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Rose could still remember how it felt to stare, wide-eyed and enthralled, at her father as he told her stories about heroes of old. Her mother would help him make them more dramatic with her magic, punctuating moments with bursts of light and helping their toys take flight on gusts of wind. Heroes featured in all of their childhood tales, played the center stage in her dreams, shaped her whole being for as long as she could remember.
Weisshaupt had great monuments to heroes; statues three times their height, plaques full of compliments about men long gone, relics of their lives carefully preserved for generations to come. Sometimes it felt more graveyard than fortress, doing its best to keep the stories remembered. She had looked at them with awe and wonder when she first arrived, convinced of their greatness.
Then she had learned that the Maker didn't carefully craft heroes, instilling them with greatness and strength enough to step into the roles to which they were called. No, heroes were simply people who made the choice to do the right thing at the right time. Their strength wasn't Maker-given, it was something they cultivated themselves because they had no other choice.
And she'd learned it because she had to, when strangers had started attaching "hero" to her name and looking at her like she would solve all of their problems. Little did they know she could barely solve her own. All she had done was stand up for what she'd believed was right - at great cost to herself, no less - but suddenly she was more figure than person, her name lost to the mantle thrust upon her shoulders.
She could easily recall the day she had started down the fateful path. As she paced pensively outside of the First Warden's office, her nails bitten down to stubs and her lips picked raw, she had been certain her life as a Grey Warden was over. There were layers of bags under her eyes, both from not sleeping and from crying into her pillow. Every time she closed her eyes she heard the First Warden's dressing down, each word dragging across her skin like the barbed end of a whip.
"Reckless," he had said—the kindest of the things he had called her. Idiotic, insubordinate, unfit, recalcitrant, stubborn. "I have encountered more contumacy within this Warden than any other in all of Thedas."
There were Wardens who were criminals, but he was adamant that she - daughter of a king who had taken the throne by ending both a civil war and a Blight - was the worst.
"No matter what happens in there, I'm proud of you, pup," her father had said, hands on her shoulders and eyes filled with fierce love, just before he marched into the First Warden's office alongside the most powerful Grey Wardens in southern Thedas.
King Alistair Theirin might not have been a Grey Warden any longer - not technically, at least - but he would always have the Blight in his blood. He would always be one of them. And to protect his daughter he would remind them of it, dressed in the same armor he had worn when he faced down an archdemon, griffons emblazoned across the silver breastplate that was still scarred from the dragon's blows.
Becoming a Grey Warden had been as inevitable as her disobedience, refusing to retreat—not because she wanted to be heroic, but because she wanted to save lives.
After all, saving lives had been the whole reason she had given her life to the Wardens, facing death by undergoing the Joining and Blighting herself. How could she retreat and leave innocent people to face the very monsters she had sworn to die fighting, especially when she knew she could do something about it? She never would have been able to live with herself.
Courage had been instilled in her from her first breath, it seemed. Even in a time of relative peace, she had trained, first with sticks with her brother and then with real weapons among soldiers and mercenaries. Stepping away from a challenge was no more in her nature than turning her back on those in need.
As a child, nestled between her father, brother, and mother in bed, she had pretended to read the book her mother held in bed, a small mage light bobbing in the darkness to light the words. Beside them, her brother and father slept soundly, but her mother read into the small hours, kept awake by demons she never could have fathomed in her childhood. Every once in a while her father would thrash, mumbling strangled words that sounded like pleas, and her mother would reach out to lay her head on his brow until he stilled.
"Is he okay?" She'd asked her mother, trying to keep quiet so she didn't wake them.
"Of course, pup," her mother had promised, brushing her unruly blonde hair off of her brow.
"Why does he do that?" She pressed, always full of question at that age.
"Sometimes your father has bad dreams, just like you and Duncan."
"About what? He has them a lot."
For a moment her mother had paused, lips pursed and brow creased as she considered how to answer. Then she folded the tome she'd been reading and laid it on her stomach, giving Rose her full attention. "Things that happened before you were born, but it isn't anything you should worry about."
"Back when you both had to fight the dragon and save the world?"
It was a story she had heard a hundred times. After the betrayal at Ostagar, the last of the Grey Wardens had to flee across the country. Blight ravaged the country, and just as an army of Darkspawn descended upon Denerim with a dragon at its helm, they managed to rally a new army and defeat the evil. Her father had slain the beast himself while her mother fought at his side—the heroes of Ferelden.
"It must have been scary."
"It was," her mother affirmed, a far away look in her eyes as she ran her fingers through her daughter's hair. "We were really scared—of the dragon, of failing, of losing one another, of not living long enough to meet you."
Rose snuggled into her mother's side, taking comfort in her warmth. "I don't think I could be that brave."
"Oh, pup, I know you are," her mother assured her, holding her close. She could hear the smile on her mother's lips in her tone.
"How?"
"Remember when you were learning to ride horses? Mister Whiskers spooked yours—"
"And I fell off." She scrunched her face up, remembering how her arm broke when she hit the ground.
"What did you do?" Her mother asked, pulling the memory out of her. "Did you run away?"
"No," she responded, drawing out the word as she replayed it all in her mind.
"You were hurt, and you might have gotten stepped on and been hurt more. You must have been scared and in pain."
"A little," she admitted, "but Star was scared, I couldn't leave her."
"That's how I know," her mother explained. "That's bravery."
For a moment she laid there and considered her mother's words. At the time it hadn't felt like anything special; it had felt natural to focus on the well-being of her horse before she worried about herself. Doing what needed to be done didn't feel like bravery.
"But I was just doing what I had to do…"
"Bravery isn't just steeling yourself to face down monsters, it's also in the moments you don't even think about, in things that seem ordinary for you but extraordinary to others."
Before she could dwell on it much more, her father's nightmares began again. As her mother soothed him, she climbed over her brother to wrap her arms around him. When she whispered in his ear that it was okay because she was there, he wrapped an arm around her and drifted back into a deeper sleep. Between his warmth and steady breathing, she drifted off in turn, and her lesson in bravery slipped from the forefront of her mind to the back.
It wasn't until later in life that she recognized the truth of her mother's words.
When the doors of the First Warden's office opened she startled, turning just in time for her father to wrap an arm around her shoulders, the scruff of his beard tickling her face as he pressed his lips to her temple.
"I'm guessing I'm going home with you," she ventured, tucking herself into his side.
"Absolutely not," he chuckled, "unless you want to, of course."
"You've not been exiled or discharged," the Warden Commander of Ferelden, a stout dwarf, assured her.
"Come on, let's go get a drink." Alistair squeezed her and she felt like a child again. "We've got a lot to talk about."
That was how she wound up in a tavern with her father and a table full of dwarves.
"Pup, this is Varric Tethras," her father told her, nodding to the dwarf with brown hair that silvered at the temples.
Her brows lifted in surprise as she placed a familiar name with an unfamiliar face. "From Kirkwall and the Inquisition?"
"The one and only," he chuckled, tipping his mug toward her in salutation. "Rogue, storyteller, businessman, occasional prisoner-turned-tagalong…"
"Friend of the Champion and the Inquisitor," she added.
"Among others," he agreed, tilting his mug toward her father.
"Varric helped me find your grandfather," her father explained.
Rose made a small noise of both understanding and disapproval; her father's year-long absence hadn't been her favorite childhood memory. When he'd come home with a new scar and haunted eyes, it had taken months for him to resemble the man he'd been before he'd sailed away from Ferelden. Once she was older he'd told her more of what happened on that voyage, but she still didn't know if it had been more good than bad for him.
"And this is Lace Harding." Varric introduced the red-headed dwarf on his right, her features still soft and kind despite the jagged scar down the side of her face.
"I've heard a lot about you," she gushed, her freckled cheeks tinging pink when she realized her admission. "All good things, of course."
"From my aunt?"
Harding nodded and Rose smiled; summers spent with her aunt at her clinic in Ferelden had been some of her favorite.
"So you both work for the Inquisition?"
The dwarves shared a look - quick but unmistakable - as if they needed to decide how much to reveal. Officially, the Inquisition had disbanded. In reality, it still operated in the shadows. Mostly it helped to rebuild places torn apart by rifts and war, but she had a feeling whatever mission the two rogues in front of her were on was more important than even that.
"About that," her father cut in, sliding a letter sealed with wax from his breastplate. "How would you like to join them?"
Again her brows rose in surprise. "I thought you said I was still a Warden…"
"You are," he assured her. "You always will be."
"But with the First Warden having it out for you, you'll probably be relegated to mucking stalls and shining boots," Varric pointed out.
She frowned, disappointed her tattered reputation already preceded her.
"The First Warden intends to make an example of you," her father confessed. "He's never liked how the Fifth Blight went down - never really believed the reports we sent about it - and he's taking his distaste for southern Wardens out on you. I'm sorry, pup. You deserve better."
Shoulders slumped, she buried her face in her mug. "I've only ever wanted to be a Warden."
"I know. I felt the same way." He laid a hand on her shoulder, his grip warm and sturdy and full of comfort. "One of the hardest lessons I've learned - aside from when to keep my mouth shut - was to accept that the things we want aren't always what's best for us."
"The world would be a dull place if everyone was just one thing, kid," Varric added. "With your out-of-the-box thinking and ample connections, you can do a lot better than being the First Warden's whipping boy."
"But don't take our word for it. I am pretty biased, after all."
Across the table, her father slid the letter he'd drawn out, and once it was in front of her she recognized the seal in the wax as that of the Inquisition. The tale of her insubordination and resulting status as Thedas's worst Grey Warden had spread further than she hoped. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she popped the seal and scanned the neat, looping handwriting within—undeniably her aunt's.
And an offer she couldn't refuse.
By the end of the night she wasn't Rose anymore, she was Rook—estranged from the Wardens to hunt down an elf hellbent on destroying the world by bringing down the Veil. Another step down the path toward heroism, not that she had any inkling. It had only been in hindsight that she had identified the exact moments she'd made the decisions that had taken her toward saving the world.
As it turned out, most of them took place in bars.
A few months after leaving Weisshaupt behind, she found herself in Hasmal with Varric and Harding. In the short time they had traveled together, they had already taken down a slaver and escorted slaves to a safe house on the border. For better or worse, Solas was also known to liberate slaves and use them as spies, which meant that doing the same thing was a viable path to searching for him. The Venatori and slavers weren't Darkspawn, but in many ways they were even more monstrous; it felt good to wreak havoc on them at every turn.
"This is the place," Harding announced as she stopped in front of a tavern.
The raucous cacophony within spilled out into the street.
"Thank the Maker," Varric exclaimed. "I'm famished."
The elder dwarf pushed inside the building, acting as if he didn't have a care in the world. Harding moved more cautiously, eyes darting around the crowded, dim room. She'd learned to watch the latter, though she knew Varric was far more observant than he let on. Harding's tells were easier to pick up on while Varric's remained a mystery. Eventually she would figure them out, but not for a good while yet.
When Harding's hesitation turned to excitement, she motioned for them to follow her past the bar, weaving between tables until they made it to the back corner.
"You made it," a large Qunari with horns the size of her forearm perked up when he saw them. His relaxed posture - one arm thrown over the back of an empty chair, legs spread and foot kicked out - didn't change, but his severe features brightened into a wide smile.
"Tiny," Varric greeted with an equally friendly smile. "I wasn't expecting you."
"Chargers had a job nearby, figured I might as well join the reunion." The qunari shrugged. Finally taking his arm off of the chair, he pushed it toward Rose. "You must be Rook."
She nodded, accepting the seat. Rook still felt like an entirely different person sometimes, as if she were wearing someone else's armor that she was expected to grow into. Maybe she would be up to the task; maybe she would buckle under the weight.
"This is The Iron Bull," Harding explained.
"Leader of Bull's Chargers," Rose added. "Big fan of dragons."
"You read the brief," Harding chirped happily. "Varric owes me five coppers."
The other dwarf scoffed and Rose tried valiantly not to roll her eyes.
"You made a dossier on me?" Bull cut in, leaning forward with interest. "Now that I've got to see."
Before she could reach for her pack to fish it out, Varric elbowed her and motioned toward the entrance of the tavern. A wiry blonde elf stepped to the side to reveal a brunette human, her long hair tied back into a braid and her left arm held stiffly beside her. Rose didn't need a dossier to know exactly who she was, even if it had been a few years since she'd last seen her aunt. Despite being of average height and build, Inquisitor Trevelyan's countenance commanded attention; a ripple of interest moved through the bar in her wake.
The elf - Sera, based on Harding's notes - made it to the table first, and she plopped down into a chair with a sigh, her head lolling back. "I'm bushed."
"I'm sorry for the wait," the Inquisitor said once she was seated. "We got a little tied up."
Sera snorted. "Someone did at least."
"I can't believe you're here," Rose confessed.
"I've upended your life, the least I could do was explain why in person," her aunt countered.
"We gave her the short version," Varric explained. "Crazy elf wants to bring down the Veil."
Sera groaned something about "elfy elves."
"You've worked with the best spies and scouts in southern Thedas," Rose pointed out. "To say I was surprised to get your letter would be an understatement."
With a slight nod, the others at the table scattered, for food, drinks, the privy—all excuses, she guessed.
"What is it that makes you feel unqualified?" With a soft grimace, the Inquisitor adjusted her prosthetic arm.
Rose considered the litany of reasons she'd felt out of her depth the last few months. She had managed to find her footing, but surely there were people who would know exactly what to do in every situation, not second guess their every move. But where should she even start?
"From where I stand, the only thing you lack is experience," she continued before Rose could find her words, "but your parents were younger than you when they rallied the people of Ferelden and slew the archdemon. I was barely older than you when I attended the Conclave and was thrust into the Inquisition. You were trained and educated by the finest that Thedas has to offer which puts you ahead of others your age, and you've displayed an unshakable moral compass. Does that allay your concerns?"
It was a good thing they'd been left alone; she could feel her ears burning with embarrassment. "Some."
"Believe it or not, it's your lack of experience that's your greatest asset," she revealed. "The man we're searching for knows how we operate and has alluded us at every turn. What he won't expect is someone who thinks to collapse a building to save a village."
"That was a mistake…" Not even she was sure she believed the words, her tone weak as she parroted one of the many phrases of her superiors.
"Was it?" The Inquisitor's fingers glowed a soft white as she massaged her upper arm and some of the tightness in her shoulders eased. "No one I've spoken to has thought as much."
Bull returned with overflowing mugs of ale and Rose was grateful for the distraction.
"Do you play chess?" Her aunt asked as she helped the qunari move mugs around the table.
"Not very well, according to Duncan," she answered, remembering her brother's disappointment when their games ended too quickly.
"A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the queen or knight are the strongest pieces on the board. It's true that every one has their role to play, but my favorite? The rook, or tower as some call it."
"And here I thought you were defrauding Chuckles," Bull snickered.
"I always think of Lady Nightingale's rookery," Harding added, joining the table with a few bowls of stew.
"I'm partial to the card game." Varric passed her a bowl as he settled back in his chair.
"In chess, the rook is crucial in the endgame to protect one's king and check an opponent, but the name could be any of those things, which is part of why we chose it," the Inquisitor admitted. "The other is anonymity. A good friend once told me that every time you become more than a person to someone, you also become less than one. I know it might feel like a mantle too large for your shoulders, but I hoped if you had a nickname you could wear it like a mask—something you could take off and on as you needed. Some days it's a boon to acknowledge that Inquisitor Trevelyan and Eve Rutherford are two very different people. I might have saved myself some heartache realizing it sooner."
"It's part of why we had nicknames as scouts," Harding explained.
"Helps keep your private life private," Bull clarified. "And if someone decides they don't like something Rook's done, it makes it harder for them to go hunting down your family to make a point."
"Not that you need to worry about that stuff now," Varric interjected. "For now we just get to play a fun game of cat and mouse."
"You told me he could turn people to stone with a look," she pointed out.
"Oh, he's definitely the cat in this scenario," Varric agreed, "but we're some clever mice."
Leaning forward, she set her elbows on the table, her curiosity piqued more than her appetite. "Tell me everything I need to know."
They spoke late into the night, and every tale they shared brought Solas into clearer focus in her mind. Even before he crawled into her mind with blood magic at the ritual-gone-wrong she had sensed that their fates were shared. Varric had always insisted that every good hero needed a villain, and Harding felt every good hunt needed a worthwhile quarry. As a mage she knew the danger of letting the Veil fall; as an Amell - the bloodline that connected her to the Hero of Ferelden, the Champion of Kirkwall, and the Herald of Andraste - it seemed inevitable that the responsibility of keeping the Veil intact fell onto her shoulders.
"Careful, cousin. At the rate you're going, you're bound to be the next of our family Varric immortalizes in print," Garrett Hawke had joked one night.
By then she had been Rook for long enough that it felt natural to answer when someone called for them. Hawke had been in her life sporadically as long as she could remember, coming and going with the wind it seemed. After Kirkwall he had been careful not to let any one place hold him down, but he returned to Tevinter often enough that she saw him more in the last year as Rook than in two decades as Rose. He insisted he was no longer the Champion, but he still couldn't turn his back on injustices.
"I've already started the first draft." Varric grinned, and it was impossible for her to tell if he was joking or not when he did.
"Be sure you get editorial control," Hawke warned, and Varric chuckled in response.
"Oh, come on, give the kid some real advice."
Hawke took a long drag of ale as he considered, and Rose sat forward in anticipation. She knew her aunt and mother well enough, but Hawke was still a mystery. Much like Varric, he kept his cards close to his chest.
"Always have an escape strategy," Hawke finally said, punctuating his words by setting his mug down on the table.
Silence followed as she tried to decide if he was joking again, but there was something in his eyes that said otherwise.
"I'm serious," he clarified. "Know when to cut your losses and get out. The more you give, the more people will take, and if you aren't careful you'll end up run into the ground."
"That's why you left Kirkwall?" She ventured, picking at a knot of wood on the old table.
"I loved Kirkwall. It's a shithole, but it was my shithole." He sat back, running a hand through his silvering hair.
"Cheers to that," Varric laughed.
"I gave the city everything I had," Hawke continued, "and it devoured me until I was little more than bones. In the end I realized that what little I had left, I wasn't willing to give, and the only way I could hold onto it was to walk away."
His gaze softened as he looked across the bar and she followed his line of sight to the slight elf with snow white hair. Fenris and Harding were discussing next steps with their contacts in the Shadow Dragons, but when the former felt their eyes on him he turned. The ghost of a smile passed between them, a warmth even she could feel.
All the same, learning to walk away was the one piece of advice she wasn't sure she could follow, not even for something as special as what they shared.
"I can see it in your eyes—you think walking away is a betrayal."
It wasn't an accusation - there was no malice in his voice - so much as an observation.
"I just…" She cast about for the right words but came up empty.
"I get it," he assured her. "When I was your age I felt the same way. My whole identity was wrapped up in righting wrongs, standing up for people that had been left behind, doing good in a world that was anything but. It feels good, right? Noble, even."
"It does," she agreed softly, almost sheepishly.
"There'll come a day when you find something even better," he promised. "I hope it's far into the future - Maker knows we need more people like you - but when it does, don't forsake it."
Slowly she nodded, glancing between the former Champion and the elf once again. Her mother had mentioned something similar before, about the importance of holding onto something that was just hers. It would keep her grounded, her mother had said, and it would carry her further than duty ever could. Looking at the people in her life who had been lauded as heroes, each one had found that special something. As unlikely as it seemed that she would find it, she knew she would be lucky if she did.
"I won't."
"Good girl." Hawke smiled and took another drink. "Let's see, what else… You've chosen your own moniker, which is good, but when it comes down to it, you won't be the one who defines it. The people you help, and the ones who need you—they'll decide who Rook is."
Again she nodded. Even she had been guilty of assuming who people were based on what she'd heard of them. The more it happened to her, the more guilty she felt for doing it.
"Now, to see if you've been paying attention," Hawke prompted, "how is it that they decide?"
"I'm guessing it's based more on what I do and less on what I say," she answered.
With a grin, he nodded. "You're right, Harding, she's smarter than she looks."
The red-headed scout had just begun to climb into a seat at the table, and at his words she froze, her cheeks turning crimson. "I did not!"
"Don't tell me you're listening to this idiot." Fenris sat across from her, his chair a little closer to Hawke's than anyone else's.
Hawke just laughed and finished off his ale while Varric produced a deck of cards.
Looking back, Hawke had been right—about everything. As had her aunt, the Inquisitor, and her parents, heroes of Ferelden. In a sense, they had walked so she could run, and she knew without a doubt that she wouldn't have made it without their advice. True as it was that she was perceived through her actions, she had been molded by their words.
At the end of the same night, Hawke had caught her arm and pulled her aside, a surprisingly sober expression on his face.
"I hate giving advice like that," he said, "it always makes me feel like I'm blowing smoke."
When she opened her mouth to assure him she didn't think that way, he held up a hand to stop her.
"Everything else I've said is bullshit compared to this," he continued. "You can do everything right and still lose people. It isn't fair and it isn't your fault—it's life."
The haunted look in his eyes was back and she covered the hand on her arm with her own, hoping to impart some small measure of comfort. His clenched jaw relaxed in response and he offered her a grateful smile before he pulled his hand away. She'd seen similar looks in the faces of her parents and her aunt; sacrifice and loss was inevitable.
"When it happens, because it will," he added gently, "your first instinct will be to protect yourself and push everyone away. Don't listen to that little voice. Your greatest strength will be the people you choose to surround yourself with."
Once she nodded he ruffled her hair, slipping back into the same easygoing countenance he normally affected. Years later she could still feel his hand on her arm and his fingers in her hair, and the memory made her heart squeeze. Time had been the cruelest foe she'd ever had to contend with, and the most relentless, but with every loss she remembered those words.
That there was a world still filled with people she loved was owed to those who came before and showed her the way.
A smooth beak pressed to her cheek, pulling her back to the present. One constant in her life was that the world changed but the Lighthouse remained the same refuge it had been all those years ago. Even with the Veilguard disbanded, it was somewhere they all found themselves from time to time—sometimes together and sometimes apart. Its rooms were filled with mementos of their journeys, its sky a constant reminder of everything they fought to preserve and protect.
Another nudge of a beak made her laugh. "All right, all right, I yield."
From her pocket she produced a truffle and an excited chirp split the sky. The griffon who had once been the size of a hound had grown bigger than a horse, but his love for gingerwort truffles had never waned—another comforting constant in her life. She always had them in her pockets.
"Don't tell your father."
As Assan took flight, doubtless to find the aforementioned Warden, for a moment she was drawn back to her father's animated tales of Garahel and Crookytail. When she'd become a Warden, he had a painting made of her astride a griffon. It still hung in the Lighthouse, next to one of her with Assan. She had become the same measure of hero her father had depicted all those years ago; someday one of her descendants would tell the same stories, but she would be at its center. The thought took her breath away.
Heroes, she'd learned, might have been regular people pressed into greatness by circumstance, but was it some kind of divine providence that had chosen her, or simply serendipity? Some questions had no answer.