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Shathann told them to expect things like this.
She told them the Lords were mostly good people, far more accepting of a Qunari mother with an Adaari on her hip than most would be, and Taash should be respectful first and foremost. That they were the newest member of the team, so they should expect trust to come slow. That some of the Lords might not like them, no matter how hard they try.
Shokra toh ebra.
The advice was mostly sound. Shathann had an annoying habit of being proven right. It’s failing to resonate currently, however.
A day prior, Taash was given their first proper assignment. A mundane one for a Lord: an old cavern with a bit of gold rumored to be somewhere in it. Taash recognized it for the test that it was. They have no intention of failing.
A condition of the job was that they had to go fetch a Lord with seniority to escort them. Somebody good with bad directions and experience with traps. Vera Laidir. They didn’t miss the frown that briefly twisted Shathann’s face when she heard the name.
“What is it?” Taash asked, watching the expression disappear instantly. Shathann’s pretty good at stuff like that. They’re not.
“Laidir’s never failed an assignment, to my knowledge,” Shathann said carefully. She wasn’t lying, but Taash could see her hesitating, contemplating each word. “But she is reckless. Acts without thinking. Perhaps you will be a good influence, and that is why Isabela put you together.”
Taash followed their orders without complaint, Shathann’s warning nagging at the edges of their mind. For all they knew, Vera was a perfectly adequate person that just failed to meet Shathann’s high expectations. She wouldn’t be the first.
They made their way deeper into Rivain, ducked their head in the entrance of a bar Vera was supposed to meet them in. Through the stench of alcohol and haze of lantern light, Taash spotted her first. It would’ve been hard not to.
In the center of the bar is a large round table, littered with drinks and half melted candles. At the head of the table sits Vera, a woman in her lap and a few sitting close on either side of her. All of the girls are pretty but the one in her lap is the prettiest, with thick curls tucked behind pointed ears and a sweet smile as she raises a bottle to Vera’s lips.
Vera accepts the bottle open-mouthed, corners lifting in a smirk. She stares at the other woman with a heavy lidded, suggestive gaze. Only one of her eyes seems to work, however. Where Vera’s right eye is a pale green the left is foggy, eyelid sitting lower than the other. A deep scar starts just above her left brow, stretching out diagonally over the eye and onto her cheek.
Some of the dark liquor spills over Vera’s lip, distracting Taash from her eyes. It trails down her chin and down the column of her throat, slowing to a stop at the top of her chest. She’s a big woman. Broad and muscular with almost all of it on display. A small shirt is laced together underneath a leather harness that’s embellished with gold. The hand gripping the waist of the girl in her lap is covered in gaudy rings that match thick bracelets sliding down her wrist. Each of them is a prize, a victory taken for herself and for the Lords of Fortune.
Taash notices they’re staring. They blink once to reorient themself, pushing their slack jaw shut with the back of hand. They walk over with purpose.
“Hey,” they say, taking the empty space at the opposite side of the table. A few of the women look over. Taash inhales, smelling alcohol and sweat and perfume. Their nose wrinkles. “You Vera Laidir?”
“Depends who’s asking,” Vera replies, readjusting in her seat, gaze drifting slowly toward Taash. An expression they can’t quite read appears on her face. “For you? That’s me.”
Taash frowns, shifting weight from one leg to the other. Vera’s eyes don’t leave theirs.
Shathann told them what to do if a Lord didn’t like them. But she hasn’t said anything about Taash not liking another Lord.
“We have a job,” Taash continues flatly, crossing their arms. “Isabela told me to find you and give you the details. Alone.”
“Gold and glory,” Vera sighs, patting the girl in her lap to get her to move. It doesn’t sound as cool on her lips. “Fetch me my stuff?”
The woman nods, pressing a kiss to Vera’s unmarred cheek. Taash watches her weave through the crowd of patrons toward a set of stairs at the back. The other girls give Vera their reluctant goodbyes, dispersing deeper into the tavern.
With them gone, Taash is left with Vera and her scent. They took the sweet florals of nice perfume with them. Vera is alcohol, sweat, and a bit of saltwater.
“That your girlfriend?”
Vera snorts. “Her father owns the place.”
They don’t know how that’s an answer.
With a groan, Taash’s least favorite Lord gets to her feet. She’s tall— still shorter than Taash, of course, but everyone is. Vera’s certainly closer than most people get, standing about a head shorter than them. Her lower half is just as exposed as the top, a pair of shorts sitting low on her hips and a single leg’s worth of leather armor on her right thigh.
Taash decides to wait outside.
Even if they didn’t have such a strong sense of smell, they don’t think they’d enjoy being in bars. They don’t like the noise, the meaningless chaos, the conversations with layers they have no interest in sifting through.
Vera finally joins them after a too-long wait, a circular shield on her back and leather scabbard on her hip. Taash is mildly surprised by the sight. Very few Lords used shields, preferring the simpler strategy of hitting things with a very, very big axe.
Taash pulls the crumpled map out of the satchel on their hip, handing it over. Vera holds it between two fingers, gnawing the inside of her cheek.
“Directions are good, but we’re not gonna take the front door,” Vera says, pointing at the marked entrance on the map. “Girl at the table? Good friends with a merc. His gang’s been sniffing around the past few days. They’d let us do all the hard work then kill us for the gold. We go in the back.”
Vera’s ringed pinky points at a crude drawing of a waterfall. “—Might have to move some rocks around, but this should lead into the antechamber. Got it?”
She looks up at them expectantly. Taash grunts in affirmation. This Vera doesn’t look like the one they’d met inside, nor does she sound like the reckless fool Shathann described her as. Maybe they were wrong.
Vera returns the map. “You have the prettiest eyes, don’t you?”
Nope. They were definitely right about her.
Taash doesn’t dignify it with a response. They turn on their heel, stepping out onto the street and heading for the edge of town.
Vera jogs to catch up with them, walking fast to keep pace with Taash’s stride.
“I still haven’t gotten your name.”
The sun is tucked behind the horizon by the time they make it to the cave. They give it a wide berth, weaving between the brush to conceal themselves from any prying eyes. Taash spots fresh boot prints in the sand, confirming that the information from Vera’s girl was truthful.
“Do you always get your tips from people that want to have sex with you?” Taash asks when Vera stops to check the map again.
“I’ve also been known to lie, cheat, and steal. Or hit things,” Vera looks back and forth between the map and the scenery, matching the stream a few yards away to its crude recreation. “I prefer the gentler approach. We’ll follow this to the waterfall.”
Taash doesn’t mind trailing behind. They take note of the particular way Vera walks, stepping on stones or patches of dead grass instead of the sand or mud closer to the shore. No footprints. They try to mirror her movements.
The waterfall is smaller than they expected. It’s only a bit taller than Taash, a pitiful flow of water spilling over the rocks and into the pool below. The stream is ankle deep when they trudge through it, Vera holding her shield over her head to protect herself from the downpour. She goes through first, offers the shield to Taash, but they’re already ducking through wordlessly.
They find themselves in a tiny alcove, surrounded on three sides by wet, mossy stone. It’s a tight space, would be barely wide enough for them to outstretch their arms, and incredibly dark.
Taash shakes the water out of their hair, blinking any excess from their lashes. The waterfall’s flow is weak but thick, blocking out any moonlight that would otherwise spill inside. They take a blind step forward, chest bumping into the shield on Vera’s back.
“Feel around for a rock,” Vera tells them, and they hear the sound of fingernails against stone. “A doorway-sized rock. Preferably one that won’t bring this thing down on top of us.”
Taash considers their fire. A small flame, just big enough to illuminate the alcove. Then they picture a strand of hair out of place, a bit of leather in the way, and the resulting disaster. They swallow the urge, and start to paw blindly at the rock.
“I’ll have this in no time,” Vera says, voice bouncing off the stone. “Moving my fingers around, looking for a weakness. It’s one of my many areas of expertise—“
“—Found it.”
Taash’s fingers find a forgiving gap in the rock and take hold. A bit of air flows over their knuckles, betraying the open space on the other side. Then they feel Vera’s shoulder against their body, her hands joining theirs.
They work together to pull the rock out of the way, leaving an opening just wide enough for both of them to squeeze through. A tunnel stretches into the darkness on the other side, a small ring of light at the very end. Neither of them make the move to go first.
“I’d flip a coin, but we couldn’t see it.”
Taash huffs. “Could feel it.”
“Good thinking.”
Then comes the sound of Vera rustling around her things, the sound of coins jingling together and thread being snapped. Taash remembers her scabbard having a few bits of gold and coins embroidered into the leather.
“Tails,” Taash decides. If they squint they can make out the shape of Vera’s hand flipping the coin, sharp ears picking up the sound of the gold landing on her palm.
“Hm. What’s that feel like to you?”
Taash carefully reaches for Vera’s palm. Their fingers find the callused flesh first and they recoil.
“…Like a gold coin. This is useless.”
“I trust you,” Vera says with some finality. She drops the coin in Taash’s hand, and steps into the tunnel.
It’s a tight squeeze. Halfway through Vera has to lower herself into a crawl, while Taash squirms along on their belly. Sharp rock presses into their armor uncomfortably without breaking the skin, leaving them to speculate on the state of Vera’s exposed limbs. The tips of their horns scrape against the roof of the tunnel and they hold the coin tight in their left fist, determined to see the result once they find some light.
Taash lags behind, movement slowed by their larger body in the tight confines. Soon the bulk of Vera’s shoulders blocks out the ring of light they’d been chasing, signaling their proximity to the exit.
Taash smells it before they hear it. The thick smell of burning torches, nearly concealing the stench of two men.
“Laidir—“
“—Oh, fuck!”
Suddenly Vera’s body is yanked out of the tunnel, the sharp scent of blood filling the space as the rocks cut open the exposed skin of her legs. The weak light allows Taash to see her body be pulled harshly by two pairs of hands on her shoulders as she kicks furiously in protest.
Taash pulls themself forward at a breakneck pace, arms stinging in protest of the strain. From the other side of the tunnel comes the sound of metal clanging, swearing, and blows landing.
When they finally reach the mouth of the tunnel, Taash spills out head first, somersaulting onto the ground and leaping to their feet. They unsheathe one of their axes, open their fist to retrieve the other, pausing briefly to check the coin. Heads. They drop it.
They find themselves standing in a circular chamber, the walls smoothed down purposefully enough to betray dwarven intervention. A few torches burn on the walls, casting the scene in warm light.
Both Vera’s sword and shield are on the scuffed floor, though from the looks of things, she’s doing fine without them.
Neither of the mercenaries had managed to keep a hold on her when she’d spilled into the antechamber, forgoing their initial advantage. Taash watches Vera knee one of the men between the legs, grabbing the other by the pauldrons and running him into the adjacent wall before they intervene.
Taash hones in on the reeling merc, bashing the back of his knee with an axe to keep him stumbling before hitting the back of his head with the handle of the other. He crumples into a heap, and Taash kicks his blade from his hand to the other side of the room.
The coppery stench of blood burns their nostrils again, their gaze falling on Vera. She’s exchanging blows with the other mercenary, fists pummeling the side of his cheek. The advantage appears to be hers just long enough to make Taash hesitate. Then, with grit teeth, the merc draws back his right arm, fist colliding into Vera’s nose with a loud crack.
She stumbles backward, though not as far as one would expect. Gulping in hurried breaths, a ragged laugh escapes her lips.
Taash holds both of their axes in one hand, hurrying to retrieve Vera’s scabbard from the mouth of the tunnel. They grab the ornate handle, unsheathing a thick, medium length sword with a double sided blade.
“Oh, don’t look so proud of yourself,” Vera’s voice echoes off the ceiling. There’s the sound of her spitting something onto the floor— likely blood. Maybe a tooth. “Think you’re the first to get a lucky hit in?”
“Vera!” Taash calls. They toss the sword toward her right side.
Vera catches it by the handle, tests the weight of it, then drives it into the mercenary’s midsection.
“That’s broken,” Taash says, angling their chin toward Vera’s face.
She shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Can’t see a damn thing out of this.”
Vera gestures toward her foggy left eye. There’s twin streams of blood spilling out of her nostrils and over her upper lip, a nasty bruise blooming around the crooked bridge of her nose. She pinches the bone between two thick fingers and snaps it back into place with a sickening crunch.
Taash feels their face wrinkle with disgust. “Ew.”
Vera smiles up at them, top row of teeth stained crimson.
Taash, as they often are, is reminded of dragons. They think of the way that they fight, how hard and brutally they defend themselves. How the oldest, strongest of them were the ones with the most scars.
They both mull about the scene, checking the men’s packs for anything of use. Vera finds a half empty waterskin and pours its contents onto her face, wiping most of the blood away. Taash eyes her from the other side of the antechamber, watches the way her chest heaves, the way she favors her weight to one side. When she sheaths her sword and returns her shield to its place on her back she winces, grabbing at her ribcage.
“You break something else?” Taash asks.
Vera shakes her head, strands of messy brown hair clinging to her face. “Break feels like getting stabbed. Bruise just feels like getting hit.”
“…You break a lot of things?”
“Only every job,” Vera turns back to face them, her smile not revealing an ounce of the pain she was displaying a moment prior. “Come on. Shiny stuff’s this way.”
The pair make their way deeper into the cavern, each of them carrying a stolen torch in a closed fist. The ceilings grow ever higher the further they progress. Taash is certain they’re in the middle of the mountain they’d passed on the way here.
The dark is oppressive, relieved only by the two torches and the occasional thin vein of lyrium in the stone. There’s hollowed out remains of strains along the wall; any ore of value long since mined.
But that's not what they’re after. Their tip wasn’t for the contents of the old mine but rather what someone hid inside it. It’s a smart idea: storing your small collection of treasure in the remains of an abandoned mine. Far less smart to tell anyone about it, particularly someone who was willing to sell the secret to the Lords.
Taash walks with their torch held high, grateful to no longer have to bow their head to comfortably traverse the halls. Vera’s a few paces ahead of them, still favoring one side more than the other. The scent of her blood is weaker now.
The entrance into the following chamber is a round shape, wide enough to accommodate two people at once.
“Wait,” Vera stops suddenly, extending an arm. Taash stands behind the dense muscle. “Somebody’s ready for us. Look.”
Following Vera’s gaze, Taash peers down toward their feet. Vera lowers her torch, casting the dirt in warm light. Sure enough, at ankle height, is a stretch of rope pulled taut across the hollowed out entryway. Tripwire. They both follow the length up the wall with their torches, all the way to the ceiling. Vera whistles.
Above their heads, a massive slab of iron is suspended by a series of knots and collection of frayed ropes. If triggered, it’d either crush or trap them in the next room.
“Means there’s good stuff, right?” Taash asks. Vera steps over the trap and they follow carefully.
“Trap and a dead end usually means going home with full pockets,” Vera agrees, inspecting the chamber with broad swipes of the torch. There’d been another shaft on the other side of the room, but it’d long since collapsed to the point of inaccessibility. This room appears to be the last. “Check the map again and tell me what you see.”
Taash fishes the parchment out of their pocket, the motion of unrolling it made awkward by having to do it one handed. Meanwhile, Vera paces around the narrow room, eyes scanning everything from the dirt on the ground to the lofty ceiling above.
The map isn’t particularly helpful here. It’s a drawing of the mountain they’re inside, with red arrows pointing at the mine’s main entrance they’d made a point of avoiding. Black dots form a trail to the center, ending in a crimson X. They notice a tiny set of numbers scrawled underneath, and squint to make them out.
“Twelve,” they read out, voice echoing. “I don’t get it.”
“Twelve,” Vera repeats. She stops suddenly, and the smile she flashes at Taash is contagious in its excitement. “Twelve paces! Go back to the door and count twelve steps.”
Taash feels themself smiling. This is their first proper treasure hunt, like the stories. They head back to the space just past the tripwire, and start to count.
Exactly twelve steps takes Taash to the center of the room. They peer down at the dirt beneath their boots, kicking at it, finding it looser than the rest.
Neither of them had thought to bring a shovel, but Taash eventually spots one amongst the discarded mining tools near the collapsed shaft. They take turns digging, anticipation palpable in the air.
There’s a satisfying thud when the spade makes impact with the solid wood of a chest. They both crouch to take hold of it, lifting it by the iron handles on the sides.
Taash’s excitement is short-lived, however, when they catch a familiar scent in the stagnant air. Their ears prick and they crane their head forward, picking up the faint sound of boots against rock growing closer.
Taash stiffens, staring straight ahead, their hand finding Vera’s shoulder and shaking it. “You hear that?”
The noises of Vera inspecting the treasure chest halt, and soon all that can be heard is the fast approaching footfalls.
“Taash,” Vera whispers through grit teeth. “Did you kill that guy?”
“I was supposed to kill him?!” Taash hisses back. Their face burns with shame, with equal parts fear and anger. Of course they were supposed to. They’d watched Vera drive her sword directly into the other merc’s belly.
As expected, the silhouette of the second mercenary appears in the hall they'd approached from. Thoroughly battered from Taash’s blow to the head and they smell the fury on him.
Time slows to a crawl as all three of them move at once. Taash rushes forward, the man unsheathes the sword on his hip, and Vera pulls her shield off her back.
Taash is too slow. In a wickedly smooth motion, the mercenary brings his blade down on the tripwire, snapping it in two. The slab of metal above their heads makes a terrible scraping sound as it drags along the rock wall. Vera throws her shield forward and it rolls like a wheel toward the entrance.
The iron slab falls. The shield lands just beneath it, metal concaving under the weight without collapsing completely. It prevents the slab from sinking completely into the dirt, a small sliver of light bleeding from the crevice it creates.
“Vashedan!” Taash swears, banging on the iron with their fists. It’s completely flush against the wall, a near perfect fit over the entryway. They hear the merc retreating back down the shaft and continue cursing him.
“Help me,” comes Vera’s voice, suddenly at their side. She’s crouched at their left, fingers hooked into the gap her shield created.
Taash joins her, grabs the bottom and pulls with all of their might. They scream together, groan from the strain and push their muscles to the extreme. The slab doesn’t move.
“Think, Vera, think,” Vera says to herself, voice uncharacteristically shaky. “There’s always something. Always a way out.” She circles the room again, feeling each wall with her hands.
In time with their despair, the flames of their torches grow weak. Without them, they’ll be left in an impossibly inky darkness.
Taash continues trying to pry at the sides, fingertips aching in protest. The smell of Vera’s fear burns their nostrils like a nosebleed.
“Why didn’t you tell me to kill that guy?” Taash snaps. “I thought you were good at this!”
“Why didn’t I…?” Vera stops her pacing, hands braced on her hips. “It’s common fucking sense! No loose ends, kill the guy trying to kill you.”
Taash stomps over and Vera meets her halfway, face drawn in fury. She still stinks of terror.
“Don’t talk to me like that, like I’m—“
“—Or what? You’ll frown at me some more? Tell me, what have you done tonight?”
“I saved you!”
“Oh, that worked out great, didn’t it?”
Taash clamps their eyes shut, breathing hard. Shathann told them to expect this. Not every Lord would like them. Not every job would go their way, but they couldn’t give up, no matter how hard it got. They owed the Lords their very best.
“Would you just stop smelling like that and let me think?” Taash demands. It comes out faster than they can think better of it. “Fear makes you stink.”
That seems to give Vera pause. Her expression changes from one of anger to confusion, mouth drifting open.
“What are you talking about?”
Taash looks around the room again, at the impossible weight blocking them from the rest of the world and their failing light source. Might as well, if they really are trapped here.
“I’m an Adaari,” Taash sighs, a heavy weight leaving their chest. “It’s Qunari stuff. I can smell things other people can’t— like how you’re scared. Fear stinks. And I breathe fire.”
Vera blinks up at them in disbelief.
“You… breathe fire?”
“Only my mother and Isabela know. Thought somebody should hear it.”
“Like, hot fire?”
Taash grunts. “Is there another kind?”
“Listen to me,” Vera continues, voice deadly serious. She takes hold of Taash’s arms, squeezing the dense muscle hard enough to bruise. “Are you telling me you can melt the thing trapping us in here?”
It’s Taash’s turn to blink.
“Oh, shit.”
Taash stands an arm’s length away from the slab, anchoring their boots in the dirt. Fists balled at their sides, they let out an uncertain breath and concentrate on relaxing their throat. Embers start to burn in the back of their mouth, heat manifesting inside their nose. Flattening their tongue, they drop their jaw low and release a column of fire.
For one heartbreaking second, the iron doesn’t give. But, slowly, under the consistent heat, the metal begins to glow red and relent.
Taash burns a sizable hole through the center of the slab, big enough to peer through to the other side of the mine shaft. The fire goes out on its own, and they have to stop to catch their breath, lungs burning and head spinning from the exertion. Hands braced on their knees, they watch Vera hurry over.
“I could kiss you,” she says, admiring the damage.
“It’d burn.”
They set to hacking away at the hole with their respective weapons, occasionally pausing for Taash to heat up the metal again. Vera’s eye sparkles in amazement each time they do it. Taash hadn't expected this kind of reaction to their fire, even after it saved them. Shathann treated it as a secret to be kept, a shame to be endured alone.
They carve themselves a gap big enough to pass though, each of them holding either side of the chest. They run through the cavern with it between them, contents loudly jostling around in the confines of the wood.
“I smell more of them,” Taash says. “A lot more.”
Vera says nothing, unsheathing her sword from its scabbard. Taash holds one of their axes tight in their fist.
They make it back to the first antechamber just in time to see a merc taking an axe to the support beam in the center of the room. The wood shreds to pieces under the blade, rock above rumbling in ominous expectation. That beam is perhaps the only thing keeping the mountain from falling down on top of them.
Another pair of men crowd the alcove of the proper entrance into the room, armored in leather and blades drawn.
Vera drops her hold on the chest. “Don’t let that fall!”
Taash releases their grip, surging forward toward the beam. Vera runs past them to the men, tucked behind her dented shield as she charges into the closest one.
Taash knocks the axe out of the merc’s hand, though not before he can chop to the center of the beam. It makes a sound like a cracked bone, teetering as it strains. A few stray pieces of rubble fall on their shoulders. Taash growls, raising both axes above their head and bringing them down in one powerful swing.
The blades slot perfectly between the gaps in the man’s pauldrons, slicing into the meat of his shoulder through his leathers. He cries out in pain, knees buckling. It gives Taash clearance to swing again, driving the blade into his neck.
There’s no time to savor the victory. The wood creaks again, dust falling from the ceiling like rainfall. Taash braces themselves against the failing beam, keeps it upright with the side of their shoulder, grimacing from the strain.
They glance back toward Vera. One of the two men is already limp on the ground, face down in the dirt with Vera’s sword protruding from his back. Taash looks over just in time to watch the other twist Vera’s arm behind her back, slamming her face first into the rock wall.
“Dirty pirate.”
“Filthy mercenary!”
Vera snaps her elbow back into the man’s ribs, cocks her neck back hard. The back of her skull collides with his brow and she takes the opening to escape his grip.
The wooden beam creaks again, slanting more than ever. Taash has to stand with their back against it, pushing all of their weight into it to create even a modicum of counterbalance. They can feel the weight growing heavier, the wood weaker. They’re running out of time.
“Vera!” Taash calls out, dragging out the sound of her name for emphasis.
Vera looks over, eyes wide. The mercenary bashes the side of her head with the hilt of his sword.
The impressive bulk of Vera’s body falls to the floor, but Taash can tell she’s not out cold. She’s doubled over, hair curtaining her face, breath uneven. Taash looks up at the ceiling of the cavern, at the chest, and back to Vera.
Drawing in a deep breath, Taash lets go of the beam. They run toward Vera, tackling the mercenary before he can drive his blade into her back. Right as they hit the ground the support beam snaps, and with its failure comes the fall of a thousand rocks.
The alcove they’re in is just far enough away to give them some time. Leaving the merc dazed, Taash clambers back to their feet and slots both hands under Vera’s arms, lifting her up. She’s a bit too heavy and the space too small for them to carry her completely, so they sling one of her thick arms over their shoulder, grab her waist, and move.
They barrel their way through the shaft, the terrible sound of the antechamber collapsing ringing in their ears. Vera mumbles something and Taash smells blood and fear.
“This the main entrance?” Vera repeats. Taash makes an affirmative sound. She sighs. “Hope you’re ready to run.”
Taash makes it to the entryway of the old mine, night air thick and humid on their skin. The moon is high in the sky, casting everything in its light.
Sure enough, gathered around carts and campfire, is the rest of the mercenary band.
They all stare at one another in disbelief for one long moment. Taash feels Vera removing her arm from their shoulder, standing on her own feet again.
Then, the first of the mercenaries start to move. Taash and Vera take off toward the forest.
“Split off at the trees!” Vera calls out to them, hair flying wildly behind her. “I’ll find you!”
They burst through the treeline together, brush and branches crunching underfoot. They split up, Vera to the right and Taash left, thick foliage making Vera disappear from their sight almost instantly.
Their lungs burn, their thighs ache, and a furious bit of fire bubbles up in their throat. Not here. Not yet. Risking a glance over their shoulder, Taash spots three mercenaries in hot pursuit. There’d been more, but they’d either lost them in the trees or gone after Vera.
They push themself harder; lift their knees high and take even longer strides. They run through a small clearing and momentarily consider using their fire before thinking better of it. All it would take is a single mercenary to get away with the story of a fire breathing Qunari for a bad situation to get worse.
And Shathann would be absolutely pissed.
They’re faster than the mercs, at least, with far more stamina. They start to smell the men’s exhaustion, the ragged breaths they exhale into the air as they fail to catch up. Clearly their training regime didn’t include a daily run up and down the Rivaini coastline.
Taash runs until they can’t smell them anymore, and keeps going still. Only when their legs tremble with the threat of failure do they stop, whipping around to check behind them. Nothing. No shouting, no armor and weapons clanging together, no twigs snapping under boots.
They can’t help but to smile. They’d actually done it. With blistered feet and tiny cuts on their face from stray branches, but they’d done it nonetheless. Like a real adventurer. Like a Lord of Fortune.
Taash finds Vera’s smell; sweat and saltwater, and follows it through the forest. A ready hand stays poised on the hilt of their axe as they go. The follow the trail to where it becomes strongest, then find her bootprints.
The stride is long, betraying that she was still running when she’d left them. Taash steps into each indentation as they follow, vigilantly scanning the surrounding trees. There’s other tracks nearby, but far enough away to not cause too much alarm. The forest’s denser here, easier to get lost in at night.
Vera’s prints lead in a straight line to the base of a large tree, then stop. Taash plants their boots over where she’d stood and looks up.
Sure enough, sat on a thick branch of the tree, is Vera. Taash is surprised by the intensity of the relief that washes over them at the sight.
“Hey, handsome,” Vera says, clearly winded. Her broad chest heaves with the enormity of each breath and Taash can smell the sweat on her brow. “Thought I said I’d find you?”
“Don’t call me that,” Taash replies. There’s no venom in it. “Thought you’d need help. Since your stuff got crushed.”
Vera winces at the reminder. She starts to try to climb down, clearly struggling to find the proper footing.
“Nah. Fuckers didn’t think to look up,” Vera’s hands try to find purchase on the thick trunk of the tree, one of her legs stretching toward a lower branch. “Do miss my sword, though.”
Much like Taash expected, Vera slips. Her fingertips find no hold in the bark and her legs completely miss any of the lower branches. She falls backward with a colorful swear and Taash outstretches their arms.
Vera lands in their arms hard enough to make them grunt. They feel the impact in every muscle, but don’t drop her. Something about that seems to surprise her.
Taash’s left arm hooks underneath Vera’s knees while the other supports her back. She’s warm and solid in their grip, the smell of her sweat now so familiar it’s almost pleasant.
“Very heroic,” Vera smiles up at them, her hand finding the side of their neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing my appreciation.”
Vera kisses them softer than they thought she would. Presses her lips to theirs as gentle as a breeze against the skin, thumb stroking the skin of their throat.
Taash drops her.
Taash drops her because they barely know her, and what they do know they often find insufferable. She’d been surrounded by women when they met, and Taash refuses to be part of that, to fall for her overzealous charm and suggestive words. They drop her because she’s hot. All muscle and battle scars and freckles dense as constellations from a lifetime in the sun.
Taash drops her because they don’t like her, and pushes her up against the tree because they do.
Vera makes a very surprised sound when Taash backs her into the trunk, sealing their mouths together. They’re rougher with her than she was with them, teeth clicking and tongue following the line of her bottom lip.
It’s adrenaline. That’s all it is. The effects of the intensity of nearly dying multiple times tonight. Getting trapped in an old mine and chased through the woods is why they’re grabbing at Vera’s middle to feel the defined shapes of her abdominal muscles.
“You taste like smoke,” Vera purrs against their lips. She sounds drunk— drunk off of Taash. “Smell like it, too. What about me?”
Taash stares down at her, then remembers what she said earlier. You have the prettiest eyes. They tear their gaze away, duck their head into the crook of Vera’s neck. They press their nose against the space behind her ear, inhaling deeply.
The way Vera trembles is violent. A full body shiver, her knees buckling and she grabs Taash's forearms to keep herself upright.
“Like blood. Sweat,” they answer, breath tickling the hair at the nape of Vera’s neck. “Like heat.”
They know exactly what this kind of warmth means. It’s a thicker, muskier heat than what they smell when someone’s angry. Sweeter, too.
Taash licks her neck, tastes it, just to be sure. Vera whimpers.
Taash looks back at her, nearly nose to nose. “You sound like a dog.”
“Is that what you want?” Vera asks, lips dragging against their cheekbone. “I’ll be your puppy.”
Taash bristles, gaze drifting back to Vera’s mismatched eyes. “I want you to stop talking.”
Vera tries to laugh but Taash stifles the sound, cupping a hand over her mouth. The other one explores the vast stretches of skin her armor leaves exposed, appreciating the musculature, feeling scars old and new.
They move down Vera’s torso with purpose, fingers slotting into the valley between her defined abdominal muscles. There’s a tantalizing line of hair, a shade darker than what’s on her head, just below her shallow navel. Taash’s hand follows it behind the leather of her impractical shorts.
Vera’s breathing grows harder against their palm, humid and hot. Her back’s still against the tree, Taash’s forearm pinning her in place while she raises her hips to meet their hand. Taash feels hair first, coarse and thick and wet. Their middle finger slides over the thatch of curls, finding its mark.
Vera’s soaked with her own arousal, and the smell of it sits heavily in Taash’s nose. They slip the pad of their finger between her lips, finding flesh as soft as silk. They start to stroke up and down, much like how they would with themself. Vera makes that whimpering sound again.
Taash watches their hand move behind the woman’s shorts, nearly entranced by the rhythm of it. They’re drawn out of their daze by the muffled sounds of Vera trying to speak against their palm. They move their hand away from her mouth, holding the side of her face with their thumb hovering over her lips.
“I need to taste you,” Vera begs, shameless. Taash swears their ears start to ring. “Will you let me do that?”
They pause their movements. They wonder if Vera talked to those women at the tavern like this, if these same honeyed words were what made them gather around her.
They don’t want to be one of Vera’s girls. They want to be… something else.
“I want you,” Vera continues, fingertips playing with the lace of their leathers. Their stomach tightens with anticipation. “I want you in my mouth.”
She drops to her knees, shamelessly rubbing her face against them through their pants.
Taash feels a painfully intense throb between their thighs in response.
“I’ve never—“
Vera’s brows raise.
“I’ve done this. Not… that.”
“Do you want me to stop?” Vera asks, voice as gentle as her first kiss.
Taash considers it, then shakes their head.
Vera unlaces the front of their pants with her teeth. She pulls their leathers to their knees, underclothes making it halfway down their thighs before she grows too impatient.
Taash cranes their neck to watch Vera drink in the sight of their arousal with a reverent expression. She flattens a thumb on the center of the mound, nestled in the silver curls and right above the slit. She pulls it up, exposing the sensitive flesh to the night air, smiling at what she sees.
“Look at you,” Vera says through an impossibly pleased smile, her breath humid against their skin. “Hello, gorgeous. Been waiting to see you all night.”
She presses a wet, open mouthed kiss to their clit, then slips her tongue between the folds.
Taash feels themself almost spit out an ember of their fire in shock. Their spine bends forward, a hand finding purchase on the tree trunk ahead. They watch Vera’s head bob up and down between their thighs, feel her tongue lavish their cunt. Her lips wrap around the bud of their clit and suckle, making them growl from the lowest parts of their chest.
They’re struck with the urge to thrust, to occupy all the space in Vera’s mouth, demanding for it to be made theirs.
Threading their fingers through Vera’s messy, uneven hair, Taash takes a firm hold by the roots. They pull Vera’s head back and she makes that sound again, looking up at them. Taash is stunned by the sight.
The length of Vera’s nose bridge and the skin surrounding it is a deep purple bruise, creating caverns in the spaces under her eyes. Her good eye looks black in the dim light, the pupil blown so large it swallows the green once surrounding it.
Her eyelids are heavy, brows drawn together in a pleading expression. There’s still some sweat above them and Taash inhales to catch its scent again. What truly captures their attention, however, is her mouth. It’s slightly agape, and soaking wet. There’s slick coating both lips, excess trailing onto her chin.
It’s Taash all over her. They’re more than pleased by that. They want more of it.
They gather saliva on their tongue, still a bit warmer than it should be from the fire, and spit.
It lands on Vera’s plump upper lip and her face eases into a satisfied smile.
“Half expected that to burn.”
“So did I.”
They’re not joking. Vera doesn’t seem to mind. Taash returns her head to its position between their thighs, where she’s more than happy to be. She loudly, wetly continues to devour them.
They take a nonlinear path out of the forest, leaving no tracks when they can and kicking dirt over the ones they leave when they can’t. It’s a drawn out walk back to town, but Vera knows the way.
Occasionally Taash looks down at their hands, the fingers of their right hand still damp with Vera’s arousal. Her scent makes it hard to think clearly, yet they can’t bring themself to wipe it away.
“Sorry about your record,” Taash says, turning their gaze back to the path ahead.
“What record?”
“For jobs. My mother says you’ve never messed one up.”
“And I haven’t,” Vera offers her hand, still taking three strides to match one one of Taash’s. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”