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Gahruil knew the value of money in a way that only an elf could, Zevran often thought. They salvaged much of the material their small team used, and even then would repair it until it was in complete shambles— far past unusable by any standards, really, but so far they had suffered no incident for it. Their conflict was blessedly young and with any luck it would stay that way.
He didn’t care, of course. If they were more inclined to blow money on fancy swords then who was he to say anything, really? He couldn’t comprehend the value. Money was an abstract to him; he wanted it, of course, but only because he knew that it was better to have too much than too little. As far as actual material things went, someone had always provided for him. The women in he brothel had clothed him, the Crows kept him fed and sheltered, targets had showered him with fine things, and now Gahruil kept his weapons and armour in shape. He’d never been paid a day in his life in more than approval, so that he could continue to receive handouts that kept him both comfortable and caged.
It never occurred to him that he only truly knew the monetary value of one item in Thedas until he was out with Gahruil, buying supplies. Their hands shook, jammed into their pockets to clutch at the money they now possessed— more than they ever had, he was told, though that was worth something to someone who went without. The team had chosen poorly when they sent their leader out for the necessities, and more than once he had to assure them that food was not a waste of money. The total for the lot was five sovereigns, even with their incessant search for the cheapest items they could find. Impressive, though, considering they now fed four humans, two elves, a dwarf, a dog, and a qunari.
All of it together cost more than I did, he thought.
Only one thing in all of Thedas had a hard value in his mind. Bananas were cheaper in Antiva than in Ferelden, whereas fur could be found for much less in the south than further north; however, he cost the same amount of money, a single unchangeable point in the universe. Three sovereigns, and I’ll go no higher. You always bleed me dry when I come for recruits, Madame. The recruiter was a very tall human wearing dark clothes despite the heat. It was a uniform, Zevran would learn much later, but at that point he was simply gawking at the man who didn’t seem to care that it was the peak of summer.
The child he’d been had stood there, very still and sort of uncertain. There’d been tests of which he was certain he failed— he’d fumbled a dagger, cracked under the pressure of an impromptu interrogation, and flinched at the threat of violence. He’d only known for certain that he didn’t want to be in the brothel anymore, and it’d driven him to line up with the others even as terror gripped his stomach at the sight of the Crow. To his infinite surprise, of course, he’d been purchased— he hadn’t escaped a life of having sex he didn’t want for money, but he could… pretend it wasn’t the same, if he squinted. Certainly being a Crow whose talents were in the realm of seduction wasn’t the same as being a copper-prostitute in a shanty brothel.
A hand on his stomach stopped him from walking into the post of a stall, and not unkindly Tabris signed, what are you thinking? For all their claims to the contrary, Gahruil could be remarkably astute. Hand in hand after handing the groceries over to Wynne and Oghren to take care of, they did a slow few circuits around the Denerim market to avoid the inevitable leaving. It’d been like that since they’d re-entered the Alienage and saved Cyrion— eventually they would be forced to leave the city to continue on their warpath, and so they practiced at leaving by wandering.
“Of money, Warden. Ignore me.” They knew he’d been bought and sold, and even knew the price, but wasn’t sure that they could… envision it. He couldn’t, after all. Was three sovereigns an impressive amount of money for a child? A pittance against the prices of his assassinations? Against the cost of feeding him, so long as his jobs kept coming back complete?
Do you need some? And this time they simply dug into their pockets and held out little gold and silver coins as if they weren’t quite sure what they were holding— only that he wanted them. They became meaningless outside of his desire for them and… what a strange elf they were.
“No, Tabris.” He kissed their cheek because they were a pretty fool sometimes, and perhaps if the Blight had never happened and the Purge had never happened they might have stayed that way. It’d been days since they’d been so… unguarded. He’d missed it. “Though I do wonder,” he added despite himself, “how much you believe I am worth.”
In money? They stopped and so he shuffled them along, making a beeline for Arl Eamon’s sprawling home. So long as they kept moving no one would give a second thought to his insecurity playing out in front of them, which was ultimately very important to him. He was still getting used to the idea of telling Gahruil what he felt, as they insisted that reading his mind was impossible and keeping everything bottled up was unhealthy.
“Yes. If you were to buy me, what amount of money would you think fair?” His voice was kept low, because even as the words left his mouth he cringed at how foolish he sounded. Helpless, hapless, hopeless, hoping that they wouldn’t laugh at him.
“I wouldn’t…” They started and stopped, obviously not having expected to say anything out loud. I would never buy you Zevran. Maker. They shuffled through the servant’s entrance with him in tow, trying to think of a way to explain this to them.
“If you had to,” he tried. “If you had no other option.”
In what possible situation—
“I don’t know, Tabris.” He sounded impatient and perhaps he was, despite his hyper-awareness of the situation. He was begging the elf he loved to tell him he was worth more than groceries— embarrassing, really, but at this point he was in for a copper. It was something he could say that they had more experience with than him.
He couldn’t assign a rational value to people, because he knew their worth to the Crows. For Rinna, seven for her strategy skills and quick-thinking in battle minus one for her temper (plus an undisclosed amount of bastards paid for her death). For him, a sovereign for the life of a boy who would become a whore anyway, plus one because the Madame was greedy and another because the recruiter liked elves. He could even do it with those who were not Crows— Morrigan, for one, would be nine for the boon of magic minus five for the inconvenience of hiding her from the Templars. Gahruil would be seven for their skills as a rogue matched with their strength, but three taken for the inconvenience of having to break them.
That thought left him with a very bad taste in his mouth as he followed them into the room they weren’t supposed to be sharing. Eamon had done a lot of dancing with regards to the reason two adults couldn’t share a bed if they chose, and though he’d waved it off as something to do with public image and Andraste and the like, Zevran rather thought it boiled down to the fact that Eamon didn’t want to know two elves were having sex in his house. More the fool him, knowing Gahruil.
I mean it Zev. Why would I have to buy you instead of just killing whoever’s trying to sell you? He shrugged off his shirt, tossing it across a chair by the door and ignoring their question. He meant nothing by it— he was simply thinking, trying still to find a way to word it so he could preserve his dignity and get an answer. He was roused from his thoughts by their arms wrapping around his waist and their mouth against his shoulder. “Don’t be mad,” they murmured, and he shivered a little.
He turned to reassure them, his fingers tracing the flowers they had inked into their hips, following then lines of the vhenadahl up their back and to their shoulders where there was yet another garden. Somewhere he hadn’t had to the time to memorise, across their arm like a band, his name was traced in letters they couldn’t read with the rest of their family. Cyrion Shianni Soris Zevran in four neat lines with birth dates wrapping around their bicep. “I’m not angry,” he muttered against their hair.
“You sound angry.”
“I’m… frustrated. I am simply trying to word what I’m saying properly.” And there was irony in that, as words were supposed to be so much easier for him than they were for Gahruil, despite the language barrier. It wasn’t often that he lost words— forgetting the language he was speaking and having to lapse into Antivan was meant to be a ploy to delight whoever he was speaking to. His language was made into another tool by the Crows, and having to use it was a mistake a child would never make twice in front of an instructor.
They shifted back so they could use their hands. I know what you’re saying but I don’t know what you want the answer to be. I could never buy you because you’re a person, and— their neck burned red and he braced himself a little because he wasn’t quite used to this part either— I love you, so I can’t say that there’s a limit to what I would pay for you. But I think it’s more important that you know I would kill anyone who tried to sell you anyway, so the whole question is kind of moot.
It occurred to him that perhaps he was being insensitive after Gahruil watched their father almost be sold and arrived too late to save their hahren and cousin’s wife, but perhaps that only made their answer more genuine. He leaned in to kiss them, marking the subject as dropped, but the strange pleasure in his gut remained. He had been told before, of course, that the Crows had bought him for a song and that his talents were worth well above the three sovereign fee that the Madame had pocketed, but how strange that this was the first time that he’d been told that he didn’t deserve to be sold at all.