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He’s already cooking when she makes it home. She has to hide a smile – Zevran always takes the day off work to prepare. This holiday determines the rest of the year, he’d told her once. To skimp on one day and have a bad year? That would be no good.
She leans over for a kiss before heading into the other room to change. ‘How’s it coming?’ she calls through the wall, stowing her daggers beneath the bed. ‘It smells good.’
Zevran pokes his head around the bedroom door with a grin. ‘Come and taste for yourself.’
She couldn’t say no even if she wanted – Zevran’s cooking is still the best she’s ever tasted, and he always goes all out for Sathinar. He will have been to the market first thing this morning to buy everything fresh, and will spend a good few hours cooking before the day is done.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ she offers, though she already knows there is; it’s become something of a tradition for them to cook this meal together. The celebration is all about moving forwards together, after all. Surrounding yourself with the things you want to take on with you into the new year.
‘Mind chopping the fish and onions?’ He’s leant over the broth simmering on the stove, and she has to squeeze to get past. The kitchen really isn’t big enough for the both of them, but they always manage it if they squash together. They’re used to cramped quarters, and truth be told, Siegfried prefers them. She and Zevran slept crowded together right up until the Landsmeet, after all, in her tiny little tent. They’ve never had much space, but they’ve never needed it.
He’s already laid out the chopping board and ingredients for her – waiting for her to get home, and the pang of affection she feels at that realisation would have disgusted her just ten years ago. Now? She still can’t quite believe they have this at all, and she intends to make the very most of it.
‘Who’s joining us tonight?’ she asks, starting on peeling the prawns first.
‘It’s just a small gathering this year. You said Shianni couldn’t make it?’
She nods in acknowledgement. ‘The trip’s too far, she can’t leave Cyrian for that long and she doesn’t want to travel with a baby.’ Cyrian is entering his fourth year, and Siegfried understands her cousin’s reservations. Still, it’s a shame not to see them. She has yet to meet her godchild.
Zevran pulls her from her thoughts. ‘Isabela and Merrill arrived this morning; Isabela came by but couldn’t stay. Apparently Merrill wants to get us a housewarming gift.’
Siegfried can’t help laughing fondly. ‘We’ve lived here for nearly two years.’
He echoes her laugh. ‘This is her first time here, you know this. She thinks it proper.’
They’ve only met Merrill once or twice, before they lived in Treviso. Isabela they know better – met her back in Ferelden, got to know her in all meanings of the word. Siegfried found Merrill reminded her of Leliana. Isabela certainly seemed smitten. She was glad for them. It would be good to see them again.
‘The last I heard from Anders he said he may be in the area, but who knows,’ Zevran continued, motioning for the prawns to be added to the pan. ‘Have your friends heard anything?’
He always leans just a little too much into the word ‘friends’, and she rolls her eyes in response. ‘Apparently Adiv saw a man matching his description coming off the road to Oleiros. No confirmation, though.’
‘No matter, there is plenty of food.’ Zevran always makes enough to feed pretty much everyone they know. She doesn’t have to ask why – neither of them grew up with much, and she understands the urge to share what you can with friends. It’s for that reason Sathinar is her favourite holiday. It had been a communal celebration back in the alienage, and though they’d never planned it this way, has become something of an annual gathering here as well.
This one is special, though. This is Asher’s first.
She pauses in her preparations, knife lying idle on the board, monkfish gazing up at her with dead eyes. Zevran had explained to her how Sathinar wasn’t something elves in the Crows really celebrated, how he only knew of its existence because of his time with the Dalish – though they had called it something different. Salthir’annar. ‘The waking of the year’. It’s something she’s celebrated since childhood, she doesn’t need to know its old name to know its meaning.
With Asher, though, it is different. (She learns quickly that many things are different with Asher, for all of them. But he fits well enough, so well that one day she looks up to realise she can’t remember exactly when he went from ‘stray’ to ‘son’.)
Zevran’s hand finds her own, she thanks him with a warm look. She never expected any of this – not Zevran, not a home, certainly not a teenage Crow recruit who seemed to worm his way into their lives almost effortlessly. At first, she’d just felt responsible. They’d been the ones to ‘liberate’ him from the Crows, if you could call it that. And now?
He’d gotten sick last month, and she’d nearly driven herself mad with worry. Time was, she could barely even let Zevran into her life. And then this kid creeps up on her too, and suddenly she has this- this family. And if her eyes are damp it’s because she’s moved on to the onions.
Zevran is humming beside her, leans over to taste the broth, mutters something about flavours. Catches her looking, throws her a brilliant smile. She always thought at some point her heart would have to stop growing, stop swelling every time he does that, and yet here she is. She has to be nearly all heart by now. It fills her up.
She huffs a little at her own ridiculousness, and turns back to the onions. The paella simmering on the stove beside her, Zevran’s elbow knocking hers. The table set for family and friends, Asher due home any minute, and the others will arrive soon after. This is good.
Sathinar is a holiday of reflections and hopes, she reasons. If ever there was a time she was allowed to be a little ridiculous, it’s now.