My Life is Ordinary

But back to the Blight and its tendency to forge bonds through adversity. Bran would still be at Kinloch if not for the Blight- or the Warden fear of Blight. Same thing, when you stripped it down to the bare essentials. And if it was Blight or death, Bran would pick the Blight every time. You had a chance of surviving Blight. Look at him! He was fine!

He was not fine. But he had never been fine- or if he had been, he didn’t remember ever being so.

“You are deep in your thoughts tonight, Warden,” Zevran remarked lightly. Everything he did, from walking to speaking, was performed with a deliberate lightness that should have set Bran on edge. Too many secrets, too many dangers. He knew better than to trust a man who tried to kill him. But, at the same time, lots of people were trying to kill him. Bran couldn’t afford to be picky. And at least Zevran was doing it for money. At least it was impersonal. Why he turned was a little less easy to parse, but Bran wasn’t going to pry. Not if it meant disturbing the peace. And there was peace to be had, strange as that sounded. Zevran was good company if you let the flirting and flattery wash over you, if you understood that he didn’t really mean it.

Bran didn’t know what he’d do if Zevran was actually serious. He didn’t really want to find out. Blight might bring them all together, but it definitely wouldn’t keep them together. All things were temporary, especially the things Blight touched.

He felt Zevran sit down beside him in the dirt, felt the warmth radiating from his body, felt how at ease he was with himself and the world around him. What was it like, to know yourself so well that you could be comfortable in any situation? And though he knew it was foolish to put his faith in anyone, especially a man who tried to kill him, especially a Crow with a reputation for wining, dining, then murdering his targets, Bran found comfort in Zevran’s presence. Their enmity (and now their alliance) was simply business. Nothing beyond that. They knew better than to think it could ever be anything else.

“Busy days ahead,” Bran finally said by way of an answer to Zevran’s unspoken question. “And we don’t know what lies in wait on the road.”

“Nothing good, I am sure,” Zevran replied. “But we will see to it when it comes.”

"You're quite certain you will be fine on your own?" Emmrich asked before they parted, and he clasped his thin hand on her shoulder. "Manfred and I would welcome your company, and we have a spare bedroom for you should you require it."

"I'll be fine," Elena lied. Emmrich seemed to sense the lie, but he did not push. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder before letting her go. Elena backtracked until she found herself walking down familiar hallways, back to the small apartment she was given as a member of the Mourn Watch. It was little more than a room with a bed and an adjoining washroom, but it was once hers. It could be hers again. Returning to what she once was would be difficult, but it could be done. It would be done. Where else could she go? Elena stopped in front of her new old door and sighed.

She knew returning to the way things were would be difficult. She hadn't realized just how poorly the Mourn Watch mantle would fit on her shoulders. Her world had grown impossibly large in a very short time. It was only a little over a year that she left the Mourn Watch and the Necropolis, yet the world changed. She changed. How was she supposed to go back to how life was before? She had friends across Thedas, she saw so much of the world and was hungry to see more. The mysteries of the Necropolis would always call to her, but there was more to see, more to marvel at, more to discover. And she had people she wanted to see it with. But in the end, she returned to the Necropolis. She told herself that it was because the others were busy tending to their own responsibilities, mending a broken world as best they could. And she had responsibilities of her own, skills she gained during her travels that were indispensable to the Necropolis. She would be so busy that she would not miss her friends, would not miss their companionship. And they would not miss her! After all, they all had their duties to attend to, duties they all picked!

"They're busy. We all made our choices," Elena reminded herself, and she did her best to ignore the painful twinge in her chest. Neve was trying to fix Minrathous, broken and Blighted as it was. Bellara had to take care of the Jumpers and everything they discovered about the elvhen gods. Davrin had Warden business, true, but he was also busy reintroducing the gryphons to the wilds. Emmrich had his research (his and Johanna's) to comb through. Taash... Taash had a lot on their plate. And Harding... it was hard to think about Harding, who would never return to her beloved Ferelden. Her and Varric. She might even miss Solas, just a little, if only because she'd gotten used to him snapping at her in her own head. And then Lucanis... she had gotten used to being around Lucanis, slotting beside his quiet stillness, carving out a spot for herself by his side. That was gone now. All of it was gone. They all made their choices. This was just another one of them.

"He's busier than me," Elena muttered, as if fact could soothe the hurt she felt. It was true that Lucanis was busy. He was the First Talon now, leader of the Dellemortes, a proper Antivan Crow once more, and he had to get his house in order. It wasn't a surprise that they parted. But she had thought... oh, she didn't know what she thought! She wasn't a romantic. They had an understanding. An arrangement. They liked each other, but liking (loving) didn't change their circumstances. Duty came first. Elena jammed her key into the lock and turned it, surprised to find that the usually fiddly lock now worked so smoothly. That had to be one of those repairs Myrna said the Watchers made while she was away.

She pushed the door open and found that the lights were already turned on, burning low and golden. The room was furnished, just like Myrna promised. Bed in the far corner, sitting area near the door, rug on the floor, shadow sitting in a chair- Elena stumbled back, reaching for her staff on instinct even as she realized that she knew that shadow.

"Lucanis?!" Elena exclaimed, unable to balance what she knew (what she thought she knew) with what she saw before her. He was supposed to be in Antiva, at the Dellemorte estate or in Treviso. Yet here he was, hollow-cheeked and exhausted, but with the faintest smile on his face as he rose from the chair and swiftly crossed the short distance between them.

"Rook," Lucanis greeted. He stood in front of her now, hands folded behind his back, light on his feet as he waited for... waited for what, exactly? He wasn't supposed to be here! He was meant to be in Treviso, or the Dellemorte estate, or- or anywhere that wasn't Nevarra! Unless he had concluded business early and the Dellemortes were taking contracts again. With the house and family so disordered, she would have thought Lucanis would stay in Antiva for an extended period of time. But this was Lucanis. He hated inactivity. If the opportunity to take a job crossed his desk, he was going to take it.

Did someone take a contract out on King Markus again?

"How did you get here?" Elena asked, even as she put her staff away and closed the door behind her. It was a stupid question, really. She had a good idea what the answer would be. They still had access to Eluvians and the Fade. They could still travel through the Crossroads. It was perfectly plausible that Lucanis snuck into the Necropolis, found his way to her apartment, and waited for her to arrive. "How" was not the question she should have asked. She should have asked "why."

She thought they made their choices. She thought he chose the Crows, just like she chose the Mourn Watch. Yet here Lucanis was, sly half-smile on his lips, a genuine smile in his eyes, patiently waiting for her to sort out her thoughts in silence. She even felt Spite's somewhat pleased preening, like he had some part to play in this reunion. It was quite possible that he did.

"I picked the lock," Lucanis said when the silence stretched over-long. "I do not like the lack of windows in this place. Good for security, but it is too much like a cell." He gestured at the bare walls, all of them carefully painted in limewash, all of it pale and barren and tomb-like. For some that would be alarming. Elena once found it peaceful. Now... now she wasn't so sure.

"I used to have paintings," Elena protested faintly, so shocked that Lucanis was here that she couldn't think of what else to say. "And diagrams." She faintly wondered where her diagram of the nervous system went when she was gone. She judged it too bulky to bring with her, but she hadn't many friends to give it to at the time. Someone must have taken it when she left. That was how possessions tended to go around among junior Mourn Watch members. If they weren't assigned in a will or negotiated after death, then they would be picked over by the residents.

Getting her things back would be nearly impossible now. Besides, Elena didn't know if she even wanted them back. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to return to this apartment! She simply couldn't... couldn't think of anywhere else to go. With Varric and Harding gone, how was she supposed to wander Thedas? Who was going to smooth over her awkward conversation? Who was going to know where to go next? She couldn't do it by herself, not alone, but she couldn't ask anyone to wander around Thedas with her while she figured herself out. What else was she to do but go back to the Necropolis and put together the pieces of her old life. At least here she wouldn't be alone. She had Myrna and Vorgoth and Emmrich and Manfred... she could even talk to Johanna, terrible as those conversations were.

Yet Lucanis was here. Here, not in Antiva, not anywhere else, and Elena didn't know what to do about it. Should she do anything about it? People were so complicated. Spirits were easier. Spite was pleased, nearly smug, and he and Lucanis tended to echo each other's feelings. If Spite was happy, Lucanis tended to also be happy. Which meant...

"Paintings are not the same," Lucanis replied softly. Kindly. He was good at hearing what she didn't say.

"They aren't," she agreed. "But they are a good substitute."

"You should want more than substitutes," Lucanis said, and something in his expression went serious and stern, even as his eyes softened. Were they still talking about paintings and windows, or something else?

It was then that Lucanis moved, fast as a snake striking out, and he took hold of her face. His hands curled under her jaw, across her cheeks, and he kissed her, harsh and desperate. Elena returned the gesture in kind, grasping hold of Lucanis' shoulder and tangling her fingers in his hair as she buried herself in feeling. No more thinking, no more brooding, just live in the moment. She always felt as if she was too much- too intense, too demanding- to truly be herself, but with Lucanis? With Lucanis she didn't feel that way. She had resolved to live without the peace belonging gave her, but now that she had it again she felt her resolve was shaken.

"I thought you were staying in Antiva," Elena said quietly when they parted. Lucanis held onto her tightly. She felt his heart racing against her own as they caught their breath together, falling into familiar patterns they established back at the Lighthouse. But this was better, now that the fate of the world didn't hang over them, and she wanted it again. Wanted the peace, the belonging, wanted to be wanted- but Lucanis came, didn't he? He came, so perhaps the wanting was mutual.

She was thinking again. She wanted to stop thinking for a moment. Just a moment.

"I will return tomorrow, before sunrise," Lucanis mumbled into her hair. "Too much work, not enough people to do it. But I wanted to see that you were comfortable in the Necropolis before I left."

"You didn't take another contract on King Markus, did you?" Elena asked. She had to ask, even if she knew the answer. She heard the smile in Lucanis' voice when he answered her question.

"No. Too much paperwork," Lucanis replied. He rambled about the difficulties of taking a contract out on King Markus once, staving off sleep in an attempt to keep Spite at bay. Davrin and Neve were his audience that night, but the two of them filled Elena in on the details the next morning. Neve found it entertaining. Davrin was disturbed. Didn't think Crows cared about paperwork, he remarked. Elena was unsurprised. Lucanis liked an orderly workspace. He liked knowing where things stood.

"I haven't anything to offer you regarding refreshments," Elena said awkwardly. "I've only just returned." And she, unlike Emmrich, hadn't an established place to return to. And this apartment didn't even have a kitchen! She never had to cook before she left the Necropolis. Traveling changed her in unexpected ways.

"We will have to explore the city, then. Unless members of the Mourn Watch don't eat?" Lucanis asked dryly. His eyes were sparkling, though, dark and mischievous as the crows he and his people valued so dearly.

"Not all of us, but I do," Elena replied. She reached for her staff and clipped it back onto her harness, then reached into her pocket for her apartment key. Yet her hand grasped empty air. She was puzzled for only a moment, until she remembered who she was with.

"The key?" She asked expectantly, and she held out her hand. Lucanis deposited the little brass key into her bare palm, brushing his fingertips across the sensitive skin of her wrist before he lowered his hand to his side.

"You should see to changing the locks for next time. Make it more of a challenge," Lucanis suggested. "Spite enjoys lockpicking."

"Really, now?" Elena couldn't help the smile that crossed her face at that bit of news. Emmrich encouraged Lucanis to find common ground with his spirit. This must be the result of those exercises. No wonder Lucanis looked more at ease with himself! No wonder Spite was so content!

"He likes puzzles," Lucanis replied. "Visit us in Antiva. We have uncovered some objects of interest to an itinerant necromancer. Or a recently reinstated member of the Mourn Watch." He looked at her expectantly as they shuffled out of the apartment. She locked the door behind them and slipped her key back into the pocket of her robes. Lucanis would doubtlessly steal it again before the night was over, just to prove that he could.

"Mixing business with pleasure? That isn't very professional," Elena commented, a smile creeping onto her face despite her best effort to maintain a neutral expression. She was still learning how to make a joke (and how to take them, too), but Lucanis understood her well enough.

"In order to ensure that you will come," Lucanis replied, and he caught her hand in his. "You will, won't you?" He glanced over at her, dark eyes wide and earnest, and she was struck once more at how straightforward Lucanis was. She didn't doubt that he could be deceptive if he wanted to be. He simply didn't want to be. And neither did she.

"It's barely a fever, Fenris," Anders complained as Fenris piled another blanket on top of him. "I'm not dying!" Fenris ignored him completely and crossed the small room to pull yet another blanket out of a battered wooden chest. Anders was burning up, his eyes glassy and skin pallid, greasy, sweat-soaked hair clinging to his forehead and cheeks. Yet he was as mouthy as ever, protesting and struggling any time Fenris attempted to tend to him. And Fenris could not be said to have a compassionate bedside manner.

"If you can stand on your own and walk across the room, you may do so. But seeing as you cannot, you will sleep," Fenris retorted, and he tucked the next blanket around Anders' slim form. He brushed the back of his hand across Anders' sweaty brow and tucked a strand of damp hair behind the shell of his ear.

"You're a tyrant," Anders complained. He closed his eyes and sank into his bed, buried under blankets and head propped up on several thin, tattered pillows. He coughed weakly, the sound wet and rattling. It didn't sound good, and Fenris cursed himself for his uselessness. He kept his hand on Anders' brow and hoped it offered some comfort.

"We can spare the time for you to recover your strength," Fenris said. He'd find time for Anders to get better. He'd make time, if he must. But Anders would get better. He must. Anders' mouth twisted up into something like a pained smile, and his eyes fluttered open.

"That was almost considerate," he teased. "Who are you and what have you done with Fenris?"

Lucanis didn't rest. Not anymore. He dozed. He slept in fits, starting awake at every creak and footstep, waking every time he felt Spite stir, wild and hungry under his skin. Even now he was awake, staring at the fire and flinching every time a log cracked and spat sparks. Here he was, carrion bird accustomed to shadow and death, and he was jumping at shadows! Ridiculous. But this was who he was now. What Zara made him. It should have been over. She was dead, and it should have been over.

It would never be over. Not for him. Nothing was that simple. Lucanis leaned the majority of his weight onto his forearm and stared into the flames. Hiss. Crackle. Pop. And underneath the sounds of the fire came the ever-present growl of Spite. Angry. Bitter. Hungry.

"You are awake. I thought you might be," someone said softly. Lucanis lifted his head and turned to find Elena behind him. She was not dressed in her armor, but in the plain every-day clothes of a member of the Mourn Watch, all soft greens and purples that clashed with her sandy skin and copper hair. Everything about her was a study of contrasts, a disharmonious mixture of subtlety and brashness. Yet there was something comforting about the strange, prickly way she settled beside him. The discomfort was a reminder that this was real.

"I usually am," Lucanis agreed. He lifted his hand and gestured towards an empty seat before the fire, an invitation for her to sit.

"Emmrich has her body. He will conduct an autopsy tomorrow," Elena said softly before she perched herself on the edge of the seat.

"I thought it would be over, once she was dead. That is how a contract works," Lucanis confessed. "And yet... " And yet Zara lingered. She was a stain that couldn't be scrubbed out.

"And yet," Elena repeated with a patience he did not expect to hear. "Death is not an end." She spoke as if she was reciting a lesson. Perhaps it was. Mortalitasi were a secretive lot, the Mourn Watch even more so.

"It usually is, in my line of work," Lucanis commented lightly.

"A vocation that is a thorn in most mortalitasi's sides," Elena said gravely. "But we have learned to... live with it." She almost smiled at that comment, a little twitch of her mouth before she turned her eyes up to him and stared at him. She had bright eyes, sharp and all-seeing. A hunter's eyes, like the hawks that nested in the towers of Treviso, the ones that hunted all the small birds below. The crows (the actual birds) liked to taunt those hawks, draw them into fights and chases, cawing their victories over the predators as they sailed into the clear blue skies. There was a part of him- a younger, more innocent, playful part- wondered what it would take to provoke this stern, prickly woman into a chase. The rest of him- wounded, tired, changed forever- would not dare to find out. Perhaps she was considering things along a similar line, for Elena abruptly launched herself from the chair and bowed her head in a sharp gesture.

It was harder to spin something out of nothing. Impossible, really, if you wanted your story to stick. Stories needed a hook, something for listeners to sink their teeth into. Maybe it was a place, maybe it was a person, maybe it was an idea, but everyone needed something solid to build on. Stories were no different. Varric was just better at building a foundation out of something flimsy.

Hawke was anything but flimsy. They were the ideal hero, the scrappy underdog that people wanted to root for, that people wanted to believe in. Fearless, strong, cheerful, kind without being anyone's fool- Hawke was a natural charmer. They only wanted for a bit of polish, and Varric knew how to sell a story, how to build upon what was true and make it fantastical.