Work Text:
Ellana has been working in Skyhold Daycare for almost 2 years now. She's great with kids, and they absolutely love her. She usually handles the younger kids though, so when Varric approached her and asked her to handle the 5-year-olds group she's kind of not sure.
"I'm sure you'll be fine! You're great at this, nothing could go wrong," he said when she's done sending all the kids home. "Besides, there's only eight of them. Unless someone made an emergency drop-in."
She eyed him with suspicion, already used to his 'embellished truths' or as normal people say 'absolute lies'. Varric is not your run-of-the-mill daycare owner. First of all, his family is an outstanding member of the Merchant's Guild, so he's more used to giving out loans to aspiring merchants than taking care of crying toddlers. And he's also friends with the most notorious folks of Kirkwall, one of them being the Champion of Kirkwall. And also, the reason why he built this daycare is shady at best. Lavellan suspects that the real reason is so that his friends can have a real job instead of being jobless vigilantes all the time.
"Yeah right, usually when you say that, something will definitely go wrong," she replied while taking off her apron. "Why do you need me to take over though? Isn't Hawke handling that group?"
Varric gave her a nervous grin, "Yeah, about that..."
After that, he gave her a very roundabout way to tell her that Hawke just got arrested yesterday and he had to bail him out so he'll be busy for a while. Apparently, he got into a fistfight with cops because they want to arrest his boyfriend for running an underground clinic, and for illegally harboring a spirit inside him, and also for smuggling mages out of prison.
The list of Anders' crimes goes on and on until Ellana had to stop him from continuing, "All right, all right! I get the idea. I'll do it. Who will cover my group, though? Please don't say Isabela. Or Fenris. Or Merrill. Or Carver."
"Hey! What's wrong with them? I'm sure they can take care of babies."
At that Ellana only gave him the look, which prompted Varric to quickly excuses himself to call some part-timers willing to change groups.
---
In hindsight, she should've known that taking care of children that were literally handled by the Champion of Kirkwall will not be easy.
"I want cookies! Cookies! Cooooookies!" Sera yelled while pulling at Ellana's apron. "I want to throw it on Vivvy's head!"
Vivienne, who is sitting as far away as possible from Sera just rolled her eyes. The amount of sass she has impressed Ellana, as long as it's not aimed at her. She's currently ignoring everything that's going on and is sipping a mango juice with a straw. Dorian is sitting right beside her, complaining about the cold weather. There's another sassy kid, Ellana thought.
"Sera, you know you can't throw foods at your friends," Ellana reasoned, her mind working hard to find a fun alternative for her. "How about we feed the ducks in the pond? I'm sure they'll be happy if you throw beans at them."
"But Vivienne's a meanie! And ducks are stupid!" Sera pouted, her nose scrunching up. Then she stomps off to sulk on one of the tables and refused to look at Ellana. Instead, she scribbled furiously on her sketchbook, possibly drawing Ellana with devil horns leading a league of flaming ducks with bat wings.
Ellana understood that tantrums are somewhat common, but she still felt a little stab of guilt. And maybe she also felt a little scratch on her pride as she was known for being a miracle worker with babies. She was just thinking about trying to make amends with Sera when a hand tugged at her pants timidly, catching her attention. She turned to see Cole, the spirit boy, looking up at her with his soul-piercing stare.
"Cassandra needs to pee but she doesn't want to tell you," he whispered, surprising Ellana. She turned her head to see that Cassandra is, indeed, looking very uncomfortable and kept glancing at her.
Ellana immediately approached her and asked if she needs anything. Cassandra glanced around before nodding slowly, looking ashamed.
"You don't have to be embarrassed, Cassandra. You can tell me anything, okay? Now come on, you must be very uncomfortable," Ellana said, offering her hand to her, which Cassandra accepted.
Just before Cassandra exited the room she looked back at her friends and winked, which Ellana did not notice. As soon as the door closed behind her, Sera immediately jumped on the table and made a very exaggerated gesture to tell everyone to gather. Thom and Bull were the first to gather, a mischievous smile plastered on both of their faces. Dorian followed shortly after, mostly because Ellana didn't wrap him in blankets and gave him hot sweet tea like Hawke did. Solas is sleeping under a table, and Vivienne couldn't care less about what's going on around her.
"Hey, creepy! Wake up baldy so he can help plan," Sera pointed at the spirit, then turned to look at Vivienne who is looking through the window, looking utterly bored. "Vivvy! Come here! I know you don't like her!"
Vivienne dramatically sighed but she walked towards Sera anyway, if only to get it over with. Meanwhile, Solas woke up with a yawn and sleepy-talked about how he was about to pet a griffon named Crookytail in the Fade. He walked towards the crowd of children while rubbing his eyes.
"Everyone listen! I have a plan to bring Hawke back!" Sera exclaimed, which prompted the crowd to cheer. Most of them anyway.
Sera then proceeds to explain her plans, and the kids listen to it raptly. Even Cole participates, mostly because he felt that everyone is sad because Hawke got replaced and they have no idea where he is and why he's replaced.
By the time Ellana comes back with Cassandra, everyone already got their task and are now pretending that nothing has happened while they were gone. Ellana then walks around in the room without a single clue that there's a nefarious plot being executed right under her nose. She checked on Solas, who is now wide awake and are reading a book without a cover that Ellana did not remember being on the bookshelf.
"What are you reading, Solas?" Ellana asked him, peeking over his shoulder to take a look and what she saw is a block of texts. She doesn't remember when she learned how to read but it is pretty impressive for a 5-years-old. Meanwhile, Cole made his presence unnoticeable and approached Ellana for the first prank.
"It's a book about spirits. I'm currently reading about the spirit of compassion. Cole is one, so I want to know more," he said, not looking away from his book. Ellana gave him an impressed noise and patted his shoulder after encouraging him to continue reading.
What she did not realize though, is the fact that the laces of her shoes are now tied together. She took a step forward and found that her foot is dragging the other foot along and she loses her balance. Ellana fell face down onto the floor with a thud.
Sera almost burst out laughing but she slaps her mouth shut to keep herself from cackling, while everyone else snickered. Solas feigned surprise and asked her if she's okay. Ellana murmured an 'I'm okay' while she composed herself, face already burning with embarrassment. She looked around to see who might do it and found that everyone else is at least 4 meters away from her and couldn't possibly tie her shoes together that fast.
There's Cole and technically he could've done it, but the boy's a spirit of compassion. He couldn't have done it, why would he want to prank her anyway. So instead she just untied her shoes and put on the biggest smile and walked around to check on everyone again.
Sera scowled at this, sure she knew it's gonna take a little more than one prank to make her run crying to Varric and beg him to bring Hawke back but it's still pretty irritating for the little elf. Time to step up the game.
Sera gave Dorian and Bull a signal for them to start the prank. Dorian took a deep breath and prepares himself to start acting. Sure he's a theater kid but Bull has always been a great liar, even now Bull looks totally nonchalant about possibly framing an innocent childcare worker.
They grab a dragon doll at exactly the same time. Dorian made the best-offended face he could make, which is pretty good, and tugged at the doll.
"Excuse me, Bull, I think it's my turn to play with this doll," Dorian said, loud enough to gain Ellana's attention. The Dalish elf immediately walked towards the pair of fighting kids, entirely too peppy at the prospect of having to break a fight.
"What's going on here?" Ellana asked, with a kind voice. Dorian whipped his head to face Ellana and entered snitch mode.
"Bull won't let me have the doll! It's my turn to play with it," Dorian whined, hand still not letting go of the dragon doll. His eyes are watery, but that's only because he's slightly allergic to dust. But Ellana didn't know that, or she did know that but given the circumstances, it's more likely that Ellana thinks that Dorian is about to cry.
"But I grabbed it first! There's no rule about sharing!" Bull yelled back. It's true though, there's no written rule about sharing toys. But Hawke made sure everyone shares toys and most of them don't mind sharing anyway since there's plenty of good quality toys here.
Ellana does her best in being fair with both of them. To be honest, she's doing a great job at it. Even Bull and Dorian are having a hard time to be bratty. But it doesn't really matter since they're only doing it to distract Ellana from Sera, Vivienne and Thom.
"Is this even safe?" Vivienne whispered as she gave Sera two frost runes. "If this goes badly, I'm going to send you two pregnant snakes."
Thom boosted Sera so she could reach the top of the shelf without making a noise. Sera mouthed 'it'll be fine' when she's perched on top of the shelf. She scoured the ceiling for sprinklers and found that there's two of them, each located approximately 2 meters from her. She threw the runes and made a cheering gesture when it sticks to the sprinklers with a small 'clink'.
She rushed down from the shelf silently and the three of them separates and pretended like they've done nothing wrong.
Right on time too, since Ellana managed to get Dorian and Bull to compromise by having them play together instead. Which is a good thing, since in the middle of it they stopped acting and started fighting for real, so Ellana made them apologize to each other.
Ellana breathes a sigh of relief when the two kids start playing with each other. She felt a rush of satisfaction at a job well done until she saw Bull excitedly telling Dorian to do the trick.
She has this niggling feeling that something bad is going to happen and then Dorian made a swooping noise while holding up the dragon doll and made it breathe fire with his magic.
Like, actual fire. Fire fire kind of fire. Not even Veilfire or just a bunch of lightworks.
Bull ducked just in time to dodge the cone of fire emerging from the doll's mouth. Resulting in the shelf behind him getting the full blast of fire.
Ellana gaped at the sight. The only time she's ever seen a fire that big is from the giant bonfire that the Dalish make every ten years for Arlathven. But now there's a very on fire bookshelf, a bunch of screaming children and a dumbstruck Dalish elf in the middle of a daycare room right in the heart of the ever so busy Kirkwall.
She immediately snapped out of it though and pulled both Bull and Dorian away from the burning shelf that is spreading fire at an alarming rate. She kept them both close to her as she ushered the rest of the kids out of the room without stomping each other on the way out.
She looks up at the sprinkler with increasing worry as she saw that it's not working. Although, she caught a glimpse of something shiny on the sprinkler before she got everyone and herself out of the burning room.
"All right, kids. Stick together okay? I want you guys to wait in the lobby, I'm going to try to extinguish this fire," Ellana said. Although she's not really sure about it since the fire is already spreading to at least half of the room. She's a thunder mage after all, and the only other employed mage in the building is Merrill, who is a blood mage. Not much she could do to help except for summoning demons and possibly scaring the rest of the children.
But still, she grits her teeth and summoned a barrier over herself before charging to the burning room. It's hot, really hot, even with the barrier around her it's still way hotter than she's ever felt in her lifetime.
She gathered her willpower and conjured a blizzard right inside the room. For a moment she thought that she didn't conjure enough snow because the fire just spun around with the wind instead of being extinguished. In desperation, she forces herself to summon more snow, way more than her mana would usually allow. Soon after, the blizzard puts out most of the fire and the remaining wicks of fire slowly dies in the cold.
Ellana was glad that the fire is put out but she looks at the state of the room and can't help but feel very guilty. Half of the furniture are burnt, the other half are strewn around the room because of the blizzard she summoned. It used to be a happy, colorful place and now it's just utterly ransacked.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes but she hastily wiped it off. The children are distressed enough, and right now they need to be comforted more than her. So she squares up and got out of the room only to find that none of the kids have left the corridor. They're huddled together, looking very much like their collective hands were caught in the cookie jar.
Sera fidgeted for a moment before she whispered, "I'm sorry."
Ellana looks at her, confused. Why would she be sorry? As far as Ellana understands, it's all just an accident. A very dangerous accident, but an accident nonetheless.
"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault," Ellana said while smoothing out a stray hair on Sera's head. The little elf looks even more guilty after she said that.
"But it is! I planned it, it was supposed to be a prank. We only wanted you out so that Hawke can come back, but it's not happening is it?" Sera said, looking down at the floor. "I just made everything worse."
Ellana looks at the other kids, and none of them tried to deny it.
So it's true then. Ellana felt a mix of emotions wash over her. On one hand, she's angry because how could they do this? They're five-years-old, they should've known that playing with fire is dangerous. But on the other hand, she understands them. They've probably spent more time with Hawke than anyone else since they're here regularly. Varric did say before she went to work this morning that they're really attached to him.
"It's okay, everyone. I know you all miss Hawke very much, but you all have to be patient. He'll be back soon, just trust Varric... and me, okay?" She said as she kneeled down to be at eye level with everyone.
After that, Sera bursts into tears and hugged Ellana. She hugged her back and patted her back to comfort her. She looks at everyone else who looks like they all want to hug her too.
"All right, bring it in everyone."
Everyone immediately ran to hug her, all muttering apologies like "I'm sorry I tied your shoelaces together" and "I'm sorry I made you come to the toilet with me." Ellana also heard "I'm going to put a pregnant snake in Sera's backpack" but she's not sure.
They all hugged for a while, maybe Ellana cried a little too but she's not going to admit it. Now that the whole ordeal is over, everyone is tired and sleepy.
Ellana led them to their nap room and they're all pretty eager to sleep after a long day of committing arson. Eh, they probably don't know what arson is. She dimmed the light and closed the curtain while everyone else chucked off their shoes and laid down on their bed. She noticed that every bed has their name on it and are very personalized for each of them.
"Sweet dreams, everyone," Ellana said. She then closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
Oh, she's very much going to yell at Varric for this.