#mimi-911

“Ha!” he gasps in outrage, throwing out an arm to point accusingly at the pair. “Intrusi! Ladri!”

“This doesn’t have to get messy,” Finch suggests, throwing a quick glance to the window only a leap away. “We have what we came for.”

“I am not so sure this man will oblige us.” Zevran’s knives are already in his hands, the weight of them hard and comforting against his palms. He flicks one to the side, letting the man see the faint light from the street glitter down the blade.

His eyes widen as he notices the weapons, but his lips pull back in a snarl. Other voices now float down the stairwell behind him, calling in a mix of confusion and concern. One of his hands fumbles at the breast pocket of his sleep robe, groping at his chest, and for a moment Zevran thinks he might be having a heart attack—until he pulls out a narrow wooden tube.

“Ucciderò te, e la tua puttana!” the man shouts as he brings the pipe to his lips.

“Uh-oh,” Zevran mutters, and throws himself at Finch, who is already raising her hand in a now-familiar gesture of spellcasting. Before she can complete the move, he crashes into her, just as a thin shard of metal whirrs over their heads, sticking in the wall behind them with a tiny, quivering thud.

“What—” Surana begins, at the same time he gasps “—Darts! Poisoned, no doubt—” just as a second projectile zooms past his ear.

The third never has a chance to leave the blowgun, as Finch redirects her spell, the wood bursting into flames in the man’s hands.

He cries out, dropping it as Zevran leaps nimbly back to his feet, Finch rising only a moment later, still clutching the giant tome in one arm.

“Strega!” The man gasps as he drops the burning weapon, choking on smoke. Zevran can see the faint glow singed hairs in his beard. “Un mostro!”

“So much for not making a mess,” Zevran comments, inspecting one of the darts still lodged in the wall. “This would have been an extremely painful death. In fact, I am certain this would not be his first time gifting it to someone. This must be Ser Alissandro, the man of the house.”

“In that case, I suppose I won’t feel guilty about this,” Finch replies grimly, one hand clenching into a tight fist.

Down the corridor, the man’s coughs abruptly cease. His hand flies to his torso again, scrabbling, but this time not for concealed weapons. After a moment, he sinks to his knees, eyes bulging in fear and hatred, one hand pawing at his chest while the other extends, claw-like, towards the mage and rouge. After another long moment, he falls limply to the floor, with only a faint burbling noise as a tiny rivulet of blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.

“You are quite terrifying, you know,” Zevran comments appreciatively. “You’re lucky you don’t speak Antivan, his manners were terrible—”

“Enough of that, come on!” Finch interrupts, grabbing his arm and sprinting to the window, warm blood seeping through the cloth of his sleeve where her hand grips him. More footsteps are already descending, a clamor of metal accompanying them.

With a quick shove, the window opens, and Zevran can only follow as she springs onto the roof, leaping into the shadows. He notes with appreciation her fleet steps, as they dance over to the next building, and the next, leaving the house and the body far behind. Below, the city does not sleep, rather, lanterns and flames flicker and glow, as people hurry about, the night streets as alive and bustling as during the day.

“Just look at her, my dear Grey Warden!” he can’t help but call as they run along the rooftops. There is no snow, not this far north, but the air is cold and sharp inside his lungs. “Truly, you are seeing Antiva at its finest!”

Surana laughs, her red hair billowing behind her as they run, the city sparkling below her as though in agreement. There is nothing more to be said, then, as together they escape into the enveloping chaos, their armor glittering like jewels.

They enter their rented room at a small, dirty inn by window as well. There’s no point to it beyond the fact that they’re already on the rooftop—the blood on their clothes and their winded, disheveled appearance mean nothing out of the ordinary here. Actually, Zevran considers as he watches Finch swing herself into the room, being clean and neat was more likely to get you watched in Antiva City. He drops inside behind her.

“Well, well,” a rumbling, gravely voice grinds out. “About time they showed up.”

“Sorry, Shale,” Finch tells the golem, who sits in the middle of the room. Both small beds are pushed to the side to make room, and the floor creaks in protest as the creature of stone rises. Zevran eyes the wood nervously, wishing they’d been able to find somewhere with first floor bedrooms—it’s asking to be wake up with a knife at your throat, but at least there’s no risk of plummeting into the tavern below at any moment.

“While you were out and I was stuck here, staring at the floor, a messenger came,” Shale tells them. “It seemed unsurprised to see me, so I assumed he was actually a messenger, not another of your assassins. Here it is.”

“Sorry about leaving you here,” Finch says, dropping the thick leather book on the bed and shaking her arm out before taking the sealed envelope from Shale’s thick, rocky fingers. “That should be it for sneaking on this trip.”

“As long as it pays to sleep indoors, I do not mind waiting. It did not leave for thirty years, after all.”

“True,” Zevran agrees, as Finch opens the letter and begins to read. “You appreciate the lack of birds indoors, I assume?”

“Are there pigeons in Antiva?”

“Yes.”

“Is there nowhere their filth has not spoiled?”

Zevran opens his mouth to quip back, but Finch interrupts, grinning down at the page.

“Nevermind that. We’re late for our meeting.”

“Hm?” He hadn’t been aware of any more business for the night.

“According to this—“ she says, brandishing the letter—“we should have been there five minutes ago. Let’s go.”

She hurriedly changes her bloodstained shirt, and Zevran—does not look at the marks on her arms and back. Not the blood magic scars, no, those he does not care about, but the other ones, the blood-and-grey bruises that seem to come from nowhere. Today was a good day. He can’t think about it, not now. Instead, he turns, and throws on a cloak.

“Fine, if you wish to be mysterious,” he says. “Let’s go meet this stranger. Is she pretty? If you wanted company, you know, I could have arranged it…”

Finch only grins, picking up the enormous book again before throwing open the door and leading them out.

The place she leads them is not far—it took almost as long for Shale to wedge herself down the staircase he had considered wide until the golem entered it as it does for them to reach the tiny park. Buildings tower on all sides, but someone—the tea shop facing the street?—has turned the back of their lot into a miniature garden. Small trees line the border, bare of flowers but still clinging to the last of their drying leaves in the cold air, and a squat pavilion stands in the center. A gold-and-green jewel tucked away in the city he grew up in, forever full of secret surprises.

A shadow shifts inside the small building, and Zevran tenses instinctively, even knowing they came here to meet someone—but beside him, Finch laughs. The sound startles him, not for its volume in the quiet air, but because for once there is nothing more behind it—no bitterness, no wry acceptance, no edge. The sound is just—happy.

She’s already darting across the lawn, up the steps, and the figure steps to the front as she opens her arms to hug—

“Oh, the other squishy Warden has come along too, is it? Is that what this fuss was about,” Shale comments as Alistair releases the Hero of Ferelden from his enormous bear hug, and steps out into the open.

“My, my,” Zevran exclaims. “Now, this I did not expect. I thought you were quite busy to the south, no?”

“I’m leaving soon,” he admits, running a hand through his hair. “Within the hour. But Leliana told me you might be in town still—she’s the one who arranged for me to, er, hide out here before heading home.”

“Hoping no one will recognize you?” Finch asks.

Alistair nods. “Can’t afford to be slowed down. I need to get back to Ferelden before the Conclave. Who knows what nasty surprises will come out of that many powerful people all entering the same room.”

“I for one have no wish to get mixed up in that,” Zevran says, shaking his head. “We’ve saved the world once. Watch them all just mess it up again.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to come along?” Alistair asks Surana, glancing at her sideways. “We could always use your advice.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment; merely tilting her head back to stare up at the clouds. “I have too many things to do already,” she says, not looking at any of them. “For both our sakes.”

Something inside Zevrans chest clutches and twists at the words. It’s not supposed to be like this. Their adventures are supposed to be fun. But there is a weary sort of desperateness rising inside him each night. Ferelden, Orlais, Nevarra—he’s skipped across borders with Surana several times already. Chasing this lead, and that.

Looking for the cure he is becoming ever more certain does not exist.

“It’s good to see you too, Shale,” Alistair is telling the golem when Zevran returns his attention to the conversation. “I heard you were there when—well. I wasn’t able to make it to Andoral’s Reach. But I’m glad you were able to be there for Wynne.”

The party—so much smaller than it used to be, than it should be—bow their heads briefly, in sober remembrance. Zevran is used to the comings and goings of people. But somehow, this fragmentation feels wrong in ways he did not expect.

“Yes. It… she did much to help me. We did not find a way to recover my former body before she was called to the College of Enchanters. But perhaps that was for the best. I had forgotten that it is… difficult, when you know the one that does the dying.”

“I’m sure she would have appreciated you being there,” Finch tells her. Shale does not look sad—Zevran is not sure there is that much malleability to the stone of the golem’s face—but he notes the use of a pronoun for their mourned companion. Shale’s use of “it” is not really how she thinks of them, anymore, just an affectation to hide the affection that has undeniably grown.

They wait with Alistair until his departure. Zevran jokes, as he always does, absently counting how many times he can make the man blush. Inside, he is not nearly so lighthearted. In the dark and firelight, it is easy to ignore the dark circles under the Warden’s eyes, the way her hands twitch now and then, as though she hears something that they do not. She makes it easy to forget the purpose behind all their travels, even as she hands the book to Alistair. As though she already suspects it won’t hold the answer she needs, the death of the man earlier this evening just one more false lead on the impossible trail of clues she follows. Alistair’s people will sort through it, and he’ll let her know if they find anything.

In what seems only minutes, Alistair’s carriage comes for him. He hugs the warden one last time, and clasps Zevran’s hand before he boards.

“Stay safe, friends,” he says, and their eyes meet. Zevran can see grief there, too, mirroring his own. So deep that the man himself may not even realize what he too suspects. Keep her safe, is what he means. Not from other people—she can quite handle herself, in that regard. No. There is nothing he can do to stop what they both fear.

They all lived through the blight. Zevran never suffered the same corruption, but even he has nightmares about it, still. It is no wonder that Surana sometimes wakes, gasping, teeth bared as though she had been fighting tooth and nail even in her dreams.

Alistair climbs into the plain, unmarked vehicle. In only a moment, it vanishes around a corner, heading back to the land they left behind them so many months ago. He is gone, and the absence stings more than he would have expected after only so brief a reunion.

“So,” Zevran declares, more to distract himself than anything else. “Where shall we head now, hm? It is still quite chilly here. We could go farther north. Seheron, perhaps.”

“Or Par Vollen,” Finch suggests. “I still haven’t talked to Sten since he—well, since he stopped being ‘Sten’ and became ‘The Arishok’.”

“Hmm, sea travel to both of those. I used to have a friend in Rivaini—a sailor. Well, a pirate. Perhaps she would be willing to sail us across.”

“A boat?” Shale snorts. “I do not trust the things. The only reason I let you take me across that cursed lake Calenhad was because I knew I could walk out on the bottom if I fell in. Who knows how long it would take me to walk out of the ocean?”

“Ah, but there would be no birds down there to shit on you,” Zevran points out.

“With my luck, I would discover fish possess the same fowl traits.”

“Fair point,” Finch concedes. “Well, there’s always the Anderfels. I still need to show you where I came from, after all. And I’ve heard that there’s things hidden in the Grey Warden fortress at Weisshaupt still.”

“See? The world awaits us!” Zevran exclaims, throwing one arm out to sweep against the view of the city through the thin border of leaves. The lights flicker in and out of view as the branches shift in the wind, dancing brighter than any stars.

And we have so much of the world left to see, he thinks to himself. Maybe too much to dare hope to see it all with her. Sometimes—when he can’t help himself—Zevran wonders if she’s heard the true Calling already, and simply not told any of them. Maker knew she had more contact with darkspawn and Archdemons than most Wardens got in a lifetime—could it really have claimed her so fast? He has no way of knowing. And she will not say.

Perhaps, he thinks, that is why she roves so far. As though she is searching for someplace she cannot hear its dark song, even if every threadlike hint of a cure leads to nothing but handfuls of sand, trickling away. He cannot aid her for long, not if it truly is winning. But he can give her this: exotic spices, fragments languages she doesn’t know yet, and—if he’s lucky—now and then he can even make her laugh. It is not enough, and will never feel like enough. But it’s all he has to give her, when she has given them all so much.

Wondering is useless. Even with all his worries, he cannot imagine a world so dark that it has somehow conspired to end her presence in it. If he must wait, he will—but he’ll do it by her side. He owes her that much.