Chapter Text
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" Varric greeted from the open gate of Skyhold.
They weren't. They were filthy and soaked and shivering in their skins and furs and wrapped up so tightly that there was no way the dwarf could see from where he stood which of them was which. But they could see plenty of him. He wore a cloak with a hood that had kept the pouring rain off of him and a sweater over his tunic, but Varric's chest hair was front and center as it always was, despite the frigidity of the autumn wind.
"How can anyone live here?" Merrill lamented, her teeth chattering almost as loudly as their horses' hooves on the road.
"Varric, put a blighted shirt on!" shouted Hawke, "It's freezing!"
The dwarf looked down at his torso in confusion and offered a shrug. "I have two on already, Hawke, how many more do you need me to wear?" He waved an arm at them, beckoning their small party toward the keep. "Hurry up and you can dry off and sit by a nice warm fire!"
They urged their exhausted mounts to a last-ditch trot to the iron gate and dismounted at Varric's side, who held up a distancing hand. "I think you're wonderful people and all, but let's hold off on the hugs until you're clean and dry."
Hawke finally began to unwrap her scarf and threw her hood behind her head, grinning as best she could at her dear friend with lips numb from wind. Behind her, holding their horses by their leads, Bethany, Fenris, and Merrill stamped their feet and revealed their faces behind their wrappings, staring up at the impressive, ancient stonework the Inquisition called home. "Hello again, nugnut."
His smile took up most of his face. "Welcome back to Skyhold, ugly."
~~~
"When will we meet her?" demanded Fenris once they were bathed and dressed in dry clothes and eating dinner beside the roaring fire in the little private dining room the inner circle claimed as their own. "This Inquisitor no one will shut up about."
"She's feeling a little under the weather today," Varric admitted and cleared his throat in a way that he hoped was very casual and not at all an indication of how awkward he felt about the idea of a pregnant Hal. They'd found out a month ago and she'd made it very clear that they were not to tell anyone or speak openly about it. So they discussed it late at night in the Bull's quarters with a lot of liquor and swearing in the same way they had to talk about this whole elven god nonsense. Varric had suggested that Hal tell Merrill what she knew, but the Inquisitor was being stubborn and wary, which he supposed he understood, given her situation, and had only agreed to think about it. She had been meant to meet them at the gate with him, but she'd been throwing up all morning, no matter how many herbal concoctions the other women made her drink or chew or sleep with under her pillow.
"Poor thing!" cried Merrill sympathetically. "Perhaps I could do something for her?"
Varric gave her a fond half-smile and shook his head. "She's got healers a-plenty, Daisy, but it's a sweet offer."
The Hawke sisters and Fenris were both in foul moods, tired and sore and still flexing their fingers to regain the feeling, but Merrill was chipper and bright as always. "Is it really true she's Dalish?"
"Maker, Merrill," groaned Hawke, "I've only told you a million times already. Yes, she's Dalish. She has the tattoos and everything."
Oh. Shit.
"Uh," began Varric awkwardly, "about that..."
But Merrill ran right over him with growing enthusiasm. "Just imagine! A Dalish elf from the Free Marches, running all of this! It's so inspiring, don't you think! All these different people working together! Why, I saw from a window earlier a Templar kissing a mage out in the rain!"
"Inspiring's not the word I would choose," Fenris grumped, and Bethany rolled her eyes.
"Go take a nap, Fenris," she sniped.
Poor Hawke dropped her head into her hands with a groan. Varric could imagine the whole long trip must have been like this, constantly mediating between Fenris and the two mages. It made him simultaneously grateful he wasn't with them and homesick for their years in Kirkwall together. Before everything exploded.
"Maker!" Hawke yelped as the door behind her burst open and slammed against the wall with a heavy crack of solid wood.
"Found 'im!" bellowed the Bull the moment he set eyes on Varric. "Hey, Varric! Boss was lookin' for ya!" The massive Qunari wandered in and dropped into the equally formidable chair they'd had built just for him after one of Josie's fancy ones had collapsed underneath him. He folded his forearms on the table with enough force to clatter their empty plates and slosh the drinks in their mugs and took his time staring down Fenris and the two mages. When he was satisfied with whatever conclusions he's drawn, he clapped a hand a little too hard on Hawke's back and she jerked forward with a wince. "Hawke! Welcome back! I take it these are the friends we've been expecting!"
"Iron Bull," greeted Hawke as she rubbed irritably at the spot he'd hit. "This is Fenris, Merrill, and my sister, Bethany. Everyone, this is Iron Bull."
"The," corrected the Qunari jovially. "Technically it's The Iron Bull."
"Tiny," said Varric, choosing to use his own version of the warrior's name, "Hal's looking for me? She's up?"
Bull laughed. "She got fed up being fussed over by Josie and the healers, so we broke her out of her quarters and smuggled her to the undercroft. She's sort of...curled up in a corner with a bucket, pulling pieces of the Fade for Dagna. We figured better we spring her and know where she is than she gets restless and everybody panics."
"Pulling pieces of the Fade?" Bethany echoed. She and Merrill exchanged baffled looks, each expecting the other's cultural magic to cover whatever that meant. Fenris just looked disapproving.
"It's...complicated," Varric decided. "Basically this girl is a magnet for shit not even you guys would bel--"
"BULL!" came Dorian's voice from down the hall.
"IN HERE!"
Hawke whimpered and rubbed her temples.
Dorian's heavy footsteps were echoing off the stone walls and headed their way, and perhaps if Varric weren't still thinking about Hal, he would have realized what was coming. Maybe he could have prevented it. But he was distracted. "Tiny, why's Hal looking for me?"
"Oh!" laughed Bull. "She and Dagna are dipping bolts for Bianca in the Fade and she wanted your opinion. Plus I think she wanted to know when your people arrived."
"Bull," chided Dorian as he headed through the open door. "Did you find-- oh! Varric, good! Hal wants--" That was when the Tevinter noble laid eyes on the former Tevinter slave, and the former's eyes went wide just as the latter's narrowed dangerously. "Hello, gorgeous!" he gasped, and before Hawke or Varric could even get to their feet, he was reaching for the brooding elf.
No, Varric realized too late, that idiot is reaching for his tattoos!
"Maker's breath!" fawned Dorian, barreling toward Fenris, who sat rigid in his chair like a snake preparing to strike. "Are these lyrium? They must have cost a--"
Fenris struck and struck hard, snatching Dorian's wrist before he could touch skin and twisting as far as it would naturally go, putting it at an awkward, near-breaking angle. Dorian grunted his pain and his magic flared, lightning from magic butting violently against lightning from lyrium.
The whole room was on its feet in a heart beat, Varric trying to free Dorian, Bull looming furiously over Fenris, Hawke and Bethany trying to pull the elf away, and poor Merrill standing horrified by the door.
Yeah. Varric really should have seen that coming.