Work Text:
you'll come back
when it's over
no need to say
goodbye
----
The messenger came before midday.
It was, truth be told, a minor miracle that the message had made it at all. With the Antaam spread throughout Antiva and Rivain, rumours of an explosion and then a dragon in Minrathous, refugees beginning to cross the Waking Sea with tales of a new Blight—a passage she remembers making all too well—the safe arrival in Kirkwall of something as fragile as a letter feels like nothing short of divine grace.
Acting Viscount Aveline Vallen wishes it had never come.
The afternoon sun streams through the picture window at the rear of the viscount’s office, the wet streaks on her face catching the light. She closes her eyes and listens to the faint hustle and bustle of the western quarter of the city, the sounds of merchants and nobles and guardsmen and life. He’d always been fond of this window. How many times had she walked in here to raise some concern or other about security in the city, and he’d been standing right here, half-smile on his face? She can almost see him pointing out at Sundermount standing tall in the distance, saying something like, Hey, remember that time Hawke popped a witch out of an amulet? We should go see if that altar’s still there. You know, for old times’ sake.
Oh, for the chance.
He’d hated being stuck in this office, she knew he did. Loved the city, and even—though he’d rarely admit it—loved the work. But the keep itself felt like a prison to him. Especially with the guard barracked just over there, he’d told her once with a glare. No wonder Orsino went crazy, having someone with a big sword watching his every movement.
Somebody has to, she’d replied with a smile, adjusting the pommel of her greatsword against her pauldron.
She knew he would’ve rather been out adventuring. He missed it more than she ever did. His stories from his time with the Inquisition never failed to remind her of those years with Hawke, traipsing around, solving people’s problems, trading barbs with Isabela. But where the memories filled her with a pleasant nostalgia she’d take home to Donnic and the little ones, they’d fill him with a restlessness. An ache, to be out there again. There was always some new problem in the city cropping up, though, a rebuilding project gone awry or a funding issue or bandits in Darktown again, and the time slipped away.
Perhaps that was why he jumped at the chance to travel again when that scout from the Inquisition stopped by all those months ago, Harding. Easy to remember her name, because Varric had burst into laughter the moment she walked into his office, repeating over and over You did it! You’re Harding in Hightown!
The long-suffering look that passed between the two women said all she needed to know about the scout.
The message Harding had brought from the remnants of the Inquisition quelled his laughter fast. He’d filled Aveline in on everything that had happened in the original Inquisition and then in Halamshiral when he’d returned from the Winter Palace. In the intervening years, while managing the chaos of Kirkwall, he’d kept her updated on the search for this Solas and the various theories on what he was trying to do. So when Harding showed up with instructions from the now-former Inquisitor to recruit a new, unknown group of people to stop the would-be god, Varric was gone the next day.
Back soon, Aveline, he’d said, Bianca strapped to his pack, bemused smile scrawled across his weathered face. Tell little Belle to keep a pot of tea warm for storytime.
She glances back at the message on the desk. Short, tidy scrawl, the neat and practiced hand of a veteran scout trained to deliver news efficiently. Varric died defending us. Veil in danger. I’m so, so sorry.
She wishes he’d stayed to climb Sundermount instead.
A sharp knock at the door interrupts her reverie. She takes a moment to compose herself before saying, “Enter.”
Bran pushes the door open with one shoulder, arms laden with scrolls and folios of all sizes. “Pardon me, Acting Vi—“ He catches himself, takes a small breath before continuing smoothly, “Provisional Viscount. I have the transition paperwork ready, if you have a moment.”
Aveline lets out a long breath. “Bran,” she says slowly, “is this all really necessary right now?
“Yes,” he responds in his customary clipped tones, “everything must be in order before you call the nobility together to inform the court and then the city. The last time we had a Provisional Viscount, Lord and Lady Davison tried to annex the Balmerian courtyard into their estate holdings because the Provisional Viscount hadn’t yet signed the patents of regency giving him authority over property disputes.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” she deadpans, knowing full well that that he, that self-same Provisional Viscount, hadn’t signed the patents because he was too busy getting his former boss’s blood out of the throne room carpet.
“Indeed. So if you’ll have a seat, Acting Vi—I mean, Provisional Viscount, we can start with the codicils of—“
“Why do you keep doing that?”
He stops abruptly at her interruption. “Doing what?”
“That thing, correcting yourself over the title. Why does it matter?”
“My apologies, ma’am. Your new title—“
“Why do I have a new title?” she says with frustration.
He draws himself up. “Acting Viscount is the title given to those who act in the current viscount’s name. Provisional Viscount is the title used during the sede vacante interregnum period. It—“
“Bran—“ she tries to interrupt, but he plows on, voice uncharacteristically shaky.
“It means the throne is empty. It—" He stops, takes a moment to collect himself, then finishes in a small voice, “It matters.”
She nods, giving him another moment, before saying, “Bran, I don’t want to be Viscount, Provisional or otherwise. Can’t we find someone else?” He blanches slightly, and she hastily adds, “Not you. But there are many fine people in Kirkwall who would make a much better Viscount than I would, even in the transition.”
“And the nobility will have their chance to pick that new Viscount in due course,” he responds, rummaging through the scrolls and folios and beginning to stack them in crisp piles on Varric’s desk, “but until then, the city needs someone to keep the lanterns lit, as it were.”
“Mm,” she muses.
“As Acting Viscount," he adds, continuing to rummage, "the city charter says you are first in line to become Provisional Viscount unless the former Viscount has named a successor. Which—“ he produces another paper from the pile and places it in front of her.
In penmanship better than any of the notes he’d ever sent her as Guard-Captain, the short paper reads, I, Varric Tethras, forty-third Viscount of the city-state of Kirkwall, do hereby designate Aveline Vallen as my provisional successor, to faithfully execute both the laws of the land and also any nobles who do stand in her way, chosen for her bravery, her honesty, and because hers is the funniest name I can think of to write down here. Signed, this day of our Lady Andraste, Varric Tethras.
“—is also you, ma’am,” Bran finishes primly.
The pulse of annoyance through her temple somehow just makes her miss Varric more.
“Alright then,” she sighs, “tell me where to start signing, I guess.”
It takes the better part of the morning to finish signing the requisite letters patent and codicils and official forms establishing her updated status, and one of the stacks of papers slowly disappears as Bran whisks them out from under her quill and into the hands of a page waiting outside. Finally, all that remains is a large, haphazard pile of scrolls. “And these?”
“Ah, yes.” Bran pauses for a moment. “Viscount Tethras left a chest full of missives to be sent to various people were he to…well.” He stops, seemingly unable to continue.
Aveline slowly picks through the scrolls, recognizing many, but not all, of the names written on them. Hawke. Fenris. Isabela. A magister in Tevinter. Lord Seeker Pentagast. Even Divine Victoria. She pulls out one seemingly addressed to his crossbow, and another rolls forward. Bran. Still sealed. She looks up at the seneschal in wordless askance.
“I couldn’t…open it until your legal status was confirmed,” he says quietly, in a tone that suggests that that is not at all the reason the letter is still sealed. She nods, deciding not to push it, instead gently handing it to him. He pockets it with more care than the quill he produced for her to use earlier.
“I will go and post the rest of these now,” he says, voice slightly thicker than usual, “and begin preparations for the court for this evening. If that is all, Act- Provisional Viscount?”
“Of course, Bran.”
He carries the stack of scrolls away, leaving behind three addressed to her husband, her children, and her.
----
Later in the day, as the sun is starting to slip below the western horizon, Donnic finds her standing at the picture window, looking out over the city. He takes one look at the thin crown on her head and says, “It’s true, then?”
She nods, reaching up to adjust the blasted piece of metal as it slides along her brow. “The message came this morning. How was your patrol along the coast?”
“Nevermind that.” He sweeps her up in a hug. “I’m so sorry, beloved.”
“Me too,” she says.
“And,” he adds after a moment, assessing her mood with a gentle, practiced eye, then tapping the circlet on her head, “I’m sorry for this too.”
She laughs, the first of the day. It feels good. She scrabbles the back of her hand over her cheek and replies, “He couldn’t resist. I have half a mind to spring Jeven out and put him forward as a candidate just to get back at Varric.”
He chuckles. “You won’t do that,” he says, thumb stroking her cheek.
“I won’t do that,” she agrees, getting lost in his eyes.
He sees the paperwork on Varric’s—on her desk. “Bran said he left mail?”
“Yes, and you and the children got one too.”
“Kind of him. What did yours say, if I can ask?”
“A lot. Too much. Not enough.” She laces her fingers with his, and lets him start escorting her out to the throne room to make the official announcement. “Jokes. Unfinished city business. A litany of bequests and wishes for his friends and for the city.”
He stops just short of the door. “And what did he wish for you?”
She looks back at the picture window, the blaze of oranges and reds surrounding Sundermount, the dark purples of night just creeping in around the edges. She looks around the office, the ghosts of the past wending their way to and fro through her memory, sitting at that desk, laughing with all the care in the world.
And then she looks to Donnic, and draws him into a deep, slow kiss. She pulls back, resting her forehead against his, and murmurs, “For us, my love? Endless sunsets and roses.”
She wipes her eyes, puts her hand on his, and opens the door.