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Leliana enjoyed her rookery. Apart from the squawking of her birds, it was quiet, with few people venturing up from the library unless they had messages to deliver or receive. The Inquisitor stopped by from time to time to talk, when she had enough time to spare from her duties.
So, the redhead knew almost immediately that someone had been in the room before her. The papers on her desk were slightly disturbed, moved from where she had left them, as if someone had picked them up and then tried to put them back where they had been found. The air was cooler - heat tended to rise up and get trapped in the rafters, and the door to the balcony outside was rarely opened because it led to nowhere, but it had been opened recently.
Leliana's hand went to the dagger she’d left on her desk as she leant back against it, looking up as something up in the shadows of the rafters overhead stirred, too big to be a bird. She wasn't expecting the man who dropped down to be a blond elf she hadn't seen in almost a decade, daggers tucked away harmlessly in their sheaths at his hip and no doubt others hidden out of sight.
"Ah, much better. My legs were starting to cramp." He purred in a thick Antivan accent, straightening up from his crouch. He seemed to be oblivious to the dagger loosely held in the redhead's left hand as a precaution. "Hello again, my lovely bard. The years have been kind to you, I see. You do not look a day older than when we last saw each other."
Leliana relaxed enough to set the dagger back down on her desk, and she stared wide-eyed at the blond elf standing in front of her.
"Zevran?"
"The very same." He grinned widely, putting his hands behind his back.
"I thought you were in Antiva. Your letters..."
"Were sent months ago, yes." The blond finished for her. "As you can see, I am here now."
"Why?"
“I wished to see you, of course! You seem to have done well for yourself, although this is not what I would ever have guessed if you had told me you had surrounded yourself with crows.” Zevran answered, turning his back and examining the nearest cage and it’s sleeping occupant curiously.
“Ravens. You came all the way from Antiva just to see me?” Leliana asked doubtfully.
Zevran had turned his back to the redhead, no doubt so his expression was hidden when she asked him those sorts of tricky questions.
“Well, in your letters you seemed like you needed to see an old face. Besides, Skyhold is very impressive, better than a bunch of cramped tents or that Arl’s estate in Denerim, no?” He answered evasively, after a second’s hesitation. Leliana raised an eyebrow.
“Did you come alone?” She asked.
Zevran’s shoulders drooped, and he turned to face her.
“I… Yes.” He sighed, not meeting her gaze.
Leliana frowned, and then sat down on a nearby crate, waiting for the blond to join her.
“Ten years is a long time.” Zevran mused, and Leliana nodded. “And here you are, helping to save the world again. I was content to save it only once, you make me seem so lazy.” He smiled, and the bard could see the lines around his eyes deepen briefly.
“The Inquisitor is a good woman.” Leliana answered.
“A Qunari, or so I have been told. I hear they have taken to calling her the Herald of Andraste...?”
The redhead smiled.
“She doesn’t like anyone calling her that, but it’s far too late to stop it now, to her continual annoyance.” She admitted, and the elf chuckled.
“Another one who hates titles that others bestow on them.”
“So, how is… Antiva?”
“Same as I left it. The Crows are in the most hilarious chaos with four of their Masters dead. They are not sure whether to have my head on a platter or make me a master. Countless attempts on my life stopped, but that is to be expected, yes?” The Antivan shrugged, leaning back against the crate. His leathers creaked slightly with the movement.
The two grew quiet, listening to the sound of hushed talking from the library below, and the birds chattering to each other. Leliana was the first to speak.
“Why are you really here, Zev?”
He blinked at the use of the nickname, one he hadn’t heard in so very long. He looked back at the redhead sitting next to him, waiting patiently.
“Well, you are a spymaster, yes? You… Have contacts, connections all across Ferelden and beyond.”
Leliana nodded, but otherwise kept quiet.
“I… May need your personal help on this matter, rather than the Inquisition’s. One old Crow can only cover so much ground before it tires, after all.” Zevran continued, drawing a dagger from it’s sheath and beginning to toy with it almost nervously. He was looking down at his feet, head slightly turned so his hair fell in a convenient curtain, obscuring much of his profile from Leliana’s gaze.
“It embarrasses me to admit this, but I may have lost… A certain someone.” The Antivan finished, shifting uncomfortably.
Leliana blinked in surprise. Zevran had lost Theron? She’d always thought the two were inseparable. Hadn’t they been in Antiva together, in Zevran’s last letter?
“You have no idea where he is?” She asked softly, and Zevran shook his head quickly.
“I figured that if he would go anywhere, it would be Ferelden. He left no notes. His things were gone one morning. I have tried not to take it personally, but… I have worried about him more than myself, some days. Not ideal when you are running and fighting for your life every waking moment.” The Antivan sighed deeply. “And I am unsure if he will return this time.”
Zevran’s grip on his dagger had tightened, his head bowed. Leliana frowned in sympathy.
“I’ll get my unessential agents on it, once they report back in.” She promised. “He may have gone to the Brecilian Forest, or to rejoin his clan in the north.” She suggested, and watched some of the tension leave the assassin.
Both of them knew there was another, darker option that Theron might have had to take, pried from Alistair long ago. A wounded animal crawling away to die in privacy.
“Thank you.” Zevran said, looking up at last. His smile this time was forced, his eyes dark with pain, doubt and worry.
“Will you be staying long?” Leliana asked as she got to her feet, a bird flying through an open window and alighting on a perch by her desk providing a welcome distraction.
“I may, unless I am chased out. I have seen several very interesting characters.” The blond shrugged, standing and sheathing his dagger.
“I’m not sure how the Inquisitor would react to you, so you may want to keep your distance from her and some of the more… Duty bound of our inner circle.” Leliana advised, and the Antivan chuckled.
“How bad of you, lying to your Inquisitor about my magnificent presence.” He tutted.
“I trade in secrets and lies.”
“More like breathe them.” Zevran pointed out, turning his head sharply towards the stairway that led up from the library as if someone had called his name. “I may go to the tavern now.”
“Leliana? Are you up here?” A voice called up, and Leliana quickly pushed her dagger under a messy stack of letters.
Zevran moved quickly to the balcony door, and slipped out. How he would get down from there, Leliana tried not to worry. She instead turned to her desk as Herah Adaar stepped through the doorway a second after the balcony door shut and a shadow slipped past the windows.
Zevran entered the tavern - not through the front door, but through a small door on the top floor. Less noticeable. Quieter, too.
He froze when he saw a pale young man standing in a corner near the door, a ridiculously large hat brim hiding most of his face.
“Oh, I did not realise I would not be alone up here. My apologies.” The blond purred, flashing a grin. If the taller human was surprised by his sudden entrance, he didn’t show it.
“It’s quieter up here. Safer. You feel safer where you can see them, but they can’t see you. Hidden in shadows, unnoticed. Free to slip away if blades are drawn or bottles are smashed.” The younger man answered, turning his head to look at the Antivan. Zevran could see hair so blond it seemed white, just a hint of red-rimmed eyes hidden under it.
“What?” The former Crow blinked, taken by surprise. He frowned, and then moved to go down the stairs.
“Where is he, where is he? Thought he would be here like her, but not a trace. Vanished with the night. No tracks to follow, no rough words on paper. A cold, empty bed. You can talk to me like you talked before, to Leliana.”
The Antivan stopped, and turned to look at the other man, eyes narrowed in confusion and suspicion.
“How…?”
“Hurting, ache in my chest, raw even after so long. Tired, feet hurt but can’t stop running. I can help.” The human insisted, taking a careful step forward. One of Zevran’s hands went automatically to a dagger.
“I don’t feel like pouring my heart out to a perfect stranger, whether you buy me drinks first or not.” He answered flatly, quirking an eyebrow to give the other blond an unimpressed look.
“Oh. My name is Cole.”
“Zevran.”
“Zev to my friends.” The human tried to imitate his accent, and failed. “Surprised that she remembered. Lying in a pool of blood wishing one of them would end it, but grasping for life anyway. Silver tongued against silver eyes, learned to love life. He never called you that, the others never did. After so many years, she remembered it. Remembered you. I thought she would have forgotten me, it has been so long. Worry she will not find an answer. Desperate, will try anything now.”
Zevran felt a chill go through him, and found himself not quite able to move his feet.
“You lie.” He snapped, examining the boy - Cole. Had he been eavesdropping in the rookery somehow?
“You lie to yourself. Night after night.” Cole pointed out gently.
Zevran’s hand twitched on his dagger, fingers curling round the familiar curve of the hilt. The dagger was a silver blur as he threw it. It thunked as it hit the wall behind where the human had been standing, and clattered on the floor. The boy made a hurt sound - from right beside him, just within his field of view. The former Crow took a quick step back, reaching for his other dagger and bracing for a counter-attack that never happened.
“Your fangs are bared for a fight you want to happen. Today, tomorrow, a year from now. Right now, the dead of night. Doesn’t matter.” Cole’s voice was soft, hands raised to show they were empty, as if he was approaching a cornered wolf rather than an elf with another good dagger to throw. Under his hat, the taller man was peering at him sympathetically.
“What are you, extraño niño?”
“Someone you can talk to.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Then you don’t have to talk.” There was a pause. “You said those words to him once, stroking his cheek in the dark. Leather rough against skin, too caring, too caring, no more tears. Feel him lying next to me, pull him close. Sleeping, don’t wake him. Want to talk as well. Tell him his suffering isn’t unique. Lie there, listen to voices outside the tent, snow underfoot. Kiss away the misery, when all is finished and the dead are truly dead, thaw him inside. Show him instead of tell. Warm bodies entwined. Chase away the pain for a night. All you can do. Let him mourn.”
Zevran let out a heavy sigh of what he hoped was just resignation, and sat down against the banister that stopped drunken fools from falling to their deaths, uncaring of the wood pressing uncomfortably into his back. Zevran could remember that night, and all the ones before and after it. Cole stood next to him, peering down towards Maryden as she sang about nightingales and wished that the Iron Bull or Krem would notice the man who had been leering at her openly and gradually edging closer for the past two hours and please do something before the man grew bolder.
The human’s long, pale fingers tapped against the rough wood, or the leather buckles on his coat, the hilts of his daggers shown by accident.
“Fearful, frantic, fragile, frightened. Afraid when he left. Don’t know why. Has he grown bored of me now he no longer needs me? Worry that no-one would need me now. Drove him away somehow? How, why? Why, why, why? No rough scrawl on a scrap of paper, bow gone, bed cold. Why? I thought he trusted me, loved me. Emma lath, ma vhenan’ara. That was what he always said. Truth no longer? Ten years is a long time. Found someone else? Worries spun like spider silk, sticky, staying. Why could I not go with him this time? Left behind? Forgotten?”
“I…”
Zevran stared up at the pale young man in shock, unable to speak. How had he managed to get inside his head like that? Zevran had never spoken about half of that to anyone - never had anyone to speak with about it - or had even said it aloud. He hadn’t written it down, either.
“You worry about him, whether he’s warm, well, safe. Alive. Will he come back this time? Blind faith better than none. Cats and Dalish, proudly independent, never stay still.” Cole paused, ceaselessly drumming his fingers against the wood of the banister with chewed, blunt fingernails. “It wasn’t your fault he left.” His voice was firm, determined. “Grey Wardens have duties they cannot speak of. He thinks of you, misses you. Your touch, your voice. Wants to return, but is on a separate path now. Loves you more than anything else. That’s why he left. Only ever you. Ma sa’lath. Alive, will never forget you even when the darkness takes him.”
Zevran blinked hard, and felt tears fall. He turned his head away quickly.
“Braska.” He cursed to himself as he wiped his eyes roughly, composing himself. He got to his feet and walked away from Cole, under the pretense of retrieving his dagger from the corner and aware of the eyes at his back.
“He left to protect you, Zevran. Words scratched onto paper, rough and crude and clumsy, couldn’t explain, not enough.”
“Stop that. Now.” The Antivan said, voice carefully flat, hollow, but tinged with anger. What Cole had said had been too deep, and all in a rush, like an overwhelming wave. He felt like Cole had done more than somehow pry into his mind and feelings. It felt like he had reopened old wounds, stirred up mud at the bottom of the river to expose sharp stones.
Zevran felt more hurt now he had answers than he had been torturing himself with those endless questions, the whys and the hows, over and over again as he took his frustrations and fears out on the Crows, the order of assassins that had once been the only place he had belonged, the closest thing to home and family and friend as he could have gotten. But what Cole had done had helped.
Sheathing his dagger, he turned back to Cole, who was once more peering up at him from under the brim of his hat.
“I… Suppose I should thank you for that.” The Antivan said, voice rough. He cleared his throat. “I did not come here expecting answers.” He ventured, and the other blond smiled faintly. It made him seem even younger than he already looked.
“I told you I could help. You were hurting, I wanted, needed to help. Pulling the hurt out like when you punched that window and spent hours swearing as you pulled each tiny sliver of glass out. The pain can fade now. Wounds can scar at last. You’re not forgotten.”
Zevran nodded once, respectfully. The weight in his chest had eased.
“My thanks, Cole.” He repeated, taking in the strange young man standing in the quiet and the shadows, and then he turned to leave the tavern and Skyhold. Leliana knew which safehouse to send letters to, her report would be waiting for him when he reached Antiva. Cole’s voice was soft behind him, understanding.
“You’ll never be forgotten, Zevran Arainai. No-one could forget you.”