Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Annecy
7:56 Storm
“Very Romantic.”
“Take the hint and shut it Martin!”
The shout disturbed the otherwise comfortable murmurings of the inn. The space was wide and roomy, with most of the ground floor devoted to this dining/drinking area. Pillars supporting the upper floors set in 3 rows of 6 parallel to the bar, each about 5 meters from the next in line. A large fire pit was set in the middle of the room with a metal tunnel set above it that ran to the nearest wall to get rid of the smoke. All in all quite a well-furnished and comfortable establishment, if only quite awkward at the moment. A group of well-armed and armoured men having a shouting match will have that effect.
Well, one of them was shouting, a tall wiry man with long dark brown hair and a handsome face. The man he was shouting at was siting quite at his ease leaning back in his chair, with an unconvincing look of shock on his face. He was slightly shorter that the first with short black hair, the face was perhaps not as handsome as the first man but it was younger, mid 20’s probably. Both were armed. The taller in a heavy chain mail and plate, shield trapped to his back, and hand axe at his waist. The other wore a sword in a scabbard resting against his hip, with a pair of twin daggers strapped just over his shoulders.
They were not the only ones there, 9 people, 7 men, 2 women, were grouped around two tables pushed close together. One of the men was a dwarf named Jup, beard intricately braided at a difference from his bald head, heavy battle-axe resting against his chair, half paying attention to the proceedings. Two of the men were elves, Lint having fair almost white hair, the man was short even for an elf however he carried a great sword that was at least a head taller than he was. Paival was Dalish, which summed him up quite well, he bore a bow and daggers, had chestnut hair braided back into a pony tail. Between the Vallaslin on his face, and the small trinkets standing out in his armour, he was making it clearly as he could that he may not be in his clan at the moment, but he had not forgotten where he came from. Both watched Lucas shout impassively.
Haskeer was by far the largest of the group, Avvar tattoos marking what little of his skin could be seen under a beard to rival Jup’s and jaw length hair. The hair was black, however the beard seemed to be mixed with ginger that did not match the hair on his head. Fredrick was blond, broad and falling asleep into his plate. A sword and boarder although he only had his sword hanging at his belt with the shield on his bed upstairs.
Coilla was tall and lithe with shoulder length raven hair. Her leather armour was crossed with a pair of belts crossing her chest, and another around her waist carrying more knives than looked sensible, however anyone who had seen her throwing those knives never looked at those belts the same way again. The hand axe tucked in her belt behind her looked like an afterthought. Renee wore a mix of chain mail and leather armour, her hair a mousy blonde, a quiver strapped to her back, her bow was back in her room but a short sword and dagger remained on her belt. Coilla was smirking however Renee was keeping her face blank.
Every one of them either wore tunic, cloak or had some marking on their armour that indicated that they were a Grey Warden.
“Geez calm down Lucas, it was a compliment.”
“What Renee and I do when we are on our own is none of your business!”
“Sure, but when Renee brought up how you took a walk by Annecy’s river, and that you hid a picnic basket, I was impressed by your romantic side.” Martin sat forward in his chair making a placating gesture with his hands. “She was proud of you, is it so wrong for the rest of us to be?”
Lucas snorted and turned on his heel to march out of the room and up the stairs. Everyone even the semi-conscious Fredrick turned to look at Martin. “What?”
“You had to wind him up,” Said Renee tiredly.
“I didn’t say anything?!” Martin said exasperatedly.
“You know how hard it is for him to do this kind of stuff around you lot, sarcastic comments don’t help.”
“Sarcastic, I was being honest!”
“Well maybe sarcasm is your resting state of voice,” Renee said tartly. “Next time Lucas tries to make a gesture you will not say a word no matter how good intentioned you were, otherwise I’ll put an arrow in your arse, clear?”
“Fine fine,” Martin breathed tiredly, “As long as you admit he overreacted.”
The scowl Renee shot Martin could have turned water to ice. “Fine he was a bit defensive. But you can hardly blame him, you lot were awful when he first was trying to court me.”
Coilla chimed in “Well to be fair he was a prat about it.”
Everyone at the table smirked at that, each remembering some disastrous gesture. Each attempt seeming to be set down by the Maker to be his personal amusement when it inevitably went wrong. Before even getting to the point of asking Renee to take a walk with him around the battlements Lucas’ affairs had kept most of them entertained for weeks.
“He was nervous” Renee said loyally.
Everyone turned their attention to Renee at this. They were silent for a full 10 seconds.
“Fine he was a bit of an idiot about it,” Renee rallied immediately with “but we all deserve the opportunity to be a little stupid at some point in our lives.”
“Very true” said Paival “we all have an experience like that at some point, at least you and Lucas are happy for the time.”
Renee smiled gratefully at Paival as he and Lint rose to get refills, taking a nod or a shake from the others at the table to indicate if they wanted another too. For some reason Fredrick’s pleas for another drink seemed to fall on deaf ears.
The rest of the group relaxed a bit more. Jup scraped the last of his meal into one last spoonful and transferred it to his mouth. As Lint and Paival returned with the drinks Jup said “I tried to give the kid some advice, but at the end I was starting to think he’d been kicked in the head by a bronto or somethin. Complete plonker. ”
“Watch it Dwarf” Renee growled evaporating the momentarily calm atmosphere.
“What, you just said he ‘was a bit of an idiot’?” Jup said indignantly.
Coilla leaned in to Jup as he was taking a swig from his tankard and said, “She is allowed to say what she wants about her man, doesn’t mean we are allowed to say stuff about him, at least while she is in earshot.”
Jup breathed out a sigh, “I left Orzammar to get away from doublespeak and hypocrisy and other Desher bronto-shit.”
No one made eye contact with Jup for a while except Renee who looked at him very calmly with a raised eyebrow. After a moment of silence around the table Renee got up to leave, simply stating that she was going to bed.
Shortly after she left, the door to the inn opened and two more figures in Grey Warden armour walked in.
Maeve was tall and broad, short dark red hair, sword at her belt and shield on her back. Senior Warden Rioul with a similar build but with a great sword strapped to his back and black hair. Both wore heavy plate metal.
The Wardens at the table sat straighter in their chairs as the two approached.
“Martin, Haskeer, we need you outside” said Rioul, his voice was very soft, everyone present had enough respect for him that he rarely needed to shout to get his orders followed. Both Martin and Haskeer got to their feet at once, Haskeer collecting a long spear from the wall. As the foursome walked out of the inn again, Coilla motioned to Fredrick who by now had lost his battle to stay awake, Jup got to his feet fixing his axe on his back. The two of them took their comrade to the room he was sharing for the night with Lint and Jup.
The elves left on their own looked at each other, then collected up the remaining plates and carried them to the bar, earning a nod from the innkeeper who was busy refilling the tankards of some other customers. Lint and Paival had left the tankards of Martin, Haskeer, and Coilla on the table as some were still not finished and there was a good chance that a few of them might come back to finish. Jup’s was of course empty.
The two sat at the table having their usual debate that Lint should try some ranged weapon, a long bow, horse bow, crossbow, slingshot, something. Lint as usual turned it around to point out that Paival should upgrade his daggers for a sword or axe or something, what is he going to do if he gets and Ogre in his face? Neither of them really put much effort into the argument, they had gone over it many times, and it was mostly just entertaining stubbornness by this point. When a few other people were in on the debate giving their ‘helpful suggestions’, and the ale was flowing, the debates could be quite fun.
The noise in the inn was getting a bit louder, the locals finding good excuses to have ‘just one more’ before going home for the night. A few glances were sent in the direction of the two elves, sitting by themselves on two empty tables. Lint occasionally glancing around the room looking for and finding people staring at them. Paival seemed quite unconcerned, but Lint knew he would be ready to react should anything happen.
“Like they have never seen an elf before,” murmured Lint under his breath.
“Maybe they have never seen a Grey Warden before,” said Paival deliberately.
“Doesn’t matter, bet the results the same.”
Just then the door burst open and a man staggered in, he seemed scared as he hurried up to a group of men he obviously knew. “Magic” he wheezed out, “was going by Carter’s house, saw weird lights comin out of his window. That dog faced Warden Woman standing outside.”
Despite the wheeze most of the room seemed to have heard it, and many eyes darted to the two elves sitting by themselves near the stairs.
“This could go sour,” said Paival under his breath as if discussing the weather.
Plenty of murmuring could now be heard coming from the groups of men who kept looking askance at the two Wardens. Lint was deciding to leave or not, looking like they were running away could just as easily trigger a scene as staying where they were.
Before he could decide the Senior Warden and the other 3 had returned. Martin closing the door behind them against the chill. The presence of 4 more armed Wardens had a quietening effect on most of the crowd that otherwise had been getting more and more restive.
Martin and Haskeer both resumed their seats and took swigs from their remaining tankards. Rioul and Maeve taking seats as well. All unaware of what had been going about the room prior to their return.
Most of the crowd had stopped their murmuring, it was one thing when it was 2 elves, but 6 Wardens, one of them probably a mage, that inspires a bit more caution. In most people anyway. “What have you done to poor Carter?” said a man at the table the entrant had stumbled to.
Rioul turned to the man, “Nothing.”
“That’s a lie, I saw the magic myself, one of you’s a mage.”
That got some reaction from the crowd, some in them mumming to their neighbours.
Rioul looked calmly at the man as if sizing him up, “Yes we have a mage. Do you have a problem with a mage setting Darkspawn on fire?”
“There ain’t no Darkspawn in Carters house. What have you Grey Wardens been up to?”
A man who felt himself safely hidden in the crowd shouted “If you have a mage, send him to the Free Marches to fight the Qunari, let those curses fight the horn-heads. Do sommat useful.”
“Master Carter’s son had a broken leg, our mage helped it to heal,” Rioul was generally a calm man, but his patience was obviously waning.
Disbelieving snorts rang through the room, at this Haskeer stood up. Haskeer was built like a bear, taller by half a head than anyone else in the room and broad as an oak trunk. Holding the spear in his hands he boomed with his deep voice that silenced the room. “If anyone has a problem with me killing Darkspawn and helping a young lad’s leg, let him come here and say it to my face.”
The spear in his hand had a glass jewel embedded in the top of the handle. About a quarter of the spears length was the double sided blade at the tip, and the opposite end finished with a blunt piece of metal that could easily crack a skull, in which was set the glass jewel. The jewel stated to glow.
Faced with this giant of a man, holding a spear was intimidating enough, the fact that he was a mage and the spear was actually a mages staff, meant that for once no one was stupid enough to say a word.
Rioul stood and looked slowly about the room, “Time for bed I think, Wardens upstairs we have a lot of work tomorrow.”
Martin Lint Paival and Haskeer obeyed immediately, walking directly to the stairs, but not too quickly. Maeve and Rioul were the last to leave following their fellows, Rioul thanking the innkeeper for his hospitality.
As Lint said his farewells and disappeared into his room, Paival, Haskeer and Martin carried on further down the corridor to their room. Once inside Haskeer handed Martin the spear then turned to a Warhammer that was set in the corner, inspecting it almost lovingly before turning to his bed satisfied that it was unharmed in his absence.
“Did you have to make the staff glow,” Paival asked Martin as he performed a similar examination of the spear, although less obviously, he did not want to offend Haskeer by implying that he did not trust him to look after the weapon.
“Well you must admit it did make it more dramatic,” Martin said reasonably. “The whole point of Haskeer playing the mage while we are in towns is because NO ONE is going to dare to try and lynch him. A bit of drama helps to sell it.”
“Fair enough,” conceded Paival, “just be careful, you push it too far and we could have a dramatic incident”
“We should sleep, Deep Roads in the morning.” Rumbled Haskeer as he set himself down on the bed.
“Well no, breakfast, awkward goodbyes, and trudging through the country in the morning.” Said Martin as he got comfy in his bed, “We probably won’t get to the Deep Roads until at least afternoon.”
Paival ended the discussion by hitting Martin in the face with his pillow. “Take the hint and shut up.”