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Entering Minrathous was never the same journey twice, and Quintas Lavellan had made the trip enough times in the past decade to know this fact down to his bones. Even now, so far away from the events that had shaken his world and spread his title far and wide, it wouldn't do for the Inquisitor to draw needless attention to himself in the heart of Venatori territory. Blades, magical or otherwise, always waited in the shadows, ready to cut him down, if not as an answer to the direct threat he posed himself then certainly to the ideals he'd embodied, once. Resistance. Change. The audacity to stand against a would-be god.
The audacity to win.
But Corypheus was a pale imitation of the real thing, and Quintas wasn't the man he'd been, once upon a time.
His organic hand moved to the opposite arm, rubbing absently at the join between flesh and prosthetic. A marvel of modern engineering and it still astounded him how responsive the mechanisms Dagna had designed were, but there would always be that sense of…disconnect. Of delayed reaction. Disorientation between past and present, and maybe he didn't miss the anchor any but it still felt odd to be without it. Not good, not bad, just… odd.
"What matters, kid, is you've been improving. You're nearly as good a shot as you ever were, and that's not nothing."
Quintas's throat tightened, the memory coming unbidden, and he tightened his grip on his arm to the point of pain. Sharp through the haze of grief that seemed to hang about him like a perpetual cloud these days, and he knew he needed to get a hold of himself.
Too many people still counted on him.
You can fall apart later.
But later was an elusive thing, and as time pushed on at its punishing, immutable pace, a part of him wondered if later would ever come at all. If there would ever come a time when he could do something with all this grief beyond hold it and hold it and hold it and pray it didn't drown him first.
He bit into his lower lip, hard, tasting the first hint of blood on his tongue when the door to the chamber he'd been waiting in opened.
"Amatus?"
Quintas drew in a breath, held it, and slowly released it through his nose, and his smile as he turned to regard his partner may have been a ghost of what it usually was, but at least he'd managed it at all. A projection of being okay, when he felt anything but.
Dorian, to his credit, was not convinced.
The Magister set his staff aside and closed the distance between them in measured, decisive steps, hands coming up to cradle Quintas's cheeks. Gray eyes searched his own intently, and Quintas swallowed against that tightness creeping back into his throat.
"Haven't I told you often enough," Dorian began softly. "That you needn't put on a brave face for me?"
"I'm fine --"
"--you are not. And you haven't been in a long, long time, my love."
Quintas licked dry lips, his next exhale coming out shaky even as he squared his shoulders.
"I have to be."
"Quintas --"
"--this isn't over, Dorian. I can't -- I won't -- fail him."
His voice broke and he cleared his throat, looking away from Dorian's intense scrutiny, blinking rapidly until the worst of the sting in his eyes passed. He swallowed hard again.
"My battle may not be here, but I'm going to do what I can to help… to help what remains of his team. To help Rook. Whatever resources I can spare." Not many, he thought, not nearly enough.
But something. Something.
He owed Varric that much.
"And you have -- you do. He knew that."
"I should've been there with him."
"He knew the risks," Dorian reminded him. A familiar refrain, and it cut to the quick all the same no matter how gently Dorian formed the words. Varric knew the risks; Quintas knew the risks. Dorian, and Lace, and so many more, friends and confidants and…
Family.
"It was my idea," Quintas whispered, that sting back in his eyes, too much, too much, and Dorian caught the first of his tears on his thumbs. "To try and talk to Solas. To… convince him, to stop this."
"And Varric agreed," Dorian pointed out. "He was his friend, too, Amatus. He cared about him, too. No matter how Solas reacted, Varric's death doesn't diminish that any."
Doesn't it? Quintas wanted to argue. But the words wouldn't come. Grief had robbed him of his voice, and it was all he could do to hold on to the man before him. Hide his face against his neck and hold on, and allow himself to be held, lest he fall apart entirely. His skin felt too tight for the storm roiling inside him, choking and suffocating on it, and it hurt, gods it hurt, worse than any wound, worse than the anchor at its most unstable. So many names over the years, soldiers and spies, agents of a disbanded Inquisition bent to one task, then many, then more still, and it was as if those fractures, that fragmentation, was a breaking apart of himself, leaving his edges fragile when he needed them to be stronger than ever.
But hardening his heart had never been Quintas's strong suit, and no amount of loss seemed to dim his ability to love, and love, and love.
"Varric's death doesn't diminish that any."
Because what was Varric's work if not a labor of love, at the end of the day? His mind may recoil from the injustice of his death, at the loss he represented, but it Dorian was right: it did not diminish the man himself, his memory, the echoes he left behind.
"He always made me feel so…normal," Quintas began abruptly. "A Dalish elf being held up as a Herald to a god he didn't believe in, scared to death and even more scared to show it… and he told me to take a nap. Eat my damn dinner. Talk to the Tevinter Mage I kept pining after. Solve one problem at a time, and call all the nonsense out for the bullshit it was. He kept me grounded, when so much of my life was up in the air."
Dorian hummed, encouraging, his grip on Quintas tightening ever so slightly.
"And the way he got to Cassandra was… gods, I don't think I'd ever seen him move so fast as that time she was chasing after him once when learned the truth about Hawke." He laughed wetly, nuzzling more firmly into Dorian's neck. "But the look on her face when he continued that one serial for her… I don't think I'd ever seen our fearless Seeker like that, either."
He sighed as Dorian pressed a kiss to his hair.
"Hawke told me some stories, too, you know. About Kirkwall. How they met, the adventures they'd had. Sounds like the Inquisition wasn't the first batch of strays Varric had acquired. Nor were they the last."
Another squeeze, and another knot seemed to loosen in his chest. "And Rook will take care of them now," Dorian murmured. "Have confidence that Varric chose well."
"We'll do him proud, Quin," a voice agreed from the doorway. The pair pulled apart, and while Quintas was startled it was clear Dorian had been expecting another guest.
"Lace," Quintas breathed, and while Dorian's comfort had started to crack the dam holding back the deluge of the Inquisitor's grief, the sight of Lace Harding striding across the room towards him broke it entirely. He was hardly aware of himself from one moment to the next, only knowing that it ended with him kneeling on the ground with her, holding her tight, being held just as tight in response. There was relief there, too, to see her alive and whole and here, solid in his arms.
"I'm so sorry, Quin, she murmured, and it was hard to tell whose tears were soaking who, their cheeks pressed together as if both seeking the reassurance of those who've survived. "I wish I could've told you this in person."
It had been her letter that had informed him of Varric's passing, and that sentiment had been expressed there, too. A connection between two who'd known the dwarf well.
"Nothing to be done about it," Quintas assured her. "I'm… I was relieved to hear from you. To know you were still with us."
"I still can't believe it happened," she admitted, pulling back to scrub at her cheeks. "It doesn't…it doesn't feel real, you know? But sometimes it feels too real, like I can't even breath to think of it, and… I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Quin."
"I'm sorry, too," he whispered. "I'd been so sure…"
"He was, too. He did what he thought was right." She gave him a lopsided smile. "And that's the best any of us can do, isn't it? Even if it doesn't feel like enough."
Quintas could only nod, leaning back against Dorian as his lover came to stand behind him. Reached up and took his hand as Dorian extended it to him, bringing it to his cheek before kissing the palm. His other hand reached for Lace, tangling their fingers together, and her smile widened a touch. She glanced up at Dorian a moment before meeting Quintas's gaze.
"I've been informed that I've been 'bottling things up,' and that I'm 'liable to explode in a not good way' if I don't let myself feel what I need to," she began.
"I may have received similar sentiments," Quintas agreed, giving both their hands a squeeze.
"So maybe… maybe we can feel these awful things together," Lace went on. "Maybe it'll be less awful, if we're here for each other."
Quintas considered, looking from his old friend to his lover. Part of him wanted to reject the notion, to seal all this hurt away for later, later, later, to get to work, to solve the next problem. But another part…
"Varric always told me to take my moments," he murmured. "Catch my breath when I could." He exhaled shakily.
"He may have told me something similar once or twice or…a hundred times," Lace admitted.
"Together, then?"
"Yeah." Lace shifted, encircling her arms around him again. "Together."
And for the moment, at least, Quintas felt like he could breathe.