Chapter Text
Chapter One - Beat the Drum
Even before the Blight, Lavendel village would have held little appeal to anyone who didn’t already call it home. It was easy to imagine that the landscape itself–the steep, craggy cliffs, hard soil, and bleak climate–forbid the Blight from spreading as far and fast as it would have in a milder place.
Evariste had grown up on a farm in the Tevinter countryside. But, where Perivantium boasted gentle, sun-kissed hills and pockets of luscious forest, Hossberg’s farms were set among miles of twisting, fetid swamps, below mountains haunted by perpetual storms. Its people grew a hard rind, rooted to the Anderfels with the same prickly persistence as its cactuses.
Weeks after losing Weisshaupt, Evka sent word that all of the remaining Wardens had made it to Grey Hold castle in Lavendel. Ages of darkspawn battles and abandonment had reduced the keep to nothing but its chapel, its foundation skirted by the suggestion of ramparts whose ruined arms sagged around the village.
Hundreds of displaced soldiers wouldn’t much improve the atmosphere anywhere. But in that town, the wounded, sick, and grieving, were a blue-clad haze of more of the same.
Evariste arrived to find the Wardens already dispersing into the village proper. With crates and sacks they’d claimed every empty corner of Lavendel, while plucky campfires sprouted up between buildings. In the unusually crowded village square, provisions from Nessum and Val Dorma had joined the supplies from House Valisti, creating a mountain of fragile optimism. And work.
At the Hold’s stone landing, Antoine met them with his usual soft smile and restless eyes.
“How goes the resettlement?” Evariste folded the willowy man into a hug, and felt Antoine give him a grateful pat. “Everyone getting along?”
“Somehow, all of these benefactors began to send supplies before our first ravens flew.”Antoine indicated Evka who was assigning representatives in the town square to oversee the donations. He glanced sidelong at Evariste, then at Lucanis. “There are three wagons from Antiva alone.”
As if caught jumping fences, Lucanis and Davrin shifted on their feet.
“It turns out that the Crows have a long history with the Wardens,” offered Davrin.
“One of us fought beside the Grey Wardens during the Fourth Blight,” Lucanis added, “to help them bring down the archdemon Andoral.”
“A Crow at the siege of Hossberg?” Still wary of Spite, Antoine would not meet Lucanis’ eyes, and murmured to Evariste instead. “That is…fascinating.”
“He was a blood mage, I think. We don’t really talk about him.” Lucanis shrugged when Evariste shot him a look. “No one said it was a good history.”
Antoine and Davrin nodded. Coming to Hossberg had become synonymous with learning about some horrible Warden shame. With Weisshaupt and all of its secrets now buried under acres of Blight and rubble, Evariste imagined that the uncomfortable revelations would finally end.
He could tell a townsperson to rest, to take time to heal from a loss like that. As a soldier, he knew better than to tell a Warden the same. Lucanis had come along for similar reasons. He cited professionalism, a need to work, but Evariste saw unvarnished guilt in how Lucanis threw himself at the task.
“Well, the supplies aren’t doing any good sitting in the wagons.” Evariste gave Davrin’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “Come on.”
If Evariste was lucky, somewhere in the pile he might find the one thing that could convince Lucanis to let go of what happened with Ghilan’nain.
Davrin and Lucanis unloaded the wagons while a town elder and a Warden quartermaster organized their distribution. Under Flynn’s direction, Evariste used a groaning pushcart to move supplies to the infirmary.
The day rolled on, turning steely white and humid. Torn-looking clouds drifted low over the cliffs as the last wagons were emptied and drawn away. Those working to clear the square shed their coats despite the patchy snow on the ground. Evariste and Davrin were down to their shirtsleeves, putting miles on their boots in the back-and-forth. And while Lucanis had discarded his cloak and leather cuirass, he kept his shirt buttoned, his vest tidy, and his five knife belts securely buckled.
“I always wondered if that sweater had sleeves,” muttered Davrin, with a crooked smile.
He’d stopped for a rest, slipping the hauling straps from his back and tugging off his gloves.
Evariste set his pushcart down. His own body had been humming for a break, too. He followed Davrin’s gaze to the other side of the square, where Lucanis shouldered a clay pot half his size and took it up a set of stairs.
In the last ten days, Evariste had met the Inquisitor, punched the leader of the Grey Wardens, and killed an archdemon. The next ten days might grind him into paste. It was important to keep an eye on the little things he was fighting for. Little moments. Little lives.
A deadly little man in a sweater vest, with an edible ass and an ocean of problems.
“Think he’d knit one for me?” Evariste said, soppily, watching Lucanis squat to set the pot beside several others outside of Clara’s smithy.
“In the time he doesn’t spend sleeping he could knit you a full suit,” Davrin replied. He slapped his gloves lightly against his knee. “With Spite, though, you’re just as likely to get a needle in the eye.”
Evariste sighed.
“Listen, I know what it says about me that I still think it’s worth the risk.”
This earned a quiet laugh from Davrin.
“I hear you, but…” He pitched a look at the smithy’s cabin, where Lucanis grimly inspected each blade, ignoring a glare from Clara that would’ve vaporized anyone else. Davrin raised an eyebrow at Evariste. “You sure that’s your flavor?”
Things got harder every day. The quantity of shit they shoveled never decreased. But Evariste knew who he was.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes expansively. “The question is, am I his?”
“Maybe if you scrubbed down with coffee grounds,” said Davrin, tugging his gloves back on.
They shared a smirk. Not for the first time, the familiarity of Davrin’s company struck Evariste like the ache of an old battle wound. Seheron had carved a survivor out of a farm boy. But, Minrathous had taught him the only thing he needed to know about fighting for a cause: A good soldier had to believe in a world that didn’t need them. Denied his sacrifice, a thousand days past tired, Davrin was ready to keep fighting for a world that would never need another Grey Warden.
As Davrin stood to hoist the hauling straps onto his shoulders, Evariste stopped him.
“None of this has been exactly…glorious. Or easy. But, I wouldn’t be anywhere else, right now.” He glanced around Lavendel, at the soldiers turning Grey Hold into a home, and met Davrin’s dark, cool eyes. “Thank you for being here, too.”
“Not sure I am all here.” Gripping the straps at his chest thoughtfully, Davrin searched the sky. “But enough of me is.”
They nodded at one another and went back to work.
Everywhere, the dull clang of hammers on tent stakes marked the moments until the Wardens, and their hosts, could finally rest. To call the Wardens tired didn’t do them justice. Having a god thunder through their collective minds and destroy their last citadel had wrung them out to their core. They were tired the way darkness was dark.
Surrounded by the very real consequence of having brought Ghilan’nain down on them in the first place, Evariste easily found his second wind.
He used his magic to stoke Clara’s furnace, burn the creeping Blight off of the buildings, and set the fires going for the mess hall. The townsfolk served a meal too late to be lunch, and too early to be supper. They took no offense when most of the Wardens ate among themselves at the tent barracks. Davrin joined the Wardens, and Evariste declined when Evka made an obligatory invitation.
Taking his portion of potato, gravy, ham, and brown bread, he hunted around for the highest, most secluded spot in the camp.
“Just like a cat,” he said, smiling up at the figure silhouetted atop the ruined eastern battlement.
Alone on the wall, overlooking the soggy farmland, Lucanis was very much like the cats of Dock Town or Treviso: So enigmatic and self-possessed that one never knew if they were up for company.
“They do find the best vantage points. Cats are natural assassins.” He watched Evariste clamber up onto the broken wall, rough-hewn bowl in hand, without offering more than a smirk. “Whereas you are just like a-”
“Bigger cat,” Evariste suggested, with a raised eyebrow. “A lion.”
“No lions in Antiva. A domesticated leopard, perhaps.”
His smile was warm, a good sign he didn’t mind the company. The banter could mean nothing, Lucanis sometimes chatted to put people at ease. But the overcranked crossbow of his shoulders had loosened, just a fraction. Evariste wanted very much not to have imagined that part.
“I knew a city counselor who kept a leopard. Can’t remember her name, but the leopard was called Fidelity.” As he settled down, Evariste noticed a prim handkerchief laid over Lucanis’ bowl. “You don’t intend to eat this, I take it.”
Lucanis grimaced.
“They mean well. But surprises are for birthdays and marriage proposals,” he mused. “Not the lavatory.”
In his lap he held a stump of richly marbled salami, which he sliced with a paring knife. On a second handkerchief, he’d laid a handful of dried figs, and a petite wedge of hard cheese so delicate and pale that it glowed in the late-day gloom.
Evariste barely glanced at his bowl before eating. Anders food lacked elegance, sure, but it hadn’t given him trouble so far. Everything in his life–his size, his magic, the army– had taught him to eat as much as he could, as often as he could.
They ate in silence, watching birds hop across the spines of withered barns. Without a breeze, they could hear scaled creatures sloshing in the muck, hidden by tall, listless grasses. Imminent rain thickened the air.
“May I?” Evariste indicated Lucanis’ untouched bowl.
Lucanis nodded, amused and a little worried as he retrieved his handkerchief and Evariste began to devour cold potatoes and ham.
“I would like to know something, if I may?” Every syllable made it clear that Lucanis had been sitting on this question all day. “Something I cannot put out of my mind.”
Evariste fought the urge to freeze up. He kept chewing, working out how to react while eyes searched the side of his face. Lucanis knew Evariste was worn out, pliant, and looking to be distracted. A perfect moment for a difficult question.
Fucking Crows. Getting mad about it was as useless as crossing a paddock and complaining about all the horseshit.
When he finally swallowed his lump of food, Evariste took the handkerchief that Lucanis offered to wipe his mouth, and made sure to look him in the eye.
“Go ahead.”
He handed the hanky back. Lucanis tossed it on the remnants of his meal and fixed Evariste with a penetrating look.
“Why didn’t you join Neve when the dragon attacked?” He leaned forward a fraction, as if the answer might incriminate them both. “Minrathous is your home. They are your people. But you chose to help Treviso.”
“Ah.” Evariste nodded down at his hands.
Inside, his whole body revolted against the question. He hated that the truth could not be an option. There was only one reply he was prepared to give, and it would sound like the right answer. He hoped.
He took a breath and forced his eyes, tears and all, to focus on Lucanis.
“Shadow Dragons exist to protect people without the means to protect themselves. All people. I chose-I went to the people that were most vulnerable,” said Evariste.
Faces came to mind, bright and singular. Thoughts of them had eaten a nearly two-year hole through the center of him. And fear had lived there ever since. He exhaled, shook off the gloom, drew his knees up, and went on.
“Also, you’re wrong. Minrathous is not my home. It’s a city. And Tevinter is so much more than that.” A tremor rose in his chest. Heat and pride and longing stung his cheeks. His voice broke around things he wouldn’t say, lending truth to what he could. “Some of them may be gone, but my…people are with me, always. Wherever they are, that’s home.”
In the sudden quiet after he finished, Lucanis searched his face. It felt eternal.
“That is…unexpected. I think I understand. Thank you for your candor,” he said, finally. He looked away toward the village, giving Evariste a moment of relief from that stare. When he spoke again, guilt clouded his voice. “I worried for Neve, we all did. But we didn’t–I didn’t–think to worry for you. For what you lost.”
Godsteeth.
“No. Please for the love of- I don’t need that. It’s done.” Evariste shook his head like a stubborn child. He stilled himself, and said, “Let’s just focus on what’s in front of us.”
But Lucanis was already on a roll, unaware that he would never win the Biggest Bastard award.
“Rook, you rescued me from the Ossuary.”
Evariste pushed back. Calmly. At first.
“One has nothing to do with the other,-”
“You stood with me at Caterina’s funeral.”
“-they are choices I made. It doesn’t matter why,-”
“You defended my city from a dragon-”
“-and circling them like a buzzard doesn’t-”
“-I failed you when it counted, twice, and you still-”
“-make them a meal worth eating.”
Lucanis abruptly sat back.
“Eating what?” The tragic expression that pulled at his brows shifted to utter confusion. “A buzzard worth..what?”
“I said..?” At the straining point of their exchange, Evariste had caught a flash of violet in Lucanis. It pulsed in the small veins around his eyes. He was at a loss to remember anything else. “I have no idea.”
For a moment, they were two old people trying to recall why they’d walked into a room. Lucanis chuckled dryly, and shrugged. For Evariste, the agitation was slow to fade. Though, seeing Lucanis smile, even briefly, helped quite a bit.
“Crows are serious about their debts. But, this wasn’t about that.” He looked aside, as if listening to something. “As a friend, I should have been there for you.”
Ah. Spite had taken an interest? Evariste could chew on that later.
“I didn’t let you be there for me. But, you can rescue me from the next horrific mage prison. I promise.”
Placated, if not convinced, Lucanis nodded.
Evariste wiped his eyes. A pointless effort, as it began to rain.
Fat droplets fell at first, a gentle bombardment that sounded like a shaken tree. In one swift motion, Lucanis gathered up his belongings and dove off the battlement. Evariste followed, quick for his size but unable to slip between the raindrops the way Lucanis seemed to. They reached the village square just as a tremendous crack of thunder ripped across the sky.
A second later, the rain became a deafening downpour.
Sheets of rain hammered crosswise at every surface. Muddy water instantly filled the square, sluicing down stairs and pathways and turning them into streams. One blurry, drenched shape looked the same as another in the gray fall. Some were people. Some were tents or boxes. Evariste ran into every one of them.
“There!” Lucanis yanked on his sleeve.
Evariste moved where he was pulled, and the warm light of Grey Hold swam into view. He bolted up the broad steps after Lucanis. Water squelched inside and outside his boots. As they ran for the entrance to the southern hall, the door was flung open from the inside by a familiar figure.
Holden, the Warden blacksmith that had helped set off the archdemon trap at Weisshaupt. And beside him, little Mila. She caught sight of Evariste through the pounding rain.
Startled, he skidded on the slick stone, coming to an uneven stop.
“Rook! Over here!” She waved and hollered and jumped up and down. “Hey!”
Realizing that Evariste wasn’t behind him, Lucanis turned and squinted into the downpour.
“Rook?”
Seeing father and daughter again dropped a heartache on Evariste so keen that the pelting rain seemed like a light breeze.
“Come on, come on!” Mila swung her arms, dramatically impatient.
Evariste shook himself out of a far off place, and jogged out of the rain. Mila leapt at him, giggling as she was snatched up and swung into the air. Evariste held her up high against his side while she grinned and patted his wet clothes.
“You were out there for ages!” She rolled her eyes. “Why did you just stand there?”
Lucanis, wringing out his soggy hair, made an inquisitive grumble. “Good question, Mila.”
“Someone had to count the bullfrogs,” Evariste said, with a hint of accusation.
Mila turned serious as she peered back at the rain over Evariste’s shoulder. “What bullfrogs?”
He leaned into her ear and croaked, “Brrrup.”
Peels of outraged laughter echoed in the hall. Mila kicked and wriggled until Evariste set her down. As soon as she had her feet she shouldered past Lucanis and Holden and was gone, down the hall and into the tangle of half-wet Wardens and townsfolk taking refuge from the storm.
Watching her go, Evariste was too aware of being studied, himself. Without even quirking an eyebrow, Lucanis could make anyone feel like a target.
Holden reached out to offer an arm in greeting
“Hallo, Rook. Good to see yer again.”
Evariste clasped the blacksmith warmly and pulled him into a hug.
“Holden, you have no idea.”