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No matter the day, the Hilt was always full, chaotic, and pints of beer were served and drunk Lords of Fortune sang sea shanties.
It was Rook’s favourite place for those exact reasons.
She took the beer that Isabela was offering her, and she leaned against the bar counter. She talked about the treasures her fellow Lords had gathered, laughed with Isabela and Taash, and drunk her beer, but her eyes kept darting towards the door.
Taash elbowed her in the ribs.
“Hey, what was that for?”
They looked at her like she’d just asked the stupidest question in the world. “You’re becoming insufferable. Stop looking at the door like a wounded puppy, Neve is coming.”
“Who is Neve?” Isabela cut herself.
Rook sighed. Isabela was attracted to gossip just as she was to gold, sex and ancient relics, and she wouldn’t let it go.
She was about to say Just someone who’s helping me fight the gods, but Taash was faster.
“Neve Gallus is the woman Rook has a gigantic crush on.”
Isabela stared at her with a grin. Oh, no.
“How come you haven’t told me anything? Have I met this woman?”
“I don’t have a crush on Neve,” Rook replied, ignoring all her questions. “Maker’s breath, I’m not sixteen.”
“Andraste’s flaming knickers, you really like this woman,” Isabela countered. “I’ve never seen you so nervous since I met you.”
“And you haven’t seen how she is around Neve,” Taash added. “She is all like ’Neve, whatever you do you can do no wrong, please, can I kneel between your legs?’”
Rook ignored them both and finished her beer. Taash was exaggerating for sure. She knew for a fact she wasn’t that pathetic.
Or maybe… was she?
Rook thought about the weird behaviour of her companions lately.
Lucanis had told her that Neve’s coffee was similar to the poisons his friend Viago de Riva had, and that only someone who cared deeply about Neve would willingly drink that. Harding had been giving her unprompted explanations about plants and flowers meanings, focusing in particular on the romantic ones. Emmrich had given her a list of books that he knew Neve would enjoy. Bellara casually mentioned several times that Neve hadn’t had a romantic partner in a long time—emphasis on long—and Davrin had told her once that he’d caught Neve staring at her biceps.
Andraste’s breasts, she was that obvious.
“Stop it, you two,” Rook said, knowing perfectly her friends would ignore her. “I told her I’d be here if she wants a pint, I’m not even sure if she’s coming or not.”
“She will arrive,” Taash replied. “Her smell completely changes when she’s around you.”
Rook turned to them, suddenly interested. “Does it? How does it become?”
They grinned. “Similar to yours when you’re around her. You should cut to the chase and just fu—”
Rook gave them a smack on the back of their head, making them curse her in a way so vulgar that even the man at the counter stared at all of them.
“What the fuck Rook—”
“This is for disrespecting your older fellows,” Rook explained.
“You’re an asshole, you know?”
If Taash added more insults, she didn’t hear it. The door of the Hilt opened and Neve walked in, and that immediately got Rook’s full attention.
Her heart was racing. Neve had come, and she was looking around—
She was looking for her.
Rook raised her hand to signal her, and Neve finally walked towards them. She ordered a beer for her and kicked a young Lord of Fortune from the stool he was sitting.
“Hey, what the—”
“I need this, lad,” Rook replied. “Go find another.”
He scoffed and muttered something that sounded like fuck off, but she turned to Neve with a smile—it was always so easy to smile around here.
“Neve, come. Have a seat.”
The other woman seemed pleased with that.
“Thank you, Rook.”
Rook gave her the beer she ordered for her, which made Neve smile.
Her heart fluttered, as behind her Taash made an annoyed noise.
Fuck. She was gone for Neve.
Rook was fast in grabbing her beer and cheer with Neve saying, “For gold and glory!”
“For gold and glory,” the other woman repeated.
“Thanks for offering the beer to us, too,” Taash said with sarcasm.
“You can buy your own.”
Neve chuckled, and looked around. Half-drunk people were improvising sea shanties, others were playing Wicked Grace at a table and others were talking and laughing about something.
“Is this how you spend your time when you’re not at the Lighthouse?” she asked.
Rook grinned. “Yes, I enjoy the company of my fellow pirates and we talk about our old adventures.”
“Neve, did Rook tell you about the most expensive rum in Thedas?” Isabela asked. “It’s an amazing story.”
Oh.
Rook knew what was her friend’s intention, but a story about how she’d gained a fair share of gold and glory maybe wasn’t too appealing to Neve—
She realized she was wrong. Neve was looking at her with curiosity, and she felt her heartbeat go as fast as the storm winds.
“No, you’ve never told me.”
“You’re in for a ride,” Isabela said.
“Maybe you should try another kind of ri—”
“It was, what? Ten? Twelve years ago?” Rook interrupted Taash. “Anyway, I had to dock my ship on a small village to escape a storm, and when the weather cleared I went to find my crew at the local tavern...”
***
As she expected, her crew mates were drinking and playing cards. Rook reached the ones at the counter and told them, “I want you back on the ship in five minutes, or you’ll be rowing until we get back home.”
“But, captain, Joal and Valr are going to get us information about a treasure.”
Rook was instantly attracted by the last word. “Tell me everything you know.”
“Those lads didn’t tell us much,” one of her men said, nodding towards a table where her crew mates were playing Wicked Grace with two strangers. “They just mentioned that a ship is carrying something that’s worth more than the palace of a nobleman.”
Just imagining all that gold was enough to almost make her faint.
“Let me take care of it,” she said.
She reached the table and tapped the shoulder of one of her crew mates. He understood the message and got up, leaving her his seat.
“Rook Laidir,” she introduced herself on her. “I’m the captain of the Dragonfire—”
***
Taash interrupted her story with a laugh.
“Your ship’s name was Dragonfire? Are you joking?”
Rook evaluated if Taash deserved another slap on the back of their head, but with Neve looking at her she decided against it.
“Hey, when I was twenty-one I thought it was a very cool name,” she justified herself. “And it served me well until the fucking Vints sank it—no offense, Neve.”
“None taken,” Neve said.
She was smiling, which made Rook feel like she could do anything. She looked at Isabela and Taash and asked, “Do you have any other stupid comment to make or can I continue the story?”
“Go on,” Isabela replied. “I love this story.”
***
The two men at the table stared at her with an annoying grin.
“Do you want information about the treasure?”
“Yes,” Rook said. “If I win this Wicked Grace game, you’re going to tell me everything you know about this treasure. If I lose, you get five hundred gold pieces.”
The eyes of both strangers shone with greed.
“We have a deal,” one of them said.
“One last thing, if this treasure isn’t actually something that makes me rich, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”
“Don’t worry captain, the treasure is worthy fifty times your ship,” one of them said.
Rook grabbed her cards. In a few rounds she won—thanks to cheating and communicating secretly with her crewmate.
“Tell me,” she said.
One of the strangers groaned in annoyance. “In the last few weeks, this noble asshole had come here to search something in the ruins up north. He found some rum from the Tower Age.”
Rook had to restrain herself from punching him in the face. “Any alcohol from six hundred years ago is as good as piss now.”
“That’s the catch,” the other stranger added. “The barrels they found have magic runes on them. The rum has been preserved with magic and it’s as good as the day it was brewed.”
Those words struck Rook. Liquor from six hundred years ago, still good to drink, would now be worth—
Her mind couldn’t even imagine that much gold.
“When did they leave?”
The strangers noticed the urgency in her voice. Her crewmate ran to call the others, for sure to prepare the Dragonfire to leave as soon as possible.
“Couple of hours ago?”
“Where are they going?”
“I think they said they would go to Antiva,” one of them said.
Rook didn’t even thank them. She ran like her life depended on it to the docks.
As she guessed, her crew was manning the ship and, as soon as she climbed on, she gave the order to set sail.
She told the navigator to set course to Antiva, and she trusted that the waves would be her guide, as the open sea had always been for her. Rook stared at the infinite blue, feeling like home.
The sea was where she always felt free—something that she would never take for granted anymore.
Rook stayed on the main dock of the Dragonfire, paying her total attention to the horizon.
“Captain Laidir! I see the ship!”
She reached her first mate. The other woman gave her the spyglass, and Rook saw the other ship in the distance.
“Turn thirty starboard,”Rook told the helmsman, then she shouted to the other crew mates, “Hoist all the sails!”
The wind immediately filled all the sails, and it pushed the ship on. Rook took another look at the other ship through the spyglass.
They were getting closer to it, but not close enough.
Rook passed the spyglass to the first mate and asked her, “Do you think we can reach them?”
The other woman took a look at the other ship, her lips pursed.
“I don’t think so, captain.”
Rook bit the inside of her cheek. Her sails were at full capacity, and she couldn’t risk shooting the other ship with cannons to not damage its precious cargo.
She needed to board the other ship to put her hands on the rum, and to do that she would need the Dragonfire to go faster—
The idea came over Rook suddenly. It could backfire her spectacularly, but if she succeeded she would be the richest Lord of Fortune in Rivain.
“Throw all the supplies and the cannon balls overboard! That’s an order!”
***
“You did not!”
Neve was staring at her with utter disbelief, which made Rook smile.
She’d captured her utter attention, and her lips parted in shock looked so soft and Rook wanted nothing more than kiss them and know how they felt on her own—
“Yeah, Rook does this kind of things,” Isabela confirmed, interrupting Rook’s fantasies about Neve. “Once, to prove Andraste favored her she took off her armor and challenged a privateer to duel with only her underclothes on—”
“I still have to finish this story, Neve doesn’t want to hear another,” Rook cut her short.
She really didn’t want to tell that story in front of the woman she fancied, but she noticed Neve was looking somewhere else.
Was it the thought of her half-naked that made Neve react like that?
Rook’s heart fluttered as she felt her cheeks go warmer—
Taash made a fake gagging sound.
Shit. Probably they were smelling her scent change.
“Go take another beer for all of us,” she told them.
Taash gave her a weird look, but took the money and started queuing for the beers. On the way to the barman, they murmured something that sounded like “This happens when you don’t fuck,” but the other Lords were singing loudly and Rook couldn’t be sure if she’d heard them correctly.
But, because one is never too sure, she gave them another slap on the back of their head.
“Fuck you, Rook,” Taash said, but she had already turned to Neve.
“Where was I?”
Neve looked at Taash, queuing behind other lords and talking to other qunari who were probably sent by their older companions to get drinks for the whole group, too. “Are you not waiting for Taash to continue the story?”
No, I don’t want them to make comments about just fucking already because our smells give them nausea.
“They’ve heard the story many times already,” Rook lied. “I’m sure they’re not interested in listening to it again. You, however, have never heard it.”
Neve chuckled, and that was the most beautiful sound Rook had ever heard.
“She was telling she had just emptied her ship,” Isabela cut in. She didn’t have Taash’s keen sense of smell, but Rook doubted she needed it to know how she was feeling about Neve.
Her friends would never let her live this down.
“As I’d predicted, with the ship now lighter, we gained speed,” Rook said.
***
The Dragonfire was soaring through the sea faster. Somewhere in the endless sky, stormy winds were blowing by, and, thanks to Andraste, they were downwind—increasing the speed even more.
“How fast are we going?” Rook asked her navigator.
“Approximately seven knots.”
Seven. She took another look through the binoculars to the nobleman’s ship, now rapidly approaching.
Another knot of speed would be better, but the Dragonfire was doing great already. The Maker had blessed her with favorable wind, she didn’t want to push her luck more than that.
“Steer ten to starboard,” she instructed the helmsman, then she went to her first mate. “Call everyone on the main deck.”
As she waited for her crew to gather up in front of her, Rook started praying Andraste. She prayed Her to keep the storm on their tails at bay until they raided the other ship, and to give her the strength to win this battle.
Only when she was done with her prayers she finally faced her crew. They were all looking at her expectantly, as usual when she had to encourage them before a seabattle.
“Lords! We’re going to rob this Rivaini noble of rum worth so much money it’s basically liquid gold. We’re going to bard them soon, remember not to damage the cargo! We’re going to be the richest pirates in Rivain!”
Her crew roared with enthusiasm. Rook drew her sword and pointed it upwards.
“Are you with me?”
“Let’s board this ship!” they yelled.
Rook looked at the other ship, now at their left. She ordered at the helmsman, “Hard to larboard!”
He turned the ship to the left, and then—
A bang like an explosion. The whole ship quacked from the impact and Rook almost fell, but she managed to stay up on her feet.
The ships were in contact, and she screamed with her sword pointing at the nobleman’s vessel, “For gold and glory!”
“For gold and glory!” her crew repeated.
Rook was the first to jump on the deck of the other ship, the impact heavy on her knees. The other crew was ready to meet her, though: five men drew their swords and ran at her.
She intercepted a sword with crossing it with her own. Rook kicked the first man on his shins to make him lose his footing, then disarmed him with a quick wrist movement. Her sword pierced through his guts.
Rook took it back and faced the other four men coming at her. She rolled forward and got up just behind one of them. He tried to slash her, but he was too slow. Rook’s blade cut his throat, and then found the arm of the other man.
Shit. She’d aimed at his hip, but he’d been quick in blocking her—if she wanted to call it that. Rook used her free arm to punch him in the face. She ignored the pain on her knuckles because she heard a satisfying crack as the other man’s nose broke. She pierced him through the chest, and didn’t even check if he was dead before facing another enemy.
Rook went to the next foe, as she heard the noises of metal against metal and people shouting behind her, a sign that her crew was busy fighting, too.
It was like a practiced dance, sword, kick, pierce, parry, roll. Rook took some injuries herself, one on the arm when she failed a feint, and she hit her hip against the wooden mast when one of the enemies managed to push her away.
Both injuries hurt like hell—especially the cut on her arm, that stung so much it felt like a burning pain from shoulder to wrist—but she didn’t stop. She was like a rage demon, clearing the path in front of her with the sheer power of her blade.
When she was surrounded by no less than twenty bodies, Rook stopped. She was covered in blood, either hers or her enemies’, and she took an elfroot potion to ease the pain in her arm and hip.
No new foe was arriving to fight her, so Rook took a moment to look around and noticed with pride that her crew mates were doing just as good.
“Let’s go, Lords of Fortune!” she yelled.
Five or six of her crew mates reached her, ready to storm below decks, but she had not taken three steps that a voice yelled, “Stop this massacre!”
Rook froze. Two men were walking towards her and her crew, one wearing refined clothes he’d probably bought in Orlais, and another wearing a white shirt and a tricorn similar to Isabela’s.
“I guess you’re the nobleman who funded this ship and the captain,” she said.
“There is no need for bloodshed,” the first man said. Despite his Orlesian attire, his accent was Rivaini. Her guess was correct, Rook understood. “We can solve this with a duel.”
“Captain versus captain,” the other man said, drawing his sword.
Rook gestured her crew mates to back off. When she saw, at the corner of her vision, that they’d taken a few steps behind, she pointed her sword at him and said, “I accept. If I win, the cargo is ours. If you win, we’ll leave your ship alone.”
The other man couldn’t refuse. He took a few steps towards her, his sword high. She mirrored his movements, studying her opponent.
He was fast. Rook parried his first hit just in time, and the second got too close to her thighs. She had to finish this duel soon.
She feinted on the left, but at the last moment she brought her sword down on his right shoulder. Blood splattered all over her face, bone cracked and his sword fell.
Rook hadn’t cut off his arm, but he wouldn’t be able to hold a blade anytime soon. The other captain fell on his knees and she pointed her sword at his throat, panting from the effort of the fights.
The man looked at her with pure terror.
“Surrender your ship and cargo, and you’ll keep your life.”
“I surrender,” he whispered. “The cargo is yours.”
“What?! You should defend the cargo with your life!”
Rook gestured towards him to her crew. “Gag him and tie to the mast, he won’t be a problem.”
The nobleman protested, shouted and kicked, but her crew mates were too many. Rook didn’t stay to enjoy the show of having a nobleman put back in his place, though.
She went below decks, her first mate at her heels.
She opened a door by kicking it down and—
Rook gasped.
“Andraste’s flaming tits,” her first mate said.
In the room there were at least thirty barrels. She examined the to see that each one of them had a date, all from the Tower Age. She didn’t have any connection to the Fade, but Rook could swear she could feel some kind of tingle when she was close to the barrels.
Rook thought she was going to pass out. When they sold that, they would make so much money that all the nobles in Rivain put together couldn’t come close to that.
“Let’s bring the cargo to the ship.”
They needed a couple of hours to safely transport all that rum to the Dragonfire, and after that, Rook, her first mate and the navigator evaluated the damages to the ship. They all convened it wasn’t bad enough to prevent the navigation back to the Lords of Fortune’s shores.
Rook noticed with pleasure that no one of her crew had fallen, only some of them were wounded. Nothing that some elfroot potions wouldn’t fix in a few hours.
She took her time to address a thanking prayer to Andraste.
When they finally set sail, the sun was almost setting. In the golden colored light, the storm behind them had dissipated, and Rook closed her eyes to enjoy the wind that was like a lullaby to her.
They were finally going home.
***
Neve stared at her, but not in the way Rook had thought. She was looking at her the same way she looked at the murder board in her office at the Lighthouse.
“What a story,” Taash said.
They’d been back with the beers halfway through the preparations for boarding, and all the glasses were almost empty. Rook finished hers—her throat was now a bit sore from too much talking, and the fresh beer gave her some relief.
“Did you become the richest pirate of Rivain?” Neve asked.
Her tone was amused, and Rook knew immediately what to say.
“You would notice if I was the richest pirate of the country. I’m generous, I shared my treasure with all of the Lords.”
“Thanks again,” Isabela cut in, but then she took a sip of her beer.
Neve’s eyes flicked to her direction, but she said nothing. She finished her beer and said, “I need to have a smoke.”
“I’m coming, too,” Rook said.
As they both walked out, Taash said, “About time.”
Rook smacked their head again—or, at least, tried to. This time, Taash was ready and avoided her slap by ducking. They chuckled and gave her the middle finger, but Rook decided to ignore them and followed Neve outside.
The cool air of the night was a nice change from the warmth of the overcrowded tavern. As soon as the door closed behind the, Neve asked, “Will you tell me what actually happened?”
Rook froze. “What?”
Neve smiled in a way that made her melt.
“The waves would be your guide? Stormy winds are blowing by somewhere in the endless sky? The wind is your lullaby?” She took one step closer, making her heart flutter. “You sing that song all the time, Rook.”
Rook’s whole body felt like it stopped functioning. She did sing sea shanties when no one was around, because it helped her keep herself sane through all the shit she was going through since she’d stopped Solas’s ritual.
But she never sang with anyone else present, and the idea Neve had been listening to her long enough to know the words of her favourite sea shanty—her heart went wild at the thought.
“I didn’t know I had an audience.”
In the dim light, she saw Neve went stiff. She didn’t want her to know she’d been listening to her sing.
Rook had learned to know the other woman in the last few moths, and she knew that if she pushed more on the topic Neve would avoid it.
So, she decided to answer Neve’s question.
“The core of the story isn’t a lie. I did have a ship named Dragonfire back in the days, and I’ve boarded a nobleman’s vessel to steal some rum from the Tower Age. But…”
Neve smirked, her triumphant smile of when she solved a case. It made it difficult for Rook to focus on her words.
“I may have only killed five men instead of twenty. And maybe the nobleman had found only three barrels of rum instead of thirty.”
Neve chuckled, but then asked, “Why wouldn’t you tell the real story, then?”
“I’ve embellished the details because there’s someone inside I wanted to impress.” Then Rook noticed something else and added, “Didn’t you say you wanted to smoke?”
The other woman chuckled. “I’ve stopped years ago.”
Rook’s heart did a back flip at those words. “Then why come out here?”
Neve smirked.
It didn’t improve Rook’s inner turmoil, and she didn’t even try to keep her face straight and indifferent.
“I knew someone would follow me and I wanted to talk in private.”
Neve was fast, as if she feared she may change her mind if she waited. She reached out and kissed Rook.
She instinctively grabbed Neve’s hips and lifted her—the other woman wrapped her legs around Rook’s waist, and she found out she liked the feeling of the metal prosthesis on the back of her thigh.
Neve moaned as she slipped her tongue inside Rook’s mouth, and her heart seemed to explode like it was made with pure gaatlok and Neve had just shot a fireball at it.
Rook reciprocated her passion, careful not to let the other woman fall. She’d wanted this for so long now, despite all her friend’s mocking and teasing, and she was happy that finally she was kissing Neve.
The other woman’s fingers sank into her shoulders, as she adjusted herself better in her grip and—
Neve separated from the kiss abruptly. She looked terrified.
If she stabbed Rook with her own sword, it would have hurt less. She put Neve down, and she could feel her whole demeanor had shifted.
She didn’t even look at Rook in the eye as she spoke.
“I’m sorry, I think I’ve had too much to drink.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said, her words shallow and empty.
Neve finally looked at her in the eye.
“Rook, it’s not you, it—it’s complicated.”
Rook didn’t want to have a fight, but she couldn’t deny that the other woman’s behaviour was angering her.
It was incredible that this same woman was making her feel the happiest person in the world mere moments ago.
“Define complicated.”
Neve sighed. “It’s—I can’t have this right now. Aelia, my case—” She interrupted herself, looking somewhere else. “Rook, let’s just forget about it.”
Rook kept her face cold and bored, as if the other woman hadn’t just broken her heart.
“I will. See you at the Lighthouse.”
Rook came back inside the Hilt. She immediately felt Isabela and Taash’s gazes on her, and she reached her friends.
Had something simple like walking become as hard as lifting boulders? Why was she feeling like her throat was full of ragged glass and she’d break down crying at the first push.
“Oh shit, it went bad,” Taash said.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rook replied. “Can you please—”
Isabela had ordered already a glass of whiskey for her, and she thanked her for it. It burned through her throat and her stomach, but it was still less worse than her emotional pain.
The alcohol lessened it, somehow.
She hadn’t thought about this possibility. Rook ordered another, her friends exchanging worried glances, but she ignored them.
For just one night, she wanted to forget Neve Gallus.