Chapter Text
Bhelen was right, and she hates him for it.
The Dusters come to her side, wary but willing. For the first time in her life, the name Cadash is a boon. It conjures a heroic smuggler succeeding against all odds, spinning noble sods to her tune, and it makes them…
Well. Trust is going too far. But she comes into Dust Town with more clout than she deserves, and it’s all due to Maria’s wildly prevaricating luck. Their curiosity, combined with the very frightening reputation of the Black Lotus who cut down the entire Carta, makes it easy to set up in Dust Town.
That’s where it starts to get more difficult. And that’s before Cole shows up with a Deepstalker.
“She’s hurt.”
Bea looks up from the tangled web of extortion and illegal enterprises she inherited from Bleeder and meets the bright, irritated gaze of the skinny, small lizard. It hisses in a manner that’s more than a little vaguely menacing. She looks up at Cole.
“Sweetheart, we can’t take in every stray animal you find. Especially one that’s going to eat the nugs.”
“The nugs are learning to race. They like to run. She can’t run, her leg is cut. The nest mother doesn’t want her because she’s too small, but she’s smart.”
Well, as long as he’s sorted out the nugs, why not have a deepstalker living with them temporarily? Anything to make him happy.
“I’ve got a poultice in my bag if you think it’ll help.” She jerks her head behind her to the corner of the room. “Don’t know if elfroot is good for deepstalkers.”
The squawking noise it makes sounds more than a little doubtful, but Cole serenely sails past and Bea smiles down at the ledger. The numbers and words swim before her, blending into each other.
She’s never had a fucking head for numbers. And now she’s trying to run a criminal empire, learn the rules to a place she doesn’t belong in, and figure out the best way to prepare these sorry bastards for the potential attack of the titans or whatever weird shit happens next, while sending letters to Maria and Skyhold.
Letters that have yet to be answered. If Maria’s getting them, which Bea hopes she is, her sister has been silent. Probably pissed off. Fair. Bea did take off in the middle of the night alone and then carved a path of bloody vengeance through Thedas trailing Cole behind her. Maria’s got every right to be mad. But that doesn’t stop Bea from hoping even as days have dragged onto weeks.
She’s been down here for almost three months now, she can hardly remember what it felt like to stand underneath the sun in the Emerald Graves or the stars in the Hissing Wastes. The world feels muffled beneath the constant hum of the Stone, the mountain that buries her in the dark.
Cole’s right. She’ll never be happy, but that’s not important.
“It is to me,” he whispers quietly from the corner.
“We’ll get through it,” she says between gritted teeth, swinging her legs up on the stone table and trying to get comfortable. “Or die trying, I guess.”
No sooner does she return her attention to the ledgers than the door bangs open, revealing a woman with cascading fiery hair, more piercings than Bea can count, and a flimsy gown that can barely be called decent.
“What’s wrong now, Ruby?” Bea asks, wilting in her chair.
“Ye wanted t’ know when that bastard we told you ‘bout came back?”
“Ancestors, yes.” Bea’s out of the chair in a moment, knives slung over her back in the next.
Her lips twitch, the brand on her cheek crinkling. “Eager t’ stab somethin’?”
She can definitely stab people. That’s the one thing she’s undoubtedly good at, which is why the brothel girls seemed happy enough that she’d decided to take up in their back rooms. An eccentric choice, from the whispers she’s heard. No Carta head has done more than visit, let alone make it their base of operations.
But the whores are unfailingly kind to Cole, the one man who doesn’t seem to even notice that they prance around naked more than clothed. And Bea’s always liked working women and men. At least they’re honest.
Ruby giggles and flounces out the doorway, Bea on her heels. They traipse through the halls, past curtains hiding tiny rooms where the whores ply their trade. A man with another brand inclines his head as they pass in respect, dragging a half-naked dwarf behind him still wearing half the city guard plate.
But the moment they step out into the main room, Bea hears the raised voices. One of the older women stares, unflinching, at a man who’s jabbing his finger into her chest while he roars his fury.
“Listen here you casteless cunt. I’ll spend my coin here or I’ll-”
She lifts her chin. “Yer not welcome. Git before someone beats it inta ya.”
He lifts his hand into the air, enraged, to deliver a blow with his fist that could do some serious damage.
Bea catches it before it comes down, wrenching it quickly behind his back.
“Last time you were here, you hurt one of our girls,” she says mildly while the man struggles and sputters. “So you better see if your hand has plans tonight.”
“I’m a guard. Let go of me or I’ll have you hung, you bitch.”
“You’re not a city guard.” Bea knows them now, and the armor they wear. “You’re some two-copper arse that your caste foisted onto some poor merchant to guard his closets.”
It’s easy to drop him like a sack of potatoes. He sprawls on the floor with a groan and the watching crowd titters behind their hands.
“Bleeder said-” he groans.
“Bleeder’s dead.” Bea pulls a knife from her back and tosses it in the air, catching it without looking. “And I say if you can’t play nice, you don’t get to play. Now get out before I do worse than hurt your fuckin’ pride.”
Bea learned several things from the Inquisition, but she can thank Josephine fucking Montilyet for teaching her how to make a man feel as unimportant as dust. She spins on one heel, facing the woman who’d been the target of his wrath.
“Good manners are hard to find these days,” she drawls. “Worse still when they’re attached to tiny pricks.”
It’s not how Josephine would do it, but the woman clearly appreciates Bea’s color. She cracks a smile and Bea counts it as the victory it is.
“Nicely done, boss, ” she says, turning her back on Bea and the unwelcome customer.
The first time she’s been called boss hits her a bit harder than anticipated. It inspires a rush of pride followed by overwhelming dread. She’s almost happy when she hears the clank of armor behind her and the growled curse.
“Worthless bitch. I’m going to-”
Bea never gets to hear his weak, pathetic threats. Before she even finishes rolling her eyes, she hears the solid thump of a knife into flesh. Followed by a shrill screech and the scent of urine.
Lovely.
When she spins back to face the bastard, he’s up on one knee, staring in horror at the knife protruding from his shoulder, with a suspicious puddle underneath him.
Bea knows that knife. Her heart thuds uncomfortably and she searches the crowd, half-hoping, half-dreading. She doesn’t have to look far before she spots the figure lounging against the doorframe.
“I think you heard my granddaughter,” Zarra Cadash says mildly. “Get fucked somewhere else if they’ll have you.”
Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t make her feet move. It’s hard enough to keep her jaw from dropping as her grandmother’s ghost crosses the room and wrenches the knife from the poor asshole’s shoulder and kicks him solidly in the gut. The man finally sees enough sense to begin to crawl away while the whores jeer and giggle.
Bea hardly hears it. She’s too busy staring at Zarra’s wrinkled, beloved face through vision quickly growing blurry. Her thoughts spin and shatter, her heart sputtering inside her chest. She is dreaming, just like Maria does now, because this cannot be real.
But the hand on her elbow is solid. Sure. Zarra’s lips are pressed into a thin line of disapproval, her eyes stormy. She leans in, her breath hot against her ear.
“Don’t let ‘em see you cry,” Zarra whispers. “Not a soddin’ tear, you hear me?”
Bea nods once. Swallows the emotions threatening to choke her, and pins one silent spectator with an annoyed glance.
“Clean that up,” she orders, turning quickly.
“Yes, boss,” the man says, jumping to attention.
Zarra’s hand tightens on her elbow. It’s the only thing that keeps Bea from screaming as she walks back the way she came. Her vision narrows to one point far in the distance, Zarra beside her as calm and steady as she’s always been. It’s not Bea’s hand that reaches for the doorknob, but Zarra’s. Bea watches like she’s part of a story, somewhere outside her body, while her grandmother gives it a shove.
Nothing brings her crashing back to the present like a baby deepstalker on her desk, cheerfully ripping up correspondence from King Bhelen, while Cole wraps it’s back leg in a silk bandage.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Zarra asks, half-laughing.
Bea snaps back to herself so violently she rips her arm from Zarra’s and slams the door shut behind them, making the deepstalker hiss in alarm and glare at her with it’s beady yellow eyes.
She couldn’t care less about its opinion when she throws herself into Zarra’s arms only to have them fold tightly around her.
“What the fuck happened?” she asks, hating how her voice trembles. “Dwyka, the Carta…”
“You gave up on your old Nan is what happened.” Zarra injects a thread of annoyance into a voice laden with emotion. “I wasn’t about to let that soddin’ fool kill me.”
“Maria couldn’t find you-”
“I didn’t make it easy on her. Walked damn near to Markham, Carta on my tail the whole time, and I had all your surviving cousins to deal with. They’re lucky I didn’t kill ‘em.”
Bea’s watery laugh echoes in the office and she buries her face into Zarra’s shoulder. She smells like bitter tea leaves, incense, a whiff of cinnamon.
She smells like a home Bea thought she’d never get back to.
“Then I got to Skyhold, after climbing a whole mountain, only to find your sister had let you out of her sight-”
“Wasn’t Maria’s fault.” Bea’s defense is muffled by her grandmother tightening her grip on her and a brisk sound of dismissal.
“Maria ought to have had you dragged back by your hair. Her and I got into a row to shake the fucking sky about it. I said I was going to get you myself rather than let you get yourself killed and she threatened to lock me in the dungeon. And don’t even get me started on that deshyr she took up with.”
Nobody could get into fights like Zarra and Maria. They’re too much alike, although neither of them acknowledge it. But nothing brings home the fact that this is real, that she is real, like the thought of Maria and Zarra screaming at each other across Skyhold.
“Should have seen the other candidate,” Bea mumbles. “He was an elf.”
Zarra huffs like that still may be better than a deshyr, of all things. Her fingers wind Bea’s curls around them like they did when she was a girl.
“What were you thinking, Beatrix?”
Bea closes her eyes. Tries to pull together all the unraveling threads in her mind. Self-reflection has never come easily, not to her, and trying to explain herself now, when it’s all over…
“She had to,” Cole says earnestly. “We had to. The hurt went deep. It had to be cut out so new things could grow.”
Zarra releases her hold on Bea almost reluctantly to turn to Cole, a hand settling on her hip while the other one continues to hold onto Bea. She examines him closely. Bea holds her breath while Cole beams, scooping up the squawking deepstalker and holding it out to Zarra.
“Her name is Gladiolus. She picked it. She wants to stay here, with us, and you’ve always wanted one like the soldiers have.”
The deepstalker twitches its tail in aggravation, talons scrambling in the air. Bea smiles at Cole’s beaming face.
He knew. He always knew, and she was a fool to doubt him for a minute.
“Nanna, this is Cole -- and Gladiolus, apparently.”
Zarra sniffs disdainfully but holds out her arms for the deepstalker. “Gladiolus is a ridiculous name.”
“You like ridiculous names,” Cole says simply, handing over his new friend.
Zarra grins, lifting the stalker up and examining it. “So I do.”
“Did Maria send you?” Bea asks, tugging on Zarra’s arm. “I wrote. She’s not answering me. She’s-”
“I got a letter for you.” Zarra sighs and looks around, cradling the cooing stalker to her chest. “But I wanted to come myself. Didn’t give this shithole up to see you land back in it.”
Bea braces herself against the disappointment. “I need to be here.”
“Somebody we trust needs to be here. You’re not wrong.” The deepstalker nuzzles into her neck and Zarra smirks. “But it doesn’t have to be you. And Ancestors know Maria and I can’t share a space nicely.”
Cole’s smile only grows, but it takes Bea a moment to catch up. To remember the brand on Zarra’s face is well and truly earned.
“You hated it here,” Bea argues. “You left when you were fifteen. You told us all the time how awful it was.”
“But things are different now, aren’t they?” Zarra asks. “They’ve got that Queen up in the palace. I think I knew her mum, back when her mum could barely toddle along. And your cousins need something to do besides drive Maria crazy.”
Freedom. It dances at her fingertips, tantalizing and terrible. Zarra fishes a folded letter out of her pocket, hands it to her in silence.
“Your sister stopped me from chasing you down ‘cause she said you needed to bleed ‘em all dry or the anger would kill you. But if you’re done throwing your damn tantrum, I suspect she needs you more than she wants to admit.”
Bea stares at the letter, unfolding it with trembling fingers. There’s her name, scrawled at the top, and then words cramped close together in the page, almost illegible. Maria’s always had shit handwriting, but Bea’s eyes land on one phrase in the middle immediately.
When all is said and done, you’ll still have me. Always.
Something bright blooms in her gut. Something that feels like an answer.
“I’m not angry anymore,” Bea murmurs.
“Good,” Zarra grumbles. “Not sure there’s anyone left for you to take it out on. Now come help me figure out this shit so we can get you back to Skyhold.”
Skyhold’s constant construction seems to have finally ceased. When Bea crosses the bridge with, what seems like, a hundred other people, she can’t spot any of the familiar scaffolding.
On one hand, she’s glad that they’ve finally managed to clean this place up so she’s not likely to get crushed by falling debris. On the other, it just drives home how much she’s missed.
There’s more unfamiliar faces than familiar ones. By the time she finally sees Thom Rainier in the stables whittling at something, Bea could cry.
He doesn’t see her, too used to the swarm of visitors to inspect them closely. She feels like a ghost, a spirit, as her and Cole wander hand-in-hand up the stone steps and into the Great Hall.
Somehow, it’s oddly empty. She pauses, disoriented, taking in the space. Maria’s throne. The statues of birds that are too large for her to even see properly. It feels like she just stepped out of it, except…
“You’ve got everything?” Maria’s voice floats from the rotunda. “Cause I’m not going to be sending a hundred packages of stuff you forgot.”
“I’d never dream of it, Princess. If I’ve left it here, it’s rightfully yours to pocket.”
The voices yank her towards the door where she pauses, taking in the packed chests. The bright murals, all but one finished, and Maria sitting small and alone on Solas’ old desk while Varric’s hands move smoothly over the straps holding his luggage shut.
His luggage.
“Going somewhere?” Bea asks.
Both figures freeze mid-motion like a bizarre comedy before two sets of eyes swing to her. There’s another beat of silence while Cole thrusts out a bouquet of daisies over Bea’s head.
“I brought these for you. They’re the ones you like.”
Varric chuckles and drops the strap he’s holding. “Well, Princess, you owe me ten gold.”
“I’ll take it off what you owe me for Wicked Grace,” Maria shoots back, barely even looking at him, eyes crackling as she stares down Bea. “Orzammar finally lost its charm?”
“Has Skyhold?” Bea asks more firmly, gesturing to the packages.
Maria ducks her head and glares at the toes of her boots as they swing in the air. Varric’s eyes slide to her and then quickly back to Bea with a far-too-casual shrug.
“Kirkwall needs a bit more help than I can give it from here. Things seem to be less “do-or-die” here, probably a good time to head home and see if I can’t sort out centuries worth of mismanagement. I won’t be gone long. And Maria’s promised to come visit and lend some of her charm to my shithole.”
Bea scoffs. “I’ve been to Kirkwall. It’s gonna take more than a couple weeks to fix it.”
Varric’s genial smile finally falls. He opens his mouth-
“You’re one to talk about how long it takes to fix something,” Maria huffs, interrupting him as she jumps off the desk. “It was nice to hear from you after a year.”
Bea jerks her head at Varric. “He was watching me.”
“Guilty.” Varric merely grins and shrugs.
“Thank the fucking Ancestors or else I’d have thought you were dead in some gutter.” Maria crosses her arms over her chest, pulling herself up to her full meager height. “I told Nanna to kick your ass.”
“Well she didn’t,” Bea taunts.
“Course she didn’t.” Maria rolls her eyes. “Why am I shocked?”
“Did make me clean up deepstalker shit though.”
Varric laughs first, a rich, whiskey-soaked laugh that fucking void she missed, even if she’ll never admit it. Maria’s lips twitch as she attempts not to, then gives in, covering her grin with her laugh.
“You poor thing,” she teases wickedly. “Stuck in Orzammar. I almost felt bad for you.”
“It’s very dark.” Cole frowns. “And they kept telling me I was very tall. The doors kept knocking my hat off.”
Maria melts like only Cole can melt her, reaching for him with both hands. He comes to her with his flowers, which she ignores to wrap him in a tight hug.
“I missed you,” she mumbles into his stomach. “Both of you.”
“Does that mean I can stay?” Bea asks, batting her lashes.
Varric casts a longing look at his cases before he shifts his face into deceptive casualness once more.
“Course you can, Mittens. We’ll kick the Orlesians out of your old room and find somewhere for Cole to sleep.”
“I don’t need a room,” Cole says sweetly. “We fall asleep together. Usually naked.”
Maria wrenches herself away from Cole to stare up into his face, but Varric merely grins and winks at Bea.
“About time, kid,” he says. “About damn time.”
Varric leaves the next morning, but his father’s ring is on a chain around Maria’s neck like a promise.
When Cole asks Bea for a promise, she dries a black lotus blossom carefully and attaches it to the brim of his hat. Every time Maria sees it, she smiles, although there’s an ache inside her that never fades.
Skyhold is lonelier now than it was. So many people are gone, back to lives that can’t be paused. Letters bring stories of danger and delight. Maria reads them over dinner. Sera, Vivienne, The Iron Bull and his chargers, they visit and turn her life upside down and then leave the place hauntingly silent when they go.
Maria makes plans to visit Varric. She never mentions the one person who never writes. The one person whose visits come unannounced and unknown.
“She thinks of you,” Cole murmurs beside the door on the battlements, the one that leads into the Rookery where the birds sleep.
The figure the ducks out from it pauses, half-unfolded, before he continues on. His sharp jawline glows in the moon, pointed ears touching the stars like he holds up the sky.
“She should not. Have you told her I have been here?” Solas asks.
“No.” Cole touches the flower on his hat. Frowns to himself. “I should. Bea will want to know. But I know you want to help. To hold.”
A beat of silence. Then a long, soft sigh. “And I should not. Nor should I come here.”
“But you love her.” Cole knows what love is now. A song in the dark, a whisper in the night. He is never alone, never frightened, because she is always with him. “You love her, she loves you, he loves you both.”
“That is not enough, my friend.”
“It could be,” Cole pleads. “The anchor aches. Burns. Time is short, she wants to see you again before the end.”
Solas stares into the inky night unseeing. “It won’t be her end. I can’t allow it to be.”
Cole opens his mouth to argue. But Solas silences him with one, last word. Just as he had before.
“Forget,” he says.
And Cole does.