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Davrin’s hand is holding Rook’s while they walk down a white sand beach in the outskirts of Esnar, the town where her mentor, Marcel, grew up and where his mother still lives. This late in the afternoon leaves few people remaining at the beach; this area of Rivain is light on tourists and heavier on maritime trade and fishing so those lounging in the beach are mostly locals who haven’t been arsed to leave to figure out their dinner.
A trip long-delayed and she wonders if Davrin is holding her hand to keep her on-course instead of fleeing, as her racing mind is pleading for her to do. It’s too soon. She’s not ready.
She’ll never be ready.
Amara Laidir helped raise her. When her son, Marcel, rescued Rook from the Tevinter fuck who thought he could own people, Amara, a retired seer, volunteered to train her, opting to remain at home in the midst of the mage rebellion instead of fighting alongside her peers for the sake of her “final student”. She’s the one who taught a traumatized 13-year-old how to read by writing her own romance stories in the plain language easiest for those new to reading to comprehend. While Marcel had always intended her to be his apprentice, Amara insisted that, for the first six months, they remain in Esnar, allowing her to give a crash course in how to use and control her magic. When it became clear that she lacked the natural abilities of a seer and instead favoured lightning and close quarters combat, Amara pivoted, making use of the old texts from her own circle education to instruct her while Marcel taught her how to fight and kill using a blade.
Marcel died a few months before she met Varric by cutting himself off the fraying rope they were both climbing, saving her life at the expense of his own, she wrote to Amara, apologizing for Marcel’s death. Amara had written back, inviting her to dinner.
She never went. Then the world went to shit and the Dread Wolf was a total fucking dick and she just… didn’t write Amara. Didn’t try to make it to her house for dinner. Too busy, she told herself.
Davrin’s the one who had pushed her on the matter, telling her that she needed to visit with her grandmother. A statement she instantly rebuked - Amara is not her grandmother because that would make Marcel her dad and he rescued her and mentored her and offered her his last name but that doesn’t make him her dad!
‘Course, Davrin told her she’s just acting like Marcel wasn’t her dad because that means his death hurts less. Buncha fucking shit. She agreed to visit Amara, if only to tell her she’s sorry and that she’ll try to stop being a reckless tit. Doesn’t bother to write Amara, though, which is why she’s standing outside the little cottage just off the beach where Marcel grew up, spending his childhood with a fishing rod in-hand, trading fish to the sailors in exchange for lessons at sea. The son of a seer and a blacksmith, and all Marcel ever wanted was to be on the water.
She’s dressed in her royal blue crop top with the gold and silver beaded fringe and her favourite light brown booty shorts. The sort of outfit that’d get her laughed out of a family dinner in Tevinter - shit, she assumes the Shadow Dragons thought her a bit nutty until they took a closer look at the half dozen piercings lining each of her ears, her septum ring, and navel barbell and realized she’s Rivaini as fuck. Here in Rivain, though? This outfit is totally cool anywhere.
Davrin’s wearing a low cut red tunic and a pair of breeches - she still hasn’t sold him on booty shorts which is a fuckin’ shame because his thighs and ass just won’t quit. On the front step of Amara’s house are two clay flower pots filled with pink flowers with petals the size of her closed fist, and the papaya tree in the front yard has ripening fruit, varying from green to yellow.
She’s so focused on the tree, and whether she should offer to climb up to harvest it that she misses the sound of the door opening. It’s Davrin who gives her a tap on the arm and she turns, finding Amara standing on the front step, eyes wide, a hand covering her mouth. Amara is in her early 60s, her curls grey, and her skin - darker than her own, but lighter than Davrin’s, is free of any blemishes; most would guess she’s a decade younger than she actually is she’d reckon. The product of a life of sand and sea salt, Amara had always told her. Amara is not a tall woman - an inch or so taller than she is, but she’s curvy, which means she always gives the most kickass hugs.
“Rook?” Amara says, voice low, as if afraid she’s speaking to a demon impersonating her.
“Sorry,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Didn’t write or whatever. I can fuck off - just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop in but if you’re busy I’ll go; I don’t want to cause trouble; I…”
A crushing hug cuts her off and she squeaks, looking over at Davrin, whose handsome face is as smug as she’s ever seen it. “My dear girl,” Amara says and she bites her lip, eyes suddenly watering. “Isabela let me know what you were up to over the last two years. Why didn’t you write?”
“I killed your son.”
Amara scoffs at her, as if she were a naughty child caught sneaking an extra helping of dessert. “You think Marcel wanted to die old in his bed?” Amara breaks the embrace, rests a hand on her hip and looks at her. “Didn’t want to lose my boy but he died saving his little girl, which is about the best way one can go. Spirits sing his story in the Fade, touched by his dedication to protecting you and his thirst for adventure.”
Now Davrin’s face is insufferably smug. Amara glances his way. “The face of someone who understands what I’m talking about. Introduce us, Rook.”
Cheeks warm, she introduces the two of them, feeling something pleasant in her stomach when she refers to Davrin as her boyfriend.
“I have smoked fish for dinner and cumin potatoes. You are staying for dinner, yes?” From the way Amara phrases it, she recognizes it’s not a question but a demand and she nods, dumbstruck.
Inside the house, Davrin slips off his boots on the bamboo mat, having not yet broken the Warden habit of wearing boots everywhere, even on a fuckin’ beach. She’s barefoot; she’d call it a Rivaini habit but the truth is she never wore shoes as a galley slave, so after she was rescued, the feeling of shoes on her feet was strange. Confining. Marcel and Amara always made sure she had a pair that fit, but she only ever wore them while climbing up to ruins atop cliffs or mountains - until she left with Varric and it became clear that bare feet on city cobblestone would be uncomfortable at best. Many elves favour footwraps, the former inquisitor included, but she never learned to tie them and doesn’t really feel like she’s missing out.
Not that she says as much out loud when she’s hanging out with the Veil Jumpers, who would be liable to shit themselves to hear that an elf doesn’t know how to tie fuckin’ footwraps.
Amara’s house is built for air flow like most Rivaini homes, with bamboo curtains, skylights, and traditional masks crafted out of metal hanging on the walls - courtesy of Amara’s late husband. Sitting on the table is a platter of fish, its flesh a deep red.
“Oh, fuck yeah!” she exclaims, rushing to sit down while Amara looks through her pantry, chuckling. Davrin sits next to her and Assan settles at his feet under the table, his chin on Davrin’s knees, with the hopeful eyes of youth. A moment later a bowl of cumin potatoes appears and the three of them spoon them onto their plates.
They dig in; the flavour of this particular fish strong, its flesh only palatable once it’s been smoked. “I loved the shit outta this after I arrived in Rivain. Not that I was a fuckin’ expert on Tevinter sailing cuisine on account of being fed scraps not fit for a stray dog, but it was just so… different. Unlike the few meals I could remember my mom cooking in Antiva. Think I loved it at first because it tasted like a fresh start. Freedom in the form of smoky flesh. Now I think it’s fuckin’ kickass on its own.”
Davrin seems a bit less enthusiastic about it - he’s nibbling on the portion sitting on his side plate, but his hand is slipping down between his legs and from the gleeful look in Assan’s eyes, he’s coming out of this visit with a full belly. The fish - three of them on the platter, now well picked-over, and a full bowl of potatoes brings her to a realization: Amara had to have known she was coming, and she glances over at her, gesturing to the food.
“I was out for a stroll and heard a child speak of a griffon circling in the air nearby and made an educated guess, based on what Isabela had told me. If you wished for your visit to be a surprise, leaving your griffon wherever you’re currently living would have been wise.”
Amara has a point there and Assan, upon hearing that he’s the topic of conversation, turns his body and rests his chin on Amara’s chair, ignoring Davrin when he scolds him. Amara slips a piece of potato to him under the table.
“We’re, uh… wandering mostly right now,” she says, sheepish. “Our home base was this house in the Fade - it’s the tits so if you like we can take you for a visit. Lotsa books in the library and the Dread Wolf is a pretty smart dude when he’s not being a dick so he’s got, like, a lot of insights about magic and shit. It was his house but I’m claiming it now. We’re not all actively working together anymore, but we’re friends so the plan is for it to be the party house - come hang out a few times a year and throw a damned kegger.”
“The Dread Wolf… After Isabela briefed me on your mission, I consulted with spirits who indicated to me that he cares for the spirits of the Fade. Some went as far as to claim him as one of their own. He did not hurt you?”
She frowns, unsure of how to respond to that because he never laid a hand on her but he was a right fuckin’ dick and that shit causes scars. But, the sort of scars nobody but those you love most can see. Scars you can pretend aren’t there. He didn’t make her bleed, so is that a no?
“Ah,” Amara says before she can answer. “My friends in the Fade told me he has been swayed from his mission and is in the care of his lover. You showed him compassion when you received none in return and we must hope he can grow with proper time and reflection.”
“We think his sweetheart’ll keep him outta trouble. The details are a secret but he promised to stop being a shit muffin. Power of pussy and all that.”
Amara snorts, shaking her head. “You sound so much like Marcel, you know. He’d always wanted to be a father. Did he ever tell you that?”
“No,” she says, hands trembling in her lap, her plate of food now-abandoned.
“He cried and cried when he came out to his father and I. Not because he thought we would disapprove, but because he was sad that he would never have children. We told him that there are many ways to become a parent but a life at sea is not suitable for a young child, so until you came along, vulnerable yet old enough to live at sea without trouble, he assumed it would never happen. He never wanted to make you feel as if you had to view him as your father, so he never pushed it, but he would be so happy to know you took his last name.”
She whimpers at that, the grief hitting her like a wave, threatening to topple her over. A hand rests on her arm, large, warm and heavily calloused. Another, softer, rests on her other arm. “I miss him too, sweetheart,” Amara says softly. “He’d be telling everyone about what his ‘little shadow’ accomplished over drinks at The Hilt, bursting with pride.”
“‘The little shit kicked a royal amount of ass and chewed up a buncha slavin’ fucks while she was at it’,” she says, imitating Marcel’s deep, booming voice and Rivaini accent.
“You’re his legacy and he saw you as the best thing he ever did with his life.” The stinging in her eyes becomes too much and tears fall on her face, a veritable flood and all she can do is nod.
“I was just a fuckin’ elf kid he found in a galley and he died for me.”
“You were a child who spent years under the boot of a cruel man, yet the first chance you had, you stood up, pushed back and helped Marcel free you and all of the other slaves aboard that ship. A child who was brave, clever and tenacious. You’re more than your origins,” Amara says, emphatic, with such pride in her tone and she has to look away, because that pride mixes with the guilt she feels, a corrosive mixture of bleach and ammonia that threatens to overtake her.
“A free woman killed the god of tyranny,” Davrin says, his voice solemn. “There’s poetry in that.”
“Just like how a Dalish elf saved Fen’Harel from the blight tentacles,” she says, sniffling. Amara stands up and returns with a handkerchief, offering it to her and she wipes her eyes and blows her nose, noticing Amara doing the same. “Not used to fucking poetry in battle but that whole fight was… something else. Most of the others only found out I’d been a slave when I shouted it before I slit Elgar’nan’s fuckin’ throat. I’d only told you and Taash.”
The others suspected it, she thinks, but were polite enough not to raise the topic. Even after the fight, none of them mentioned it, but Neve gave her a long hug, telling her how proud she was of her, and it was nice. Not just the hug, but to hear she’d done something good. That she wasn’t a fuck-up even though it was her call that got Neve beaten to shit after they interrupted Solas’ ritual.
“Can I share something about elves that’s a secret? You gotta keep it quiet but I think it’ll help you understand your spirit friends in the Fade.”
They’ve finished eating and head out to the porch, the breeze off the sea cool enough to make her shiver. She thinks of Harding and how the woman used to tease her about cold weather - that she’d never even seen snow until arriving at the Heights of Athim in the Crossroads. Fuck, she misses Harding and her teasing. Her obsession with Fereldan cheese. That she drank tea instead of coffee and gave really kickass hugs.
She wishes Harding had survived but they all live to honour her. Harding died to save the world and now they’re gonna make sure the world she fought for remains intact.
Amara promises to keep it a secret and she explains that a lot of the ancient elves were spirits that took a body, pissing off the titans and causing a war. That Solas had been Wisdom but that the jackassery of the Evanuris, among other things, turned him towards Pride. He was hurtin’ real bad and his wifey sees him as Wisdom so now he gets to be who he wants to be in the Fade.
“Think that means some of the spirits were once elves with bodies. We’ve got a community in the Crossroads - the Converged City, where spirits and us fleshy sorts can hang out together. Makes you think - the spirits who try to force their way into this world are just missing their home. Maybe missing home is what’s corrupting them, turning towards anger or fear. It’s scary not to be allowed to return home.”
“Allow me time to think and consult with my friends in the Fade. If they feel comfortable elaborating on the knowledge you’ve shared, we may find opportunity to make life easier for people on both sides of the veil.”
“That’s good. Like, tearing down the veil would hurt us all but we still gotta help spirits out. One of our teammates, Emmrich, is a Mourn Watcher in Nevarra and he’s using all we learned to help too. I can put you in touch with him if you like.”
Before leaving, Amara insists they make plans to get together again - this time at the Lighthouse, where she can see all the cool shit Solas has, and gives her a tight hug. “Don’t disappear on me again, sweetheart,” Amara whispers in her ear and she promises to stay in touch. Still, Amara turns to Davrin and hugs him too. “Make sure she stays in touch. Get on her ass, as my son would have said.”
She laughs, but Davrin does not, responding instead with a solemn, “yes, ma’am.”
On their way back to the eluvian that will bring them to the Lighthouse, where they plan to spend the next few days, Davrin’s expression is smug as they trudge through the sand. “You can say it. Givin’ you permission to gloat and shit.”
“Speaking as if I need your permission,” Davrin retorts fondly while Assan chirps his agreement. “I like your grandmother. Knows how to dole out love and when you need a bit of a calling out. It’s a shame I can’t meet your dad, but I think I’d have liked him too.”
“You woulda,” she says softly, the grief an ache she’s learning to live with. Like a gap she’s grown around and made a part of her. “He was so fuckin’ honourable. Swore a blue streak but always did the right thing. You got a bit of him in you. Not, like, in a weird sex way but in an ‘of course I’d choose my guy based on traits he shares with the best person I’ve ever known’.”
“You love what you know and what you were taught to accept. And you, Rook,” Davrin turns so he’s walking backwards and looking right at her, “were taught how to love and be loved by two very special people.”
She stops and stares out at the sea; at the ships on the horizon, making their way back to port, and the little fishing boats trawling the waters in search of their evening catch.
“Yeah. They’re the fuckin’ best, huh? Had a whole run of shit luck until Marcel forced his way aboard that ship and killed every slaving fuck who got in his way. Think he decided I was gonna be his mini me as soon as I opened my mouth. Heard me insult the fuck who thought he could own me and figured we’d get along. And we did, Dav. He let me be pissed when I needed to be pissed. Taught me how to deal with my nightmares. The traumatic shit I survived. I miss him. Taash said something super profound once about Solas - that he never got a chance to tell Mythal that she hurt him. Like, it’s the same for Marcel but the opposite. Never got to tell him how much I love him.”
Davrin rests his hand on her shoulder and she leans her head to the side so it’s touching his own. “He knew, Rook. I never met him but he knew you thought he was,” he chuckles softly, “the tits, as you would say.”
“I made you say ‘tits’,” she teases, desperate to lighten the mood. “I’m rubbing off on you. What’ll your family think of your foul-mouthed sailor?”
“The same as I do: that she’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”
Soon, they’ll head back to the eluvian but for now she remains on the beach with Davrin, enjoying the sea breeze and the comfort of his company while the ache of loss and the joy at what she found intermingle.
Wistful. That’s the word. Fuckin’ wistful.