Burn (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

The Work of the Inquisition

Leliana stood in the doorway of the tavern, watching with approval. A bustling tavern was the sign of a contented populace, and this one was quite busy.

She noted the Herald of Andraste in a corner with Varric and the Iron Bull and Dorian. That bore watching. The Iron Bull liked to seem simple, but there was a sharp intelligence in his single eye ... and the Herald of Andraste was enough of a loose cannon that Leliana worried about the effect on her of a spy on a mission to cause trouble. The Tevinter mage made a lot of people very nervous. Leliana wasn't, as yet, one of them, but she didn't trust him, that much was for certain. And Varric was his own set of problems.

"My lady, you appear to be thinking deep thoughts." That the Grey Warden Blackwall had been able to sneak up on her was proof enough of that. He moved lightly for a warrior, after years in the wilderness, but not so much so that she shouldn't have heard him coming.

"I was considering returning to my tent."

"Shall I walk with you?"

Leliana allowed it, wanting to know more about him. Truthfully, wanting to know if he knew anything about Alistair, but it was a vain hope. She'd had from him everything he knew already, she could tell.

"Did you know the Divine well?" Blackwall asked. "They say you were her left hand."

"I was." Leliana let a smile touch her mouth. "She was Mother Dorothea when I met her. I was at my lowest—broken. Lost. And she saved me." In her mind, she could hear the beloved voice chastising her. "She hates it when I say that. She would have said I saved myself—she just showed me that it was possible."

Blackwall was mercifully silent as she realized how much she had just revealed to him. "You are a formidable woman, my lady."

"Sometimes."

He chuckled. "I hope never to cross you. Perhaps it is safer to show admiration from afar."

They had reached her tent now, and Leliana turned to look at him. Not bad-looking, but ... oh, not hers. For a second, she saw the open face and the bright brown eyes of her former lover so clearly. No other face had ever been burnt so clearly into her mind. "You would be safer to save your admiration for a more worthy target," she said coldly, hoping to nip any further comments of that nature firmly in the bud.

"As you wish." He nodded courteously and was gone, leaving her to pull her scattered thoughts together and turn them toward the work of the Inquisition.

*****

Varric excused himself unusually early from the tavern, still bothered by Phoenix's description of the red lyrium in the nightmare future she had gone to. Growing out of people? As if the stuff wasn't terrifying enough already. He'd spent so much time trying to convince himself that the red lyrium in the temple had been a coincidence, but if it was part of this Elder One's plans for the future ... Whoever this Elder One was, he had taken the worst thing Varric could think of and made it worse.

He picked up a quill and began scratching out a hasty note to Bianca, encouraging her to be careful in her studies. It was all too easy to imagine her with red lyrium growing on her, and Varric shuddered at the mental image. "Destroy it," he wrote. "Destroy every single piece. Don't let any of it get out. And find out where it came from ... before it's too late."

Rolling up the scroll, he carried it to the raven tent, hoping it would be in time, and returned to his own tent to roll up in his blankets and shiver and try not to think about what kind of trouble Bianca was likely to be getting herself into.

*****

Rosalind leaned back wearily in her chair, letting the sounds of the tavern wash over her. Reactions to her choice to let the mages join the Inquisition as allies had been ... strong, to say the least. Leliana had bluntly told her she'd made enemies. But what else could she have done? The mages were her people. They had sent her—a mage—to do a specific job—to get mages for the Inquisition. She had done so. Anyone who thought she would do it by forcing them into some kind of servitude hadn't been thinking clearly, in her opinion.

Eventually, the leadership had come around, and now they were busy studying everything she had learned in that horrific future Redcliffe, trying to make sure it never came to pass. Meanwhile, Rosalind had to go soon and close the Breach, and she was so tired.

The Iron Bull folded his arms, looking at her in admiration, and a little bit of concern. It had taken courage to do what she did—courage, and an instinctive understanding that people fought better when they had a stake in what they were fighting for. The mages would fight now to their last breath, for a better life. For freedom. He didn't love mages, himself—too many saarebas in his past—and he understood the explosive anger that had come from Cullen, the vivid images of abominations run rampant that he could practically see hanging over the Commander's head. But the Iron Bull had been in the south long enough to know that not all mages abused their power ... and many who did, chose to only in extremity.

"Come on," he said abruptly, rising to his feet and reaching a hand down for her. "You need sleep."

"What? Oh. You're right, I probably do." Rosalind avoided his hand but stood up anyway.

The Iron Bull let her precede him, both of them nodding at Dorian as they left. "So, that Tevinter guy sent you into the future?" he asked as the door of the tavern closed behind them.

Not particularly wanting to talk about that, Rosalind smiled up at him. Flirtation often sidetracked people, in her experience. "If you're worried about magic, I can protect you."

He chuckled, enjoying her attempt at manipulation. "My blade pretty much protects me."

"Perhaps I can do things your blade can't."

"I don't know ... it has blood grooves." He tried to ignore the way his heartrate had sped up at her words or the undeniable temptation to find out what she could do for himself. It wasn't the time for that. Not yet.

"Is it true that Qunari don't mate?" The question seemed to have tumbled forth of its own volition.

The Iron Bull laughed outright. "I mean, yeah, we don't have sex with our friends, but we have tamassrans who are willing to pop your cork whenever you need it. Like ... I don't know, going to see a healer? Sometimes it's this long, involved thing, takes all day, leaves you walking funny, other times you're in and out in five minutes. 'Thank you, see you next week!'" And he'd have loved to have tried both with her right now.

Rosalind stopped and looked up at him. The shoulders, the horns, the narrow angular face, the way that single grey eye could be steel or stone or sky ... "So you've never truly made love?" she whispered. "Never truly connected in body and soul?"

He had not. He'd never even considered wanting something like that ... until right now. Here in the moonlight, in this icy village on the edge of nowhere, he ached for her warmth.

With an effort, he pulled himself away before he could reach for her. "Sleep well," he said gruffly.

As if she could, she thought, watching him walk away. Still ... he'd given her much more interesting things to think about than that horrifying future she'd glimpsed at Redcliffe, or the unknown terrors associated with closing the Breach. And for that, she was grateful.