#50fadesofgray

[dreamholde]

Remembered Regalia

The Fade was always the same. Disorienting. No matter how many times she came here, each visit contained the same kernel of wonder and terror as that first time, when she had swooned over the bowl of lyrium at the top of the Circle tower, and had been left to find her own way in this strange, uncanny place.

Seheron, here, was a maze of yellow ochre streets, canted just off the perfectly geometric angles they formed in real life. Yellow tropical sun poured down from a sky filled with greenish clouds. In the distance, Vermille could hear the tinkle of bells, the chatter of disembodied voices, all as if they wound down to her through a long, twisted stone tunnel.

Carefully, she took a step forward. This first step was always so important. Rational thought. Will. Nothing else was real. As her foot touched the cobbled stone, she felt her mind align with the dream logic. The Qunari lord was here, somewhere in these twisting corridors. As she watched, the grand library materialized in the distance, its pyramidal stones rising above the rooftops. There. She would have to go to him.

At her next step, she realized she was not garbed in the simple smock and apron she had been wearing just a moment before, in the waking world. Her baker’s clothes had been replaced by long robes of red worked with gold. The fabric smelled just as she remembered it—of herbs and blood and crushed earth. Two golden belts wound around her waist, their pouches heavy with components and supplies. Her feet were cased now in soft leather boots that felt lighter than air. Gloves worked with runes and symbols of fire sheathed her fingers. Her hair was no longer plaited down her back, but wound around her head, pinned in place with pearls, and disguised under a delicate cowl crowned with the ridiculous cascade of feathers and plumes favored by Ferelden’s archmages.

Vermille felt her mouth flatten with equal measure dismay and nostalgia.

It seemed that someone—even if that someone was only her unconscious mind—found the prospect of a widowed baker venturing alone into the Fade... preposterous.

I wonder.... She held out her hand, and exerted her will. 

She did not have the knack of lucid dreaming, so it was not her archmage’s staff that came to her hand, but a silvery pearl and soap-bubble construction that looked at once impossible and hauntingly familiar. Valor, she remembered, as she wrapped her fingers around the haft. The staff created for her by the spirit she had met, on her Harrowing. So and so.

Clothed once again in the pageantry of the life she had left behind, Vermille stepped forward into the Qunari’s dream.

***

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[dreamholde]

A Warm and Sunny Place

It was morning when Sten came by her cabin with news that Seheron was at last in sight. She had visited him before in Par Vollen, but Seheron had a larger foreign population, and greater diversity even in its now-native Qunari, thanks to its proximity to the mainland.

She smiled to herself as the city spread out before her, white and golden sandstone, rising gently from the coast to the Arishok’s fortress at the crest of the cliffs. Around the hard white stone walls, the emerald colors of the jungle spread, dotted here and there with curls of smoke from dormant volcanoes, and crowned by wheeling, tropical birds.

Vermille could imagine no place less like home, to come home to.

Her bakery was in the middle of a small side-street. It was a good part of the foreign quarter, just as Sten had promised. Yellow sandstone walls caught the city’s sunlight and held it until the cobbles themselves were warm to the touch. Succulents in pots cascaded down the stairs leading to the second-floor houses, and the riotous colors of their blooms lent the buildings liveliness, despite the neighborhood’s relative tranquility. Since Vermille did not trust herself to keep even hardy, spiny plants alive, she put curtains in all of her windows: red and saffron cottons with tiny violet diamonds. Merely looking at them made her happy.

And there were cats. One, at first, then a few, then a dozen. Vermille was charmed by their aloof affection. She fed them cream and watched them climb over and sit on Einrafel as if he were a large, mabari-shaped throne. Einrafel didn’t seem to mind, and Vermille enjoyed the company. The cats were creatures of Seheron’s heavy sunlight, and they warmed her, long after the city turned purple in dusk.

The bakery itself was tiny—barely large enough for an old stove, a sturdy table to prepare her goods, a cupboard for supplies, and a chair for the occasional guest. She sold cookies and sweetbreads over the top of the white-painted, two-paneled door. Sten had planned it this way, so that people would not be encouraged to sit in the shop itself, talking and potentially learning about her.

Behind the main room was a small closet, just large enough for a bed, a washstand, and Einrafel. Under the building was a cellar and storeroom. The floor above was rented to an Orlesian woman and her young son, and though Vermille did not ever attempt to become friends, she found their presence around the building restful.

Within two months of her stay, the line for cookies wound around the block on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. Those were her baking days. At first, her customers were mostly other foreigners, looking for a familiar breakfast. A few were even Ferelden, and their accent made her smile, even if she pretended not to recognize it. In a little while, some qunari craftsmen, exchanging goods in the docks, came by with mild curiosity. Then scholars, minor officials and priests. When guardsmen on their patrols began visiting regularly, Vermille decided that her shop had arrived.

Such as it was.

Qunari, she learned, did not use money inside the environs of the city. Some vast and terrifyingly organized system of barter and allocations would see that she received raw materials in excess of her need as soon as enough native Seheron inhabitants patronized her shop, Sten had explained. True to his word, small sacks of flour and sugar began to appear by her door in the early mornings, delivered by Officials of the City Storehouse. Vermille had managed tax levies in Amaranthine in her tenure as its Arlessa. Imagining the workings of this system made her head hurt.

She was learning the qunari language from these people, bits and pieces that became the whole in her hungry mind. She practiced with Sten, when he visited, and in little phrases befitting a woman shopping at the marketplace. Under the heavy black veil she wore, she played a game with herself—to go as long as she could without having to resort to the common tongue, and reveal herself a foreigner. Though the clothing was heavy in the warm weather and the heat of the stoves, it was a style common among the older women of the city’s foreign quarter, and Vermille liked the way it concealed every curve of her body and every expression of her face. I do not need to lie, here.

A foreign widow, she heard some people murmur. Perhaps her husband was a friend of the Beresaad.

It was not entirely inaccurate. Vermille did not bother to issue corrections.

Sten came by every Tuesday and Saturday night, when he was in town. Vermille made a special batch of cookies just for him, right before he arrived, so that the whole room would be full to the brim with the scent of caramelizing treats.

Though he was often his usual, taciturn self, he brought her books and newspapers, and interpreted town gossip and local custom. His continued visits also kept away less welcome attentions from her neighbors and customers, for which she was very grateful. She did not want to have to defend herself here, for these peoples’ sakes. And her own.

***

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[dreamholde]

Memories of Minrathous

The first thing she noticed as they rounded the north east coast of Rivain, was that the air was becoming warm. Soon, Sten said, it would be wet, as well, and heavy. Vermille had visited similar latitudes before, of course, while returning Zevran to his business with the Crows, and she had enjoyed the heat.

“Less desert,” Sten said. “More like Tevinter.”

She had visited Tevinter too, of course, because the marvel and horror of a land run entirely by her own kind was too great to resist. Besides, Wynne was there, with Shale, and as the Warden Commander of Ferelden, she had excellent bodyguards.

It had been winter, then, and the temperature was cool and brisk, without bringing snow. She had enjoyed it, along with their libraries, which were as vast and impressive as their architecture. Ostagar, even Kirkwall, exposed hints of the glory of the Tevinter Magisters, but it was only after she saw the palace of the Black Divine with her own eyes that she had realized that these eroded places were nothing to the Imperious original. Even the Orlesian capitol, with its grand excess, could not match the terrible, unyielding arrogance of Minrathous.

If anything, it gave her new appreciation for Andraste’s courage and Maferath’s tactical genius. She knew Ferelden, and nothing brought home the Maker’s certain involvement in their first Exalted March more than the thought of her quarrelsome kinsmen facing down the endless black ranks of Imperium soldiers and mages.

And then of course, there were the slaves. She bit down on her tongue as if to swallow the memory. It helped. A little.

“Has the Blight gone to your head, Warden?” Weisshaupt’s commander had snarled after she had returned, and before their final, disastrous parting. “Do you honestly think the ills of the world are under your mandate to fix?”

Vermille forced herself to inhale, exhale, and fix her eyes on the horizon. Caramelized cookies. One part white sugar, one part brown. Three parts flour. Two chicken eggs, though lizard would do in a pinch.... 

***

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[dreamholde]

Regret

Vermille looked out over the ocean. The wind felt good in her hair, even if the clothes she wore felt a trifle... coarse. Bakers did not wear silk robes.

“Don’t look so grim, Sten. How long do you think I can go, without revealing myself?”

His expression grew even more closed. “Two minutes after you saw someone suffering.”

She shook her head. “Then why did you agree to let me accompany you?”

“Because it is your need.”

Her lips flattened. “I’m alright, Sten.”

“You are improved. You breathe and converse and fight. You even find it in yourself to care for others, again. But not in the same way. You are still not well.”

“I’m as well as I’ll ever be.”

“You are not the same as you once were.”

She frowned at him. “Of course not.” She lowered her voice and flattened her tone. “Either you have an enviable memory, or a pitiable life, to know nothing of regret.”

He did not rise to the bait. “It is not the same. Trees thicken their bark as they age. Dead wood merely weathers. Sometimes, Kadan, it is hard to tell the difference.”

Vermille sighed, and looked down at her working woman’s shirt, skirt, and apron. She had a simple black veil and headwrapping all ready in her cabin, for when they docked. Weathered indeed. “Fair enough,” she said dryly. 

***

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[dreamholde]

The Lantern

Vermille went at night, in secret, like everything else about this journey. The place her cousin called Darktown churned her stomach. The endless stone filled her with the claustrophobia of the deep roads, made worse by the film of human offal that coated every surface, every person, and every despairing echo.

Nothing here, of course, threatened her in any sense except the intangible. Though she went cloaked, the mabari at her heel was enough to dissuade casual molesters. The disdainful confidence in her step checked the more thoughtful ones.

Eventually she found it, the lit lantern in the winding dark.

Vermille did not knock. The bowl of milk sitting on the porch told her she was at the right place.

He was healing the sick. A child—a Ferelden refugee—lay on a stained pallet. Of course, she waited her turn.

He looked older, now, aged far beyond the year that had passed since their last meeting. Worse than old—tired. Worn. Deep shadows smudged his eyes, and his face had grown narrow, the cheekbones standing out in sharp prominence. His clothes, once kept as fine as his lackadaisical travels would allow, were patched almost to rags. The feathers in his Tevinter-style pauldrons were colorless with filth. 

His hands glowed a familiar blue, and the child moaned, and stirred. 

The child's family exclaimed over their restored boy. They paid him in food—a day old plate of roast chicken. As they filed out the door, he slumped down onto a bale of hay to eat it.

He stiffened when he realized he was not alone. His hand twitched to his staff.

“Anders,” Vermille said, before he jerked to his feet and lost his much needed meal. She rose to her feet and pulled back her hood, just enough for him to see. 

He stared at her, horror mixing with longing on his face. 

Not longing for her, she knew. Longing for what she had once represented. 

We both leave that life behind, I think. 

“Maker,” he breathed. “Vermille? What—what are you doing here?”

She sat down on the bale opposite him. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I just....” He shook his head. Wariness—old habit—sprang back into his face. “Are you here for me?” He glanced at the door.

“Not the way you think,” she said. “I was in the area, and I thought I'd come say hello.” Her smile was sad. “You left without saying goodbye. Everyone at The Keep misses you.”

He made a face. “How would you know? You'd been betrayed to the Anderfels, by then.”

“I know I would have missed you,” she said, ignoring his intimation, “were I still at The Vigil. And Nate sent a letter, to tell me of the rest of them. I hoped you had finally found a home, with the Wardens.”

“Yes, I'm sure you did too, before they sent you packing.” He sobered. “Are you... in trouble?” He studied her harder. “Where is your staff? Your robes?”

“I am... taking a break,” she said. “Weisshaupt will not miss me, and I will not miss them. We will all pretend to ignore each other, I think, for a little while.”

“Ah,” he said, looking around the filthy clinic. “I know all about... breaks.”

“My news of you was garbled,” she said. “One of my greatest regrets... was that I was not there to sort it out myself.”

“I don’t think you could have saved me, even if you were still Ferelden’s Warden Commander,” he said glumly. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I’m worth saving, at this point.”

“The Anders I remember would never have fallen prey to a demon,” Vermille said firmly. “Even as a child he was too canny, too watchful, too skilled. The account must have been a mistake.”

Anders slumped further into himself. His very posture was alarming to her. “No mistake. None but mine, anyway.”

“I don’t believe you. If you did not succumb in the depths of your childhood miseries—”

“I didn’t succumb,” he cut in. “I agreed. Of my own free will.”

Her fingers clenched in the straw. “No.”

“It’s true.” He sighed. “You remember Justice?”

“Of course. He disappeared after bidding a final farewell to that Templar’s wife.”

“He disappeared—into me. I invited him it. It... it was my fault.”

She felt all the heat drain out of her skin. “What?”

He tried to smile. “You’re pretty when you’re mad, you know. It’s usually hard to tell, under the haze of your mage armor, and your magic-eating spell bubble, and that fuzzy purple and black thing that helps you draw strength from the dead—”

She didn’t feel like letting him cajole her into a better humor. “But—but....” Her shock turned into a glower. “It was him, then, who destroyed the templar patrol?” She rose, and glared at him. “Let me talk to him. He should know better than this, by now.”

Anders leaned back and raised his hands, palms out. “No—no. It’s not what you think. He... he didn’t corrupt me. I... corrupted him.”

The expression of anguish on his face rent at her heart. “I... think I’d better hear your story from the start.”

He sighed, and slumped back down onto the chair.

“I don’t think you can fix this, Vermille.”

She took his hand. He did not resist, but it lay in her palm like a dead animal. “Maybe not,” she conceded. “But you look like you could use an absolution, anyway.”

“I don’t think anything can absolve me... of this. I wanted to save him but it’s like... he’s gone now. Except he’s not. He’s part of me.”

“Then tell me everything. I promise I will remember you as you both once were.”

***

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[dreamholde]

Cousins

Rovan Hawke blinked at the young woman who sat beside him on the low wall. “Pardon?” he said again.

Her blue eyes were warm under her elaborate green cowl. “I’m going to Seheron to open a bakery,” she repeated. 

Rovan opened his mouth, and closed it again. “You... have seen what the Qunari do to their mages...?” He mimed the faceplate, and the gauntlets.

Her smile was soft in her child-sweet face. “Maybe I’m tired of being a mage.”

“Cousin,” he said, “we’ve only exchanged a few letters, but even for you, this sounds crazy.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. But I think: if I have been so successful at doing things that...” she glanced down at her hands, “that others have put to me—that fell to me, or on me—why not pursue something that I actually want?” She smiled into the distance. “I’ve never tried it before.”

He followed her gaze across the bay, towards the horizon. He knew Ferelden was too far away to see from here, but sometimes, he imagined he could see it—a faint line holding the sea back from the sky.

He could take his family home, if he wanted. The Blight was over. The living proof of it sat beside him. But in his mind, the rocks and trees of Ferelden would forever hide darkspawn, and the mud of its ground would yield imprints red with Bethany’s blood.

Sometimes, maturity meant knowing when your own mind had you beat.

Rovan drew a long breath. “Well, as it so happens, I’m looking to establish myself here as a man of solid business acumen. If you’re going somewhere and happen to encounter rich silks, I’d be happy to take them in trade for say... chocolate....”

Now her smile turned directly on him. “Indeed. I do believe something could be worked out.”

***

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