Chapter Text
It's Rosalie who finds her first, hobbling towards the house and leaning her weight on a long wooden staff for balance and support. The thin armor she wears is ragged, torn and muddied by whatever hardships she must have faced. The stranger comes from the direction of the Brecilian Forest, and while there are no more talks of Werewolves, there are other creatures that are just as deadly, beast and human alike with the Mage-Templar War still in full swing.
Rosalie runs to her aid with more compassion than suspicion, siblings following in her wake. With a soft, hoarse cry for help, the woman collapses where she stands a few paces away from them. Tear tracks cut through the grime on the woman’s face as Rosalie carefully rolls her to her back, cushioning her head on the balled-up shawl she pulled from her own shoulders, heedless of Mia’s warning to stay back.
Branson's the one who suggests calling the Templars - the ones in South Reach haven't all left, and the walking stick the strange woman had been using looks suspiciously like a mage's staff. Apostates are trouble nowadays, and as much as he hates the Order from stealing their brother from them, the Templars are more well-equipped to handle mages than three Fereldan farmers.
But Rosalie is firm in that the woman couldn't have meant them harm, and they don't know if she really is a mage, and she might not recover if they don't take care of her in the meantime. So Mia - peacekeeper as always - hesitantly instructs Bran to settle her in a cot in the guest room. He'll ride into town for the Templars in the morning, after they've had a chance to patch her up a little. She's lighter than she looks when Bran scoops her up, Mia following with the staff as she shoos Rosalie off to gather their stores of Elfroot, Spindleweed, and Dawn Lotus.
"Will she be alright?" Rosalie questions once they've done all they can for the time being.
Mia huffs a sigh. "You saw the bruises along her ribs, and we had to splint her arm. She’s practically skin and bones - with the way she passed out, she's been through something serious. I think she'll live, but only time will tell us now. She's a fighter to have made it this far." Mia’s words are meant in more than one way. She'd been half-awake again once they'd brought her inside, and while they'd convinced her to change out of her armor into a clean shirt and pants, and urged her out of her socks and boots, she'd refused to part with her gloves, even when the sisters were trying to clean her with a wet cloth. That had made the splint awkward at best, too, but for all of Mia's stubbornness, she'd let that slide. At Bran's insistence, really - fighting her too hard could have her casting spells, even if Mia thought the stranger was too weak to even try to attack.
Bran keeps watch that night, sitting in the corner of the guet room in the dark, arms crossed defiantly across his chest. He watches the moonlight settle over her face as the first moon, then the second, both rise to their zeniths.
She shifts and groans in the wee hours of the morning, dawn not yet peeking over the horizon. Bran’s drowsy, sitting alone in the dark for so long, but perks up at the noise. The weary woman shifts, managing to sit up despite a hitch in her breath from whatever pain she is doubtlessly in. Bran's eyes are locked on her like a hawk, but, knowing Mia would kill him if he doesn't get their charge to settle, he stands and approaches her bedside.
"Don't, you'll open your wounds again," he says, words coming out softer than he intends them to. She doesn't argue or resist, immediately collapsing back against the sheets with a thump. "Where... Where am I?" she croaks. Bran doesn't answer, but he pours her a cup of water from the pitcher on the nightstand and steps closer to hand it to her. She accepts it gratefully but with shaky hands, and drinks quickly, head pitching back to savor the last drops. He almost smiles at her eagerness, only to freeze as something around her neck glints in the moonlight from where it peeks out from the collar of the oversized shirt Mia had put her in.
A coin. But it's no ordinary bit of silver exchanged for goods and services in town. Though worn, an image of Andraste's face is pressed into the face of the coin. It's one of a kind. He'd found it one morning, long ago, when he'd been playing on the statue in the center of Honnleath. A treasure. His lucky coin.
A token he'd pressed into his brother's hand for luck when Cullen left for Templar training.
Branson knows his brother is most likely dead. His letters became more distant, came less often after he moved to Kirkwall - void, at first they'd thought the Blight had taken him as it had taken their parents. But then the Chantry in Kirkwall exploded, taking hundreds with it. It took a year for them to find out he’d survived that too. The last they’d heard of their brother, he was going to attend the Conclave - and that blew up too. Figuratively and literally.
Not to mention that the Templars had gone to war with the Mages. Were still at war with them. With the apostates. And here was a battle-weary apostate, with his brother's coin around her neck.
Branson feels the air grow warm around him. Or maybe it’s just his skin flushing, but not with embarrassment. His hands curl into fists.
"Where did you get that?" He bites out. Her hand flies to the coin, pressing it against her chest.
The apostate must still be a little out of it, because her voice is sleepy and lilting when she replies. "Stole it from a Templar." She sounds entirely too pleased with herself. "Along with something else." She pauses to tilt her head, hair mussing where it's fanned out against the pillow. "Hm...You look like him."
Branson sees red, then. His brother had told him he'd keep the coin with him, no matter what. That, plus the ongoing hostilities between the mages and Templars, puts only one possibility in his mind: that that "something else" was his brother's life.
She must see the threat in his gaze because before he can grab her, she rolls to her feet - hissing as she jostles her wounds - and stands on the other side of the bed. In the space of a blink, she’s disappeared, not bothering with shoes, abandoning her staff. He feels the cold rush of magic in the air and sprints for the backyard. By the time he throws the back door open and is down the three steps from the porch, she's long gone. The cool night air is quiet and still around him.
When Mia and Rosalie find him, minutes later, he's already taken an axe to the staff she left inside.
Staring down at the splintered wood doesn't make him feel any better.
Mia pries the axe from his clenched fists, wraps her arms around his heaving chest, and does her best to soothe him, but that doesn't work either. It won't bring his brother back. Nothing can.
Hours later, the woman reaches a small Inquisition camp. It’s only a few hours past dawn, so they’re unbothered by refugees seeking aid or protection. The woman pulls off her left glove to identify herself and is immediately saluted and ushered to the healers’ tent to rest and recover. Within minutes, a raven departs the camp, headed east, a coded message tied to its leg.
Commander,
We’ve found the Inquisitor - well, she found us, really, at our camp near South Reach.
She’s worn and weary, but well.
Her escort to Skyhold will depart tomorrow.
Corporal Beckett
Two months after they found the stranger, they receive the letter, a thick Inquisition seal holding it shut.
Mia, Branson, Rosalie,
It’s been too long since I last wrote...