Unimportant Complications
Your first thought was to tell your master.
Years later, you would understand that to the world at large, that would seem absolutely, completely insane. But you’d been his for years at that point; you hated him, but so did everyone he owned. That’s probably the natural state for any chattel under the sun. You believe with all your heart that if chickens and cows can hate, they do so fiercely and without reservation. But they obey, because when you’re owned, that’s just what you do.
Even now, ‘safely’ back in his possession, that thought rings in the back of your mind. You’re so scared of your new magic. Terrified beyond belief. It’s nothing like the magic you’ve seen in Tevinter. It’s sick, twisted fire that rages inside of you. But louder than the voice that’s been trained into your mind, louder than the voice of terror, is a voice like your mother’s. Don’t tell anyone. Keep the truth close to your chest. A secret, a secret. Between the two of you, there were none, but between the two of you and the world, everything was. And now that she’s gone…
A good instinct to have so deeply instilled. If you’d told anyone, you might have found yourself bound and broken as surely as the Saarebas. You already were, in some ways, but those beasts were mindless. You don’t want to be like that. Your mind is all you have; all you are. Being clever makes you valuable, but dangerous; so say your masters. Magic would make you more of both.
So you teach yourself. You try to remember things you’ve seen before, things you’ve overheard. You learn to control the raging fire, to make it glimmer and dance. In secret, hidden corners, you practice, twisting its shape, making it bow to your will. And when you sleep, spirits come to you. You aren’t afraid of them, just cautious as you are with any stranger. As your mother taught you.
They have questions, about the world you live in, about the things you’ve seen and experienced. You wield your words, then tell them you can show them better if they teach you how to use your magic, how to shape the Fade. You can’t do it the way they can, not while you’re asleep, but you learn much. And when you wake, you find you can feel the Fade, still there. Locked behind a shimmering, ephemeral curtain. The Veil, that must be the Veil you’ve heard mages speak of. Not a place, nor a thing, but a constant hum of energy. When you reach for it, you can feel it. Touch it. Grab it, twist it.
Accidentally hurtle yourself through it.
The first time you do it, your body ricocheting through space from one room directly into another, you realize there’s a very good reason you’d kept this a secret. Dangerous and valuable… yes. You are. You can use this. If you are very clever and very patient. Like your mother taught you.
You train and practice slowly, for a long time. You do your job and play with your master and keep your head down. You spend all of your time thinking. Your master loved that far-off, serious expression that you wear so often. “The eyes of a grown woman on the face of a child,” he calls it. He sees much of it as time passes; your mind is always racing.
Three months after your magic exploded out of you, you use it to slip out of the encampment for the first time. You borrow a friend’s clothes, hide your fiery red hair and pretend to be a boy. Light-skinned, for a native, but one ragged boy amongst dozens doesn’t stand out, even a pale one. You explore. You listen. You collect more secrets. You learn how to go for days without sleep, to ration your time. You learn how to travel further, chaining one jump after another after another.
And one night, when you jump too far, you’ve already learned how not to be scared of strangers. Their skin is as pale as yours, paler still, painted white to blend in with the fog. One of them recognizes you when he snatches off your hat, sending your fire-red hair cascading down. Wide-eyed little slave, spared by them only to be snatched up by someone else.
You’re valuable and dangerous, you tell them. And if they want to be friends, you can be valuable to them and dangerous to someone else.
When you wake up, the humidity of Seheron still clings to your skin. For a good minute, you’re still there, wondering how you came to fall asleep in a Fog Warrior encampment. But then your mind and body come back to you, and you remember where and who you are.
It’s still raining outside, and for once, you refuse to rise. You stay curled up in your bedroll, letting someone else deal with breakfast, letting Solas stretch alone. No one can condemn you for one lazy morning, surely. And unlike the mages, you can’t summon a magic fucking umbrella to keep you dry. If you’re going to get soaked sooner or later, you’d much prefer it be later.
Still, you rise in time to fetch the saddles and bags down from the trees—much easier than getting them up there in the first place—and prep the mounts for the day to come. You keep the Seeker’s cloak since she doesn’t seem in a hurry to ask for it back, and with the hood pulled up, it helps keep you drier than you managed yesterday.
The sour note you and Sera ended on yesterday looms overhead, thanks in part to the fact that neither she nor Solas are in the ahead party today. Of course, Solas not being in the ahead party shouldn’t matter, but you have absolutely no doubt that it does. You can only hazard a guess as to what actually pissed her off yesterday, but you wouldn’t be surprised if the fact it was Solas in particular had something to do with it.
This actually creates an extra layer of irritation for you, because it seems like just by existing, you’re always damaging that man’s reputation and relations. Sure, they weren’t exactly great when you got here, but you’d been hoping to fix that. Solas is a good person who’s fun to be around and has a lot to offer a friend. You want more people to see that. You’re wise enough to see that hoping for friendship between him and Sera is a lost cause, but you wish you could at least get them to stop actively aggravating each other. Instead, by the force of her glares, you’ve only made things worse. Again.
For once, your surroundings provide a bit of a much-needed distraction. It stops raining after a few hours on the road, and the forest ends rather abruptly, giving away to a scrubby sort of plain you’ve never really seen before. The grass is short and clumpy and almost spiky in nature, the dirt underneath it turning more loose and dusty as you travel. It’s completely unlike the plains you’re used to, the Dales with their long tall grass and unbroken skyline. But it’s also not at all what you were expecting in terms of a transition into desert. Up north, towards the Anderfels, it gets rocky before getting deserty, not all… weird like this. The grass is full of burs and some of the blades are actually somewhat sharp.
It’s also getting noticeably less humid as you travel, but after all that rain, it’s a very welcome change. You shed the Seeker’s cloak fairly quickly, but since she’s in the ahead group, it simply rests across Revas’s back until you have a chance to return it to her.
By the time lunch rolls around and it’s time to stop, the ground is dusty and sandy but still held together with an excess of strange, scrubby grass and bushes. You’d like to have a bit more time to explore this environment instead of rushing through, but you suppose that’s life. You’re not sure how long it will be like this before you hit desert properly, but that will be just as alien to you. You’re planning on treating it like an extended beach, probably.
Unfortunately, you can’t even take your lunch break to explore your surroundings. The horses are taken care of in relatively short order, although you’re fairly certain you could keep brushing them for hours and they’d still have sand in their pelts. The harts manes are basically like a trap for the stuff. But even after you care for the mounts, there’s something else, something much more important and much more unpleasant, that you have to deal with.
Sera.
She’s sulking. Sometimes it feels like she’s been sulking for most of this trip. You’ve certainly given her a mood whiplash over the last few weeks… but this time is unique inasmuch as you have no fucking idea what went wrong. You kind of thought that she’d maybe figured out the whole “actually I can’t” thing, and the conclusion she’d come to is that she still wanted to fuck you anyway. Which could have worked! But then she went and got pissy anyway, for unclear reasons!
You try not to go into it with that attitude, though, because you’re pretty sure it’s unproductive.
“Do you want to talk?” you ask, instead of all the myriad more pressing questions you have. She looks more surprised that you’re talking to her than annoyed, which might be a good sign. For something.
“…I guess,” she says. Grumpy, but it almost sounds forced. Another good sign, maybe. If she’s realized she was kind of a bitch, it’ll make your job a lot easier. You lead her away from camp a bit, although there’s not much to do to get out of sight. There’s a few trees, but they’re few and scattered and not particularly healthy looking. In a way, though, that lets you get further away without breaking line of sight and worrying your fussy companions.
“I’d apologize, but I’m genuinely not sure what part you’re mad about,” you start, because otherwise you’re just going to beat around the bush until you’re exhausted. And not even the fun way you and Sera have been getting up to lately.
“Do you seriously not know?” she asks, slightly incredulous but at least not yelling.
“I seriously don’t. I could hazard a guess, but I feel like that would probably just piss you off more.” You wiggle your hand in the air uncertainly. “So…”
“Look, I dunno how it is with you, and maybe I shoulda asked sooner, given your whole…” She gestures vaguely at… all of you. “Thing. But like, I’m a one-woman girl, ya know? I get tha’ relationships are complicated for you or wha’ever, but I gotta at least be the only one.”
You blink slowly. “…The prostitutes…?”
“We were jus’ foolin’ aroun’! It’s not like we were runnin’ off to fuck ’em.”
Okay, so, asking her definition of fuck isn’t a good idea right now. “So what are you mad about?”
“Solas, obviously!“
“…Sera, you do know there’s nothing going on between me and Solas, right?” you ask, your expression probably one of perfect bewilderment. “He’s like… Cole, I’m pretty sure.”
“You jus’ think that ’cause yer real bad at knowing when people wanna fuck ya,” Sera points out, but you shake your head.
“No, seriously. There’s nothing like that going on. Why does everyone always think I’m fucking someone?” you pull a frustrated hand over your hair. “Seriously, it’s been like this since I got to Skyhold! It feels like I can’t even look at a man without you and half the damn castle thinking we’re having sex! We’re not having sex! I never intended to have sex with anyone, I never had sex with anyone, until you came along, and that was—”
“Wot, really?”
“Don’t tell me you believed any of those rumors!” you snap. “Why would anyone? You know me! Think about how difficult this whole thing has been for you, and then think about everyone else we know! Who’d fucking bother?!”
“You were getting massaged while sittin’ between someone’s legs! Watchin’ the sunset! Of course there are rumors, that shit looks a certain way! If Dorian weren’t gay as the day is long, even I’d be wonderin’ about that. An’ you mention Cole, but if he wasn’t a spirit-thing, I’d really be wonderin’, ’cause you wander around holdin’ his hand but you held mine like once for a minute, and yer real weird about me goin’ down on you an’ y’always say shit’s complicated but never explain an—”
“Alright, I get it!” you exclaim, throwing up a hand to stop her breathless rant. Your thoughts on whether or not you should be required to relegate all forms of physical companionship to someone with whom you’re having sex aside… You have to admit you suppose she has a point. If only that people are going to make really stupid assumptions based on completely arbitrary-seeming rules that you’re not sure you have any hope of ever fully grasping.
“…Yer sure it’s not a sex thing?”
“For the love of the Maker, no,” you say, exasperated. “Me initiating some form of physical contact with other people is not a sex thing, I just—”
“Not that!” Sera interrupts before you can go on another misunderstanding-based tear. “The ‘complications.'”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, y’know, y’got some scars, yer always deflectin’ when I wanna go down on you, I’m pretty sure y’faked finishing at least once—”
You flush red. She’d noticed? Maker, you’re more out of practice than you thought. Or maybe it’s just because you’d never had to fool a woman before, someone who actually knows what a climax looks like.
“I’m not sayin’ that’s bad!” she continues on. “I just… y’can tell me.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Think about what I do. S’not like I don’t know what happens to elf girls workin’ in Orlais.”
“It’s not—I mean, that’s not the issue.”
“Not the issue, but—”
“Don’t make it a big deal,” you say with a sigh. “That was ages ago. It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“I can’t do… this.” You gesture between the two of you. “What I think you want it to be.”
“What I want it to be?” she asks with a snort. “I don’ even know what it is!”
You chuckle a bit sadly. “Yeah, me neither.”
The two of you just look helplessly at each other, and at the mess you’ve created. All good intentions and all following your heart and all that other garbage that works out in the stories, and here you two idiots are sitting in a tangled disaster.
“Well… Can we still make out behin’ that tree?”
You almost choke, despite having nothing in your mouth. You clear your throat, cough a bit, and then stare at her. “Are you insane?”
“Well, it’s not a sex complication, right, an’ I’m apparently the only one y’like enough to bone. It’d be kinda dumb for us to just throw it off a cliff at the first sign o’ trouble.” What an inspired argument.
You rub a hand over your face. “Sera, this is like the eight hundredth sign of trouble. We have been literally nothing but signs of trouble this entire time. Forget signs entirely, in fact. We’re just concentrated trouble.“
“…Okay, yeah, but consider: we could be makin’ out behind that tree, right now, and leavin’ complications off til later.”
You level her with an even glare.
She’s not wrong.
“Why do you keep doing this?”
“Cause I don’t think it’s as complicated as yer makin’ it. Especially if I’m th’ only one y’like.”
“It is, though.”
“But not in a way that keeps us from makin’ out behind a tree?”
“…Not technically.“
“Well, there y’go then, can’t be that important.”
It’s about who you are.
But you want her to be right. You want it to not be that important.
And honestly, when you’ve got her up against the bark of that tree, working splinters into her clothes, you can almost chase away the ghost of Solas’s voice telling you just how important it is.
The fact that you’re hiding behind a tree that only offers so much coverage, and that it’s lunch time, keeps things from getting too heated. You’re still unfortunately sandy by the time you pull yourself off of Sera. It’s going to be even worse, you suspect, once you’re in an actual desert. You’re expecting beach levels of “you and your belongings are never not sandy.” You’re not at all looking forward to it. Perhaps you should double bag all your books tonight, in an attempt to keep them free of the never-ending scourge of sand.
“We still got some time t’kill,” Sera says, sounding surprised. “Y’must’ve gotten through the horses real fast.”
“That’s because I didn’t seem to be making any progress getting sand out. There was always more,” you say with a sigh. “I’m completely uncertain of how much I’m supposed to be brushing them at this stage.”
“Sand won’t kill ’em,” Sera points out. “Just brush ’em off a bit, make sure nothin’s gettin’ caked, you know.”
“I don’t know. If I did know, this trip would have been a lot less stressful.” You glance sideways at her. “Slightly less stressful.”
That she only shoves lightly at your shoulder is a good example of how much happier she is, generally, after she’s been kissed stupid a bit. You’re not sure this is a sustainable method of Sera wrangling, but the temptation to just keep kissing the idiot out of her and kiss a different kind of idiot right into its place… is very strong.
“Yer the one who insisted we had t’bring deer with tons o’ fuckin’ fur into the desert. If it takes ya six years to brush ’em out, it’s yer own fault.”
“Don’t remind me,” you say sourly. Not that Revas would have let you out of Skyhold without him, probably. “I’m terrified of what this is doing to their manes.”
“Y’should just learn how t’ride a horse! Honestly, it can’t be any different—”
“They have completely different gaits,” you point out sourly.
“Try it on Daine!” she insists. “You’ll see, it’s easy.”
“I already tried once.” Briefly. “It felt weird.”
“Y’really hate havin’ unfamiliar stuff between yer legs, huh.”
This time it’s your turn to shove her. She laughs good-naturedly.
“C’mon, I’ll help. I been ridin’ horses since I was tummy high. An’ Daine’s th’ easiest horse in the whole fuckin’ world. She’s who ya’d learn on anyway.”
“Fine, fine,” you say with a sigh. You do kind of want to learn to ride a horse. It just keeps coming up, and it does seem like a good skill to have. It only took you a month or so to learn how to ride a hart, although you’re still questionable at that in some ways. You should at least start. Besides, Sera has a history of getting a bit jealous that everyone else gets to teach you something. You might as well let her have this; maybe she’ll be less pissy about Solas.
Although you’re beginning to suspect that it’s not within your power to make her less pissy about Solas, as a general concept.
Daine is already saddled up for riding, since Blackwall was riding Major this morning, so it’s easy for you to just climb on… well, in theory. In practice, it’s a chore. Half the time, the harts are laying down for a nap when it’s time for you to mount up, anyway. It’s pretty easy to get on a mount when it just stands up underneath you. Daine is tall and broad and utterly unwilling to squat.
Fortunately, she’s also patient, so she doesn’t appear to mind your undignified scramble up into the saddle. Sera adjusts the stirrups for you, thank the Maker. You hadn’t even bothered the other day, but it does feel a bit more secure this way. You feel a bit less like you might tip off the side when she’s just walking, but it’s still unsettling how she seems to almost… sway from side to side. It’s pronounced, and you’re certain that if you watched her walk next to Revas, you’d be able to pick out some kind of important, key difference.
You’re fine while walking, really. It’s uncomfortable, but you’re hardly going to come flying off.
Then she starts trotting, and you more or less come flying off.
Whereas the harts’ trot feels bouncy, but kind of like someone skipping through a field of flowers… Daine’s trot feels like being violently shaken up and down. You think even Bull would be a smoother ride than that, not that you’re going to comment so out loud. You all but throw yourself off of her when you realize you’re bouncing clean off her back, not wanting to get trampled, and as soon as you hit the ground you hear an angry honk. You don’t even need to get up to know who that is.
Sure enough, in a matter of seconds, your vision is overshadowed by fur, legs, and horns. Revas stands possessively over you, snorting angrily.
“I’m fine, Revas,” you say blandly, sitting up, but he still angrily digs his hoof into the sand, kicking up loose, spiky grass.
Looking up at him, pointlessly and senselessly possessive and jealous over such a stupid thing as you riding a horse, threatening absolutely out-of-proportion violence for the transgression, your struck with the dull realization that Sera is kind of just like him. Possessive when you gave them no permission to be, jealous over things you don’t understand and feel random and dumb to you. Angry and a bit violent when they get that way, too, and, as he butts his head against your chest when you stand, you have to add ‘absolutely willing to take it out on you.’
You glance between the two of them as Sera puts her hands on her hips and pouts at the hart. She’s saying something, something funny or something insipid, but you don’t really register it. Looking between the two of them is making you realize something about Sera’s character… and something more about her maturity level. Of course, she’s quite younger than you, enough that she doesn’t even remember who you are. You’d lied about your identity on a whim, never predicting the two of you would be anything other than casual acquaintances, so she may not realize just how much older you are.
You remember yourself at her age, which feels so very long ago. You weren’t like her in many ways, but you remember your general maturity, your ability—or, more poignantly, lack thereof—to handle things with grace.
You’re fucked, in both the good and the bad ways it’s possible to be fucked. And honestly, you still only have yourself to blame.
There’s not really a natural place, to your eye, to set camp for the night. After a day riding through seemingly identical rough, dusty terrain, you have frankly very little idea of how it is the Inquisitor knows where in the Maker’s name you’re going. You have a general concept of where you are; you could pick out the region on a map. But past “go west,” you have no idea how he’s figuring out the direction you need to be heading. It’s too bare out here. What is he using to guide by? The sun? Rocks?
The place that he selects to set up camp is equally nonsensical to you, but there are at least some rocks you can tie up the horses to. Now you finally understand why they’d laden the horses down with so much food in the last town. From here on out, they won’t necessarily be able to graze.
You’ve no more than decided you have to give up on brushing them—sand is infinite and you already hate it—before the Inquisitor has once again swept you off to practice swordplay. The sand, even held together with rough clumps of grass, provides its own difficulties. Especially given some of the grass is sharp. It’s far more difficult, in fact, than the mud had been. You know mud. Sand is unfamiliar. You can remember the last few times you were on a beach, but they were long ago and you certainly hadn’t been swordfighting. It’s loose, but you don’t sink into it like mud. It’s not slippery, it’s just… like trying to fight when someone’s scattered tiny beads. You have your fair share of stumbles, which is nervewracking when you’re holding a sword. You somehow manage to keep from impaling yourself, which feels like its own victory.
The Inquisitor’s absolute surefootedness is more than a little infuriating, though. You’d feel better if he fell over at least once. But you suppose that would be bad, since he’s one of the people you’re depending on to be better at this than you.
You’re just about tired and frustrated enough to consider trying to stab him for real when your salvation appears in the form of a Tevinter altus. The fact that it keeps happening doesn’t make it any less bizarre, all things considered.
“If you two are about finished with your fencing—” he begins.
The Inquisitor rolls his eyes. “It’s not fencing, Dorian. You know that. I know you know that.”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Dorian says with a careless wave of his hand, as if brushing the topic away. “I know you Fereldans prefer exhausting your partners completely, but Orlesians are quite delicate.”
The Inquisitor snorts. “Are we talking about the same woman?”
“I am extremely delicate,” you object. “No one here is more delicate than I.”
“Have you met Dorian?” the Inquisitor counters.
“I’ll have you know I have excellent upper body strength,” Dorian protests.
“And lower body strength,” you quip, quietly and mostly to yourself, although Dorian catches both it and your meaning and gives you a pointed look.
“Are you volunteering to take her place?” the Inquisitor asks, grinning.
“Under normal circumstances, Inquisitor, I would love to fence with you—”
“It’s not fencing!”
“Sword wrestle,” Dorian suggests.
“Definitely not called that. Nothing is called that.”
“I can think of a few things that could be called that,” you interject. You’ve let your sword drop towards the ground. You’re very ready to be done swinging the damn thing around. You roll your shoulders and wince as they catch.
“See?” Dorian points out, gesturing at you. “You’ve injured her.”
“I have not!” the Inquisitor protests, but Dorian is already approaching. Without so much as asking first, he grips your shoulders and digs his thumbs in just so. Your surprised noise is interrupted by a satisfied groan. Why is everyone you know so good at massages? Your eyes half close as Dorian works his fingers into tight muscles, too startled by how good it feels to even protest. Even Sera can’t object to this one.
“Look how tense she is,” Dorian says, sounding like he’s pouting. “You’re never going to win a woman to your side if you’re so rough with them, Inquisitor.”
“I have several women on my side,” he says, definitely pouting.
“I’m siding with the man currently giving me a neck massage,” you offer up as a tie-breaker.
The Inquisitor throws up his hands in mock-defeat. “I can tell when I’ve been bested.”
“Good man. If you’re finished thrusting for the evening, I believe Sera is roasting a few potatoes in the coals.”
The three of you migrate over to the fire, oddly necessary despite the fact you’re so close to the desert. You blame the clear, cloudless sky for letting the heat of the day escape so easily. As you settle in, however, you sit directly in front of Dorian, half pointedly and half hopefully. He snorts with amusement, but puts his hands back on your shoulders, digging thumbs in near your spine. There’s no magic, like there is with Solas, but frankly that’s almost a relief in and of itself.
“You are not my normal target for these things,” Dorian says, sounding amused.
“I’ll work on growing a dick if you’ll just refrain from stopping,” you reply, leaning back into the relief and pain in your tight muscles.
“Honestly, if you keep making those noises, someone’s going to ask you two to get a tent again,” the Inquisitor quips.
“Would these noises be any less alarming when coming from a closed tent?” Dorian asks, and you can practically see the suggestively raised eyebrow despite the fact you’re facing the other direction.
“Good point,” the Inquisitor agrees.
“Stop making fun of my noises, both of you,” you insist. “I’d like to see any of you fair any better, and you’re all used to this sort of thing.”
“Used to having massages?” the Inquisitor asks, seeming alarmed.
“Used to heavy labor. Not that I’m calling into question what you all choose to do in your spare time. None would be more understanding than I if you all formed a massage chain around the fire, now that I know the pace at which you travel and the weight of the swords you swing around.” You wince as Dorian straightens out your back, pulling your shoulders backward and pressing what feels very much like a knee into your spine. You suspect your back would snap if he pulled you backwards more sharply, but the satisfaction would almost be worth it.
“And you’re not even wearing armor,” the Inquisitor points out, and you nod.
“Exactly. If I was, I’d probably die.”
“Are you agreeing with her, Inquisitor?” Dorian asks, sounding deeply amused. “Might you need a massage as well?”
“Very funny, Dorian.”
“Who’s joking? I would hate to have you injured in battle if it could have been avoided with a little preventative care.”
Your desire to continue being stretched is vastly and immediately overcome by your desire to put the Inquisitor in a compromised position.
“He’s right, you know,” you supply. “I work my hands every day, and I always make sure to stretch them regularly to avoid cramps. My friends and I used to get hand massages with some regularity back in Val Royeaux, and my job is one in which no one’s life is on the line.”
“Huh,” says the Inquisitor. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in trying…”
“Excellent!” Dorian says, and you hope he’s not grinning as much as it sounds like he is. “Let’s begin at once. Do take off your armor padding, Inquisitor.”
“So is this like a pre-training stretch or hhhnnnngh,” he says, and you choke back laughter at the look on his face as Dorian most likely goes right in for the gold. “What in the—”
“Please, try to relax, Inquisitor,” Dorian says cheerfully. “It will make this much more comfortable for you.”
“He’s right,” you say, rolling over onto your stomach and snatching a potato that had been cooling on a nearby rock. “I have plenty of experience and trust me. It hurts way less if you relax.”
You dream of red eyes in the darkness.
It’s at once familiar, a nightmare you’ve had a thousand times. If it could even be called a nightmare; in a proper nightmare, you would run from it, force yourself awake the second you realized what was happening. Rain of blood, fog in the heat, an ever-present stench of cooking flesh. Those things? You run from. There’s no running from this particular nighttime visitor, and there is no point in trying.
After all, you chose this.
Those words, both your own and yet not your own, echo in your head like a mantra. And the effect it has on you, awake or asleep, is reflective of the familiarity. One sense of rebellion rages in a straight line like a controlled fire; the other dies completely, suffocated out with no air.
You hear his voice the same way you feel his presence. Inside your mind and outside, all around. And then behind you, familiar and known even if you don’t turn to see.
You chose this, Gingersnap, so don’t you dare fuss. Not a word.
A large hand ruffles your hair, disturbing your braid. You don’t have to turn to see, you don’t need to look up, but you do. The sight of Banal’ras is a familiar one, as if you’d seen him the night before. Your memory is a steel trap. Even things you might wish faded with time are crystallized. Ancient bugs trapped in the amber of your mind for all of time.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ashkaari Bisette. I’m a dancer from Rivain. I speak Orlesian, Rivaini, and a small bit of Qunlat. I am eighteen years old. My mother lived in a Qunari outpost in Rivain, but I disliked the Qun and fled when I was twelve. I was trained as an entertainer by my mistress, Lady Chandra Deshpande, a wealthy woman who took pity on me. I used to travel with Carnevale di Mistero, but left due to personal disagreements on the nature of my job. This is a fancy term for not wanting to be prostituted, and all I have to say on the matter to anyone who asks. When pressed, I will display signs of mild trauma and say nothing more. I now dance for entertainment across Orlais—primarily in Val Royeaux and Halamshiral—with the help of my manager, Ser Ferrault.”
It fits like a second skin. You think you have been training to become this your whole life. Dirth’len grew up but never changed.
“Not a sound. If you can’t control your face, at least control your voice. You have to be able to handle at least this. No, control your breath. Focus on it, not the pain.” A heavy sigh, a temporary relief. “Gingersnap. You need to be able to tolerate at least this much. Your fear of pain is your biggest weakness, and someone will take advantage of it.” A thumb wipes tears off your face—an uncontrollable reaction that you cannot wait to be able to control. “This is part of what you have to learn.”
He’s right. You chose this. You chased him. You don’t have any right at all to complain about anything that comes from it; you were told at the outset. You chose it anyway. And you’re happy with it, no matter what your occasional temper tantrums might suggest. If it hurts, if it’s unpleasant, it’s only because you’re cauterizing the hole from when your heart was ripped from your chest.
This might be a painful procedure, but it’s for your own good. You wanted this. Banal’ras gave you a purpose, one you’ve been wanting your whole life.
More than just running, more than just a wildfire burning out of control, turning everything to ash and ruin. You can’t stop burning; you ignited in Seheron and you have been on fire ever since.
If you throw the first blow, cripple them with it. No one will catch you when you fall. Speak only lies, until you can tell them in your sleep, until they pass from your lips like sworn truth. Work eight times as hard for a quarter of what they have. Never, ever let them see you hurting.
That’s what Banal’ras represents, what he gives you. A purpose for your agony. Your soul cracks and twists from flame, blackens to coal, but it refuses to kill you. And if you can’t die, you can burn to ash the world that dared to light you ablaze.