A Princess, a Knight, and an Assassin Walk Into a Tavern...

Clarity

 On the ship over, she had said her name was Clarity, but he couldn't help but feel that she was inappropriately named.

Not only because her backstory was as murky as bog water, well, at least the parts he could actually get her to divulge. Something about intense training that left many scars on her hands, sides, and even along her throat, including one on her cheek. A small straight thing obviously from dodging too slowly; then of course there was something akin to torture, and more recently a betrayal that had rattled her to her very core.

This was all just guesses of course, but Varric the dwarf prized himself on being a good reader of persons. Still no, it wasn't just that she was directionless and her past was muddy, it was that a better descriptor would have been Sharp. He had taken to calling her 'Pointy' for a lot of reasons.

Her tongue was quick and witty, but always with a little bit of bite, a little too much bitterness. Her cheekbones could cut fabric and she had a pointy face. Not to mention every one of her limbs' joints would cut or impale you if they bumped into you.

She was all angles.

Thin body, trim waist, long nimble fingers, and her face, with its huge ice blue eyes, was always graced with a sharp scowl or, on a rare occasion, twisted in a smirk.

That prosthetic leg was especially sharp, as it had a strange curved piece that she balanced and bounced on, while on the inside was a knife. This contraption she called a leg, did nothing to ward off his name for her, Pointy.
To be honest, he couldn't say why he liked her. Varric kept upbeat company, who laughed and drank too much, and she was quiet and meanly sober. Maybe, it was her sharp gaze, or her quick sharp comments. Or maybe, he just wanted to see if she was all like that, or if he shook her up just right....if she would crack into something entirely different.

Clarity saw the dwarf enter. He took a deep breath of the swill that passed for air in this place, making his largely exposed chest with its glistening chest hair swell. She rolled her eyes. Varric did love his chest hair, and had probably been trying to bring attention to it with that particular move.

She was a Raven after all, she knew how to read people.

Not to mention she had actually seen him groom it on the ship from thedas. Actually. Groom. It.

She didn't know why he was so fascinated with it. He had grown it after all. It shouldn't be that much of a shock.

His face, which was unusually clean shaven for a dwarf, showed an impressive jaw line and wide grinning mouth. His eyes were grey and sparkly.

That's what she liked best about him.

They hadn't been friends for very long, and though her Raven training had beaten romantic intent out of her, It would still be good natured and platonic between them even if that was not the case.

Clarity had let bits of herself show to this dwarf- mostly on accident- that she hadn't shown anyone in the past 16 years. Ever since Mother Greer.
Being a Raven, however, she knew Varric was trying to get a rise out of her.

Since they'd landed a little less than a month ago, things had been rough for Clarity. She knew how to survive of course, but she knew nothing of normal life.

Didn't know how to barter for bread instead of just taking it.

Didn't understand why men would look at her and blink one eye and then grin at her when she just looked back. Of course, then they'd catch a glimpse of her leg – or lack thereof- and move on quickly.

She didn't understand how one obtained a house. She'd just been sleeping in empty ones so far, but she had woken too slowly about a week ago, and had been caught jumping out the window by the knight who's family home it had been.

She was none too pleased, and sent Clarity to jail...for about 40 minutes before Clarity escaped.

She was now on the run from the guards, making her especially wary of the obvious Commander in the corner.

Varric kept saying she didn't have a "real life".

All this time she had snatched what she needed, or the Ravens had used their contacts.

How does one even start a life?

She missed her brotherhood. Missed the surety there.
She slipped into a moment of grief, but quickly schooled her features to a blank as he turned to face her.

A lovely girl, looking pointedly away from the Commander and hastening to an unpleasant fat man cut Varric off, but he just shuffled sideways and sat down across from her.
After ordering drinks- she'd been nursing the same drink for an hour and didn't intend on getting drunk, it was against Raven principles - he settled in..

Then again, she thought, maybe she should do it. Just to stick it to them.

He raised his glass and hollered, "To Business!" proceeding to down his drink in several messy gulps, and raised his hand for another, while turning back to Clarity.

"Well, Pointy, you haven't been keeping your nose clean like I told you. What's this I hear about an escaped convict in the city with a knife for a leg? The rumors do no credit to your god like beauty," Clarity snorted, "but they're flattering on all other accounts. Less than an hour to get out of the prisons, eh?"
"40 minutes, if we're counting." Clarity corrected, she did have her pride after all. Like it would take a Raven an hour to escape from anywhere. "And that was mostly because the guard wouldn't stop yammering to me."

She ran her fingers through the fine blonde hair that had escaped from her military grade braid. She needed a bath. She knew Varric was itching for the story, but she had been sitting here all day and was waiting for his news.

"Why are we meeting today, Varric?"
"Pointy, oh Pointy, have I got the job for you." His eyes glinted, now was coming his surprise.

"You did a good job marketing yourself with this prison break, and I've pumped up the rumors on your past and purse snatching jobs.."
"Made up, you mean."
"Yeah, well. What's done is done, and everyone wants to hire a good story. Anyway, there's a chap in Port Town who does business you might be good at. He's vaguely famous after rescuing the mayor's son from an assassination, and hosts a rag tag group of mercenaries – though he doesn't like that name – and I thought you'd be the perfect match. They call him the Hero of Port Town..." Varric's grin got bigger and bigger as his explanation went on.

Clarity, however, just got more confused.

I guess it made sense doing mercenary work, but is that what normal people did?

Then it hit her, this man was what he had been trying to spring on her. She could tell by the sudden shift of his eyes to the door, that he was expecting this man any minute.

Clarity tried to stand up to leave as soon as Varric started getting excited, but her prosthetic limb got caught on the chair, and she only half rose before the Hero of Port Town walked in.
He had a mess of black hair on his head that looked like it never laid straight, and a carefully trimmed beard. Men who fell trees were the only words that came to her when it came to his physique, she remembered them from her time in the Ridgebacks, and the muscular arms, broad shoulders, big hands, were all she could compare it to.

He looked hard all over, until he turned to face them. His eyes scanned the crowd looking for Varric, and when his eyes found their table, he beamed. A genuine, toothy, boyish thing that transformed his whole face.

Maker, did his deep blue eyes just sparkle at them?!

He approached with ease, seeming at home in the swill that this place called atmosphere, and gave Varric a hearty pat on the back, still grinning. "Clarity, I'd like you to meet Hawke..."