Stained Glass
Link to ao3
Summary:
On the surface, the latest Marquise is as mundane as they come. But there are signs: Dreams, more than a few curious cases “miraculous” escapes from certain death on her forest hunts. And the voices… her blessed Masked Andraste, certainly, but more. And less. Whispers. Indistinct; as easy to dismiss as tricks of the wind. This happens to everybody. Good instincts. Gut sense. Hunter’s guile. Romantic flights of fancy in the woods. Better to not speak of it, though. A characteristic of Shame is to forcefully forget... but also to always remember, and never escape. Momentous events lurk beneath the twilight haze that envelopes Serault, but of course the smoke is expected; fires in the Glassworks are always busy. This will be a narrative following the events of The Last Court, with a few departures from the canon I will note, & cuts to other stories if I can follow leads from characters entering and exiting town. Some text is lifted directly from the game, some is altered, and a good amount is new.
Chapter 1: Prelude in a dusty river-side inn with tatty mustard-green curtains and dark cider...
...just north of the village of Guenoles, which slumbers within the Serault marquisate midway between Alyons and Serault, uncomfortably near the Nahashin marshes and a particularly swampy bend in the river Last, villagers and weary travellers rest at the Maison de Marais. The moon is high and the marsh frogs, loud.
An agent of many parties suspects one or more may have lately not been frogs at all not long before offending the inn's latest mystery transient. Will he dare risk the same fate just for a bit of classic 'bardic showmanship'? Probably.