Work Text:
Evrion and Oghren are sharing drinks over a late game of chess. Evrion wants to ask, but doesn’t want to open any old wounds. Not now. Maybe another time, when they’re not drinking.
But Oghren’s always drinking, and it’s been bothering Evrion. There probably never will be a ‘right time’, and he’s not sure he’ll get over this any time soon.
“Oghren,” he says over the lip of his bottle.
“Commander,” the dwarf says back, not looking away from the board.
“I’m sorry if it’s hard to talk about, but… I have to ask…”
“You’re about to bring up Felsi, aren’t you?”
“Well… sort of.”
Oghren lets out a groan and crosses his arms. “Well, get it out, then.”
Now Evrion feels silly, but it’s too late to turn back. He closes his eyes for a second, rolling them at himself with a sigh. “Why wasn’t I invited to your wedding?”
Oghren doesn’t react at first, and Evrion’s worrying. Had he done something, said something to deserve it, and just couldn’t remember? No. He knows he had been less than pleasant at times during the Blight, and isn’t exactly the kindest Warden-Commander now, but if he’d done something so terrible to Oghren, there’s no way he could forget it. Evrion doesn’t forget when he’s been cruel.
They were never even that close, and Evrion doesn’t actually feel he missed out. But what reason did Oghren have to not invite the Hero of Ferelden to his special day?
Finally, the dwarf just squints and his lips pull back over his teeth incredulously. “You weren’t there?”
“No,” Evrion’s brow furrows. “I… didn’t know when or where it was, or that you were getting married at all.”
“I could swear you were there…” Oghren shakes his head. He eyes the bottle in Evrion’s hand pointedly. “You sure you didn’t just forget?”
Now Evrion’s a little offended. He remembers the time Alistair expressed a concern for his drinking, how he told the king, “Relax, I’m not Oghren.” Forget? No. He couldn’t forget something like that, like Oghren clearly has. Evrion still retained some memory of his brother’s wedding from years before, and he’d blacked out at that one.
“I’m absolutely certain,” Evrion says, unable to keep the slight edge from his voice.
Oghren doesn’t seem to notice the tone. “Huh. Well… that’s weird.”
“Yes, it is,” Evrion sets his bottle on the table with a bit more force than he intended, but everything’s a little too heavy now, and… Maker, maybe he should start drinking less. It used to make him feel good, not make him angrier. He’s about to ask what he’d done when Oghren speaks again.
“I definitely invited you,” he says, reaching over and moving his knight. Oh yeah, they were playing chess. “I forget a lot of stuff, but I remember us writing the invitations,” Oghren continues. “Felsi said your last name’s spelled stupid.”
“What?”
Oghren lets out a laugh, not at Evrion, but at the memory. It’s warm, full of fondness. “I said, ‘it’s the same sound in ‘soup’, it’s spelled like that’, and she said, ‘soup’s spelled stupid too, then.’”
The Warden-Commander’s trying very hard to keep from reacting to that first part, processing the rest. The same sound in soup. That was the very example he’d given Oghren, when the dwarf struggled to pronounce the first syllable of Cousland. That was when they first met, how long ago, now… well over a year. When the archdemon still flew.
Now Evrion’s remembering the archdemon, and he has to stop or it’ll lead to thinking of other, related subjects. Subjects far more upsetting than… What were they talking about, again?
Cousland, like the sound in stupid, he berates himself. Wedding invitations.
“Maybe we sent it to the wrong place…” Oghren mumbles thoughtfully, fingering one of his braids. “Where’d we send it to… Highever? I wasn’t sure where you were at, exactly. You were kinda drifting all over at the time. Still, you were definitely invited.”
Highever. Maker, Fergus had mentioned something about a wedding, Evrion remembers now. “Someone sent you a letter of invitation,” Fergus said, trying to bring his brother’s attention away from the fact that they had just held a vigil for their family. Evrion was in a guest room, working on a bottle of whiskey.
He said he didn’t care whose wedding it was. That he was tired of having to show up to events and pretend to be the happy hero. “Why can’t they leave me alone. I just want to mourn properly before I go back to Weisshaupt.” Fergus didn’t say who sent the letter, and Evrion wants to pin this on him now, but he can’t. Fergus was only trying to help, trying to make things hurt less. And he did ask if Evrion was sure, even left the letter for him to look at later. Evrion simply neglected to.
“Well…” Evrion wishes he could just turn to dust now. He’s staring at the knight in its new position on the board, the image of the invitation he never bothered to read filling his mind’s sight. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it.”
Oghren laughs again. “Well, shit, me too! Here I thought you were there, and that we had a good time.”
Evrion can’t bring himself to laugh along, and instead offers what he hopes looks like a smile. He wishes he had gone, now; maybe he would have had a good time.
The Warden-Commander brings his attention back to the game. His head is swimming in alcohol and embarrassment, and he can only focus enough to gather that Oghren is going to win this round too. He moves a rook uselessly, just to do something. Oghren wins in a few more turns.
“I think I’m calling it a night,” Evrion says as Oghren swipes his queen, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Good thing, too. You played like you were asleep the whole time.” Oghren chuckles as he starts rearranging the pieces on the board, and Evrion gets up from his chair, swaying a little. He’s eager to get to his bedchamber, where he can continue feeling shame in the comfort of his bed.
“Hey, are you gonna finish that?” Oghren points to the bottle on the table.
Evrion considers it, and then remembers that every sip makes him a worse person. “No.”
“Well, don’t mind if I do.”