Chapter Text
Varric Tethras was a storyteller because there were always stories to tell. Now, that didn't mean every story deserved telling. There were more that didn't need repeating than there were ones that should be passed on for ages. And then there were those stories. The ones that deserved not to be told.
On a level, everyone had them. Secrets, regrets, family curses, they ran the gamut. Those he didn't mind. It was the horror stories, the ones that made a person question just how fucked up reality could get, that deserved to stay untold.
This was one of them.
Varric thought he'd seen all the strange shit there was to see during his time with Hawke. Hell, living in Kirkwall gave him plenty of story fodder he wouldn't have asked for even if he could think up half that nonsense on his own. But then the Breach happened, and Corypheus turning out to be very not dead, and . . . this.
It turned into one of those times you kick yourself in hindsight for not listening to instinct, an instinct that might just have been last night's meat digesting. First it was Chuckles acting a little more distant than usual, a little more snippy. Nothing big. Varric saw the way he looked at Sunflower and assumed. They all assumed.
The whole damn mess was so surreal. One minute they were resting after the miraculous trek to Skyhold – after the miraculous escape from Haven, mind – the next Leliana's scout was informing him and Bull to gather in the garden. With weapons.
Uneasy didn't begin to explain what they felt. And they weren't stupid enough to deny the order. So they took their commanded positions and waited for Senna, since she was the only one that knew what the hell was going on.
Her usually bronze skin was pale under all those freckles – that had been his first thought for her nickname – and she was visibly shaken, even from where he stood. Ten thousand guesses wouldn't have given him the answer to why.
Mayhem broke when Solas grabbed her throat, but he was faster and set an impressive barrier before the first arrow let fly.
“Templars! Gather with Collins on the battlements. Break that barrier,” Cullen shouted first. Cassandra was next, ordering a rearrangement of positions. And Varric got to sit there and watch as the duo inside stilled, eyes hazed in sickly green.
That certainly changed things.
“Where do you think you're going?” Cassandra shot as Cullen moved from his post.
“We need every templar available to get in there before that thing possesses her,” he said.
“No.” Cassandra grabbed the man's coat until he slapped her off.
“You would let her die? Or worse, become an abomination?” Cullen cried.
“We have enough templars already!”
A raging screech broke through their fight. The demon, now in its true form, fell away from Senna and flailed its limbs like some deranged, freakishly pale spider. For a second the creature seemed cowed, slinking back as if it was afraid of her. Then, like a cornered animal, it struck. Senna responded with a rather impressive dodging game.
“You are not going up there.” Cassandra's voice pulled on Varric's attention.
“I can't stand here and do nothing while Senna is tortured and killed,” Cullen responded, desperation ringing clear in his tone. Ah, he actually felt kinda bad for Curly.
“We are already doing what we can. You are letting your personal experience cloud your judgement,” she said.
“So be it! I know what's at stake,” he snarled.
“I will not let you throw away months of progress.” But Cullen was already trying to walk past her. Cassandra was all sorts of fast and reared a fist back to sock the commander in the jaw.
“Follow me or get. out.” Her deadly tone set everyone in earshot at attention. Cullen shook out his disorientation, rubbed his cheek, and stood up. He glared hard at Cassandra, then slowly turned back to his station and waited, fist shaking on the pommel of his sword.
Varric fiddled with Bianca, making sure she was ready for the second the barrier came down. He'd be damned if his arrow wasn't the first to hit. A shiver ran under his skin at seeing that jawbone necklace swinging against the creature's chest. He couldn't quite describe the level of creepy it was.
“Chargers, I want you in there first,” Bull said, gathered with his own men to one side. “Chantry Shuffle drill.”
“Aw, Chief, you're always sending me in first,” his second, Krem, said.
“If you can't handle it you can sit in the corner and pick flowers with the Sisters,” Bull teased back.
“Least they'd be nice to look at,” Krem mumbled.
With a small whoosh of air the barrier came down. Varric appreciated that Bull's Chargers switched instantly from fun to battle mode, and Krem was indeed first on the field.
One would think, with so many soldiers to fight it, the demon would go down fast. But it didn't. Because that would be too damn easy. And it kept doing this screeching thing that would disorient everyone close enough to catch the brunt of the sound. It was a good trick and Varric wasn't ashamed to admit how happy he was he got to stick around the sidelines plugging it with arrows. The claws on that thing were enormous and gutted more than one man with no amount of finesse. The mages did their best to keep up barriers but sometimes even that wasn't enough.
It was controlled chaos. The templars on the battlement were down for the count after removing the barrier. The demon kept throwing people aside and jumping away with a speed that shouldn't have been possible on those ridiculously spindly legs. At one point Cassandra, obviously sick of running around after it, barreled the demon over so she and the others could wail on its protective barrier. That was nice to watch. Of course then it dug its claws into two soldiers, swiped at Blackwall, and screeched at the top of its lungs.
And behind him Senna was yelling for someone to get her a staff. No one in their right mind would listen to her though, not with her bleeding all over the ground. He did glance back once – which he regretted immediately – to see how she was holding up. Her face was contorted in desperate rage and the healer kept having to hold her back from running into the battle. Her anger was just a cover, of course. There was a deep horror in her eyes, fraying the strands of sanity holding her together and, well, he looked away pretty quick. Right now there was nothing he could do but put up a damn good fight for her.
In the end, they weakened the demon up considerably and Senna got to land her story worthy final blow. Bull looked like someone told him his birthday came early this year. And even while the healer was mending his burned hands in the aftermath, he could only laugh.
“Krem, did you see that? She was completely on fire. Like a little hell-ball. And how she kept holding on until there was nothing but ash? Now that's how you kill a demon. You think she could do it again? Make it our signature attack?”
Krem rolled his eyes. “Not if it catches your hands on fire every time, you lummox.”
“Nah! It doesn't hurt that bad.” He shook with a primal growl of satisfaction only a qunari could make. “Redheads!”
As for Senna, killing the demon brought no comfort, not that he was surprised. Sometimes even death wasn't enough to fix the damage done. Varric had seen Dalish elves before – Merrill and some others – but none had ever looked so feral as Senna did leaving the battlefield. With her body marked by war, her clothes still smoking from the fire, and blood fresh on her side and back, she was the perfect image of some fairy tale goddess of vengeance and wild ferocity. Not surprisingly, no one got in her way when she made for the half-built stables.
Cassandra was the only one that talked to her before she galloped out of the fortress – that they later learned was called Skyhold – like some beast was still behind her.
“She is going to retrieve Solas,” the Seeker informed Leliana and Cullen, who were overseeing clean up.
“She thinks he is still alive?” Nightingale asked.
Cassandra nodded. “She seemed certain of it, and where to find him. She rides to Therinfal.”
“If that's the case, we should inform Barris. The recruits there can begin the search,” Cullen suggested. His new bruise was blooming nicely and he'd gotten a couple scrapes from the fight. His shield had taken the brunt of the battle. It was mangled and scratched beyond repair.
“I will send a raven. In the meantime, we will have to work on rumor control. If word gets out the Inquisition has been harboring a demon imposter our reputation may never recover,” Leliana said. “Josephine and I will work on a cover story for the battle and have it to you within the hour. Until then, keep everyone involved contained in the garden. No one must know of this.”
Well, the ladies spun a nice enough story about a rift opening up in the garden and the epic battle that ensued. But it was inevitable someone would spill the beans and it didn't take long for Skyhold to buzz with stories about the demon. He gave it to Ruffles for immediately twisting it to be as complimentary as possible, with emphasis put on how Andraste led the Herald to discover the demon and unmask it before it could cause trouble. Senna would be furious about it when she got back, and the whole bit about not causing trouble was a flaming pile of nug shit, but it was the most effective thing their ambassador could have done. Pretty soon everyone was on board to sing the Herald's praises.
Hell, it wasn't like the idea of Andraste telling Senna was a lie either. No one, not even Leliana, who usually knew everything about everything, knew how the Dalish figured out a demon was posing as Solas. With how her relationship with 'him' had been progressing, Varric had a few ideas how she figured it out. None of them were pleasant in the slightest.
That was the sucker punch of the whole affair. Those close enough to Senna knew. And it wasn't like finding out the guy you had dinner with the other night was actually a demon in disguise wasn't a big deal on its own. Some of them took it better than others. On his part, Varric was glad he didn't dream or he'd be rolling in the nightmares about now.
Cullen was relieved of duty for a couple days and he spent most of his time either locked up in his tower room or silently pacing the battlements. Varric got him to sit down for a drink once but the man was so tired he wasn't much for conversation. “I was almost able to sleep through the night, you know,” he'd said. That wasn't the case anymore. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help it.
Iron Bull put on a good face. He'd been genuinely happy about the way the battle went down and spent most of his time regaling people with the story. But he'd have the little moments when it hit him again and he'd stare at nothing or laugh a little too forcefully. And he got Krem to smack him with a stick a couple times, which apparently made him feel better. Varric was a bit taken aback at how open he was about the whole affair when they sat down to talk about it. It was nice to have someone to wade through the muck with.
Blackwall spent his time trying not to think about it, as he got busy helping the builders put together parts of Skyhold. The man worked tirelessly dawn to dusk and when Varric asked if he needed to get anything out of his system, he laughed sardonically. “If anyone needed the comfort it would be Senna. There's too much to do to worry about what I might have done. It would've been nice to slay the beast myself but it wasn't for me. Though I am curious how Solas of all people ended up possessed.”
“Technically he wasn't possessed,” Varric said. It was something he'd considered too. “Senna went off to find him so the demon wasn't in his body. It probably stuck him in some dark corner to rot while it made friends.”
Blackwall rolled his shoulder and muttered, “Don't make it worse.”
Cassandra spent her time beating up training dummies and bullying recruits as she took over Cullen's job. He wasn't touching that with a ten foot pole. Leliana would take care of her if need be.
Vivienne, too, he stayed out of the way of. He couldn't get a good read on the Enchanter, but going by the number of letters she sent out and the way she started commanding the templars of Skyhold, he assumed she was coping in her own way.
He had to talk Sera down from her metaphorical tree. Really, it was one of the tavern's roofs. And when he got her down he patiently sat through the spewed variations of “I's not right.” and “Fucking demons.” until she felt well enough to eat again. Bull was actually good at keeping her level and the two spent their free time drawing renditions of demon faces and sticking them with different pointy objects.
Then there was the Tevinter mage. He hadn't been involved in the Inquisition long, but he was smart enough to ask questions.
“I heard you were the man to come to for information,” Dorian said as Varric sat at a small table in the broken down main hall. At least it was better than being outside.
“Depends on the information and how good the alcohol is,” Varric answered. He still motioned to the nearby chair.
Dorian sat with him. “Sadly, at this point acquiring anything less atrocious than pisswater is out of the question.”
“I know, I'm a dwarf. I have to keep my eye on lucrative commodities. It's in my blood,” he said.
“Then perhaps you could spare a favor for a man who risked his life fighting a demon without any bloody clue what was going on?”
“Ah, that, I think I can do,” Varric said. And he explained who Solas was and how he'd helped the Inquisition since the start, answering most of Dorian's questions about the circumstances of the matter. There were a few things he didn't know, but what he gave was enough to sate the man's curiousity.
“Strange. I thought them a couple,” Dorian pointed out when Varric mentioned nothing of it.
“Yeah . . .” He let that just hang in the air.
“Oh!” The mage caught on quick. “Dear me. That's dreadful.”
“Listen, don't go spouting it off the battlements. For one, Josephine would skin me alive. For another, it was bad enough having to deal with the thing in the first place without adding a potential elf-demon romance to the mix. The Randy Dowager couldn't even make that shit up.”
“No, no. I am sworn to secrecy. But you must admit, that is highly unusual activity for a demon. It did not try to possess her the entire time it was, ah, with her?” The mage rubbed his fingers over his mustache.
“I don't know anything about it. I'd say not. Seemed like it only tried to take her over when we cornered it,” Varric said, really not looking forward to the turn the conversation was taking.
“And it already had Solas. Perhaps its intention was different then? It was obviously one of the higher demons like Pride or Desire. It could have been drawn to the magic of the mark and sought to control it. If possessing her voided the effect, the demon would have wanted her to remain intact to fully utilize the magic it wanted. Seeing as we know very little about the mark itself, its hard to know how demons see it, or if they can use its power in some way,” Dorian speculated, an excitement rising in his tone.
“So you're saying every demon in the Fade wants at Senna for her glowing hand?”
“I'm only theorizing, of course. It is still fascinating to consider.”
“Uh, yeah. You can consider if you want. I'm just going to pray this never happens again,” Varric said.
“No one should suffer such a thing once, let alone a second time,” Dorian agreed. They decided to turn their conversation towards more pleasant things.
Not three days after the incident Leliana received a message stating Solas had been found and was now recovering from his injuries. It was as much a relief as it was a miracle. He'd have to start keeping track of all of Senna's miracles at this rate.
It took a fortnight for them to return. It was a quiet affair with minimal attention, though they arrived mid afternoon in plain view of half of Skyhold. There were whispers, of course, but the pair looked enough of a mess for people to let them be. Solas needed to eat more – a lot more – to get back to looking healthy and there was a soft limp to his step, no doubt the remnants of a much more grievous injury. Senna could probably sleep for a week no problem. And now there was a grim set to her jaw replacing the brightness that earned her the name Sunflower. 'Awkward' was a good word to describe the atmosphere between them, with a hint of melancholy. They didn't stay next to each other longer than they had to.
And there was someone else with them. A lanky kid that he swore he'd seen before. If you weren't looking right at him he would disappear into the background until you almost forgot he was there.
Turned out his name was Cole and he was . . . different. He would flit around like no one could see him. Except no one could see him, for the most part.
“Come on, kid. You can let them talk to you,” Varric told him not soon after their introduction, having seen the pale boy stare at a group of Skyhold residents.
“They don't need me,” he said.
“Er, of course most people don't need each other. But it's nice to get to know people, make friends, you know,” Varric responded.
Cole looked down at him, then at the three humans he'd been observing. Varric stood back and folded his arms with a smile as he watched the boy approach.
He held up one hand in greeting. “Hi. I'm Cole.”
The others mumbled their greeting and waited for him to continue. Cole simply stood there. Varric, seeing the error of his advice, dragged him away with an apology to the confused humans. “On second thought, let's work on your social skills first.”
Cole followed obediently as Varric returned to the newly rebuilt tavern, his home away from home. “So, kid, what exactly brought you here? I know you came with Senna, but I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her.”
“A blind eye turning to face a face I'd seen and never knew. But the Wolf wanders the ways, a monster searching for me, and I see. It was my fault. Too much pride to fall, too weak to stand tall. Is this all that remains when once I reigned? The fault was mine.”
Varric glanced around to see if anyone else heard Cole's lilting speech. He drew enough stares as it was. “You alright there?”
“They needed me,” he said, pulling at his finger with the opposite hand. “I came to help.”
“Oh, well, good. People could use it. Just try not to scare them when you're helping,” the dwarf said.
“Yes. I will try not to do that.”
Varric had the sneaking suspicion he'd be supervising Cole's 'helping' for awhile. Not like he had much else to do while the Inquisition put itself back together.
Speaking of putting things back together, he was a bit surprised Chuckles came to him first. Varric had been a bit hesitant to approach either of them so soon after they returned. He couldn't catch Senna since she'd been at the mercy of the Inquisition leaders the moment she dismounted the hart. And Solas had kept largely to himself. Whether it was self-punishment or a desire not to get too close to anyone else, Varric wasn't sure. Knowing Solas, it was both.
So he was a little wary when the elf sat with him in the main hall by the fireplace only three days after his return. He looked a lot better. Well, he wasn't limping at least and his face was starting to fill out, but there was a certain grimness around his eyes. Varric had seen that expression on a couple occasions before but it seemed to have taken permanent residence on his face.
And Varric wouldn't lie: it sent a weird shiver down his spine to see Solas sitting at a table with him.
“Feeling any better?” he started.
“Yes. Thank you.” Solas refused his offer of a drink. “I had a question and was hoping you would answer it honestly.”
“No promises, but go ahead.” Varric leaned back and rested his tankard on his stomach.
“Senna, did she-” His brow furrowed in, looking for the right words. Andraste's ass, Varric knew where this was going. “Did her relationship with the demon progress to intimacy?”
Varric spluttered. “Why do you think I would know that? I'm not her gossip girl.”
“You are an observant man. I'm certain you would have seen the subtle differences,” he said, all calm save the cold intensity in his eyes.
“Say something did happen, what good does it do you to know? Are you looking for stuff to stay awake at night over?” the dwarf sighed.
“I simply wished to know the best way to approach her in the future. But you have given me my answer.” The elf stood.
“I have?” Varric thought he'd been careful enough.
“I asked her directly and she refused to speak of it. And you will give me nothing either. That is an answer in itself,” he said.
“Look, don't beat-”
But he was already walking away. Varric sighed. He was definitely beating himself up about it.
There was nothing Varric could do. Solas wouldn't speak to him, not even about mundane things. In fact he barely spoke to anyone unless necessary. So Varric backed off. Maybe time would help.
Senna, too, remained out of his reach. He caught her at breakfast the morning of her induction into the role of Inquisitor. He didn't think she would take it but he wouldn't complain about having her leading the Inquisition. Better than Cassandra, at any rate.
“I'm fine,” she'd said at first, but she didn't even try to smile and the bags under her eyes spoke louder than she did.
“My other Dalish friend is a terrible liar too. Is that a thing with your people?”
She sent him a scathing glare. He admitted he flinched but only because he was so used to her taking his jabs in stride.
“What do you want me to say? That I don't sleep? That I vomit half of what I eat every day? Talking about it won't change anything.” She took a deep breath. “I appreciate the concern, Varric, but there's nothing you can do for me.”
“Yeah, alright,” he mumbled. “If you change your mind, Sunflower, I'm here.”
She swallowed, nodded, and he had nothing left to do but shuffle away with his tail between his legs. He'd give her some time.
So with that Varric took his place with the people of Skyhold to watch her take up the sword of the Inquisition and pledge herself to its cause. And in the party that followed all he could think about was the hard road ahead of her.
He'd need to order more notebooks if he was going to write all this shit down.