Chapter Text
She couldn’t breathe. Had that just gone as badly as she believed it did? It was a struggle to take in the last five hours since she woke. First that raving chancellor, then all of the … leaders advising what she should do next, and naming her the Herald of Andraste; it seemed unreal that they thought she could rally anyone to her, let alone this ridiculous notion of the Inquisition of Old. Dorothea had heard about the Lady Seeker, knew that she was battle-hardened and used to pushing through her way. She was a fanatic and obviously behind all of this mess.
Trying not to run through the small village, she heads back from the Chantry to her cottage. As she rounds the quartermaster’s tent she can see the crowd milling around outside.
Sweet Andraste’s tits, why did this have to happen to me?
Cursing that she hasn’t picked up something to cover her head and hide her from view—her shock of ash white hair stands out among the browns and ambers of the camp buildings—she turns away from the cottages and slips past some tents, jumping down the terraced ledge, and moves past the back side of the crowd. She turns away from the cottage and snakes her way past the erected barricades around the small village, heading toward a trebuchet under construction in the distance. The sight of a siege weapon stuns her among such rural misery, and she feels overwhelmed by the reminder of what they are all expecting her to do.
There are people this way, but at least they are soldiers going about their duties and seem much less likely to stop her. There is an old path and cave, boarded up and closed, which presumably leads into the mountain. She supposes you could still get to the devastation of the Temple that way, if you were able, but it is likely to be extremely dangerous beyond the boards. It would be all she needs to have survived this thing in her hand to fall down a hole in the ground and break her neck.
She starts to hike up the hill, beyond the entrance to the mountain. As she rises above the village, the view to the Breach is uninterrupted and awesome. Her hand thrums in sympathy. She looks down at it in mystification. She has never felt magic like this before, and if she is very truthful it scares her immensely.
Shit, it would scare me even if it wasn’t attached to me.
As she heads away from the safety of others, she calls up a spirit barrier and ducks through some gorse, grateful that the thorns stream past her. Her aura goes blue as the thorns wear through the magic like a knife through cold butter.
With the shield of the plants she pauses and looks for higher ground. As she climbs the rise the Breach is an overwhelming part of her vision, so she puts her back to it and looks out over the village. The Chantry serves as the apex of the entire village, with a smattering of houses spread around it. She can hear a smithy and though she can’t see it, a column of smoke rising just beyond the erected walls of the village tells her the smith must be just outside the gate. From here, looking beyond the gate, she can get a sense of just how many people are gathered at Haven.
There had been thousands at the Conclave, with representation from all over the Free Marches, Antiva, Nevarra, Ferelden, and Orlais come to witness and partake of the peace the Divine said she could bring. Here at Haven, though, there couldn’t be more than a few hundred tents beyond the gate. So, she counts in her head, they are maybe a thousand strong. How many of those left were actually of any use in fighting demons? Certainly not that damn chancellor, although she wouldn’t mind feeding him to one.
Absently, she notices a soldier at a dead run heading toward the center of the village, moving along the path she had come down. She watches as he harrows up toward the center of the village, past the crowds, and runs in the direction of the Chantry. Outside its doors she can see the Hands of the Divine walking and talking with the Commander. The soldier intercepts the Commander and immediately begins to talk; the Hands join them.
She begins to worry that an attack is coming. Quickly she scans the horizon looking for, what? An armed force, a banner, a dragon, more demons? Seeing nothing and short-tempered at her own ludicrous thoughts of doom, her vision swings back around to see the Commander gathering up four or five more uniformed soldiers and just as many scouts. She opens herself to the Veil, casts another barrier spell, wishes she had a staff to focus, and watches where they head so she can join them.
It is with a sense of incredulity that she witnesses the flurry move not to outside the gate, but follow the same path she took minutes ago. The Commander picks up more men as he strides along, his gait smooth and his body language not rushed. His long legs eat up the distance and the scouts have to trot along behind him in order to keep pace. He looks like caged thunder, and it begins to dawn on her what the problem is at hand.
She was an idiot not to realize she was being followed. Undoubtedly her disappearance into the gorse thicket—impenetrable to anyone without a magical barrier or an intense dislike for their skin—sent the poor soldier tasked with tagging her into a tizzy. Sighing in consternation, she could just discern the Commander’s questing presence as he comes closer to her. As he drops out of her view, hidden by the roll of the terrain, she can feel him looking for her.
Yes, he is a damn, bloody Templar, isn’t he.
Looking around her, she sees he will need to send men hiking around and up the hillside in order to skirt the gorse. Sighing, she realizes that unless she wants to find herself mana-drained, an exhausting process even when she hasn’t just woken up after three days of being out cold, she had better figure out how to meet them quietly and quickly.
She senses his direction from his questing lyrium presence. Grunting in frustration, she walks forward through the gorse in that direction. She leaves the remnant of her barrier in place to protect her from the thorns, but releases her openness to the Fade. She clears the thicket and waits.
It is not too long before the Templar emerges below her on the hillside. She stands with her arms held behind her back and firmly meets his gaze, forcing calm into her features. Undoubtedly realizing that a conversation and explanations are inevitable, the Commander inclines his head to her. He speaks a few words to the soldier next to him and dismisses the soldier with a wave of his hand. In her peripheral vision she sees the scouts that were fanning out respond to the soldier’s hand signal to recall all their actions, and they retreat to return to their duties.
Oh, so he’s not afraid to be alone with me. Someone is very sure of himself. Damn, bloody Templar.
He starts up the hill, his eyes not leaving hers, his hands also clasped behind his back, mirroring her actions. His face is neutral. They engage in this little play where they each try to convey that we are all friends here, on the same side, just out for a chat in the sunshine. It is a ruse that does not deceive her; his cat-like, predatory stalk as he comes up the hill belies the power in him. There is no doubt in her mind that he can reach his sword, quell her mana, and strip her defenses before she would even be able to cross back into the gorse.
He approaches, coming within arm’s length so that they may speak without raising voices. “I am sorry to intrude upon your privacy – “
“I am not unaccustomed to being watched, Ser Knight,” she interrupts, pointlessly sparring with him, unwilling to be meek.
“Yes,” he holds a beat. He takes a breath. “Regardless, you should not wander about alone, particularly up the mountainside. It is too dangerous and you are necessary.”
“Of course, I am; how else will you make the Breach go away? But I think you forget,” she takes a step closer and hisses at him, “that I was watched because I was dangerous. I can account for myself. I lost your scout, didn’t I?” Even though she wasn’t remotely aware that she was being followed, she still has no desire for this man, this arrogant, insufferable knight, to know how discombobulated she feels. She would rather be thought dangerous than fearful.
He stares at her and his head cocks to the side as he considers her. He looks her up and down, quickly assessing. He relaxes his stance, shifts his weight, and moves toward her. She instinctively opens to the veil, but before she can cast, he lowers himself to a large rock by her feet and sits. He doesn’t look at her, but looks instead out toward the siege weapon construction.
His hands rest on the pommel of his sword and he waits to speak until she lowers herself next to him. “It is Commander.”
“Pardon?” she asks.
“Not Ser Knight. I have left the Order behind.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure you’re completely finished with the Chantry as the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces.”
He snorts in a breathy chuckle. “I simply mean, I am here to lend my support in the field and my tactical guidance in Council. I am certain the Chantry would take the first opportunity to string any of us up from a gallows.”
She hums deep in her throat: “Certainly Chancellor Roderick would.”
“He would need us to help him hang the rope though, and possibly string the noose around our own necks,” he deadpans, and she laughs out loud in spite of herself. When she quiets he continues, “I am not here to be your keeper, Lady Herald. I am here to fulfill my oaths.”
“To the Inquisition?” she asks.
He nods off-handedly, “Among others.”
They sit in silence, watching the bustle of the training ground in the far distance and the activity at the siege weapon in the fore. She points at the latter.
“Are we expecting an invasion?” she asks simply.
“Other than darkspawn and demons? No. I do not believe so. The Left Hand’s information does not yet show that anyone besides the Chantry believes us to be a problem. There is too much concern for the Breach.”
“Surely she isn’t anymore,” Dorothea says absently. The Commander looks at her quizzically and frowns. She explains, “the Hands of the Divine; surely they do not hold their posts anymore? They must be defined by this, they must be defined now by this new thing; like you, like me.”
He looks at her, looking as if he is trying to work something out.
“Was it …” he speaks quietly, hesitating for a word, “difficult in the Circle?” His tone holds caution and just the slightest hint of … regret? She’s unsure. But the hesitation takes her by surprise, and she sits, unable to answer. She is silent for so long that he must believe she will not answer his question.
She doesn’t have to. Her past life in the Circle seems a world away and, at this moment, a world that will never come again. She is not naïve to the irregular behaviors that could happen in a Circle between Templars and Mages. The good stories were the ones that were willing; the bad … well, she supposes that is the very definition of ‘difficult’.
“No. We were a small Circle, much buffered from the worst of the rebellion until recent months. But, to answer the question I think you are asking, no. I never met any … personal … difficulties.”
A thread of tension in his shoulders drops slightly and he nods. Dorothea realizes that the answer was important. She is glad she gave it.
He stands and extends his hand to help her up. She takes it and pulls herself to her feet. They begin the walk down the hillside next to each other.
“It is invariable,” she speaks into the stillness, “that when some people are put into a position of trust, they will prove they are less than worthy, Templar or Mage. I am sure in your travels you have encountered at least one Maleficar, ‘Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children.’”
He hums deep in his throat, a pleasing sound to her ears, “Are you a devout Andrastian?”
“No, I am not; an adulthood in a Circle is enough to make anyone pause about the Chantry and their creation, their solution. But my family is known for its devotion and service, so I am well tutored in the Chant.” She smirks, “particularly the bits that name me to be an Abomination.”
“What of you?” she asks. “You were Knight-Commander in Kirkwall, I believe, before this? You are very young, I think. Our Knight Commander is–was–an older man, so I always assumed such posts were given for long service. It must have been hard to leave behind such accomplishments.”
“Duty can be larger than a single cause. It was not difficult to leave Kirkwall. As you say, an adulthood in a Circle is enough to make anyone pause.”
“But yet, you are still here, serving the Maker?”
“Well, yes; but not the Order.”
His distinction seems academic to her, but she lets it go. “I am sure the Order did not give you up easily. You rebuilt Kirkwall; the mess you must have walked into on day one. Tales of the horrors reached Ostwick, but the devastation is still hard to imagine. Do you know if the Knight-Commander, Meredith, was she really possessed by a demon?”
The Commander stares straight ahead, his spine stiffening slightly. He clears his throat, “not a demon, no. It was the effect of Red Lyrium. It is a corrupted form, very toxic, very destructive. The corruption heightens all the effects of lyrium, strength, power, but also the paranoia and the loss of self. It erodes one’s compassion, one’s very self until the will is perverted to the lyrium. Her addiction was easy to hide as she had so much power over the Circle and respect by the Chantry, but ultimately her betrayal was apparent to all, including me.”
“Including you?”
They walk for a few beats. Then he speaks.
“Yes. I did not come to Kirkwall after, I was there during the Uprising. I was Meredith’s second and assumed command following the aftermath.”
Dorothea continues to walk, but slightly increases her distance from the Commander. She had not expected this.
Great, he’s not only a bloody damn Templar, but the Fucking Knight-Captain of Kirkwall, to boot.
She knew the stories: Meredith had gone mad. In constant conflict with the First Enchanter, her control of the Circle was draconian, making Tranquils of her charges like they were candy. In the end, with the Kirkwall Chantry’s Mother dead and Enchanter Orsinio resorting to Blood Magic, Meredith’s raving authority let loose and bled into Kirkwall, turning the city into a war zone until the Champion came and put an end to it all.
The atrocities Meredith allowed and encouraged had all been witnessed—and participated in?—by this man. It was simply too much to take in. She couldn’t reconcile the two notions of him: in one a ruthless, abusive killer and in the next a dedicated servant of the Chantry, a servant not so much different than her grand sires. And now he was the leader of the military arm of the Inquisition. She was almost willing to ask the Seeker to take over, but that would only be trading one leash for another.
They arrive back by the gates to find the crowd of bodies still presses around her cottage. She hurriedly takes her leave of him and dodges through the throng to her front door, closing it on them all, not looking back.