No Man Is an Island
Okay, so, of things you enjoy hearing, that’s at the very bottom, right alongside “kill them all!” and “don’t let her escape!” The wild thing is, however, that although the woman recognizes you, clearly, you actually have no clue who you’re being accosted by. Which is saying something; normally you’re pretty good with faces.
“Hey, lady, wrong redhead,” Sera says with a scowl. “Her name’s not Alix Fancybritches or whatever.” This comes as something as a surprise to you, since you were fairly certain the entire Inner Circle has been appraised of your Orlesian identity. Leliana figured it out within, what, days? And you’d even used it in service to the Inquisition back in Val Royeaux. You’d never brought it up, but assumed that, like your history in Seheron, it had become something of an open secret.
“It’s very much not,” you agree with a much more careful frown. “Sorry, ma’am, but I have no idea who you are. Whoever you’re looking for—it’s not me.”
“The Void it’s not!” she curses, taking an aggressive step forward. You take one back to match, Sera noticeably does not. “You think I wouldn’t recognize the face of the bitch who got me fired? I knew you were up to something with the mages, and then suddenly there are reports on my misbehavior?”
Ohhhhh. Now you recognize her. Well, sort of; her face had never been particularly interesting or particularly important. You’re not even sure you ever saw her without her Templar helmet on. She was an experiment at best and an annoyance at worse. You hadn’t thought you’d run into her again. Or that she’d know what you’d done, if she did happen to see you again.
“I should have figured it out faster!” she fumes. “You come around and start palling around with all the most troublesome mages, and no one seems to care! Then next thing I know, I’m on the chopping block.”
Your eyes narrow slightly as you consider how best to handle this. She’s clearly not taking ‘who the fuck are you anyway, lady’ for an answer. Her grudge must be considerable for her to recognize you years later. Sera is here, which severely limits your options. There don’t appear to be any guards nearby, which is a blessing and a curse. No witnesses for whatever you do, but also no witnesses for whatever she does. You can’t dismiss the possibility that she was following you until she found a place devoid of security. You were too distracted by Cute Elf to really pay attention to your surroundings. Not a mistake you make often, but you suppose the last year has made you very soft.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you decide on.
“Oh, the Void you don’t! You’re lying now, just like you lied then! You told the First Enchanter I was abusing mages! But I looked into you, Alix Gagnon, and you’re no fucking linguist. I know why you were in that Circle!”
“The only Templar I ever reported for abusing mages was, in fact, abusing mages,” you say, cutting her short. You doubt she has any actual evidence, but you don’t need her running her mouth in front of Sera either way. “The evidence spoke for itself. All I did was provide an objective set of eyes to point it out.”
Furious, she grabs the front of your shirt. “I never laid a hand on those mages, you knife-eared traitor!”
You glance slowly down at the fist gripping your shirt, then back up at her, eyebrow raised wordlessly. “Clearly. Violence is obviously your last resort.”
“You bitch,” she hisses, raising her hand back. Your eyes are locked with hers, dispassionate to contrast her burning fire. A thousand raised hands in unison, a hundred blows to the face. What’s one more?
One too many, according to Sera, who proceeds to deck her right in the jaw.
You’re briefly stunned. Then you remember Solas’s fury in Val Royeaux, Commander Rutherford’s rage at the sight of you battered and bleeding on the battlements, the frankly irritating levels of concern you dealt with afterward. You remember you have people here who get angry on your behalf even when you know better. You also see the rage in Sera’s eye and remember her story of straight up murdering a noble in Verchiel. Temper, temper.
You grab her wrist and bolt, dragging her along with you. She stumbles briefly until she finds her footing to run with you. You take a sharp left into an alley, then another; two rabbits scurrying through the burrows of the city, more home to the two of you than the forests ever were.
Sera is still raging as you catch your breath up on the rooftop of a small building sandwiched between two taller ones. You let her swear her anger out; it’s the exact same kind of thing you’d be furious about if it had targeted anyone else. You’ve done worse than Sera did to people who made the mistake of raising hands in front of you. And you’re the only one who knows the truth in the ex-Templar’s words. She hadn’t laid a hand on the mages. She’d been neither good nor bad; the kind of neutral that wasn’t that much better than evil in your book. Not that you have a lot of room to throw stones there.
“What the fuck was she even on about?” Sera demands, and you realize belatedly she expects an actual answer.
“Violent Templars don’t fall far from the tree even when you knock them from grace, it seems,” you say with a sigh, sitting up.
“Alix, who the shite even is that?” she asks, and you wonder again how much Leliana told the Inner Circle about you.
“My old working name,” you say, running a hand through loose hair. Your hairband had either snapped or been lost, somewhere in the run. Fortunately, you carry spares. You begin pulling it back again to tie up with a spare strip of leather as you explain. “I did a job, briefly, at the Circle where our ex-Templar friend used to work. I witnessed her intimidating and even back-handing one of the mages there, and reported it to the First Enchanter.” One Madame Vivienne de Fer, in fact. Not that she’d been there at the time, which is a damn blessing given her status with the Inquisition now. Given that she was already prepared to look into you, however, you suspect she’s put two and two together by now, or at the very least will now that she’s back amongst her resources in Skyhold. “Anonymously, so I can’t say I was expecting this.”
“Easy to see how she found out. She was obviously fuckin’ stalkin’ you after the fact, findin’ out yer name, recognizing you now… and what was all that shite about not bein’ a linguist?”
You shrug. “No idea. Maybe she didn’t want to believe her bad deeds could catch up to her without some kind of conspiracy.”
Sera snorts. “Yeah, s’not like yer a fair hand with daggers or an expert at magic or anythin’ else suspicious like that.”
You glance over at her sharply, hands stiffening in the middle of tying up your hair.
“I do pay attention, Em,” she says, rolling her eyes. “‘Sides, it’s not like there are a lotta legit ways to get outta an Alienage orphanage. Y’pick up some skills. It’s fine; y’can trust me. I been there.”
Sera had not, in fact, been there; she’d been remarkably gone when the orphanage was raided, thank the Maker. But she’s a Red Jenny now, so maybe she’s right about one’s fate being written early on in life. The two of you separated young and then wound up in the exact same walk of life anyway. Well. Not exactly the same.
You finish tying your hair back into its customary bun. “She was out of her mind. So is anyone who thinks knowledge of the things I translate for a living is suspicious.”
“An’ the daggers?”
“Everyone needs a hobby. I’m taking care of horses now, too; doesn’t make me a stablehand.”
“C’mon, Em, it’s me,” she says, pouting. “Y’don’t need to hide all this shite. An’ I know you are, all ‘I can’t I can’t’ without ever sayin’ why not.”
“You seem to think I don’t trust you,” you snap back. “But you’re the one taking the word of some deranged Templar over mine.”
“Wh—the fuck are you on about now? Tha’s not what’s happenin’! An’ even if it was, she obviously knew more about you than me, Alix.”
You snap to your feet to glare at Sera on a more even level. “Don’t call me that,” you hiss through gritted teeth. You can’t handle hearing it from her lips. “That’s not my name. It was a fucking nom de plume, don’t make it into a big deal.”
“Yer the only one makin’ this into a big deal, cause you won’t talk about it, or anythin’! Yer all average Jane til yer trousers come off, then y’act like you’ve got the world’s biggest secret; what am I supposed to think?!”
“You could think about listening to me when I said it was a bad fucking idea!” you yell right back. “Maker, it’s almost like I knew kissing me would give you a bad time, imagine that!”
“Don’t act like this is some always-gonna-happen bullshite! Only one causing this is you! It’s not fuckin’… inherent! We could be makin’ out on this fuckin’ roof, but instead we’re yellin’!”
“If all you wanted was to make out, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” you hiss furiously, surprised a little by the vitriol in your voice given that you’re just accusing her of caring about you as a person instead of a convenient masturbatory tool. “So if you just want to fuck me, say that instead of all this.”
Sera throws her arms up in frustration, a signal that you recognize: she’s angry enough to be running out of words. “Yer a goddamn nightmare, Em!”
“Yeah!” you shout, loud enough that the people in the building can probably hear you. “Yeah, I fucking am! So why are you still here?”
She glares at you, tears burning in the corners of her eyes, and then wordlessly takes a running leap off the roof, grabbing onto a balcony railing on the opposite building before dropping to the ground. You try not to watch her leave, and fail.
Being alone is a blessing.
It’s another reminder of all you’ve lost by having all these… hangers-on, be they friends or whatever Sera is trying to be. “Lovers,” you suppose. People who stake claims on you, people who believe you owe them something. Things were so much easier when you were by yourself all the time. The pressure of all these watching eyes… It’s really getting to you.
You absolutely vanish into Montsimmard. You’re tempted to do so utterly. It’s not your favorite place, and it wouldn’t be as easy as other places in Orlais, but you do have contacts here. You seek one out almost on auto-pilot. You doubt their information has changed much; you haven’t been out of the game that long.
An elven visitor might raise a few of the neighbor’s eyebrows, so you slip around the back to the servant’s entrance when you reach your ‘friend’s’ estate. Not that she has servants, mind you. She’s not as rich as her family once was, and while she could probably still afford a thriving estate, she prefers to spend her money on her whims. In truth, dragon collecting doesn’t take that much money these days—until very recently there were no actual dragons to collect, just memorabilia. Makes funneling money into the Elven Resistance easier.
She’s a general sympathizer, which is probably why she still likes you so much. Or, well, at least you presume she does. It’s been a while.
Lack of staff makes it easy to slip into her office. She really should work on that, although nobility protects her from the human side of things, and she’s somehow managed to be friends even with elves outside of the Resistance she’s helping fund. She’s protected on all fronts but the literal. No need for a guard when the silent promise of punishment hangs so heavy.
“Claire,” you say from the doorway, rather than startling the shit out of her more than necessary. She still jumps, hand going to a protective rune on her brooch. You smile. Good sign that she kept it.
“Alix?!” she exclaims, which you’re starting to get used to. “You’re here? I only just heard you were even alive! You dropped off the map; I thought—”
“Everyone thought,” you say with a sigh, walking further into the office now that it’s clear she won’t accidentally fry you. “I was… laying low, when Red Templars rolled up to my front door.”
“You’ve been with the Inquisition, I heard news from Val Royeaux.”
You nod. “From whom?”
She shrugs. “No one important. Just around. I keep an ear out for that sort of thing, still.”
“Never know when it might be worth hearing,” you agree with a quiet laugh.
“Alix, why are you here? You haven’t been to Montsimmard in years. Is something going on?”
You sigh again, and she waves you to a plush chair that you immediately sink into, one leg going up over one of its oversized arms. It feels good to relax a bit.
“The Inquisition is here,” you say, and she stiffens. “Not for long, don’t worry. I’m with an advance party, just passing through on our way further west.”
“Further west? Where in the Maker’s name are you heading? Past the lake?”
You nod. “That’s not necessarily gossip I want spread wide, however,” you say warningly.
“That’s mean,” she says, pouting. “Gossip is what I do.”
“How about some directional gossip?” you suggest, and she smiles.
“My favorite kind. Who ought to overhear?”
“Get it to Jean-Luc Génin at the University. Should be easy.”
“And he’ll get it to whoever you actually want to tell, that you’re not telling me,” Claire says dryly, and you laugh.
“Quite so.”
“Just that you’re heading West?”
“Into the Approach, with the Inquisition… and the Inquisitor,” you add ruefully.
Claire gasps. “He’s here? In Montsimmard? Right now?” She looks as though she might bolt out of the house, or perhaps hide under the desk.
“Passing through, as I said. Calm down. I sincerely doubt the Inquisition even knows any of your business, much less cares.”
“They’ve been courting favor with the Marquis. Who’s still very much on the warpath, I might add.”
You roll your eyes, not letting any concern you might have show. “The Inquisitor has little patience for Orlesian politics. No, you’d need to sweat more if one of the spymistresses’ people were here… and I doubt either of us would know if they were.”
Claire lets out a long sigh. “I really wish she hadn’t done that,” she complains upwards to no one in particular.
“I really wish she hadn’t done a lot of things,” you say darkly. “Slitting Lienne’s throat is the least amongst them. But I didn’t come here to talk about that.” You shake your head. “I came to catch up! How have you been? Any real dragons yet?”
“No, and not for a lack of trying. Say, did you say you’re going into the Western Approach?”
You eye her warily. “Are there seriously dragons out there?”
“Rumors! Rumors of a high dragon, which means eggs…“
“Claire. Claire, I’m a linguist.”
“I know! But you might, you know, know someone out there, and you’re with the Inquisition now! Surely they have someone who could pilfer an egg!”
“They’d probably want to keep it.” You rub your face. “Isn’t keeping a dragon extremely illegal?”
“That’s the thing! They’re not! The old laws allow for the keeping of small dragons; I think it was for training purposes. You just have to keep them locked up, there are security provisions…”
“How old are these laws?”
“…Old,” she admits. “But you know I’d be careful!”
“Would you hire staff, for once, instead of slowly turning into the resident cat lady?”
“Dragon Lady! And yes, I would. I’ve been looking into experts. Dragon Hunters are starting to come back into vogue. I found a Pentaghast!”
“Everyone’s a Pentaghast. Please don’t get scammed, Claire.”
“I’ll be careful! Just look into it, Alix? Pleeeeaaaase?”
You sigh, rubbing your forehead. “I’ll keep an ear to the ground, but I make absolutely no promises. This is very, very far out of my wheelhouse.”
“Ooooh, thank you Alix!” she says, gliding over to the chair to smother you in a hug. It’s considerably smothering, but you tolerate it. “Have you had dinner? Why don’t you stay a little; we can catch up properly!”
You have tea, more than dinner, but Claire is satisfied and you are as well. You weren’t sure Banal’ras had managed to hold onto that particular contact, but Alix’s roots stayed in the ground even as you cut your own head off… metaphorically speaking.
You take one more advantage from being alone before you head back to the inn; you drain your magic into the river. It had been getting lively with all those nights of sleep, but knowing that you’re guaranteed even more, you exhaust yourself completely until there’s barely a drop of mana left in you. The fish in the river are somewhat deader for the expenditure, but that’s their problem, not yours.
You take your time getting back to the inn, enjoying what few moments of peace you can steal before you go right back to constant observation. At least your current life has that on the Circle. It had been all but impossible to find stolen moments away there.
“There you are!” say two voices in unison as you make your way towards the bar in the inn’s tavern. It’s an odd sort of harmony, given that it’s Solas and the Seeker. Not that you should be surprised that she’s concerned for you, given that she’s apparently pegged you for an innocent cherub, all caught up in a terrible war. You really ought to be nicer to her… but on the other hand, you really don’t want to.
“I told you not to fuss after her,” Dorian says, rolling his eyes, apparently here to be the voice of reason. “I’m sure even she could avoid mortal harm walking down well-lit streets.”
“He’s right,” you posit. “Montsimmard isn’t exactly known for being a dangerous city. One can’t be mugged when one is the poorest person in a given area.”
“Patently false,” Solas says dryly, but you wave him off to lean against the bar and flag down someone, anyone, to give you alcohol.
“We have all already eaten,” the Seeker informs you. “But I’m sure if you simply ask one of the innkeeps…”
“I’m fine. Stout is pretty much just liquid bread anyway.”
“You need to eat,” begins Solas, who has no idea you already did, and who cannot be told that you already did. This makes his concern completely reasonable, and therefore he doesn’t even begin to deserve the look you level him with. Were you not on the receiving end of the look he gives you back, you’d probably admire him for standing his ground so firmly in the face of your ire.
The Seeker, to her credit, looks between the two of you a few times before moving away to sit on the other side of the bar.
“Emma,” Solas says.
“Solas,” you reply, as a pint of very dark ale—or whatever it’s damn well called—is delivered into your hand.
The two of you maintain long eye contact for a moment longer before he lets out a frustrated, huffy sigh. “You are impossible.”
“I am,” you agree with unwarranted bitterness. “So why are you still here?”
Your poison of choice this evening is a very strong, dark drink that you’re told is imperial stout. It sounds very official and you hope to remember it the next time you’re in Montsimmard… apparently it’s something of a specialty of the region. Presumably, regrets are also a specialty of the region, as it is remarkably strong given that you’re drinking it on a full stomach.
Despite your absolutely abysmal mood the entire time, Solas insists on keeping you company… or you suppose it’s more accurate that he just ignores your repeated and increasingly unsubtle suggestions for him to leave. He’s not nearly so good a drinking buddy as Dorian, who under normal circumstances would be right beside you feeding just as strong a hangover. For whatever reason, however, Dorian is leaving you to the dubious care of your… Solas. Whatever he is. Teacher-friend-hahren who’s also annoying and annoyingly hot. Yeah, still attractive, somehow, despite the fact that upstairs there’s an even hotter lady you could be fucking sideways on some rooftop if you weren’t such a lying shithead, or were just slightly more of a lying shithead.
Both of those thoughts only really cause you to get more drunk, which only makes everyone more attractive. It’s not really a solution, and you only get more depressed with each pint. Yet you just sort of… keep going, with the vague idea that you’ll reach a certain level of drunk where your brain will shut off and everything will stop hurting.
“Alright, ma’am, I think you’ve had enough,” says the man whose entire job is letting you spend money on alcohol. You glare at him blearily, but he said it with an apologetic tone and you know that “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough” is not an appropriate thing to say at any tavern across all of Thedas.
You do jab your thumb towards Solas, however. “He didn’t tell ya to say tha’, roight?”
“He’s been telling me to say that for about two hours. I didn’t listen to him, because I’m a very good bartender,” the man replies, and you nod.
“Good man. I tipped, yeah?”
The man pauses, and Solas interjects. “Yes. Excessively. Probably to ensure he didn’t cut you off before you were literally sliding out of your chair.”
You glance down. Hmm. You are… less than vertical at the moment. You shrug, which is kind of a full-body motion for you at the moment. “Eh, the fuck else am I gonna do with it. No point in dyin’ a corpse full of gold.”
“You’re not going to die, Emma,” Solas informs you.
“Sure am. Gonna get eaten by darkspawn, or possibly a dragon. Are there dragon darkspawns?”
“Yes. Archdemons. They’re somewhat famous,” Solas says tiredly.
“Gonna get eaten by an archdemon,” you inform the bartender.
“That’s very unfortunate,” he replies.
“See!” you say to Solas, pouting. “He’s nice. Be like… what was yer name again?”
“Jean, not that I think you’ll remember in the morning.”
“Ha! Joke’s on you, Jean, I got like, the best memory.”
“She really does,” Solas says with a sigh.
You squint at him. “Maker, I know an imperial fuckton o’ Jean’s at this poin’ though.”
“An imperial fuckton. Well that’s just far too many,” he replies, not really looking up from the glass he’s cleaning.
You nod. “It really is. I’m gonna call you… Vitrum.“
“Emma,” Solas says, sounding pained. “Do not name the bartender.”
“It’s really not the worst name I’ve ever gotten,” says Vitrum.
“You should really be more like Vitrum, Solas.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, exhausted. “Since you’ve no more ale, might I convince you to go to bed?”
You think of upstairs, of the room you share with the Seeker and Sera.
“…No?” you say, squinting into the air at nothing in particular.
“They’re very nice rooms,” Vitrum tells you encouragingly.
“They’re filled with bitches,” you say vehemently, and Solas looks around in a slight panic despite the fact neither Sera nor the Seeker are anywhere nearby. Both have probably gone to bed, in fact; you didn’t even see Sera after you got back.
“Those didn’t come with the rooms,” Vitrum informs you, and you laugh.
“Nah, I brought my own!” you exclaim, then collapse in a fit of giggles. “Traveling bitch circus with me in it, that’s for damn sure.”
“I am going to carry you to bed if need be,” Solas hisses, looking mortified.
“Yer not the first one to say that when I had this much drink in me, fenrel’hahren,” you say with a grin at nothing in particular. “Sera beat you to it, though.”
“I am well aware,” he says, sounding strained. “But you are very drunk, and you need sleep.”
“Don’ put me in a room with Sera innit, then!”
“Would you prefer a room with the Inquisitor in it?”
“Maker, no.”
“Then your decision should be clear.”
You let out a long sigh. He’s not really wrong, though. The decision is obvious. “Alrigh’ alrigh’ alrigh’, fine, I’ll head ta bed.”
“Let me help you,” he says, although he doesn’t really wait for you to agree, reaching under your arms and practically lifting you out of the chair and onto your feet. You wobble a little bit, but manage to get something resembling sturdy footing. You’re very good at walking, in general, which you think you comment to Solas on the way to the stairs.
He sees you to your room, and you walk right in, close the door, and continue past two occupied beds and two empty ones, all the way to the window. You open it, climb outside, and scramble outside onto the windowsill like a snake abruptly transferred into the body of a spider, completely unclear on what limbs are and how they’re meant to be utilized.
You’re pretty sure that it’s only how much you’d hate having to explain to Solas that you managed to fall out the fucking window that keeps you from losing your grip. You do eventually manage to scramble up the wall, clawing from footrest to footrest. Why hadn’t you taken your fucking shoes off, damnit. Finally, you feel your fingernails dig painfully into rough roof tiles.
You hang like that for a moment, wondering why you didn’t think about how much of a pain in the ass pull-ups are before making this inspired decision. Fortunately, your rescue comes in the form of a floppy hat and the spirit attached to it, who grabs your hands and, with a pained grunt of effort, helps pull you up onto the roof.
“Ma mie,” you say fondly, flopping against him somewhat listlessly.
“Your mind is mud,” he says with a sigh. “Muck and mired, stuck wheel spinning in circles.”
“Sounds abou’ righ’,” you agree, rolling off of him to lay spread-eagle on the roof. At least the stars are pretty, though the lights of the city dull it somewhat. “Cole. I’m such a fuck-up.”
“You could have told her that much,” he chides.
“I did tell her I’m a fuck up, I’m pretty sure.”
“She would have understood,” he continues, ignoring your frankly excellent drunken banter.
“I don’t want her to understand,” you mutter into the sky. “I don’t exist to be understood.”
“Everyone needs to be understood,” Cole counters. You stare blankly upwards, thinking your thoughts. “No one is an island. Not even people on islands,” he adds, musing.
“I’m not an island,” you say tiredly. “I’m a volcano.”