for day 1 of @zevraholics' Zevwarden week 2023, tradition and trying new things - some pre-ship Nika and Zevran, a discussion of what will come of her return to Orzammar.
pairing: f!Brosca & Zevran
word count: 1200
rating: general audiences
tags: hurt/comfort, platonic relationships, fluff, a hint of pining if you squint
Nika stared at her reflection, warped and hazy in the frozen puddle outside their camp. A few hundred yards back through the trees their tents formed a half-circle around the fire. Beyond that loomed the peaks of the Frostback Mountains and within them, the gates to Orzammar.
Orzammar. Nearly three years gone since she’d left and going back now felt as intimidating as leaving with Duncan had then. Her fingertips traced over the faded brand on her cheek, newly bisected by a long, fresh scar. One of three—souvenirs from their battle with the dragon in Haven. Between that, and the weight on her shoulders, and the harsh cynicism regret had etched into her, she wondered if anyone in Orzammar would recognize the rebellious little casteless who dared defy their laws.
Part of her hoped they wouldn’t. Then she wouldn’t be alone in seeing a stranger in her face.
“Reminiscing, chapparita?”
A twig snapped under Zevran’s weight and Nika’s hand fell from her cheek as she glanced at him over her shoulder. She shrugged.
“Something like that, I suppose.”
Zevran hummed his doubt. Of all her companions, he would know. When they stumbled across his ill-conceived trap, she was still fresh-faced and sun-blind, lost without the cavernous Stone to ground her. She'd nearly shanked him in her anger. But his eyes shone with the wild desperation of someone who had absolutely nothing left to lose—he would have welcomed her blade, and it was a look so familiar that to see it in another shocked the rage right out of her.
He repaid her mercy with a curious devotion, sitting up with her through the coldest, darkest watches and fording paths when their inane quests took them through wilderness where even the smallest plants stood well above Nika's head. Bit by bit, he came to know her history, wheedling it out of her as none of the others had even tried to.
Things weren’t so different between the Carta and the Crows. Antiva's operation was larger and more storied, of course, but both were ruthless and cutthroat to a fault and you were only worth as much as the success of your last job. Nika didn't know many assassins, but she knew how they worked, and nothing builds trust like a mutually assured dagger in the back.
Zevran leaned against a tree and regarded her with a knowing look.
"You are apprehensive about returning to Orzammar."
"Am not."
He huffed, an aborted laugh that fogged the air around his mouth. "Dear Warden, there are at least seven paths that could have gotten us here sooner. And don't tell me you don't know of them," he added, for she'd opened her mouth to do exactly that. "I showed you how to read the map myself."
She rolled her eyes. "And?"
"And I think you should know that you do not need to run off into the woods with your woes." Zevran squatted at her side and tilted her face toward him with a knuckle on her chin. "You do not need to hide from me, chapparita. Not after everything."
"I know it's just..." Nika pursed her lips. "It's stupid. I just need a few moments to get it together."
"If it causes you distress, it cannot possibly be stupid."
"Yes it can," Nika grumped. "I get distressed by stupid things all the time. Rain and wagons. Broken lockpicks. Alistair."
"While amusing, this deflection won't save you." Zevran caught one of her hands and traced the calloused lines of her palm. "What troubles you so about returning home?"
"Home?" Nika scoffed. "Hardly a home. A place of origin, perhaps. But there was too much anger and never enough food to really call it a home."
"But you have family there, yes? Your sister and the young man...Lester?"
Nika's gut twisted. "Leske. And Rica, yes, they're still there. Or at least, I think they are. Some of the rumors coming up from Orzammar make me think there may well be nothing but carnage when we get there."
"Is that what troubles you, then?"
"Mmm not really. The city can tear itself to shreds for all I care, 'slong as Rica and Leske got out."
"Not worried about the city, not really worried about your family." Zevran tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Your reception upon return, then?"
Nika scrunched up her face. She really was quite transparent these days—if Behraht had been able to read her that well, she'd've never been allowed in the Carta, no matter how well Rica cleaned up. She glanced down at her griffon-stamped chestplate and sighed.
"I'm not the same person who left Dust Town," she finally said. "You know—you were there for most of the changing, the struggling, the growing."
"Not too much growing," Zevran teased, waving his hand over her head. She swatted at it and stuck her tongue out at him.
"The thing is, the time and the experience and even being a Warden—it won't matter to the people down there. You can't change your lot in life in Orzammar, so..."
She brought her fingers back to her marked cheek and Zevran’s gaze followed. "Once a brand, always a brand," she said bitterly. "I'm not even sure they'll listen to the treaties, not if I'm the one asking."
In the silence that followed, Nika stewed. She could feel Zevran considering her, but she didn’t want his comfort or his pity. Not when she had to walk back on the way the surface had changed her perspective. Not when she needed to be as cold and cruel as she’d ever been, to survive a return to Orzammar.
Gentle fingers caught her chin once more and this time the pad of Zevran’s thumb ghosted over the raised skin of her brand.
“They know you by this, as you were. But that is not who you are any longer so: have you considered…changing it?”
“How can I? It’s as much a part of me as my nose.”
“You misunderstand. I am not suggesting you attempt to remove it, anymore than I would suggest expunging your history before the Wardens.” Zevran dropped his hand to her shoulder and gently squeezed. “But the rest of you has changed on this venture. Should your face not change as well?”
Nika went very still. Her eyes darted back to the frozen puddle and the stranger reflected there. She imagined dark ink spiraling out around the blocky lines of the brand, weaving in and around the scar tissue, softening the hard border of the burden she’d worn like a prize all her life, just as this journey had softened all of her sharp edges.
In her heart, the idea slotted into place, so right that it immediately drew her out of her anxious melancholy. With eager eyes, she grabbed Zevran by the wrists.
“Can we do it now? Right now?”
A soft, warm smile crinkled the corners of Zevran’s eyes, a hint of wistfulness keeping it from catching at his mouth proper. But it swiftly gave way to his usual grin and he lifted her small frame effortlessly, swinging her onto his back.
“Of course, chapparita. We can begin whenever you like.”
Zevran catching feelings, and calling her "mi amor" before he realized it.
Brosca calling him "Salroka", then freezing.
The pair moving slowly, vulnerable for the first time in years, reluctant to be the first to admit that the fell deeper than they expected.
Brosca not wanting to put pressure on Zevran, knowing he'd do anything she asked- he was in her debt for his life. Zevran, not wanting to go further than the warden wishes.
The rest of the party seeing what's going on, and waiting to see what happens.
