June prompt

[nightsfury]

Title: Heroes
Count: ~1500
Characters: Anders & Varric

I'm not sure how close to the Byronic hero this little fic comes, but it does deal with how Varric thinks about the concept of a hero.
Enjoy!

 

Varric’s frown deepened as he scanned the opening lines of his latest adventure tale.

Throwing caution to the winds, the brave young rogue stormed into the cave, trusting his companions would be close behind. Three days they’d hunted this particular group of maleficarum, a band of dangerous and desperate mages if ever there was one. 

“Crap. Total crap,” the dwarf muttered, crumpling the paper up with both hands, then tossing it into his small fireplace. Two clichés in the first sentence –possibly three - instead of one this time, three re-writes, and this was the best he could come up with?

“Crap,” he said again, watching his latest effort curl up and crumble into dull ash to join its brethren on the bottom of the grate. He rather liked the sound of ‘dangerous and desperate,’ though. It had certainly been true of that last job hunting apostates.  Now, if he could just build a better sentence around it. A better opening paragraph. A better story.

He set the small portable desk to one side, winced as he eased out of the chair, then hobbled over to a bookcase to retrieve another stack of foolscap off the top shelf.

“You’re supposed to be in bed…resting,” Anders said from the doorway.

Varric turned and waved the sheaf of speckled, unlined paper. “I am resting.”

Anders pointed to the bed. Varric settled back in his thickly padded chair near the fire. The apostate shook his head, then pushed the door over before pulling up a chair next to the dwarf.

“Gut wounds are nothing to fool around with. You tear it open and I’m not going to stuff your intestines back inside…again.”

He motioned for Varric to lift up his shirt. Sighing, the dwarf complied.

“Why is this taking so long to heal? You’re usually faster than this.”

“Your intestines got nicked. Oh, and did I forget that dashing slice across your liver? Good thing for you livers regenerate on their own. I just had to nudge it along a bit.”

Varric gasped. “Shit, Blondie, watch where you’re poking.”

The healer kept poking, but the pressure eased up. “Oh, quit whining, it could have been worse.”

“Seeing my entrails lying on my lap isn’t bad enough?”

“She missed the major blood vessels. Maker alone knows how. If that sell-sword had nicked an artery, you wouldn’t be here to complain about my tender care.”

Anders closed his eyes, and Varric sighed softly as warmth flooded into his gut. He fancied he could feel the tissues strengthening. Blondie patted his stomach when he finished. “I think that should do it. A few more days, you’ll be right as rain.”

Varric just nodded, and pulled his shirt down. Anders leaned back, stretching out a long leg. The human had shadows under the shadows around his eyes. He’d been pushing himself hard again. Probably living off stale flatbread and moldy cheese, whatever his patients managed to scrape together for some kind of payment. Maker knows he didn’t spend his share of the bounties they received on food, not for himself, anyway. Most of his coin went into equipment and supplies for his clinic.

Anders waved a hand at the paper still in Varric’s hand. “What are you working on? Story about Hawke’s latest job?”

“Trying to.” Varric tossed the sheets onto the table.

“Another heroic adventure?” He didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, though, to his credit, the healer did wince a bit at the tones.

“People need heroes. Especially in times like these.”

Leaning forward, Anders almost spat out his next words. “What people need is to wake up. To take a stand. They need to-“

“Kick the templars in the ass and out of Kirkwall? That’s not going to happen.”

No matter how many times he saw it, Varric knew he would never get used to the icy blue flash in Ander’s eyes when Justice stirred. The healer’s hands gripped the arms of his chair as he forced the spirit back to wherever in his mind it resided. Loosing a breath, he leaned back.

“Sorry about that. Haven’t got much sleep the last week. Late summer’s always a bad time for fevers in Darktown. Lot of accidents, lately, too.”

A soft knock caught the attention of both men. Norah toed the door open, and the smell of beef stew and fresh bread drifted across Varric’s nose. Anders pulled in a deeper breath as she set down a tray holding two large bowls, a round of poppy-seed bread, garlic butter, and a jug of ale on the table.

“Saw you had some company,” she said, smiling at Anders. “You want more, just holler.” Then she turned and glided away, shutting the door behind her.

Anders pointed at the stew, thick with chunks of carrots and potatoes, cubes of browned beef speckled with barley and bits of celery leaf. Here and there, a sprig of fresh thyme peeked out between the potatoes.

“That…was made here?” He took another sniff. “And is that really beef?”

“It’d better be, considering what I paid for it.”

Varric set a bowl in front of each of them, then started slicing up the bread.

Anders leaned over his serving. “Oh, Maker, I can’t remember the last time I had beef.”

“Help yourself. If Norah’s feeling generous, I wouldn’t turn down a free meal.” No need, of course, to mention that her generosity had been helped along by an extra ten silver in her pocket.

“I can’t believe this was made here,” the healer said around a mouthful of stew.

Varric handed him a slice of bread slathered with butter. “You ever hear it wasn’t polite to talk with your mouth full, Blondie?”

“Hmph?” Anders looked up from his stew, and waved his hand.

Chuckling, Varric picked up his spoon. “You didn’t think I took rooms here just for the atmosphere, did you?” He grinned. “Helen is the best kept secret in Lowtown.”

“Apparently. Can we bribe her to cook on Wicked Grace nights?”

Varric sighed. “Not like I haven’t tried. But she’s strictly daytime. Unfortunately, by the time you, Hawke, and the rest wander in, whatever she’s cooked up for the day is long gone.”

He tucked into his own lunch then, and through a second bowl for each, the only sounds in the dwarf’s neat rooms were munching and slurping.

After Norah cleared the lunch dishes, Anders leaned back, sighed contentedly and patted his stomach. “Maker, that was good. Too bad Pounce wasn’t here. He always liked a good beef stew.” He smiled. “Quite a civilized beast.”

He gazed into the fire then, sipping his ale, his eyes taking on the hazy look of a man rummaging through his memories, the good ones. After a moment, his eyes drooped, and he soon fell asleep, snoring softly.

Varric eased over and slipped Anders half-full cup out of his hands, then set it on the table. Once back in his chair, the dwarf glanced down at his belly, then lifted his shirt and examined the thin white scar that stretched across his gut just below his navel. He hadn’t intended to get so close to the front of the fighting, but battles had a way of shifting unexpectedly.

Anders had rushed forward, dodging lightning bolts and a swing from a broadsword when Varric had crumpled to the cavern floor, watching his guts spill out of the long slit in his belly. The mercenary responsible for that wound had staggered back a second later, her sword raised for a downward stroke, staring at her still-beating heart Fenris had just dropped on the ground at her feet. A few moments later, she joined it. After that, Varric had seen and heard only Anders, his back dangerously exposed,  ripping to shreds one of the dwarf’s favorite shirts, and then stuffing his guts back inside while the battle raged on around them.

The current fashion for heroes was tall and dark, like Hawke. Well, Hawke’s complexion was more toward the creamy side, but with black hair and eyes as deep as a summer night, he suited most people’s tastes well enough. He wasn’t broody, though Fenris did enough of that for several people. But throw in charismatic, perceptive, intelligent, and a generous dash of flippant humor, the man was a lot closer to the popular ideal than a troubled apostate dealing with spirit possession. Which was a damn shame, really; since -except for the charismatic part - Anders shared many of Hawke’s qualities.

Varric sighed and tucked his shirt back into his trousers. A mage, no matter how brave or dedicated, would ever be seen as the hero of a story. And people, hungry for distraction, weren’t interested in reading about someone fighting disease and despair in a place even folk in Lowtown liked to pretend didn’t exist. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t write about it. Some things you wrote for yourself, because the story needed to be told even if few people wanted to read it.

Varric pulled his small, portable desk back onto his lap and  picked up a sheet of paper.

“Look for the lit lantern,” Lirene had  told them. In the dank miasma of the old twisting tunnels, it shone like a beacon. A reminder that even in this dark place, hope still existed.

Varric smiled.

 

 

Comments

[varric]

this is just awesome. normally i do nothing aside from lurk here, but i simply had to reply to this. the tenderness of varric and anders's relationship in-game is so perfectly captured and expanded upon in this delicate, wonderful slice-of-life story, something that really embodies all the right feelings. really, it's like it might just as easily be an untold scene from the game itself. the payoff, that final line (of varric's prose, that is!) packed exactly the right punch. i really loved this! ♥ thank you.

[nightsfury]

Thank you so much. :) I'm glad you liked it. And please, feel free to delurk more often.

[andorin]

Oh, I like this! Especially this sentence:

He gazed into the fire then, sipping his ale, his eyes taking on the hazy look of a man rummaging through his memories, the good ones.

Anders need more of those moments.

[nightsfury]

Thank you. :)

[cumuluscastle]

I do love stories about Varric trying to take care of others and being concerned about them. His observations about Anders are interesting too. I suppose Anders is almost more of a hero than Hawke when you look at him in the self-sacrificing light. So, this made me think.