Consequences
You don’t sleep that night. That’s not really surprising. You don’t sleep most nights, and certainly not when you’ve had such a fright right before bed. You spend the night curled up in the corner of your room, eyes flickering between your covered window and your chest-barricaded door, as if expecting someone to come bursting through to assault you further.
You can’t decide whether or not you should attend training with the Iron Bull. You’d be jumpy, and he’d be able to tell. He’s been good about not asking questions lately… but you can’t forget that he can get answers out of you when he wants them. He would certainly be able to get an answer out of you about this… you half want to tell him anyway. You resolve to just stay in your damn room until a more reasonable hour. Then you can just go straight to the rotunda. You don’t think Solas will notice your mood quite so much, especially if you just keep your head down and work.
The birds begin chirping outside your window perhaps half an hour before dawn, a reminder of Banal’ras’s little gift and all the troubles it would bring on your doorstep. Just when you don’t need trouble, too… You’re getting into plenty of it all on your own. Those women were right; they didn’t need to do shit. These things always did sort themselves out. An ordinary elven upstart would be in bad shape now, whether those men just wanted to rough you up or something worse. And even in defending yourself, you may have created just as much trouble.
Lost in your own dark thoughts, still curled up against the wall on the corner of your bed, you nearly jump out of your skin when a knock comes on the door. Panic clenches your heart like an iron fist. Fuck. No one ever knocks on your door! Who could that be? The Commander, or someone who works for him? Some agent of the Inquisition come to inform you that you’d been named as the person who’d broken a soldier’s arm?
You don’t want to answer it. You sit, frozen, on your bed, indecisive. You can’t just dive out the window; your ass wouldn’t fit anymore, for one. You’ve gained weight since you arrived at Skyhold.
“Emma? You in there?”
To your shock, it’s the Iron Bull’s voice. Of course… you missed practice. The sun is now beginning to climb over the horizon and about now, you’d normally be eating breakfast, or taking a bath to avoid eating breakfast. He probably wanted to see if you were sick or something. You don’t even bother unwrapping yourself in your blanket before stumbling to the door. You pause, having to shove the chest away from the door—with great effort, damn thing is heavy—before opening it. You do so slowly, half expecting him to have someone with him. “Fortunately,” it’s just him.
“Bull?”
“There you are! I wanted to make sure you hadn’t fallen off of something. Almost checked the healing tent first.” The Iron Bull is almost comically large in the narrow hallway. You’d thought you’d gotten used to the sight of this Qunari, at least, but the sharp reminder of his size makes you feel slightly ill.
“No, I’m just… not feeling well,” you say, a little more curtly than intended. You don’t like having the door open.
“Maybe you should go to the healers’ tent, then,” he suggests. You scowl.
“No need to bother the healers; I’m just feeling a little under the… How did you even know where my room was?”
“Ben-hassrath, remember?”
As if you would ever forget. Your scowl deepens. “That’s the opposite of comforting, Bull. Why would anyone want to hear that the Ben-hassrath took time to ensure he knew where they slept?”
Iron Bull chuckles. “Actually, I just made a point of asking Thea, after you started making a habit of drinking until you were damn near unconscious.”
Yeah, fair. You rarely ever made it back to your room after a night drinking at the tavern. You’d woken up in Bull’s room, in Revas’s stall in the stables, in an elven pile with Dalish and Skinner… but rarely in your own bedroom.
“Look, I’m sorry I missed practice. I just felt a bit ill and wanted to stay in bed. I’d still be there if Leliana wasn’t riding me to finish the manuscript.” That’s true, actually. You’re not looking forward to crossing the wide open courtyard, even in broad daylight. Right now it feels like every corner could be filled with a pissed off racist.
“Ill, huh? I’ve never heard of a sickness that could give you a bruise necklace like that,” Bull says, pointing a single finger down at your neck. You immediately pull the blanket up higher, instinctively, frowning.
“You probably did that. I get more than my fair share of bruises practicing with you. Solas has even lectured me for it.”
“He has, has he?”
“I’ll put balm on it,” you say shortly.
“Emma, if something happened—”
“I’m fine Bull!” you snap. “I’m just sick! It’s been known to happen!”
You’re not the best liar when under this kind of strain, but Bull seems to take the point… or at least understand that he’s not getting anything out of you right then. “Alright, alright. You wanna grab some breakfast, or are you just gonna go back to bed?”
“I…” you take a deep breath. “I’m just gonna lay back down for a bit.”
You sink down against the door as soon as you close it. Well Bull definitely knows something’s up. You rub a hand along the painful bruises on your neck. You want to put balm on them, want to forget they’re there, but you might need them if that asshole goes to the Commander. As much as you hate it, they’re evidence you can’t really afford to lose until you know you’re in the clear. So instead you just change into clean clothes, including a tunic with long sleeves and a high collar. It’s cold enough that no one will even bat an eye. In fact, you pull on the coat you got in Val Royeaux over it, just for good measure.
You don’t want to go to breakfast, but you also don’t want to head straight for the rotunda. You’re still a bit shaky, and Solas is almost as insightful as Bull. And Bull had seen through you in about three seconds. While you can snap at Bull to get him to back off, you seriously doubt that would work nearly as well on Solas. Even if it worked, you’d feel terrible about it all day. Instead, you take to the walls. There aren’t too many people up there this early, just the early morning shift guards, and they’re very sparsely placed. It feels safer than wandering around the courtyard or the castle, where there are more nooks and crannies to get caught in. Sometimes exposed is good. The only person you really run the risk of bumping into up here is the Commander on his morning stroll… and frankly, that man wouldn’t know your moods if you screamed them in his face. He still hasn’t figured out you don’t actually like playing chess with him.
And the walk does help. The air is crisp and clean, if cold. It’s a far, far cry from the dank humidity of Seheron, and the briskness helps clear the fog from your exhausted mind. Unfortunately, there’s one thing you hadn’t quite taken into consideration. Guards. Soldiers. What were the odds that there would be someone who didn’t like you standing guard that morning?
Just high enough as it turns out.
Because the Maker has a personal vendetta against you, Lawrence Underhill is on guard duty that morning. Something you don’t realize until you’re walking by him, halfway oblivious to his presence, and hear a hissed, “you’ll get yours, knife-eared bitch.”
You freeze in your tracks, momentarily bewildered as to where it had come from. It was like the air of Skyhold itself had decided it hated you. But no, you realize where it came from quickly, and as he half turns to glare at you, you recognize his face.
“How’s your friend?” you reply coldly. “Did the healers see to him, or did they put him down for dog food like a lame horse?”
Underhill makes an aborted move towards you; you take half a step backwards. But he seems to think better of it. “You just wait, you whore. You can’t hide behind your betters forever. We’ll get you eventually, and make sure you suffer for it.”
Something snaps in your mind, like a thrown switch. Your panic is gone as if it were never there. In its place is a familiar, comforting, cold logic. You glance down the battlements in both directions. There are no other guards close enough to see… Which is doubtlessly why he decided to speak up now. Escaping would be easy, probably just a matter of walking away. But that’s just delaying the problem… A man like this is a knife in the dark. You’d rather not sit back and wait for him to find the perfect time to strike. He’s the idiot for showing his hand early, and making such a plausible, immediate threat out of himself.
You eye him coldly, the bland stare that men who try to intimidate and bully inevitably hate. “Eventually? You’ll ‘get’ me ‘eventually.’ How terrifying. Will it be before or after I die of old age? Honestly, if you want a broken arm too, just roll down the stairs; Skyhold has plenty of them.”
“Listen, you fucking knife-eared bitch,” Underhill hisses, moving in closer, hand reaching towards his blade. That won’t do. A knife fight on the battlements is the last thing you need.
“Knife-ear this, knife-ear that,” you say, boredom dripping from your voice. You step in closer, a single deft hand hooking around his belt. It’s clear Underhill was expecting anything but that. He should have known better after seeing what you’d done to his friend, honestly. But men, particularly this breed of brash human man, are woefully predictable. You drop your voice into a more sultry tone. “So fixated. I know what you’re after.” Swift fingers work the leather around his sword sheath as the other hand pulls him closer by his belt, taking advantage of his confusion. He notices only when the weight of his sword drops from his waist, but by then, it’s too late. You deftly toss the blade, sheath and all, over the battlements down to smash on the rock below.
“Oops.”
The man is furious. He reaches for your neck, you smack his hands to the side. You have more than enough power to do so after well over a month of training with a Qunari twice his bulk. “You’re all the same,” you taunt. “Too inadequate to please a human woman, so you chase after the wee little elven girls.” He lunges, again to grab, not to strike. You side step. Not good enough. “I’ll let you in on a secret, shemlen.” You spit the word like an oath. “You’re not man enough to please the elven women, either. Even we need something with more… substance.”
You only move your face slightly to effect where his furious swing strikes. Your pride won’t allow you to lose any teeth over this.
You allow him to bloody you quite effectively, having worked him into a rage. He’s too furious to notice that you won’t allow him to grab you by the neck or pin you, that you let him batter one eye, but keep the other fresh so that you can see. Even as he punches you into the ground, climbing on top of you, he doesn’t notice your knee dangerously close to his groin, an emergency exit should you need it. He’s too far gone to notice that even as you lay on the ground underneath him, you twist your arms, deflecting the worst of the blows to avoid becoming disoriented. You pace the beating out, making him work for it.
Still, it’s beginning to go from “very painful” into “crippling”. Hopefully the Commander hasn’t picked today to delay his walk, because another two minutes of this and you’ll be paste.
“What is the meaning of this?!” A familiar voice rings across the battlements. Just like clockwork, bless that man’s heart. You relax slightly against the stone ground. The soldier straddling you freezes halfway through the act of pulling you up towards his fist by your shirt, tearing it. You risk one, single, bloody, mocking grin before dropping into the act of a terrified servant. Let him know that you know exactly what you’ve done. It’s too late for him.
You can say one thing for Underhill: he’s dedicated to his hatred. He strikes you one last time before Cullen reaches the two of you, and you let him catch your good eye, knowing that your rescue is at hand. Two black eyes will look less suspicious, anyway. You hear a crack; not your face, but his hand. He’d hit you hard enough to break a finger; you wonder briefly if you’ve broken any bones to this, as well. The raging man is literally dragged off you by an equally furious Commander Rutherford.
“Commander,” the man begins, glancing between his bloodied fists and your bloodied face. There’s no excuse for this, and all three of you know it.
“One more word, and I’ll run you through right here,” the Commander swears between clenched teeth, voice dark and low. You feel a flush coming on despite the pain you’re in… He sounds good mad, and that vengeance directed at your enemy is oh, so sweet. It’s all you can do not to grin like the wicked little fiend you feel like in that moment. You had expected the Commander to find you beaten, but in the act? It was the best outcome. But you have to play your part.
It’s rare enough anyone cares that you’re beaten bloody and raw; this isn’t something you get to pull often. Might as well enjoy it, play it up a little bit. You took a beating for it, after all.
“Commander,” you whimper, and when he glances your way, you force a tear out of your bloodied eye. It’s not difficult; you actually are in quite a lot of pain, and adrenaline only goes so far. You make a show of trying to move, and the murderous look in the Commander’s eyes as he surveys your battered face and arms, not to mention your torn clothing… it’s golden. That man will be dead within the month unless the Inquisitor himself petitions for his release… And he won’t. The murder of Inquisition agents by Banal’ras, that incident in the baths, and the whispers your broken face will cause? The Inquisitor will want to make an example, to show he supports the elves in action, not just word.
“Emma,” the Commander breathes, caught between horror and fury. His eyes swing back to the man, who’s slowly realizing just how poor of a position he’s in. Of course, he doesn’t grasp what you always knew… He was dead from the moment he made himself a genuine threat. It was only a matter of how to drop the axe.
“Move, and I’ll string you up myself,” he hisses to the man, before dropping him unceremoniously on the ground. The Commander closes the distance between the two of you in one long step, kneeling down beside you to check the severity of your injuries. It looks worse than it is, of course… After daily sparring with a Qunari—and now fucking Skinner—you know how to take a beating, and frankly, you’ve always been good at managing pain.
“Maker,” he swears softly, looking you up and down. “Can you move at all?” He follows your gaze over to the man, who’s sitting on the stone where he was dropped as if paralyzed, the reality of his situation still sinking in. No one expects consequences for beating a knife eared whore, after all. The thought almost makes you smile, but there will be time for smugness later.
“I’m… I’m alright,” you choke, managing to spit up some blood right as you speak. You don’t really need to play it up as much as you are; at this point you’re just enjoying yourself. Fury is a good look on the Commander. It’s a fantastic feeling to see the rage of a Templar turned against your enemies, for once. This might be the first time you’ve managed it.
The Commander swears, loudly. Hate burning in his eyes, his hand goes to the hilt of his sword, and for a moment, you believe he really is going to run the man through right there. He doesn’t get the chance, however. One of the many messengers who inevitably hover around the Commander chooses that moment to run up, and is horrified by what she sees.
“Maker!” the woman swears. “What… what happened?” You feel it should be somewhat obvious.
“Get some guards,” the Commander snarls at the woman. You’re glad not to be in her shoes. He’s a damn scary man, as much as he seems to think he’s not, most days. He turns back to you, voice still hard. “Be still. I mean it.”
You wouldn’t move if someone kicked you.
He turns back to the man, watching him until the woman returns with guards, both of whom look at you and lose the color in their face. You must look really bad. You run careful fingers across your face and wince. Your nose is certainly broken, and your hand comes back covered in blood. One eye is rapidly swelling shut, and your shirt is dramatically torn in front. Yeah… You’re a mess. You just hope they get you to a healer before Solas has the chance to see you like this.
“Take this man straight to the dungeon,” the Commander orders the guards. “He’s to be locked away until the Inquisitor returns and we decide what to do with him.” The guards both nod quickly, and they and the messenger scurry off with Underhill—the prisoner—in tow. Heh. Prisoner. Again, you remind yourself that the time for smug self-satisfaction will come later.
You shouldn’t be startled when Commander Rutherford picks you up, but you are. There’s no warning; one moment he’s glaring at the man being dragged off, the next he’s beside you, arms slipping under your shoulders and knees.
“C-Commander!” you protest. “I can walk!”
“The last time you said that to me, it turned out you had a dislocated hip,” he says firmly. “You’re clearly a poor judge.”
He has you there.
“This is my fault,” he snarls as he carries you down the stairs into the courtyard. “I knew that man would be a problem after he was taken off the escort job. He was clearly angry. I should have discharged him the first time.”
“If you discharged every man who was rude to me, you’d have a very small army,” you joke, wiping away blood that’s dripping too close to your good eye.
The Commander’s face is still serious, and he looks you dead in the eye. “I knew there had been incidents, but… nothing like this. This… I will deal with such things seriously in the future. You have my word.”
You’re momentarily stunned, mind floating halfway back to reality from whatever land of blood and strategy it inhabited in times like these. Could your petty vengeance actually make an improvement for the elves in Skyhold? It would be almost too good to be true. Likely, he’s all talk, speaking in the heat of the moment. Even if he tries briefly, you doubt it will go far. There’s a lot working against good intentions in this world. Still. You’re amazed he even thought to offer. You’d assumed his anger was mostly because he knew you personally. You weren’t just a servant, you were Emma, Who Plays Chess. A person. Your one remaining eye narrows slightly, as if searching for the trap. But there doesn’t appear to be one. He’s barely even looking at you, instead focused on getting across the courtyard as quickly as possible.
“I… Thank you, Cullen. Commander,” you correct yourself. “You’re… you’re a good man.” You glance away quickly, embarrassed by your own words, and how close you’d come to meaning them, in the moment.
Fortunately for your embarrassment, you’ve reached the healer’s tent. Maker, these people must be absolutely sick of you. But you receive no jokes about how you got your injuries when carried in by the Commander himself. Cullen sticks around only long enough to see you in capable hands and learn that your injuries aren’t severe or life-threatening, and then he’s gone. He likely has more important things to deal with, or, possibly, is off to do something about the soldier who put you in this state.
Either way, your pain quickly recedes to a more manageable amount as first healing magic, and then the gentle touch of a medic soothes your injuries. Magic is only used for the worst of it, as well it should be. Once your nose is unbroken, and the swelling reduced somewhat, the rest can be handled with a cold compress (the benefit of living in such a snowy area) and bandages. You suspect your friends will kick up a fuss when they see you next, even with the worst of the damage healed.
You barely pay any mind to the variety of healers who hover about you. You can’t believe their numbers; you’ve got something like three healers on you at one point. You’re particularly annoyed by their attentions, given the fact you know Krem is in here, in Maker only knows what kind of condition. You try to assure them that it looks worse than it is, once, but you’re only shushed. After that, you simply let them bandage you in peace. Fortunately, your jaw is fine and you didn’t lose any teeth (though one is feeling a little loose, to your infinite displeasure) so you’re fully capable of chewing up the herbs they give you for the pain. They make you feel even more exhausted, but you can hardly afford to fall asleep here, as much of a relief as that might be. There are mages about, ones who have every reason to prod your sleeping body with magic and stumble over something you don’t want them to.
There are protests, but you overrule them, and you leave the healer’s tent with only bandages and strict instructions to come back that evening.
You had expected your friends to be angry when they saw you, but you quickly realize the implications of your beating are going to spread a little further and more rapidly than you’d originally anticipated. The humans look shocked, but the first few elves you see are already whispering. Who had spilled the beans, you wonder? The messenger who’d tripped over you, Underhill, and the Commander had been an elf. She could have told someone. There were easily a dozen elves in the healing tent, including the mage who’d first healed you… you think. You can’t actually remember her face very clearly. Or perhaps it’s simpler than even that… and the other elves know what to think of an extremely battered elven woman.
You sigh slightly. The rumor mill is certainly going to have a blast with this one. How long before you have a very angry Iron Bull to deal with? Not to mention Solas… ugh. You decide to avoid the rotunda a bit longer, even though that strategy had put you in this position to begin with. You just don’t know what you’re going to say to him. He already knows you’re a wicked little thing, to some degree. He knows you can handle yourself in a fight. Will he believe you had simply been jumped and beaten? Do you want him to? You honestly don’t know how much you want to tell him.
You sit on a bench in the shade of the one of the many large stone buildings in Skyhold, kicking at the ground with your feet and just trying to stay out of sight. You run your fingers along the bandages on your face, examining the damage. The most embarrassing part is the way the bandages cover your nose. The break has been healed with magic—an entirely unpleasant sensation you hope to avoid in the future—but it’s still quite painful to the touch even with the medicine you took. The eye that was only punched once is perfectly serviceable, but the other one has been bandaged over to prevent infection from setting in. It will be a strain to work with only one eye.
Your face is the worst part… he’d been focusing there, and you could only deflect so much while still making it an effective beating. Your arms had been quite battered… all defensive injuries from blocking and shielding yourself. You’d been given some basic healing followed by a rather unpleasantly sticky coating of some kind of elfroot poultice, then bandaged. Tellingly, perhaps, was the fact that your hands were undamaged. You hadn’t thrown a single blow. Fortunately, that means you’ll have no issues writing.
All in all, you decide after examining yourself, you’ve had worse. You’re honestly more concerned about the anger of your friends. You don’t feel bad for Underhill, of course, but you’re starting to wonder if he’s going to be alive for the Inquisitor to deal with. Solas is first and forefront in your fears. You don’t think he’ll yell at you, but you remember that time with the Chevalier who backhanded you. If you hadn’t stopped him, Maker only knows was Solas would have done to the man. Apostates could be a bit unpredictable in that area, and while Solas didn’t seem to have too bad of a temper, he was a very powerful mage.
And even the Commander had been livid to see what had been done to you… Hopefully you don’t look quite so bad now that you’ve been bandaged up, but bandages look bad in their own way. You’re certainly going to be a sight with your face like this.
In the end it’s only realizing that it’s almost lunch time that gets you moving. You don’t particularly want to head to the kitchens looking like this. If news hasn’t already spread, that’s a way to guarantee everyone in the entire castle knows about what happened within the bloody hour. So instead, you head directly towards the rotunda, steeling yourself for whatever Solas’s reaction might be.