The Blight, the Qunari, and Tea

Fallow Mire Interlude: The Tea Party

The rain fell in buffeted cascades against the walls and roof of the abandoned shack as the Tevinter mage pushed the door open. With an amused attempt at impugned dignity as he entered, Dorian, from beneath his sodden hood, said, "Well, I'll never get the smell of undead flesh out of this cowl now. And it's Orlesian."

"Move it, Sparkler," Varric said from somewhere behind the taller man, "You're not the only lady who wants to get out of the rain."

"Why, thank you, Varric," said Cassandra, cautious gratitude surfacing from under the blunt edges of her Nevarran accent as she moved to enter.

Varric cut in front of her, "I was talking about Bianca."

"Why do I even--" began Cassandra, continuing under her breath as she followed the dwarf inside. She flung water, and not a few bits of formerly reanimated corpse, from her shield in a gristly arch before leaning it against the shack wall, missing the quick grin that Dorian and Varric shared behind her back. As she turned around, Varric began examining his crossbow's limbs with great concentration, while Dorian nonchalantly studied his cuticles.

Raven, or Inquisitor Finhariel, as she was still getting accustomed to being called, pulled the door shut behind her, and, taking in the dueling innocuousness of Dorian and Varric, as well the jaw clenched silence of Cassandra, chose, very diplomatically, to speak about the weather.

"I think the motto for this place is 'Fallow Mire: Come for the undead, stay for the weather,'" she offered with a wry smile as she wrung greyish-hued swamp water from the hems of the surcoat she wore. Any stealth-enhancing enchantments bound into the cloth were likely ruined by the tainted water, Raven thought and sighed. She didn't need to be a mage to foresee more fabric scavenging in her future. The Inquisition was still establishing major supply lines to the fortress in the mountains, and, in Raven's mind, addressing the disrepair of their new home took precedence over her need for something new to wear.

Though, Dorian might argue.

Raven smiled.

"I do believe this charming little hovel has a functional chimney," said Dorian, "And, sweet maker, a stack of dry wood."

After a moment, though, it became apparent that Dorian did not intend to actually touch said firewood, much less kneel near the ash-ridden hearth to start a fire with it. In one corner, Varric wiped Bianca with a clean dry cloth (where did he manage to keep that, wondered Raven), while, in the opposite corner, Cassandra had commandeered a worn bench upon which she laid her sword, gloves, and helmet before leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees and stare down at the floor between her feet. Moving to rest her bow against the stone hearth, Raven knelt, choosing medium sized pieces of firewood to stack in a single layer across the iron rack, then slightly smaller pieces over the top of those, perpendicular to the layer below. She continued this pattern for two more layers before standing to brush what she could of the dust and ash off her soaked breeches.

"Dorian, can you..." she tilted her head to her finished work, her dark wet hair clinging to her shoulders. "Not too much, though. Just enough to catch."

He flicked his hand towards the hearth in one of those casually elegant movements that always made Raven wonder if all Tevinter mages spellcast with the gesticulatory elocution of dancers, or if it was just Dorian. Then the fire caught with a merry crackle, chortling over the wood with pops and hisses, momentarily gathering everyone's attention to it.

"You seem rather proficient at that," Dorian said, looking at Raven as if she were a puzzle he thought he had solved only to have another layer of clues revealed.

"At what?"

"Laying a fire." He added in a tone of revelatory seriousness betrayed only by the insouciant lift of his eyebrows, "In a fireplace."

"Well, not all of us grew up as the 'Scion of House Pavus,'" said Raven, quoting him with a grin. "Though, you managed to overcome your humble beginnings quite adequately."

Dorian laughed, a lyrical baritone burst of surprised pleasure that gave Raven a peak beneath his usual fade of Tevinter hauteur, "Only adequately? You wound me, dear elf."

Varric paused his tending of Bianca to watch them, a half smile on his face.

"Do you know what I was doing at the Conclave?" asked Raven. "I mean, why I was there, at that particular moment when the whole flaming mess began?"

Raven sat on the remaining stack of dry wood against the wall, resting her hands under the curve of her thighs. She picked at the rough edge of a piece of bark with the bitten nails of her marked hand before raising it to study the mark yet again. The fissure of magic eclipsed the landmark of the palm called the "life line" by the Rivaini fortuneteller who lived on the outskirts of the Amaranthine alienage when Raven was a child. Raven briefly wondered what future the fortuneteller would glean from her palm now.

"Tea," she said, looking up from her palm to give Dorian a half smile.

"Tea?" came Varric's gravelly echo, the cloth in his hand pausing on Bianca's stock.

"Tea," nodded Raven, noting that even Cassandra, who had heard an even more nonsensical version of the story right after the temple's destruction, had raised her head to watch the new Inquisitor. "The Divine wanted tea. I was a servant, brought with the representatives of the Amaranthine chantry, and I was bringing Justinia tea. That's it. Of course, I don't remember anything past carrying the tray out of the kitchens, but I do know one thing: the only thing responsible for my hand being close enough to Corypheus to get this mark in the first place is tea. Not a Tevinter cult. Not Andraste. Not Corypheus. Not Justinia. Just tea."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Inquisitor," said Varric, resting Bianca across his knees as he took a seat beside Raven, "But you're making about as much sense as Buttercup right now."

Raven laughed, nearly as harshly as the bird of her namesake, "I know, Varric, I know. But, if I start blaming people--I just... It's safer, for everyone, if I blame tea. For now."

Dorian, whose expression of empathy did not quite vanish under his usual mask of cultivated urbanity, flicked a bit of marsh grass from his shoulder before saying with complete sincerity, "I always believed tea was the source of evil. Especially chamomile."

"Right," agreed Varric. "Can we ban tea from Skyhold? I'm sure Chuckles would be devastated."

"Are you serious?" Cassandra said from her bench. "Tea?"

"It makes perfect sense, Seeker," Varric said going back to polishing his crossbow. "The warden had the blight. Hawke had the qunari. The Inquisitor has tea."

Cassandra made a disgusted noise.

Raven, trying not to blink the sudden moisture around her eyes into actual tears, leaned over to give Varric a quick kiss on his stubble roughened cheek.

"Careful now," he said without taking his eyes from the crossbow, "You'll make Bianca jealous."

Raven laughed.

She stood and addressed Dorian, a teasing tilt to her head, "I would give you a hug, Altus Pavus, but I don't know if Tevinters hug."

"Well," he said in a considering voice, "I am in Ferelden. I should probably learn your quaint Southern customs. To properly fit in."

Raven grinned as she walked to the tall mage and wrapped her arms around him.