Chapter Text
The fire pushed back the stygian darkness of the Deep Roads and took the edge off the perpetual chill. It threw golden light onto Zevran, and danced over his curves and angles. Alistair watched out of the corner of his eye as Zevran ran a damp rag over his skin and then added more water from his canteen. Harper Amell and the other companions were indistinct lumps under their blankets, the foul smelling dwarf they’d recently acquired snoring mightily.
“So those...designs you have all over your back…” Alistair started, not sure where he was going.
Zevran glanced over. “They are called tattoos. And I have them in many more places than just on my back, my friend.” Zevran twisted to bring more of said back into the firelight, and the tattoos twisted with him.
“Err...right.” Alistair refrained from trying to interpret that. “I hear that someone gets those by having needles put the ink under your skin?”
“A great many needles, among other things. Yes, that would be true.”
“Other...things…” Alistair mumbled, and then shook his head once. “Didn’t that hurt?”
“Oh yes, yes. But it is not so bad, in truth. If you like, I could give you one. I learned a bit of the art myself in Antiva.”
“Oh, no. No, I don’t think so.”
“Come, it will just be a small one!” Zevran smiled the smile that Alistair was fairly sure was mocking him. “Perhaps the symbol of the Grey Wardens? Something manly! Where are my needles?” He turned to his pack.
Alistair’s cheeks burned. “Um! Maybe some...other time. I really have to uh...sleep now. Got to get that beauty sleep.”
Zevran’s smile broadened to a grin. “As you wish, my friend.”
Alistair pulled the blanket over his head. It itched against his cheek.
He wondered if Zevran really did have the needles in his pack. Didn’t seem likely to come in all that handy in the Deep Roads.
*
The tunnels had opened out a few minutes back into a space that, by the echoes, must be vast. Harper’s ball of spirit light couldn’t push the darkness back to the edges. Moving through dark, echoing void got dull after a while--Alistair kept his hand on his sword, but his mind wandered. Making a decision, he dropped back a bit, leaving Wynne to Oghren’s mercies with only a little guilt.
"Zevran? I've been thinking about those ink drawings, what did you call them? Tattoos? Are you... still willing to do one?"
“Oh-ho! You've decided to take the plunge, have you? What is a little pain, am I right?”
Alistair waved his free hand dismissively. “I'm not worried about that. I think they look interesting. Though I'd want mine... smaller.” Zevran nodded, though in the eternal shadow it was hard to read his face. Alistair took a steadying breath. “When can you do it?”
Zevran laughed lightly. “Not so fast, my friend. There is an entire ritual to how this is done, do you not know? First I need to bathe you in a mixture of olives and rosewater.”
“You need to... bathe me? That seems... odd.”
“No, no, no, not at all. It needs to be worked into your skin, preparing it to receive the ink. The massage is quite pleasurable, do not worry. You are in good hands.” The way Zevran drew out the word ‘pleasurable’ made Alistair’s shoulders tense.
“The... massage?” Wait, he knew this trap. He’d fallen into it far too many times. “You're... having me on, aren't you?”
“I might be. I might not be.” Zevran shrugged. “Shall I describe the rest of the ritual to you?”
“Wynne is right--you can’t be serious about anything. Now you’re just teasing me, and I WAS serious.”
“Ah, were you?” Zevran was definitely smiling now. “If I were to submit the question to Wynne’s wisdom and authority, would she say that you are known for your seriousness and sincerity?”
Alistair felt the conversation had gotten away from him again. “Well, uh...probably not, no.”
“So you have, from time to time, engaged in a little lighthearted teasing and humorous deflection?”
“Well sure!” Alistair burst out. “It’s so much easier if no one takes you seriously!”
Zevran grinned broadly. Alistair snapped his mouth shut and squinted hard at Zevran.
*
Alistair had been thinking. And as one brother in particular at the monastery had been fond of repeating, nothing good ever came of that.
“Zevran…”
Zevran jerked his head to tug the end of the dressing he was replacing on his arm tight, and spat it out. “Yes?”
“You said the Crows choose who they send on a contract.”
“I did.”
“So…” Alistair looked down, ostentatiously leaning in and using a fingernail to dig at a bit of dried blood in his sword hilt. “Why would they send you?”
Zevran tucked the dressing’s ends under and pressed a wrinkle flat. “Is there some reason why they should not?”
“Plenty of reasons,” Alistair replied. “Starting with the fact that you weren't exactly the best they had, were you?”
Zevran didn’t go for the bait. “Slander and lies. For shame, Alistair.”
"I'm not an idiot. Well, not most of the time,” Alistair amended. “You're no raw recruit, but I've seen you fight. You're no master of combat, by any means.”
“Assuming that I intended a fair fight, that would indeed be a problem. But the Crows did not show any particular interest in such knightly virtue during my training.”
“But the Crows must have master assassins, the way you describe them,” Alistair persisted. “Men with years and years of experience. Why not send them?”
“Why not, indeed? It is a mystery for the ages.”
“Oh, I get it. You're not going to tell me.”
“Morrigan said you were sharp. No liar, she.”
Alistair laughed harshly. “Morrigan never said that. She thinks I’m dim.”
Zevran glanced up from stowing his wound kit and winked--suggestively. Everything he did was suggestive, as far as Alistar could tell.
“I might be persuaded to confide more to someone with whom I was more...intimately acquainted. But naturally you are not interested.”
Alistair felt his face blaze up, and was grateful for the dark and firelight. He took the hint, and let it drop.
*
The next morning--or whatever it was; who could tell down here--Alistair was unusually silent as they worked their way ever deeper into this claustrophobic nightmare of tunnels and caverns.
“Still with the stern glances, Alistair?”
Caught, Alistair jerked his eyes away from Zevran’s profile. “Well, I still want an answer. About why the Crows wouldn't send their best man.”
“So for that I must suffer all these fearsome glares? You are cruel to subject me to such torture.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re in agony. It’s just...if you aren't telling me, there must be a reason.”
“If you must know,” Zevran said, “the masters do not often take contracts outside Antiva. And I made the best bid.”
“Best... bid?”
“We agree to pay the guild a portion of whatever the contract offers. The one who agrees to pay the most gets the contract, so long as the guild deems them worthy.”
“And they thought you were worthy?”
“Against a pair of Grey Warden recruits? Apparently so.”
Alistair thought that maybe if it had really only been him and Harper, Zevran’s ambush would have had a better chance, but then he’d had warning that they’d gained more fighters. That was another thing he thought about--why Zevran had taken that kind of chance.
But he wouldn’t let himself get distracted. He had the bit between his teeth this time. “Were there many who wanted the contract?”
“None,” Zevran answered.
“None?”
“You are still Grey Wardens, after all, and even in Antiva, killing members of your order is considered... impolitic. It made the guild's decision considerably easier, I imagine.”
“Well that's comforting, somehow.” Alistair snorted. Then a whisper in the back of his mind brought him up short.
“Harper,” he called forward. The other Warden froze, swiveling her head blindly as if listening.
“I feel them too,” she confirmed. “Get ready. Zev, Wynne, Morrigan--”
“Yes, yes, stay back if we can; I have not yet turned senile,” Morrigan replied.
Alistair heard the rasp of metal on stone from his left, and drew his sword, shifting so that Zevran was behind him.
*
There were only six darkspawn this time, but Alistair stumbled over a loose rock at exactly the wrong moment and took a clean hit to the helmet from a hurlock. Zevran took it down before Alistair’s vision cleared, but afterwards Harper declared a stop, and Wynne confined Alistair to his bedroll for a couple hour’s rest. Naturally, he couldn’t sleep, and was feeling rather grumpy about the whole business.
The rise and fall of voices caught his attention.
“Are you truly so unafraid of the Crows as you pretend?” Morrigan asked.
“Are you still on about this, woman?” Zevran replied.
“I invite you to call me ‘woman’ again and see what happens. Answer the question.”
Oghren chuckled. “Sure look like a woman to me.” Morrigan made a noise of disgust.
There was a brief silence in which all Alistair could hear was the shuffling of moving bodies and someone sharpening a blade.
“I think of it more as my desire to leave the Crows far exceeds the fear I possess of them.”
“You think the Grey Wardens will give you safe harbor once all this is done. Surely you are not so naive.” At least Alistair wasn’t the only victim of Morrigan’s mockery.
“I am willing to take my chances,” Zevran said.
“And if you are wrong?”
Zevran made a noise that might barely have been a laugh. Alistair took a chance and pretended to have an itch, flopping over in his ‘sleep’ so that he could just see Zevran’s face through the crook of his elbow.
“Then I will be dead,” said Zevran. “One does not do what I do and fear death so very greatly.”
Morrigan’s lip curled. “There are fates worse than death.”
Morrigan was not looking at Zevran, and so did not see the flash of something Alistair could not identify, something raw and cutting, that crossed Zevran’s face. Only Alistair saw it.
But Zevran’s voice was as smooth as ever when he replied. “And one of them is being unable to choose which master you serve. Trust me, my dear, I am well pleased with my current direction.”
Morrigan scoffed. “On your head be it, then.” She rose and turned toward the privy pit.
Alistair watched Zevran’s face for a few more minutes, but that face didn’t show itself again. Finally, he drifted off.
*
“You said no one else bid on Loghain’s contract.”
“Brasca! Are all Fereldans as stubborn as their dogs?”
“Even if it’s only me, you still might as well answer, because I’m the Fereldan that’s here.”
“Very well then, yes, I did say that.” Zevran narrowed his eyes at Alistair repressively, but Alistair had never been one to quit while he was ahead.
“And you meant it,” he said, “because it wasn’t there to make me squirm. I told you, I’m not stupid, I do catch on eventually.”
“An interesting theory. Why have you not yet tired of this line of inquiry?”
“I’m not inquiring about anything. I’m not done. No one else bid on the contract. So it was a shit contract. Why?”
“Because Ferelden is a cold, muddy place full of dogs and prudes,” Zevran snapped. “But me, I find the thought of corrupting handsome barbarian prudes terribly appealing. All that muscle going to waste. So I thought to myself--”
“Shut up, you’re not derailing me with that stuff this time. Besides, it was a rhetorical why. The contract was lousy because Ferelden is a cold muddy dog country--you said!--and because no one wanted to take a contract against Grey Wardens. You already said. But the question is why did you take the shitty contract.”
“A poor decision, clearly! One of many!” Zevran snapped. “Perhaps I am simply stupid.”
“No you’re not,” Alistair said, hard on the tail of something important. “But you talk too much.”
“It has been said, yes.”
“Then just listen!”
“I tire of this conversation!” Zevran sped up his steps, but Alistair’s longer legs easily kept pace.
“No one else wanted the contract.” Alistair’s words tumbled over themselves racing after the answer. “Not even assassins who were better than you. You didn’t even have the experience to pull it off, city boy, and since you aren’t stupid you had to know that, too.”
“Or I am stupid and this entire conversation is pointless!”
“Nope, you knew it, and you took it anyway. Because you wanted to get away. Because they make you kill people. You kill people and then you go to a chantry and ask for forgiveness and then you kill people again--and, and you sleep with them, I bet they make you sleep with them--because if you don’t the Crows will kill you!
“You’re not free! They bought you! You act proud but you didn’t choose this. So you took a shitty contract in a muddy dog country that you weren’t qualified for. And...and I dunno, maybe you meant us to catch you, you thought Grey Wardens would be enough to protect you, if even the Crows stay away from us.”
Alistair frowned. “But no, that doesn’t make sense. The only reason we didn’t kill you is because Harper is daft on second chances. You couldn’t have anticipated that.”
Alistair chewed his lip for a second, ignoring Zevran’s venomous glare.
“No, you had to have known you’d probably die,” Alistair went on. “But you did it anyway! Because...because…aach” Alistair froze. “Because you thought the only way to get away was to die!”
Both of them stilled, staring at each other. Alistair’s bubble of triumph burst and drained away, leaving him cold.
“You took the contract because you wanted to die.”
Zevran spat on the ground next to Alistair’s foot, and turned on his heel. This time Alistair let him go.
*
Alistair was quiet for the rest of the day. Zevran, on the other hand, was everywhere that Alistair wasn’t, flirting and gibing and sparkling, entirely as if nothing had happened. But Alistair supposed that maybe that was the point. Because he hadn’t been wrong. He was sure of it now. He’d been awful, but not wrong.
He’d been right, and it changed everything. Zevran hadn’t exactly hidden it, but he’d never said the word--slave. He’d been a Crow, an assassin, full of brag and seduction. But that was the word. Slave. Alistair couldn’t process it. Being forced to kill people was almost easier to understand than being forced to seduce them and then kill them.
Alistair had killed people. It had been unpleasant, but in the end he didn’t feel like anyone he’d killed yet had really given him a choice. And it had never been so grotesquely...personal.
Zevran hadn’t had a choice-- either kill, or be killed. But it was the gap between victim and killer that made the difference. What would it be like to be forced to kill innocent people? Well, you’d say what Zevran did, Alistair guessed--they weren’t really innocent, or no one would want to kill them.
But seeing as Alistair had been one of the potential victims, it was pretty hard to see it that way. Pretty hard for Zevran, too. But it wasn’t the people Zevran had to kill that were a threat to his life. It was the people who should have taken care of him.
So now Alistair knew that all that brag, all that flash, that was hollow, and the tiny flash of rage and desperation, that was the truth. And he didn’t know what to do with that, and Zevran hated him for it. Alistair didn’t blame him at all. He’d had no right.
*
Dinner was a cold and uncheery meal of hard biscuit and leftover deepstalker. The overpowering flavor of smoke did not drown out the overpowering flavor of nasty cave lizard-rat. Alistair had hoped to bury his shame under a blanket and be unconscious for a while, but Harper was watching him with too-knowing eyes.
“According to the map, we’re getting really close to Caridin’s Cross,” she said. “I want us fresh, but time’s a-passin’. We’re only going to rest for a few hours. Alistair and Zevran, first watch. I’ll take second with Morrigan. Wake me when the first torch dies.”
Alistair grunted acknowledgment; Zevran just nodded.
Neither of them said more than that for a long time. Alistair did his best to look utterly engrossed by scrubbing rust off his armor, which was probably a pathetic effort, as he’d made rather a vocal thing out of hating the task. Whenever Alistair snuck a look, Zevran was sitting, hands clasped, eyes on the darkness.
“So uh.” Alistair spoke quietly, so as not to disturb the sleepers. “So I’m sorry.”
“I have no use for your pity.” Zevran didn’t look at him.
“No, not--dammit, I mean, I’m sorry for being an ass. Though if you’re going to be like that, I don’t see why I can’t pity you. Seems like you got dealt a really shit hand.”
“But the game I played was my own, yes? Assassin--murderer, you would call it, surely? I could have chosen otherwise.”
“Well I mean...not really, right? What, you could have just died? I don’t see how that’s a real choice. But that’s not--never mind. I just meant I was sorry for prying.”
Zevran studied him silently.
“Look, if you like, you can...you can tattoo on my face. Say, ‘Nosey Idiot’.” Alistair swept a hand across his forehead.
That made Zevran snort, and Alistair smiled, encouraged. “‘Thinks with his mouth open’, maybe. Or right here--” he jabbed his own cheek, “--put a little arrow here, says ‘flies enter here.’”
Zevran chuckled. “Ficcanaso.”
Alistair raised an eyebrow inquiringly.
“Hmmm,” said Zevran. “I think it is close to ‘pokes the nose’? Busybody.”
“That’s fair. Alright, get out the needles.”
That got a genuine smile. “Alas, I do not in fact have them with me. But I will not forget.”