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"Wait wait, back up old timer—thousands of years?" Holy shit. Forget that 'weave' stuff, this is better. An immortal (?) wizard! Imagine if the Vints could live that long. "You're going to have to explain that. Where I come from, that's the stuff of legends. They say elves used to live forever, but that and their empire came tumbling down with the arrival of humans."

Not the whole truth, Varric knows now. But myth-making is myth-making, revealing much about those who invent it, even if it's lies. And this wizard doesn't need to know the minutiae of Thedosian history and race relations yet. Not unless he asks.

"Uh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. My knowledge on the gods isn't the same as a Dalish Keeper's, or a Chantry Mother's. I never quite learned that whole being pious thing so many people peddle in Thedas. Wrong beliefs anyways. Dwarves are supposed to believe in this thing called the Stone. But me? I was born on the surface, so I never developed the sense for it."

It's surprisingly easy to get him to stop in his tracks. He blinks, looking down. Wow, that's one short guy. Looks like he's even shorter than that little insurance lady. Or, well, maybe Wolfwood's just freakishly tall. That's also a possibility. Plenty of people have said it.

He's got a particular air about him, though: confident and charismatic. No real signs of being duplicitous. Friendly enough. The nickname—and the promise of making it worth his time—earns the stranger a slight upward quirk of his lips.

"Since ya asked so nice, I got a tailor down in Fibonacci; not a lotta stores out here got anythin' that fits us long-legged folks." This guy might be in luck and have an easier time. "If it does, it ain't my style. So I found someone who can do both. I reckon they could help ya out."

And, well, just like this guy says—likely they have similar tastes, if the plunging neckline is anything to go by.

Case in point.

"Not a lot of stores that fit us short-legged folk either. Which is why I'm asking." And Varric's looked. It was funny at first, how apologetic the shopkeepers were about his particular issue. But after the tenth time or so, it grew tiresome. Only so many times he can watch humans squirm their way through an apology before it becomes cringe-worthy. "Not a damn thing. One shopkeeper suggested the children's section, and his tone sounded like he expected me to hit him for it. Lucky him, not the first time someone's cracked that joke. Alas, my arms and legs are too muscular."

"Varric Tethras, by they way. You can tell me your name, or I can keep calling you Smokey. I probably will, even if you give your name. Don't take it personally. I mean no disrespect."

Best of all? Neither the Carta nor the Merchants' Guild own the place.

(That he's invested in this place, therefore is obliged to give them business and drive up business, is neither here nor there. )

If only Elminster knew how much this dwarf loves taverns. The wizard's onto something there—the dwarven urge to lounge about where everyone knows your name.

"I don't mind those sort of stories. They're my bread and butter," Varric comments off-hand, takes a sip of his frothy ale, then wipes his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, "Depends whether you're okay with them ending up on paper, potentially. I'm a storyteller, serah. I'll never waste good plots or characters." With the twinkle in his honey brown eyes and the smug aura he's projecting, it sounds both a promise and a threat.

"A couple of weeks?" He thinks back on all the eventful moments he's experienced so far. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Should've known interdimensional travel is possible after everything that's happened to me." He lets out a low chuckle. "Glad they brought me to a city this time and not some cave in the middle of nowhere. I hate caves."

But his mother raised him better. Alas, you cannot take the cheek out of the dwarf.

"Not in the business of doing things for free. I have a reputation to maintain." And create, for those who do not know him. "But my mother, rest her soul," and Varric makes a gesture akin to a prayer with his thick, begloved fingers, "would hit me upside the head if I didn't help out the elderly. So," and the dwarf gestures at the bartender, signaling the wizard's drink is on him, "order whatever you'd like, tell me your story, and we'll call it even."

An old man dressed like this, without an interesting story? Impossible. This is foreshadowing in the flesh.

"Varric Tethras, at your service. I recommend the ale, but hard pass on the rum."

He snorts derisively. “Don’t count on it. If he wanted to apologize, he’d have to detach himself from Andraste’s heavenly teat and descend to the level of us mere mortals. That sure as hell isn’t happening any time soon. Or ever.” Hawke doesn’t consider himself a particularly vindictive person, but Sebastian eliminated the possibility of reconciliation between them when he raised an army against Kirkwall. If he never sees the sanctimonious little princeling again, it’ll be too soon.

Oh, Maker’s bollocks. He should have known the nosy blighter would eat this up. If only for Cullen’s sake, he mentally scrounges for something to distract Varric from this line of inquiry, but he knows that it’s futile. The dwarf is like a bloodhound after juicy gossip, doubly so when he can turn that gossip into book sales. “Royalties? Oh, please. You know damn well he fell for me because I’m entirely too charming for my own good, thank you very much. And it didn’t happen like in those awful romance novels, either. We just so happened to bond after events conspired to trap us in the Fade, and… I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”

“Sparkler? You and Dorian know each other? Figures, he said he was with the Inquisition.” He really ought to just accept that Varric is on a first-name basis with every man, woman, and child in Thedas. “I’d rather not spend my night scraping up whatever’s left of Cullen after Justice is done with him, so I’m inclined to agree with you there.” 

"If Choir Boy shows up there's always the possibility he comes from a point when he hasn't done any of that. We should try to be nice, to keep the peace if anything. Besides, Curly and Aveline made him flee Kirkwall with Andraste's face falling down his crotch. Fun as it sounds, I don't think we need to beat him senseless again."

"Don't dismiss our teamwork, Hawke. It's rare I meet someone with a vocabulary as nice as mine, or as committed to annoying people into friendships." Well, after Hawke, that is. "But don't tell Sparkler that, he'll never shut up about it."

"Wait, you and Curly were trapped in the Fade, forced to work together?" Varric's honey brown eyes light up in authorial glee. There's a glint around Hawke's neck, metallic in nature. "I spy with my little eye..." His meaty pointer finger traces a meandering path in the air until it settles somewhere at the center of Hawke's chest, behind that gorget that cannot hide from the dwarf's keen instincts. "Let me guess, phylactery? You weren't the type to wear necklaces before. And there's no way that's your own blood, not even Daisy could convince you to give blood magic a try. Which leaves only one other Fereldan whose blood you'd be wearing around your neck right above your heart." A shit-eating grin. "I've been in the Fade, that place is a maze. So you two needed a way to keep track of each other, and inadvertently made a lasting symbol of love. Sounds just like those awful romance novels to me, Hawke."

"Yeah, me and Sparkler go way back. Ends up it's helpful to have a Tevinter mage on the payroll when you're dealing with an ancient Tevinter magister. We also braided each other's hair and talked about boys—Curly and Tiny, mostly. Guy has a thing for strapping, furry men. Caught him peeking at my chest hair a couple of times. But you know how it is—I'm in a committed relationship with Bianca."

The image of a vaguely Cullen-shaped soot stain does shake Varric out of his mirthful mood, however. "Take it Blondie's still angry about everything? Figures." Would Anders always be angry as long as Justice possessed him? Varric thinks about Cole, how different that kid was. If only Anders could've gotten possessed by a spirit like that...

(Well, actually, that might've made things worse too. What's the opposite of compassion—indifference? Callousness?)

Hawke's groan elicits a smirk from Varric. "It's allegorical. You know, circles, cycles, love and hate, mages and templars? Symbols. You out of anyone in Thedas should know how that goes. Embrace your place in history, Champion. The title's staying."