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“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Her expression doesn’t bode well, but then, Nathaniel has seen her furious before, and if she were truly interested in killing him, she would certainly have done it long ago.
“You are surely familiar with the standard definition of the word,” he responds dryly.
“For Second, you’ve sure got a knack for losing Wardens,” Oghren says with a chuckle.
“At least it is not a knack for losing my pants,” Nathaniel responds curtly.
Oghren lets out a hearty guffaw. The queen says, sharply, “That is not funny.”
Nathaniel tells them both, “No, but it is true. How are the schleets treating you these days, Oghren?”
“That was you?” the queen asks incredulously.
“He needs to drink less,” Nathaniel responds with a grimace.
“Now that is a sodding cruel, heartless bastard thing to say,” Oghren grumbles. “I have to drink more to forget about it. I haven’t slept in months.”
“Your snoring on our last reconnaissance mission would indicate otherwise,” Nathaniel says sourly.
“You are not changing the subject,” the queen interjects. “Are you really trying to tell me that you haven’t any idea where Anders has gone?”
“I was at the Pearl the other day – ” Oghren begins; Nathaniel closes his eyes with a pained expression upon his face, and the queen snaps, “The subject not being the loss of your pants, Oghren. Focus.”
Oghren gives them both a wounded look, “Now look, you idiot nug-humpers, I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re the last person to accuse anyone of rutting with livestock,” Nathaniel mutters; Oghren mumbles something about a sheep which the queen clearly chooses to ignore, most likely for the sake of her own sanity. The queen is many things, but rarely a fool; Nathaniel himself wishes he wasn’t quite so well-informed, but Oghren has a big mouth and little concept of what is and isn’t appropriate dinner-table talk.
“Anyway,” Oghren says once he's done mumbling about the sheep, “I asked Mistress Sanga for a drink, like you do – ”
“If this is the story about you falling asleep on top of Riska mid-act, I’ve already heard it,” the queen interrupts again. Nathaniel decides not to ask where she heard it; some things about his monarch he really prefers not to know.
“That was a good night,” Oghren says with a chuckle.
“Not for Riska, I suspect,” the queen says.
“Eh, she’ll get over it,” Oghren says with a shrug. “But this was after that. Or was it right before? I guess it doesn't matter; the sodding days run together around here... Well, anyway, she – Mistress Sanga – mentioned how her best client was gone, you know the one.” He waggled his brows in a suggestive manner. “You got real friendly with her as I recall, before you got to be all noble and stuffy.”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t heard any scandalous stories about Captain Isabela for weeks,” the queen muses; several unbidden images come to Nathaniel, who is male, after all, and he spends a few moments composing himself and wishing fervently for different friends.
“Right, right,” Oghren agrees, clearly warming to the tale. “And then one of the girls comes to the bar, the one with the tattoos – ”
“Alina,” Nathaniel says automatically.
The queen gives him a startled look, and Oghren says slyly, “She looks a bit like you, from a certain angle, Commander.”
“Moving on,” Nathaniel says with a glare of his own, before Oghren can elaborate on which angle, exactly, that is.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Oghren says. “So, she asks for a drink too – ”
“Is there a point to this?” the queen demands.
“I’m getting there,” Oghren tells her. “So then she says how the captain took to the sea some weeks ago, and how she took the pretty blond man with her, and how isn’t it too sodding bad that there’s no one else around who knows how to do that electricity thing?” He falls silent for a moment, then adds, “I guess girly-man wasn’t as nancy as he looked; robes and all, those girls seem to miss him.”
“Might I just mention that there are certain things about Anders that I really would rather not know? Ever?” Nathaniel says at last, when the uncomfortable silence has gone on too long.
The queen has a curious expression on her face as she muses, “I’m sure those things will only multiply if he’s really gone off with Isabela.”
“She wouldn’t really take a runaway Warden facing a murder charge Maker-knows-where,” Nathaniel interjects. He has never actually spoken to the woman, but that tips over the line of reckless into sheer madness.
“Oh,” the queen says with a sigh, “I don’t know about that; back when half of Ferelden was trying to kill us, she did once ask to borrow Alistair for a week every summer, so I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“There,” Oghren says triumphantly, “y’see? She's got a taste for the nancy ones. Begging your pardon, Commander.”
Nathaniel takes in a deep breath, lets it out, and thinks that the king is at the very top of the quickly growing list of people about whom he would really rather not know these sorts of things. “Is that all?” the queen asks.
“I hate to say this,” Nathaniel mutters, “but that may actually be the only lead we have at present.”
“So, do we make for the Pearl?” Oghren says with barely-masked eagerness. “Someone there might know something. Or... something.”
“Eloquent,” the queen sighs. “Why do I have the feeling you’re only hoping for a chance to lose your pants, again?”
“And I already told you,” Nathaniel adds, “I am not apologizing to Riska for you.”
“Some friend you are,” Oghren grumbles. “You’re supposed to have my back.”
“If you need backup to make peace with a lady of that time-honored profession, I wash my hands of you,” Nathaniel says, as delicately as possible. Then again, the Pearl does, at least, have a satisfactory selection of wines, and he has a head just brimming with thoughts which could certainly use some dulling. “I suppose it can’t be helped,” he says to the queen with a shrug and a grimace. “We may as well follow up on it; I will let you know what we find, if anything.”
“I am more concerned that you don’t lose anything else,” she tells them. “Though Oghren, if you do lose your pants again, I don’t want to know.”
“That makes two of us,” Nathaniel says with a great deal of conviction. Oghren is already on his way out the door, a spring in his step, and as Nathaniel turns to follow him, he can only hope, fervently, that Mistress Sanga’s wine cellar has been recently restocked.