger in hand, shooting straight for the elven God. Even Rook was mesmerized. Her defenses were completely open at that very moment because she was staring at Lucanis’ attack with awe.

“You're right, that was amazing. But you know, you could tell him that, instead of telling me.”

Davrin rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I’ll think about it.”

Good enough. Rook raises her mug with a grin before taking another sip at it. She was glad it’s only a sip because Davrin’s next words might have her choking.

“So…Neve?” the monster hunter looks at Rook knowingly and she knows she’s been had. Damn his perceptiveness. “She gave you that handprint, right?”

Rook wonders if she should play dumb or lie her way out of this. But then again Davrin said he’s got clues, so.

“How did you figure it out?”

“You two haven’t exactly been subtle. You look at her like she’s someone you once loved and let slip away. And she’s watching you with soft eyes when your back is turned. It’s kind of…I’m starting to get the feeling like I’m third wheeling when I’m out with you guys.”

Rook stares at him blankly. She wants to laugh, a little. “What the heck? Have you been reading Lucanis’ romance books?”

“I will beat you with this olive branch.” Davrin scowls at her and the rogue couldn’t help but grin.

“No, but really, that’s some really good lines right there. I think you can write your own—”

“Beat you. Olive branch.”

That sounds less like a threat and more like a promise and Rook raises her hands in defeat. Her smile became bitter when she turns to the fireplace, eyes watching the logs burn amidst the flames. She lets the white noise of the fireplace fill the quiet between them for a bit before responding.

“You really see that? Her looking at me like that, I mean.”

“Yes. But I didn’t say anything because I figured something happened.”

Something definitely did happen. Rook sighed, hanging her head in defeat. “I fucked up with her.” The memories of the argument still make her blood run cold and the shame that comes with it is just overwhelming.

“I figured.” Davrin’s voice is surprisingly comforting to hear right now. They help make her feel less cold. “That bad huh? She’s not someone I thought would resort to violence.”

Rook shakes her head because she agrees. Neve isn’t that kind of person. “No, it was on me. I baited her. I threw something good that we both share and threw it in her face in the worst way possible.” A bitter laugh escapes her lips. “I fucked up really badly this time I don’t know what to do.”

“Grovel?”

“I’m still in the middle of groveling for Minrathous.”

“Shit.” Davrin said empathically.

Rook nods in agreement. “That's what I said.” She fucked up big time and even Davrin is stumped. Rook knows she’s hitting a wall in regards to Neve. She’s afraid. “The more I try to reach her, the further I seem to push her away. It’s frustrating. Maybe what they say is right. Attachments like romance aren’t something a Grey Warden should have.”

Now it’s Davrin’s turn to look at her blankly. “What? Who said that?”

Rook shrugs. “Some of the Wardens after my Joining. They tell me Grey Wardens live a lonely life. They live and die for duty, and attachments to non-Wardens like this is only a burden in the long run.” She agrees with it logically, but emotionally, she’s against it. But then this happened, and Rook is starting to rethink things.

“I guess I can see where they’re coming from. But after everything that happened…Can’t say that I agree.” When Rook turns to him in question, he elaborated. “Look, before this job, my life was basically hunting monsters down, one job to another and basically having no other life to speak of. It was good. It was easy. But then I met Assan. And that’s when things changed.”

The griffon purrs when his Warden pets him on the head. “I tried not to see it, but I ended up getting attached to this baby I’m supposed to protect. And you were right, even if I’m still alive after doing my duty, I have a new purpose now to help him grow and settle in this world. This is yet another reason for me to fight harder. Because if the Evanuris are not dead, then there might not be a world for Assan and his siblings to grow in.”

Griffons just very recently returned from extinction, after all. They really have to have a safe environment where the species can find their place back in nature. This won’t be possible if the entire world is blighted.

“So, attachments aren’t all bad. They might even do you some good.”

Rook watches the happy griffon thumps his tail lazily against the ground under Davrin’s attention. Gosh, this little thing is so spoiled it’s adorable. Once everyone’s patched up enough and the team have restocked, Rook’s going to take them to the Cauldron. Davrin’s confident enough that the Gloom Howler might be there, and hitting something to vent her feelings out sounds like a good idea right now.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked, her voice coming out small.

Davrin hums as he thinks. “Apologize and own up to your mistakes. And then, grovel.”

“And if those don’t work?”

“Then, move on.” He looks at her in the eyes. “You can’t force things to happen, as much as you want it. And sometimes, some things are better left as memories.”

His words aren’t exactly what Rook wants to hear, but she knows that she needs a good dose of reality check after everything that happened. Rook doesn’t want to let Neve go, not when she’s starting to feel that they’re going somewhere, but—

If Neve doesn’t want her, then…

“Thanks, Davrin.”

The warden raises his mug to her. “Anytime.”

The conversation with him left Rook’s head spinning a little, and she spent the rest of the day locked up inside her workshop slash meditation room, mulling over his words. She knows she has to apologize because it’s not the matter of whose fault is this argument in the end. Rook was the one who delivered the final cut—the one who hurt Neve just because she was hurting.

Regardless of how Neve will handle her apologies, Rook still wants Neve around if she would let it—or, at least until the job is done.

She didn’t want to disappoint Varric by chasing off the best detective that he’s ever known.

//

After taking some time to organize her thoughts, Neve finally goes to see Bellara.

And, like she expected, the younger woman burst into tears at the sight of her face.

It was quite a surprise because Neve expected that Bellara would be feeling guilty about what had happened and her role in it, but she didn’t expect the elven woman to just wail out loud the moment Neve stepped inside her room. It took Neve quite a while to get her to calm down too, because Bellara talks a mile a minute even through her tears and Neve was at a loss.

With some gentle coaxing Bellara finally lets Neve go from her hug of death, and the next thing they know the two of them are seated on the floor of Bellara’s workshop with a box of candied dates and cups of water placed between them.

They’re Neve’s…offering, or something like that.

Bellara’s still hiccupping, but the sweets are quickly cheering her up, and the fact that Neve isn’t mad at her is helping to greatly improve her mood. How can Neve be mad at her? Bellara was just being her kind and considerate self—even if she accidentally spilled something to Rook that was supposed to be Neve’s responsibility. It was purely an accident.

So, the fault in the end lies with Neve.

The detective watches Bellara demolish like a quarter of the candied dates before she asks. “Feeling better?”

Bellara sniffs and nods slowly, still despondent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just—ambush you with my crying. I swear it just happened! I thought you’d hate me, Neve—”

“Oh no, I’d never—”

“Because I ruined everything! Rook sounded so mad and I never heard her like that before! She never raised her voice and she was so nice to me before that too. And then she’d yell at you—”

“Bellara—”

“You two are always so nice to each other that I was so afraid that I ruined something! And I love this team, you know? I’ve worked with other people before, and the Veil Jumpers, but I feel really at home here. and I don’t want my big mouth to ruin that!”

“I’m sure you didn’t—”

“I was just thinking of being nice because Rook was being nice but that ended up to be a big mistake—” Neve bites her tongue when once more Bellara talked over her. She lets out a sigh and lets the girl vent because Bellara’s probably been keeping all these to herself, stressing out and waiting for Neve to come to her and…yell at her or something equally dramatic.

Seeing Neve visit her with sweets must have been unexpected.

So, she waits, patiently, listening to Bellara as she vents some more and nodding at the right places until the elven mage runs out of steam and slows down. Neve has half a date in her mouth when Bellara addresses her.

“So, you’re not mad at me, right?”

Neve shakes her head easily. “No.”

“But…you are sad.” Bellara says carefully, gently, as if not wanting to prod too much but also wanting to ask what happened. Neve recognizes the amount of effort in this kind gesture—Bellara is a curious little thing, if she had indulged in that curiosity, Neve would be bombarded with questions the moment she had entered the room. But no, her friend had waited until Neve is settled before reaching out as gently as she could.

Neve adores her for it.

“I…am.” She remembers Aine’s words and tries to let herself feel, for once, instead of pushing things away. It’s not easy. “Angry, and hurt…but mostly sad.”

Trying to pinpoint her emotions down in all the mess inside her heart is like trying to chase cats down the alleys of Dock Town. But she’s trying.

“Why?”

The frost mage’s eyes strays as she considered her words. That’s a good question. Neve has a lot of different answers to this one question, but at the base of it—

“Because I wasn’t able to let Rook grieve properly by holding the truth back from her.”

Bellara’s face falls beside her and she knows that they’re both thinking of the same thing.

Jean’s death…and how the two of them were present for it. It was tragic, the entire night was tragic, but Neve felt this death much more personally because she had the time to know Jean as a person however briefly. To see the life extinguished out of her so easily…

Neve’s witnessed death before, many of them, but it’s never gotten easier along the years.

Rook has lost a lot that night, her and Davrin both. And Neve regretted that she wasn’t able to deliver Jean’s death gently to her before everything happened.

“It really took me by surprise, her reaction to it. To Jean’s death, I mean.” Neve explains when Bellara tilts her head at her in question. “Because Rook wasn’t like this when Varric died.”

“He died during Solas’ ritual, right? Harding told me.”

“Yes. Killed by that same Lyrium Dagger Rook brings everywhere with her.” Neve could still see it in her mind’s eye, the moment when she runs up to Varric’s body and discovered the man dying from blood loss from that big gaping wound on his neck. Solas had gotten him at a vital point, and then the dagger was pulled out. There was no chance of him surviving even if she had given him first-aid.

Neve was horrified, but there wasn’t time to do anything because everything was crumbling around them and Rook was wounded. She and Harding had done their best to get everyone out of there as safely as they could—

But Varric was forever lost to them.

Rook’s reaction to the news of his death after she had woken up from her coma was…rather muted. Neve remembers her looking blankly back at them, back at her and Harding, like she was processing, and back then Neve thought this was a normal reaction because she didn’t know the rogue that well.

But now, after everything between them. After Jean’s death.

Neve should have known that that was not normal.

Bellara plops a candied date inside her mouth thoughtfully. “Maybe Varric wasn’t as important as Jean was to her.”

“Maybe.” But the detective side of her doesn’t feel convinced. The reasoning is weak, and something in Neve is left unsettled and unsatisfied by this conclusion. She sighed. “I’m thinking too much into this.”

“It’s not a bad thing. Sometimes you can find things you didn’t realize before when you look back at things. I do that. It happens to me a lot.” Bellara speaks from personal experience, Neve is sure, being as scattered as she was.

“What are you going to do now?”

Neve chews a date and swallowed before answering “About what?”

“About Rook. I don’t…like seeing you two argue like that. And I still feel really bad.” Bellara’s not crying anymore but her eyes are still rather shiny. “I tried apologizing to her but she wasn’t around.”

“She’s not?” It’s been days and Rook still isn’t back?

“I think she left after the two of you argued, but then Davrin left after her and he seemed to be in a hurry.”

Apparently Taash bumped into Davrin in the library not long after Rook left. The senior warden had received some kind of an urgent letter and had rushed through the eluvian with one of his boots unlaced.

What’s happening? Why are both of their Grey Wardens absent? And Davrin, rushing? This news is rather alarming to Neve. Did something else happened to the Order? Her mind is going through the worst situations and even Bellara’s staring at her with wide eye panic.

“I’m sure it’s not something bad! I think? or they would have told us about it, right?” Bellara gnaws on a date stubbornly. “They’d have left messages…Oooh, I hope they’re fine. We’ve had enough bad things happening to last us a while.”

“You’re right about that.” There’s nothing that can be done if something happened to the Order, because Neve and the others’ participation in their business ends with the fall of Weisshaupt. Whatever happens after that is…internal Grey Warden business. She could imagine the amount of work that they have to go through after all that.

The same thing happened to the Shadow Dragons following the dragon attack. Missing members, dead or maimed leaders…destroyed headquarters…

They’re basically mirror images of the same catastrophe.

The two of them, Rook and Neve, are finally on equal terms in regards to the things they’ve lost during this job.

Out of all things to have in common, this is the last thing Neve wanted for them to have.

“Also, Bel,” the elven woman looks to her at the call of her name. “I know you’re worried, but I ask that you stay out of this from now on. I don’t want your relationship with Rook to get affected. She’s angry with me, and I don’t want you to get tangled along in this mess just because you’re trying to help me.”

Bellara’s face scrunches up in a way that tells Neve she wanted to say no to all that, but she also understands that Neve is right. Bellara is accidentally caught in the crossfire of their…drama, for the lack of better word, and Neve doesn’t want her to take sides. Rook is good friends with Bellara too and she doesn’t want to take this friendship away from them.

“Fine.” Bellara says a bit sullenly, but at least she agrees. There is calm quiet between them as they finish the rest of the sweets in the box, and then she speaks up. “Can I ask…what happened…though? I can’t stop thinking about it. But um, it’s okay to not answer if you’re not comfortable with it! I just, worry. That’s all.”

She could see that. Neve thought about it at first, and her friend gave her the space she needed to consider things. Neve makes up her mind after a bit of thinking, and Bellara looks up at the sound of her cup placed back on the floor between them.

“When I tell you…I ask that you not share a word to the others.”

Bellara nods easily to her request, eyes serious. Neve bit her bottom lip as she tries to find words, and decided to just go straight with it.

“Rook and I slept with each other.”

To her credit, Bellara is taking this news well. No spilled water, no tumbling dates. The only sign that she’s surprised about this revelation is the widening of her eyes, but she’s quiet as she listens. This reaction is a comfort, so Neve continues with it.

“It’s not during this job. We’ve met before all this.” Just a few days before, if Neve remembers it correctly. Before the ritual and even before her Venatori ‘kidnapping’. “Before even the ritual.”

“Oh!” the gasp comes out too loudly and Bellara pressed her hands against her mouth, before lowering her voice. “Oh. So, you two have known each other for a while?”

“No, we met just for one night.”

It takes a while for the words to be processed in Bellara’s head, and when it did her face goes bright red. Neve feels embarrassed seeing her react like this. “Oh.”

“Not a word of this in your story, you hear?” Neve is trying so hard to keep her face even but the back of her neck feels way too warm in this weather. Bellara hesitates but quickly nodded when Neve narrows her eyes at her. After clearing her throat and drinking some water to calm down, Neve continues.

“Long story short, alcohol played a part with how we met and what happened after. It was supposed to be just for one night, so neither of us bothered with names. This was why we did not recognize each other when we met during the ritual.”

It was supposed to be a one-night thing that ended up becoming complicated. Neve’s eyes fell to the water in her cup when she recalls what follows.

“Rook remembers first, I think, but she kept quiet about recognizing me. It took longer for me because I was preoccupied. You remember I had that injury? When we met?” Bellara nods again. The clear black eye and the wound on her forehead that now leaves a scar were very fresh that day. “Recovery was my priority, along with finding leads regarding the Evanuris, so everything else fell behind. This wasn’t important because I thought, what were the chances that a stranger from back then would come up again?”

Little did Neve knows.

That stupid blue-lined griffon on Rook’s arm was the perpetrator that triggered her memories.

She does like griffons a little too much.

“When I found out I was angry. I felt like Rook played me for a fool; watching me go along my days in blissful ignorance and not at all aware that she was the person I spent the night with. I confronted her and, well. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Why?”

“Because it was after everything with Minrathous happened.”

Bellara grimaced lightly. “That’s…” she has no words, and Neve understands.

“I suppose it was the reason why Rook choosing Treviso over my city angered me so much even though I tried not to blame her. I felt…that it was a betrayal on her part, even though I know, I know, that logically that isn’t true.”

It was a cruel choice, and the fact that Rook willingly takes responsibility over it even until this day was admirable. Professionally, Neve respects her for it. Personally? She has complicated feelings about it.

Feelings sure are a funny thing.

Neve shakes the water in her cup idly. “Rook apologized, and for a bit after that our relationship was smooth. Like it’s returned to before I remembered everything about that night. But then, Weisshaupt happened. And I messed up.”

It was easy to see where Neve has made a mistake now that time has passed.

What was once going well is now once more shaken, or maybe even broken.

There was a long quiet after the end of her story, that Neve has to peek at Bellara to check if her friend had fallen asleep. No, Bellara’s still awake, but she’s frowning at the floor. Thinking. She smiles.

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

The veiljumper lets out a small chuckle. “Sort of a big mess, actually?” and Neve actually laughs at that.

“I agree. It is a big mess. The world loves to test me like this.” She could feel Bellara’s eyes on her, but Neve is still looking down at her water.

“How are you going to start…”

“Fixing things? By talking to Rook, I suppose. When the anger and the hurt has gone away.” If Rook is still angry, they might get a part two of that argument, and Neve isn’t sure that they could keep this quiet this time around. Bellara is already involved; she doesn’t really want to air their dirty laundry to the rest of the team.

“That sounds good.” The sentence ticks up at the end, like Bellara’s considering a question. Neve waits. “Soo…you like Rook?”

Ah, the curiosity has reached its peak. Neve eyes her friend who is close to vibrating at her answer.

“I don’t know. The justicar is still out on this one.” She plays coy and as expected, Bellara groans out. Neve’s smile widened. “Aren’t you a curious little thing? I’ve told you all these and you still want to know more?”

“It’s because you said all that, but also nothing at the same time!”

She laughs. For a serial lover like Bellara, this story must have been very exciting to listen to. What has her life become, seriously. “Well, I’ll keep that part a secret. You have enough material for your story…but nothing about this in there, okay?”

“Uuuughhh, Neve!”

Neve laughs as her friend shakes her, trying to get her to yield her secrets, but no Neve is staying firm on this one. What she tells Bellara isn’t entirely wrong—she is still examining her feelings when it comes to Rook. That woman could fill a lot of roles in Neve’s life but she’s not sure yet which one of them she wants Rook to be. Things are already complicated enough as it is, she just wants them to be able to work properly without the hurt they’ve inflicted upon each other to be affecting their judgements.

Aside from all that…all Neve feels right now is relief. She had come to Bellara’s room feeling unsure, and a bit afraid of what she’s going to face when she sees her friend. But then she sees Bellara’s face and all that hurt and anger fades away in the face of the worry and concern that Bellara shows her. It feels nice to be worried over like this, to be handled with such care.

All she had needed to do was share her woes with Bellara and that untangled a lot of the mess inside her.

Neve is truly grateful for Bellara’s presence in her life. Out of everything that happened after she accepted Varric’s job, she’s glad their meeting is one of the good things that comes with it.

//

Rook takes her time organizing her thoughts. She doesn’t really want to blow up at Neve again when she comes to talk to her, and Rook will come to talk to her.

Just…not immediately.

She still has things to do; things like checking up on Lucanis after everything at Weisshaupt. He was apologetic, and regretful and Rook clearly sees the weight of that guilt on him. It was similar to what she’s feeling, but his problem was a lot more complicated. Something has to be done about Spite because if this keeps up, Rook’s not sure she could trust the man with anything else of this scale.

They missed once and that already cost them a lot. There cannot be a repeat of this.

And Lucanis looks exhausted. She’s not even sure if the man had actually slept since they came back from Weisshaupt. The last thing she did before leaving his room was telling him to get some rest because nothing can be done when one’s mind and body are exhausted.

After that, it was time for Rook to take her own advice.

She rested, to give time for her injuries to recover. She had to go back to Hossberg for a bit after that meeting because, thanks to her…promotion…she has to be refitted with a new set of armors. Apparently, she can’t wear her old Junior Warden armors anymore because it would confuse the rest of the Order when they have to sortie, so she had to play dress-up a little bit at the Outpost.

Holden had a lot of fun smiling at her discomfort. He did promise her that he would gift her a new bow that would go well with the new armor so Rook was mollified. She’s still feeling a mix of things when she takes a look at herself in her new armor, but she’s sure she’ll get used to it with time. It’s too shiny for her liking, but a few scraps would do the trick. Rook can’t be too shiny during a battle or she’d be a sitting duck for the enemies’ snipers…like she wasn’t already.

The Lyrium Dagger that she has with her makes her a walking target, and this is the reason why Rook carries double weapons on her at all times. And it cost her an arm and a leg to keep fighting this way. Being a long-distance fighter and explosive specialist needed her to keep a fat bag of gold on her at all times to continuously restock what she’s spent in battle. And the worst part of this is the fact that she emptied out most of her arsenal during that fight with Razikale, both arrows and mines and traps alike.

Her Fortune’s Fury, the expendable weapon that was her ace during that fight, was actually a prototype when she brought it to battle. She meant to use it as a last resort, and it worked wonderfully as planned. Unfortunately, it was a one-off use, and now she’s back to the design board once more. Rook has to start looking for a new mix that’s even more lethal because she can’t keep leaving things to Neve and Davrin to destroy.

She has to start pulling her own weight in battle.

This kept her occupied for a bit, and Rook knows she’s running away from Neve still, but can you blame her? She’s afraid—so much so to the point that she’s not brave enough to stroll around the Lighthouse like she used to do in fear of running into Neve.

What would she say to her? What kind of face should she put on when they run into each other?

Rook doesn’t know if she could keep her mask up in front of Neve. It’s all damn well shattered to bits after her magnificent breakdown at the detective’s office. Neve has seen her at her core—

At her worst.

What’s left is there of her, then?

When Rook feels emotionally ready, she goes straight to Neve’s office without further ado. She has to go straight there before she chickened out even more, Rook’s wasted enough time running away already. So, with a peaceful (stressed out) mind, and a calm (racing) heart, Rook raises her fist to knock upon Neve’s heavy office door—

And stills when she hears the voices coming from within.

Neve and…Lucanis?

The voices are light and too low for her to hear through the thick door, but from the intonations, it seems like the two are enjoying themselves. Rook is full of questions. She knows that they’re at the least friends from their banter when they go out gallivanting together, but she never thought they’re the kind of friends that chats in their personal quarters.

Rook goes to everyone’s quarters occasionally to check on them as per her role as the leader, but she thought the others usually spend time together at the common areas. The kitchen or the library, or at the Lighthouse courtyard. Even at the Caretaker’s workplace sometimes, like that time Rook finds Taash arguing with Davrin over who gets to kill more monsters.

But Lucanis coming to Neve’s office personally…well, if this was somewhere else, it would definitely send some tongues wagging.

Should she be worried?

Probably not, Neve is very professional.

With this in mind Rook knocks, and when Neve’s come in comes in response, she pushes the door open to see her two team members looking comfortably chummy with each other.

Oh.

Maybe she should be worried after all.

//

“Boiled coffee?”

Lucanis looks at her with slight horror in his eyes. “Right, that’s exactly what I said. I am glad you agreed with me.” The Antivan looks rather happy that someone else shared his opinion in Neve’s choice of…coffee-making. The aforementioned woman’s looking rather vexed at their reactions.

“Look, I’m not picky. I got a cup, and it does the job. That’s all I ask.”

“Well, yes, but…boiled?”

“Maybe that’s how it’s done in Tevinter?” Rook surrenders to her urge to defend Neve, regardless of the absurdity of the idea that is boiled coffee. She’s tried coffee before after Lucanis introduced it to her, but she doesn’t really find this particular bean water all that appealing. The Crow had looked like Rook had insulted his entire ancestors when she informed him so.

Neve shakes her head with a small smile. “Oh no, give Lucanis credit. It’s actually terrible.”

“You need a stronger word for terrible.” Lucanis dryly says, still looking a bit faint. “Why did you not get me if you want some more coffee? I could have made a new batch for you.”

“What, go knock on your door at 4 in the morning?” the mage looks at him in amusement. “A girl can make her own coffee, you know.”

“I know, but I do not mind at all. You know I don’t sleep. Like I said before, late at night or early in the morning, that coffee is yours.”

What? Before? Rook’s brows furrow a bit at this information. So, this…isn’t a new thing? They’ve been doing their coffee thing for a while? A knot appears somewhere inside her and suddenly she doesn’t want to listen anymore.

“So, what’s the coffee for?” Rook cuts in, hoping she appears cool and nonchalant instead of…weird.

Neve turns to her then, and Rook feels her heart lurch in her chest when their eyes meet. She’s still not used to this, being the center of Neve’s attention. Damn, she’s pathetic. “What isn’t it for, you mean. It’s the Venatori, like usual. They have been treating Dock Town like their personal playground, but their activity has been increasing lately. I’ve heard more cries for help than I can count because of them. And now, even the Threads have reached out.”

She said something about threads. Like tailors? Something in her explanation doesn’t make sense. “Um.”

“The Threads as in the Minrathous crime syndicate?” Lucanis asks in Rook’s place, and she’s surprised that he knew. Though, if you think about it, of course a Crow like him would know about crime syndicates. Lucanis did use to work in Tevinter before this. Remembering this fact only serves to annoy Rook more.

Neve seems to notice that Rook’s behind them in terms of understanding, so she kindly shared with Rook a little more about the Threads. “Like Lucanis said, they are a crime syndicate mainly working in Minrathous. Smuggling, extortion, protection rackets…the Threads do it all. They stay out of slavery, unlike most of the other crime groups, and they hate Venatori. Enough to keep picking fights.’

“My contact in the Threads—Elek—wants to talk. He doesn’t reach out for nothing.”

“If you need backup, I’m ready to help.” Rook says immediately, finally finding her chance to do something so that she doesn’t feel useless.

At her words Neve hesitated, the look on her face unreadable. Rook feels her heart drop to her stomach. “I don’t expect you to keep showing up for Dock Town, Rook.”

Fuck. Is this it? One mistake and Neve doesn’t trust her to help with Dock Town again? “But I will. Really. Please let me help. I insist.”

She doesn’t care if she sounds desperate. Rook just—she doesn’t want to be useless. She fears that if she doesn’t help out here, Neve would leave her behind. And the thought of that is terrifying.

“My offer to help still stands as well,” Lucanis speaks up and Neve turns to him. “The two of us can come with you when you meet this Elek. It is safer than going alone.”

Rook’s hands balls into fists by her side.

“Fine.” Neve gives up in the end. She looks rather annoyed at being outnumbered, but relents because she knows that Lucanis is right. “Let us leave in an hour. I’ll send a message ahead of us for a meetup.”

“Very well. I will make you a new batch of coffee in the meantime. Something not boiled.” Lucanis says before heading out of the room. Neve gives a good-natured eye roll at his words.

“Being sweet again or are you trying to save me from myself?”

The assassin laughs by the doorway. “Let’s call it both.” With a wave, he leaves the two women by themselves in the room.

Rook feels like she’s going to be sick.

She knows that she didn’t read that wrong, and her observation makes her very uncomfortable. She wants to be far, far away from here right now.

She wishes she could rewind time so that she doesn’t walk into this room until Lucanis had left.

Neve turns to her when Lucanis’ footsteps has fade away, and for the first time in a while Rook wishes she would look away instead. “Did you need something?”

Does she? Rook isn’t sure anymore at this point.

“I don’t know.” She ends up saying, too tired to even pretend otherwise. “I’ll…see you in an hour.”

She leaves and closes the door behind her, and everything is a blur until she reaches her room. Her mind is a mess and there’s a big knot inside of her. What she just found out was enlightening…and also disheartening. Rook knows that it’s not any of her business to know about her team members’ interpersonal relations but, out of all that’s possible, this combination was one that she didn’t see coming.

Then again, Rook has been busy avoiding Neve out of shame and guilt for how she acted the last time they talk to each other. Maybe something happened between them when she’s…busy running away from Neve.

But does it makes sense that these two would get along well with each other. Seeing how much they have in common—especially in regards to the Venatori—they’d have a lot to talk about. But seeing all that happening in front of her eyes was not her idea of fun.

Has Rook been going on tunnel vision all this time? Just because she and Neve had a history, a one-night history, doesn’t mean that Neve is unavailable to other people. She is very attractive, so it’s not strange that Lucanis too would fall for her sarcastic and cynical charms. Him and so many other people probably.

Rook wishes she’d never noticed all these. She wished she’d stayed oblivious.

Because now the inside of her head is a mess and it’s become quite difficult to focus.

//

Later on, Rook would regret for not paying extra attention during preparation for this trip down to Dock Town.

Because in her distracted state, Rook didn’t come in as well prepared as she usually does, and of course the world decides to fuck her over for it.

It was with all the flying shrapnel embedded in her flesh, torn leathers from the shards and splinters as the ground explodes under her, Rook realized that she should have brought her best weapons when going against a fellow explosive specialist like the possessed Makal Damas. Her lack of foresight has cost her team their plan and she hated the fact that she’s become their weak link in this fight.

Her consciousness fades as she flies through the air, and by the time her body hits the floor with a sickening thud—

Everything is all a calm and blissful black.

Chapter Text

Something isn’t right with their leader today and Neve’s concerned.

Rook has been quiet during their travel to Dock Town, and though this wasn’t new, the despondent air around her was. The rogue tends to mumble observations to herself during travels, stuck in her head as she looks this way and that, cataloguing things and putting them away for later use. Neve understands that, she’s a bit like that too when on a case, so she doesn’t mind Rook keeping to herself. The rest of their team knows this too and this is why banters tend to happen during travels. Though there are times when Rook chimes in into their conversations, she’s usually busy in her own head.

But during this trip down to Dock Town? She wasn’t like that. The younger woman was obviously distracted. Her steps are out of rhythm, her arrows miss their target two times and Neve can hear the annoyed clicking of her tongue even across the battlefield. The Thread Market isn’t all that big after all, and noises basically bounced off of the cramped alleyway that they’re currently fighting at. Even Lucanis noticed that Rook is out of her rhythm, and he’s been covering up for her and going after the mages that ran from her arrows.

The frustration was clear on Rook’s face even after the fighting died down. Neve wanted to say something, but she’s still unsure how to reach out to her. Their last interaction has not been the best, and she’s afraid of making things even worse. She ends up leaving Rook to Lucanis, while she goes to check on the captives.

The Venatori had kidnapped several Threads members off of the streets in the daylights. That was basically a declaration of war, and now that they have Makal Damas in their hands, there’s nothing else holding them back from engaging in territorial battles. When the team arrived, they found some of the Venatori mages trying to break the minds of the captives using blood magic. It took them one look before everyone moved in to attack simultaneously.

Not all of the captives have their minds successfully broken because they were interrupted halfway, but some that already had been worked on need immediate help to return to normal. Their minds would be lost to them from prolonged exposure to the magic otherwise.

Neve works on undoing the spell carefully, meticulously unraveling the cursed threads that binds their mind through the usage of their own blood. It’s not pleasant nor easy work, and Neve is rather vexed to admit that she’s become very good at it thanks to her long tenure of taking down Venatori magisters. And yet, this is one skill that she would never regret to have learned.

When the spell was broken, the captive was grateful to her. Confused, discombobulated, dazed but very grateful. There is one person left, and Neve takes a small breather to calm her mind before she tackles this last one. That’s when she heard that familiar footsteps—the kind that’s loud on purpose so they don’t startle her— approaching. She knows whose they are.

“Are they alright?” Neve looks up at the unusually quiet voice and found that Rook looking at the last captive. The woman whose mind is still under the spell of the Venatori blood magic is staring blankly into the air, mouth absently reciting the Venatori’s twisted prayers in a praying position on their knees. It was not a pleasant sight.

“Not as peachy keen as they’d like but they’ll be fine.” But the mage can’t say they are fine now. She’s been under the influence of blood magic a few times and she can’t say that those times were pleasant. “Once I break this last one everyone can go back and rest.”

“Will it have lasting damages on their minds?”

That’s a very thoughtful question. “They will if the spell stays for long. The trick with this spell is that they use the victim’s own blood as the catalyst, so they don’t cost the caster much except for the initial mana. As long as the victim is still alive, and with plenty of blood, the spell lingers. And the longer it lingers—”

“—Gradual breakdown.” Rook’s jaw clenches and Neve wonders why she’s looking like she’s close to strangling someone at the answer. Something was wrong. “But nothing after you undo the spell, right?”

“Not that I know of.” But this has Neve thinking too, and she mulls over it for a moment as she recalls past events and her own reading into the topic. “Can’t entirely be sure because I’ve never personally checked back on the victims before, but blood-magic to control the mind might leave it vulnerable after. Like a door that’s been opened forcefully and then they throw away the key. It stays open, after.”

So, if a victim of mind-control gets mind controlled again, the second time attempt of breaking will be faster and easier on the abused mind. Rook seems to get what she’s trying to say because there is something like hopeless frustration on her face. Neve understands. The Venatori is part of the reason why mages get some really bad reputation outside of Tevinter, and even in the Empire itself.

“Where’s Lucanis?” Neve asks when she realized that Rook approached her alone. The rogue doesn’t look away from the last Threads captive still under the spell when she responded.

“He’s looking around for clues. I’m supposed to get you when you’re done with these people.”

Ah. “Just one more, and I’ll be right with you.”

Rook nods and moves away and for a second, Neve has this strong need to reach out to her and stop her in her tracks. There’s a part of her that feels that if she lets Rook go now, she will never come back.

What rubbish.

“Rook.” Her traitorous mouth calls out and Rook stops. The rogue turns to look at her, both brows raised in question.

Why did she call out? Neve searches for words.

“Are you alright?” she goes for normal and nonchalant. The corner of Rook’s lips twitches as if sensing her internal panic.

“Peachy keen.” Rook’s shrug is easy but tells nothing. Neve watches her go with a frown as the rogue goes over to the freed captives. They’re sitting in together in a corner, resting and catching their breath, and Rook walks up to them and said something Neve couldn’t hear before handing them something from the pouches on her belt.

For one crazy moment Neve thought she’s handing them explosives, but no, definitely not explosives. Green bottle—Rook’s giving them some of her potions. She sighs. They’re not done with their mission yet, and here Rook is, sharing provisions with them already.

Rook is always very concerned when it comes to victims of the Venatori. This wasn’t the first time that she’s like this, and then there’s that big rescue mission Rook pulled by herself without telling Neve. If their paths didn’t cross, she can’t imagine what reckless length this rogue would go to, to save Huxley and the others. Sometimes Neve wonders why Rook is very focused when it comes to this crazy cult—but then again, this is the Venatori. Their cruelty will make anyone sympathize with their victims.

She works on the last captive and takes her time to untangle the spell. When it was done, Neve feels slightly winded, but satisfied.

“Good work.” A blue bottle of lyrium potion appears in her peripheral, and Rook is there. Neve takes it without question and downs the cold liquid to replenish.

“Where did you get this?”

“I carry some for spares.”

Neve stills. “…but you aren’t a mage.”

“Yes, but you are.” Rook says like it’s normal for people to carry around things that other people might need. 

“Don’t tell me you have that ready in case I needed it?” Neve coyly asks, and she expects the rogue to laugh and go hah as if or the like, like how they used to banter.

But nothing like that comes from her. There was just an awkward silence following her words.

Rook gives a half-hearted shrug. “Let’s join Lucanis, if you’re done. He’s starting to get agitated.”

Neve looks around to find the Crow, but he’s nowhere in sight. She turns back to her companion, but the rogue is already walking away towards the warehouse without waiting for Neve’s response. She hurries to follow, and discreetly watches Rook’s back as they walk, feeling slightly dejected by the cold shoulder.

It’s odd. Rook is being odd. She hasn’t made a joke during the entire time they’ve been here. Was something wrong? Something happened between the time Rook visited her office and now, and Neve have no idea what.

She wishes there’s a way to just casually ask but…this is not the right time to ask. They still have Makal Damas to rescue, and things can still go sideways. She hopes not, but things usually don’t go to her wishes when it comes to this job.

//

The heavy doors open with a loud creak that reverberate through the air. Neve could see two people waiting for her and Lucanis as they descend down the stairs, and she grips the scepter tighter in her hand.

“Quite the set-up,” She calls out to the Venatori as she approaches them. Damas is tied up on a chair and his captor is standing over him. “That’s Makal Damas? I could take him off your hands.”

After freeing the Threads captives from their blood magic control earlier, Lucanis had informed the other two that the person that Neve was asked to find, Makal Damas, is in the area. He was actually waiting beyond a large door connected to the warehouse that they haven’t searched. Literally, just waiting there patiently…which makes things fishy. Way too fishy, even for a place like Dock Town.

The two rogues Neve are with immediately declared it a trap, and that they’re using Makal Damas as a bait. Neve doesn’t disagree with them, even though she’s annoyed at being outnumbered yet again, and the team had a small discussion about how to tackle this. It took an argument and a half, mainly because Neve is against splitting up, but in the end, she relented to Lucanis’ plan.

His idea was to have them box the Venatori in, as it looks like they’re leading Neve into an enclosed space, so that even if it was a trap, one of them would be free to provide an emergency exit or support.

And like expected, the support role falls to Rook.

Rook and her arrows and her many, many mines, works better from a distance. If she can hide herself from the eyes of their opponent, then they would have an easier time dealing with whatever possible ambushes waiting for them.

And now here Neve was, standing with Lucanis watching her back, right in the middle of the large clearing. The place looks like a large storage area with how it is divided into two levels, and the upper floor has shipping crates, barrels and heavy construction contraptions all over the place. Seems like the Threads was in the middle of renovation. Neve doesn’t like how cluttered this place is.

Yet she’s thankful all the same because it means Rook, who’s playing their eyes in the sky, would have an easier time finding a place to hide. Neve’s felt the Saboteur’s eyes on her from the moment she and Lucanis walk up to the waiting Damas and his Venatori captor, and for once the watching gaze doesn’t come with the murderous intent that she’s used to.

This one is watchful and steady and…it makes her feel safe.

She takes a deep breath, and refocuses her attention on the sneering Venatori mage in front of her. Even if he has a helmet on, Neve could still feel his smug superiority all the way from where she’s standing.

“He’s not mine, to give. Damas serves our best.”

Their best?

As if on cue, Damas slowly stands up and the rope that was bound around his wrists falls off easily as if it wasn’t tied in the first place. The man looks at Neve with his eyes unfocused, and then she feels it.

That familiar sickening magical feedback and faint dizziness that follows the use of powerful blood magic. The veil is weird when there is blood magic usage around, and that pull of weirdness is the strongest now.

Damas then opens his mouth, and speaks like he was a puppet on a string.

“Hello, Neve. I’ve missed you.”

Neve observes him, trying to find the magic tendrils of whoever is controlling him. She couldn’t feel anything. “…You know me.”

“Damas doesn’t. But I do. You stopped me once. But my purpose remains…”

Kaffas. Neve hates it when her hunch is right. When she was breaking the mind control spell earlier, her gut feeling was screaming that there is only one person that would use blood magic to this extreme extent. Mind control and body puppetry are no easy feats, and though the Venatori has a lot of blood mages in their roster, these two concentrations are only able to be done by select few…and Neve knew of one personally.

She has personal experiences with this person’s brand of work after all, having had her own blood being used by this woman once.

“Aelia.” Neve doesn’t bother to hide her bitterness and she could see Lucanis stiffens at the tone of her voice.

Damas’ head jerks this way and that as he speaks Aelia’s words to her, mouth stretched in a pleased smile. “Rid Minrathous of this criminal. Kill him! Will anyone even notice in Dock Town? You know that I won’t be stopped.”

“What have you done, Aelia? Speaking directly through him. Puppetry. The blood magic needed…” Aelia would have needed so many bodies for this overwhelming control over someone’s body. How many people did she kill just to control this one man?

“Impressed? It pales to the power Tevinter once had.”

There’s a faint sound of Lucanis withdrawing his swords from their scabbards from behind Neve. Damas’ eyes moved to him, and his lips curled up in a sneer.

“A backup? How familiar.” His eyes move back to Neve, and with how smug he’s looking Neve knows instantly what she’s thinking about. And she was proven right with Damas’ next words. “Do you not remember what happened to that last one?”

Neve feels bile climb up her throat when she was reminded that this person is the murderer of her friend. The image of Brom, lying in his own pool of blood, flashed through her mind and the scepter in Neve’s hand starts vibrating out of anger.

“Enough.”

“You dealt with Bataris and his relic. You found us here. No further.” Damas only looks at her with amusement even in the face of her clear threat. “The risen God showed me the path. To our legacy. Our salvation. I am this city’s future.’

“And you will stay out of my way.”

The veil was tugged— and Damas’ hands glow red.

The faint sound of something whistling through the air was their only warning before Rook’s arrows flies out towards Damas and the Venatori mage beside him. The possessed puppet twitched jerkily as he jumps away, the arrow aiming for him landing on the ground where he was standing instead. Rook’s other arrow did not miss and takes the Venatori mage out instantly, enchanted shaft penetrating his brain from a perfect headshot.

Damas let out a laugh at the sight of blood, and then his glowing hands bursts open at the palm, spraying an obscene amount of blood like something was forcefully cutting them open from the inside. He lets his arms hang by his sides and watch the heavy stream of blood fall steadily towards the ground. The heavy stream of blood then slowly hardened from the source downwards, like it was frozen, and the end curved up to form itself into the familiar hook of the Venatori double sickle.

It's literal blood sickles that he’s holding now.

This was a sickening sight. The casual way Aelia is using people’s blood to her whims is never not unnerving to see. There was a growl, and then Lucanis is in the air, flying straight for Damas.

“Subdue Damas!” Neve calls out, hoping she’s loud enough for Rook to hear. “But don’t kill him!”

Damas isn’t a mage, but with Aelia’s influence over him he gained significant abilities that makes him annoying to fight. Abnormal level of strength, speed, dexterity—he’s more or less a demon in human form. They really have to subdue him quick before Damas runs out of blood.

Adding to the difficulty is Damas’s use of explosive projectiles like a certain someone. His use of smokescreen during the battle lets him avoid Lucanis’ furious attacks by blinding the Crow’s senses whenever he gets too close. Lucanis is not happy about it, but Spite is furious at being treated like a fool. Neve honestly fears for Damas’ life at some point because an angry Crow is a dangerous Crow.

Damas quickly proves that he isn’t just a big annoyance to Lucanis, but also to Neve herself because his quick-trigger bombs have enough power to shatter her ice shields. Unlike Rook who uses controlled explosions, Damas’ explosives let out powerful blasts without a care to its surroundings. This difference truly tells a lot about their personalities.

The detective stops trying to freeze him bodily after having her ice shattered for the third time and instead shift focus to freeze the area around him so that Lucanis can sunder him. If only things go easily as planned— Damas’s speed makes him as slippery as an eel. Thankfully they have an eye in the sky whose arrows prevent Damas from utilizing the entire arena as his playground. Rook’s mines, attached to these arrows, forcefully suppresses his movements, keeping him firmly within Lucanis’ and Neve’s range.

Neve could see the frustration building up on his face at the fact that he’s being boxed in by someone unseen.

Damas moves his foot hurriedly a split second before Rook shot the ground he’s standing on, but this movement leaves him open to Lucanis’ sword. The Crow’s blade grazes his shoulder and sending the man staggering back in pain.

“You insolent—!”

“Give up, Aelia.” Neve freezes the ground around him to stop him from jumping around. “Stop playing puppets and come fight me yourself.”

Aelia cackled through Damas’ body. “And leave this wretch’s body? No, I’d rather use him for something better. Even if it is to stop you.”

Neve puts more mana into her spell, preparing in the case that Aelia gets desperate. As long as he’s not dead is fine, right? “Damn you, no one should die like that!”

Damas lets out a shout and forces his legs to break out of Neve’s freezing spell. He goes straight at Neve, sickles aloft, trying to attack her from melee range where she is the weakest. She prepares her fists and aims at his jaw, but Lucanis intercepts him before he’s anywhere near her. The Crow’s swords rings when they parry the hardened blood sickles, chipping some of the blood.

Arrows flies in, aiming for his feet now, and one grazed him on the knee. Damas stumbles back and he looks around in rage.

“That little rat!” his head stops moving, looking intensely at a place where there was a mountain of crates blocking the sky beyond. “I see you!” He reaches into the pouch around his waist, pulls something from it before tossing it towards the upper floor.

Is that—

“Rook!” Lucanis’ warning came too late as the mountains of crates along the upper level explodes. Whatever he threw immediately set off a chain explosion, rapidly blasting everything in its blast radius, which is the entire upper level, to smithereens. The thick smoke and the blasting wind from the explosions stuns both Lucanis and Neve, and Damas used this chance to disappear from their sights.

“Lucanis, get Damas!” Neve calls out, coughing in the middle of the smoke and trying to get away from the moving explosions.

Lucanis didn’t answer her—Spite did. In the confusing moment where the cacophony of noises scrambled her senses, Neve caught something bright coming out of the smoke in the corner and she ran towards it. Spite’s wings were a beacon in the dark, and he’s on Damas’ tracks. The Threads boss have been using the tailwind to get out of the smoke, waiting for his chance when the explosions going around the area died out.

“Got. Him!”

Spite cackled as he brought Lucanis’ swords down at Damas. The man parried with his sickles, looking just as mad with that red tint in his eyes. For a split-second Neve swears he turns to meet her eyes and mouths something to her.

Found her.

Her footsteps slow down along with the explosions, and it was here, in the middle of this mess of smoke and at the tail end of the explosions did they finally see their leader.

Rook comes flying out of her destroyed hiding place, forced out more like, along with shards and splinters, and what looks like a chunk of the upper level itself. She lands on the ground with a sickening thud, showered in dangerous debris from the destroyed construction contraptions that crashes heavily on the ground around her. Damas sees the moment that Lucanis/Spite was distracted by Rook’s appearance, and quickly changes his target.

He goes straight for Rook.

“Shit!” Lucanis goes after him, and Neve scrambling right behind. She raises a hand to use Time Slow even at this distance and praying that Damas is within reach.

He was barely within reach, but Neve’s spell caught his legs. He slowed down before his sickles could land anywhere in Rook’s body and Lucanis comes flying in from above. In Damas’ single-mindedness to murder someone in front of Neve’s eyes, he left his back open.

It’s his damning moment. An experienced Crow like Lucanis won’t miss this chance.

The back of Crow’s swords hits his shoulders, staggering him, and a sharp hit to the back of his head sends him to his knees.

Neve recalls Time Slow back and lets time flow normally now that Lucanis has grabbed hold of Damas, before going to check on Rook immediately. It feels like ice is running through her veins when she saw her friend’s prone form half-buried beneath the debris. By whatever dumb luck Rook possesses, the woman managed to somehow miss all the sharp edges of everything falling on and around her, so even though she was injured, there was none of the sort that would lead to blood loss.

Rook isn’t moving when Neve is clearing all the debris off of her, and she takes off a glove to check Rook’s pulse on her neck. The tight knot binding itself around her heart loosens when she could feel the sign of life—faint, but it’s there.

“Rook? Rook!”

“Is she okay?” Lucanis doesn’t dare move his eyes from Damas but his concern is clear.

Neve gently shakes the Saboteur’s body, lightly slaps her face, and was actually thinking she should jolt her awake with some ice down her armor before a small groan breaks her mild panic.

“Quit that. I’m taking a nap.”

The voice is grumpy, and so out of place, but Neve feels so much relief upon hearing it that she doesn’t even care what comes out of this woman’s mouth as long as she’s saying something. “Not the right time to nap, you troublemaker. Come on, open your eyes.”

It takes a while, five years at least, but Rook opens her eyes and squinted against the bright light. Her eyes are unfocused, and the mage waits until they could focus on hers. She needs to make sure—

Understanding slowly dawns in Rook’s eyes after a few minutes and she heaves out a tired sigh. “How long was I out?”

“Not long.” Too long. “Can you get up? We caught Damas.”

Rook didn’t answer but she carefully tries to sit up and winced, one hand grabbing her sternum. “That was a damn mean bomb. What is this guy, rich? Where did he get something that powerful in the city?”

The detective couldn’t hold back her relieved laugh. “Half-dead and that is still your first priority.”

Rook snorts. “I’m fine. Go get your blood mage.”

So, the woman says, but Neve isn’t leaving her alone just yet. That was too close of a call, so when Neve stands up, she offers her friend a hand to help. Rook eyes her hand hesitantly for a bit, but she still reached out and accepts Neve’s support to get back on her feet.

She was swaying, but stable, and Neve takes that as a good sign. They still have to look over Rook after everything is done, but she allows the rogue to pull away once she’s upright and standing.

“She’s fine, Lucanis.” Neve informs the Crow as she walks towards him and Damas with Rook following gingerly behind.

Aelia’s eyes are watching Neve closely through Damas and the frost mage addresses her now that she can’t easily control Damas around like a puppet anymore what with Lucanis bearing down on him threateningly.

“Aelia. Taking over the Threads…It secures the Venatori a little more power, but I know you. There’s more.” Aelia is always one for the big picture, and the Threads isn’t it. “You’re setting us up. For what?”

“For Minrathous. Our ancient power restored. Our destiny renewed!”

The same old mad zeal. Neve is tired of hearing them. “And damn the lives it takes. We’ve played this game before.”

“The game never ended.” Damas said with too much relish. Too much enjoyment at the disgust Neve is showing.

Rook clicks her tongue from Neve’s left. “Neve. Just say the word, and I’ll—” the way Damas’ eyes flick over to the Saboteur immediately at her words was alarming.

“Loyalty.” Aelia hissed through her puppet, eyes lingering on Rook in a way that makes Neve uncomfortable. “You would do well to serve the Gods than her.”

“You zealots easily bends your knees to any powerful mages with stupid hats. Why would I want to join a bunch of ass-kissers with crap fashion?” Rook's scathing response came not even a second later and Lucanis lets out a loud snort that he unsuccessfully tries to hide as a cough.

Damas isn’t as amused—his, Aelia’s, eyes flash with anger at the insult. “Foolish girl. You’ll gain nothing at her side beyond a fate you deserve.”

The image of Brom’s dead body lying in his own pool of blood flashes past Neve’s mind. Her hands balls into tight fists.

“Enough. This is between us, Aelia. Leave Rook alone.”

“Rook.” Damas repeated slowly, savoring the word. The man smiled in the way that’s eerily Aelia but also not and it’s disconcerting to see. He slowly stands back on his feet and the three tightened their grips on their weapons.

“Minrathous is broken, Neve. But you like it. Does it flatter you to leave the city as it is? To prove your cynicism right?” Without warning nor even a spoken spell, the puppet raises a hand vibrating with wild magic, and aims it at the injured Rook, who’s too weak to move away.

Neve’s body moves instantly, stepping in between the two and double casting Time Slow and barrier at the same time. Her spells and Aelia’s curse collides in midair; her barriers rippling harshly as they fought back against the murderous curse aimed at Rook.

“I am our hope.” Damas gloats with elation. “I’ll change these streets. Starting with Dock Town. It could do better under me.”

The curse broke against Neve’s barriers with a faint thrum of magic and the head of the Threads slackened his stance. He then raised a hand in a mocking wave before Neve could freeze him bodily. “Goodbye, Neve.”

With a gesture of the man’s hand, the connection was instantly cut. Damas falls to his knees helplessly without Aelia’s magic supporting him.

“Neve—” Rook starts, but Neve raises a hand to stop her and Lucanis from moving closer. Even if Aelia’s cut Damas’ strings, that doesn’t mean that she stopped using her blood magic. That woman is dangerous, and this long-distance puppetry only proves it.

Damas gasps for breath on the ground, and Neve’s heart goes out to him. She can’t imagine what it’s like to have your body moved around on someone else’ whims like that.

“Vanhedis! Fucking cultist snakes!” the man climbs back to his feet, grimacing at his heavily bleeding hands. “They’ll pay for this!” Now that the puppetry spell has lifted, all that’s left in this man is anger.

“You alright?” Rook’s tone changed to genuine worry now that Aelia’s left Damas’ body and he’s back to his own self.

Neve sighs. “I wouldn’t be, after that.” This man has lost a lot of blood and his body was made a plaything of a blood mage. He’s going to be sore for days. Damas seems to agree with her because he grunts, but said nothing as he takes out his handkerchief and tears it apart to make bandages for his bleeding palms.

His eyes observe Neve as he works, and recognition dawns on him. “You’re Neve Gallus.” He guessed, and Neve nods. “If you’re here, then Elek sent you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You did me a favor. I heard you stopped a red lyrium relic—and the Venatori responsible walked. Bataris, was it? I’ve got dirt on him.” Damas adds pointedly. It’s clear what he wants by putting that bait out for her to bite.

Neve bites. “Enough for the Shadows to make a move?”

“Consider it my thanks.”

It’s an offer. For a deal. The leader of the Threads offering this willingly and freely is rare. Neve turns lightly to Rook to see if she has an opinion, but the woman stayed quiet, eyes on Damas.

Is Rook leaving this to her, then?

Neve turns back to Damas with her decision made. “Do it.”

“Consider it done.” Neve’s acceptance of the deal seems to lighten the weight on Damas’ shoulder. He relaxed openly for the first time since they found him.  “The Threads protect their streets. Looks like you do, too.”

He looks at the three of them in turn, and nods gratefully before making his leave.

“Wait,” Rook limps towards him and Neve watches the rogue reaches towards the pouch on her belt. “Here. You lost a lot of blood.”

Damas looks at the bottle of potion she’s offering suspiciously, before accepting it with the same caution one would show a bear trap. Rook doesn’t seem to mind, and steps back easily when Damas has the potion in hand.

Neve meets Damas’ eyes one last time, an unspoken understanding between them, before the man turns around and leaves their sight.

Lucanis’ sigh of exasperation is clear when Rook limps back towards them. “Why did you give him your potion? You’re way more injured than he is.”

“He was bleeding a lot more than I am. He’d die from blood loss otherwise.” She then turns to Neve with a concerned frown. “Can you feel anybody else here? Maybe the person controlling him—”

Neve shakes her head. “She’s gone. That was long-distance blood puppetry. She’s never here in the first place, physically.”

And that fact is what has been bothering her from the moment that she found out Aelia is behind all this. If this is what she can do with Damas, then who else is under her control? It was easy for Neve to find out the manipulation because Aelia was essentially gloating in her face about it, but to other people?

Her blood runs cold at the possibility of Aelia pulling the same thing on any of the powerful figures in Minrathous. One string she tugs, and that woman could deliver a chain of destruction the way Damas’ bomb obliterated the upper level of the floors in this place.

Not to mention that she now has her eyes on Rook.

Neve presses a hand against her face, breathing deeply as she processes today’s event. She has to immediately track Aelia down before things gets even worse.

“Neve?” Lucanis’ voice breaks her from her thoughts, and she looks up to see the two rogues looking at her with similar concern.

“I’m fine. Let’s go back to the Lighthouse.” Now that Damas is free, he would be moving the pieces in the background as fast as his resources could afford him and all Neve has to do is wait for the Threads’ next contact.

//

Rook’s head hurts.

Well, Rook’s everything hurts, but her head hurts the most out of all.

She’d gone to see Emmrich the moment she stepped into the Lighthouse, but he was out on a trip to the Grand Necropolis. Lucanis and Neve made her go see Harding instead, who’s the designated healer after the Necromancer. Her knowledge of plants and herbs made her the team’s main supplier when it comes to making tonics, while Emmrich is the team's designated potion maker.

Harding gave her salves for her injuries and also a sharp-smelling, sharp-tasting tonic drink that’s specifically for her head injury. The Scout was not happy that Rook didn’t bring any with her on the trip down to Dock Town, because apparently the tonic would be much more effective if it was taken immediately after her fall.

It’s not like Rook was even aware of this particular tonic to bring it with her around.

And she wasn’t paying much attention to what she was grabbing before they left to meet Elek anyway, as distracted as she was.

Thanks to being distracted, Rook ends up not bringing enough mines with her, and she wasn’t able to contribute as much towards that fight with possessed-Damas. If she had just brought some of her stronger mines, they would not have had to play tag with him as long.

And if she had prepared for things properly, Rook would not have ended up being the team’s weak link.

Damas’ explosive flushed her out like a rat out of its hiding place so easily at the end. Rook was impressed even though she was frustrated from having been pressed that far. To think that a crime boss down in Dock Town would have something that potent…how dangerous are these Threads? Rook kind of want to ask him where he got his supplies from, but she didn’t think it was the right place to ask with how severe things are involving this blood mage.

Long distance body puppetry, Neve calls it.

As if there aren’t enough horrors in this world, the Venatori had to come up with another one.

She was already feeling sick enough from seeing the mind-control, and then she had to see Damas’ body jerkily moving all over the place like a cursed puppet. Controlled by a blood magic spell so strong it would have taken bodies to achieve.

Rook heaves out a sigh as she presses an ivory key on the old piano.

No wonder Neve was looking very worried. This Aelia person sounded like a pain, and Rook knows she’s now on that woman’s shit-list because of that insult to her god and entire cult.

If Neve hadn’t stepped in when that curse was aimed at her—

Sigh.

When will Rook stops being a burden in battle? She wishes she’s better at fighting. She’s improved sure, but compared to all these experts gathering around her, she feels greatly inferior.

And when compared to Lucanis…hah. No. Not even comparable.

The differences between their skills are like night and day. Rook still has a long way to go to get to his level. A mage-killer so potent he earned notoriety from all over Tevinter…that kind of infamy is very impressive. In comparison to him, all Rook’s got going for her is that one time she punched the First Warden.

She lets out another sigh.

No wonder Neve has her eyes on him.

Rook remembers what Davrin said about moving on if things doesn’t work out with Neve…but she had never expected that Neve would be doing the moving on ahead of her already.

She gulps more of the sharp-smelling tonic Harding give her with too much force and coughs when some of it goes down the wrong pipe.

She cursed, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her fatigue. “This tastes like ass.” Rook pressed on another piano key in annoyance, harder than before, to vent her feelings. The noise bounce harshly against the walls of the small music room.

It makes her headache worse, but Rook has always been a bit of a masochist so.

She presses on that key over and over and over and over—

“Brooding in the dark? Taking a leaf out of Lucanis’ book?”

The new voice speaking out in the room has her flinch in surprise, and Rook turns to see Neve standing by the entrance, the hidden stone door sliding shut behind her. The small amount of light that comes in with her is now blocked off and the room is back to be bathed in darkness.

Rook isn’t sure what to say, even though she’s frowning at Neve’s words. Was she brooding? She was just licking her wounds in private. Is that brooding? She’s annoyed that she didn’t hear Neve’s footsteps though—the sound of her prosthetic is usually unmissable.

When no response came, Neve gets this awkward look on her face, and she gestures towards the magic lamp in the corner. “Shall I light them up for you?”

“Please don’t.” At the detective’s questioning look, Rook gestures at her head. “It’s— headache. The fade light is making it worse.” She had the Caretaker put cloth to cover all the windows here to block out the light, in addition to extinguishing all the magical lights in the room.

The meditation room is too bright for her to be able to rest thanks to the fishes, so this music room is the next best thing.

The questioning look turns to concern as Neve approaches her, sitting on the piano bench. “Concussion. Have you taken anything for it?”

Rook waves a hand at the tonic she puts on top of the piano. “Harding got me something nasty to drink.”

“You’re not allowed to sleep.”

“I know, it’s not my first concussion.”

She could feel Neve’s eyes on her, but Rook keeps her eyes on the piano keys. “I’ll keep watch—”

“There’s no need. This thing has something in it that will keep me awake until tomorrow.” It’s why it smells so nasty and taste like the bottom of an ogre’s foot. It’s supposed to zap her senses awake, or so Harding said. Rook doesn’t get it, but she’s feeling wide awake and alert, so it’s probably working.

Neve doesn’t say anything, but she’s still hovering. Rook kind of wants to have her private pity party time back. “Did you need something from me?”

“No, just…there’s a follow up, from our trip to Dock Town. May I?” The mage gestures to the bench Rook is on. Rook hesitated, because the last thing she wants is Neve this close to her. But it’d make things awkward if she gets up and leave when Neve sits down.

Stupid politics. Rook ends up scooching sideways on the bench to give Neve enough room to sit with plenty of space between them.

Neve sits down backwards, her back facing the piano so that she can stretch out her legs, but for some strange reason she’s still sitting close to Rook. Their shoulders touch, but instead of the happy-flop of her heart whenever Rook gets any kind of physical contact with this woman, there is only anxious thumping inside her chest instead.

The warmth that is there between them feels uncomfortably hot, to her.

They sit in quiet for a while as Rook gently run the back of her fingers along the ivory keys. She’s stopped pressing on them the moment Neve enters the room. This woman won’t appreciate the random banging of notes like Rook would.

“I didn’t know you play.” Neve is the one who breaks the silence. Rook gives a small shake of her head.

“I don’t. I have no idea how music works.” She was uncultured, according to the snobby Orlesians in the Order. Rook doesn’t mind it much; all those things were never part of her training. Music, dancing, poetries…they sound nice, but they’re forever out of reach for her.

“Ah.” The mage nods her head, fingers tapping against the bottom of the bench. “No wonder the tune sounded off-key earlier.”

It was a joke, and obviously Neve is fishing for a response, but Rook’s not in the mood. “You have news?”

There’s a small sigh from her companion at the clear refusal to partake in small talk, and the humor is gone from Neve’s voice when she speaks. “Damas reached out to me with information regarding Bataris as promised, and I’ve forwarded them to the surviving Shadow Dragons. They’re running with it.”

Surviving Shadow Dragons. That…sounds good. Nice to know that there are a good bunch of them still alive and working somewhere in Minrathous. “That’s good. They can go after Bataris.” That man wasn’t much of a challenge without his daddy bailing him out of things.

Neve seems to agree with her. “Bataris is one man, but that’s one less Venatori to deal with. One more that I can take off of my ever-growing list.”

“Good to hear. I’m happy for you.” Rook tries to put all her sincerity into it, because she is, really. Glad, that there’s one Venatori off the streets. But maybe her gloom is infecting it because Neve shifts in her seat, and those eyes are back to looking at Rook.

“You know, I didn’t expect backup for this job. I wasn’t looking to drag you in.”

Rook twitched. “I wanted to go.”

“This time, next time—”

“It won’t change. Unless, you don’t want me to.” Neve accepted Lucanis’ offer to help easily than she did Rook’s, so, it’s probably her that Neve has problems with. “Look, I know I didn’t pull my weight in that fight, so I understand if you don’t want to take me when you go blood mage hunting next. I won’t be offended if you turn me down.”

“Rook.”

“Lucanis is better with fighting mages, so he should come with you when you go after that lady. Perrepatae is a must when hunting down Venatori.”

The silence that follows her words is deafening, but Rook is too busy playing with the black keys on the piano to notice.

“How did you know that word?”

“What word?”

“Perrepatae.”

Rook frowns. “Doesn’t everyone know that word?” she takes a quick glance at Neve, and found the mage looking strangely at her. “What?”

“I didn’t know you know Tevene.”

Wha—oh. “I don’t. I just, heard it from somewhere.” Rook presses on a black key but the noise wasn’t loud enough to distract them. “Anyway, that blood mage. Aelia. You have history with her. Who is she?”

Her attempt to change topic didn’t go unnoticed, and Neve is still regarding her with slight suspicion. She relented after a while, realizing that Rook is asking a legitimate question.

“A damn fanatic. A believer in Tevinter’s former glory.”

“Aren’t they all like that?”

“Not everyone is on her mad level of zeal. Which, says a lot about her.” Neve says darkly. “I caught her trying to ‘save’ the city a few years ago. The ritual, what she wanted to summon—she’d have sacrificed us all.” She took a deep breath, and Rook finds herself looking at her. “I caught her. The templars had her.”

There is frustration in Neve’s voice. “What happened?” Rook asks, and her companion scoffs.

“Aelia had sympathy in the right places. She disappeared from her cell. But I had a lead…I should have gone alone, but I went looking for backup. Someone I could trust. Rana. I found her partner first.”

Neve’s voice wavers, and Rook feels her grief from this up close. “Do you…remember that Andrastian pendant Bel found in my office that one day?”

Rook nods. “She thought you were Andrastian.”

“I’m not. But Brom was. He always wore that pendant. Had it that night, too.” The smile on Neve’s face is bitter and sad. “He was a pain, but at the end of the day, he always showed up. Tried to do the right thing. Like it’s easy.’

“He went in too fast. Aelia found him. She got out. Brom didn’t.”

Oh. Rook’s eyes move back to the piano keys to give Neve some privacy. “Now there’s one more reason for you to take her down.”

“I wasn’t looking for another. Aelia’s trail went cold after that. The templars eventually stopped putting people on it.” Rook makes some kind of choking noises in disbelief, but Neve keeps going. “The templars buried Brom’s death. Like it was nothing. Said it wasn’t an official case, that he didn’t have orders.’

“Brom put protecting Dock Town first. He helped me. And that’s what he got.” Neve lets out a bitter laugh. “And now? A dragon attacked. Aelia’s back—and backed by a god. Where does it end?”

A small press of a mournful note from an ivory key was Rook’s way of responding. She’s not sure what to say to all that. Neve shifts in her seat then, moving away slightly so that she could look at the side of Rook’s face properly.

Rook feels very exposed like this, and she keeps her eyes away from hers.

“I can’t say a lot of people show up for me, or that it ends well when they do. But today…You came through for Dock Town. Even when I didn’t expect it.”

Neve’s gratitude is clear, but all Rook feels is shame upon hearing it.

Does she deserve this? She was the one who put Minrathous on the path of destruction in the first place. All Rook’s been doing is bumbling her way around trying to make up for things as best as she could. It was nothing grand like Neve made it sound. And she fucked up big time in their last mission too.

“Rook, I’m—”

“I’m sorry.” Rook rushes out before Neve could finish her sentence, and leaves the detective staring at her wide-eyed. “I’m—glad, you feel all that but. I can’t in good conscience accept them before I apologize.”

Neve stays quiet, so she continues. “I’m sorry about how I acted the last time we talked. I was—I don’t take deaths very well. I shouldn’t lash out at you because of it. I’m sorry.” She runs a hand over her face, feeling herself burning up with shame. “I’m sorry for bringing our—thing—up that way too. I didn’t mean what I said. You’re not, a—”

She can’t say it.

“A what?”

Rook looks away. “I don’t want to repeat it, but it was crass and cruel and I apologize. I mean none of it. You are a professional, and I stepped out of line. I hope we can continue working well from now on.”

She will understand if Neve wants nothing more than just a professional relationship with her from now on. Rook’s prepared her heart for this. It would suck, but well, that’s what she deserves. And with the recent…progression of things on Neve’s end, well, it might work to her advantage too.

There’s quiet after that, and Rook is trying so hard not to run away. She can finally apologize, and she wanted Neve to know that she’s regretful of how things had gone between them. And maybe get a response or whatever. Might help her sleep. Tomorrow, after the concussion.

“Thank you,” Neve says after a while. “For apologizing.”

A very vague response that tells nothing. Rook accepts it with a nod and no complaint.

It’s professional, as expected.

Goes as well as she thou—

“I’m sorry, too, Rook.”

Uh. This is an unexpected twist. Rook turns to the mage, but Neve is already looking at her. “What? Whatever for?”

“For Weisshaupt,” Neve says, and the weight of her words tore through Rook’s heart with a force of a punch. Just one sentence, and the wall Rook has been shoving her feelings behind is slowly crumbling. “I know Wardens travel widely, but you must have lost a lot of people that night. Like Jean.”

She hears her own sharp intake of breath. “Wait—” she tries to stop Neve, but the woman has her mind set. Her eyes are looking straight at Rook's and the sorrow in them is clear to see. She’s not hiding anything and Rook is—she’s not ready.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her death. It wasn’t because I didn’t care to tell you. She warned me about you taking her death badly, and I. I was afraid.”

The rogue has never heard Neve’s voice like this before. Broken, like she was also feeling the torrent of suffocating grief Rook is feeling inside her chest.

Neve exhaled out a sigh. “I was afraid of hurting you by bearing the news of her death, but in the end, I hurt you anyway because of my callousness. I’m sorry for not telling you immediately. I’m sorry that you had to be informed of her death through a letter. I’m so, so, sorry I didn’t give you the chance to grieve properly.”

Oh.

The dam breaks free and Rook can feel traitorous tears leak out of her eyes without warning. Her face feels hot and she knows she’s crying, but she can’t look away from Neve. The grief that’s been choking her had broken free, and she could finally feel everything that she tried to hide away ever since the fall of Weisshaupt. Everything she had kept away because she needed to focus on her team.

Now Rook can finally feel the loss of the place that she had called home for the last seven years.

The faces that were there that she used to look forward to seeing. The laughter and rowdy banters that can be heard in the barracks, the sound of life that was the melody to Rook’s early memories spent living there. The brutal back-breaking training that she used to partake in right there in the courtyard, where they kept yelling at her to run faster, Thorne because she’s apparently not fast enough to outrun a Shriek. The gorgeous library that’s now has been rendered to ruins—

These things that she can never see, or hear, again. The people that she can never interact with again.

Jean is never going to buy her that drink that she owed Rook in the end.

She’s full-on sobbing now, shoulders shaking, snot everywhere kind of ugly crying. Rook doesn’t care anymore; she’s just feeling so much—too much. She feels like a child who lost everything, helpless in the face of the world.

In midst of her distress, Rook can feel foreign warmth on her face, and through her tears she sees Neve’s face as gentle teal-painted fingers wipes her tears away. Maybe it’s just her, but it looks like Neve is crying too. A lot more elegantly than what she’s doing for sure, and her snort comes out wet and ugly.

“’m sorry.” Rook mumbles, embarrassed and trying hard to stop crying. She wants to pull away because she feels disgusting, but Neve held on tight to her face, cradling it.

“You’re fine.” The thumbs are still gently wiping the tears from Rook’s face to no avail because more kept coming out. “I’m sorry for your losses. I’m sorry for Jean.”

Those words broke Rook even more, but it also…gives her relief, to finally hear it.

Rook reaches up to hold the warm hands that’s holding her face. She held on tight as she says something she’s been meaning to say, buried under all the hurt.

“Thank you for staying with her.”

Because knowing that Neve and Bellara were there during Jean’s last moments—it gives her comfort. Jean didn’t die alone, and that was—that was enough.

“Of course.” Neve says simply, as if she hadn’t done Rook a massive kindness the rogue may never be able to pay back.

The two stays that way for a while, with Rook’s sobs filling the quiet of the dark music room and Neve’s gentle fingers wiping them away.

//

It takes a while for Rook’s crying to subside, and the despair that was there quickly turned to embarrassment when reality sinks in. Neve doesn’t even bother to hide her smile when the rogue turned away from her on the bench, turning her back to Neve.

“What are you doing?” she asks, amused.

Rook’s voice is a bit petulant when she answers. “Don’t look at me.”

“Why?”

“I’m all snot and shit.” There’s a sniff and some vigorous wiping of eyes on blue sleeves. Neve’s smile widens and she runs a finger down the strong back in front of her. Rook jolts.

“That’s adorable.”

“Quit that.”

It’s so funny because Neve’s seen Rook naked, but this woman is much more embarrassed about having Neve see her cry. “It’s normal to cry. I cried too.”

“But you cry prettily. Not like some…wife who found out that their husband ran off with the milkmaid and took all their cows with them.”

Neve throws her head back and laughs because, what? “I don’t know what that means, but I feel sorry for the wife.”

“Farming life is rough.”

“Certainly sounds so.” She waits patiently until Rook is comfortable enough to turn around and face her, and wasn’t disappointed when the woman did, not long after. Her eyes are still red, and a bit swollen, but Neve thinks she looks lovely still. “You alright?”

“…I want to say yes, but I think my headache is getting worse.” Rook reaches for her bottle of tonic on top of the piano and frowns. Is it empty? “I think crying is making my concussion worse.”

She is looking a bit pale. “Hold on,” it was the only warning Neve gives before she reaches up towards Rook’s face again, and once more the rogue lets her without flinching. Her hand feels the warm, almost hot, skin under her fingertips and she instinctively cools down the temperature of her hand to counter it.

Rook sighs in relief, leaning towards Neve’s hand almost like a cat seeking warmth. “Ooooh, that’s a nice trick.”

“Something I learned at the Circle,” the mage smiles at the sight in front of her. She wonders if Rook realizes she’s close to nuzzling Neve’s hand. “Temperature regulator, for when the packed room of apprentice mages gets too warm at night.”

“Your Circle sounds like the Grey Wardens barracks.”

“I suspect they are similar.” Packed to the brim with people and smelling like wet socks on the worst days. Neve doesn’t miss it. “You’re hot—”

Rook’s mouth curls up in a smile. “Thanks. You’re hot too.”

Neve rolls her eyes almost in reflex, but she couldn’t help the smile that comes with it. It’s nice to know the humor has returned to this silly rogue. She misses it. “I mean, you’re running hot. A fever. We should get you more of whatever you were drinking in that bottle.”

“It tastes like ogre’s toenails so it can wait.”

That…is the most disgusting thing Neve has ever had the displeasure to hear.

“Can we, talk, for a little bit?”

“If it’s about ogre toenails, I’m going to have to say no.”

Rook laughs at the pure disgust on her face. “No, no, that’s not— Really, Neve, way to ruin the mood.” The mage just rolls her eyes again at her. “No, it’s. It’s about us. Are we…okay? Are you still upset with me? Hate me a little?”

Neve sobers up at the question when she caught the shake in Rook’s voice. “I never hated you, Rook.” The look of doubt on the rogue’s face had her sighing. “Upset at you? Yes, I was. Angry? Yes. But hate? No.”

How can Neve be hating someone who risked her neck out multiple times for a city that they don’t even live in? Even if it’s out of guilt, and atonement, the length Rook went to to make up for her decision that fateful day will never make Neve hate her.

She tries to get this across to Rook, but the doubt was still in her eyes. “Even after what I said in our last argument?”

“You already apologized for that.” She pats the feverish cheek under her hand gently. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

They’ve hurt each other a great deal, and suffered great losses in such a short time. Neve thinks that’s enough emotional pain to last them for the next five years.

Seemingly convinced, Rook finally nods. “Good. I just…I don’t want to lose…I was worried I’ve ruined what we have—” she bit her lip. “Had, before.”

The normally assured rogue sounds so uncertain, and Neve could feel her heart slightly speeding up in her chest. They’ve never really talked about this before, out loud, except for that one time in the cavern when she confronted Rook. But there’s always been something happening between them. Something obvious building up that has them gravitating towards each other even without their realizing. It was faint before, but it’s gotten worse (better?) and more intense after Neve remembers their night together.

This thing between them is heavy and sometimes Neve wishes she could look away from it—but after talking to Aine, Neve recognizes that this is her urge to self-sabotage coming up once more. Harsh and ugly and raring its head inside her like a snake because she’s afraid. Neve knows that with one word, with one decision, she could put an end to things between them right here, right now, and Rook would accept it. Rook’s always been considerate towards her, so if Neve says no, she would definitely pull away.

But, well. Maybe…Neve doesn’t want that.

Just thinking about Rook pulling away is making her feel uncomfortable. There is an ugly feeling in her chest the longer she thought about this, and she decides that she dislikes it.

“Have,” Neve finds herself saying, voice wavering slightly because while she’s afraid, she wants to try. “It’s not lost, and it’s still there.”

There’s a small beat in which the two of them processes her words, and then Neve watches Rook smiles this wide, happy, shy smile at her.

Just from the sight of this one smile Neve knows, deep in her heart, that’s she’s in trouble.

Big, big trouble.

Chapter Text

Treviso is truly one of the most beautiful cities Rook has ever laid her eyes on.

The canals, the gondolas, the smell of delicious food permeating the air, and the warm glow of the light against a comfortable backdrop of the night sky…They all make a dream-like city. No wonder some claims that Antiva is a place for lovers. Val Royeaux would probably contest to that, but Rook personally leans on the side of Treviso.

The lack of obnoxious nobles in Treviso is already making it a winner if this was even a competition.

Tonight, they’re back in Treviso for business, instead of pleasure, even though the situation had them running about investigating what Rook is starting to feel like a lovers’ affair. Coded messages with unattached ciphers, picnic baskets, beautiful flowers, along with goblets of wine. Chance Candide might feel that this is the work of a spy, but Rook can’t see it as any other thing but a secret rendezvous between lovers.

Both Bellara and Lucanis agrees with her, but all of them agreed to keep quiet about their suspicions because they don’t have enough proof. The coded messages they’ve gathered could still be assassination missives instead of love letters, so now Rook is doing her best to crack the messages as her two team members follows other leads that might be a part of this mystery. She’s usually the one who gets stuck with the undesirable task of cracking puzzles and the likes, which is fine with her because she likes things like this.

Also, Emmrich tells her not to exert herself too much after her recent concussion, which her friends had taken to heart. As a result, she is now parked in one of the tables in the local market’s eateries, with a bunch of ciphers spread around her, while her friends are doing legwork. Rook feels bad about getting her friends to run around, so she makes sure to order some food for them when they get back.

The rogue nibbles on her churros as her eyes sweeps over the market. The place is bustling as usual regardless of the Antaam’s shadow hanging over them. Rook could not help but imagine what this place would look like had she not chosen to save it instead of Minrathous. Maybe the market would have been burned down if that was the case.

Visiting these two cities always gives her complicated feelings following the dragon attacks. And if Rook is like this, she can’t imagine how Neve would feel if she’s brought to Treviso following the razing. Not that Rook has done that, of course. She doesn’t have the heart to bring Neve to this city even if she wanted to. To have the woman look at the peaceful city and compared it to her own…

No, that’s just cruel.

Why is she thinking like this anyway? Is the mood getting to her? Is Rook feeling sentimental because there are a lot of lovers sitting around her, enjoying their candlelit dinners? Is she wishing she could take Neve out on a proper candlelit dinner and woo her properly?

Yes, yes to all that.

Now, after what happened during the day where she got concussed, Rook can finally admit this openly and without guilt.

She wants a relationship with Neve, beyond that of friends or colleagues. She wants them to be more than friends who slept together once, and instead sleep together on a…more permanent basis.

Is that too forward of her? Rook’s not sure. But after talking things out that day, everything seems possible and within reach. Neve didn’t cut her out of her life and instead seems willing to continue whatever they have going on between them…and that feels like a signal for Rook to…make a move on her or something.

Before someone else could.

Her pen scratches against the parchment as Rook works on the messages, but half of her mind is entirely somewhere else. Does Neve enjoy candlelit dinner? She likes Hal’s fried fish a lot, but other than that Rook doesn’t exactly know her preferences. Dock Town has a lot of fancy bars and restaurants, but she’s not sure if Neve would enjoy excessive lavish dinner for a first date. Where should Rook take her?

Wine? Neve seems to like wine. She drank a top shelf bottle the night they first met, though Rook’s not sure if that’s her usual or if she was going for something new that night. Rook didn’t really ask when she joined the detective at her table. It wasn’t her choice, at first, but the place was full and Neve’s table was the only one that had an empty seat.

Rook sitting on that table and engaging the beautiful woman sitting there on conversations led to that one night shared between them.

Does that count for their first date? She’s not sure how these things usually go. Rook’s idea of fun has been darkspawn hunting for a couple of years now and uh, would Neve be okay with that…?

Probably not.

How do normal people go about these things???

Muttering in annoyance, Rook scribbles down the deciphered coded messages and gets even more annoyed at what she’s reading. Now even these messages are mocking her! Antivans are for lovers her butt!!

“Wow, that’s a deep frown you have there. Did you figure out the codes?”

Bellara arrives at her table, plopping herself down on the empty seat besides Rook. The rogue pushes the plate of churros and chocolate sauce towards her, and smiles when the younger woman made a grab for the food immediately.

“I think so. Had me worrying for a bit, but I got it in the end.”

There’s chocolate sauce smeared on the corner of Bellara’s lips, but she doesn’t seem to realize. “What happened?”

“They use two different ciphers for the messages, so there needed to be two keys to decipher them. Was stumped until I remember one of these people is Venatori.” Borrowing Neve’s case notes on them to study ended up helping a lot. Rook should get her something from the market when they get back to the Lighthouse.

Bellara peers at the many papers on the table, out of reach of the chocolate sauce. “Is that Neve’s handwriting?”

“Yes. Our dear detective to the rescue. Did you get anything from our lead? Where’s Lucanis?” Rook looks around. She thought the Crow was following behind Bellara, but he seems to be nowhere near them.

“He went to buy a few things— ah! Here we go!” the elven mage took out a folded note from her pocket, and flattened in on the table between her and Rook. “Found this in a storage room close to here. They have a brazier puzzle! Will you—can you, teach me the ciphers? I want to read what it says.”

“Sure. So, this starts with the Venatori’s message, and they tend to use a mathematics-based cipher for some reason—” Rook and Bellara put their heads together to decipher this last message. Now that the keys are found, it’s basically just translating. Before long the confused frown on Bellara’s face turns to glee.

“I knew it! I knew they were love letters! Didn’t want to say anything before, but after that note? I knew it!”

Rook laughs at her friend’s reaction. “Planning to reference this in your story?” she’s been wondering what kind of stories Bellara would write, but of course, knowing her personality, should have known it’d be something like romance.

“Welllll, maybe a little. The idea of star-crossed lovers from two opposing factions is very romantic. Very tempting to write about.”

Is it? Rook thinks it’s terrifying instead of romantic. Not everyone can see you as more than the idea you represent, as much as you love them. Rook ran a finger along the script that speaks of the writer’s love for the recipient in ciphered Tevene.

“I don’t think the Crows and the Venatori will be happy that these two are seeing each other.”

The glee on Bellara’s face disappear as reality settles over her at Rook’s words. “They would be chased down, won’t they? I can’t imagine the Venatori would let—I mean the Crows seems nicer on that end? I still can’t see any Venatori dating, that is so weird.”

Same, Rook finds that idea weird as well. And The Crows are assassins in the end. Rook doesn’t know where they stand on this when it comes to a cult like Venatori. She sighs. “Well, let’s hope their love is strong enough to persevere. Their lives are on the line just for being with the one they love.”

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she’s in that position. It’s difficult enough to imagine someone loving her that much. These people are luck— “Why are you looking like me like that?” Rook was yanked out of her thoughts by Bellara peering up close at her face. The mage’s eyes are narrowed and suspicious, and suddenly the rogue has this feeling of a thief being on the chopping block.

“Looking like what?” the mage asks in her attempt to sound innocent. Rook doesn’t buy it.

“You’re staring at me like you’re judging me for something.”

“I’m not. Definitely not. Judging you? Pff. Nah.”

Now it’s Rook’s turn to narrow her eyes suspiciously at this woman. “What’s churning in that head of yours?”

“It’s nothing important. Nope. Wow, look at that beautiful lamp on sale!”

Rook pushes the plate of churros closer to the younger woman. “I’ll get you more of these if you tell me what’s on your mind. Extra chocolate sauce.”

“Are you trying to bribe me??? I do not take bribes.” Bellara said haughtily.

Rook smiles back sweetly. “Too late for that, because you’ve eaten the bribes anyway. You have fallen into my well fried and oily trap.”

Bellara gasps loudly because she did! The first thing she did when arriving here was to eat Rook’s churros! She had unknowingly taken the bait!

“Now spill, or I’ll take these away.” The plate of churros inches slowly towards Rook’s side of the table and Bellara was torn. She held tightly to her conviction—but—!

“Fine! Extra chocolate sauce and another plate and I will talk!”

Rook raises a hand at the woman behind the counter immediately. “Waitress! I’d like another order!”

One plate of churros with extra chocolate sauce later, Rook is waiting for Bellara to finish her snack with her fingers laced together before asking more about why she’s looking at Rook with judgey eyes.

Bellara sniffs and considered her words before answering. “Well, I’m just. Picturing you and Neve. I guess?”

Rook didn’t expect that. “Uh, why?”

“Becauseeeee. You two were…arguing….and stuff…” Bellara isn’t meeting Rook’s eyes at all and Rook suddenly remembers that Bellara was there the day of her and Neve’s argument. Damn, that slipped her mind. The elven mage has been avoiding her for a bit too, now that she thinks of it. “I was just. Thinking. What might it be like if you two are…in their positions.”

She couldn’t even be mad at this. Mostly amused. “Do you often imagine your friends in scenarios like this? For the book that you’re writing?”

“No! Not often!” Bellara flushed. “Maybe a little? But I don’t if the person doesn’t want me to and ask me nicely about it.”

That’s oddly specific. “So…by positions…you don’t mean…that kind of posit—”

“No! Rook!”

Rook chortles, swiping a churro before Bellara can eat all of it. This is fun. “Okay, so. You were picturing me and Neve…together…”

Bellara glowered at her. “This isn’t fun anymore I’m not talking to you.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” The mage is mollified once Rook keeps her hands to herself and away from the churros. “Hey. Hey.”

“Not talking to youuuu.”

“That’s fine, you can listen.” Rook watches her friend enjoy her churro. “Sorry for getting you in the middle of the argument between Neve and I. I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position with her.”

Bellara stops chewing, and lowers her snack before turning to Rook with a little frown on her face. “That’s fine. I didn’t—I mean, I’m sorry too. I didn’t know that Neve hasn’t told you about. About…”

“About my friend.”

“Yes.” The elven mage peers up at Rook cautiously. “How are you feeling about it?”

“About her death?” Rook considers her friend’s words. “I’m…not as devastated as I was anymore. It turned out all I needed was time to mourn. For her and the rest of the Order. I’m fine, Bellara.” She smiles when her friend pats her gently on the arm, looking concerned.

“Okay. That’s good. Because Neve felt really bad about it.”

Right. Rook remembers. “I know. We’ve talked about it.”

The mage perks up. “You have? Does this mean you two have made up?”

“Mmmmayyyybeeeee.” The rogue draws out her answer, and she knows it’s driving Bellara mad. “Did she talk to you about it? About this? What did she say?”

Bellara narrows her eyes at her attempt of fishing for information. “I won’t snitch on Neve.” This sentence makes Rook smile so widely because it speaks so much of those two’s friendship. She’s happy that Neve has such a good friend in Bellara.

“I know you won’t.” Bellara’s shoulders relaxed, and then Rook strikes once more. “It’s because she’s already bribed you, didn’t she? So that you won’t tell me anything?”

Rook expected a vehement denial, and maybe some frowning.

But all she gets is silence and Bellara’s eyes shiftily looking away from her.

“No. Noooo, don’t tell me. Neve bribed you already?” A detective? Bribing? Oh wow, Rook is going to tease her with this later. Bellara grimaced at her words. “Wow, I didn’t believe she’d go there. I have to talk to our dear detective later.”

The elven woman sitting beside her just glowers at Rook sullenly for like five minutes, and then she lets out a long sigh. “Well, that answers my question. If you two are already talking like this then that means you’ve made up. Which is good! Less on my mind.”

Rook’s smile turns sympathetic. She can’t imagine how it feels for Bellara to get stuck in the middle. “Yes, sorry about that. We’ve talked, so, we’re back to normal now. I hope.”

What even is the normal between her and Neve? Rook can’t tell anymore.

“You hope?”

“Mhm.” Rook smiles at her with a small shrug. “I don’t want to jinx things.” She’s been running with a tunnel vision for so long that she didn’t quite register the things happening around Neve. Now that Rook is finally paying attention, she starts to notice things—things that didn’t use to be in her peripherals before. She can’t be taking things for granted anymore even after that talk that they had.

Because things can go wrong suddenly without warning.

Rook’s learned her lesson.

“Anyway, do you think Neve would like these things?” she asks Bellara so that the younger woman would stop looking at her with pity. “Get her some variety so that she’s not just eating fried fish.”

“Oh! I think that’s a good idea! Um, well, she liked candied dates—so! Pick the one with the cinnamon dust too, they smell delicious!”

And so, the two of them had fun looking through the menu to get something for the detective swamped with case notes back home. Rook thinks this is such a nice thing to end today’s mission with, until Lucanis comes up to them with both of his hands full with the kind of shopping they didn’t expect he’d be doing today.

Bellara and Rook stares at him.

“What?” Lucanis asks, currently hugging an entire watermelon with one hand, and the other holding a shopping bag bulging at the seams.

“Are we having fruit salad for dessert?” Bellara wonders. The Crow hums at her, thinking.

“We could, if you want. I bought some fruits for Neve, but I’m sure she won’t mind sharing.”

Rook’s eyes stares at the large watermelon, then she looks down at the plate of churros, and she lets out a sigh.

Once more, she has been beaten at this game.

Darn thoughtful Antivans.

//

Neve’s attempts to track down Aelia after the case with Damas is…not going well. It’s mostly because Aelia hasn’t made a physical appearance back in Dock Town, or Minrathous in general, so trying to get a whisper about her has been rather difficult. Usually, Neve is a believer of no news is good news but that does not apply to this woman.

If she’s not making a sound, then there’s trouble brewing in the background.

The possibility of bad things happening in the future ramps up now that Aelia knows how to use puppetry on another being. It started with Makal Damas, but who else has she gotten under her thrall?

There are words about Archon Radonis being assassinated in the streets, could that be her work as well?

There’s too many whispers and not enough clues.

Neve has basically hit the wall with this case, and until there are more leads to follow, it’s now a waiting game on her end.

It utterly infuriates her that she couldn’t get ahead of Aelia for once. That woman had too many supporters out there. Damn Venatori.

“Knock knock.”

A familiar voice cuts through her inner grumbling, and Neve lets out a small snort.

“Did you just say knock knock out loud?” she asks, looking up from her notes at the silly woman standing by her open doorway with a hesitant look on her face.

 “I don’t want to startle you.” Rook shrugs, a small smile on her face. “You seem to be very deep in thoughts. Can I come in?”

Neve waves her in and pushes her chair back from her desk. “Polite today, are you not?” Though she expects people to knock when coming into her office, Rook’s usually not someone who asks for permission to come in.

“Just wanted to try something new. Hey.” Rook steps right in front of her desk and smile when Neve’s gaze meets hers.

Neve’s heart is doing something funny at the sight of that smile. “Hey. You smell like cinnamon.”

“Oh. Right. Bellara and I got you something.” She took out a bundle of cloth from behind her back. Something that sounds like paper rubbing against each other can be heard from within it. “Uh, where can I—”

“Here.” The small pile of books are pushed aside to make space for Rook to place down the small bundle on her desk. “What’s this?”

“Churros. It’s like, fancy fried snack. Bellara got you the ones with cinnamon dust because she thinks you’ll like it.” Rook’s dexterous hands carefully open the bundle and at once the delicious smell of cinnamon and fried pastry fills Neve’s office. The wisps fluttering around the room trills happily at the smell. Can they even smell things? “Oh wow, your wisps are loud today.”

Neve narrows her eyes at them as they fly lower and hovers around the bundle of snack, moving up and down like they’re dancing. “I think they might be curious of the churros…”

“Huh. Maybe I should have gotten the other flavors. They had like 18 others.”

Oh no, Neve fears for her waistline. “No, please. This is enough, thank you.”

She broke off a little piece under Rook’s encouraging gaze, and plops it in her mouth. The warmth of the pastry and the sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar hits her tastebuds perfectly. Neve couldn’t help the small moan that escaped her at the taste. “This is very good. I thought you two went with Lucanis for a mission? Rook?”

Rook is staring at her wide-eyed. And her face is rather red. Odd.

“Rook.”

“Wh-whuh?” Rook grimaced before clearing her throat. “I mean. Yes? We did? We did.” She nods.

Neve narrows her eyes suspiciously as she wipes her fingers on the cloth. “How did you end up with churros?”

“Lucanis and Bellara had me crack some codes while they do legwork, so I grabbed a seat and some snacks while working. Speaking of which, thank you for this. It really helped.” Rook carefully takes out a neatly folded paper from a pouch on her waist, and places it gently on the desk. Neve glances at her own script, and her brows lifted up.

“Venatori cipher? In Treviso?” With how Treviso’s been saved from the dragon, she thought that the city would only be contending against the Antaam. Has the Venatori sunk their claws in there as well? Rook hasn’t brought Neve to Treviso ever since that day, so she hasn’t been keeping up.

“Yes, there’s been quite a few of them sighted there. But this one, is something different entirely.” There’s a small smile on Rook’s face, something almost bittersweet. Neve is curious.

“How do you mean? What was the cipher for?”

“Love letters.”

“Love letters?”

“You heard right. A Crow and a Venatori, having secret lovers’ rendezvous all over the city.”

“Couldn’t imagine that would have gone well with either of the two groups.” Assassin and Cult. This story might be one for the books. Bellara must have been quite excited.

Rook drops her smile at her words. “No. The Venatori wanted their ‘traitor’ dead, and the Crows think they have a spy. It was a mess. I feel bad because all these people tried to do was spend time together.”

Such a simple want, but so difficult. Neve understands. “What happened to them, in the end? Did you three solve whatever it is they had you do?”

Her leader didn’t answer right away. She glances at the door, and leans across the desk, closer to Neve. The smell of cinnamon mixed in with Rook’s usual lyrium and peppery scent is actually pretty nice.

“We warned them about the Venatori ambush, and delivered a false report to the Crows. I don’t think the Crows would be happy, but the one who gave us the mission was kind enough to overlook this in the name of love. He’s Orlesian.” Rook adds with a roll of her eyes, like that explains things.

“What does being Orlesian has anything to do with this?”

“Well, Orlesians pride themselves on being good lovers. Though I can’t say that for all Orlesians, hah.”

The jolt of jealousy that shot through Neve at Rook’s words is sudden and unexpected. Neve frowns. She hasn’t felt this in a long time. “A nugget from your philandering days?” she hopes her voice is steady, because the rest of her is not.

Rook looks at her exasperatedly. “Are you still on that? I still don’t understand how you get that idea of me.”

“Call it a detective’s instinct.” Neve feels like she has enough clues about Rook’s philandering ways from their previous conversations and her own observations and suddenly she wishes she has amnesia.

“You and your many secrets.” Rook shakes her head, and then she steps away. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Leaving already?”

“Davrin and I have to go check up on a secret Warden redoubt.” The fun and humor are gone and now Rook is in her Grey Warden mode. After Weisshaupt, hearing about Grey Warden businesses has Neve worrying quite a bit. “He thinks the Gloom Howler might be there, so, you know. Fun stuff waiting.”

But Rook just got back? “Who are you taking with you?” Neve is actually buried in work, but if she needs a hand—

“Harding. We might need her tracking skills to follow this thing around. With her and Davrin taking lead, all I have to do is try not to get myself in trouble.” Rook lets out a dry laugh, probably remembering her injury during Damas’ case. Neve thinks she’s fine, but Rook doesn’t seem to believe her when she tells her so. “I’ll see you when I get back, Neve. Enjoy the churros. And good luck with your case notes.”

“Don’t be reckless.” Neve tries not to be a worrywart but she can’t help it. Rook’s barely recovered from her concussion, and now she’s taking two missions right after Emmrich declared her fit enough to go back to work. A part of her wants to come along, but Rook’s taking Harding with her, and she doesn’t want to ruin whatever prep Rook made for this job.

All Neve can do is wait and stew…over her cases, and her mess of feelings for Rook.

//

Rook, Davrin and Harding have been away from the Lighthouse for about two days, going three. Neve isn’t keeping watch on time deliberately—it’s just that their mission coincides with one of their book club meetings and it was Harding’s turn to lead discussion. With her not being there they decide to postpone that week’s meeting and do something else, but Neve couldn’t really concentrate much on anything.

Like what she’s starting to notice lately, Neve’s stress tends to spike whenever she hears things regarding Grey Warden businesses. She suspects a bit of it is because of trauma of what she’s witnessed during Weisshaupt, and all the mass deaths following it. She’s not unfamiliar with this feeling, because as unattached Neve tries to be, there are times where some cases leave her shaken longer than usual. There are times when the difficult cases follow her home and haunts her.

This is one of such cases.

The shadows of Weisshaupt dogged her steps like how the blighted dragon tormented her dreams following Minrathous’ destruction. Now, after Weisshaupt, she’s starting to see her friends’ faces amongst the dead during particularly bad nightmares. Waking up from these ones gets her cranky, and if she’s cranky then it means a big pot of boiled coffee would follow because Neve would bury herself in work to get her mind off of the horrors inside her head.

She tries not to think about how Rook has been in her nightmares much more often following the case with Damas. This troublemaker has caught Aelia’s eyes, and whenever Neve remembers that it was because she opened her big mouth, she gets annoyed all over again.

And then stressed out because Aelia having their eye on someone does not lead to good things.

What are the chances that she forgets about Rook and her big mouth?

Neve can’t take that bet. She will lose.

Rook is Rook, mouthy and scrappy, but she gets the job done in the end. The enemies will always take notice, and really, Neve should just make her peace with that. That Saboteur will always be toeing the line between life and death and at this point Neve should just practice that breathing exercise Emmrich was telling her about so that she’s not stressing out all the damn time that rogue is out of her sight.

She found Harding in the library on the late morning of the fourth day, legs stretched out on the couch and groaning out like she was dying. Neve stops on her way to Emmrich’s room to look her over.

“You alright? Did you meet a dragon?” she jokes, trying to keep things light. Her smile died when Harding groans out her confirmation.

“Sort of. Does it count if it’s dead?”

“What?”

Harding turned to her with the face of a woman so exhausted she could sleep for a thousand years. “It was Zazikale’s corpse, Neve. I actually saw the skeleton of the Archdemon from the Second Blight. And it was so…creepy? Horrifying? Terrifying? Humongous?”

“Which one, is it?” Neve sits down on her side of the couch when her friend pulls up her legs a little bit to give her space to sit.

The dwarven scout sighs. “All of the above. Now I’ve got another image to haunt me in my nightmares.” Neve’s heart goes out to her. It must have been confusing enough to start dreaming as a dwarf, and getting to know what nightmares are like. Now Harding has to see horrifying things she sees in real life in her sleep too, and really, Neve doesn’t recommend dreaming if she gets to choose. The Fade is a scary thing on its worst days.

“Was it as big as Razikale?” she couldn’t help but indulge her curiosity. Harding might need to vent a little bit, so this is good for both of them.

“You know, that’s a good question. I’m not sure, but it was big. It’s got only one head, thankfully.”

“Can’t believe what our lives’ gotten to. Counting archdemon heads and being grateful if we get a normal one.” Harding laughs, agreeing with Neve’s observation because man, talk about being true!

“Thank the Maker we’ve only got one left. You think it’s got one head?”

Neve thinks for a moment, recalling things she’s heard about Lusacan the god of Night. “One head, but he whispers to you through your dreams. Tevinter children gets told to stuff sun seeds in their pillows to keep him away or he’d take them in their sleep.”

Harding looks horrified, but she valiantly tries to keep the smile on her face. “Well…that’s…good? Maybe I should start doing that. Might help with the nightmares…” Neve chuckle at the image.

“I’d recommend calming incenses than sun seeds. Less messy. Also, can’t really bet on Lusacan having one head if he’s been hanging around Ghilan’nain.”

That damn goddess and her blight. Knowing their luck Lusacan will come to them with six wings and three heads. Neve should just start practicing killing dragons with Taash at this point.

“Ugh. Please let it be normal! Or at least have one head!”

That plea seems to have come from the soul. Neve studies her friend’s face and the clear exhaustion there. She lowers her voice. “Was it really bad, down there?”

Harding turns to Neve with a slight frown. “Did Rook tell you where we—”

“Just in passing, but no detail. She just said something about secret Warden redoubt…and judging from your reaction, you found nothing good down there.”

“I’m new to this dreaming thing, but honestly, it was like something out of a nightmare.” The scout lowers her voice so that only Neve could hear her from this up close. “That place is a graveyard the Wardens have been keeping secret. We found dead griffons there too.”

Neve’s blood ran cold. “Assan’s siblings?”

Harding shook her head immediately, realizing she’s worded things wrong. “Oh! No! Other griffons! They weren’t there, but the Gloom Howler was. It fled. We’ve got a piece of its clothing, so Davrin is going to track it down.”

“Can’t imagine he’s happy about it running away.”

“Not at all. Rook tried to stop it from running away but, we were swamped.” The dwarven woman lets out a deep sigh. “The place was swimming with darkspawn, I think we spent half a day whittling them down just so we can get out of there. And now I’ve got cramps all over my body.”

Ah. Now it makes sense why she’s groaning out like she’s been through the wringer. “Want me to get you some muscle reliever from Emmrich?”

“I’ve got them already, thanks! He passed them to me before the meeting.”

“Meeting? What meeting?”

“Oh, Rook’s called for a meeting after we arrived earlier. Emmrich’s there with her.”

Neve frowns at this, because she hasn’t gotten any notice. “And the two of us aren’t included?”

Harding moves to sit up with a groan, and leans against the arm of the couch. “It’s just a few people. I think Rook’s trying to smooth down some ruffled feathers from our…post-Weisshaupt briefing. Some people were upset.”

That was saying it lightly. Davrin and Lucanis were at each other’s’ throat and then Rook broke down in her office. She and Rook have made up now, but Neve can see why Rook has to intervene in the case of Davrin and Lucanis. Emmrich’s steadying voice is going to be sorely needed to keep tempers from blowing up.

“Well, if they’ve got cool heads—”

The Caretaker materializing out of thin air besides the two of them cut Neve’s words halfway. Her heart jumps even though the rest of her body stays calm, but Harding lets out a squeak in surprise and would have tumbled off the couch if it wasn’t for Neve’s hand reaching out for her in time.

“Make some noise, please!” Harding tells the spirit in exasperation. The Caretaker bows its head, but it will probably keep doing that. It loves its dramatic entrances. “What is it?”

“Urgent missive, dweller. Danger spreads its wings.” An envelope with blue wax seal landed on top of Harding’s thighs and the Caretaker disappears back into thin air after delivering its message.

Neve saw that griffon sigil on that wax seal. “Lace. It’s from the Grey Wardens.” Harding seems to sense her stress because she takes a quick glance at the sender before ripping it open to read the missive inside.

“It’s from Evka…” Harding’s eyes moves fast as she reads through the message and then Neve watches them widen in alarm. “Shit! They found a dragon!”

“Lusacan?”

“No, it’s one of the blighted dragons that attacked your city and Treviso! The scouts found it instead of the gods!“ Harding scrambled to her feet, looking harried. “I’m going to go tell Rook, can you—”

“I’ll get Taash.” Neve stands up, feeling much more alert and awake than before. “Meet here?”

The scout didn’t answer but she nodded before she ran towards the dining room. Neve quickly makes her way up the stairs to get their dragon hunter, feeling adrenaline rushing through her with every step she takes.

Is this it?

Is it time for her get her revenge upon the monster that razed her city?

If this is it, then Neve is ready.

She will take that damn dragon down even if it’s the last thing she does.

//

It turns out that the dragon the Warden scouts have spotted isn’t the one that razed Minrathous. Neve is disappointed, but she can’t say that this is a big loss. Lucanis still has leftover resentment for this dragon, and well, one less blighted dragon in the world will do a lot of people good.

The down side is that they’re back in the Hossberg Wetlands.

Out of all places to hole up in, this damn thing chose the miserable swamp.

Neve makes sure to put anti-corrosion coating over her prosthetic for this fight just to prevent unwanted accidents in the middle of battle. The swamp’s muddy water isn’t doing her dwarven leg any good, and until she can get her guy to take a look at it, all Neve can do is protect it so that it doesn’t break down on her.

When they arrived at the swamp, they were greeted by the Grey Wardens assembling extra defensive lines along the land. It brings back the memories of the Siege once more and Neve knows she’s not the only one having flashback about it. Bellara moves close to her as they walk, as if seeking comfort, following Rook and Evka as the latter talk about the situation.

Evka’s been promoted, apparently. To Warden-Commander, leader of the formerly Anderfels and now Lavendel branch of the Order. She’s going to be leading from the front, and this gives Neve a lot of comfort. This woman has proven herself worthy during the Siege, so all the Wardens that are now present all follows her with absolute loyalty—including Rook.

Speaking of Rook…turns out Evka wasn’t the only one who had gotten promoted. The rogue now stands in her new armor, the Grey Warden’s blue sigil splashed upon the chest proudly like a big target sign. She and Davrin makes a striking sight, standing side-by-side in their full Grey Warden regalia and for a moment Neve feels like she’s living one of her childhood stories about Grey Wardens and slaying dragons.

Look at her. The swamp fume has gotten her all delirious.

The Wardens have pushed the blighted dragon into pulling back and hiding in a tower defensively, so now Evka is letting Taash take point so that they can lure the dragon out of its lair and into the clearing where the Grey Wardens and their ballistas are waiting.

Of course, things don’t usually go that smoothly. Their team will be joining in because the blighted dragon got darkspawn protecting it, and to get a clear shot at it, they have to kill the little ghouls first. Just like the usual.

When Evka leaves to return to her squads, Rook turns to the team.

“Right, we’re going to split up for this. Taash is going to be luring the dragon out of the tower, and me and another person will be waiting for them and the dragon at the base. We’ll need a mage—”

“notmenotmenotmenotme” Bellara chants under her breath.

“—so, Bellara, can you come with us?”

“Shit.” The elven mage swears and Neve sighs, patting her hand.

“The rest of you, please go up the walls and support the Grey Wardens. We might be seeing a similar number of darkspawn to what we had back in Weisshaupt, so like always, exercise caution. Keep your mouth closed and stay away from sprayed blood and blighted gunk. Avoid claws. And everything sharp.” Rook adds after thinking.

Harding rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Got it, Rook. Good luck.”

Everyone disperses to move to position, and then Rook approached her and Bellara with an apologetic face. Seems like she heard Bellara cursing.

“Sorry.” She said to the storm mage, who only lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“It’s okay. I mean, everyone’s got a shot at the dragons already. Neve and Razikale, Emmrich and that possessed dragon corpse…Figured it’s my turn, you know?”

Rook smiles at her ruefully and pats her shoulder. “At least this one’s got one head.”

Neve rolls her eyes, growing tired of that sentence. “Enough of that, already.” Rook turns to her then, her gaze serious.

“I’m sorry it’s not your dragon.” The way Rook speak is as if she could feel Neve’s disappointment in the middle of everything that’s happening. Neve nodded, grateful all the same for the consideration.

“It’s fine. There will be another chance. Should I go instead of Bel?”

Rook shakes her head. “You won’t mesh well with this one. Ice dragon.”

Ah. No wonder. Neve turns to Bellara then, one hand clapping her firmly on the shoulder.

“Watch out for the tail, getting hit by it hurts.”

Bellara glowers at her. “Thanks, Neve. That really doesn’t help.” Neve just smiles at her as Rook laughs, and she watches her two friends walk towards the base of the tower the dragon is hiding in, where the front-line fighters are waiting along with some ballistas.

Neve takes a deep breath before moving towards her own designated position as one of the snipers.

The air is vibrating with tension around them. It’s almost time.

//

The ice dragon that attacked Treviso turned out to be a rare breed, according to the Warden fighting besides Neve. He called it Corius the Icetalon, one of the smaller dragon breeds that are usually found near the highest peak of the Frostback Mountains. Neve’s not sure about the small part but the fact that Ghilan’nain managed to blight it means that she has not at all been idle in between her attacks. The South must have gotten a visit from her too.

Just like Razikale, Corius seems to have sensed the lyrium dagger on Rook because that thing kept trying to eat her friend whole. Streams of freezing breath comes out of its mouth, sending blasts of cold winds around the battlefield that’s so strong it’s starting to affect the environment. The temperature around the place has dropped and Neve could see snowflakes falling from the sky. Her breath is misty, and though her ice spells have been boosted thanks to this, this situation is not really a good one.

If they don’t kill this dragon anytime soon, this entire swamp might be enveloped in snow.

Neve’s ice spells won’t hurt Corius as much as the others, so all she could do is debuff its movements with her Time spells. She slows down the dragon’s attack before its tail could hit Bellara mid-spell, and halts its movement by two seconds to enable Taash to roll under its belly and hit it with their own dragon breath. Her time spell gave Rook enough time to throw mines inside its open mouth and roll away to safety before all of them pops inside Corius’ mouth like corn kernels cooking in the kettle.

Everything is going well…until it wasn’t.

A second dragon descends from the sky like death incarnate, and Neve watches as it releases a powerful fire breath at the front-line fighters from above. People screamed as fire tore through the barricade, burning flesh and wood alike without mercy. The sight and the noise triggered the memories of Minrathous’s razing to the forefront of Neve’s mind, and something snapped in her.

That’s it.

That is the damned dragon that burned her city.

Her feet moved before realizing it, and Neve rushes down the hill she’s posted at, running towards the Wardens firing at the fire dragon with their ballistas.

“Press the attack! Bring that first one down!”

The other Wardens who were out of the way of the fire blast moves straight for the injured Corius, and that’s when the tides of the battle turned.

Neve stopped in her tracks when blight tendrils crawled up from the very ground they are standing on. Blighted, cursed tentacles wrapping themselves around the struggling, screaming Wardens and it’s—

Ghilan’nain made her entrance from within the blight puddles on the ground—body twisting, writhing, a creature of the abyss at her very core with one struggling Warden clutched tightly in hand. Neve watches with horror as the blighted God drives her sharpened tentacles through that Warden’s body, and tossed the corpse away like a ragdoll before addressing all the Grey Wardens standing in defiance before her.

“Wardens.” The Blighted God’s voice reverberates through the cold night air. “You defied me at Weisshaupt. Stole my Archdemon! I will have blood for that.”

The blight puddles begin extending its radius and everyone in its vicinity moves away to avoid the blighted tendrils. It was no use—because the puddles reach everywhere, and darkspawn begins climbing out of it. There is no avoiding this.

It’s Weisshaupt all over again.

Everyone watched with frustration as Ghilan’nain healed Corius with the power of her blight, draining the very ground it stands on of its energy as she transferred it to her wounded dragon. The fire dragon that attacked Minrathous landed besides them, and the sight of all three blighted monsters standing together against the snowy night sky makes the hair at the back of Neve’s stand up in muted horror.

But there was no time to stand there and gape.

Ghilan’nain sends both blighted dragons towards the clearing—

Towards Rook.

Neve runs immediately, bodily shoving Wardens from her way, and heading straight to where her friends are fighting on the lower ground.

The two dragons landed with a force that shakes the earth and she runs faster as they send out double element blasts at her friends. She’s almost there.

The flame dragon threw a fireball at Bellara and Rook, but Taash intercepted it with their own firebreath. The resulting clash sends a blast of hot wind and all three flying…and landing close to where Neve is standing.

“Rook!” she calls out, just as her friends are getting to their feet, and her heart slams against her chest when the rogue looks up and meet her gaze.

Rook waits for her by the base of the hill, and lets Neve catch her breath even though Bellara and Taash had gone on ahead to continue their attacks on the dragons.

There is grim understanding in Rook’s eyes, and Neve knows she’s made the right choice to come here.

“You are not keeping me out of this fight.” Her voice comes out more heated than expected, but Rook doesn’t seem to mind. The Grey Warden held out a hand to her, palm up, and her face is set.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Let’s go get you your dragon.”

A fierce rush of emotions runs through Neve at the words, and she reaches for Rook’s hand. With her help Neve lands on the ground without chipping her dwarven leg, and without further ado the two of them runs to join Taash and Bellara.

There is vengeance to be had tonight, and Neve will make sure they will come out of this fight with two less blighted dragons upon the world.

Chapter Text

“That’s the dragon that attacked Minrathous, right?” Rook asks again to make sure in the middle of dodging a fire blast.

“It damn well is.”

Neve’s voice is hard with suppressed fury, but the protective ice mist she sends over to Rook is soothing. It calms her mind down, cooling her head enough to plan her way through this.

Two blighted dragons, an army of darkspawn and a blighted God.

They can do this.

“Alright Neve,” Rook returns her bow to her back and withdrew her twin swords from their sheathes on her waist. “Time to take your revenge.”

They’ve fought so hard to get here, and to see the very source of their misery, of Neve’s suffering, entering the fray without prompting brings Rook so much pleasure. This makes things a lot easier.

“Taash, Bellara, you two take the ice dragon. Bellara, your storm spells have a wide range, if you find Neve and I get pinched by the fire bastard, lend us your paralyzing spells.” Rook tries her best to direct her teammates as the four of them faces the two dragons by themselves. “Neve and I will take the fire one, and Neve, cast Time Slow over to Taash and Bellara if you see them needing aid. Our focus here is to take either one of down as fast as we can, and then support the others with whichever one is left. Watch the feet, stagger, and parry. Go!”

They split into two teams and faces each of their quarries just like how Rook directed.

Taash’s firebreath works wonder against the Icetalon, so Rook feels safe leaving Bellara in their hands. Neve’s ice spells don’t work against it, but she’s the perfect opponent for Seartooth, so Rook will play the cheese and take all of its aggro so that Neve could get clear shots at it.

She can’t use her bow for the entire time of this close-range fight, so Rook picks up her swords once more. How long has it been since she last used them? The blades feel light in her hands, compared to her heavy bow, and Rook feels like she’s regained all the speed she’s lost by being a ranged-fighter. Seartooth turns its head towards her, large slitted pupils focused on her entire being, and Rook moves.

She could feel it inhale, embers crackling on the bottom of its stomach, and Rook goes the opposite way of where all the wind is going. The flame burns through the air, a straight shot at where she was standing before, and she throws herself to the ground. The momentum had her sliding under the fireballs flying above her head and when she reaches her destination, Rook rises to her feet, swinging her swords upwards as she goes. Twin bolt of lightnings travelled from her enchanted blades and towards Seartooth’s soft belly.

The large lizard thrashed in pain as its belly glows purple, and without missing a beat Neve’s icebreaker follows, blooming ice buds freezing the sundered belly before exploding with a snap of her finger. The dragon drops onto its side, staggered, and Rook immediately goes for weak spots, Neve following behind her.

Rook tossed one of her turrets out, firing bolts at the sundered dragon, before using hurricane of blades to hit Seartooth four times in a row. She jumps back after her last slash just seconds before Neve’s shards of ice rains down from the sky.

The mage did not hold back, Rook watches with awe as Neve formed what seemed like an infinite number of ice shards out of the water in the humid swamp air. The shards fall with loud crashes against Seartooth’s thick scales, and the dragon flinches with every hit. Their barrages of attacks stopped there as the dragon climbs back to its feet and flies up, wings sending blasts of air upon its flight, roar thundering through the sky.

“It’s gearing up for a ranged attack.” Neve pants, one handedly drinking a lyrium potion while keeping her eyes on the dragon. Rook glances at her, brows furrowing slightly.

“Is it just me…or did your ice melt really quickly when you tried to freeze him?” Neve is using a similar spell to the one she used with Razikale, but the result is different.

The frost mage shakes her head, annoyance clear on her face. “No, you’re right. That damned thing’s body temperature is too high, my ice starts to melt even before they hit the scales. There’s like a…heated barrier surrounding it.”

“Shit.” The dragon flew up high, and out of their reaches. While the two look for a way to bring it down, Bellara’s voice comes from across the arena.

“Neeeeeeveeee!”

“Be right back.” Neve mutters before running to the elven mage, Time Slow casted as she goes. Corius slows down, maw open in preparation for attack, and Bellara immediately shot her storm spells right at it. The thing lets out a piercing scream and Taash comes in roaring with their axes. They swung upwards, backhanding the damn thing from under its jaw. Corius’ head snapped back, and the dragon falls to the ground with an earth-shattering force.

“Thank youuuuuuu!!!” Bellara and Taash immediately descends upon its soft belly, and Neve lets out a sigh before turning back to her own dragon—

And sees Rook standing upright where she’s left her still, busily rummaging around in her many pouches while Seartooth is winding up for an attack.

Neve runs at her. “Don’t just stand there!!” Rook lets out a weird noise when she tackles her, the two rolling sideways as Seartooth’s fireball lands on the ground like a meteor.

Once more, Rook was yelled at.

“For once I have a good reason for doing that.” Rook tries not to focus on the fact that Neve’s comfortable weight is currently on top of her, pressing into the right places, and frees one of her fists to show Neve what she’s holding. “I just remembered something Antoine gave me. Want to give it a try?”

She’s holding what looks like peach-sized balls, smaller than her turrets, and they’re white-blueish in color. Neve is frowning at them with slight suspicion.

“What is it?” she asks, after searching for runes and getting no traces of magic from the balls.

Rook smiles.

“He calls it a freezing-agent. As for what it does…let’s go find out.”

//

The two of them switched roles for this next part. Neve grabs Seartooth’s attention, while Rook prepares her arrows and their new little friends. Antoine didn’t give her a lot of these freezing-agents as they were prototype components, still in development. Only half a dozen, so they really have to use these as best as they could.

Go straight for the vitals.

Heart, lung and the joints.

Rook’s hunted big games before, but dragons are another thing entirely. This is where she’s grateful that Taash is with their team. Thanks to them sharing their knowledge, Rook learned about the soft areas in a dragon’s body that she can target with her arrows.

She takes a shot at Seartooth’s right shoulder, just under the shoulder blade. Her arrow landed, and the freezing-agent shatters upon impact against the scales. There seems to be water splashing out of it? Rook isn’t sure, but Antoine says that as long as it hits the surface of the target, it’ll work. Rook believes in him without a doubt, and continues.

Left shoulder. Rear leg right knee. Rear leg left knee.

Rook slides under its belly once more, narrowly missing the fireball and had the side of her left shoulder singed by the high heat. It burns through her leather and stings like a bitch. It’ll probably leave a burn, but that’s a problem to worry about later.

One arrow fly towards the lung, and the freezing-agent shatters.

The other landed at the heart, and though her arrow doesn’t pierce the flesh as deep as she wanted, the freezing-agent still breaks against the scales.

Job done, Rook rolls out from under Seartooth and takes a deep breath.

“Neve!! I’ve set it up! It’s all yours!!”

//

“Neve!! I’ve set it up! It’s all yours!!”

Those words are music to her ears.

Neve’s not one to usually put a blind faith on something, but Rook’s never lead the team astray before. She doesn’t trust these freezing-agents, but she trusts Rook.

When Rook gives her the sign, Neve goes straight to work. She casts her spells on the locations they’ve agreed on before—the dragon’s vitals and its weak points. Her ice melted faster than normal earlier because of this dragon’s high temperature, but now with Antoine’s little toys in play, she’s looking forward to see how long her ice can stay this next time around.

She concentrates all of her magic into six bolts, all aimed at those spots. Her mana is draining fast, but that’s fine because it can be replenished. It’s taking quite a while, but Rook’s got Seartooth’s attention now, slashing at its head, moving away from its snapping jaws—she’s playing distraction really well.

When her ice bolts start vibrating with power, she yells at Rook to get away and shoots.

Neve’s freezing ice bolts flies through the air, leaving trails of snow and mist in their wakes. Seartooth is looking away from her because its attention is still on Rook, and that makes a good position for her flying projectiles. Seartooth’s roar pierces the air at the same time Neve’s ice bolts pierces through its scales. The places Rook has tossed freezing-agents at before starts turning into ice the moment Neve’s spells reach them.

The effect was instantaneous—thick, hard, frozen ice starts spreading from its vital points. Seartooth’s shoulders are encased in ice in less than a minute, and its rear legs slams onto the ground—unable to bear the weight of the large lizard’s body once its joints are frozen. The bottom of its belly is also getting rapidly encased in ice; the blooming sheen of frozen water spreads along the hard scales like swift growths of grapevines upon castle walls.

Seartooth tries to combat the ice spreading all over its body by raising its body temperature, letting out fire breaths at its frozen joints—but it’s to no avail. Antoine’s freezing-agents have permeated even the deepest creases underneath its tough scales. Not even its own fire can get rid of the components that is amping up Neve’s freezing spell to its lowest, hardest point. The lizard thrashes as it tries to break the ice, steam coming out of its body in its attempts to melt its frozen coffin, but there is no use. Seartooth is permanently grounded.

The frost mage lets out a disbelieving laugh as she looks at the result of her work. A fire dragon half-encased in ice? In her ice? Suddenly she has a strong urge to celebrate in the middle of battle like a certain someone did. She can’t, she knows well she shouldn’t, but it truly was tempting.

Rook’s laughs reach her ear as she approaches, smelling strongly like burnt leather and ashes. “That’s fucking brilliant! You’re amazing. Look at that thing.”

The undisguised awe in Rook’s voice is clear and she doesn’t think she’ll get tired of hearing it. “Thanks for the assist.” Neve says with a smile. The rogue grins down at her.

“I’ve got your back, Neve Gallus.”

She does, doesn’t she?

A shriek from across the arena tore through the air, and the two turns to see Corius headbutting Taash as purple lightning envelopes its body.

Rook and Neve turn to each other, wordlessly nods, and they rushes straight to the Icetalon to lend their friends a hand. Seartooth is contained for now, but the other dragon is still rampaging about. Besides, Rook says she has another version of Antoine’s freezing-agents to play with and she says Bellara would want to try these out.

Those words don’t exactly bring Neve comfort, to be quite honest.

//

If she has to compare, Rook thinks Corius the Icetalon is the more difficult dragon of the two to beat. You’d think something that’s mostly comprised of ice would be easy to defeat when you have a fire-breathing Qunari by your side—but noo she stands to differ. Icetalon is not just a dragon, but also a blighted dragon, so even if Taash’s dragon fire hits in point blank, instead of its icy scales melting, they instead…bubbled.

And it’s disgusting to see up close.

Rook makes a face as she watches these scales bubble, eerily alike to the blight puddle bubbling before darkspawn climbs out of it, and stabs a sword at it. Her blade sunk into the flesh, but when she pulled it out, a third of the blade has been frozen over. Rook jumps back to a safe area and gently taps the blade with her other sword, and feels the blood drains from her face when the blade crumbles like brittle ice.

“No! My sword!”

“Shit, what did you do?” Bellara’s horrified voice came from behind her shoulder, staring at the same broken blade.

Rook points at the damn ice dragon with frustration. “That thing did it! I stabbed it and now it’s cost me a damn sword!”

Taash spat out blood as they walked close to the two. “Must’ve had a lower body temperature on the inside. Stop stabbing it.”

“My weapons are swords and arrows, Taash. They stab.”

“Use your mines.”

Huh.

Bellara clap her hands. “Oh! Oh! Rook, you said you have something from Antoine!”

“Oh. Right.” Rook takes out from her pouch another six balls of components, and gave three to Bellara. “Bellara and I will set these up. Taash, when I give you the sign, bust out your dragon breath at the vital spots. Heart, lung and the four joints.”

“What are these?” Taash eyed the white-orange peach-sized balls with narrowed eyes.

“They’re called Firestarters. Amps up your fire, like they did Neve’s ice.” Seartooth is still thrashing around trying to get the thick ice off of its body somewhere on their left. “Ready?”

Taash gave her a nod before launching themselves towards Icetalon once more. Neve has been slowing its time during the entire time they were conversing, and now is sending Rook an ugly look for making her work while the other three are talking.

That woman’s angry face is potent and Rook makes sure to look repentant as she and Bellara sets up the Firestarter.

Unlike the freezing-agents, these ones aren’t water. They’re more like oil, but a lot more viscous and murkier. They come with a distinct smell too, something like sulfur—sharp to the nose. Taash sneezes in the background when Bellara applies the Firestarter on the Icetalon’s shoulder, and Rook knows the Qunari caught the sharp smell.

Once Rook and Bellara are done setting up, they quickly run back to a safe spot where Neve is already waiting. “You’re all set up, Taash! Hit it!”

The Dragon Hunter’s dragonbreath was nothing but mesmerizing against the dark night sky. Taash jumps and rolls their way to avoid Icetalon’s snapping jaws and blighted claws as they burn the vital spots where Rook and Bellara have applied the components on. This one takes longer to work compared to the freezing-agents, but as Taash keeps up their fire, little by little the result is showing.

Icetalon roars out in pain as fire started appearing all over its frozen body. What starts as an ember stoke quickly into a large flame, and now the dragon looks awfully look like a large lizard burning and roasting on an open pit. The smell of burnt flesh and sulfur fills the air and everyone moves back to get away from the sparks as the large dragon rampages in pain. Taash has it the worst out of them and they’re coughing and gasping because the smell got worse. Bellara quickly gave them the sash she wears around her shoulder so that the cloth could dampen Taash’s sharp nose a little bit.

The dragon rolled on the ground, trying to put out the flames on whatever mud it could find but it wasn’t enough. Icetalon had altered the environment around it earlier—what’s left around it now is half-frozen ground and cold air. It thrashes and moves erratically as the flame burns even brighter, running towards the group in its desperation to find relief. The four of them ran away, scattering, but unfortunately, they missed the fact that Seartooth is doing the same thing while they’ve been busy with Icetalon.

“They’re coming at us from opposite directions!”

The rampaging dragons are boxing them in. Okay, Rook didn’t see this coming. She grabs the last two of her turrets and wishes she’d brought Fortune’s Fury with her. It would be a good time for something to fly in and pierce through the dragons’ scales right about now!

Her prayers were answered.

A large bolt flies in from the heavens and lances through Icetalon’s neck easily like its scales were made of paper. Another bolt flies following it, tearing through one of Seartooth’s wings and piercing its flesh.

Rook turns towards the directions these bolts were coming from and laughs at the familiar face she sees on top of that hill, standing beside the row of ballistas triumphantly.

“Viago!”

“We thought you could use a hand. Fire!”

Another bolt flies through the air and lances Seartooth through its neck.

Evka’s voice echoed against the ruins of the tower. “You’re late, Viago!”

“Yes, but I brought gifts! Poisoned ballista bolts, guaranteed to solve your blighted dragon problem.” The Assassin looks straight at Rook even through this distance. “Let’s bring them down, Rook!”

There is something about people coming together to fight against a common enemy that really gives Rook hope, so Viago’s words are very invigorating. She turns to the other three with a large grin.

“Icetalon is weakening, let’s get its ass first.”

“Way ahead of you.” Taash said, a feral grin on their face as they raise their axe in challenge at the rampaging ice dragon. Rook follows with her two swords and the two mages in their team are following behind them.

Neve’s Time Slow and Bellara’s Enfeebling Shots are casted one after another. Neve slows down Icetalon just before it got into Taash’s range, and Bellara staggers it, making the large lizard falls to its knees. Its movement is sluggish now, compared to earlier, because the poison in Viago’s bolts is starting to take effect.

Rook was waiting for it as it falls down, positioning herself and then thrusting her broken blade upwards to pierce the underside of its mouth. She pushes in as far as she could and twisted. Gravity did the rest of the work, and Rook rolls aside as blighted blood sprays from the wound, leaving her sword stuck piercing the flesh.

Taash comes in with running jump, double axes raised, and delivered Dragonfire Strike at the jerking head. Their attack hits with a loud crash, and the force behind it sends the head slamming against the ground. When the dust clears, the top of Icetalon’s head have been cracked open, and two gaping fatal wounds have been successfully inflicted on the dragon via Rook’s broken sword and Taash’s axes.

The dragon hacks wetly and gasps as Taash once more move to slash open its windpipe. The thing is dying, and dying fast from all the blood loss. It is done. The carcass is slowly being eaten by the component-triggered flames as the group moves to take down Seartooth.

This one might not go down as easily as Icetalon did.

It’s still half encased in Neve’s ice coffin, but the puddle around it shows that it’s been melting bit by bit. Large red pupils watch them closely as they move closer to it, bidding its time and distance to attack like a wounded animal would. Though it is grounded, Seartooth’s head is free of the ice. It still sends out fire blasts at the team to keep them out from melee-range.

“Viago! Bolt!” Rook yells out, and two poisoned bolts flies in one after another.

Seartooth blasts a fireball towards one bolt, and changed its trajectory into falling on the ground five feet away from it. The other bolt lances through its neck, and adds another dose of poison through the lizard’s bloodstream.

Bellara uses the bolt in the neck as a lightning rod, sending multiple Fade Bolts coursing through it, amplifying her spell enough that lightning starts to crackle beneath the scales all over its body. Taash and Rook moves in and slices at both of its front legs. Taash and their great strength slices open the tendons of the right front leg. Blood sprays out of it as Seartooth slams down on the ground, and they move to help Rook with the other leg. The wound on this one is deeper with both of their efforts, and the dragon falls onto its side with all four of its legs incapacitated.

Blood pools around it, and its belly—and heart—is wide open.

“Your turn, Neve!” Taash calls out as they and Rook have jumped away from melee-range.

The frost mage is ready. She’s been manipulating all the water she could find around them into one large ice lance, spinning threateningly above the dragon. Its tip is as sharp as sharp could go and she’s aiming it at the heart. Neve is muttering under her breath, concentrating heavily to make sure that this one shot will end this dragon—and all the suffering it represents.

The thing is, even though the dragon’s four legs are incapacitated, and the head is unmovable, there is still one more limb that dragons can move apart from all these.

The tail.

The large, thick, hot tail comes in from the side in a wide arc and it’s coming fast. Rook as the one on the far edge of their formation saw it ahead of the others, and she knows it’s going to sweep all of them away if nothing stops it. Neve couldn’t budge from her casting, there wasn’t time—

She moves in the path of the tail flick and raises her sword to parry it, bracing for impact.

The tail caught her in the sternum with a force of like nothing she’s ever felt before. She blacked out from the pain for a few seconds and feels her sword breaks against the front of her armor. The force of the tail flick sends her sliding backwards, blood spraying out of her mouth, and she thought that was the end of it.

She was wrong. The end of the tail flick, the tip of the tail, caught her on the head. Rook flipped and flies through the air like a ragdoll before landing on a heap a far distance away on the wet, muddy ground.

She coughs, and gasps, and tastes blood in her mouth amidst the mud on her tongue. So much blood, but Rook is conscious. Her head is spinning, but she’s still alive. Her ears are ringing again, but she can hear Bellara’s voice somewhere above her, coming closer.

“I’ve got her, Neve! Don’t look away!”

“Kill it before it can attack again!”

Rook hacks and wheezes, and gentle hands slowly turns her body around. “Rook! It’s me, don’t worry I’ve got—oh, oh no.”

She can’t speak. Why can’t she speak? Her head—her face hurts. And she can’t see anything.

Bellara mutters a spell and comfortable warmth envelops her, turning down the pain. Her body feels better, but her face—why can’t she talk yet?

When her body feels almost back to normal, save feeling like a rib is broken, Rook sat up. Her vision is still unclear but she can see Bellara’s face. She looks horrified. Rook moves to speak—and hissed.

“Don’t speak, Rook. You’ll make it worse.” Rook shoots her a questioning glance, asking what’s going on, and the elven woman bit her lip. “You—the right side of your face is torn open. I- healed it but—it’s not, it’s not closing.”

The tip of Seartooth’s tail sliced the right side of her face open so now she can’t move her mouth without feeling searing pain. Rook takes off a glove and carefully traces the wound—it starts at the corner of her mouth and reaches somewhere under her ear. It’s a large tear, she’s going to need stitches and a lot of healing.

Fuck. Guess this is why people wear helmets.

Wait, what about—

“Neve and Taash are fine.” Bellara caught her panicked look, and gestured somewhere behind Rook. The other two members of their team are finishing off the dragon and Rook sees Neve’s ice lance piercing Seartooth right at the heart. The dragon is still jerking, but it’s definitely dying under the watch of the other two.

Rook lets out a relieved sigh.

She doesn’t mind getting injured as long as the quarry is dead. Her friend looks horrified still at the sight of her wound, though, and Rook pats her shoulder to comfort her. She can’t speak so she flashes Bellara a thumbs up as a thanks.

Bellara caught her message and nodded, before carefully helping Rook back to her feet just in time to tune in to Ghilan’nain’s taunting.

“Confidence. Eagerness. All for naught.” Her tentacles move ominously around her as she speaks. “You think the blight is death. It is raw potential. A perfect tool of creation.”

The tentacles slithered upon the ground and move to wrap themselves around Seartooth and Icetalon, dragging the dragons towards the blighted God as blighted magic begins enveloping the two carcasses. Rook has a bad feeling about this. The last time she did this to a dragon, it grew two extra heads!

“She’s reanimating the dragons!” Evka’s shout was heard loud and clear across the battlefield. “Ballistas! Fire!”

Bolts flies through the air at her command but Ghilan’nain’s tentacles swats them away like they were nothing but flies. They were too far away to catch her right where it’s weak—her tentacles are far too formidable from that distance.

Rook moves without warning, dashing ahead towards the God and ignoring Bellara’s voice calling from behind her.

Ghilan’nain has to be stopped. Now. Or everything will be for naught!

//

Neve saw that tail moving far too late because of how engrossed she was in her casting. She kept her eyes off of it at first, until she heard a loud thud and then her two friends’ reaction to it.

She turns—

And saw Rook flying through the air, sword broken, from the flick of the dragon tail.

For a moment her heart stopped, and her body jerks to move, but Bellara’s words stopped her.

The elven mage is running towards Rook’s unmoving heap on the ground, on the pool of her own blood, and Neve is horrified. This is the second time this woman has been injured during mission and the second time she’s injured under Neve’s watch.

She’s angry—but at whom she doesn’t know.

“Neve!” Taash’ furious voice calls out and she turns. “Kill it before it can attack again!”

Another tail flick could inflict the same damage on the rest of the team like it did Rook. Neve needed no more convincing. She brings down her large ice lance with a yell, pushing it down with all its might to pierce through the hot scales of the fire dragon. Blighted blood sprays everywhere like a cursed fountain as the lance gets deeper and deeper. Taash helped direct her to aim at the heart—and now she’s watching in relish as the damn dragon jerks and twitches as it reaches the end of its life.

Taash is watching close by, ready in case this dragon is going to pull another trick—but, nothing. It gasps and sputters as it fades away and Neve feels a large amount of weight lifting off of her shoulders as she watches it die.

That was for Minrathous.

That was for her home.

Finally, the wicked dragon is dead.

But of course, Ghilan’nain would never let things be if she can do something about it.

Her tentacles slithers and moves to wrap around the two dragons and pulls their carcasses back to her. Neve feels her twisted magic tugging harshly on the veil, forcefully yanking it open to gain more access to the blight that is locked away. Horror dawns on her when Neve realizes that she’s in preparation of reanimating her dragons.

Evka shouts out for the ballistas to attack, but the tentacles proved to be a formidable barrier. The bolts were swatted away easily, and it’s frustrating to see. They have to go closer to attack—

And once more, Neve feels her heart almost stop when she sees a familiar figure running towards the center of all this madness.

Rook is running with all her might towards Ghilan’nain, and this time Neve follows without even thinking twice.

She knows this walking trouble will need backup for whatever insane idea she gets in her head, and now it’s her turn to have Rook’s back just as she had Neve’s.

Neve caught up with Rook soon enough and this is actually something that doesn’t usually happen. Rook is much faster than her—the fact that Neve could catch up to her while they’re running now means that Rook isn’t at her best.

She grits her teeth and follows the rogue as she jumps over and slides under multiple tentacles to reach the half-broken ballista by Ghilan’nain’s feet. Rook lifted the back end of the ballista, and aims the bolt at Ghilan’nain with sure movements. The ballista is broken, but the bolt is already placed in and ready to shoot—

And with one hit from Rook’s fist upon the machinery, the bolt flies towards the blighted God.

Neve’s head turns to follow the bolt flying through the air, and she lets out a disbelieving gasp when it lances Ghilan’nain in her center. The now mortal blighted God staggers to her side, letting out a pained cry that is satisfying to hear. She deserves that and more for all the pain and suffering she’s inflicted at Weisshaupt.

The blighted dragons fall off of her tentacles, mercifully still dead as her reanimation process is interrupted before it could even begin.

The Grey Wardens move in at Evka’s command towards the wounded God, and Rook follows as if she’s not heavily injured. Neve is half-exasperated, but she knows that nothing short of death would stop Rook in her tracks.

And it was here that she feels it. The veil thrumming—struggling like something was ripping it open.

A terrifying vibration of magic unlike any other she’s ever felt before.

Neve felt mind-numbing fear spreading through her body as the magic gets stronger with every second.

She’s felt something similar to this before, the night of Solas’ ritual. But this? This is on a much different scale.

A much bigger scale.

Lightning crackles as a large portal materializes in the air, like a wound tearing open in the very reality itself.

A figure appeared from within the portal—

And the magic pressure explodes.

It was a terrifying amount of magic blast casted without a spoken spell, and Neve sees the Grey Wardens that were advancing upon Ghilan’nain flying through the air like they were nothing but ants blown by the wind.

Neve knows that if Rook gets the full impact of this powerful blast, she will die because of her vicinity to Ghilan’nain and this newcomer. She moves and places herself in front of Rook, summoning every ounce of her leftover power and mana to double cast Time Slow and ice barriers to its strongest potential.

The crest of Ice and Time materializes in the air as her barriers takes form, and she heaves—pushing against the onslaught of powerful magic trying to blast them away. Neve digs in her feet against the ground and puts her every strength against this barrier—this has to hold or they will both die.

Time slows around them, around her and Rook, and then—

Voices.

“Sister.” The man in the curved, horned crown said in his deep voice that Neve can hear inside her head. “Do not be blinded by righteous anger.”

“They stole Razikale from me, Elgar’nan. My greatest creation!”

Elgar’nan. The other God that was set loose from the Fade Prison.

What a monster.

“A thrall is easily replaced. You are not. Without you the blight is a brute weapon. Only your hands mold it to life.”

Neve is disgusted by how much reverence she hears in his voice of the blight that caused Thedas much of its destructions along the years. The arrogance—they truly see themselves above the rest of them.

Elgar’nan uses his magic to remove the ballista bolt that pierced through Ghilan’nain, and the veil responds to the blight magic that he employs to heal her. Ghilan’nain gasped out in pain, and said something about their work in Arlathan.

Evka did mention something about Arlathan and the Venatori earlier—

“One resists.”

The hair on the back of Neve’s neck stands up as she feels scrutinizing eyes one her, lingering for a few seconds before moving away.

“The Dread Wolf’s influence. His presence lingers. His little pawn, acting in his name.”

Rook.

Neve turns to her companion to see her staring defiantly back at Elgar’nan. A part of her wants to say no, don’t attract their attention—but she knows that she’s too late. Both Ghilan’nain, and now Elgar’nan, have their eyes on Rook. Solas’ presence in her head, and the Lyrium Dagger she carries with her makes her their walking target.

And Neve fears for her. For what will come for her because of this defiance.

“Eyes like the rebellious Dread Wolf himself. Ever defiant. For now.”

His threat is more of a promise and Neve watch as Elgar’nan takes Ghilan’nain by the hand before disappearing back into the portal.

Neve’s barriers break with the sound of shattering glasses as time around them returns to normal. The Grey Wardens lands on the ground with various shouts and sounds, of steels hitting the ground and bones breaking from the harsh impact.

Now that her spell is broken, Neve could feel how spent she was from holding multiple barriers singlehandedly against that strong magic. She’s out of mana, and have been stretching what’s left to its very last bit. The headache is now settling in, the cold—Neve sways in her spot and her knees buckled—

And landed in strong, steady arms as Rook caught her.

Rook lowers them to the ground gently and from this up-close Neve can finally see the injury the dragon had inflicted on her. The right side of Rook’s face is torn open—a wide, deep gash that is still bleeding, and the area around the neck and shoulder of this woman’s armor is soaked in blood.

Anger bubbles in Neve for the recklessness that she’s shown, but more than that, she feels overwhelming relief.

Rook is still alive, injured but alive. And they all made it through this mess, even with Elgar’nan’s surprise visit.

Two blighted dragons are dead, and one of them was the bane of Minrathous. The figure that haunted Neve for months until she could finally have her revenge.

The relief overpowers anger and she lets herself collapse in Rook’s arms.

She’s so glad.

So damn glad.

She can finally move on.

Neve weeps as reality settles around her.

She’s finally free.

//

Rook stubbornly carries her to the healers’ area.

“Enough! I want off, Rook!” Neve struggles, but Rook is stubborn and stronger than her. The infuriating rogue only rolls her eyes and tightened her hold around Neve.

Neve doesn’t mind being supported when she needs to be—she can recognize the times when she needs help. But right now? This is not the kind of support she wants! Rook is carrying her in a bridal carry and it’s embarrassing to be held like this as Rook makes her way towards where the rest of the troops are waiting.

She burns under the many, many, gazes looking at her and Neve wants to disappear as they walk past these people. Neve caught Bellara’s teasing gaze as they reach Taash and her and Neve grew flustered. She couldn’t do anything but swallow her complaints, because if Neve makes an even bigger fuss in this position, it won’t just be Bellara who’s teasing her. Neve could see Taash’ eyes dancing, but they, mercifully, doesn’t say anything.

Rook couldn’t talk because of her face injury, so Neve can’t even bait her into an argument, so she just—sulks, in Rook’s arms, as she’s being carried.

It’s not uncomfortable…but she is a woman in her 30s, and being carried like this at her age is just…

She struggles with herself for like forty seconds, before sighing out, and giving up.

Well. What’s the harm.

Neve leans her head against Rook’s chest as comfortably as she could, and closes her eyes. It’s odd how much relief she’s feeling from this simple contact. She feels the lightest she’s ever been ever since that fateful day.

“Thank you.” Neve says, just quiet enough for Rook and her to hear.

Rook doesn’t answer, she couldn’t, but Neve feels the rogue tightening her hold around her. A wordless response and acknowledgement to her gratitude.

Neve keeps her eyes closed and enjoying not having to walk around for once until they finally arrive at the healer’s triage area. The Grey Warden healer that Rook approaches, a man with long hair, gapes at the sight of her in Rook’s arms.

“Uh,” The healer turns to look between Neve and Rook. “Which one of you need healing?”

“She does.” Neve jabs a finger at the rogue carrying her. Rook rolls her eyes before extending her arms and placing Neve gently on an empty bedroll besides the man.

“Rook, your face is going to need stitches.” The healer said to Rook as he moves towards Neve. He’s torn which one of them he should inspect first, but since Grey Wardens has hierarchy, he’s taking Rook’s wordless request to check on Neve first as an order.

Rook nods at his words, and then points at another healer who’s waving at them.

“Right, she’s free. Go on, then. I’ll take care of her.” Rook sends Neve a look that says be good and its now Neve’s turn to roll her eyes. The rogue snorts, and leaves with a reassuring squeeze of Neve’s hand.

Neve watches her go before a throat-clearing cough takes her attention. It’s the healer.

“Um, ma’am. I will be taking a look at your injuries. My name is Flynn and I’m the Wardens’ apprentice physician.”

The detective nods and relaxes as the healer fusses over her. His movements are sure and confident even though his words are awkward. Flynn…where has Neve heard that name before?

Wait.

“Are you the Flynn Taash has been talking to?” Neve asks, putting things together from the conversation she and the dragon hunter have had in the Lighthouse. “The recent Grey Warden recruit who’s from Lavendel?”

Flynn smiles at her, the awkwardness in his—their face receding. “Yes, that is me. I didn’t know Taash has been talking. It’s nice to meet another of Taash and Rook’s friends.”

“I’m Neve. Thanks for this. Though Rook is the one who’s more injured.” She adds with a roll of her eyes and Flynn laughs as they wrap a gauze around her wrists.

“She’s nice like that. Not good for the heart though. May I look at your legs? Oh.” They saw Neve’s prosthetic leg. “What a nice design. Would you like me to take a look at it?”

“At my prosthetic?”

“Your right leg. You were fighting two dragons at once, there might be bruising.”

Ah. “Give me a moment to take it off.”

Flynn nodded. “I will grab a couple of muscle-soothing salves, so take your time.” They move away towards a pile of boxes and Neve heaves out a sigh. She’s not…entirely comfortable with taking off her prosthetic in public, but Flynn was right. She was running all over the place earlier and had to double down to hold that barrier when Elgar’nan arrived.

Her leg is aching now that she’s actively paying attention to it.

Must have put a lot of weight on it.

Neve shifts on the bedroll, and then stills when familiar boots approach her.

“I think I have something that belongs to you.” Lucanis kneels down before her, holding something teal in his hand. Her hat. Neve pats down her head, and realized that it’s not on her. The Crow smiles. “It flew off when you ran after Rook earlier. I found it under one of Viago’s bolts so, it is a bit damaged.”

Neve takes her hat back and, yes, he’s right. There’s a large tear at the edge, probably because it caught the bolt by the tip. She’ll have to get it fixed. “Thanks, don’t want to lose this.”

Lucanis nods as she puts her hat away and then gestures towards her prosthetic leg, which she’s stretching out. “May I?”

The man means well, and he’s always almost effortlessly nice despite his reputation as an assassin, but Neve has to say no, to this. Her prosthetic is too—private, for just anyone else to touch, and taking it off is out of the question.  

Neve shakes her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.” Lucanis acquiesce with a nod, and move back a little to give Neve space to take off her leg. She carefully undoes the straps, and gently slightly lift up her stump from the comfortable slot above the head of the cobra.

All while this assassin is watching her.

She rolls her eyes. “Do you like watching or something?” Her friend’s face flush as he sputters.

“N-no! No. My apologies, I was just curious of how your—erm. I can go, if you want.”

“Hm.” Neve looks around and points at a stool nearby. “Help me up that stool, and you can go.”

Lucanis chuckles but he did what she asks, helping her move from the flat bedroll onto the small stool, so she can pull away her prosthetic without scraping the bottom of it against the ground. Shit, it’s all banged up. All the tiny scratches and dinks against the metal—one chip at the wrong angle and it would break. Neve really has to take it to get fixed.

Damn dragons!

“What’s wrong?”

Neve sighs. “Nothing important. You can go now.” She adds jokingly, waving him away like a queen would her subject. Lucanis chuckles at her bossiness, but he does as she asks and stands to his feet. He leaves with a smile and Neve watches him go while lightly shaking her head.

Really now, she’s not blind or that oblivious. Lucanis has feelings for her, and Neve has been pretending like she doesn’t see anything. There’s a line drawn between the two of them and the man has been toeing this line carefully ever since Minrathous.

It’s getting more and more obvious lately.

It’s been happening for a while and Neve hasn’t been too sure about how to feel about this. She thought that it’s harmless enough at first. But then the recent changes in things have made her rethink her decision in regards to him. As nice as he is being, Neve is starting to feel a little uncomfortable with his attention when it starts to feel to go beyond friendship.

She doesn’t really want to lead him on. She still has to work with him, after all.

Neve looks past Lucanis’ figure and catches Rook’s gaze from across the triage area. She can’t quite decipher the look on the rogue’s now heavily bandaged face. They stare at each other for a heartbeat, and Neve swears Rook’s face flickers with something before the woman turns away and breaks their gaze.

Oh.

Neve couldn’t even start stressing about this because Flynn comes back with a lot of salves and potions on their hands and when Neve looks up again after helping Flynn roll up the pantleg of her stump—Rook is gone.

Chapter Text

“Now we can take off these bandages…oh. Looks like that’s staying now, Rook. Sorry. It makes a good scar, though.”

Rook tilts her head a bit to the left and narrows her eyes at her reflection on the big infirmary mirror.

The face injury she received from the fight against the fire and ice dragons has been healing faster than normal thanks to magic and the power of medicine. She’s received stitches on site after the battle, which Bellara helped with by pumping her up with healing magic so that Rook doesn’t feel all the pain of having your flesh sewed back together. They told her to keep the stitches in for a week, two at the most, but Rook isn’t comfortable with have them on that long.

She can’t open her mouth too wide because of that damn thing. Can’t speak, can’t whistle—can’t do anything that means moving her face without feeling excruciating pain. She missed eating solid food.

It’s been a very…trying…few days. Rook suspects her friends would lose patience with her if they hadn’t been having so much fun playing charades during their off time. Bellara, Manfred, Harding and Taash were kind enough to indulge her with this during her confinement, visiting her and preventing her from going mad. Davrin is immediately disqualified because he kept translating her gestures into something dramatic that makes her sound like a sap.

Anyway, it’s been a hard week and now, with Harding’s help, the stitches are finally off.

And Rook has a brand-new long scar on her face.

Varric chuckles from his cot in the corner. “Looking good, Kid. Makes you look rugged. This will definitely get all the girls to come flocking.”

Rook rolls her eyes at him. She doesn’t want girls, plural. She just wants one.

One who’s apparently might be eyeing someone else.

She sighs.

Harding smiles at her, the both of them squeezed in front of the mirror. “No extra swelling too. Looks like Neve’s spell really came in clutch.”

…What?

Rook turns to the scout with wide eyes, hands moving fast, telling her to elaborate. What did Harding mean by Neve’s spells? What happened?

“Um.” Harding’s eyes flit this way and back, but then she gives a sigh. “You know, I don’t know why she wants me to keep it a secret anyway. Anyway, Neve’s been checking on you time to time during your bedrest. There’s only so much that potions and healing magic can do when in the face of recovering from a surgery, so she comes in often to cool down your fever. You had a lot—I think it’s the infection from the blight.”

Rook gapes at her. Neve did?

But the woman never— “Never saw her.” Rook tries to hiss through her lips, bursting with questions inside.

“She only comes when you’re asleep. When I tell her to say something to you, she said to just let you rest.” Harding and Emmrich were in charge of Rook’s post-dragon recovery, so the two of them were the ones who witnessed Neve’s secret spellcasting session.

Does—does Neve not want to talk to her? She knows that their moment after the battle ended in bad taste because Rook saw Neve and Lucanis huddled together, but was Neve mad about that?

That night, jealousy stung hard like an old wound, and she was tired, hurt, and not in the right mind to handle something like this. Rook ended up leaving the triage area without saying anything to Neve. She was hoping that they were able to talk when they get back to the Lighthouse, but no, that was out of the question. Rook’s mini surgery on her face had her pumped with sedatives and with her strict order for bedrest the following days, the rogue hasn’t been anywhere near Neve.

And then this happened when Rook’s all unconscious, and would have gone unnoticed had Harding not said anything about it. Why won’t Neve say hi? Rook would not mind. She’s actually happy that Neve cares enough to check on her. Rook is…she doesn’t get this kind of nice treatment a lot.

Honestly that woman, her walls are up so high and then she goes and do this kind of kindness that makes Rook’s little heart burst with emotions. How can Rook not fall hard for her?

She’s dawdled long enough, she thinks. Fuck her injury, she’ll power through it.

“Talk to her, Kid.” Varric says from his cot, smiling knowingly. “You two have a lot of things to say to each other, don’t you?”

Rook huffs. Why is this old man getting up on her business also? He’s asleep most of the time. She turns to Harding then, lowering her head in gratitude.

“Thanks.” She’ll have to thank Emmrich too when she sees him later on.

Harding smiles her. “You’re welcome. I’m glad my sutures are clean so that you don’t look as grotesque like some people in my novel.” She giggles as Rook rolls her eyes, knowing which book she’s talking about. For such a sweet lady she’s got frightening taste in books.

Rook wonders…she pokes Harding on the arm. “Is Neve. Office?” gah, she’s talking like a toddler learning how to speak. Harding looks amused at her frustration, but thankfully she makes no comment of it.

“Yes, she just got back from Dock Town. You can catch her there. I told her that we’re taking out the stitches today.”

Oh good, they won’t miss each other then. Rook tries to bat away the butterfly-dragons of anxiety flapping in her stomach.

“I’ll go and prepare some new salves for you. Come get me if your new scar start hurting, okay?” the very capable Inquisition scout leaves Rook and Varric alone in the quiet of the infirmary.

Rook knows that Varric is grinning at her. She turns to him with a sigh and puts her hands on her waist.

What, old Man? She tries to say with her face and eyes.

Varric grins up at her, seemingly taking pleasure at her suffering. Nothing new, of course, but Rook can’t really fleece him back in Wicked Grace as revenge for his teasing when he’s all sad and sick like this. It’s like robbing a defenseless senior citizen. She may have sticky fingers but she hasn’t sunk that low. Yet.

“Nothing, just thinking of you and Neve. You two make a good couple, Kid. She called you sweet when you first met, remember?”

Oh. Neve did. Rook’s neck feels warm at the reminder.

Varric smiles at her kindly. “Partners. The best ones actually are the ones you never see coming. Trust me, I’ve written books about this.”

Rook snorts, but she’s grateful all the same for his encouraging words. She then glances at the door, thinking about leaving. She has a girl she needs to talk to now that she can talk a little better.

She walks over to the door and points just to make sure Varric gets her message. She has to leave.

Varric nods. “Go. Get some rest too, you’re going to need a lot of it before you next find the Gods. I’m…going to get some of that rest myself.” He yawns, and settles back onto his cot. Rook watches him before walking over to pull the blanket up his shoulders, tucking him in.

For someone who’s been unwell, this man hasn’t been wrapping himself up in layers.

Rook tip-toes out of the room, and closes the door behind her with a gentle snap.

//

Neve was setting up the traps when she heard the knocks, all down on her knees as she wrestles her books inside the basket. She shrugs, kicks the trap against the wall and stands up.

“Come in.” Neve calls as she rounds her desk, one hand reaching for her used quill.

The detective wasn’t all that surprised when it was Rook who steps into the room. Harding came by earlier to tell her that she’s taking out Rook’s stitches today, and the rogue is finally free to roam around the Lighthouse once more.

It’s flattering to know that this would be the first place Rook would go to once she’s out of confinement.

Her eyes immediately zoned in on the new large scar on Rook’s cheek, a souvenir from Seartooth. Even though the flesh has been stitched shut, Neve could still see the blood-soaked injury in her mind’s eyes. If the tail had cut any deeper…Rook’s head would have been sliced in two. She shakes her head lightly to get that image out of her head.

“Hey,” Neve wonders if Rook can talk yet. “How’s the face?”

Rook lets out a snort before shrugging. “Whole,” she says, while moving her mouth as little as possible. It’s obvious that it hurts her to talk still, but this is good progress. Rook gestures at the entire of her office. “What’s with—”

She points, and Neve laughs because yes— “It’s the wisps. They’re drawn to something around here. The boxes are baited with notes, baubles, the thing they steal.” She’s baiting them to see what they like and maybe, toss that away. Still deciding on what to do.

“Maybe it’s you?” Rook asks, as if it’s obvious. Neve shakes her head.

“They’ve been seen here, when I’m not. There’s more to it.”

Rook’s eyes dance with amusement. “Want back-up?” Of course, she would think this is fun. Neve wouldn’t say no to that though, if it keeps Rook around.

“If you’re that bored, sure, I’ll take the company.” Neve places her quill and one of her case notes on Rook’s hand. “Place that in that box there. I have two more to do, and then we wait.”

“Fun.” The two of them then put as many of Neve’s trinkets inside the rest of the boxes, Rook making noises like she’s holding in her laugh a couple of times and Neve figures she’s probably looking over the baits. It’s really unimportant things, but all of them are related to Neve’s cases—well, Neve in general.

These are wisps of curiosity, Emmrich said, so there is a really wide range of possible things that would attract their attention around her.

Once all of the boxes are filled with baits, Rook and Neve plays the waiting game. She leans on her desk, while Rook is leaning against the wall near the door, eyes on Neve’s board of Collected Evidence.

That was Rook’s gift to her, given during the early days of their companionship. She remembers being surprised, and then touched, because Rook gave her a gift based on a passing comment about Neve’s love for local myths. It was thoughtful, and this kind gesture tells Neve a lot about the woman.

And Neve wasn’t the only one who received a personalized gift like this—she’s seen other trinkets in their friends’ rooms as well. That frog figurine in Bellara’s room, the ancient display of griffons in Davrin’s room…or that one haunted statuette in Emmrich’s room that Neve swears keeps saying hi to her whenever she visits. Rook is generous—but most of all, she’s very observant.

“Something on your mind?” her voice pulls Rook out of her musing. The rogue pursed her lips.

“Just thinking.” That fresh scar on her face is not letting Rook be as elaborate as she wants to be. Neve tries to keep her questions simple, so that it would be less painful on Rook’s end.

“About?”

Rook makes wings flapping motion with her hands. “Dragons. You alright?”

Ah. She’s wondering how Neve is after that dragon fight. Neve smiles, still basking in that newfound relief and freedom after felling the bane of her city. She feels like a new woman after that night.

“Downing that damn dragon did wonders.” Rook chuckles and nods with her in agreement.

“Good.” Her friend’s eyes are fond. “Neve Gallus. Dragon Slayer.”

A laugh escapes Neve’s lips unexpectedly because wow, is that a thing now? Then again Neve downed three (four?) dragons, if you count Razikale’s heads as separate individuals. “Let’s not make that a habit, shall we?”

“Lots more dragons. Future.” Rook said with a shrug, actually looking happy about it. Neve suppressed a groan—she doesn’t mind fighting dragons but she does not want that to be a permanent part of her job. Also…

“Let’s not have you anymore injured when it comes to that.” Rook’s gotten injured a lot lately and it’s getting concerning. She’s been doing well with surviving without permanent injuries up until now—what changed?

Rook shrugs and then leaves her wall to approach Neve. She stops just in front of Neve, head tilted and eyes dancing. Neve narrows her eyes even though her lips quirk up in response.

This playfulness is familiar, and usually the prelude of this rogue starting trouble.

“What?” Neve drawls, slightly suspicious.

The Grey Warden in front of her shrugs, but still with the cheeky look on her face. She held out a hand, palm-up, in front of Neve. Like she’s asking for something.

Neve pointedly looks at the hand, and then back up at those playful blue eyes. “What?”

Rook sniffs, and then shakes her hand demandingly. “Hand.”

“That is a hand, yes.” Neve says, just to be difficult. Her answer got her another eyeroll and she smirks. “What do you want, Rook?”

“Gimme your hand.”

It takes her a while to do so, because Neve is a suspicious person by nature. It’s nothing personal because she trusts Rook…she just doesn’t trust her when Rook looks that gleeful.

Neve warily puts her hand on top of Rook’s open palm, and lets out a small oh when it was grasped gently. Rook’s hand is bigger than hers, calloused from years of sword training and meticulous tinkering with various mechanical contraptions. Some people would be repulsed by them, but Neve isn’t one of them.

She’s felt these hands on her before, and they bring her nothing but bliss. She clears her throat when her mind is starting to go nowhere safe, and the rogue in front of her grins, as if she could read Neve’s mind.

There’s no warning before it happened, just a smile and Rook stepping closer—and then she lifts Neve’s hand to her mouth and brushes her lips against the knuckles. Neve’s heart sputters uselessly in her chest as she stares.

It was a soft kiss, gentle press of Rook’s lips against the knuckles of Neve’s right hand that lasted like eons long before the rogue gently pulls away.

“Thank you.” Rook said, her voice full of gratitude of things that Neve can’t really recall at the moment because she could hear her heartbeat in her ears, and the back of her hand is tingling where Rook pressed her lips against it. The rogue lets her hand go after a small squeeze, and then steps back as if she’s giving Neve time to process.

Neve is still staring, her face a little hot, and her eyes are suddenly very aware of Rook’s lips—how the rogue is currently licking them. Her thoughts are slipping through her grasp because—what—?

When nothing comes from Neve, Rook lets out a small sigh, looking a little awkward.

“Look, Neve…”

“Rook, I—"

One of the wooden traps shuts with loud snap that pulls the two out of their intense staring. An indignant trilling follows, and Neve couldn’t help her laugh, especially when she hears Rook’s laughter following.

The wisp breaks the tension, and while Neve is relieved, she knows it’s not the end. Her heart is slamming against her ribcages as she moves to check on the trap.

“I think we caught a wisp.” Neve pokes the little wisp inside the trap with a finger, and it trills in delight.

“That all?” Rook’s voice comes from above her, eyes still on Neve like nothing else matters besides her.

The wisp flies out of its trap with happy trills and Neve stands back up, unsure and afraid, because that look in Rook eyes is significant and as much as she wants to pretend that she doesn’t see it—Neve does and that’s exactly where the problem lies.

“Rook.” Her voice wavers, and she desperately look for a way to speak her mind without appearing pathetic. Neve can face Venatori blood mages without a problem, but have her talk to one girl about feelings and her every being trembles. “Look, Rook, I don’t ask for much. Or for anything. You know the world’s not fair on a good day.”

Neve puts some space between them, leaning against her desk and feeling the most exposed she’s been in quite a while. She’s aware of Rook’s eyes watching her, wanting to be close but staying away all because Neve might be uncomfortable.

She wishes Rook would stop being so considerate. It’s not doing her heart any favors.

She looks up and meet those blue eyes that always look at Neve like she’s the center of her world. “You and me, Rook. We chase trouble. So, what can we ask for?”

All they’ve got waiting for them is suffering, injuries, and probably the end of the world as they know it. Neve doesn’t quite dare to even hope because when there is hope, there is crushing disappointment and hurt to follow. She’s been down this road before, hoping and wishing only to be met with disappointment, hurt, betrayal and heartbreak. There’s only so much a woman can take.

Things were a lot easier when Rook is just a colleague she worked with, a formerly faceless stranger whom she had a one-night stand with without her realizing it. But then Rook became a friend, a comrade, a confidant…and then Neve’s gotten attached even with her best effort of keeping that distance between them. Not even the razing of her city could stop this feeling from growing inside of her. It’s maddening.

This cannot end well. Neve knows it.

The look on Rook’s face is kind, and understanding, and Neve’s heart twisted painfully at the sight. The rogue’s footsteps are slow as she moves to lean besides Neve on the desk, their shoulders touching like that day in the music room when Rook poured her heart out to her. She knows Rook responds well to physical touches—and Neve couldn’t deny that she receives the same comfort when it comes to this woman.

“Today? Wisp hunt. Think it went well.”

A small smile is tugged from her lips at Rook’s attempt of levity. “Is that so?”

Rook’s eyes are on her, but Neve finds it difficult to look straight at her.

“Good things happen, Neve.” The rogue says in a way that lets Neve know that it’s a promise.

Rook does this sometimes, she says things so confidently, so surely, that it gets people to believe in them. Neve’s witnessed this in battle before—but she’d never expected to hear this when they’re alone. Just one sentence, and it calms down the panicked thoughts inside her head.

The wisps trills in the corner, as if agreeing with Rook. Neve lets out a small sigh before she turns to face this rogue who slips through her walls like those dashing rogues she’s read in Bellara’s romance novels. She’s got no chance of defending herself in the face of Rook’s relentless devotion.

There is undisguised affection on the younger woman’s face and Neve’s bruised heart stutters in her chest.

She reaches out a hand and cups the uninjured side of Rook’s face. Neve has to smile when she realizes that this woman’s not running high with fever anymore. Her spell did wonders.

“You know,” her voice comes out soft and breathless. “I think you might be trouble.”

The kind of trouble that came and put colors in Neve’s life of black and white. She wonders now, what life would be like without Rook. She hopes she’ll never have to know.

Neve’s eyes flutter close as she leans in, and she could feel Rook’s warm breath on her face—

A wisp trills loudly as it flies between them. Neve’s eyes snap open as the two of them pulled away in reflex. There was a spark and then a grunt. Neve immediately reaches for Rook’s arm in the case that she launches herself backwards way too fast.

“You okay?”

“M’Good.”

Neve sighs in relief, but the rest of her feelings are a mess. She doesn’t really know how to feel at being interrupted by these little critters. Relieved? Annoyed? Disappointed?

She takes a quick glance at Rook’s face, and sees that the rogue seems to be facing a similar dilemma.

They were so close. Being cut halfway before anything can happen is—she clears her throat, feeling her nerves still alive with tension. Neve rounds her desk, trying not to look like she’s running away before sitting in her chair, hand grasping it desperately for a semblance of composure.

She sees Rook’s shoulders slump, and then lets out a sigh before she stands to her feet. Her eyes are saying a lot of things when Rook looks back at her, but Neve’s not sure how to read them. It’s clear that they both want the same thing, but…

The door closes behind Rook with a snap and Neve hangs her head.

“Stupid.” she curses at herself. And maybe at the wisps too, a little.

//

Harding looks up at her with horror on her face. Rook sniffs.

“Harding. Think I tore my cheek open.”

“You think?!” the scout’s voice is shrill as she scrambles up to her feet, still gaping at Rook who’s currently dripping blood down the right side of her face. “What the—we just got the stitches out, Rook! What did you do?”

Tried to kiss a girl Rook thinks inwardly, but she’s not going to say that out loud. She’s still vibrating with restless energy after that almost-kiss with Neve that those wisps interrupted. Curse those wisps, what even did she do to them?

Rook’s face is throbbing and hurting again as she sat down on Harding’s bedroll while the scout run off to get her medicine box. Looking back to earlier, though Rook severely regrets the ending, the way how things progressed felt like a dream came true.

They almost kissed… This feeling, like she’s half-dying again, it’s worth it.

Harding probably wouldn’t agree with her, Rook thinks as the scout got back to work on the injury, so she won’t tell her.

It’ll be just her and Neve’s little secret.

//

In a series of predictable events, Neve buries herself in work to get over the stress of almost kissing Rook. It’s not the bad kind of stress…for once. It’s more like anxiety? The kind that makes Neve feel faint if she keeps thinking back on it, all cold palm and perspirations, and suddenly needing to breathe deeply and feeling like she’s suffering a small heart attack.

Is it normal for feeling like this after attempting to kiss a girl?

She knows she’s not making any real progress with work—she’s just running away.

Because she almost. Kissed. Rook.

They’ve slept together before, but that was different. That was something with no emotions attached behind it. The two of them find each other attractive, and did something about it. This part Neve can live with because yes, she does find Rook attractive.

It’s the emotional part that is still messing her up inside.

She never expected to feel so much for Rook. She can deal with a crush; crushes are normal she gets them a lot when she sees competent people doing their jobs competently—but this? This is starting to alarmingly feel like nothing like that.

And it’s frightening.

And the more frightening thing about it?

It’s the fact that Rook is possibly aware of it.

She probably is after earlier.

Neve wants to scream.

She instead paces around her office agitatedly.

She wants to yell at past-Neve to say no when a certain handsome rogue comes up to her table at that random tavern and asked if she could take that empty seat across of her.

That moment is the start of all these.

But then again, Neve has a feeling that even if they didn’t meet that night, she would still end up developing feelings for Rook anyway. It’s hard to resist such an attentive and charming person. Neve is so touch-starved that getting kissed on the hand had her maudlin like a lovestruck maiden. She’s so exasperated at herself. Why is she like this?

She’s not lovestruck nor is she a maiden.

How do people handle feelings when they get this messy?

Coffee probably. Lots and lots of coffee.

Neve taps her foot impatiently as she waits for her coffee to boil. The Lighthouse is quiet when she made her way from her office to the dining room, so she figured its sometime past midnight. She fights the urge to visit Rook because she’s still not sure how to—how to act in front of Rook just yet.

She needs time to settle down.

Her stomach roils with anxiety when Neve thinks about facing Rook after everything. What kind of face should she put on around her?

Ooooohhhhhh she’s in trouble. Rook really is trouble.

“Neve?”

The approaching footsteps had Neve look up to see Lucanis walking out of his room. Hard to tell which one of them is more surprised by the other.

“When did you get back?”

“Are you boiling coffee?”

Neve laughs at the indignation in his voice. “I just want my damn coffee, Lucanis.”

The Antivan lets out a deep sigh before going to the drawers and started rummaging around in it. He takes out his trusted coffee pot, some of his best beans, and the cloth Neve’s seen used to filter the coffee.

“Leave this to me and take a seat. It won’t take long.” He kills the stove while muttering about boiled coffee and Neve happily accepts his offer.

She sits down on one of the chairs and watches him work, inhaling the calming smell of coffee brewing that’s starting to permeate the room. Neve hums, finding her racing mind slowing down a bit because of the soothing smell.

“Can’t sleep?” Lucanis asks, glancing up from his meticulous work of coffee making.

Neve hums, one teal-painted finger tapping the table. “Something like that. Work, as usual.” And girls. Well, a girl.

“You know you can knock on my door if you want coffee. There’s no need to…boil anything…”

She snorts. He’s still on that. “I’m still fine, thanks.”

He hums as he checks the water temperature. “Black or—”

“Black, thank you.”

A little more waiting before their coffee are done and Lucanis placed a cup in front of Neve, black just like how she prefers it, and another one on the table in front of himself before he pulls out a chair besides Neve.

“I have a fresh pot for you if you want to take some back to your office.” He said, waving a hand at where he was making coffee before.  

Neve nods at him gratefully before taking a sip of her drink. She lets out a relieved sigh at the taste of familiar bitterness upon her tongue. Rook and her sweet tooth wouldn’t like this. Honestly, how can a person go through grueling Grey Warden training without coffee? Neve doesn’t understand.

“You look distracted. Something on your mind?”

There is, but Neve isn’t sure if she wants to share. Not with him, especially. “Racing minds. It happens every now and then.”

“I can listen, if you want to talk.”

His eyes are soft when he looks at her and Neve has to let out a sigh because, crap. Seems like the day is not done with throwing her into emotional situations and then demanding her to deal with it.

Then again, it’s better to stop this early. She doesn’t want to hurt either Rook or Lucanis.

Her cup clinks against its saucer as Neve chooses her words.

“Look, Lucanis. I’m flattered, but I don’t feel the same way.” The Crow’s eyes widened with surprise at her bluntness.

“How did you—"

“You haven’t been exactly subtle…” Neve taps her finger on the table. “And offering a girl coffee at 4am isn’t exactly platonic.” He was very obvious about it that Neve wonders if the others caught onto his feelings for her as well. Does Rook?

There’s a beat as the Crow processes this, and then he lets out a chuckle. “I figured. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, with my feelings.”

“You’re fine. I just don’t want you to take it the wrong way. Nothing can happen between us.” The line drawn between them is finally broken by Neve’s words.

Lucanis nods. “May I ask why?”

There’s a while of consideration that follows his question. A big part of her does not like to share her innermost feelings—but at the same time, she needs to cut off the branches before further complications could grow.

“Because I resent you for being Rook’s first choice.”

Lucanis stares at her blankly and Neve smiles bitterly at the look. “That day when she was to make a choice, she chose your city instead of mine. I know that it’s neither Rook’s nor your faults that my city burned, but it pained me nonetheless. To see that Treviso thrived while Minrathous is eating itself alive from the inside is…difficult. And I can’t help that whenever I see your face, I get reminded of that day.”

Neve spent a long time struggling with these feelings after that fateful day. Rook took some of her anger, but Lucanis—he gets her resentment. Maybe it was also jealousy at some part because Rook chose to go to help him instead of helping her. This was why she’s uncomfortable when he’s nice to her. Neve doesn’t handle being pitied well.

“As you can see, I am not a good person.” She adds with a self-deprecating smile. “You are a nice man, Lucanis. I think you deserve someone who’s not as bitter as I am.”

To think that Rook stays interested in her even after everything was nothing sort of a miracle.

The Antivan stays silent for a while, mulling over her words. Neve wonders if he’s going to argue—to make a case just to fight for a chance. But then the man lets out a sigh before taking another sip of his coffee.

“I suppose it’s fair to feel like that after everything that’s happened. Maybe, if I was in your place, I would feel the same way as well.” His eyes are thoughtful, perhaps imagining if things were the other way around. “You cannot help your feelings as I cannot help mine. It’s unfortunate.”

“I’m sorry.” Neve murmurs over the rim of her cup. Lucanis bows his head gracefully.

“But I would like to disagree on something that you said.”

“Which one?”

His eyes are kind when he speaks. “I still think you are a good person, Neve. One life-changing event cannot change a person’s nature that easily.”

She lets out a snort at his words. “Stop saying such sweet words. Someone might get jealous.”

“I have none like that on my end. Do you?”

Neve hesitates as Rook’s face comes to mind. She said nothing but she drinks her coffee rather greedily to avoid responding as panic slowly takes over. Damn this man. Lucanis looks amused at her reaction.

“Oh, you do!”

“Not sure this is relevant for this conversation—”

“No, this is very relevant.” Why is this man looking happy after being turned down?! “You turned me down because you don’t feel the same way, and there’s someone else.”

Neve frowns at him unhappily “No.” she lies through her teeth even though she knows that Lucanis won’t buy it. The man chuckled at her not unkindly, but his eyes are understanding.

“It’s alright. I’m sure they feel the same way.”

“I’m not talking to you about this.”

Lucanis laughs. “Fine, fine. But I will still give a toast,” he lifts his cup of coffee to her. “I hope you two are happy together.”

He is sincere in his words, but Neve’s jaded self could not find it in her to feel the same way.

“Thank you.” She said nonetheless.

The rest of their time enjoying their coffee together is filled with small talk outside of romance, and Neve finds it enjoyable until she starts to feel fatigue settling in.

When she walks back to her office, sometimes before dawn breaks, she feels comparatively better than she was before.

It’s a good feeling, Neve decided.

//

That conversation she had with Lucanis in the dead of the night had her visiting Rook in her room, hours later. The anxiety over their failed kiss has abated, but now she’s filled with the indescribable urge to see the rogue’s face. Neve doesn’t understand, but for once she doesn’t feel the urge to bury herself in work so she figured that this would be a good time for a small break.

She goes to Rook’s room, and then stares at the latter’s face with muted horror.

Rook looks back at her with a small grimace, the previously clean scar that could be seen on her face is now covered with heavy bandages once more.

“What…” Neve’s mind quickly puts things together and guilt quickly settles in when she remembered what happened yesterday. “Did I—?”

That was because of what they did wasn’t it? Because of her? That wisp came out of nowhere and scared the two of them apart—is this because of that?

Her companion seems to sense that her mind is spiraling in all the bad ways and Rook rolls her eyes, before reaching up to tug her down and to join the rogue on the floor of the meditation room. Neve follows, sitting down with a frown, before looking around at the mess of things around them.

There’s…a lot of…metals…and things…okay, Neve doesn’t understand what she’s looking at but it seemed like Rook is taking apart her weapons. She looks warily at the large box with suspicious looking labeled bags of powders and glass containers with unnatural colored liquids sitting in it. The strong smell of lyrium and pepper and some other peculiar smelling things wafting from that box means that thing is where the materials of the explosives this rogue is so fond of are put away in.

“Cleaning up?”

Rook glances at her, stopping her delicate measuring of pouring liquid in a vial, and gives a shrug. “Cleaning. Prepping.” She licks her lips. “Restocking.”

To Neve, a mage, preparing for battles means buying more lyrium potions and wiping down her scepters and rods free from bloodstains. To Rook, a Saboteur, restocking is the perfect word to use.

“Have the others helped you with these?” Harding and Lucanis would be more helpful with their hands than hers, she’s sure. Neve’s got no idea what any of these liquids in bottles are for.

The rogue shakes her head, frowning. “No. Secret.”

Secret? “Then why am I here?”

Rook lets out a small laugh, before tilting her head and gives Neve a look. “You’re special.”

Neve feels her neck burns, and she looks away, flustered, suddenly remembering at what transpired in her office just yesterday. It’s funny because she’s acting like she hasn’t repeated that incident numerous times before in her head. She has, much to her embarrassment.

A hand grabs hers gently, and then Rook hands her a turret, a rag, and a bottle of oil. “Help. Please.” She’s still moving her lips as little as possible, but the message is clear. Neve has to fight herself to look away from those lips before turning to the turret in her hands.

This thing saved Neve’s life during that fight with Razikale. Rook’s contraptions are quite formidable, with how well-designed they are. She reminds Neve of Varric and his Bianca a little bit.

Neve smiles at the memory. “Fine. But you tell me how much oil to use, I’ve never done this before.” Neve’s only ever oiled her prosthetic, but she thinks it’s different compared to oiling weapons.

Speaking of which.

“Rook.” She calls, and her friend(?) turns to her immediately, pausing in her measuring of those dangerous powders. Rook tilts her head again, asking what?

“I need to go see someone about my prosthetic soon. Sometime soon.” Neve tries her best to look unaffected. “Do you want to come with me? Then?”

She’s never done this before. To actually share things about her prosthetic. But Rook shared something of hers that she keeps secret from everyone else. Neve just, she wants to reciprocate. Somewhat.

She rolls her eyes at herself.

Rook, oblivious to her inner thoughts, leans over to take a look at Neve’s dwarven leg with critical eyes. There’s a little frown on her face before she pulls back, nodding, face serious.

“I’ll come.” She says, a bit muffled because of the bandages. “I’ll carry you. To the store.”

There’s a moment where Neve remembers that embarrassing sequence of her being carried across the battlefield in front of all those Grey Wardens. It was…nice, but Neve would die if she has to suffer being carried like that through Minrathous.

“No. Thank you, but no.”

Rook chortles, the scoundrel, and Neve scowls at her, but she knows she doesn’t quite mean it. As much as Neve complains about it outwardly, she found herself rather enjoying it. It was a stolen moment of comfort that Rook kindly gave her when Neve really needed it.

She doesn’t know how Rook does it, but…Rook always knows when Neve needed support, and is always, unfailingly, there for it.

Neve is grateful.

The two spend the rest of their time together like that, just sitting side by side, shoulders touching, as Neve helps Rook with her traps and weapons and learning more and more about how Saboteurs prepare for battle.

There’s actually a lot of things that goes into Rook’s plannings that Neve feels a little bit intimidated just from looking at the list, but she realizes that all these obsessive preparations is so that their team can come back from missions safely and whole.

Honestly, Rook may have doubted herself a lot of times before, but Neve thinks she’s doing a really good job both as a fighter and as a leader of the team.

Varric chose his successor well.

//

Dock Town still rains at night to the point that Rook wonders if it ever stops raining around here.

The low-quality parchment in her hand is slowly getting soaked from the water, but the script is still readable. And the content makes everyone frown.

“Who is…this ‘Friend of Minrathous’?” Emmrich wonders out loud, lanky form leaning over Rook’s shoulder to read. “Is it the Shadow Dragons? The ones in hiding?”

“It could be.” Harding is the most suspicious out of the three of them. “Or it could be Venatori, baiting them out by pretending they’re friends. Those people don’t play fair.”

Rook agrees with her. In all her life, Venatori don’t play by the rules. And yet this was the closest they’ve gotten to hearing back from any Shadows in hiding.

Harding turns to her, with conflicted look on her face. “Should we get Neve?”

The big question. The one Rook is asking herself right now. She looks up at Dock Town’s night sky and takes her time with making a decision. When it comes to Dock Town, things like confronting Venatori can lead to precarious incidents. But then it’s been weeks since the last obvious Venatori mess in Dock Town, including that problem with Aelia.

The cult has been keeping their head low…so what makes them come back up like this? Being all flashy and grabbing people’s attention by holding rituals all over the place…There must be a big reason, but there’s not enough clues to figure out what.

She sighs, before turning to the other two. “We should, but I don’t really want to give her hope in the case that these aren’t the Shadow Dragons members she’s been looking for.” Rook’s done a lot of things that made Neve miserable—she doesn’t want to add ‘giving false hope’ onto the already long list. “We should check this out by ourselves first. Get clues, see where this leads and then we get Neve if we have to.”

The rain makes pitter patter sound against the cobblestone path, and Rook thought that was it, they’re ready to move—until she hears snickers.

Harding’s snickering turns to full-blown giggles and even Emmrich is chuckling to himself, eyes looking at Rook like he knows a secret.

Uh. What?

“Was it something I said?” Rook asks, feeling lost. The other two shakes their heads in tandem.

“No, Rook, it’s just. You were talking like Neve.” Harding’s smile is wide. “Get clues. See where this leads. It’s word-for-word! I think you can pull off playing a detective!”

Emmrich’s smile is kind, but still teasing and Rook feels hot around the collar when she hears his words. “It’s nothing wrong to sound like your partner, of course. But you did sound so Neve-like for a moment there.”

“Um. Partner…?” Rook wonders if Emmrich knows more about the two of them.

“Are you two not together?” Emmrich puts his fist against his chin thoughtfully. “I thought that this was the case. If not, then I apologize.”

“Wait, you two aren’t together?” Harding looks at Rook wide-eyed. “Really? After all that?”

Okay, what? Did Rook miss something? Because she’s now gaping and trying to remember when has her affair with Neve has gotten so public? Does everyone know now? Does Solas know? What the fu—

“Wait, I’m confused.” She holds a hand, feeling a headache coming. “How?”

Emmrich and Harding turns to each other before the former motions with his hand. “After you, my dear.” With a little curtsy, Harding starts first, turning to Rook with a smug look on her face.

“You two are touchy!” Harding squees like she’s tired of having to hold it in. “It’s cute! Neve looks funny whenever this happens—like her face is torn between smiling and frowning.”

“Oh, yes, I notice that too!” Emmrich sounds like a professor agreeing with his students, and Rook wonders when did her (lack) of a love life becomes a study between her companions. “But I also notice the glances. They’re little, and subtle, but it’s obvious if you know what to look for. My apologies, once more.”

Rook off-handedly waves away his apology. Emmrich’s face then scrunches up.

“And Harding may have told me of her suspicions as well. Before that.”

There’s a beat, and then “Emmrich! Ssh!”

Rook turns slowly to the scout who’s avoiding her eyes guiltily. Have her friends always been this gossipy? She’s not sure whether to be amused or exasperated. She sighs, and scratches her head.

“Look, we’re not…quite there yet. So, please keep it to yourself for a bit.” Rook looks at each of them in the eyes. “I don’t want to scare Neve away.”

It doesn’t take Rook long to realize her feelings for Neve, but she knows it’s different for the detective. Always cautious and wary, not one to easily trust other people because of her job and Rook is fine with it. She’s fine with taking it slow because honestly, with a woman like Neve? Going too hard too fast would destroy Rook. She’d be putty and useless in Neve’s hand.

Her friends, thankfully, are understanding.

“Won’t say a word until the two of you say it first, don’t worry.” Harding makes a locking gesture over her mouth and then throws away the key. Emmrich chuckled at her.

“As she says. Don’t worry, Rook. I’m sure things would go well.”

Rook can’t help but shake her head at these two. The three of them are really the optimistic group, huh? “Well, let’s put that away for now. Let us disrupt some Venatori rituals instead.” She moves them back to their mission, which sobers them up really quickly.

Especially when they start seeing the dead bodies.

//

“How many bodies was that? Did anybody count?”

“That last one makes six.” Harding answered, her face grim as they run through the narrow streets of Dock Town. Their footsteps echo harshly against the walls of the alley, but were drowned by the rowdy nightlife. To think that the Venatori is holding a ritual when there are many people around like this.

Emmrich lets out a sigh, his usually neatly gelled hair wet and floppy from the rain. “We have to hurry and find the main focus point. They seem to be using bystanders in the ritual. These people’s lives are in danger.”

Shiiiittt why can’t they use damn goats if they need blood?

They’ve destroyed like a dozen blood crystal barriers all over town, and now they’re following the notes left on the corpses to what hopefully be the main focus point. According to Emmrich, destroying the smaller focus points would help lessen the impact of the ritual, but it would be even better if they could destroy it at the source…which is what they’re going to do now.

When they got down to Parthenius Main Docks though, a Blood Forge and a bunch of Venatori goons are waiting for them. Which also means that this location is the main focus point of the ritual. These people don’t really throw around the expensive Blood Forge for any less reason than mass death and or blood rituals.

Sighing at their predictability, Rook takes out her twin swords and launches herself at the Forge with a running jump. She received new replacement swords courtesy of Davrin during a trip down to Necropolis, so it’s time for her to break these in. She raises her swords and stabs them down all over the metallic surface with the aim to dismantle the Forge from the inside.

There isn’t really a good place to get a foothold on this thing so Rook is just, doing her best to stab and not slip off of this overly triangle contraption.

Harding has her back and sniping the Venatori stalkers and swordsmen who kept trying to chop Rook’s legs off away from her, while Emmrich is currently locked in a one-on-one duel with a Venatori magister. These people seemed to be channeling their inner demons the more Rook sees them. Their new hats have an eerily similar look to Elgar’nan’s crown…

Her swords pierced the glass top of the Forge and magical sparks comes out from the inside of it. Rook quickly shoves in handfuls of her mines through the cracks in the glass and backflips her way off of the thing. She grabbed Harding by her arm and lead her away from the blast radius just in time before her mines triggered and the Blood Forge blow up spectacularly.

Pieces of metals and shards of glasses flew all over the place and Rook and Harding takes cover behind a mountain of crates to avoid being pincushion. Emmrich ran away upon their warning as well, but not fast enough so the man received a gash above his right eyebrow for his trouble.

That was a good explosion, Rook thinks, impressed. This one is still not as good as Damas’, though. She should ask him for his suppliers if they meet again.

The explosion makes a good distraction because as it grabs the Venatori mook’s attention, Rook and Harding begins mowing them down one by one. Arrow to the eyes, sword through the gut, a swipe of the leg and then a headshot to finish things off. They were racking in kills, but still, a Venatori magister does not go down as easily as these mooks.

“Rook, Emmrich needs help with the magister!” Harding yells out from the top of a scaffolding. She’s been trading shots with this one Venatori mage that’s hiding like miles away. These ones are the most annoying, at least get in range for an easy kill.

Rook makes a sharp turn after slitting a Stalker’s neck to jump down to the dock where Emmrich is. “On it! Hold on, Professor!”

The necromancer couldn’t reply because the stupid magister has his throat bound by a blood tendril. Rook’s sword immediately slices through the tendril, cutting off the connection before the magister could get any of Emmrich’s blood to use.

Emmrich coughs and gasps, pulling back to catch his breath and his face is a little blue. Rook stands between him and the magister, eyes not looking away from their enemy. “All good, Emmrich?”

“I’ve been, better.” The professor answers haltingly, one hand around his throat. “Rook, the magister is using a hostage as a shield. Be very careful. She’s behind him, inside a blood crystal cage.”

True to his word, Rook could see a glimpse of long hair inside a magic cage. She sighs. “Cowards. You call yourself a magister when you use hostages?”

The magister raises his hands. “The Gods require sacrifice! These people have been chosen! His blessibwgh—” his sentence cuts off halfway when Rook’s mine hits him in the face. His head snaps back from her good throw, and her mine bounced off of his helmet. Emmrich gasps hysterically from behind her.

“Rook! There is a hostage behind him!”

“It’s fine, that’s a dummy.”

The two of them watch as the dummy mine falls into the murky dock water with a quiet anticlimactic plop. Rook quickly rushes the magister while he’s taken aback by her dummy mine, and kicks him in the groin. The man bent over with a groan, cupping his family jewels, and she socked him in the jaw with an uppercut, snapping his head backwards once more.

“All yours, Professor!”

Emmrich’s spell moves through the air, a green skeleton-like spirit grabs the magister with both of its arms before launching itself towards the water. The two fall in with a splash, and the skeleton immediately explodes once its underwater, sending bubbles to the surface from the dampened blast. The nearby boats rocks furiously for a few seconds, but no further harm comes from it.

Rook sends the professor a thumbs up once the rocking dies down. “That was great.” Emmrich huffs out a laugh at her.

“A little warning next time, please, my dear. You almost gave an old man a heart attack.”

“Sorry, my bad. I’ll signal you ne—”

“One Warrior coming your way!” Harding’s voice cuts into their conversation and both turns to see a shielded Venatori warrior running towards them full-speed. It’s easy to see that he intends to send one, or both of them overboard. Rook grimaced—she can’t swim.

Green aura fills the air as Entangling Spirits are summoned with Emmrich’s expert guidance. The spirits wrapped themselves around the Warrior, who grunts and slashed their swords at them in a panic—doing nothing to the intangible forms. Distracted from his surrounding, he missed the sight of Harding coming in running from behind, and with the help of inertia, tackled the man that is twice her size off of the dock and into the water.

He fell with a loud and hard splash and all three of them flinched away from the seawater. The Venatori is bogged down by his shield, weapon, and armor and it doesn’t take long until he’s pulled downwards by his own weight.

Death by drowning. Rook almost feels bad for him.

“Thank you for your amazing timing, Harding.” As nice as ever, Emmrich gives the scout a grateful bow of his head. Harding waves his apology away.

“It’s all good. I ran out of arrows so I did the first thing that came to mind. Good thing he’s distracted!”

“Thanks for saving me from taking a swim.” Rook flashes a thumbs up at her which she replies to with her own. “No more left, right? I think we can safely undo the cage now. Emmrich, if you please?”

With that prompt, Emmrich gets to work immediately to undo the enchantment. When the blood cage is undone, the woman inside it fell to her feet, gasping, like her entire energy was spent from trying to breathe inside her cage.

Rook offers her a hand. “Are you alright?”

The woman gratefully takes her hand, and stands on shaky legs. She’s pale and shaking, but Emmrich’s gentle healing spell casted over her helps calms her down enough to speak. She bows her head at him gratefully before turning to Rook. “I’ll—I’ll be fine. I think. But the Viper isn’t. The Venatori have him.”

Her words dropped with the impact of one of Makal Damas’ bombs. Rook heard Emmrich’s soft gasp from somewhere behind her. Shit, what?

“They’re going to kill him…publicly. Said it would break the Shadow Dragons. And Dock Town.”

“Where is it?” Rook pulls up her internal map of Minrathous. “Where are they holding the execution?”

“The Temple of Andraste. They said it would suit him. Please hurry.”

Oh, fuck.

Harding turns to her, wide-eyed. “We should really go tell Neve.”

The Viper has been missing ever since the Shadow Dragons’ headquarters was raided by the Venatori. It’s been months since then, more than half a year even, and this is the first news they get of him.

Neve is not going to be happy.

“Go get her. I’ll scout ahead to the Temple of Andraste.”

Without further ado the team split up into three groups with three different objectives, and Rook races as fast as she could towards the Temple of Andraste.

Chapter Text

If asked, Neve could still remember the first time she came across of the Viper. She’s heard of him of course, in whispers in the streets, in the shadows that follows her at night—the Viper has always been an enigmatic figure shrouded in mystery that Neve, as a detective, is naturally fascinated with.

But Neve also knows, as it goes with most of things in Tevinter, not to dig too much—too deep—in the case that it’ll bite her in the ass. So, she catalogues all the clues and information that she hears about him in her leather notebook, in the case that she can put together the puzzle at some point in her life.

It’s mostly curiosity, if Neve has to think about it, because regardless of his identity, this Viper seems to be fighting the same fight that Neve is struggling with every day in Dock Town. One of the little guys punching up so that they can alleviate the various weights pressing down on Dock Town and let it breathe. It really tickles her mind because who else in this damn town would do the same thing without pay? Neve knows she’s a sucker, so maybe this Viper is one too?

And then comes that one job and Neve finally comes across him—a missing person job for her, and the Viper dismantling an entire slavery ring. Truly, what fate, someone could not have made a bigger, more impressionable entrance to Neve’s life. An imposing figure in a mask…the Viper truly lives up to the rumors. Neve held back from questioning him during all these because they had a job to do, but she cannot help but study him.

The man is also a capable mage, using his powers and resources to save Dock Town from the shadows.

Neve was, in more ways than one, amazed by him. He’s the hope and inspiration Dock Town sorely needed in their darkest days.

Several days later, an unsigned letter arrived in her apartment, with riddles and a puzzle attached that turned out to be Neve’s little test before her recruitment to the Shadow Dragons.

The Viper had recommended her to the other leaders of the group and personally vouched for her, so it was an instant acceptance the moment she found their headquarters.

And that, was the beginning of everything.

The Viper’s presence means a lot not only to the Shadow Dragons, but also personally to Neve as well. He was like the mentor figure whose footsteps she follows after— the person that her younger self aspired to be.

So, when Emmrich comes up to her in the Lighthouse, bloody and faintly smelling like seawater, to tell her that the Viper’s life is in danger, it doesn’t take long for Neve to grab her things and promptly head back to Dock Town. This man has been missing for half a year, and this was how she receives the first news of him.

Neve’s not even sure if she can put a name to this mess of feelings inside of her.

Harding is waiting for her the moment she stepped out of the ruins of the Shadows headquarters, but Rook is nowhere in sight.

“She’s scouted ahead.” Harding informed her, straight to the matter as she lets Neve catch her breath. “I just got back from escorting the Venatori hostage to a safe place. Has Emmrich briefed you about what we found out?”

Neve nods. “You disrupted Venatori rituals. Found a hostage. She told you about the Viper.”

“Oh, he got everything. Yes, to all that. The hostage also told us that they’re keeping him in the Temple of Andraste. Rook went ahead of us to scout and find a way in.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”

The two rushes through the street of Dock Town at night, avoiding the busy streets with rowdy people and blending into the shadows to avoid unwanted attentions. Neve knows this place like the back of her hand, so she leads and Harding follows until they arrived at Andraste’s Watch. Like expected, Venatori blood crystal barriers are waiting for them—

And annoyingly, they’re locked out from the inside.

“Vanhedis!” Neve’s kick to the barrier bounces off harmlessly. “Damn Venatori!”

“That crystal is on the inside,” Harding peers through the barrier, before moving back and looking around them. “How did they get in there?”

“We have to go around,” that will lose them a lot of time, and Neve is afraid that they don’t have a lot. “Come, there’s another entrance this way—”

“No need.”

There’s a whistle, and then a loud crack before the sound of something shattering follows. Neve and Harding watch as the barrier dissolves in front of them and Rook’s voice coming from somewhere above them.

“I found a way in, but we have to be sneaky.”

The two looks up to find Rook standing on the roof with her bow out. Neve lets out a relieved sigh at the sight of her. Rook expertly scales down the building and lands on her feet deftly in front of them.

“They’ve posted several lookouts, and I took care of them. But I left the barriers up.”

“What? Why?”

“It will alert them.” She turns to Neve then, her face serious. “They’ve got the Viper in the flesh. It’s not a body double because I can sense the blight in him. They’re using him as a bait but thankfully, I didn’t see any of the other Shadows with him.”

There’s a small relief that comes with that information, because they would need more hands if they’re going to save a dozen people at this time of night. But with just one person to save? The shadows of the night will work in their favor. Neve now understands why her partners in this mission are two stealth experts.

“Works to our advantage then. You said you found a way in?”

Rook nods. “I did. Harding, can you—”

“Yes, I’ll take the rear.” Harding readies an arrow in her bow. Rook switches her weapons in return, taking out her swords. “Lead on, Rook.”

Rook takes them round the bend towards Razikale Walk, taking the small alleys, and across rickety wooden scaffoldings. Like she said before, there are several Venatori lookouts posted along the way, but they’re now left as bloody corpses in the corner with arrow shafts protruding from their windpipes. Rook really didn’t take any chances—she silenced them before they can make any noise and warn the others of possible infiltrators.

They scale up the ruins of a building, stepping and moving carefully so that the sound of pebbles and rocks shifting don’t alert nearby ears. Rook’s shortcut takes them to a hidden balcony up a building, and when they round the bend there was a rather obvious trellis paneling waiting for them on the flooring at the far corner. It looks like it functions like a sunroof, but the location is a little bit…suspicious.

Rook puts aside her weapons before carefully, with their help, moves the heavy steel frame aside without making a noise—

Well then.

A hidden entrance.

The stacked crates underneath the panel makes for a good foothold, so Rook jumps in ahead of them to check. Her landing on the crates makes no sound, which Neve finds absurd because this woman has a hobby of destroying them relentlessly whenever she comes across some. The Saboteur signals them with a hand when there’s no lookout posted in the area, and the other two follows inside.

Rook caught Neve deftly when she jumps in, grabbing her by the waist just before Neve’s metal prosthetic crashes against the crates. In another time she would have teased her about this, about Rook finding sneaky ways to touch her—but not now. This mission is far too important to joke around or even banter during. The rogue places Neve gently against the floor, metal prosthetic hitting it with a gentle clink, before they continue onwards.

 The hidden entrance led them straight to the inside of the Temple of Andraste.

They go down a long corridor, a very long corridor that’s strangely absent of lookouts, and then comes across another blood crystal barrier that they shatter without losing momentum.

After yet another trip down a long corridor, Rook throws a sudden hand out, stopping them. “Here. Watch your step, there are enchantments.”

Hidden enchantments, it turned out, carved onto the stones paving the walkway leading up to the stairs on the mouth of the courtyard. The carving looks fresh and the area has this sharp metallic-tinge of blood— that was enough for Neve to realize that this is a double layered trap.

“The moment I dismantle the wards, it’ll trigger a summoning spell. The lookouts in the area will come here immediately.” She turns to Rook. “Is there another way of doing this stealthily?”

Rook shakes her head, looking displeased. “No, they chose this place on purpose. The set up for the execution is similar to what they did to Huxley a while back. Gallows in the middle, in an open space, so there’s no other way about it.”

Harding looks up and studies their surroundings. “No balconies or walkable roof up top around here. There’s no place for a sniper to hide. I was thinking of getting a perch somewhere up there.”

A perch…? The frost mage turns to Rook immediately, remembering a similar instance in the past. “They’ve learnt their lesson.”

The Venatori remembered the execution where Neve and Rana foiled, and Rook interrupted by shooting that arrow at the last minute from her hidden perch up a building. Now, they’re playing it differently—making sure that there will be no presence running around rooftops for last-minute sniping.

 Rook grits her teeth as she recalls the same memory. “We have to brute force it.”

“We’re playing right into their hands, though.” Harding doesn’t look too happy about it, but she knows that there’s no other option. “Rook, did you see how many people they have posted up there?”

“There’s about a dozen swordsmen, but they have one mage, and one magister with them. No Blood Forge.” Venatori mooks are relatively easy to fight, but the Warriors with their tower shields and magisters with their blood magic are more difficult to face. They’re lucky that there’s no Warriors today, but a dozen swordsmen…Neve works her brain.

“Lace, if you and Rook can take care of the swordsmen, I will handle the two mages.” She’s unfortunately experienced with facing Venatori magisters, so Neve’s confident in her ability to keep them on their toes. “We’ll get the Viper out after.”

Harding looks uneasy at Neve’s words. “Two at once? Neve…” she’s worried, both her and Rook are, judging from their faces, but Neve won’t be budged. She’s not being reckless, she’s being realistic. Their odds are against them—two rogues and one mage against a dozen swordsmen and two magic users. They have to be smart.

“This is the safest way. I’ve faced Venatori magisters many times, I can keep them occupied as you two clean out the rest. Once you’re free, you’re welcome to support me.”

“I brought smokescreens with me,” Rook adds, rummaging in her pouches. “We can use the fog of war to help us. Harding and I can work in the confusion, but you—”

“I’ll be fine.” Neve looks Rook in the eye and sees that clear concern in her eyes. She knows that it’s Rook that she’ll have to convince for this plan to work. “You know I’ve got tricks up my sleeves too.”

Rook sighs after a while of consideration, but Neve knows that she’s got the woman convinced. The Saboteur then turns to Harding. “Well, that’s what the lady says, Scout Harding. What do you say about a bit of knife in the shadow kind of chaos?”

And chaos it will be, Neve is sure. Once they have their plans down, she turns to the wards carved on the stone paving and begin the dismantling.

//

All three of them moved as one when the thick smoke starts to fill the air. Harding and Rook, hoods up and mask on, dances in the shadows with their daggers out. They move swiftly, footsteps nary a sound, as they slice and stab their way through the battlefield.

With how their enemies have been bombastic arrogant Gods goading fights in the open, they haven’t been able to get a chance to fight like this. A stealth battle like this precious, so no one can blame them if they’re having a bit of fun as they cut down their enemies.

A dozen swordsmen against the two of them, but the two have the smokescreen and confusion by their side. Harding goes low, crouching under the smoke and slashing every Achilles’ heel that she could reach, stunning the swordsmen before they could even dodge. Rook follows in after, one hand slipping under the helmets to cover the mouth as her other hand moves to stab them in the throat, killing them instantly.

The two makes a dangerous combination, their perfect teamwork borne of a year of travelling alongside Varric in the past showing up brilliantly in this fight. The Venatori stumbles around in confusion, which only works more to their advantage. Their loud stomping of the feet marks them for the kill for the two shadows.

Even so, Rook still keeps an eye on their single mage, working separately on a mission of her own. Rook trusts Neve, she does, but she worries still. She makes sure Neve is within reach if she ever needs a hand—Rook has extra throwable things to toss at the dumb mages if situation pushes for it.

The dozen swordsmen were quickly whittled down to eight. Six. Four.

Two.

Rook and Harding move to take one each, and these two swordsmen seems to be the most formidable out of the lot. Which is fine, Rook would be left unsatisfied if they all die so easily anyway.

Her quarry moves away once they caught sight of Rook coming towards them. They went to the corner of the courtyard, where the smoke is the thinnest. The tailwind, Rook realizes, so this guy’s not entirely that stupid. In this clearing nothing is hiding Rook from their sight, and the two seize each other up.

He looks like a normal Venatori swordsman to Rook. The same stupid uniform, same helmet, the same Venatori-assigned sword with the curved, snake-like blade. But there’s something about him that just screams danger to her. Rook can’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe it’s the way he st—

The man’s sword slices forward in an arc that’s aimed for Rook’s throat.

Rook throws herself backwards, missing the tip of the sword by a few seconds, and threw out her dagger to counter. The snake sword parries the dagger away, as the Venatori continues to move in. Fuck, he’s faster than Rook expected.

She throws the dagger in her other hand at him before unsheathing one of her swords. Her dagger flew away with a tink with one slap of the snake sword, but Rook’s blade follows, an upward slice towards this man’s head.

“Fool.” A deep voice rumbled, and then he tugged.

Rook cursed. Her blade is caught in the curve of the Venatori’s snake blade. One wrong move and he can snap it in half. Fuck, what a miss. The radiating smugness was clear even though the helmet is covering his face. Annoyed, Rook lets go of her sword and drops down, foot swiping out.

She caught him by the ankle, hooked and tugged, and the man drops onto his back. Rook made a swipe at the nearby sword at the same time he reached out for one, and then the two put some distance between them once more. Rook frowns when the sword grip in her hand feels different and she steals a glance—

Oh, she grabbed the wrong sword. The snake blade is in her hand, and this guy has her sword.

Fu—

They moved, swords clashing against each other, and legs flying up to catch the other by surprise. Steel rings against steel as the two tries to overpower each other—but their speed and dexterity keeps countering each hit. The man is stronger than Rook by a bit, but she could take care of it just fine. It’s just—

What is this? Something is weird.

It’s like Rook is fighting against a mirror image, this person’s movements feel familiar, and the way they keep countering each other perfectly is like they’re trying to do the same dance but from opposite sides. What in the—

Anxiety bubbles up from inside Rook. She doesn’t like this; she doesn’t like this at all.

But, that’s fine.

Even if her sword fighting is locked, Rook still has tricks up her sleeves. She grabs some familiar small balls from her pouch, and rushes forwards her enemy. She tosses out what’s in her hand—two familiar white-orange balls she once used against Icetalon. These ones are not prototypes, thanks to Antoine and Bellara’s hard work.

The Venatori saw the projectiles coming of course, but that’s not a problem. He bats them away easily with his sword, breaking them, and the liquid inside splashed the front of his armor. Rook’s mouth curls under her mask, letting go of the snake sword before uncorking a small vial with her thumb. She downs the liquid and keeps it in her mouth.

Her opponent meets her in the middle, sword slashing which Rook avoids, but not as perfectly as she would because of her slight double tasking. The tip of the sword slices her mask open, and her hood falls off, revealing her face.

That’s fine, that’s fine—

There’s like a split second where this man froze upon seeing her face, and that’s enough of an opening. She’s within reach.

Rook snaps her fingers in front of her mouth at the same time she’s spitting the mouthful of liquid out. The flint and steel sewn to the thumb and middle finger tips of her leather gloves sparks with flame—and the mist of lamp oil flying towards him ignites in midair.

It was a blaze—Rook’s own mimicry of Taash’ dragon breath.

The sudden burst of flame caught the Firestarter that splashed against the front of his armor—and the man light up in flames. The fire burns through his armor, eating every thread, tearing through every sewn protection runes—everything. Rook coughs out the rest of the lamp oil in her mouth as she dodges the mad, panicked swings of his sword, and grabbed the snake sword that she dropped.

She drives the curved blade into his sternum, feeling it catch against his ribcages, and twists. The man on fire lets out a horrible scream, but Rook is deaf to it. She twisted the blade even deeper before pushing it, him, away from her and watch as the man roll on the ground desperately as fire burns through his flesh.

One down, Rook thinks, detachedly, feeling her heartbeat calming down.

She turns around to the music that is his screams and surveys her surroundings.

//

Even though the rest of their mooks are stupid, and are basically thugs, the Venatori mages and magisters are amongst the better ones Neve has fought in her years working in her line of work. This is something that annoys her frequently—such power, such talent, could be put to better use in improving their communities. Status comes easily to a powerful mage, and that goes a long way in Tevinter.

But these people, instead of doing something good with their talents, they use it to worship false gods instead. It irks Neve a lot, especially because a lot of talented Altus mages joins up with the Venatori for power when they already have enough. Truly, greed has no limit.

Neve was never in danger of recruitment even though she is a capable mage herself. Her status as a Laetan mage makes her unfavorable in their eyes, which suits her just fine. But this really shows how the world is unfair on a good day. Even having two magisters fighting for the cause of good in Tevinter, Dorian and Maevaris, feels like they’re already eating into the Imperium’s luck for the next twenty years.

She watches closely as her ice spreads all over the mage’s body whole, the gentle sound of freezing ice crackling filling the air.  He’s been a slippery one, a fire magic using mage going against her ice spells. He had been cocky, moving into melee range as the magister take shots at Neve from afar. He had probably taken one look at her dwarven prosthetic and thinks she’s limited in movement. Not completely wrong but, well, Neve’s got tricks up her sleeves like she said. Him coming at her really saves her time from having to chase him all over the place as well.

When the fire mage comes close, Neve swung her frost-covered fist. He didn’t see it coming and she probably shattered his jaw with her left hook. The thin ice covering her fist crumbles at the impact, but that hit had the mage stunned, and this gave her enough time to stab him in the heart with the end of her scepter. It’s enchanted, so the moment it pierces his flesh, her spells activated, spreading the ice from the inside out.

Before the man even knew it, he had turned into an ice sculpture, body frozen mid-movement and oblivious of his own death.

Clapping fills the air as Neve turns to the newcomer—the very same magister that’s been shooting at her from afar. His elaborate mage’s robes speak of his status—the golden threads and the meticulous protection runes stitched into it…he’s probably an Altus. And that curved helmet on his head brings back Neve’s memories to that day she met Elgar’nan.

“Magnificent.” The magister said, voice as slimy as he looks. “To think a no-name mage could take down one of our best that easily.”

Neve glances at the frozen mage she’d just killed. “That one of your best? Running out of people, are you?”

“On the contrary.” The magister stops across of Neve in this half-destroyed courtyard, his foot kicking aside a broken fragment of the statue of Andraste. “We unexpectedly received support from many people in our endeavors. Especially in light of…recent…events.”

He pointedly turns towards Ashur inside his cage, standing in front of the gallows that was prepared just for him. Neve’s eyes narrowed.

“So, this is a message? To destroy Dock Town and the Shadow Dragons?”

The magister burst out laughing at her question. Full blown belly laughs before he regards her with a tilted head. “Dock Town? No one cares for this filthy place. No, his death would be a message for the rest of Imperium. The people shall finally see the truth of the Divine that they worship.”

Vanhedis. They know!

Brown leathers move into Neve’s eyesight and a quick glance shows her that it’s Harding, with her bloody daggers. She’s finished with her marks. The scout has positioned herself diagonal to Neve, ready with support whenever she needs it.

The magister that they have between them did not seem to care about his new spectator. His arms, spread wide and raised towards the sky, tremble with emotion as he speaks.

“And once the people’s eyes are opened, then they will turn to our true Gods! The Old Gods who shall lead us into a glorious future! Tevinter shall rise once more!”

Neve is very much unimpressed. “Tevinter rises from the ashes of the Elven Empire, picking over its bones like vultures to a corpse. The Old Gods you speak of are the progenitors of the people you look down and trod in your daily life. Your greed for power blinds you to the truth of the very Gods you worship.”

“Silence!” A magical blast destroyed the pillar to Neve’s left in his anger, but she didn’t flinch. The magister heaves with anger at her words. “Yet another pitiful fool. Blathering about rattus. And here I was thinking of offering you a chance to join—”

“I would rather die.” Neve spoke over him firmly and as derisively as she could.

The magister drops his arms, straightening with a small sigh.

“Then, you shall.”

With how big he talks Neve expected a hailstorm of spells to come her way.

What instead comes at her were just…regular spells this magister’s been firing at her for the last fifteen minutes. She feels rather let down. Was he hired by the Venatori just because of his status? This magister is definitely not one of the stronger mages they have that she’s fought, but Neve won’t look the gift horse on the mouth.

She smacks aside his pitiful fireball with ease and that seemed to awaken this man to the difference of their magical capabilities. Neve may be a Laetan, but she’s one of the best in her year when she was in the Circle. She could contend with the best of the Altus mages if she needs to be.

Gritting her teeth, the magister changed his tactic.

Magic thrums through the air as the magister chants his spells, mana gathering around him. His powers levitate him off the ground as a small tempest forms around him. A wide-area magic user, what a pain. Neve signals to Harding to take him down fast, because the rest of this place would be caught up in his spells if they don’t kill him early.

Harding moves, tossing her daggers before reaching for her bow and shooting the magister with her arrows. Her daggers were parried by the wind, and though two of her arrows missed their mark because of it, the one with the red enchanted tip cuts through the air and lances him in the shoulder.

The magister groans out in pain, and wavers in the air, spells weakening. He probably has to concentrate while channeling this much mana. He’s trapped in that one place. Neve uses this momentum to move. She calls upon her ice and mist to propel herself towards him. She doesn’t use this spell often, only when she needed to cross a great distance urgently. It’s mainly to spare her prosthetic, but well, she thinks she can risk it in this situation.

Neve flies through the air in a flurry of snow, pulling back her right leg as she goes. The enchantment on her leg cuts through the wind barrier, and she hears the magister let out a curse at her sudden appearance. He offers no resistance at this distance—she was too close for him to cast another spell as he is in danger to be caught in it too.

The metal pierces through his flesh as Neve kicks him back to the ground. Blood sprays from the wound as she pulls back her leg, and landed on the ground rolling on her side. The magister landed less elegantly, dropping like a sack of potato, rolled, before skidding into a halt. The heavy wind buffeting around them dies down instantly, and Harding goes after his body.

“No!” the magister gasps out as he scrambles onto his feet. “I will not fall here!”

He looks widely around him, finding himself cornered by both Neve and Harding. There’s a loud curse, and then he turned around—

And goes to where the Viper is.

“Rook! He’s coming right at you!”

//

In the end, Rook’s worries goes unanswered. Neve finished off that Venatori mage beautifully. Rook’s never seen her throw a punch like that, that was brutal. Then again Neve spends most of her time chasing criminals down the alleys of Dock Town, so of course she’d know how to fight dirty. What a woman, is it strange for Rook to get slightly turned on from that?

She shakes her head as she walks over to where Harding is standing over her corpse. “You good?”

Harding glances at her, panting. “Yep. This one tried to use his height over me. Too bad I’m eye-level with his kidney.” One stab was what it takes to cut off his movements. Rook grimaced. No wonder Varric is afraid of her. “How about yo—uh. Is that…yours?”

The two of them looks at the bonfire burning in the far corner of the courtyard.

“Yes.”

“You burned him?”

“I did.”

“Maker.”

Rook turns over to look when she heard clapping. The last Venatori’s advancing towards Neve, mockingly clapping at her. “We have one left.”

“I can cover for her.” Harding said, pulling her dagger out of the corpse’s kidney. “You take care of the Viper?”

“Sure thing.”

The two split as Rook heads towards the man inside the blood cage. She takes out her bow and shoots the three blood crystals hidden around the corridor. The barrier that caged him in dissolves to useless magic, and she walks over to him.

Oh.

Rook looks around, and sure enough, she found it shoved in the corner, with what look like the rest of the Viper’s personal items. She grabbed all of them and brought them over to the waiting man.

Ashur doesn’t look good. He’s pale and shaking and Rook can feel the blight much stronger in him than the last time they saw each other. It’s been months since then, but the man persevered. Out of sheer stubbornness no doubt and Rook can’t help but admire him. If he was anybody else, he would have turned into a Hurlock at this point. A powerful one, too.

She hesitates when she gets within his reach. Rook doesn’t know the protocol for this. Should she—bow?

In the end she decides to go halfway. “Your mask, Most Holy.” Rook says quietly as she handed him his mask and his belt of vials. Ashur lets out a deep sigh at her words, and she knows that she’s not mistaken. She’s seen that face before, plastered on items sold down in the markets of Dock Town. On amulets, on charms, and even on tapestries.

The Imperial Divine himself.

No wonder he wears that mask.

“Have long have you known?” Ashur asked, his voice steady for someone in his condition. He puts his mask back on his face without difficulty.

“I’ve had my suspicions for a while after perusing the markets…Do you know that they’re selling spoons with your face on it?”

The Viper chuckles, now wearing back his belt. “I am aware, yes. But since you are able to memorize my face from it…maybe we should stop this merchandising thing. I blame the Orlesians.”

“That’s fair, they do love their shiny baubles.” Rook peers at him. “My Lord, the blight is nearly overwhelming your resistance. If you would come with me to the Grey Wardens—”

“No. Like I said before, I don’t want to go to the Wardens.” The man sounded tired and Rook’s need to argue dies a sad death. “I still have things to do here, Rook.”

Stubborn, Rook thinks, but she sighs and acquiesced to his words. Rook has the power to conscript now with her recent promotion, but she doesn’t really want to unless she has to.

“Also,” the Viper calls and Rook turns to him. “Call me Ashur, or the Viper, still. I suspect my real identity has spread amongst the Venatori, but let’s hold onto it a while longer, either way.”

“As you wish.”

The man’s face turned slightly amused at her response. “Is it me or are you being strangely subservient right now? How odd. I don’t remember you being like this.” Rook scowls at him.

“Just because I don’t follow orders well, doesn’t mean I don’t have manners.” Also, the Viper has done a lot of things for the good of the little people in Dock Town. He deserves nothing but respect.

Ashur’s eyes studies her, and Rook fidgets where she stands. He’s thinking of something, choosing his words, and she wonders why. “I have questions for you, if you would indulge me.”

Can Rook even refuse someone in his station? “If I can answer, then I will.”

“How goes your fight with the Gods?”

Rook wonders how to answer this. “It hasn’t been a smooth journey. Weisshaupt fell to them, but we turned Ghilan’nain mortal by killing Razikale, and wounded her in our last encounter. It’s an even score, I believe.”

“I see.” Ashur sighed out in relief. “Then the choice you made was not for naught.”

She flinches at the reminder. “My apologies.”

“No, I don’t blame you. Leadership comes with a heavy burden, and I understand that better than most.” Being someone in his position comes with many perks, but it also limits his movements.

Rook’s read from Neve’s case notes that he publicly supported the Lucerni, Dorian and Maevaris’s attempt of a better Tevinter, until Maevaris was ousted from her seat. The Divine’s support stopped, pressured by the Magisterium. And now Ashur works from the shadows, with what’s left of it.

“One more.” Viper’s deep voice rumbles and Rook nods.

“Sure.”

“Where did you learn how to fight?”

Rook stares at him. Uh? Out of everything he can ask, she didn’t expect this. “I was trained.”

“By whom?”

She hesitates. “I don’t remember.” Ashur studies her for a bit, as if trying to figure out if she’s lying. “No, really, I don’t remember. But it was—I trained with the Wardens too after I was recruited.” Her palms are starting to feel cold from sweat.

The calculating eyes lightened after a while, and Rook breathes easier. “Just like how you’ve had your suspicions about me, I’ve had my suspicions about you as well. Did Neve tell you that I had tails following you after she brought you to meet us for the first time?”

Damn. Rook should have known. She shook her head, feeling caught. “No, I—she never told me.”

“I asked her to keep it quiet from you. I’m glad that she’s kept true to her words.” The Viper’s voice goes quiet after this, as if he doesn’t want anybody else to hear but Rook. “My suspicions were proven true when I see you fight earlier. Do what you make of this, but I have a warning.”

Rook is shaking under her armor, and she nods, motioning him to continue.

“A splinter group formerly of the Siccari has joined forces with the Venatori after Archon Radonis was slain. Magister Fabian Travinius is responsible for their recruitment. He’s now a priest of Lusacan and has fallen in with these Gods you are fighting.”

Rook wants to throw up at the mention of that name.

The Viper looks at her sympathetically. “You would do well to keep your face covered around them from now on, if you plan on keeping your identity a secret. I will not pry, but this is why you use a codename, is it not?”

Rook. The name Varric gave her to protect her. It’s been her shield for so long that she’d come to think of it as her real identity. She wears this name with pride, a precious gift from the man who sees her beyond the blight in her blood and her sketchy past.

The possibility that not even Varric’s protection could save her from this problem is frightening.

She has so much question. “How did you—who else?” Rook can’t even form words.

“You and your older brother do really look alike.” She feels that familiar shame and guilt comes crawling back at the mention of this connection that she tried to burn away more than a decade ago. “I thought your face was familiar, but only now can I put things together. Aside from me, I don’t think anybody else knows.”

That’s—that’s good. But— “Have you told Neve?”

Ashur shakes his head. “It is not my place.”

“Would you say something to her about this?” Rook watches a small frown crease between Ashur’s brows.

“Unless she asks, no. But I will not lie, Rook.”

The Shadow Dragons are a rebel group based on trust and a common goal. Rook understands why he won’t lie, especially not to Neve who have fought more than her share for the group, and the city. A part of her dreads for when the truth comes to light, but she’s…glad anyway that it’s this person who found out instead of anybody else.

“I understand. I would appreciate it if you keep this quiet from her, for now.”

“Of course.” The Imperial Divine gives his word with the weight of someone in his station affords him. “Just like how you keep my identity a secret, I shall do the same with yours.”

“Thank you. I appreciate this.”

To think that she came into this mission to save a man and things ended up escalating only to end up with this kind of revelations. Rook needs to lie down. Like, for a week. Or maybe forever.

“Rook! He’s coming right at you!”

Harding’s warning had the two torn away from their conversation, and right enough, the magister Neve was beating up is now running desperately towards them. His crowned helmet now off, his eyes are wild and crazy and looking at Ashur. Rook immediately steps in between them, swords held tight in her hands.

“No need.” Ashur raises a hand and grasps it tightly into a fist. His spell, whatever it is, comes as a form of lightning traveling through the air—turning into a fist that chokes the Magister by the throat. The lightning fist gripped tight—and then there was a sickening crack, and the magister fell limp.

Ashur waves a hand and his spell dissolves, the corpse falling onto the floor with a flop. Rook turns to him in disbelief.

“If you can do that, how the fuck did the Venatori ever managed to capture you in the first place?”

“They caught me by surprise.” The Viper sounded slightly embarrassed. “I had my guard down when I tried to put down one of their commanders. They expected me to come for them and lied in wait.” He takes a deep breath as Neve and Harding runs over to him.

“Holding off death for yet another day, it seems.” At least he sounds happy.

“At least.” Neve’s eyes look over him and her face twists into a complicated look at his condition. “You’re not going down that easy.”

At her words the Viper lets out the sigh. “I told the Shadows to lay low, including you. And yet, I hear whispers of you snooping around.”

The frost mage smirks at him. “That’s the problem with rebels. They never listen.” Her words had him chuckling resignedly.

“Well…either way, I’m in your debt, Neve. You too, Rook. Lace Harding.” He nods at Harding who smiles back.

Once more Rook only feels guilt at his gratitude. Why is she like this? “I wish we could save more of them. Many were lost.” She’s saved Huxley and a few others, but of course there are more dead Shadows than alive after seeing the condition of their headquarters.

“The Venatori taunted me with that. And it’s what got me to move.”

Rook and Neve glances at each other. This is a dead man talking and the both of them knows it. “So, what now? What happens to the Shadow Dragons?”

The Viper addresses all three of them as he speaks. “I’ll get word out. We’ll find each other. We once started from nothing but a dream. We can do so again.”

“Have you thought about resting?” Rook really can’t deal with the feeling of the blight coming from him. She’s used to the feeling of them crawling under her skin, but the feeling she senses from Ashur is stronger—it’s like scratching. Her every Warden instinct is yelling at her to do something about it. “I hear Rivain is good this time of the year.”

Neve elbows her in her side unsubtly and Rook grunts, earning a chuckle from Ashur. “The blight will take me down no matter what. I’d rather take action before it does. I have to believe Minrathous can survive this, and emerge stronger. Better.’

“Even if I’m not here to see it.”

Rook sees the way Neve clenches her fist at his words, and her heart hurts for her. “I’m sure you and Neve have more things to say to each other. Shall we get out of here before Venatori back-ups arrive? Is there somewhere—”

“A Shadow Dragon safe house is near here.” Neve’s voice is slightly wavering, but she held strong. “Ashur, if that’s alright.”

“Yes. We can go there. I’ll share with you what I have in mind when we’re out of sight.”

//

They escaped Temple of Andraste just in time before the City Guards, and the Venatori infiltrating their roster, arrived. Rook’s burning corpse had attracted people’s attention thanks to the smoke and the smell of the flesh burning, so someone living nearby had called for help. It worked well as their distraction as well, because while everyone is busy with the burning corpse, the group could escape through the backdoor by the kitchen.

Neve leads them down multiple alleys, turning this way and that so many times that she could hear Rook grumbling about being dizzy somewhere behind her. It’s on purpose, however. This is so that they would lose any possible tails that they might have after leaving the temple.

When they finally reached the safehouse, Rook was the gladdest out of all of them. There’s a lack of proper food in the place, but at least there were hard breads and water left over from the last time a Shadows member did restocking. Neve waits until Rook and Harding left the room to give them privacy before turning to Ashur.

From this up close, the man looks horrible. Neve’s seen blighted people up close before—the Veil Jumpers sacrificed by the mayor of D’Meta’s Crossing comes to mind when she thought of them. And ever since then, she has seen numerous more. And yet she was still taken aback by the Viper’s condition. Pale, and shaking, and the darkened rings around his eyes that are so unnatural that it’s obvious this is an otherworldly symptom that cannot be cured the normal way.

“How long do you have?” she couldn’t help but ask. Ashur’s brows furrowed at her bluntness.

“Not long, I suspect. Rook was close to conscripting me earlier. I had to turn her down, again.” Neve frowns. Is that not serious? She’s heard of this conscription thing before, and remembers how her uncle had told her that anyone conscripted cannot refuse. If Rook is close to doing it, then—

“Why don’t you accept it?” Neve pushes. “You can still be in the Shadow Dragons even when you are a Grey Warden. There is a way, I’m sure.” They will have to work out the details and specifics, but Neve is sure they can do something about it. Rook is pulling double duties with the Wardens and Varric’s job.

Ashur looks at her with amusement. “What?”

“Is that optimism, I hear? Rook’s influence?”

Neve flushes. “Don’t be absurd, I’m just being realistic. There is a way, Rook can do it—”

“Rook is not the Imperial Divine.” The gravitas in his voice shuts down all arguments. “I am a man with two identities. Two burdens. I cannot leave them behind and run off to the Grey Wardens just to save my life. There is much for me to do here, Neve. If I die, then let it be for the betterment of my people.”

His mind is made, and the decision is set. There is nothing Neve can do to convince him, even though a small part of her is scheming.

She looks away. “Where is Tarquin? Maevaris, and the others?”

“They’re safe, and in hiding. Tarquin’s in one of our safehouses and Mae’s staying with the Dwarven Ambassador…or at least that’s what it said on the last message she sent me.” Ashur took a small roll of parchment from the inside of his leather belt. “Use the tertiary channels to contact us, the secondary might be sabotaged.”

No wonder Neve couldn’t reach anyone in the leadership so far. She took the parchment and slide it inside a small pocket in her coat. Quiet falls between them as Neve search for words. She doesn’t want this to be the last time they see each other.

“Neve,” Ashur calls, and she looks up. His eyes are tired, but they’re kind when they look at her. “You found yourself a good team. Keep them close.”

The way he says these words had her choked up with emotions, and Neve could only nod back wordlessly. A gentle knock on the wooden door to the room interrupted them, and the two turns to see Harding peeking in.

“Viper, your ride is here. For some reason it’s bringing crates of meat with it. Is this what you asked for?” They dropped a message requesting a pickup for the Viper on the way to the safe house earlier, and now it’s arrived.

“Yes. I’ll be right there.” The two got out of the safehouse and Neve watch as Ashur approaches his ride—a meat transport wagon whose driver is one of the Shadows’ auxiliary members. The driver flips over a fake plank on the wagon, underneath the crates of meat, and there’s a big enough space for someone like the Viper to lie down there, and away from eyesight.

Ashur got on the wagon, and regards all three of them for the last time.

“Once more, I thank you.” Even though he’s sitting there amongst crates of meat, he still looks as dignified as someone of his status would be. Neve doesn’t understand. “Our paths might differ, but our goals stay the same. I wish you all luck.” He then looks at Rook, specifically. “And Rook. Remember my warning.”

“I got it. Thank you.” Rook gives him a Grey Warden salute and Neve wonders what were these two talking about. There was no time to ask because Ashur slips into his hidden nook, and the driver covered him up. With one last nod at the three of them, the wagon rolls away to wherever Ashur is hiding before this.

Neve watches him go with a mix of feelings.

//

The trip back to the Lighthouse was a blur. Neve’s body walked her home while her mind was somewhere else, and when she realized it, they’re walking up the stairs from the Eluvian room to the library. Rook is walking ahead of her, that familiar strong back has become a permanent fixture in Neve’s life—an image of stability. When did this happen? Neve can’t put a finger on it.

But she would appreciate some of that stability right about now.

“Rook.” She calls out, and the rogue stops before ascending the stairs to her room. “May I have a moment?”

Rook’s face flickers with concern, but an easy smile follows immediately. “You can have as long as you want.”

A hint of a smile curls her lips, and Neve turns to lead them to privacy. She could hear Rook’s footsteps following behind her as she enters the music room, and walks deeper into the room.

The lighting in this room isn’t as bright as the outside even without the cloth that were covering them during Rook’s concussion. It makes a good atmosphere for a private talk, and Neve leans against the wall with the murals, with her back against the windows.

Rook mimics her, right shoulder leaning against the stone wall across of her. “What’s on your mind?”

“Can you conscript Ashur to the Grey Wardens?” the words rush out of Neve’s mouth without her realizing it. She expects Rook to balk at her, or some sort of surprised reaction.

What she doesn’t expect is Rook looking at her with such sympathy and understanding that Neve has to look away because she’s starting to feel a pinch in her eyes and she cannot—she will not.

“I can,” the rogue says after a small pause. “But, would you be alright with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Conscripting the Imperial Divine himself will shake the political situation in Tevinter down to its foundation.” The look on Rook’s face is solemn. “It might even lead to a war between the Imperium and the Grey Wardens. Would you want that?”

Neve is still catching her breath from the fact that Rook just dropped the Viper’s biggest secret like it was nothing that it took her a while to register the rest of her words. Her mind races, along with her heart. Rook smiles at her turmoil, and reaches out a hand.

The back of her fingers brushes gently against Neve’s cheek, pulling out a trembling breath.

“I would happily conscript him if that is what you wish. Just one word, and I’ll brave the tides of war for you.”

Those are terrifying words for Neve to hear. And what’s even more terrifying is the fact that Rook isn’t even joking.

“It’s dangerous to give me so much power over you, don’t you understand that?” Neve chokes out, overwhelmed.

“I do. But that’s how it is.”

“Why?” Why is Rook going so far for her? She’s not worth this.

“Because I love your bleeding heart, Neve. And I hate that the world keeps punishing you for it.” Rook looks at her straight in the eyes as she speaks, and Neve feels like she was on the receiving end of an Ogre’s maul. “I just want to show you that there’s someone out there that will fight for you and have your back, regardless of everything.”

Rook takes back her hand, leaving Neve to her racing thoughts.

“You don’t need to answer me now. You can mull over it a bit more. But once you’ve made up your mind, let me know and I’ll chase down His Most Holy and drag his ass to Antoine and Evka for the Joining Ritual. Whenever you’re ready.”

“You’re leaving?” the me was left out on purpose after a brief hesitation. Rook’s walking away and Neve internally panics.

Rook makes a face at her. “I’m sorry. I promised Lucanis we’d go chase his leads after a brief rest. Heading to Treviso after this.”

Neve struggles for words, before letting out a sigh and wraps her arms around herself. “Take care.”

“I will. Get some rest, Gallus.”

Rook leaves with a smile, and the hidden door slides shut behind her with a hiss.

Chapter Text

That trip to chase leads in Treviso ended up with the three of them in a pool of blood.

Not dead, but literally in a pool of blood because the blood mage Lucanis is hunting turned out to be a maniac who believes in bathing in the blood of the innocent will keep herself healthy, hale and youthful.

Rook thinks she’s an outright hag and tells it to her face.

Zara Renata wasn’t happy.

It led to a fight, like always, and Lucanis, Taash, and her have to contend with the many Venatori mooks this lady brought with her while also navigating the pool of blood. You see, fighting in a pool of blood is different than fighting in a pool full of water.

Rook still would drown in both, yes, but the main difference lies in the viscosity of the liquid.

It’s the main thing that prevents Lucanis from stabbing this woman’s throat the moment she’s goading him into a fight.

Taash too is having problems because they were swarmed by the mooks—like a castle sieged by the enemies, their movements hindered by the blood in the pool. Their tall stature and musculature help a little when compared to Rook, but they’re still prevented from going all out.

Rook then realizes that this pool of blood works both as a dramatic prop of a ritual site for the old hag, and also a trap for the three of them. She pulls out her mines then, and starts working on making things fair for their end.

One flashbang and one large explosion later she got the blood to drain out of the pool, and Zara lost her damned mind. It’s probably sacrilegious to curse that much in a Chantry, but she’s already going to the void when she dies from all that blood-of-the-innocent gimmick anyway, so it doesn’t matter in the end.

Lucanis and Spite struck immediately once all the blood is gone—a whirlwind of blades as they work in tandem delivering their due revenge upon the woman who toyed with them for a year. Taash and Rook, both drenched in blood, quickly follows behind them just in case that Lucanis needs a hand.

Doesn’t look like it, though.

“She’s scared.” Taash commented as they watch Lucanis push Zara into a corner, the latter gasping and crying out in pain from his stabs and slashes.

Rook glances at her friend. “She should be. Spite was chomping at the bits wanting to kill her.” Never has she seen the demon and his host be so in sync until Zara is standing in front of them. Zara may be a frightening blood mage—but take all that blood away and she’s left whimpering in the face of the mage-killer’s relentless assaults.

“Oh, they’re done. Let’s get closer.”

The dragon hunter frowned at her words, throwing a hand out to stop Rook from rushing out. “Wait. There’s a—something smells.”

“The blood?”

“No. Someone else is here.”

Rook looks at them in bewilderment because she can’t smell anything but the metallic tang of blood thanks to the blood shower earlier, but Taash is different.

“What does it smell like?”

“Envy.”

What?

In hindsight, Rook should have taken that little nugget as a warning, because when she saw Illario drop down from the ceiling to get between Lucanis and Zara, she never would have guessed how much things would escalate from then on.

//

“Illario!”

Lucanis’ cousin raises a finger, a warning, at him. “I told you. This is Crow business.” He immediately turns around at Zara’s voice, calling him something that sounds familiar in Rook’s ears—

And grabs her by the throat.

The crack of her throat broken by his grasp was loud and all eyes watches as she drops to the ground, dead, when Illario loosens his grip.

That was it. That was the trigger.

“No! Mine!”

Spite’s wings unfurled from Lucanis’ back, and demonic energy flashes around him before blasting Illario off of his feet. He launched himself at Illario, sword aimed at the man’s throat, to take back the vengeance that was stolen from him.

Shit! Rook and Taash moves, but they don’t know where to start.

Should they help Spite or—

Lucanis groans out in pain during the struggle, breaking free of Spite’s control. “Get Illario…out! Rook, I can’t—!” he yells out in pain and Rook drops her bow before rushing towards him.

“That’s enough!” Illario reaches for something on his chest—and then the next thing Rook knows, Lucanis was flying backwards. He fell onto his back, confused and Spite nowhere to be sensed.

What the fuck happened?

Illario stood over him, reaching out a hand. “Relent.” He commands, and Lucanis’ stops his valiant struggle as ordered—falling slack on the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut.

“What the fuck did you do, Illario?” Rook snarls as she got to Lucanis’ side. She moves in between them, but she hasn’t raised her weapon at him. Not just yet. She could be persuaded easily though, depending on his words.

“Nothing.” Illario said as if Rook’s got cow shit for brains. “I don’t know what happened any better than you. You have to get him out of here. Keep him away. From Treviso. From the Crows. He is a danger to the family.”

His acting is shit and Rook knows she’s not the only one who wants to sock him in the jaw judging from Taash’ low growl from somewhere behind her. But they know they can’t act rashly, or they’ll have to face the full wrath of the Crows with just one word from Illario.

“I don’t need you telling me twice.” Rook spat and waits until Lucanis’ cousin left before turning to Taash. “Shit. That was bad. Now what?”

Taash checks over Lucanis and growls. “Lucanis is out. Whatever that guy did took him out clean. He’s not a mage, is he?”

“Not that I know of.” The Crows has mages, as Rook remembers one helped them gain entrance to the Ossuary during Lucanis’ rescue, but Illario is definitely not one. “Let’s get him back to the lighthouse and get one of the mages to take a look at him.”

“What about the corpse?” Zara’s corpse was left behind by her murderer, head bent at an unnatural angle. Rook clenches her jaw at the sight. She dislikes the woman but that was one brutal way to go.

Especially if—

“I’ll contact Teia and Viago about her. Let’s not burn the body just yet.”

“I got Lucanis.” Taash said before picking up the unconscious Crow easily and threw him over a shoulder. “Let’s go back.”

//

Neve lets out a sigh as she leans back on her chair, eyes on the new case note she’s been compiling in the past few weeks. Case notes—well, a dossier more like with how much she’s trying to dig into this.

It’s not…work, not completely. It started out as a personal project way back when they first started because this is what she does when meeting new people, but then the case note grows longer than anybody else’s in the team before she knew it. The longer they worked together, the more gold nuggets Neve receives from her observations and throwaway comments.

And yet she hit the entire goldmine just a few days ago.

When Rook reveals that she knows of the Viper’s real identity.

Neve knows Rook is an observant one, but how is she able to deduce the Viper that easily? Has she seen the Imperial Divine as himself before? Ashur keeps his mask around the Shadows, so what happened? Did they somehow know each other before Neve introduced Rook to him?

So many questions.

Neve looks down at the paper she was writing on, and traces her own script with her eyes.

Notes on Rook (codename)

She’s got things written down about the rogue…and then grew concerned at what she’s gathered. Because Rook, as kind and attentive she’s been to the entire team, has actually been startlingly secretive about her own background. Neither of the team members even knew of her real name, her age, or even where she originated from.

Neve’s asked Emmrich before, casually, if he’s heard about Rook’s background before she met Varric. The necromancer then told her that they had a brief conversation about it during a trip to the Necropolis. Apparently, Rook told him about her life with the Wardens…but nothing before that.

She asked a similar question to Taash, who had taken Rook down to the Rivain coast for a trip once. Taash told Neve that Rook mentioned about spending a long-time training in the Anderfels with the Wardens…but nothing beyond that.

It’s like her life story seems to begin when she joins the Grey Wardens…and everything before that might as well cease to exist.

Neve likes Rook. She’s at—Neve clears her throat self-consciously at the thought—she’s attracted to Rook…but a part of her won’t let her turn a blind eye over the fact that this woman is a walking piece of mystery to be uncovered.

Neve’s asked Harding as well but the dwarven woman knew as much as she does…which is little.

“Varric knew Rook better than I do.” Harding said, but Varric is dead so there goes Neve’s lead. If Jean was still alive Neve would have gone to her, obviously. But she is, so she went to Davrin instead. The senior warden gives her a strange look before telling her firmly, in a slightly scolding tone over her poking.

“Grey Wardens don’t ask of the past of every recruit that Joins. Our previous lives ended the moment we Joined and starts anew with the Order. I don’t need to know Rook’s past to know that she’s a comrade I would gladly die alongside with.”

So protective, and secretive. Neve is happy for Rook that she has a sturdy figure of a friend in Davrin, but as a detective she’s once more left unsatisfied at having her searches hitting a wall.

So far, all Neve’s got for Rook are observations based on what she’s personally witnessed:

• Rook isn’t on good terms with Solas and describes her relation to him as enemies on a truce
• Rook has a sweet tooth and is very fond of cioccolata calda after Lucanis introduced her to it
• Rook dislikes coffee, which she dubs bean water
• Rook is tactile (especially with Neve)
• Rook is ambidextrous, but her right hand seems more dominant than the left
• Rook sleeps in short bursts and can fall asleep practically anywhere— a Grey Warden thing according to Davrin who has a similar sleeping habit
• Rook smells nice like lyrium and pepper (lyrium is not a mage catnip) because of her mix of explosives
• Rook despise Venatori
• Rook has been with the Grey Wardens ± 5-10 years according to a small throwaway comment from Antoine
• Rook loses in a game of rock-paper-scissor against Manfred four times out of ten
• Rook is very fond of puzzles and good with code breaking. She was the one who found the Lighthouse’s hidden rooms with the Caretakers’ help
• Rook has a very battered copy of Varric’s The Tale of the Champion in her room, one she hasn’t touched since Varric passed
• Rook likes cats

None of these says crap about her past at all. It just makes Neve sound like an extremely observant stalker.

But this short list had Neve very aware that Rook has not revealed anything about herself to Neve or the other team members. The rogue is surprisingly very tight-lipped about her past... Is this a Grey Warden thing or is Rook purposefully hiding from other people?

The younger woman’s seen the disaster that is Neve’s daily life down in Dock Town before. A part of her wants to know more about Rook the same way as well. To see if she also has a home that she has to take care of, or something along that road.

But Rook’s life so far has only revolved around the Grey Wardens outside of their mission, so Neve is stuck.

Who are you, Rook?

It’s a mystery for Neve to solve, and she has mix feelings about what she might uncover when she gets to that part. Neve is unsure if she should let Rook know that she’s looking into her. She knows that this feels invasive, but Neve is a detective. This is part of her system when she takes up a job.

She just…doesn’t want to pry too much.

“Hm?” Neve turns as her ears caught noises coming from the outside. What’s going on? The noises are getting louder, and she hears Bellara shouting.

Neve kicks back her chair and rushes out the door just in time to see Davrin sprinting from his room, Assan flying behind him. She follows immediately, alert and worried, and keeps herself close to the warden as she enters the library and—

She gapes at the sight that awaits her on the mouth of the stairs leading up from the Eluvian room.

The monster hunter launches himself forward to tackle Lucanis—no, Spite— as he struggled, the demon throwing Rook off of him with a force that sent her flying. Harding is holding onto his legs, and she’s struggling hard to keep them still.

“Davrin, pin him down!” Rook calls out. “Mages—anyone, check on Taash!” Bellara runs to their dragon hunter immediately and Neve follows, looking for whatever that had Rook’s voice rise in panic.

“Their arm—!” Harding says between greeted teeth, and all eyes moves towards the aforementioned limb.

Taash’s arm is bleeding badly, and there are teeth marks around a spot that had a chunk of it missing. Did Spite bite them? Davrin, Rook and Harding are now struggling to pin Spite to the ground as the demon’s wings flaps threateningly around them.

“Off! Kill!! Illario!!!” Spite hisses and spits before elbowing Davrin in the face. The senior warden cursed, blood dripping from his nose, before putting more of his weight on the struggling Crow.

Neve moves on instinct before the demon takes out any more of her friends and freezes Lucanis from the feet upwards. She makes sure to keep her spell light so that she doesn’t kill Lucanis accidentally—just enough to keep him in place.

Spite looks up at her, eyes flashing in anger. “You! Hope! Crushed! Falling!!”

What? Neve frowns at his words, but keeps her spell steady as Emmrich comes down the stairs.

The necromancer takes one look at the mess and goes, “oh, my!” before rushing towards Spite, Manfred on his heels.

He places a hand gently over Spite’s, Lucanis’s, face, before commanding him in a voice that’s kind and firm both. “Sleep.” 

Neve feels his gentle magic pressing down against Spite’s demonic aura. It was a battle of will and skill, but Emmrich has always been a master when it comes to spirits. His spell won after a brief struggle, and then Spite slackens in his frozen state, forcefully sent to sleep.

The three people pinning him down pulls back, panting, as if they’ve been wrestling with a druffalo for the last five minutes. Rook glances towards where Taash and Bellara are in the corner and walks over.

“How’s—”

“Hurts like a bitch.” Taash groaned out as Bellara heals them. Neve watches as Bel’s spell slowly regrows the missing chunk of flesh on their arm. She turns to Rook who’s breathing deeply across of her.

“What happened?” She asks, and from the way Davrin, Harding, Bellara and Emmrich looks up, it seems like she’s asking for everyone who were in the lighthouse before this. It only dawns on her then that Rook, Taash and Lucanis are all drenched in blood. Fresh blood. They reek.

Rook runs a hand through her hair in frustration. “We were in Treviso, going after Lucanis’ lead like I told you before. We were following Zara, and got in a fight.”

Just like their usual missions then.

“But then before Lucanis could kill her, Illario jumped in and stole the kill. Spite went berserk.” She waves a hand at the frozen assassin on the floor. “Illario…did something that had Spite relenting, but then he forcefully knocked Lucanis out the same way. He was fine when Taash carried him for most of the journey back, but he woke up when we were walking up the stairs and—well, Spite attacked.”

Outraged at having his kill stolen, and furious at having been taken out by an unsuspecting spell, Spite lashed out at everyone around him. He overpowered Lucanis and attacked when Rook and Taash went to subdue him. Rook grabbed his middle and tried to wrestle him onto the floor, and Taash tried to choke him so that he’s unconscious—

But their arm was within reach of Spite’s mouth.

And he bit, and tore a chunk off their arm.

That’s when Rook starts yelling for help, and Harding came after yelling out for Bellara and whoever was around. This was the racket that Neve heard— Bellara’s voice calling for her as she runs to help.

What a mess.

Emmrich sighs as he looks at Lucanis’ form. “Spite was…disturbed. I did not know what happened, but his mind is a mess. I sensed traces of blood magic upon him.”

Blood magic? Neve turns to Rook. “Zara was a blood mage, wasn’t she? Was this—”

“No, Illario was the one doing it.”

The room goes quiet at the revelation.

“He’s not a mage.” Bellara speaks up with a frown as she continues to heal Taash, not lifting her eyes from her work.

Rook shook her head. “No, that’s why Taash and I were surprised. He did…something but I don’t know what. I have a bad feeling over whatever happened…and Lucanis isn’t going to be happy when he wakes up.”

Davrin was still kneeling on the floor, wiping his nose, and he sends Lucanis a wary look. “Should we just leave him be like this? He could attack again. You don’t play with demons, especially when they’re angry.”

“I’m not throwing him in jail when it’s not his fault.” Rook immediately says, sounding exhausted. “And we don’t have a jail here. Let’s just—put him in his room, and have someone guard over it until Lucanis wakes up or something.”

“I’ll do it.” Davrin offers, standing up and going over to Lucanis. “Neve, if you can undo your spell. I’ll take him to his room. Rook, you and Taash should rest. Shower and rest.” He wrinkles his nose at Rook who rolls her eyes.

“I’ll help Bellara with Taash.” Harding says immediately, worried over her partner. Neve understands her feelings, as the two have only recently gotten together, so she raised a hand.

“You can stay here with them, Lace. I’ll go with Davrin instead.”

“I’m fine.” Taash grumbled, but they lost a lot of blood, and the paleness of their face isn’t convincing anyone.

Emmrich then chimes in, saying he’ll prepare a calming tonic for Lucanis to take when he wakes up, along with some blood replenishing potion for Taash, and so the team split to their assigned roles. Davrin had Lucanis slung over one shoulder and Neve follows from behind, alert for any surprise attacks and magic ready on the tips of her fingers.

She hears footsteps following her, and sighs.

“Didn’t Davrin tell you to rest?” she says to the rogue stepping in besides her. Rook looks exhausted and she smells like a gutted fish. It’s like she was swimming in a pool of blood. Head to toe drenched like a scene out of Harding’s gore novels.

Rook grunts. “Later, after I make sure Lucanis is in his room.”

“You’re a mess.”

“Ugh. I know. You should see the look people give the three of us when we walked down the roads of Treviso. We almost got arrested just for walking back to the Diamond.”

Neve pointedly glances at the trail of blood following Rook as she walks. “Mhm. Yes, well, I wonder whyever would they do that to you.”

Rook weakly glowers at her, but she still gets the message and waits by the stairs to the dining room as Davrin and Neve ventures further towards Lucanis’ room in the pantry. Davrin lies Lucanis on his back carefully before stepping back with a frown.

“I know Rook said to not jail him…but I’m still wary about Spite. What do you think?” he turns to Neve, looking for support. “He tore a chunk out of Taash’s arm earlier, I don’t want to even think about him going after Bellara.”

Neve agrees. Based on just strength, Spite in Lucanis’ body would overpower Bellara. He is a mage-killer, Spite would have known how to utilize Lucanis’ honed instincts in fighting mages to take Bellara down easy if he wanted to.

And yet…

“Setting up a guard just outside until he wakes up would be enough, like Rook said.” Neve works her brain. Lucanis’ possession is complicated, and it’s not even the man’s fault. But there’s no denying that he might be a danger to them. “Emmrich’s original ward is already here, but I’ll put an additional ward on the door, just in case. If Spite tries to break down the door, it’ll notify me.”

“And if it’s Lucanis, instead of Spite?”

“He’ll be unaffected. It’s a ward for demonic presence, the kind you put on the doors to the Harrowing chambers in the Circle.” Neve walks over to the door, and carved a symbol on the wood with her magic. She had one of these carved on the door to her apartment, but never thought of doing the same with her office in the lighthouse because she thought there would be no use as there’s no demons running about.

Turned out she was wrong.

Neve glances at Davrin’s nose. “Is your nose broken? Spite clipped you, earlier.”

The warden pokes gently at his nose, frowning. “No, doesn’t seem so. Just a hard hit, I’m good.” Neve flicks a finger at him anyway, and Davrin lets out a surprised grunt when a thin layer of ice appears on the bridge of his nose, like a cast.

“Get it properly iced later. That’ll hold only for like half an hour.”

“Thanks, Neve.”

Neve nods before going back to her carving of the ward on the door. Davrin watches her work for a bit with a slight frown on his face. “You know, I just noticed this but, you’re…rather soft when it comes to Lucanis, aren’t you? You, and Bellara both.”

“I’m just a sucker, Davrin.” She lets out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Besides, it’s not his fault he’s possessed like this.”

“I know.” She could feel Davrin’s eyes on her, lingering for a bit before moving back towards the ward on the door. “Careful. Rook might get jealous.”

The wood cracked when Neve accidentally put too much pressure on it, and her body stills. “What did you just say?”

“Hm? Nothing. You must have misheard.” Yet the warden’s tone is teasing. His footsteps start moving away from behind her. “I’ll grab something for our idiot waiting outside. Don’t take too long or she’ll fret and track blood in here.”

Neve can’t deny that she had a small bout of internal panic when Davrin goes away. Does he know? Neve swears she keeps her feelings to herself. How did he—did Rook tell him? Then again, she can’t get mad even if Rook did…she told Bellara about their business too.

Well, whatever. It’s not like it’s a big deal. They’ve got two gods loose in the world, their drama isn’t the most interesting thing happening around them.

Still, Neve stares at Rook with narrowed eyes when she sits down on the stairs later on. She wants to dig into this mysterious woman more than ever after that small comment.

Rook blinks at her.

“You’re…sitting very far from me.” she pats the space next to her. “Don’t be shy. This space is empty.”

“You smell, so I’ll have to pass.”

Rook huffs out a laugh “That’s not nice.”

“She’s not lying though.” Davrin throws a clean rag over Rook’s head, while holding a waterskin full of ice against his face. They had a bunch saved in the icebox in the kitchen. “At least wipe your face. You look like a vampire.”

Assan squawks from his position by Rook’s feet. He too is sitting like two feet away from Rook because of the strong smell of blood coming from her.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Rook’s voice is muffled as she vigorously wiped her face on the rag. Neve snorts watching her, remembering a certain conversation between Bellara and Emmrich.

“It depends on who you’re talking to. Bel and Emmrich might just dissect you in the name of research.”

“Yikes. I’ll pass, then.”

Davrin puts his hands on his hips, frowning at the fade as he lets out a sigh. “So, that was a mess. What are you going to do now?”

“About what?”

“About Lucanis.”

Rook frowns down at the bloody rag she’s holding. “Talk to him, I guess. Him and Spite. After that…”

She’s looking very somber about all of this, and while Neve can quite relate—that situation in the library was harrowing to see—she suspects there’s something going on in their leader’s head.

“There’s something else on your mind.” Neve knows she was right when Rook’s eyes turn to her thoughtfully. “Davrin and I might be able to give you a hand if you’d let us know about it.”

As capable and responsible a leader Rook is, she really shouldn’t burden everything by herself. The last time she did that after Weisshaupt, she broke down. Neve didn’t want a repeat of that—not when things are going so well lately.

The rogue didn’t spill immediately, but a gentle persuading from Davrin had her relenting with a deep, exhausted sigh.

“Alright, fine. There’s just something bothering me about…everything that happened.”

“About the blood mage?” Davrin asked after he sat himself down on the stair below Neve and Rook, hands on Assan.

Rook shakes her head. “No, Zara is a crazy zealot, and while she’s repugnant, it’s the usual Venatori case with her. It’s about something else.” She seems to be mulling over something before turning to Neve, blue eyes solemn and thoughtful. “Amatus.”

Neve’s heart jumps. “I—what?”

Rook isn’t saying—no, she wouldn’t know what that word means…does she?

“Amatus.” Rook repeats again, still looking deeply into Neve’s eyes like she’s not giving Neve a mini heart-attack. “If I say that to you, what would you say the closest meaning to it in Commons?”

Oh. Neve’s heart slows down, and she tries not to pay attention to the tinge of disappointment that follows. She clears her throat. “It means ‘beloved’.”

Davrin frowns at them. “Tevene?”

“Yes. It’s—you don’t use them often. Normally you don’t throw that word around easily.” Which was why Neve was flustered when Rook threw that word at her so suddenly earlier. False alarm.

At her explanation, Davrin gave her a look before turning to Rook. “So, you’re just confessing to Neve, now?”

Neve almost chokes, but surprisingly, Rook doesn’t take the bait. She lets out a frustrated growl instead.

“Quit that, I’m being serious. Zara was saying that before she was killed earlier. To Illario.” The rogue emphasized firmly, turning to look both Neve and Davrin in the eyes. “Just one word that I heard, and I thought I heard wrong but, apparently not.”

“Illario?” Neve’s mind works as she puts the puzzle together. “Didn’t you say Illario stole Lucanis’ kill? Of Zara?”

“I did, yes. Illario killed Zara.”

Davrin reaches the conclusion the same time Neve did. “They were lovers? Oh, this is way too convenient to be a coincidence.”

“It’s not.” Neve frowns as she works all the angles with the information she’s known so far. Something like this is not a coincidence. She’s heard from Lucanis about what kind of person Illario is. He’s a philanderer…and not the kind that she jokes Rook is supposed to be. That man is the charmer, the kind of personality that would be perfect to lure in targets before killing them. It would be so easy for him to pull this off. “These two were definitely working together.”

She explains her thoughts to the other two, and at the end of it, everyone was in agreement.

“We’d need a stronger proof than a spoken word before death, but I believe this is a sound deduction for now.” Yet Rook still doesn’t look happy. “Lucanis is going to be crushed.”

“Something really has to be done about Spite,” Davrin says immediately. “Look, Rook, I know you trust Lucanis, but we really can’t have whatever happened earlier to happen again if his emotions run high. We have mages here without the ability of self-defense—”

Neve clears her throat and cracks her knuckles threateningly, earning a small smile from Rook.

“Neve’s not included. She packs a punch.”

The mage smiles at her, pleased. Davrin rolls his eyes.

“Okay fine, we have Bellara and Emmrich here who can’t defend themselves if Spite is attacking them physically. Lucanis is a mage-killer, he knows how to fight mages.”

“Yes, but Spite isn’t poison. We can’t just—flush him out. It’ll take time.”

“Everything takes time, you have to start taking the first step—”

“I’m not going to force him—”

“Okay, enough.” Neve cuts in just as voices are starting to rise. The two wardens flinched, before slumping their shoulders at her warning tone. “Arguing about this isn’t going to lead anywhere. Davrin is right that something has to be done about Spite, but Rook is also right in which it will take time to find a way to do it properly. The way they’re bound together is abnormal, so finding a way to solve this will take a lot of time and resources.”

Neve’s not even sure where to start looking even with her expertise with demons. There are books, yes, but so far, they’re about possessed mages. Never about possessed regular people. She turns to Rook.

“The important thing is, you have to talk to Lucanis and makes sure he knows what he did to Taash. It’s not pretty, but he has to know what he did in case he wasn’t aware during it. After that…”

“…we see how things go?” Rook offers, smiling slightly. It sounded very vague but, Neve’s in agreement.

“Yes. One mystery at a time, since now we have Illario’s illicit affair with Zara to solve.”

Davrin lets out a grumble. “This goes beyond just illicit affair. I’ll bet it’s some kind of scheme.” His words earned a snort from Rook, who looks at him with amusement.

“They’re Antivan Crows, Davrin, of course there’s a lot of scheming in this. They’re dramatic like that.”

Neve agrees, personally. Antivans do everything with a stylish flair, even living out their daily lives. It’s quite impressive.

“Well, anyway, glad we talked this out. I was bothered by it. Now I’m going to take a shower—”

“About time.” Neve quips, unable to help herself. Rook huffs again, turning doleful eyes at her. She smiles back innocently.

“You’re kind of mean today, do you know that?”

“I have no idea whatever you’re talking about.”

Rook narrows her eyes but Neve keeps her smile on.

“Fine. Meanie.” The rogue is the one relenting in the end, with a defeated sigh. “I’m going to go. Davrin, you’re staying on guard, right? Let me know if he’s awake?”

“Sure thing.” Davrin said as he scratches Assan’s chin, pulling out purrs from the griffon. Neve wants to do that too. “Get some rest too so you can talk with a clear head.”

“Mmkay. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, stinky.” Neve calls out and laughs at Rook’s offended hey! as she walks away towards the library. She smiles after her. Well, at least Rook isn’t all frowny and solemn as she was anymore.

She turns to Davrin then, back to business. “I’m going to check on Bel and the others, and then I’ll be in my office. Call if you need a hand?”

Davrin gives her a two fingered salute, and Neve stands up and head towards the Taash's room.

In the back of her mind, she notes down one extra information that she just received from today’s observation to put in a certain someone’s dossier later. In addition to one other similar instance a few weeks ago.

Rook understands Tevene.

//

Rook was taking a light post-shower nap when she felt something heavy settle over her, followed by gentle nipping on her ear.

She knows this is definitely not Neve, as much as she wanted it to be, so she opens one eye to peek and yes—she was right.

Assan looks down at her with big wide eyes, settling over her body like he’s a cat and not a griffon that weighs like ten times heavier. He squawks, and she laughs, reaching up to wrap her arms around the bird. He’s the right size to make a good, albeit a bit smelly, pillow.

“Hey, boy. Came here to cuddle?”

The griffon squawks, and shakes his head. Is that a no? Rook’s not well versed in Assan-squawk like Davrin or Neve are. Assan then pinched one of her sleeves in between his beak and tugs.

“Woah, don’t rip it—what’s wrong? Does Davrin need me?”

A nod this time, and a happy squawk. Well, that’s it then.

“Alright. Give me a second.”

She follows Assan after she checked herself on the mirror, and it turned out the griffon is leading her to the dining room. One glance at Davrin in the corner, sitting on a chair comfortably with a mug of something in his hand, and he jerked his chin at the pantry.

So, their demon is awake.

The problem is, which one?

Rook knocks on the door lightly, before coming in while announcing herself.

Human eyes look back at her from the man sitting on the cot, face pale and distraught.

Lucanis, then.

//

“Are you sure that this is safe?” Lucanis fretted as they arrived in the abandoned office dubbed The Wolf’s Den. Rook looks up at him after she places the tray of drinks on what seemed to be Solas’ old office desk.

“It’s fine. You’re back to yourself, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but—”

Rook waves a hand. “No problem, then. Here, come grab a cup. I tried to brew the coffee like you taught me to.”

That grabbed his attention better than any other distraction. Rook walks over to the balcony that overlooks the Lighthouse courtyard. It’s rather dizzying to look at things from up here, but it gives them the privacy that Rook wanted.

Besides, Lucanis’ been coped up in his pantry-jail for a while. He’d appreciate the fresh air.

From the way the man exhales a deep breath, and lets out a thoughtful hum at his cup of coffee, Rook thinks she’s made a good decision so far.

“Good?”

“It’s excellent.” The satisfaction is clear on the Antivan’s face as he looks at his coffee in wonder. “You had the temperature right, and there’s a good ration of water and bean. I am amazed, Rook.”

“I’m just following the notes you pinned on the wall.” Even though Rook’s happy for the praise. “You put down very precise instructions for it.”

“Coffee brewing is an art, not an experiment.” Lucanis said seriously, before taking another gleeful sip of his coffee.

If only Neve can hear him now. Experiment, hah. That boiled coffee of hers is probably poison.

Rook chuckles, and takes a sip from her own cup. “Well, I’m just glad it’s drinkable at least.”

“Are you drinking this coffee as well?” he asks, to which Rook shakes her head at.

“No, I’m still drinking cioccolata calda. I won’t be letting go of this until my dying days.” She’s had it once and her tastebuds are addicted. No way she’d trade this for bean water. Lucanis gives an amused laugh but he understands.

There’s a comfortable quiet between them for a while as they enjoy their beverages.

“He is not going to be pleased with you.” Lucanis said after a while, eyes staring out into the fade forlornly. Rook tilts her head at him in question. “Davrin, I mean. I noticed he was standing guard outside my door.”

“Right, it got to that point. It’s nothing personal though, Lucanis—”

The Crow holds up a hand. “No, I completely understand. It was the right decision to make for everyone’s safety.” His face pinches as he remembers the past. “I’ve…been trying to figure out what to say to you. And…there aren’t enough words to apologize. It’s never been that bad, before.”

Rook watches him, the proud Demon of Vyrantium, hunched over with guilt and the most human she’s seen of him so far. She could feel his guilt and regret from here, and though she cannot relate exactly, she understands how it feels to lose control like that. There are two minds fighting over Lucanis’ body—to know that your body was doing your friends harm while you can do nothing but watch must be terrifying.

“It’s not me who you should apologize to.”

Lucanis’ face falls even more. “I know. I will speak to Taash. I cannot imagine—” he takes in a shuddering breath to calm himself down, but the hard shake of his coffee cup tells Rook enough. “I shall refill my cup.”

A gentle request for a bit of time, and Rook nods, letting him. She sips her drink as she listens to the background noise of him refilling his coffee. When Lucanis came back, he looks a little calmer.

“My apologies.” He says again. With how hard he’s taking this, Rook knows that he will keep apologizing until she accepts it, so she did.

“You’re forgiven, even though once again, it wasn’t your fault.”

The Crow chuckles, hearing her tone, but happy that she’s accepting it all the same. “I know you feel that way, but I cannot agree. Not until I have atoned for what I’ve done.”

He’s so serious. “You can apologize to Taash and bring them some cheese wands. They’ll forgive you right away.” The way Lucanis looks at her with wide surprised eyes tells her that he doesn’t know this.

“Cheese wands?” He asks in the tone of someone interested and also wary for whatever it’d be.

Rook laughs. “I have no—look, ask Bellara about it. I only heard them talking about this excitedly once, I’ve no more idea about it than you do.”

“Huh. I shall keep that in mind.” but the man looks like he has a plan brewing in his head. It seems that he’s in a good state for a heavier subject then. Rook takes a breath and choose her words carefully.

“May we speak about Spite?” the mention of the demon’s name chases the lightness away from Lucanis’ eyes, and the heaviness settles in. “I’ll be frank with you, but the way you are dealing with him isn’t working.”

Lucanis sighs. “I know. I’ve been trying to—push him away, force him to the back of my mind. But he’s—stubborn.”

He is Spite, after all. Rook can’t imagine a more aptly named demon. Spirits are such interesting things. “If pushing him away doesn’t work, why not pull him towards you?” wait, no that doesn’t make sense. “I mean, why not have him work with you rather than fight for control? You two are deadly when you’re in sync.”

Bright wings unfurled like a vision of elegant death. A flying assassin is certainly something one don’t see coming.

The way Lucanis is staring at her is as if Rook just suggested that they both jump off the balcony right then and there.

“He is a demon, Rook.”

Rook shrugs. “Demon, Spirit—they still need a body while on our side of the Fade. While he’s staying in yours, why not charge him rent? Have him work with you on missions. Make him feel useful. If he’s happy, he might stop bothering you.”

The Antivan looks mesmerized at her suggestion. It’s really simple, or maybe the way Rook is thinking is just too straightforward. “I’m not sure if he would listen long enough to reach that part, but... I’ll think about it.”

Rook nods in acquiesce. “It’s just a suggestion from someone uninformed, of course, but I think Emmrich had a similar thought about the two of you. He wanted less struggle and more…working together.”

Rook remembers how Emmrich had spoken to Lucanis about this during their post-Weisshaupt briefing. The gentle coaxing towards cooperation between the two minds in Lucanis’ body was definitely for Lucanis’ sake. Rook gets it, now, after seeing what happened in the fallen Chantry and after what happened to Taash.

“Your suggestions are wise, so I am grateful regardless.” A complicated look then comes on Lucanis’ face. “We also have to talk about Illario.”

Oh, they’re getting to the meat of the issue. “Well. He uh, he said you should stay away from the Crows. Some bullshit about how you’re a danger to the family.” It was very hard for Rook to not call Illario on his bullshit when he said this to her and Taash back then.

Lucanis doesn’t share her opinion though. “He’s not wrong, if I cannot stay in control…” his forehead creased. “He used blood magic to control Spite.”

Rook hums. “I know.” And cringes when she hears a crick coming from her companion when he whips his head at her in surprise.

“You know?”

“Emmrich told us when Spite went berserk earlier. He said there are traces of blood magic in his, your, mind. It took me several tries to point out that it wasn’t Zara who did it to you, but Illario. I know he’s your cousin, but…” Rook makes a face. “I’ve always had a bad feeling about him. There’s something about him that’s not…quite right.”

There’s light amusement on Lucanis’ face as he sips his coffee. “I would say that you’re the first to say that to me but…I’ve had a few people said that before. And I did not take them seriously.” He lets out a sigh. “I hope for his sake that you are wrong.”

“And if I’m not?”

Lucanis doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t know how to. It’s not an easy decision to make.

Rook wonders what he’ll say to this next bit. “Neve said he might be working with Zara.”

The man turns to her pretty fast at the mention of the mage’s name. “Neve?! She knows?” the Saboteur nodded, ignoring the part of her that twinges in jealousy from the affection she could hear in the way he said Neve’s name.

“She does, sorry. I was distracted about this I ended up talking to Davrin and her.”

“Oh.” The way Lucanis’ face twists show that he’s not sure how to feel about this. “How—what made her say that?”

“Zara called Illario ‘Amatus’ right before her death.” Rook still can see the scene in her head. “He grabbed her throat before she could finish the word, but my ears caught it. And I confirmed with her about the meaning. Beloved, she sai—” Rook’s words faltered at the look on Lucanis’ face. The sad look that he’s sporting came out of nowhere that it wiped Rook’s mind off of whatever she’s talking about.

“Uh. Are you…okay?”

“Hm?”

“Your face kind of…” Rook motions towards her own face. “Did something happen?”

“Oh. Nothing. I was just reminded of something as we’re talking about this.” He lets out a sigh.

“Because I mentioned Illario had a girlfriend?” Rook sounds amused. “Wait, was it even a girlfriend or was he playing her. Both sounds possible.”

“I’m rather inclined to go with the latter, myself. The possibility is open to Illario charming Zara enough into working with him. It is…his typical modus operandi when we are at work.” He’s smiling at the memories, yet the smile doesn’t reach his face. “Once more my cousin has gotten ahead of me.”

Rook feels weird listening to all these, and she fought with herself over what to do. Should she be a good team leader and lend him an ear over whatever bothers him? Or should she just ignore because somehow, she has a feeling that whatever troubles him is about Neve.

Rook turns to the sky and sighs deeply, mentally asking for strength. And then turns to him. “Is this about Neve? Do you want to talk about it?”

She squashes her selfishness and tosses it aside so that she can lend an ear to this distraught Crow. Try as Rook might be, but she finds it hard to put herself first sometimes.

Lucanis contemplated her words for a bit. “I would not like to waste your time—”

“We’re friends, Lucanis. And, I asked, so.” Rook motions him with a hand. “My ears are yours.” She listens to her other friends as well after all. It would not be fair if she singled him out just because they’re interested in the same woman. She still likes Lucanis, this little problem aside.

The Crow considers her words for a bit, torn between the line of professionalism and personal privacy. Which Rook understands—it was like this with Neve as well. These two are really alike at some level, there’s little wonder why she feels threatened whenever they’re both together.

Her companion lets out a small sigh, before leaning back against the wall. Rook waits.

“Neve turned me down.”

There’s a jolt in Rook’s chest and for once it’s not elation or happiness. It’s…actually dread. She keeps her mouth shut though, in case Lucanis has more to say.