Oh, hey, look. Another addition to this Pizza Portal nonsense. Thank you @neverending-shenanigans, @amusewithaview, and @uru-viel for existing and causing this.
“Hannah?”
Having finished the last refrains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and never given my name out, I’m startled someone knows it. I look up from cramming my feet into the shoes I took off when singing, fingers loose on the laces. My hand wonders to my coin purse filled with fresh coin and tightly bound to my belt out of habit. I blink at the vaguely familiar woman standing across the street.
“Uuuh, do I know you?”
“Holy shit!” First time I’d heard that in a long while. The woman cuts across the street, getting yelled at for her efforts, and has me yanked into a hug before I can do much else. Spot, sitting to my right, snarls, but doesn’t attack. “It’s me! Sirrah!”
My eyes widen, and I quickly break away to look at her. And it really is her! “Sirrah! Holy fuck!” I hug her again. “How did you get here?”
“A pizza portal?” I gasps, grabbing her shoulders and shaking. “Same! They gave me the wrong fucking pizza!”
“Sounds like it was on purpose.” Sirrah says, and then realizes something. “Have you always had that dog?”
“Yes, it’s Spot.” I bend to pick him up, settling on my hip as one does a toddler. He leans his head against my side, eyeing Sirrah. “You can pet him if you want. He’s deaf so be careful. And a dick Templar kicked him earlier so he’s a bit testier than usual.”
Sirrah gasps in horror and then holds her open palm to Spot to sniff. He eyes is warily, then drops his head, allowing her to pet him. She does so, gentle and slow.
“He’s adorable.” Sirrah says, a little sadly. “I want a dog.”
“You won’t be agreeing when he starts yelling at you for food.” I warn, but affectionately, rubbing the little dummy’s back. “Or runs off because he smelled bacon.”
A small child comes up then, looking at me with big, hopeful eyes. “Are you singing today, Miss Minstral?”
“I just finish today, dear.” I tell her. “I have some business in Hightown later and can’t stay longer.”
The child lets out a long ‘awwww’ and we watch her disappear. Sirrah raises an eyebrow. “You sing?”
“Best way to make coin here.” I nod down the path. “C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch. You look like you need it.”
Sirrah hesitates, hand hovering over Spot’s head. He huffs at the loss of pets and tucks back against me. I grab her elbow and pull her along, heading in the direction of the Hanged Man. Varric should be there since it was nearly noon, and Sirrah would definitely want to meet him. And I’d already told him all about me, my world, and Sirrah and Anna, so there weren’t going to be any surprises. Hopefully.
“Where are we going?” She asks, as I take a sharp left down an alley when a pair of Templars turn at the end of the street. I was in hot water for punching the guy who kicked Spot and shouldn’t be out here, but making money to live waited for no woman and the Hanged Man was my nightly singing spot.
“The Hanged Man. It’s Tuesday, so they’re serving lamb today.”
I can feel Sirrah’s bewilderment and apprehension. “What? Lamb stew is good. And Varric wants another story so—”
“Wait!” Sirrah stumbles to a halt, pulling her arm free, and I turn to her, confused. “We can’t go see him! What if we end up in the game?”
“We already are.” I point out. “And Hawke isn’t even in town yet. Or so me and Varric assume, since they haven’t met yet.”
“You told Varric?” Sirrah punches my arm, lightly but obviously with intent to get her point across.
“Well, yeah, and I’ve been right so far.” I shrug. “Varric is a friend. Only one I’ve met, too, outside of…” I trail off, remembering she isn’t fond of him. I guess I’ll be sleeping at the Inn tonight, instead of at Anders’s. I’ll send someone to remind him to get some sleep. “Outside of Cullen.”
And okay, that was true. I’d run into him last month, right in the middle of that gut-wrenching version of ‘Take On Me’ (thanks Magicians, you assholes). I’d almost choked, finished the song the quickest I could without going Full On Meme and tried to leave undetected. He’d seen me and requested a song about Andraste in exchange for two gold, claiming my voice was soothing.
I hadn’t the heart to say no with how absolutely wrecked he looked, like my brother right after his medication was adjusted. So I had fumbled through ‘Let It Be’, exchanging Mother Mary for Andraste, and then beat it with the money.
“You saw Cullen?” Sirrah looks excited, then absolutely brutalized. “Wait, are you okay? I know he’s not the best person right now.”
“I’m fine. Scared the shit out of me.” I shrug, and exit the alley. The Hanged Man was right there, and I take us in. Varric is at his table as always. I take the time to say hello to a few familiar faces and then tug Sirrah to the table. “Varric! I brought a new story!”
“Oh really?” He smirks at me when I motion to Sirrah. She sits, looking an odd mix of delight and apprehension. “Who’s she?”
“Sirrah.” Sirrah holds out a hand. “From Earth.”
Varric’s grin widens, shaking Sirrah’s hand, then looks to me. “So there’s more of you!” He leans forward, just a little, and drops his voice, “And where do you come from? You don’t have her tone of voice.”
“Ah.” Sirrah pauses, glances at me. “Germany. Near Stuttgart.”
“You told me about that country.” Varric nods. “The one that speaks another language. And has a prime minister instead of a king or emperor. Like your president.”
Sirrah starts to smile, apprehension disappearing. “Ja.”
“Well, your accent is even cuter than Songstress here let on, Sirrah. A bit disappointed she lied about how beautiful you are, too.” Varric winks and I cackle as her face turns red.
She mutters something and then asks, “How much has she told you?”
“Bits and pieces.” Varric shrugs, sits back in his seat. “Mostly she likes to tell me fairytales. Like the ice bear prince and the girl with the long hair in a tower.” He looks back to me. “Going to see Anders today?”
Sirrah shrieks, “What!?” And I duck when she whips around to face me, livid, dropping her voice to demand, “You know Anders? And didn’t tell me? Goddammit, Hannah!”
I raise my hands. “I knew you didn’t like him!”
“For good reason!” She snaps. “You know what he does!”
“And it’s deserved!” I respond quickly. “This place needs waking up! Mages aren’t monsters!”
Sirrah presses her hand to her face. “Oh my god. You don’t even know the context!”
“I don’t need to. I see it.” I sit up straighter. “And it won’t even happen.”
Sirrah snorts. “Because you’re his friend?”
“Because I handled it.” I stare her down, willing her to understand what I can’t say out in the open.
Sirrah stares back, confused. Then her face shifts to surprise, disbelief, and then her jaw drops. “No,” she breaths. “You can’t be! Impossible!”
“Believe it.” I shrug.
Varric, watching on with mild amusement, cuts in. “So I’m assuming you don’t like the good doctor then?”
“Somewhat.” Sirrah hedges. Then glares at me. “You and I need to talk.”
“You can use my room. Top of the stairs, last on the left.” Varric offers, and grins when I whine at his betrayal. Spot, sleeping in my lap, blinks open his eyes to look at Varric, picking up on my mood shift enough to sniff disdainfully at him. “Just don’t break anything.”
Sirrah grabs my hand as Varric pulls out a key, passing it to her. “Traitor,” I mutter as I move Spot so he can nap on the bench. He huffs and moves to go lay by Varric. I’m then unceremoniously pulled from my seat, dragged up the stairs.
She quickly shuts and locks the door, then turns on me. “What the hell are you thinking? We can’t get involved with these people, Hannah! And Anders? He’s at the very heart of this!” She throws up her hands. “And you have Vengeance in you now!”
I jerk at the accusation. “I what?”
I gape at her and she slows down her rant, confused. “Isn’t that what you were trying to say downstairs?”
I laugh, a hard, disbelieving sound. “No! Fuck no!” I run a hand through my hair, fluffing it up. I needed to for when I went to sing for the Viscount in a few hours, anyway. If I couldn’t mask my magic well enough, or was too much of anything, I was fucking done for. I was going for the money and leaving like a Bean nighe had just foretold my death. “I’m a Somniari.”
“Now that really is impossible. You’d have to be a mage.”
“I am.” I head towards Varric’s bedroom area, sitting on his bed. I shift around, getting comfortable on the hard mattress, and pat the space beside me. The worry and fear on her face hurts. “Don’t worry. I won’t, like, get possessed.”
“I’m not worried about that.” She sits beside me, grabbing my hands. “How have the Templars not outed you yet?”
I shrug. “I don’t carry a staff? Anders teaches me in private? The demons are actually really shitty at convincing me to accept their terms and conditions?”
“Anders is—” Sirrah gives a heavy sigh, covering her eyes and her pained expression. “We’re fucked. In not even half an hour I’ve been fucked, without lube, up the ass by a sword.” She looks at me. “How long have demons been tempting you?”
“Not all that often actually. I think it was twice before Justice found me? I was mainly having issue with the whole… uh, Fade thing.”
It was hard to describe, really. I’d always been a lucid dreamer, hence my blog name, but to have that actually carry a weight was something else entirely. I didn’t know the first thing about shaping the Fade, bending it to my will, or how to expel demons from my dreams. And as much as I loved the color green, seeing so much had made me ache, and made me anxious to sleep. Which drew more demons. Justice, or Vengeance as he should be called, had found me tangled up in a mess of my own doing, trying to shape the Fade to make my own safe haven and instead having it catch me, lashing me down so demons of Despair and Fear could taunt me.
I had gotten used to always feeling a crushing weight of despair that the demon hardly affected me, much as it tried, but the Fear demon…
Sirrah deserves the truth and I give it, how I had found Varric on pure accident and immediately spilled the beans five or so days after my arrival. I’d realized my gift of song was a useful tool already on day one, but it was still hard to have a sure space to sing for money. I had come upon the Hanged Man for a hot meal for Spot and me, a real bed, and Varric had inquired about the ‘Skye Boat Song’. Which prompted the aforementioned bean spilling. And maybe some tears.
Justice had told me to find Anders after he’d freed me from my tangled web, said I needed a teacher and the Circle would kill my “mended, song bright spirit” if I caved to them for help. I didn’t disagree and delved into Darktown after Varric forced me to agree to return well before dinner time, let alone sunset. At the spirit’s recommendation, I told the truth, and had been visiting Anders near daily, helping in his little hospital, when I’d stopped singing for the day and before my evening serenade in the Hanged Man (if I had the energy to go back).
“That doesn’t explain how you’ve apparently helped Anders and Vengeance.”
“Oh that.” I laugh again, nervously. “So it was total speculation, based entirely on a fanfic that didn’t even go into details.” I watch Sirrah’s face darken, and I rush on, “So in the fic Solas had met Anders and Justice and helped them. Something about Justice sleeping during the day and Anders sleeping at night. I wasn’t entirely sure how that works, but I figured my Somniari powers could help. Shaping the Fade and all that.”
“Hannah that sounds really dangerous and stupid.”
“And it was!” I agree. “But it worked.”
She grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. “You could have died! And now you’ve fucked up the timeline!”
I yelp, twist my way free. “Oh, I highly doubt that.”
I stand, dusting off my dress. I wore it more than anything else, aiding my ‘outlander minstrel’ thing, and I realize how wildly different from Sirrah I look. She’s in black and brown leathers and pants and I’m wearing the cotton dress with lace and embroidery I’d arrived in, leggings hidden underneath now. Her hair was braided up out of her face while mine hung about wildly. She looked really tired and a little pale, though that might be from my blundering through pre-canon material like a rhino in an antique china shop.
“Knowing him, I don’t think he could do it anyway. So I don’t know how it’s a major plot point.” I frown down at my shoes, how they were a bit dusty. I needed to ask Varric if I looked unremarkable enough, or if I needed to be more dusty and change clothes. “Whatever he did to make you not like him, he doesn’t seem all that bad to me. And you know how picky about people I am.”
“It’s not current him I dislike.” Sirrah explains. “He becomes very narrow-minded, very ‘my way is the best and only way’ at the end. And he really believes all those people dying is worth it, which I am absolutely sure there’s a better way to go about it.”
We could be that better way. I don’t say that. Sirrah would strangle me. She is definitely in the No Plot Squad and I’ve been toeing the line while baiting a fucking tiger, walking on my hands across a tightrope that's been set ablaze at both ends Home Alone 2 style.
And honestly? The ends didn’t always justify the means, I admit that freely. I do think the Chantry needs to be taught a lesson, it's too in control, too Gilead for my tastes in a weird way that makes my skin crawl. But mass murder wasn’t needed. Not yet, anyway.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Sometimes you needed to go full on Ofglen on their asses, both with the car and the bomb. But maybe not yet.
“I…” Really don’t know what direction to take the conversation after that, especially with my current train of thought. “Anders isn’t like that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And I’ve honestly seen an improvement in both since I fucked around in the Fade. He could still blow up the Chantry but I doubt he will at this point. If he does, it just won’t be with near divine help.” I swallow. “The Viscount asked I come sing for him this afternoon.”
“You have your finger in every pie here, don’t you?” Sirrah shakes her head. “You need to say no.”
“He asked me last week.” I come back over, taking her hands, kneeling before her like some romantic knight from the faerie realm and she a mortal princess. Or some sappy shit like that. “You can come with? Varric has wanted me to take someone. Anders too. And I can’t even afford to say no to the Viscount. He offered me a lot of gold.”
“Gold is not worth dealing with him.” She doesn’t look totally sure though.
“If I want to get out of this town safely, I do. I need traveling clothes, a tent, food. Fucking papers, apparently. I’ll have plenty left to buy me a guitar or something so I can learn to play.”
An idea hatches behind her eyes. “I can play the ukulele.”
I snort. “I don’t think they have ukuleles here.”
“Probably. But if you’re getting as much gold as you say, you can have it made.” Sirrah sits up straighter, warming to the idea. She exudes excitement compared to her earlier disapproval and fear. It’s nice. “And it’ll add to our strangeness that your songs already present! Probably will get us more money when we travel.”
“We’ll be legit minstrels then.” I stop, think about how that changes my plans. By a lot. “I won’t have to find Maryden.”
“You are staying away from Maryden anyway.”
I hold up my hands when she pokes me very gently above my grandmother’s necklace. I had luckily been wearing it when the pizza portal arrived, otherwise I’d have only my triquetra and hundreds of questions on who I worshiped. My grandmother’s necklace said a lot without having to speak since everyone assumed it was Andraste on the pendant, not an angel.
“Okay. Fine. Fine.” I shrug. “Personally meeting everyone and keeping tabs is a much better idea than just trying to avoid them but sure. Let’s do that. Let’s hope no one else tracks us down because of the music.”
She throws up her hands. “You’re a mess.”
“I am digging out a way to live.” I shrug. “And Varric promised me 40 percent of the profits on the book I’m helping him make of children’s stories.”
I see it coming. Her eyes widen, jaw dropping, and I duck and roll away as she shrieks my name, making a grab for my shoulders. “What are you thinking?”
“Money equals safety and I know a lot of fairy tales this place doesn’t have?”
“Ugh!”
Knowing I was going to keep stressing Sirrah out, since I did sort of have my fingers in a lot of pies so to speak, I elect to ask how she’s doing. Her eyes narrow on me, accusing.
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“Yeah.” I admit. “But you’re also dressed very rougeish. I’m admittedly curious why that is.”
“I’ve been breaking into homes and stealing from people.”
My eyebrows go up. Sirrah didn’t strike me as the stealth and stealing type, she was an English teacher after all. They tended to be the more bookish, stand-out-in-a-vaguely-unthreatening way type in my experience. But if anyone could pull it off it would be her.
“Nice.”
Now it's her turn to look surprised. “No objections?”
I shrug. “Better than starving, right?” I head over to Varric’s desk, shuffling around papers full of my unsteady handwriting to find a blank paper. My Common was shit, but much better than months ago when I first began to learn. “And it works for you. You look good in leather.”
“Thanks.” She slowly comes over, looking over my shoulder. “Varric’s handwriting is worse than I expected.”
“Oh that’s mine.”
“Oh.” A long pause. “What are you looking for?”
“The music sheet Varric helped me make. Did you know the music is still the same here? Like treble and bass clefs, FACE and EGDBF, ACEG and GBDFA. Varric apparently knows enough to denote where shit goes while I only remember the basics.”
“Why do you need a music sheet?”
I find the one I need and carefully fold it into quarters, slipping it into the pouch opposite my coin purse, nestled against my phone. “Because the Viscount asked for a duet of me and another minstrel. I told him to pick someone, since I was new in town, but promised to bring my own song while strongly suggesting my partner be a guy for lyrical purposes.”
“This is worse than me breaking into Hightown and nearly getting eaten by a dog.” Sirrah shakes her head. “You’re crazy.”
“Thank you!” I kiss her cheek and head to leave. “I try my hardest.”
Sirrah follows at my heels, dogged. “You are crazy, and are definitely involved in the plot now, and it’s going to get you killed.”
“Not if I can get out of here.” I grab Sirrah’s shoulders, looking her in the eye. “This place sucks. Like, I hate this place so much. I only like the people, and they’re not worth sticking around for. I get the gold, get my papers, get your ukulele, and we’re out of here. That’s three things. Easy peasy.”
“I hate it too.” Sirrah admits, utterly exhausted. “I want to leave too.”
“That’s why I’m getting you a ukulele and getting you a room for the night.” I pat her shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. I stop at the bar to ask for two of the lunch meal and then head back for the table, ignoring Sirrah’s blustering and how, “Hannah I can’t just do that!”
“Course you can.” I drop down back in my seat across from Varric. I point at him. “You are going to keep an eye on Sirrah. She apparently has been sleeping in abandoned houses and isn’t willing to take a bed I offer.”
He holds up his hands. “Okay then.” He looks between us intently. “How did your talk go.”
“Hannah is insane and you’ve doubtlessly encouraged it.” Sirrah says, and he laughs. “Like I seriously mean that. I’m so mad about it.”
“She’s not really.” I assure. Norah arrives, setting down the meal, and is gone in a flash to see to others.
“Yes, I am really.” She picks up her spoon and starts eating, bickering with me between bites.
Varric eventually wheedles a few stories of her childhood and family out, listening intently at Sirrah gives her own take on the world we came from. He notes how different our childhoods were, and how different our two countries sound. The hour before I need to begin the climb from Lowtown to Hightown arrives sooner than I want, and I go to pay Corff for a food and board, telling him to give the key to Sirrah.
“I’ll see you guys in a few hours.” I say, wave for Spot to jump from Varric’s side to me, and hug Sirrah even as she grumbles at my stupidity. I glance at Varric. “Keep her out of trouble, please.”
“She’s easier to keep an eye than you.” He says jokingly.
“You say that now,” I warn, and leave, my dog at my heels.
I hate the stairs of Hightown with a passion. If I knew how, I’d invent the fucking elevator. This was honestly pure bullshit. But I had to do it anyway.
It’s just like hiking, I say, knowing it’s total bullshit and not at all like hiking.
ppl in the liev comments are like CHEOLSOL RISE!! bro it doesnt have to rise it came into being Fully Risen, scoups raised vernon from a tiny egg to a bigger egg and he would kill or die for him any day of the week
