#erren

When Cassandra pulls forth a similar pair of leggings, bearing a different but equally intricate armored design, the debate over armor styles expands to include Blackwall. Alistair is silent for once, staring raptly at the two pairs of leggings that are now being held up and gestured at to punctuate points in the argument. He casts periodic glances at the third box, trying not to look interested and fooling no one.

The debate over the armor ends when Erren elbows Gal hard in the ribs and snatches back her leggings. “One, those are mine, so you can all stop fucking pawing at them and stretching them out. Two, there’s a card that says what armor they’re based on. Idiots...” Muttering to herself, she hands him the information sheet and rescues her leggings, tucking them away in her bag for a run later that afternoon.

Cassandra contributes her card to the conversation, folding the leggings neatly and placing them back in their box, with a frown that suggests she has no intention of wearing them. She lingers behind Cullen for a while, however, listening to the discussion about the finer points of historical armor with poorly-disguised interest.

Not even five minutes pass before Alistair gives in to temptation, taking the ignored third box from the counter and announcing to the room with an air of forced indifference, “Alexia isn’t going to be in today, so I’ll just make sure she gets this.” He tucks the box carefully away with his things, and the knights he sketches on the ledgers that afternoon are all wearing remarkably detailed armor.

Erren pops into the washroom and changes into her leggings at the end of her shift, pronouncing the fit excellent and proudly modeling them as she heads out for a run. She rolls her eyes and laughs at the stammered assurances that any staring is entirely directed at the armor rather than her.

Sitting in the back office, finishing up the end-of-month report, Josephine smiles quietly to herself.

In the coming weeks, Erren’s armored leggings make numerous reappearances, ranging from workouts to manual labor contracts to the next karaoke night, where they earn several free drinks for her and a split lip and bloody nose for a drunk patron.

Cassandra scoffs at all inquiries about whether she wears hers, but Blackwall insists he saw her in them at the gym once. Cullen’s lack of comment on the subject suggests that he may have as well, but has been sworn to silence.

Alexia makes no comment about hers, the only confirmation they exist being the card she subtly hands off to Cullen to complete his collection for historical armor analysis purposes.

The second set of boxes have a much less mysterious origin. Yvaine carries them in to the shop one afternoon, beaming that smile that always means trouble for someone. Both Cullen and Gal become wary as soon as they spot her. With good reason, as it happens.

She looks at each of them, seeming devious. “It turns out they make men’s sizes, too. How astonishing. Why should people with more bottom have all the fun?” She then distributes boxes among the male staff of the shop, met with various expressions ranging from stunned to horrified to, in Alistair’s case, quite possibly giddy.

Cullen opens his, gingerly picking out the card to analyze the design and pointedly ignoring the actual garment beyond studied observation of the printed design.

Gal’s response is even more blunt, arms folded as he sets the box down unopened. “No.”

“But they’re historically accurate!” Alistair enthuses from across the room where he’s holding his up to admire the armor pattern.

Gal repeats an even more emphatic, “No.”  Even verbally, there’s somehow an underline. Gal’s an underline sort of person.

Blackwall, largely unnoticed, has opened his box, examined the leggings thoughtfully, and then tucked the whole package away without comment. He brings his card over to join Cullen in comparing the historical periods represented, a conversation that quickly turns to cajoling Gal to at least open his so they can see what he has, because Yvaine has to have picked out something interesting to prank her brother.

The armor discussions pointedly ignore any mention of the varying size and style of codpieces depicted on the individual leggings. At least until Erren gets involved, speculating on the criteria Yvaine used for assigning armor sets to each of them. Yvaine goes a bit purpler round the edges than usual and insists there was no “criteria”, thank you very much. Gal is far too amused and implies a few things which cause him to receive several scandalised looks.

Things devolve quickly from there until, with not a small amount of blushing, the leggings are all tucked away and what passes for a normal workday at the Knight Shop resumes.

Any hopes that the incident might be forgotten are quickly shattered when Alistair shows up to work proudly wearing his leggings the next morning, followed by a literally facepalming Alexia wearily attempting to continue an argument that has probably been ongoing since she picked him up that morning. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“But you said I should wear them!” His voice is bright and cheerful, determinedly oblivious to the looks he’s getting from his fellow knights, a mixture of horrified, disbelieving, and amused. “You said, ‘You have your own pair now, so if you’re so keen on the things, you wear them.’ I distinctly heard you say that.”

Alexia’s pained sigh probably owes as much to his mangling of her posh accent as the likely deliberate misquoting. “You know I meant for fencing, like I do, not to work.”

“But you didn’t say that part.” He turns to the room at large. “Who has the counter?”

“You do.” Gal levers himself up from behind it. “Sit behind something, for the sake of the customers.”

Alistair draws looks through the rest of the morning shift. Bemusement from Cullen and Gal. Eye-rolling from Cassandra. Open amusement (and an occasional thumbs-up) from Erren and more hidden amusement from Alexia, who is desperately trying not to encourage him. Alistair, for his part, insists the leggings are incredibly comfortable and the rest of the guys have no idea what they’re missing. They seem content to continue in this state of ignorance.

No one seems to notice Blackwall’s expression of mixed envy and resentment as he thinks about his own pair, wadded up in the back of a drawer after he tried them on last night, feeling proud of having armor for a moment - until he looked in a mirror and faced the reality of just how ludicrous he looked, then peeled them off in disgust and did his best to forget about the whole thing.

Alistair’s leggings are not seen at the shop again. Rumor has it that they have become reserved for fencing practice, possibly on the condition that Alexia wear her set as well. Rumor also suggests the two match, raising questions about how Yvaine managed to find out what armor set Alexia had been given. After all, she’s, as she would put it, “not known for stealth. It’s more like tripping over things. A lot.” Conventional wisdom suggests she checked Cullen’s stash of cards.

Conventional wisdom would be wrong in this case, but no one’s likely to ever find that out. Because Oren Cousland has no intention of parting with the trinkets he was given in exchange for trivial information and a promise of silence.

Cullen had thought he was used to cold winters; he’s Fereldan, after all. But the wind this year has been biting, and the snowfall that accumulated overnight is deep enough to ensure the shop will be full of people wanting walks and drives shoveled. Best to dress accordingly.

Outdoor work in weather like this calls for layers. He knows he had some thermal underwear around, but all he can find of it is the vest. In his search through the back of drawers, he thinks he’s found the long underwear, only to pull out a disturbingly familiar set of armored leggings. He frowns at them for a moment, weighing wearing the things against going without, and grudgingly acquiesces. Under proper trousers, no one will see them anyway, and it’s better than freezing.

By the end of the day, he’s forced to admit that the leggings are, as advertised, remarkably comfortable. Also excellent at wicking, an important consideration when working outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures. Rather than purchasing replacement thermal underwear, he adopts the leggings into his regular winter wardrobe. As long as they remain an underlayer, no one will ever have to find out.

Blackwall doesn’t keep an exact list of the stupidest jobs he’s been on, but if he did, this would be near the top. Who moves a piano into a second-story walk-up in the middle of winter when the steps are exterior and bound to be icy? Someone too cheap to hire proper piano movers, that’s who. It would serve them right if the soundboard ends up cracked by the time he and Cullen wrangle the bloody thing into their flat.

Not that he isn’t going to do his best to move it in intact. Sensible or not, the clients paid for his best work, and he is honor-bound to deliver it.

But that would be easier if his legs weren’t about to go numb from the cold, standing out here on exposed stairs ten feet up as Cullen tries to hold onto what’s left of his patience while explaining to the hapless clients through gritted teeth that the door’s going to have to come off the hinges if this piano is going through it, and yes, that means they’ll need to remove the door from its hinges, and no, actually, he can’t do it for them because he’s rather occupied with holding a piano.

The clients go in search of tools for the door, and Blackwall is seriously starting to wonder whether anything’s going to freeze and drop off while he waits. Cullen isn’t shivering at all, curse him. Maybe the anger keeps him warm.

Or maybe it’s something else. A few steps down, steadying the lower end of the piano, Blackwall is conveniently placed to catch a glimpse of something at Cullen’s ankle when the cuff of his trousers pulls up with a gust of wind. Something that looks faintly metallic. Or maybe… like armor.

He doesn’t say anything, of course. A man ought to be allowed his secrets.