Chapter Text
The Crossroads was a disaster. Already the stench from the funeral pyres and heavy black smoke filled the air. All around them half starved and ragged refugees crowded in small huddles.
She stood, chilled in the mid-winter morning and told herself that the tears stinging her eyes were due to the smoke as she watched the pyres burn.
“What do dwarves do with their dead?” she asked the smaller figure at her side.
Varric heaved a heavy sigh “dwarves and their tradition. They call it returning to the stone. When Bartrand-“ He faltered, “when my brother died we had him taken to Orzammar. It’s comforting I suppose but I know few surfacers who admit to having any stone sense left.”
“I’m sorry Varric.” She said shooting the dwarf a small smile of thanks.
“Listen, Rosebud,” Varric said his eyes on the funeral pyres ahead
“Don’t let this eat you up inside…”
“I killed those people today Varric.”
“Only after they tried to kill you first I might point out.” He countered.
“It doesn’t matter Varric. They had a life, people who knew them and loved them, wives, children even, and I took it from them.”
“Look around you at these people Roses. Do you really think the Templars or Mages cared who got caught in their crossfire? If you hadn’t done what you did you would be dead right now and so would they.”
She heaved a heavy sigh of her own “Na via lerno Victoria, is that it?” He shot her a puzzled glance but nodded slowly.
“Something like that.” He rubbed a hand down his face; the devastation of the crossroads wasn’t just affecting her.
“Cassandra sent me to find you. She’s still co-ordinating efforts with Corporal Vale but she wants you to speak to the scouts, see if you can get them out there to hunt something for these people to eat.”
That, she could do at least do and she nodded her assent to Varric before turning from the pyres. Mother Giselle’s suggestions had been farcical and the longer she thought on it, the more laughable it seemed.
Just march back to Val Royeaux and confront the Grand Clerics – her, a knife ear, she’d be dead before she opened her mouth. But she knew with a sinking certainty it is what she would be forced to do, if Cassandra had to drag her all the way to the Grand Cathedral by the tip of her good ear.
She had tracked down Scout Harding amongst some of the other Inquisition scouts. The dwarf had been more than happy to gather up the necessary people and make their way into the hills. She even handed Alix a spare bow, face shy as she asked her to accompany them. She hesitated before replying. She was no bowman, there had been no call for one in the back alleys and narrow streets of the alienage.
But she liked Harding, there was only the slightest hint of reverence when she spoke to her unlike the folk in Haven and the Crossroads who all but fell at her feet or else grasped her cloak when she passed. It was a chilling feeling, to go unmasked, marked and noted through a crowd. She had grown used to the casual disregard the Shems showed her kind, to being invisible. And regardless what Cassandra and some of the others might say, she did not feel divinely touched only ridiculously, pathetically lucky in the worst way possible.
As predicted, her skills with a bow were somewhat lacking and a rift they stumbled across put a stop to her budding career as a bowman. She had returned to the Crossroads with the few injured and set about preparing the meat they brought back for the cook fire.
There she remained for the rest of the day, slicing, skinning and dismembering the procession of carcasses the scouts brought down. It was good honest work and she was gladdened by it and by sundown, though her limbs and back were aching her perpetual headache from lack of sleep was gone and she was able to look on the days work with a smile.
All around the Crossroads, cook fires had sprung up and there was the buzz of hope in the air that fully bellies always brought. She bent again to clean blood and offal off of her blade. It was poor use for such an instrument and she reminded herself to pick up a belt knife in Haven for more rough work. She washed her hands while she was at it and was just drying them when Solas exited the small healers cabin and made his way over to her.
“How fair the injured” She said by way of greeting.
“I have done for them what I could,” he said his voice coolly neutral as always “but I am no healer and what magics I have may do more to harm than help.”
“I thought magic could cure anything” She was perplexed, that was one of the only good things she had ever heard to magic. To heal wounds and knit flesh, to call a man back from the brink of death.
“In theory, yes” his voice was slow as though explaining to a small child “but in reality, the strain it puts on the body of both the mage and the recipient is immense. Sometimes it is better to leave the healing to nature, slow as it.” She nodded dumbly at his explanation, truly none the wiser – what she knew about magic came straight from the Chantry and they were less than complimentary on the subject.
“What happened to your arm” he said into the ensuing silence. Ah, that. Blast and damnation, he would be the one to notice that. She had been holding it close to her side, curled towards her chest to avoid moving it.
“We stumbled upon a rift earlier whilst out hunting, it was nothing really” a complete lie, in truth had it not been for twenty odd scouts raining arrows the monstrous stick like demon would have plunged his claws straight through her. She had been utterly useless, gripped by a fear so immense she had been frozen to the spot as it whipped her up in its immense hands. It had been closing the rift however that had wrought the change on her arm. Seeing straight through her untruths as it seemed he always did, Solas merely put out his had for her arm to examine it.
“I’m not hurt truly, there is no pain.” He didn’t respond merely gestured again for her arm. She gave it to him reluctantly and stood in uncomfortable silence as he stripped back the sleeve of her coat and shirt to better look at her arm.
pain
“There is no pain, truly.” She tried again but he ignored her as he began his examination. “It… it is a sort of numbness and yet an ache. It began as soon as soon as I sealed the rift.” His eyes met her for a brief worried moment before he turned his attention back to her arm.
She watched him in silence a while, his long fingers, deft and graceful as they carefully poked the skin around her mark. She wished she had washed her hands more thoroughly, her nails were still filthy with old blood and offal and there was dirt ground into the calluses across her palms and back of her knuckles but all thoughts were driven from her head when she felt a soothing flush of healing magic make its way up her arm. Her hackles rose and she could see goose bumps break out on her skin. She made as if to move her arm away but Solas held her tight.
“It is the mark” he said, teeth gritted as he poured more magic into the healing, she was uncomfortably aware of her arm as never before and the press of his fingers against her hand felt almost overwhelming and she was intimately aware of the sensation of flesh on flesh. “It was never meant to be caged in mortal flesh.” He muttered but she wasn’t paying attention. It was too much, she felt as though her skin was being flayed and she felt her knees begin to give out when Solas finally declared it enough and withdraw his hands and with it the spell.
She swayed and Solas’s hands came up again this time around her shoulders as if to steady her but she shook him off. She felt too tender for touch.
“What happened” she gasped when at last she had her breath back. “The mark-“ Solas began but she cut him off
“You said that already, what happened, was that healing magic?”
“The mark you bare is connected to the very fade itself. When you reach to seal a rift the magic pours through you in a way that puts your body under stress and damages it- the numbness you felt is your body’s way of protecting you from that pain. I merely undid the damage.”
“Will it get worse?”
“Perhaps” he paused and then continued slower “It may be that when we seal the breach the damage to your arm will lesson, that we may even be able to remove the mark from your arm entirely.”
“Perhaps? May be?” She was getting impatient with his half answers “What is the alternative?” she demanded.
“…The alternative is that it kills you” there was such a note of sorrow and pity in his voice that she couldn’t stand it and her anger and impatience fled her as quickly as it arrived. After a long pause, she said simply “that’s fair I suppose” she felt exhausted both from the strange healing and from the revelation. Would there be no end to all this mess? “Everyone else died at the conclave, I suppose its fair I join them, no? I guess the Dread Wolf truly caught my scent.”
At her words Solas flinched. Meeting her eyes with a look of caution he said, “I did not know the elves of the alienages remembered the old ways. I thought you were all Andrastian’
“We remember more than you give us credit for” in truth, the tales of the old gods worshiped by their ancestors was just that, tales and half remembered folk tales, given as much weight as leaving milk out for the pixies, but she was hardly going admit that to Solas.
“Goodnight Solas, and thank you for the healing I guess.” She trudged back to camp and her own bedroll. There would be meat there too for the evening meal instead of the simple porridge and dry rations they had been subsisting on. The thought did not cheer her as much should have.
That night after Cassandra had finished eating she stood and gestured for Alix to follow. Alix laid down her bowl , she had still not finished eating, she was grown more used to regular meals on the road but was still going slowly, and followed. They walked in silence away from their small meal until privacy could be assured before Cassandra spoke.
“I have sent a bird back to Haven regarding Mother Giselle’s suggestion. I shall wait to see how they respond but I believe the others will agree that taking her advice is the best course of action we have. That we should make our way to Val Royeaux and speak to the Grand Clerics as soon as possible”
“You don’t mean to return to Haven?” she had known this was coming but the haste with which Cassandra was moving sent a bolt of apprehension through her gut.
”Cassandra, you cannot really mean to take the old woman’s advice can you?”
“That old woman is a Chantry Mother and one of the Justinia’s closet friends!”
“And I am an elf. Think Cassandra, you lived in Val Royeaux, what do you really expect me to do? Just walk right up to the Chantry Mothers? They’d nail me to the Chantry door walls by my one good ear”
Cassandra barely flinched “You are the Herald of Andraste, they would not dare-“
“Yes, they would!” when had her voice gotten so loud? “They will always dare, just like they dared to raise Halamshiral to the ground, just like Dales, just like when they locked the alienage gates and left us there to starve!” She was almost shouting now and she felt her body shaking with anger, resentment and fear.
“That was not the Chantry that did that Her-” Cassandra began
“No, but it was humans!” What was she thinking? She would get more than just a slap to the face for raising her voice like that. But to her surprise Cassandra’s reply her voice soft and she reached as though to place a hand on her shoulder but thought better of it.
“What choice do we have Her- Alix? Without the Chantry’s support we are nothing, heretics and they will turn on us all eventually. But if we succeed we may gather the support we need to seal the breach once and for all.” It was not a rebuke, and kinder than she deserved. She knew Cassandra did not blame her for not being able to seal it the first time round but she couldn’t help the note of defensiveness that crept into her voice as she said
“I did what I could Cassandra, I tried to seal the breach I-“
“I know you did” Cassandra turned to her then but her voice was kind as she said “and that is why we must go to Val Royeaux to gain allies to help us. I will not let them hurt you Alix. On that you have my word. Any who seek to harm the Herald of Andraste will have to go through me first.” And for a wonder, she believed her. She still felt the fear down deep in her gut but she had grown up listening to the story of the Champion of Orlais. How at barely twenty she had brought down a dragon and foiled an attempt on the old Divine’s life. She had a sudden vision of Cassandra rushing Chantry clerics with her shield and throwing officials over her shoulder. It was an oddly comforting sight.
“What was it mother Giselle said to you? You do not have to convince them, you just have to make them doubt.”