And Start
Solas walks you to your room after your little… Whatever it was. Event. Fit. Embarrassing mental breakdown. You might stand closer to him than necessary and tell yourself it was because of the cold night air. You might want him to stay with you, might want to curl up against him and pretend it’s fine, might want more of that beautifully physical comfort he peppers you with ever since Val Royeaux.
But this is real life, so you go to your room alone and try to sleep.
You don’t really succeed, but you manage to drag yourself out of bed before dawn anyway. You triple check all of your things, making sure they’re packed and well hidden in all of the best and most nonchalant ways. You can’t believe you’re having to drag a bunch of illegal and very stolen tomes of forbidden magic across an entire country directly next to a Seeker. Honestly. At this point, the whole world is just fucking with you. But she has no reason to go through your bags and read a bunch of very boring looking books, and you have a lot of plans for running. Plus, the bags will be with you pretty much every step of the journey.
If anything, having to remain hidden in such illustrious and powerful company has done something for your confidence level–which was never exactly humble to begin with. If you can fool a Seeker and a Somniari, who can’t you fool? How good is your little trick; how unique is it to you? You’ve always assumed anyone could do it, if they bothered, but surely someone would have bothered by now? You do suspect some Dalish mages can probably do it, and probably others you’ve never heard of because… why would you have? All of you are hiding. And you in particular are doing it well , especially if this trick can fool the likes of Solas and Cassandra Pentaghast.
After a bit of hemming and hawing, you decide to put your armor on. You sincerely doubt you’ll be attacked directly outside of Skyhold, but it’s probably for the best that you get used to putting it on, wearing it, and riding in it. You probably look a little silly, in your mismatched leather, and you’ll probably look sillier amongst a group of practiced warriors, but you don’t particularly care. The Chargers gave you this armor, and it’s not like anyone else was lining up to give you lifesaving shit. Certainly not the Inquisition, who were the ones dragging you out into the blighted wastes of Orlais to begin with.
You check one last time to ensure you got everything you need, should you have to make an unfortunate escape. As it was during your trip to Orlais, you have your things organized into a bag you can run with, and a bag with mostly clothing and writing supplies and other things you can afford to leave behind. It’s a good practice to have, really.
Cole greets you just outside the door into the courtyard. He doesn’t say anything; he just sort of shows up. You don’t say anything either. Nothing really needs to be said, does it? He knows what you’re thinking, more or less. He knows what’s hurting you, and that’s pretty synonymous with what you’re thinking at any given time, at the very least.
You reach out almost without thinking, and he takes your hand in his. The simple, comforting gesture reminds you of Solas. You’ve always been one to find comfort in physical contact, a fact which has consistently fucked you over your entire life. But not with Cole. Cole understands, more than anyone else probably could. He would never make expectations of you, and he would also never do more than either of you were comfortable with at any given time.
You lace your fingers in between his, and the two of you make for the front gates together.
Of course, being hand in hand with Cole means that no one really takes note when the two of you show up. You take shelter out of the worst of the wind, leaning against the huge outer wall of Skyhold, and watch the bustle of multiple large groups of people gathering and all the supplies and mounts and little people that go into preparing both of those things.
You should just be one of those little people. It’s all you wanted here. You hadn’t realized how far the few skills you failed to lie about would carry you. …Well, you hadn’t realized how ragtag the Inquisition was, actually. How desperately in need of skilled hands they were. They seemed impossibly put together from the outside, swooping in out of nowhere and making declarations and rebuilding areas. It was only after being with them for a while that you’d come to realize they were basically desperately falling upwards through a combination of skill and sheer need.
In short order, the mounts are all gathered. Ten horses and four harts is quite a crowd, and you’re at once intimidated to see them all lined up like this. Those are your would-be wards right there. Fourteen creatures significantly larger than you. It also serves to emphasize to you just how long your little caravan is. Surely it will be easy for you to go by quiet and unnoticed? Keeping company with Sera, or Solas, or Cole. The Inquisitor and the Seeker need not even realize you’re there, really.
Ha. Yeah right. When has your luck ever gone that well? But you can at least try.
Still, Cole’s supernatural ‘don’t look at me’ aura can only last so long. Eventually, you have to part ways from him somewhat to tie your bags off to your own mounts. Vhas’durghen gets the dubious honor of being pack mule for now, since you’d much rather start this journey on Revas and leave the confusing and uncertain parts for when you’re a little further out of the snowy mountains. You’ve gotten much better at riding over the months, but not that good.
You’re just starting to saddle up onto Revas, still largely ignored by most of the even busier away team, when someone runs up to the Inquisitor where he sits already mounted on Snowblind. Looks like a messenger. Looks like an alarmed messenger.
“Your holiness, news from the jails!” This causes the Inquisitor to stiffen, as well as most people within listening distance, including Cassandra Pentaghast. “There’s been a death amongst the prisoners!” Your own body language remains carefully neutral, but you can almost feel your ears twitching with this. There’s a certain prisoner whose fate you’re very interested in, who happens to have many, many people very, very angry with him.
“Calm yourself,” the Inquisitor orders as you pretend you’re not listening with interest.
“Yes, your holiness, I’m sorry. One of the prisoners has died overnight.”
“Was there any disturbance in the jail?”
“None. Preliminary examination suggests that it was natural causes, but…”
The messenger didn’t need to say it. Someone dying in a jail cell was always a bad look.
“Was it one of our political prisoners? War criminal?”
“No, your holiness, just a common soldier. No one anyone should want to see dead.”
Well, no one important, anyway. Few people wind up in jail without at least one or two people being very, very angry with them. A soldier, could be Underhill…
“Do we know how he died?”
“Looks as though his heart gave out, sir. No trace of poison.”
“I’m looking into it,” an accented voice says. You recognize it instantly, and turn to glance over. Leliana has come down from her perch. “But so far, Inquisitor, it really does seem to be a simple health issue. He appears to have died in his sleep. We must, of course, be sure that the conditions in the prison didn’t lead to it, even then.”
The Inquisitor nods. “I’m sure you have it well in hand, Leliana. Seems there’s little I can do about it now. Please, investigate fully and send a report ahead to the Approach.”
Leliana nods and withdraws, but you’re quickly buried in your own thoughts. A few people had threatened, however idly, to take care of Underhill for you. But none of them, not even Skinner, have access to poison that not even Leliana can trace. This is a mixed bag… no public justice for the elves, but death means Underhill—if it is Underhill, as you suspect—is finally no longer any kind of threat, to you or anyone else.
Odd, to think that he could actually have just died in his… …Sleep…
Your eyes flick briefly over to Solas, who does not look nearly so grumpy as he did the last time the two of you left Skyhold this painfully early in the morning. Nothing in his face or body language could imply he’d be responsible for such a thing. There are rumors that Somniari could kill a man in his sleep by attacking his mind through the Fade; it’s part of what made them so feared. But you don’t really know the truth of such legends first-hand, and thus it seems a far-fetched assumption.
A shame you’ll be heading out. But you’re certain that if it was Underhill, Thea will absolutely tell you just as soon as she can get a letter out. You’ll know sooner or later.
Your spinning thoughts are interrupted by a cry that cuts through the frosty pre-dawn air. “Da’nan!” You glance up and over immediately, and see Dalish and a number of other Chargers waving as they jog towards your caravan.
“Dalish?” you ask, blinking in surprise, and slide off of Revas to meet them halfway so they don’t have to stand amongst a crowd of horses. “Guys? What’s going on?”
“Does somethin’ have to be goin’ on for us to see our buddy off?”
“Yeah, Dalish, cause it’s like half an hour before dawn and I’m pretty sure all of you were drinking last night.” You point at one dwarf in particular. “Ril, I’m not even confident you ever stopped drinking.”
“Guilty!” she responds cheerfully.
“There was a last minute gift,” Dalish says with a grin. “From our fearless leader-in-command.”
You blink. “From Krem? But he’s still on bedrest, right?”
“Yeah, and he’s been bored as fuck, to hear him tell it, hence this.” Dalish pauses, fumbling around in her pack. “Ah… here it is!” She pulls out a… stuffed… toy? She hands it to you with great aplomb and you take it, tilting your head.
“Is that a… stuffed goat?”
“Yep! Krem knits, and also punches very hard if you make fun of him for knitting, right Ril?”
“Super hard!” Ril chimes in.
It’s a dusty sort of grey color, made from rough wool yarn. It has a tiny beard. One of the legs is clearly shorter than the other three.
“This is the cutest thing I’ve ever been given,” you say, momentarily stunned.
“Oooh, dibs on tellin’ Krem she said that!” says Dalish, clapping.
“I was just in to see him,” you begin, still a bit off-guard and slightly confused.
“He just finished it, and I mean just finished it,” she said with a laugh. “No one was really expectin’ you to get dragged off.”
“Me least of all,” you agree ruefully.
“Emma, are you almost done? We need to head out!” comes Sera’s voice, loud over the hubbub. You glance around; you can see the horses prepared for Sataareth and Fenris, but they don’t seem to have arrived yet. Damn… you had been hoping you’d get one last chance to speak with Fenris. You’ve no idea the circumstances under which you’ll see him next, after all, or if there even will be a next. You’d been avoiding him half of the time he was here… You could have…
Well. You could have done a lot of tomfoolery, which is exactly why you’d avoided him. Shaking your head, you quickly say your farewells to the gathered Chargers, and head back to clamber onto Revas.
Travel through the mountains is single file, a necessity due to the narrow passageways and paths. It stretches your fourteen mounts out to quite a considerable length. You and Seeker Pentaghast are bringing up the rear, with the eight spare mounts lined up ahead of you, and most of the time you can’t even see another person, thanks to her being behind you. There’s blissfully little chance for conversation, especially due to the whipping wind through the mountains, ensuring you’ll all have sore throats by the end of the day if you insist on keeping your mouths open.
It’s a miserable, if quiet, journey, the misery only aided by the presence of a Seeker directly behind you. Right in your blind spot. It’s nerve wracking, even if you’ve no reason to suspect her of suddenly and dramatically stabbing you with something.
Hours stretch on. At some point, you hear a rustling and glance behind you automatically—you’ve been trying not to jump at every sound Seeker Pentaghast makes, but that was just too much—to see the Seeker pulling lunch out of one of her saddlebags.
“Are we eating while moving?” you ask curiously. It’s fair enough; there’s not a lot of great places to stop to eat while going through the Frostbacks.
“For today, yes,” Seeker Pentaghast replies. “We are not riding the mounts hard through the mountains, so it’s reasonable to keep them going at a walk. Other days, we’ll stop to rest them, or to switch mounts.”
Lunch on the road wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. It would minimize the amount of forced contact you had with your ‘traveling buddies.’ But you’re going to get very sore, very fast, riding twelve hours a day or more. You think back to how sore you got on the way to Val Royeaux and wince. This is an even longer trip, with even harder riding.
Unfortunately, Seeker Pentaghast seems to take your words as invitation to attempt conversation.
“So what brought you to the Inquisition?” she asks from behind you. You try to project your voice enough that you don’t have to turn and face her, given that you’re walking along a slightly precarious ledge right now.
“I wanted to escape the chaos in Orlais. Unfortunately, it seems I’ll be spending most of my time traipsing through it, so I suppose the joke’s on me.”
The awkward silence afterwards is palpable, and yet still not enough to earn you silence for the rest of the day. She peppers you with questions on and off throughout the afternoon, each one slightly more awkward than the last. You have no idea if she’s trying to be subtle while interrogating you, or if this is genuinely just her terrible idea of small talk. You’d normally go for the first, but she’s just so bad at it. A Seeker, you feel, would be a lot better at fishing out secrets if they were actually trying.
You’re exhausted by the time word comes down the line—in the form of a very loud yell from Blackwall, given just how far down the line you and Cassandra are—that it’s finally time to stop for the night. Shelter has been found in the form of a number of shallow caves. They don’t really keep the weather or the chill off, but it means you don’t have to worry about setting up your tents in the snow, at least.
Now is your moment of truth, in a sense, because you have fourteen mounts of varying degrees of tired to take care of. Everyone just sort of dismounts outside the cave, so you bring the horses in under the shelter of some nearby pines, two at a time. It’s honestly a bit terrifying, but you try to take only one that might be a pain in your ass at a time, pairing each with a more well-behaved horse, and it generally seems to work out. You tie the horses, but don’t bother tying the harts. You’re not familiar with Derrick, but you doubt he’ll prove much different from the others, despite his entirely questionable taste in women.
Ten horses is a lot. You take your time with them, trying your best to get to know them the way you did Revas as you remove their bits and bridles and attach feeding bags. Later on in the journey, they’ll just be able to graze, but it’s too frosty up here for that still. Fortunately, Belassan had showed you how to do this sort of thing, and he was a very good teacher. It’s easy for you to spot which ones might be troublemakers, and while Zephyr does make a pass for your fingers with her teeth, you pull them back and give her a soft swat on her nose for her trouble. Go figure Sera’s tiny mount would be the one to give you grief.
Surprisingly, the Inquisitor’s two mounts, which you had been worried about from the start, give you little issue. Neither seem to really notice you at all, particularly not the white stallion, who clearly thinks being waited on hand and hoof is his lot in life. He does try to stomp on your foot while you’re checking his hooves, which is terrifying, but easily dodged. And mercifully, the ludicrously huge Courser, Daine, seems to take to you immediately and with great vigor, nuzzling against you enough to make Revas snort with obvious jealousy. You pause long enough to give him the stink eye; you absolutely can’t have him starting shit with the horses.
Taking your time so much with the horses, you miss dinner entirely. Well, dinner with everyone else, anyway; you sweep up the last of the stew into a bowl and wolf it down without much grace after you’ve spent at least two hours fussing over the horses and harts, dodging hooves and teeth, mostly successfully.
The first time anyone really bothers to talk to you or acknowledge your presence at all is, of course, for bad news. Tent assignment. As soon as you realize the tents are up, you remember the absolute humiliating snafu from last time. Surely… surely this time, they won’t presume to put you with Solas? Surely.
“Alright, so, on the guy’s end of things, me and Blackwall, Solas and Dorian?” the Inquisitor suggests. There are general nods of agreement, and you breathe a sigh of relief before the implications there set in.
“Roight, so Cassandra bunks with Cole all the time, that leaves me ‘n’ Emma!” Sera interjects cheerfully, and you freeze.
That.
That is very nearly as bad!
No actual danger, mind, like with Cassandra or Solas, but you only have so much self-control! You’re going to be up all night with her asleep next to you? What if she makes another move? What if you make another move? How are you supposed to say no when she’s right next to you in her skivvies? Oh, Maker!
“Well!” you interrupt quickly, voice almost breaking but managing not to. “I don’t at all mind bunking with Cole, so Seeker Pentaghast doesn’t have to.” A number of eyes fall on you, but you steel yourself, slipping a persona on like a mask. You smile slightly, blinking innocently. “I mean, we spend plenty of time together already, and I know a Seeker might rest ill directly next to a spirit.” You glance over, and find Cole is already beside you, probably knowing what you’re up to and why. “We need our best front-line combatant at peak condition, right?” you add, pouting a little nervously and glancing at the woods briefly as if you fear they might contain bears or demons or something.
Sera looks a bit hurt, glancing over at Cole with barely contained disgust. You can practically see her thought process; she sort of wears her emotions on her face. The opposite of you, and good indication of why she deserves a lot better.
Seeker Pentaghast is the only one to actually voice any concern, however. “I’m not sure our only non-combatant should be the one to room with a de—” She catches herself, possibly at your expression, which falls from “innocent servant doing her best” very quickly into something angrier. You slip your hand into Cole’s again, and look at her pointedly, willing her to remember your last disastrous conversation about the “demon” you’ve befriended. Not to mention the irony afterwards, of you being horribly maimed by one of the Inquisition’s own soldiers.
“…If you’re most comfortable that way…” she says instead, looking uncertain.
“Of course,” you say, immediately cheerful again, hand still in Cole’s. “We’ll be fine. If anything, I’ll sleep better knowing there’s someone nearby who doesn’t need to.” You laugh, a little ruefully. “I’ll probably be a little jumpy until we get to the fortress in the Approach,” you admit.
“Of course,” Blackwall nods. “That’s to be expected; you’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Don’t worry, dear!” Dorian chirps in, planting a comforting pat on your back. “We’ll keep you from getting impaled.”
“From anything she doesn’t want to get impaled on, anyway,” the Inquisitor adds, totally unnecessarily in your opinion, but you laugh along anyway. His opinion of you as the favored mount of Skyhold isn’t necessarily something you need to discourage since it’s a pretty harmless explanation for why you’re buddying around with all his people.
You head back for the mounts, having eaten, dodging a few people who are clearly heading towards you to make conversation—like Solas—in the process. They’ve already been cared for, but you spend a while longer socializing, trying to get to know them. Horses are different from harts, you’re learning that very quickly. But they’re not quite as terrifying as their size seems to imply, and they have the soft, velvety noses and curious lips you associate with Revas and other cute, furry creatures. It also helps that you’re roughly twenty percent treat by volume, as you always are when you know you’re going to be around Revas for a while.
Cole appears at a distance while you’re bribing Snowblind, the Inquisitor’s proud and gorgeous white mount. You wave him over, but he hesitates.
“Horses don’t always like me,” he informs you, eyeing them cautiously.
You give Snowblind a final pat on the nose and make your way towards him, keeping your hands on the horses as you pass. You don’t think they can see very well, given how long they are and how weirdly set their eyes are. You’d rather them know where you are at all times.
“I’m definitely not set up to be horse ambassador,” you say with a chuckle. “I’m still working on making sure they don’t want to kill me. I could introduce you to Revas, though, if you want.”
“He tried to bite me,” Cole says warily, looking over at Revas, who looks back, still grumpy from how much time you’ve been spending with the horses.
“He’s a sweetheart,” you insist. “Revas, come over here,” you call to the hart. The hart glares at you for a moment, then looks away disdainfully. “Well…” you muse out loud. “I guess Cole can have this carrot, then…” Revas gives you a look that plainly says he knows what you’re doing, but immediately trots over anyway. He comes more than he needs to, in fact, butting his head against your chest and nearly clocking Cole with one of his horns before immediately trying to stick his nose into your trousers to find the treats hiding in your pockets.
“There’s a good boy,” you say, patting him, despite the fact he’s actively trying to de-trouser you. You’ve long since learned how to hide your treats from Revas, and you pull a carrot out of your back pocket and pass it off to Cole. “Hold it up, flat palm,” you instruct him as you rub Revas’s neck around the head that’s still butting against your chest. “Revas, look, Cole’s got a treat for you.”
Revas glances up at the word treat, and spots the carrot, which Cole is somewhat nervously holding up as you instructed him. He goes in a bit too fast and you tighten your grip around his neck. He wheezes a bit and then glares at you. “Gently,” you tell him firmly, glaring right back. He huffs his opinion of that, but when you let him go, does take the carrot nicely from Cole’s outstretched arm. He pulls it into his mouth quickly and then, still chewing, begins sniffing and nudging Cole, searching for more. Cole giggles, which is probably on the top three of cutest things you’ve ever seen in your life.
“He’s warm!” Cole announces cheerfully.
“Here, give him a pat,” you instruct him, taking his hand and guiding to the places Revas likes best. “I thought most animals liked you?”
“The small ones,” Cole says with a slight frown, petting Revas where you indicated while Revas begins to chew on the hem of his shirt. “And sometimes cats.”
You can’t help but laugh. “Funny, that’s been my experience, too.” You glance warily over at the horses, still uncertain of your ability to keep up with their care. “But Revas is a sweetie once you get to used to him. And he’ll be nice, right, Revas? “ you ask pointedly. Revas gives you a pained look, but you don’t back down. He snorts and looks away, and you give him a thankful pat.
“Thank you. Bites hurt,” Cole informs you, and you nod.
“That they do. I’m going to head to the tent… thanks for working with me on that, by the way. Come in and out however you like. I’m pretty sure you’d be able to tell even if I was doing something requiring privacy.” Cole nods, and you chuckle. “Perfect roommate. I’m not sure why they aren’t always fighting to tent with you.”
“I tent with Solas a lot! Or Cassandra. They don’t mind. Everyone else does.”
You roll your eyes. Seeker Pentaghast ‘doesn’t mind’ because she thinks its her sworn duty to exterminate him, probably. The rest are idiots. “More peace for me, then.”
You head to your tent and crawl in with your main bag, unfurling your sleeping bag, and then, after a moment’s consideration, laying down a blanket for Cole. Even if he doesn’t need it, it just seems polite. Then you pull out the materials you need to work on the next few pages of the tome. You do want to get it as done as quickly as possible… Although you certainly have an excuse not to make much progress. Still, it’s something to do, and something anyone can walk in on you doing without you having to scramble, which is more than you can say for anything else in your bag right now.
You light up the little lyrium bauble you bought the last time you were outside of Skyhold. You doubt it has many uses left in it, but you might as well use it up before trying to burn a candle or lantern of some kind in here. And then you simply settle in to work the night away.
Cole comes in at some point. You don’t notice him come in, but at some point you become aware of him being there. It’s a little jarring, but you’ll probably get used to it eventually. He watches you work for a little, and then begins to talk. It takes you a moment to realize it’s almost idle chatter.
“Bright, like the fish that kill you if you eat them. Can’t hate you for hiding if you burn so brilliantly.”
“An old name burns inside armor that shouldn’t fit, lit by faces of the children he couldn’t save.”
“Hiding in plain sight, a light under a bushel that won’t be contained. Can’t help but glow, and they’re like moths to her flame.”
After a while, you just sort of tune it out, humming with idle interest whenever he says something, so you don’t realize when he stops talking to himself and starts talking to you.
“—you really should sleep.” You catch the end of it and pause in writing, glancing up. “Frayed and worn, coming apart at all the edges, how long til it comes all the way undone?”
You roll your eyes. “We’ve been over this, Cole,” you reply, voice hushed. “I’d love to take a nap, but this is hardly the time or place for it. I’ve got two mages, a Seeker, and half a Templar.”
“Solas is still awake,” Cole points out, and you blink in surprise. You figured he would already be asleep, for sure. “But the others are asleep. You could sleep, properly. I could keep watch, keep Solas away, awake. Pull you out of the Fade when he enters.”
“You… what?”
“I can see him, the outline of him, beyond the Veil, when he walks,” Cole informs you. “I would know when anyone comes close, in either place.”
“Are… are you serious?”
“Yes,” Cole says reproachfully. “I offered to help you sleep before.”
“I thought you meant that weird spirit thing you do where you make me calm or tired!” you hiss quietly. You drum your fingers thoughtfully on the side of your book, considering. Your aura is pretty small right now. No one would notice just walking by, not even a Templar, unless they actively molested you the way Solas—and only Solas—has. And a bit of proper sleep wouldn’t flood it enough to be an issue the way it had been when you first came to Skyhold. You eye Cole. “Stay here, wake me whenever anyone even gets close? And wake me as soon as Solas falls asleep?”
Cole nods enthusiastically, clearly just excited about the idea of you getting any sleep at all, even small amounts. You have to admit, you share his attitude. It has been a long time. With a conspiratorial glance around, you cautiously let your magic out from beneath your skin.
“You shine!” Cole says cheerfully, rolling over on the blanket you put out for him to clap quietly.
“Shhhh, shhhh,” you whisper, biting back a giggle. He’s reminding you of someone else, right now, and it’s a good memory. “It’s not too bright, is it?”
“Subtle shine, unpolished diamond,” he informs you, and you can’t hold back your giggle this time.
“Alright, but if you fuck this up, you have to stab whoever tries to run me through,” you tell him, half-joking.
“I’ll be careful!” Cole protests, pouting.
“I trust you. I think. Maybe I’m just delirious and really want a nap. That’s also possible.” You close your book and grab your lyrium light, twisting it off, then wiggle into your sleeping bag. “Remember. As soon as someone walks by, or Solas falls asleep.”
Cole nods excitedly. “Do you want me to help?”
“Will you still be able to wake me up?”
“Yes!”
You sigh. “Alright then. Might as well make the best of it. But never tell Solas I let you help me sleep, he’ll probably set me on fire out of spite.”
“He won’t set you on fire.”
“I super don’t like the implications of how you phrased that, but whatever. Nap time, before someone catches on.”
“Nap time!” Cole agrees, and taps the side of your head. At once, you begin to feel drowsy.
“Dangerous fuckin’ trick,” you mumble to yourself as you curl up tighter in your sleeping bag, but you just close your eyes and let yourself drift off.