Chapter Text
Skyhold was unnaturally hot. Clouds like popped corn dotted the sky, offering no shade. Residents of the castle dragged themselves around to perform their duties with sour faces that that made it clear that it was not the day for casual conversation. Sparkler stayed cooped up near his books, sending servants to fetch him water. It was just as well. Varric was in a shit mood and didn't feel like chatting. He sat in his room, wiping sweat from his forehead with a cloth, a letter in his hand. Bianca had replied.
V-
I’ve read your letter. I know you were awfully serious about it — about all of it. I know you think you meant everything you wrote, but you lied — to me, and to yourself. You said that it wasn’t about the lyrium. You said it was about everything else. Trust me, I know we have issues with a lot of things. But the fact is, all those issues existed before the lyrium, and we were fine. Excuse me if I come off a little flippant right now. Or pissed, or bitter, or however this letter reads to you. The truth is, I don’t know what I feel. But I know what I’m going to do — or what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to give up on us. We’ve been through it all. I know that you still love me. And I love you. I love you. So if you think you can throw away a decade of love for one shitty mistake — you can’t. I expected a letter like this a long time ago, like when I got married, or after, when everything was hard. If anything, this letter is overdue. But I already know what I’m going to do now that it’s here. I’m going to fight to have you. I’m going to fight for us.
Yours,
-B
“Shit.” Varric leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Now what?”
“Don’t you already know?” Cole asked, and Varric jumped in his chair to find the spirit standing next to him, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the paper.
Varric pressed a hand to his chest, willing his shocked heart to settle. “Kid. What did I tell you about sneaking up on people like that?”’
Cole ignored his admonition. “Words are solid things,” he said. “You can grab hold of them in your hand, twist them, fold them on themselves until they are opposite. Silence is enough to speak, but too much a wisp to grasp hold of. When you are silent, they can only listen.”
Varric considered this. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t reply?”
“That depends,” Cole said. The spirit’s pale eyes caught his through the curtain of his blond hair. “Do you want to give her words to twist?” It was an honest question, free of judgement.
“I – love her,” Varric said haltingly, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face. “I think. I mean, I loved her for years.” The admission seemed to drain him. “I must’ve read this letter a million times.”
“And what do you think of it?”
“I’m old,” he said, as if that explained everything. “But she’s never spoken like this before.” He wasn’t sure why he was blabbing all of this to the kid, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “I was always the one that was passionate about us. This… is everything I ever wanted.”
Cole regarded him silently. He seemed, at that moment, very unlike the kid that Varric insisted on thinking of him as. He seemed very much like a spirit --- removed, and yet aware.
“Cassandra reads me your words, sometimes,” Cole said.
Varric stared at him uncomprehendingly. “The Seeker reads to you?”
“Yes. Swords and Shields. I like listening to it in the rain. It will rain today.”
“I can’t believe she’s not done with that trash,” Varric said, waving a dismissive hand.
“Oh, she’s read it through five times already,” Cole said. “But she wants to share it with me, too.”
“I thought she thought you were a demon.”
“She still thinks that I’m a demon,” Cole replied airily. “But she likes to share your words.” The spirit paused. “Those words seem to want more than what’s in that letter.”
“Those words are fiction. Shitty fiction.”
“They’re still true to you.”
Varric smoothed out the folds of the letter with an ink-stained thumb. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I want more. But am I ever going to get it? Do I even deserve it?”
“So, do you still love her, or do you want to reply because she offers more than nothing?” Cole asked. Varric didn’t reply. He didn’t even look up. Cole didn’t seem to expect him to, and after a pause the spirit spoke again. “I think it’s less than nothing, and you deserve more than less than nothing.”
Varric looked up, startled by Cole’s bluntness, but the spirit had already disappeared.
Varric collapsed back into his chair, and there he sat for longer than he would care to admit, staring at the letter from a distance that was far too far to actually make out any words – just the swooping, curling lines of Bianca's handwriting. And then, he decided he needed a damn walk, weather be damned. He wandered out of the castle, where the sun beat an unnatural, burning ray right down on the back of his neck. He groaned. Was this caused by the rift? Those useless popcorn clouds had joined to make some respectable, dark masses, but the sun found a way to snake through the gaps and burn him specifically.
Solas stopped him by the doors to the main hall. “Child of stone,” he said. “Someone is performing magic. Strong magic. This heat may be the result of it.”
"Well, if you find them, tell them to cut it the fuck out,” Varric said, too hot and sad to care. He made his way down the stairs with only a nod and raise of his hand as his goodbye.
He got to the bottom with no goal in sight. The courtyard was nearly empty, as most were doing their best to stay indoors rather than walk around in the heat. He held the letter in his hand but didn’t read it again. Instead he wandered, trying to walk off the jitteriness that had taken hold of him. And then it started raining. It just started.
"Shit," he said. He was shocked even though every sign was there, had been there all day. The humidity, the clouds joining and growing dark -- fade, hadn't Cole told him? He'd completely disregarded that.
There was no roar of thunder, no change in wind – the clouds released their burden, but they were taking their time about it, with small drops that stretched thin and light before they hit the ground. They wiped away the heat and the day was clear, fresh, and Varric took a huge, cool breath in as he ducked into the armory for shelter.
He took quick stock of himself -- wet, very wet, and fuck, the letter was wet too. There was no saving it -- the words were smudged beyond comprehension. He rubbed his face, letting out a long breath. Did it matter? It didn't matter. He wasn’t going to reply to it. He was done giving Bianca more words to twist.
"But why can't he just tell her that he loves her?" Cole's voice floated down from upstairs and Varric froze.
"His love places her in danger," Cassandra's voice now, and Varric bit back a curse. Her accent was thick the way it got when she got really worked up about something. "He would not tell her. That's how you know his love is true. Now, for this part, hold your comments till the end, because this part must be read uninterrupted."
"Why?" Cole asked.
"It is my favorite part," she admitted, and Varric's ears perked up in interest. "It is --" she sounded more than a little breathless. "Loyalty and faith realized. She has heard all of these terrible lies about him, and had reason to believe he hated her, and yet knew the stories were false. She didn't care if he liked her -- she knew he was a good man. So when -- well, you will see."
Varric sat down on the floor quietly and listened to her read. She read with passion -- no surprise, she did everything with passion, including stabbing him in the book. She certainly fought with passion. He'd noticed it from the first time he saw her fight -- she committed herself fully to every precise, vicious move, all brutality and grace. But there was a certain holding back. He could tell that there was an edge to her that was even more dangerous, a part of her that wanted to throw the training and the shield to the side and lunge deeper into battle. That part scared him, if only because he didn't quite know if she was holding back the urge to recklessly destroy the enemy or to recklessly destroy herself.
But there was no holding back to her reading. She poured her soul into every word, her voice matching each moment perfectly -- at times as smooth as a lake, at times a sea in which the waves grew steadily and ominously larger, at times a churning, breathless rapid. Varric closed his eyes and let it carry him, let it make his heart slow and then pound. The way she read made his worst serial sound like something worth savoring.
When she was done Varric leaned against the wall and let out a slow, shaky breath.
"We can pause here for today," Cassandra said, and he could hear the smugness in her voice. "It is a cliffhanger, but it is a good one. Some of the other cliffhangers are not so good, merely frustrating."
Oh, everyone’s a critic, he thought. He rose from his spot on the floor.
"Also," Cole said, "you want to go to the kitchen and get a blueberry pastry before they're gone. You want -- two? To share?"
"I -- well." She sounded almost shy. "I was hoping you would try one. You see, you are very close to a child, and had no childhood. I enjoyed them as a child... I think it would be good, for you to experience such things."
"It will make me more like a person?"
"I don't know. But I hope it will."
Varric took that as his queue to leave. The rain had stopped some time while Cassandra was reading, and he stepped out into the blessedly cooler air with a strange feeling in his chest. The letter was soaked, destroyed in his hand.
He let it drop without a second thought.
It was night and Varric found himself at the tavern, relaxing with a barely-touched drink in front of him. He was in a good mood, which was surprising. The first time he'd sent Bianca the letter he'd been depressed for a month after. Now, with his lack of response confirming the end, he just felt free.
"I just can't stop thinking about it." The young elven woman in front of him twirled her glass nervously. She was in her early twenties, really just a girl, and had sought Varric out because she had been in danger of losing her apprenticeship at the apothecary – and all because she was distracted over a boy.
"Well, Fenlia, now you can," Varric said. "I'll think about it for you."
Fenlia buried her hands in her hair. "I can't – if he really is cheating, I don't know what I'll do."
"You need to calm down," her friend said. Varric thought her name was Meheriel or something. He didn't really catch it, because she had muttered it under her breath and then rolled her eyes as if she would rather be anywhere else in the world. "You need to calm down," Meheriel said, "and then you need to get drunk."
"Oh, Merrie, I'm sorry. I'm wasting your time. I don't want you to miss your duties and get in trouble."
Meheriel waved a dismissive hand. "I fed the bastards what, six hours ago? They'll be fine. Sometimes I spend more time babyin them then on my own craft, and that's a damn shame."
"Meheriel's a mage," Fenlia said. "She taught herself everything she knows."
"Oh, did she?" Evelyn slid into a chair at the table with a charming smile, and both Meheriel and Fenlia sat up straight, eyes wide.
"Inquisitor!" Meheriel said. "A -- a mage? No, I--"
"Relax," Evelyn said. "Just because I'm from a circle doesn't mean I care if you were apostate. I'm actually just curious about how you learned."
Meheriel searched her face. What she found seemed to ease her worry, because she relaxed into the chair with a sigh. "I pay attention. I ask around. I love workin in the prison sometimes, after you defeat a really powerful mage. Especially the cocky ones. I can insult them just a little and they spill all their trade secrets braggin'."
“Any you can pass on to me?”
“Oh, no,” Meheriel said, blushing. “Your grace defeated them for a reason.”
“Well, I’ll be sending you another brain to pick soon,” Evelyn said, and turned to Varric. “Dorian asked me to take care of an old associate of his -- a Venatori mage in the Emerald Graves. You in?”
“Sure. Who else is going?”
“Cole and Cassandra.”
Varric made a face.
“Stop that,” Evelyn said. “I like her.”
“Why?”
“She’s a good woman.”
“Good, sure, I’ll give you that. She’s also full of herself, and she’s got a stick up her ass.”
“You don’t know her,” Evelyn said quietly. “She’s not full of herself. She’s --- I’m her friend. She speaks to me in a way that she wouldn’t speak to you.”
Varric felt irrationally offended at the statement. Everyone spoke to him. Everyone spilled their secrets to him eventually; it was his way, and it’s what allowed him to gather enough knowledge on human nature to write his books.
“And besides,” Evelyn said. “I had to have the same conversation with her. Shows how much you two bothered to get to know each other before you jumped to dislike.”
Varric scoffed. “The same conversation with her? So, what, she thinks I’m full of myself?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said, and Varric set down his drink in shock. He could imagine a million accusations Cassandra might throw at him --- that he was sleazy, sinful, untrustworthy, a liar. But she thought he thought too highly of himself? “She thinks that you think you’re charming and exciting, and that you can mock anyone that’s awkward or stiff or that has a hard time with words and people.”
Varric flushed. “I don’t do that.”
“Yes you do. To her. And the way she is with you isn’t the way she is with anyone else, either. You two behave horribly around each other.” Here the official Inquisitor’s voice slipped in, one laden with authority. “When you’re not bickering, the two of you fight best together out of anyone in the crew. You’ve got a natural way of working together in battle, but I always have to think twice and then think again before I bring both of you on a trip. Try. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve told her the same thing.”
Varric looked away, sighing heavily. “Fine,” he said. “I can’t make any promises.”
Evelyn smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing the two of you get along,” she said.