It had started as a minor inconvenience.

 Victor Regan had been leaving his home to attend a meeting about the taxation of the services provided at the Blooming Rose. It was initially a private business owned by the tavern owner, but since it was a place of legal fraternizing the city of Kirkwall saw the opportunity for what it was. Soon, different men and women had stocks within the company and held them to higher standards and could tax them for an increased rate depending on services, risks during the services provided, and the exhaustion of said agents performing the services. It was bound to be a busy meeting, so he had left fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled to be one of the first to arrive.

 Victor Regan was never late.

 He descended the stairs that led from his estate down to the brick of Hightown – when all of a sudden, the tip of his foot was snagged in a partially shattered brick on the city street. He crumbled underneath the sudden change of his posture and fell flat on the floor. His quill and ink scattered with a splash across the ground and soon it was tinted maroon by the surge of blood from his nose colliding with the hard surface. His body had twisted on the way down, but unfortunately his ankle had stayed put.

 That day, Victor Regan was late for the meeting. They had voted against the propositions he had written out in full, taking up three scrolls worth and two inkpots full of suggestions for the establishment. It had taken three days within the healer’s clinic before he was able to return home. A Circle mage had to be dispatched with three Templars to ensure her obedience, but she was able to straighten his ankle, but since there was a delay in getting her to the clinic, it did not heal properly. According to her, the joint between the ankle and the foot was now fused. He would always walk with a limp and would never regain flexibility of the limb unless it were to be rebroken, and even then, the chance of it returning to normal was minimal to nonexistent.

 He remained reclusive within his estate. The workers came and went. The only one allowed was his closest servant, Helen. She tended to him when he could not leave the bed at all. He tripled her pay that week and tipped for embarrassing tasks, but she never made a face, never judged, and rarely spoke. He was immensely grateful for her, but the silence allowed him time to process. The length of his estate stopped at the stairs, so it was the City of Kirkwall’s responsibility to fix the broken brick at the end of the staircase.

 Ever since the Blight had started, getting an appointment with the Viscount was proving to be more and more difficult. He controlled the resources of the city and would be able to dispatch the necessary workers, troops, or what have him to the Regan estate in the East corner of Hightown. The task would maybe take a day at most, unless the brick provided did not match the tone of the rest of the courtyard. If that were the case, the entire courtyard would need to be reset and that would be a job that could take weeks.

 Two weeks after the incident, Victor hobbled his way to the Viscount’s Keep with a small cane on his dominant hand and his papers full of proof, detailed drawings from a artist he had purchased pieces from before, reports from the healer that had repaired his body, and a piece of the brick so that it could be matched. The seneschal had promised that he would be seen that day; he had written two days prior to request a meeting. Victor and the Viscount had held meetings together for many years. Surely he would have time to fit him in for such a minor project?

 Unfortunately, the first day was when the Qunari landed in Kirkwall.

 “No matter. I can simply reschedule.”

 The second day, he went through the same ritual. He wore his finest clothes and procured a cane carved from an ironbark look a like with a silver stallion’s head on the top. The stallion was the choice animal for the Regan’s. It was distinguished and not easily broken.

 The latter virtue was tried multiple times.

 The second day, Knight Commander Meredith had barged into the Viscount’s Office with demands for new Templar training and increased restrictions on the Circle of Magi, much to First Enchanter Orsino’s dismay.

 The third day a new mercenary group full of Ferelden refugees had been spotted doing suspicious deeds throughout Kirkwall and the Viscount needed to handle the growing refugee surge within Kirkwall.

 Then the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth day all had some excuse as well.

 Two years later he still walked to his appointment when it was scheduled. He hadn’t been able to get in, but he didn’t dare raise his voice within the Viscount’s Keep. He still came with now slightly tattered formal wear, brick piece in hand, and records, but he was never seen. One day he looked down to the wall he was standing next to and nearly dropped all of his items he had collected. There, in front of him the whole time, were the building blocks for his solution. The literal building blocks. The Viscount’s Keep was made of the same stuff that constructed the road outside of his estate. Victor slowly looked at the brick piece to the wall in front of him, running his hands over both before gently setting his scrolls and satchel down on the ground.

 Could it be? The answer was in front of him the whole time. It was so obvious. The hole at the bottom of the stairs was only growing in size and there wasn’t enough soil to fill it that wasn’t flushed out by rain. As miniscule as it may be compared to the potholes in Darktown, it was still almost the perfect size for a single foot. His foot.

 He nodded in firm affirmation and began to a new mission. He would still show up to his meetings, but he would no longer leave empty handed. He sought out the city’s best armor smith to commission a pair of silverite tipped boots with a small and subtle point at the end of the boot of his good foot. He limped to the Viscount’s Keep on the day of his next appointment, which of course was the week when the Viscount’s son Seamus had gone missing.

 He kept to his real estate, the corner that he had occupied for two years that the nobles avoided because he had been there first. He turned his back to them all, keeping his posture straight and dignified.

 And he kicked.

 It was a small thing at first, but there was the satisfactory sound of metal chipping away at stone. A small amount of dust came from the brick, but it was a start. He opened his cloak to give him more privacy as he lifted up his good foot once more and went at it again.

  “Messiere, please stop kicking the wall.”

 “That corner looks dusty, how embarrassing it must be for the Viscount to keep his guests waiting in such a dismal place.”

 “I will throw you out if you kick that wall one more time.”

 “It does not reflect well on the city of Kirkwall to have a place regarded with such high honor look like nothing more than a Ferelden dog house.”

 Comments like that were able to keep the Viscount’s assistants distracted. Appointment after appointment, month after month, year after year, he gathered what he needed.

 At first it was a vindication to fill the hole outside of his house, but the changing weather never allowed it to stick properly. It had become a mission of rebellion. He was not a fighter, so he could not contribute to the ever-changing civil wars happening within the cities. He was not a Chantry man so his voice would not matter in the coming debates about the mages and the Templars. He was a man that fought for the people and fought for the quality of his city using the only weapon he could wield: his stubbornness.

 The stallions of Regan never broke.

It was more than a decade later when a new Viscount was appointed to the city, some dwarf of the Merchant’s Guild. He had only heard of him from the books that had been delivered to his house. Since he spent most of his time waiting for appointments, his income had become limited, so he only had the means to keep his estate, nothing more. His clothes had grown worn and tattered over time. His proud and trusty cane was splintered but it still held up. The once polished and sharp silverite boots had dulled and rusted with time, and the condition of the feet underneath them was no better.

 The seneschal of the new Viscount reached out for a meeting and he went with his decade-old scrolls and document and returned to his corner. But this time when he walked into the Keep he was immediately greeted by an assistant and brought to the office. With a glance he noticed all of his good work had been repaired and the stone was repainted. Victor scoffed as he was brought into the office, an almost smug dwarf looking at him from behind a desk where his feet were propped up on the edge.

 “Victor Regan, Stallion of the Courts of Hightown, Part owner of the Blooming Rose. I have seen you in this place almost every week for years now.” He pushed out from the desk and walked around to the front. Victor didn’t move. His face was made of the stone, not fractured like the weak and inferior kind that created the courtyard outside of his estate. No, he was made of better stuff, unbreakable stuff. He simply nodded and crossed his arms after handing off his documents to the Seneschal. “Weren’t you the man always kicking the wall?” The dwarf asked with half a laugh with a nostalgic twinkle in his eye.

 “Not without good reason, Sir Viscount.” He glanced over to the papers and Viscount Tethras looked them over with a shake of his head.

 “Shame. Humans can never make lasting architecture. I still have some connections with the Merchant’s Guild branch here in Kirkwall. They will send some men over there to repair the courtyard today. I’m sure after the Qunari invasion, the Chantry explosion, and everything else time hasn’t been kind to it.” He flipped through the scrolls and quickly read over the piece detailing the medical expenses and procedures done to heal his ankle. The Viscount whistled low in a sound of impressment. “That’s quite an injury you suffered. All from a faulty brick?”

 Victor nodded again. “It has all been detailed there, for years. I have added on documentation for when it grew worse and the changes that came from those.”

 The Viscount flipped through the last twenty pages, marking the dates with a growing smile on his face. He looked to the Seneschal and gestured to a side room from the office. The meek man scrambled and ran in without another word. “Victor, can I call you Victor? I admire a man with such a pristine memory and steadfast dedication to their cause.”

 For the first time in the whole encounter, Victor broke. His lips twitched into a smile and he nodded with pride. “Thank you, sir.”

 Master Tethras pulled up a plush chair and patted on the seat before walking around to the desk with a smile on his face. “I have a new book publishing soon, and I think I could use somebody like you to help organize its release. Let’s talk about your future and put this thing behind us, shall we?”

   Master Regan walked home that day with pride in his steps. He had left the cane at the Viscount’s office; he hardly noticed the pain. The sun was setting over Hightown and the cheers from the Blooming Rose echoed out into the empty streets. He approached his estate and prepared to side-step the brick below his steps like he normally did, but there was something different. True to the Viscount’s word, the brick had been replaced and re-grouted.

 Victor rubbed his bad foot over it and stomped on it twice, a chuckle bubbling from his lips before it turned into full on laughter. He gripped the railing on his stairwell, falling to his knees and rubbing the smooth brick with his bare hands before ascending the stairs to the door of his estate. When he entered, there was a letter of promise from the Viscount regarding his new position and a sum to cover the expenses from the initial incident and any changes afterwards.