Vanora the 'Vint

Maretus watches her set her teacup down on the rough wooden table like she would be glad never to see it again. He can’t blame her, honestly. It feels like forever since he had a proper cup of spiced tea. Colder days like this always make the him miss it the most acutely. For the moment, however, he pushes that thought aside, and nods.

“I think the merchant would be best. I’m not really a fan of frostbite and would rather not tempt fate more than I already have.” He stands and gestures toward the open doorway with one hand. “At your leisure.”

As the dark-haired healer leads the way out of the tavern and back into the cold, Maretus suppresses a shiver. No matter how much time he spent in the south, he thinks, he will never fully acclimate to the cold. Some stubborn part of him doesn’t want to, but the more logical laments its unlikelihood. The Tevene is too strong in him, he supposes. He does not look up at the sky, fearing he might catch glimpse of the green glow of the tear. That is, perhaps, a secondary, underlying reason for the shiver just as much as the cold, and just as involuntary. For as long as he can remember, magic has always sent the iron-cold spike of fear through him. He can recall no specific incident that might have been the progenitor of this fear, but he also had no memories from before the age of ten. His earliest knowledge of the world was of the dusty streets of Marothius, the warm labyrinth of alleyways created by old, terra cotta-colored mudbrick homes in the poor district. If only the remembrance of that dry heat was enough to warm him now.

Instead, breath fogs in a mist before his face every time he exhales, and he can feel a chill creeping in through his thick tunics and armor with frozen fingers. Maretus rubs his hands together and watches the cloaked back of the healer woman Vanora in front of him with some jealousy. She leads him around a long curve in the camp, the ground sloping gently downward beneath their feet. Despite the cold, there are throngs of people milling about in the morning air. Some are walking with the purpose of duties, but most are clearly refugees, left without any meaningful task to set their minds and hands to, huddled around small scatterings of firepits. Their eyes are haunted and few even acknowledge Vanora or Maretus as the two walk by.

“How long have you been here?” he hears himself asking Vanora, quickening his stride for a few steps to catch up and be at a pace with her. “It feels as though the flow of people coming here is a steady one.”

Maretus follows a few steps behind, gaze sweeping over their surroundings. No more than a week ago the place had been chaos. The explosion at The Conclave. The Rift tearing apart the sky and releasing all manner of demons onto the world. Death and destruction and fear had turned the hopeful gathering of people into a chaotic mess. Josephine, Cullen, Cassandra, and Leliana had done an admirable job corralling everyone and bringing order to Haven. They had a tentative peace. As much as could be had with the sky ripped open and the Fade alarmingly connected to their plane of existence.

No matter how accustomed Vanora grew to the Rift, there was constantly a sense of something being off. It was a lucky thing she’d secured herself a job, else she’d be going out of her mind. 

Tugging the cloak closer to her body she nodded in acknowledgement to the few people who recognized her. It had been many years since she’d been in a place where passerby recognized her, and she certainly hadn’t been any place and felt useful in many years. Taking over for Adan, as much as she’d sighed about it, had given her a newfound sense of purpose that she had very much missed in her years away from Tevinter.When Maretus closed the distance between them she glanced over in the direction of the ruins of the Conclave. 

“I was here from the beginning. I was curious to know if the mages and Templars would be able to broker peace. If I’d known the sky would tear open and spit out demons, perhaps I would have stayed away.”

With a sigh and a tired smile, she shakes her head, “Then again, I am glad that I can help all these people. They were in dire straights.”

To leave them all to Adan’s charming take on bedside manner at this point would have been cruel.As the main gate to Haven came into view, so did Seggrit’s makeshift stand. There wasn’t much to it, just a long wooden table that had certainly seen better days. The blond man straightened up from behind the table, setting an armful of wares onto the table as he glanced briefly at Vanora before eying up her companion.

“Seggrit,” she said in greeting, a blasé smile on her lips, “This is Maretus. He’s recently joined our ranks and finds himself in need of a cloak.”

Maretus took a step forward as Seggrit’s glance darted between the two of them.

“I know you’re the man to see about such things, and since you owe me a favor I’m sure you’ll get him what he needs at a fair price.”

Most of their breakfast passes in silence, with Maretus lost in thought.

How strange the world is, for him to have run so far from magic only to have the damned sky be torn from it. Then again, who even is Maretus to anyone who could remotely do anything like that? He’s a non-mage, soporati, low-born, an orphan, and a deserter. He’s pretty sure that to he’s less than insignificant in the grand scheme of things; he certainly feels small.

The expanding and contracting of his life strikes him a little all of a sudden. He rose from living on the streets to the second-highest commander of the military of Tevinter, and now here he is, a landless refugee stuck in a cold southern kingdom on the top of a mountain, just one among many. The turns his life has taken are still things he doesn’t care to dwell too much on. One on hand, he feels that he isn’t worth hunting down, especially after so much time has passed. Despite his high rank, he is just soporati. Would it really be worth the valuable time of the Legion and the magisters invested to keep trying to find him?

Yet, he can’t escape the sense of needing to look over his shoulder.

Of course, if he goes back, well… The terrifying thought of being stuck at a magister’s whim for the rest of his life flits through his mind again before he can stop it.

Maretus tears the last remaining corner of his bread in half, succinctly breaking his own thoughts. It does no good at all to think about that. Not when there isn’t anything he can do about it—if there is anything that even needs to be done by this point—and not when there are clearly larger fish to cook than himself.

He drags his gaze over to his breakfast companion, the healer Vanora, and studies her for a moment. She appears lost in her own thoughts, her dark hair tied back in a tidy braid to start the day. He also supposes she must either be the nicest person to suffer his long, introspective silences so politely, or, much less likely in his opinion, also prone to reflection. She’d said she also came south,and he idly wonders where she’d been before. It was hard to tell, sometimes, if people in the South were from Orlais, or Ferelden, or even some parts of the Free Marches, and he supposes she could have come from any of them, really.

“Thank you for sharing a breakfast table with me,” he says, turning his last piece of bread over in his hands. “It might just have killed enough time for the merchants around here to open up their wares for purchase.” As much as his thoughts might wander while he ate and adjusted to his new surroundings, very little would sway him from his need of a cloak. The biting weather outside was more than enough reminder.

With nothing but the quiet sounds of the tavern in the morning to fill the silence, Vanora’s thoughts wander. Maretus, with all his bronze skin and familiar accent, has unintentionally dragged memories of home up to the surface. Without work to keep her busy, she starts to wonder about home for the first time in a while. It had occurred to her not long before the events at the Conclave that perhaps it was time to return home. No matter how much they pretended otherwise, her parents wouldn’t live forever, and she’d rather die than let one of her incompetent cousins, aunts, or uncles take over her father’s seat in the Magisterium. That meant one very long trip North and one very unexpected appearance. Maker, just imagining the gossip made Vanora want to roll her eyes. 

Then the world had gone to shit and she’d found herself taking over healer duties for the fledgling Inquisition.

Not that she had come to Haven intending to do so, but Adan had been so awful that she couldn’t help herself. Vanora was nothing if not resourceful and motivated. Sitting on the sidelines while there was work to be done was not in her nature.

By the time Maretus drags himself from his thoughts and speaks once more, Vanora is nearly done with her breakfast. The last of her mediocre-at-best tea has gone cold, and her once warm bread is now room temperature. Popping the last small bite of bread into her mouth, she gives him a nod and glances out the window. Outside, Haven is waking up, the sound of swords clanging in the distance tell her that at least Cullen and his men are awake. Usually the noise is enough to get Seggrit and everyone nearest to the camp moving.

Swallowing, she washes the bread down with one last sip of cold tea. Maker, what she would give for good tea and some fresh fruit. 

"You’ll want to speak to Seggrit about a cloak. He ought to be up and laying out his wares by now.”

Granted, the man would bitch about the hour, but he’d not turn down a paying customer.

“I’m headed down that way to stop by the stables and can point him out to you. He’s unpleasant, and will probably try to charge you a ridiculous sum, but unless you’re willing to wait a bit longer for another merchant to come to Haven he’s the only option you’ve got. I suppose you could see if someone in town had an extra they’d sell, or try the Quartermaster...but who knows how long that would take.”