Archive of Our Own ^beta

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He calls her kid, at first.

The first time he did it she’d given a look of such disbelief that he’d laughed out loud, a deep cracking laugh through his chest.

“Humans can’t tell dwarva ages. No reason they need to know you’re as old as I am” he laughs, and well.

He has a point. She’s always done best being underestimated.

“But fine. If you don’t like that, how about … Rook? After all, if you want to keep it quiet, you’ll need to be called something.” He looks at her, knowing - far too knowing - and she curses his sources, his cleverness, and the way she feels the weight of it all settle back on her shoulders.

And fine. His joke about why he calls her Rook grates, but as a name, Rook will do.

She’s been called worse.

(Especially since he still insists on calling her kid for his own amusement.)

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She’s been in the fade before. She remembers the way it makes her head swim and her stomach rock, though it’s an ancient memory. She lets her queasiness show though as Solas appears - better that then any tinge of recognition, for now.

She’d fought with words the last time too, though against demons not an apparently elven god. Though right now he doesn’t seem all that better than a demon.

Other than being better at the wordplay. Either that or she’s rusty.

“Saving a town from destruction by ignoring all Warden orders?” Solas interjects in their argument, and her entire brain freezes in panic, for a split second. Maybe too rusty, especially as she can’t stop the exclamation that leaves her mouth at those words.

Her brain. Her thoughts. He’s attached to her, somehow, through blood - which means blood magic. She hates blood magic for good reasons, but she’s not a mage and doesn’t know enough about blood magic to know what he can see.

(Morrigan could have told her, she was sure. But Morrigan had been a lifetime ago. Two names ago.)

“Of course I had to look into who was following me” Solas continues, and with that her breath eases, though she lets the unease stay on her face while she thinks behind it. So, not a ‘reading my thoughts’ discussion after all, just a ‘I knew you were trouble and had spies’ discussion.

Still. She is extra careful with her thoughts now, here in this world where thoughts weigh so much. Focuses on the current mission, not her past.

Focuses on getting good intel while angrily, sarcastically sparring with the god of lies, treachery and rebellion. The last of which she’s also led, the first of which she’s good at, and the middle being the thing she hates more than anything else in existence. Even more than the blight.

Focuses on Varric and what he’s told her.

(She doesn’t realize the trap she walked into by doing so until it is far far too late.)

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To be standing with the Antivan Crows, in their stronghold, after having turned the first assassin they sent after her and killed anyone that dared come after him is surreal.

Part of her wants to lash out. All of her is uneasy. But she sees how they treat Jacobus, who is also a foundling, also alone, and it is so different from what Zevran experienced that she starts to wonder.

They talk about differences between houses. They talk about the different houses. But she has met no one from Aranai.

Whether that’s because of the fallout from what they did to Zevran and others being a symptom of something that poisoned the house itself, or whether it’s because of the damage her friend did to them after he was free, she cannot tell.

All of her new allies have things that set her on edge, but this edge was ground into her years ago, by years of trust and friendship, by the elf who had gently poked and prodded and teased and flirted without heat at her while putting her broken pieces back together. Zevran is the brother that has never and will never betray her.

She forgets it, sometimes, when just talking to Lucanis in the Lighthouse (it’s easier to talk to him and forget it for a moment, because he reminds her of both Zevran and Wynne, for different reasons).

But she wants to ask, desperately wants to ask every time she stands in the upper floor of that casino - was that something you would approve of? Is this the Crow way? No matter how she mulls it over there’s no way she can think of to make asking about House Aranai, a house she shouldn’t know about the existence of, a casual question.

When the lovers escape, and no one makes a point to chase them - despite it being a Crow who has abandoned their house, and yet Zevran left her from fear of being chased - she wonders if that’s enough to let it go.

(When later all three of the crows she has come to respect support Jacobus in creating a proper house for foundlings, for the lost, she wonders if that’s her answer.)

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The fact that the contract for a dragon hunter is with Isabela doesn’t actually register until they enter the caves that are the stronghold of the Lords of Fortune and she sees her there. Isabela has always struck a recognizable, inimitable figure. It’s not changed.

Her voice escapes her before she can stop it, but she quickly wrestles it down before more than just the Is gets out. Turns it into an awkward sentence with a wince, but Taash in their own awkwardness doesn’t notice anything wrong.

It’s not like Isabela and her were close. A few get togethers in the bar of a brothel, decades ago (a lifetime ago). She’d not taken her up on her training, though she’d appreciated her style. Their good friend is also her best friend, but even that hadn’t really crossed them over too much, with how their three lives fell together.

And although for a moment, seeing Isabela silhouetted on the stairs above her, she’d almost forgotten - the truth is, it’s been a hard few decades.

Gone is the fresh faced new Warden, unscarred flesh, youthful exuberance, soft with new love and only recently touched by betrayal and death. Her scars have scars now, and where they don’t lie across her skin there are tattoos or paint to decorate it instead, to let her craft both memories and barriers against touch.

Isabela hasn’t really changed, but she surely has. Though when Isabela makes a comment about about ‘Varric told me about you’, she has to wonder.

Is she truly that unrecognizable now, or has Isabela been asked to hold her tongue by someone who knows the pirate queen also appreciates the value of a good lie?

(Potentially multiple someones, given the outfit she finds in the stocks. She’d recognize his style anywhere.).

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The First Warden still doesn’t recognize who she is, which proves again that Weisshaupt and this man are too disconnected from the reality of the world - just like Magister Pavus had said, and Duncan had too long long before that.

Proof also in Clarel, in her day. And the fact they’re neck deep in darkspawn before she even arrives, despite her many, many warnings.

He’s the type to look down on anyone, especially anyone who isn’t male and human. She’s dealt with his kind before.

She’d been thankful of this ignorance originally - her distaste for the First Warden started at the beginning, and she’d preferred trying to stay out of his gaze. But now, when he’s ignoring logic, when he’s ignoring death, when he’s befuddled by either his own foolish arrogance or by the screaming of the calling in his ears, it’s almost there, spitting off her tongue into his face.

Because of all the Wardens that live, she’s the only one that’s been this close to an Archdemon before. Helped kill one before too.

(Not the killing blow though, he’d made sure to push past her, to make it his, to make it so he died and she was left to have to pretend she still gave a damn.)

She flinches as Davrin’s blade hits true and the red light spreads, unable to stop herself, unable to stop the memories - their relationship isn’t the same but he’s still a friend and she still, damn her, cares.

But then Davrin doesn’t die, and Ghilan'nain doesn’t either, and in the chaos no one either noticed or understood her reaction.

So it’s fine.

(The flashes in her mind for the next week of Alistair staring back at her as he disappears into that red light aren’t anything new, even if it’s been awhile since they’ve haunted her so. It’s fine.)

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Morrigan knows her. Has known her since she first flew back into her life, and there was no way to pretend she hadn’t, not like with Isabela. She didn't need a goddess's power to do that.

So when her old friends offers up that she could, maybe, use Mythal to help convince the Dread Wolf to throw down his arms - but that she trusts - no needs - Rook to make that call, she adds it with care to the pile of thoughts that jumble in her brain, the balance of decision that weighs heavily on her shoulders.

(Morrigan had also asked her to kill her mother. Who apparently was also an elven god the whole time, which means that killing her in the way they had done was as laughable as Flemeth had claimed. So her old friend can be wrong sometimes.)

(Morrigan had also asked her to let her lover sleep with her to take the soul of an archdemon and save their lives. She didn’t agree, and had paid a price that had broken her forever. So her old friend can also be right sometimes.)

She talks to the Inquisitor as well. A woman who had seen the best of the Dread Wolf, who had cared for the Dread Wolf, and had been left broken and uncertain as well.

Another thought. Another possibility. (Another betrayal)

All of that is in her thoughts as she lies on the ground having this time actually killed an elven god, and spits blood as she crawls towards the dagger that Solas is trying to use to end it all.

He thinks her young, and foolish. And perhaps to him her fight marks her as a fool, and perhaps to him she is young.

But she’s not been either, not really, since she stood on the back of an Archdemon and felt the blight falter, her mouth as sour with the taste of darkspawn blood as it had been since the day she took the chalice from Duncan and drank deep. It’s not the first time she’s saved the world.

And this isn’t the first time she’s been underestimated by those with power and ego enough to think they can stop her from doing so.

When the switch is made, he pauses for a moment, looking at the blade and for a moment she’s terrified she’s given it away somehow. That she’s been too wise, too competent, too ready for the green novice she’s pretending to be, and he’s finally realized that something doesn’t add up.

He looks back at her, frozen with his magic, and she wonders - is this it. Is this how I finally fall. (Is this how I finally rest)

But then he continues to move forward, false dagger extended. The world doesn’t end, and it’s her that holds the truth in her hand, hidden behind her back until it’s too late. For the Dread Wolf, at least.

Til the moment he finally realizes there are other wolves in this story.

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(The Anderfels. 1 day before Varric Tethras. 1 day before Rook. 1 day before agreeing to save the world (again))

She hums as she stands over the fire, watching her pan carefully.

She hadn’t lied to the others when she said she wasn’t great at dinner. Breakfasts though? She was a champion at. And having last watch puts you in a great place for that.

Antoine and Evka shrug awake with both the alertness that only being a Warden brings, and the ease that being wrapped up in someone who will always have your back and your heart brings.

(She had that once. She remembers it, bitter and sweet in the back of her mind, of lying among the jumble of two sets of Warden armor, of feeling somehow still warmed against the cold with only his touch. She forgets some things - the exact shape of his hand, the exact tone of his voice - but never that.)

It’s better to focus on the pan. Carefully flipping the pieces before they burn.

Antoine approaches her first, peering over her shoulder. “Is that pain perdu?” His accent lilts with delight, and she can’t help the smile that crosses her face. It’s been awhile since she’s travelled with anyone as long as she’s travelled with these two, and she’s growing fond despite herself. “I never knew you were stationed in Orlais.”

“No, I was in Ferelden, but one of us was from Orlais originally” she responds, not thinking - or maybe thinking too much, lost in her memories. Not realizing the danger of her words until she hears the punched out gasp that Evka makes.

Because they’ve talked before about how few female dwarves there are in the Wardens all told, when you actually pay attention to it. (Which most don’t, other than other female dwarf wardens). That list gets a lot shorter when you make it only ones that had been in Ferelden and lived to tell the tale.

(Especially since the Queen had made it pretty clear how little she cared for the combo, after her father died at the hands of one. They’d been careful about who got stationed there from then on, even when she was still Warden Commander, before she set up her successor and left to hide herself in plain sight).

She doesn’t look up from the fire. The silence hangs over them all, and she could curse herself for it.

She likes these two. She likes the camaraderie they’ve had.

A camaraderie people tend to lose that when they realize she’s THAT Warden, which is why she hasn’t called herself that Warden since the day she left Ferelden. Just a Thorne, from a rose given to her long ago.

Carefully she plates the food before it burns and then looks up.

Antoine looks the same as he did before, but his eyes have always contained unexpected depths. “Thank you” he says, and there’s weight behind his words that hangs in the air, imbued with meaning. But he says nothing else, and neither does Evka, so she can pretend it’s for the plate that passes between them, not for the blight she ended at the cost of nearly everyone she’d ever loved.

She nods, and they continue on as normal.

(And if this is the reason they follow her through all the fires, later, why they believe her when it almost feels like no one else will, well. She’ll regret it still, but as she watches them discuss the future of the Wardens side by side amongst the flowers, a future for their order led by love instead of fear, she thinks perhaps it was worth it.)