WIP Wednesday
I was tagged by @rookamell and @sorrygoldfish! I'm kind of in a fallow period after a season of huge output, and I'm trying to let my brain simmer without pushing too hard, so I don't really have current wips to show...
...so I dug up something I started right after I finished the Dragon Age comics, and found the words kinda started happening again. It's a lot lower stakes to chew on something I'm only medium-invested in than it is to try and make my tender brain rotate the blorbos correctly! Not tagging anyone since it's almost not Wednesday any more.
Context, extremely tl;dr: circa 9:45 Fenris is hanging out around Arlathan Forest killing slavers, and happens to fall in with a motley band who are on a mission to kill a magister. One of the crew is a magister's daughter (Francesca Invidus) whose father and brother were Venatori, but who was kept in ignorance out of dismissiveness and has a lot of leftover ambivalence and anger. The good knight Ser Aaron Hawthorne died helping Fenris; his squire (Vaea) pledged to bring his body home to Ferelden, and both Fenris and Francesca volunteered to go with her.
There was something about Tevinter that made it inimical to leaving. The old Imperial roads, still even and unobstructed after long centuries, made it seem like it should be a simple matter. But whether it was the sheer breadth of the miles, or a subtle magic sunk deep into the dirt; whether one was on a good horse at full gallop or had oneself spirited out slow and careful; whether one wanted to someday return or to never again breathe the rarified air of the empire’s faded memories—one always had to bend one’s entire soul to the task. Fenris’s lips twisted. Maybe it would even take, one of these days. At least he wasn’t running this time. It had been a much younger man who had fled Seheron, and the desperate journey south had nearly killed him even then. But though Portsmouth was halfway across Thedas, Vaea kept them at a steady and sustainable pace. The Invidus girl had decided to do them the great kindness of keeping Ser Aaron’s wrapped body in stasis, saving them all from the stench of rot and the need to break their horses to try and race its advance. As the miles unspooled slowly, Fenris maintained an easy, loping stride to stay apace with the mounted women. Vaea had frowned when he flatly refused to ride, but it wasn’t like she had a better proposal: Carré was strong and elves were slight, but the cart that held Ser Aaron’s body was not a featherweight. If the old warhorse went lame they would have few options to bring it home. He was used to traveling long distances on foot, and from the ground his draw would not be fouled if they were attacked. He did not ask to ride double with the mage. She did not invite him to. And Vaea let the matter drop, either persuaded by his arguments or too heartsore to push.
