Sisters of Tevinter

Bound

    "Hey, a qunari. That's new." 

    "He's a merc, idiot. He'll trail around anyone who pays him-- the fact that he's Qun makes no difference."

     Jor's head lolled over her shoulder, her ears ringing, brain fuzzy. She peeled open her eyes, blinking rapidly as her vision flexed and shimmered into focus. 

     "I just hope when the bossman gets back he knows what to do with them. Not that I'm ungrateful, because clearly this one was a gift from the Maker." Someone tipped a knuckle under Jor's chin, tilting her head up slightly. She blinked again, dizzy. 

      "I like the red head. Sweeter face."

    "They're Inquisition, dumbass. Don't drool. They were here to hunt us down and toss us on a chopping block." 

    "Shh, Anja look! She's coming round." Jor's vision swam into clarity. It was that same man in the blindfold, his face weathered by sun damage and a long, deep pink scar down his cheek. He grinned. "Hello, gorgeous." 

   "You can't even see her, Argus, you have no idea what she looks like." 

  "I felt her move. I heard her voice. That's enough for me." Argus patted Jor's cheek. The scholar jerked her aching head from his grasp, gritting her teeth and reaching for her blades. Her wrists were caught in something rough behind her back, a rope. They'd bound her hands. 

   "Oh, we've got a live one." Argus sat back on his haunches, smirking. 

   "Who are you? The hell do you want?" Jor scowled and shook her head to clear it. She was sitting in some kind of wide cave of layered rock, sunlight streaming down from the crags and spaces in the ceiling. There was weight behind her, leaning limply, someone propped against her back. To her left, sitting against the wall with her head drooping against her chest, eyes hidden by her curtain of red hair, was Kaisen. 

        Bull was sprawled flat on his back on the ground, evidently they'd had trouble maneuvering his bulk and given up, a rusted iron chain looped around the qunari's torso and bound his wrists on his stomach. Jor found the image sickeningly familiar, thinking suddenly of Redcliffe. A depressed Dane lay forgotten within the confines of a small rusty cube of bars. On Jor's right, fully awake and gagged by cloth, was Dorian, looking thoroughly incensed. Jor could only imagine the cutting insults he'd hurled at their captors. Hence the gag.

     So by process of elimination, the weight with its back to her was Solas. Jor fought not to blush as well as panic, unable to see if he was hurt. He felt fine? Weight was not normally an indication of injury, Andraste's tits Jor didn't understand what was going on here. 

      A severe looking young woman with a quiver of arrows in her lap sat on the other side of the cave, her long blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun. A ruddy haired dwarf sat silently in the corner, sorting satchels as an elf with scrawling green tattoos on his cheeks and a man in a loose blue tunic played cards. The man had a staff of pale yellow wood banded in iron slung across his back. 

      The woman was watching Jor with a scowl. "Stay quiet. I'd hate for you to end up like your friend there." 

    Beside her, Dorian gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. Jor caught sight of their staffs and weapons as well as their supplies piled haphazardly in the same corner as the dwarf. "I'd like an explanation before I obediently shut my mouth," the scholar hissed. 

     Argus grinned, tapping cheery rhythms against his knees. "I like her, Anja, I really do. You don't think the bossman will let us keep her?" 

    "She's not a nug, Argus."

     Dane gave a mournful howl, whimpering pathetically in his cage. Anja scoffed. "We should have killed that damn dog." 

      "I wasn't going to kill the dog, Anja," the elf murmured, placing another card on the growing deck between him and the mage. 

      "Because you're a sentimental fool, Eadrik." 

      "Are we going to keep revealing names as we sit here? Perhaps our hometowns? Our aspirations, professions, greatest weaknesses?" The dwarf croaked. 

      "He's right," the mage drawled, splaying his cards face up on the stone to yield to Eadrik. The elf only grinned and scooped the coins between them into a pouch. 

      "Why didn't you kill us? I assume you aren't bandits, you would have robbed us and left us to bleed in the sand," Jor spat. 

     "Delightful imagery," Argus hummed. 

     "Because," Anja said irritably. "We don't kill innocents. As much as I hate the Inquisition and all you regal headed pricks stand for, you closed a rift and had yet to pose a danger. The fact that you're on our land was a problem that needed to be solved-- though your camps outside the Oasis have been extremely gracious in allowing us to... borrow supplies."

   I think we've found our ghosts. Jor could only scowl. "Kidnapping seems a little extreme then, doesn't it?" 

    "It's easier this way. We wouldn't risk armed confrontation," Eadrik murmured. He jerked his head in Bull's direction, running a hand through wine red bangs. "Especially not with him." 

     "I'm flattered," Bull rumbled, his eye still shut. Jor jumped and Dorian stiffened. Apparently no one had known he was awake, though the scholar supposed the lack of snores should have been a clue. 

       Argus laughed, leaning over to examine the qunari's face. "It speaks." 

       "I bite too," Bull growled. "Reel back, twig." 

        Jor smiled wryly. He seemed alright. A little pale, but alright. Eadrik turned to Anja. "When did he say he'd be back?" 

       "Late this evening. Give it an hour or two. If he doesn't come back we can assume he's dead. And I'll take his boots." 

        Jor stiffened as something sharp was pressed into her relaxed palm. Solas had stirred, clandestinely setting a shard of stone into her hand with deliberate slowness. He was facing the wall, expression neutral. The ropes. Jor twisted her fingers around the rock, pressing the edge to the ropes around her wrists and beginning to shear away at the fibers. 

    It was then a shape appeared in the sunset light of the cave entrance, turning silver hair to rose gold as they tossed the gutted carcass of one of the bovine tusk beasts on the stone floor, unslinging a sword and shield from their back. "What the hell have you bastards done this time?" 

     The scholar nearly fumbled her stone, Solas' fingers braced it in her hand warningly. The voice was familiar, if deeper. The face was gaunter, but the green eyes glittered with the same concern and heaviness of duty. They were a perfect match to Jor's.