A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

An Epic Romance Begins

7 Bloomingtide, 9:41

Closing the door to the Chantry's dining hall gently behind her, Antonia heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a long, tedious meal, during which she was stuck between a nobleman who recounted every bloody detail of every combat he'd ever been in while forking in great bleeding bites of the rare steak he had requested and a noblewoman who had minutely inspected every bite she took in. Antonia wasn't certain what she had been looking for.

Neither of them had contributed to Antonia's enjoyment of her own meal. She had been very happy when Josephine had given her the sign that it was time for her to retire—they had determined some time ago that Antonia's presence was not always conducive to good diplomacy. The nobles had a hard time talking business, in their tortuously oblique ways, when the Herald herself was present, and Antonia had little talent for such conversation. She knew how; that had been part of her training in childhood, but she had never excelled at the level Josephine did, and that was what was required in their current situation.

As she passed the entrance to the tombs, which doubled as a wine cellar, a loud hsst caught her attention, and Varric appeared out of the shadows. Something inside his coat clinked, and he put his hand over it hastily, looking around to see if anyone had heard.

"Good," he said. "I've been waiting for you. Come on, we're late."

"Late for what?"

"No time to talk, Herald." He looked up at her. "Do you trust me?"

"I ... suppose."

"Then come on."

Intrigued, she followed him out of the Chantry. They took a sharp left into the cluster of huts there; the potion-master lived in one, Solas in another, and last she heard Dorian had commandeered the third. It was that one Varric led her to, and she was surprised to hear laughing voices within.

"What's this?"

"Do you always ask so many questions?" Varric knocked on the door in a particular pattern. It opened, and Antonia and Varric were whisked inside into the warmth of the room. Looking around, Antonia saw Dorian and Vivienne, and the Iron Bull sprawled across Dorian's bed for lack of a chair that would fit him.

"What are you all doing here?"

"We thought we could all use a break," Varric said, producing several bottles of wine from under his coat. Antonia happened to know that some of those were from Josephine's personal collection. "Fortunately, the wine bottles didn't feel the same." He grinned.

"All?" Antonia asked, looking around.

"Well ... I asked Blackwall, and he looked at me as though he didn't understand the meaning of the word 'party' and walked away shaking his head. His loss." Dorian sighed, popping the cork on a wine bottle and filling a tankard. He offered it to Antonia.

Why not? she decided, and accepted it, taking an appreciative sip. It was very good.

"I spoke to Sera," Vivienne said, "and she said something that might have been in Common and might have been in ..." She looked around at the assembled company, and finished with, "Rivaini. I understood her to mean that she thinks we are all very boring. And thank the Maker for that." She accepted a tankard and breathed in the bouquet of the wine with a blissful smile on her face.

"Chuckles," Varric said, gesturing toward Solas's hut but using his pet nickname for the elf, "said that he was likely to see some of us in the Fade later, if we 'retained enough awareness to walk there,'" he finished, in a passable imitation of the elf.