Chapter Text
“So—let me get this straight, everything you say has to be true. Not just—“I can’t tell a direct lie,” but “now that you have brought the subject up, I’ll tell you all about my real feelings on it”? The Iron Bull stares at her in fascination. When Lavellan and Dorian had stumbled back to camp, with her babbling nonstop the whole time, this was probably the last explanation any of her team would have proposed.
“I couldn’t lie to you about this even if I wanted to,” the Inquisitor groans. “I don’t know how it was done. We were just getting firewood when I found that cave and thought, might as well have a look since I’m already all the way out here, and then wouldn’t you just know it there’s a chest at the back. Every gods-damned time we walk into a cave out here there’s something inside it, all right? Everyone in these gods-forsaken hills has claimed their own little hideout; I don’t know why anyone thinks that’s a safe way to store valuables anymore. So, no, I didn’t think anything of it when I popped open the lid. Except then this light came out of it and next thing I knew, Dorian was shouting for me, and when I sat up and crawled back out of that damn dirt-filled cavern, I was like—this.” The words come out in a rush, and after they have left her mouth, she takes a deep breath before falling mercifully silent.
“That’s about it, yes,” Dorian agrees. “After she stopped responding, I went over to where I last heard her, and she was—well. She just couldn’t stop.”
He, Bull, and Solas all stand around where she sits next to the fire, considering the situation. Jacinth Lavellan drops her head into her hands, refusing to meet any of their eyes. This was not how she’d intended their trip into Crestwood to end.
“So it’s like… a truth spell?” Bull asks, eyes narrowed.
“So it would seem,” Solas agrees. “Which in itself is interesting, as it’s not any spell I recognize. If such a charm were known and easy to cast, you would find every king and country demanding its people to be under it at all times.”
“It certainly would make trials easier,” Dorian agrees, pondering.
“Well, I think it’s creepy,” Bull announces, shuddering. “Everyone knowing what you’re thinking, all the time?”
“So you would, Hisrad,” Solas quips, but there's less venom in his words than there might once have been, and Bull only snorts and rolls his good eye in response. “But still, it is surprising that such a chest wasn’t locked as well.”
“Oh it was,” Lavellan clarifies, whether she wanted to or not. “Lately I’ve been tired of waiting for Cole or Sera or Varric to do their whole fiddly lockpick deal so I’ve just been digging out the hinges from the back with a dagger, and opening them that way.”
“Huh,” Dorian says, considering. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“So, what’d she say to you anyway, that you both realized what was going on?” Iron Bull asked, directing the query at Dorian. But before he can reply, Lavellan interrupts, apparently unable to stop herself.
“I told him I thought it was silly that he didn’t take off his robe and at least three of his belts before we went scrabbling around for firewood,” she snaps. “I just think that we’ve all been traveling long enough not to keep up pretenses anymore.”
“Pretenses!” Dorian scoffs, stabbing his index finger down to point at her accusingly. “Everything is about appearances. You should know that by now, as the Inquisitor—how many people do you think are out there watching you? Besides,” he adds, “you can’t say my appearance leaves anything to be desired, unlike some of our company.”
Solas, the comments clear intended recipient, does not deign to reply. Lavellan, however, cannot help herself.
“It’s true. You’re the prettiest member of the Inquisition and I am including all our female companions in that assessment.” As the words drop from her lips, Lavellan’s eyes go wide, and she slaps her hand over her mouth moments too late to stop the word’s escape. Bull immediately bursts into laughter, and Dorian looks so fantastically smug that she wants to punch him.
“Oh, Creators,” she moans instead from between her fingers. “How long is this going to last?!”
“I am afraid there is no way to guess,” Solas replies carefully, although when she twists her neck to peer up at him suspiciously even he is suppressing a grin.
“Damn you all,” Lavellan mutters, to the mirth of everyone around.
The following morning, Jacinth wakes in her Inquisition-standard tent, alone—she had banned them all from sharing with her last night for fear of what might slip out while she slumbered. Certainly quite a cramped scenario for the rest of them, considering that Bull was one of the occupants, she muses, and that at least is a comforting thought. If she has to be tormented, so should everyone else, at least a little. A breeze gently ripples the sturdy canvas above her, and she can smell the smoke of a cookfire already started outside.
Please be gone, she thinks to herself as she sits up, rolling her neck back and forth to ease the tension that has lurked in her shoulders since the curse settled over them. Did the compulsion to spill out all her thoughts still linger? Was her tongue her own again?
Think of something to say, she tells herself, scrabbling for anything false. My hair is green.
She opens her mouth, and—nothing. The words freeze in her throat, as though blocked by some invisible barrier.
“Fenedhis,” she curses instead. At least the spell allows her swears.
When she finally exits the tent, dawn has long faded into bright morning, the other three already sitting on old tree stumps around the fire, a pot in front of them just beginning to boil over the flames.
“And how are you this morning?” Dorian drawls as he spies her emerging, a slightly wicked smile twitching at his mouth.
“Still cursed and still sick of porridge every day for breakfast,” Lavellan sighs. It is truly ridiculous, really, that she cannot even hide her affliction. It practically begs itself to be announced, like a tickle deep in her throat.
Bull grins widely. “What else are you sick of?”
“Bears,” she replies promptly. “Frankly, unless Cassandra is with us, I find them terrifying. Also Josephine’s insistence that I meet every visiting dignitary personally, no matter how many times I hear them call me “knife-ear” when they think I’m not listening, and also—”
With an effort, she shoves her face into her sleeve, biting down on the cloth against the rising tide of words. They almost spill out despite her efforts, but without further questioning, after another few moments the urge dies down. Bull is laughing again, and once the Inquisitor has regained control of herself, she glares at him.
“If you keep that up, I’m going to come over there and kick you, I don’t care how big you are.”
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, “it’s just—you’re Cullen and Josephine’s perfect toy. You stand there and smile at everyone and give rousing speeches. I thought it was genuine.”
“Some of it is,” she mutters, looking slightly abashed. “Being polite isn’t a crime.”
“It’s just—such a difference, seeing you like this instead,” Dorian agrees. The corners of his mouth curl upwards under his moustache, and she mentally moves him farther up her ‘to-kick’ list. “I’d think nothing had happened if it was Sera who got hit, but you’re usually just so… diplomatic.”
“Well, I don’t think we can risk staying out here. I have no idea when this will wear off, and I don’t want to start shouting Inquisition plans to any Venatori we come across. We’ll start heading back to Skyhold after breakfast.” With that, she sits down on her own dead log next to the fire, frowning into the flames.
“I’m not certain that’s wise,” Solas remarks, arching an eyebrow. There’s a gleam in his gaze that she can’t quite decipher, but the tips of her ears begin to burn as their eyes meet, and she looks back up to the wisps of clouds softly rolling overhead instead.
“I don’t think it’s wise at all, but I don’t see any better options. You all will just have to get me inside and I’ll stay in my room until this wears off. I’ll tell everyone—” she tries to say the words I’m ill, but apparently even the promise of a future lie is enough to be caught by the spell. After a moment of silent struggle, her mouth hanging open, she manages “—that I am not fit for company right now. Creators.”
“Oh, enough of that,” Dorian says, waving his hand dramatically as Iron Bull begins to spoon the thick porridge into bowls and hands them out to everyone. “Let’s talk again about how I’m the most handsome man you’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Dorian,” Lavellan replies solemnly, “were you so inclined, I would have let you seduce me right there in the Rotunda the day after we got to Skyhold, based solely off your looks.”
Solas chokes on a spoonful of his breakfast, and Dorian’s look of satisfaction quickly shifts to startled, then amused and flattered. As Solas coughs up his breakfast, Iron Bull clapping him on the back, Lavellan can’t help but give a small smug smile of her own.
“And that I would have told you even without this damned curse.”
“What about me?” The Iron Bull pipes up, curious. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
“I don’t know that I’d use the word ‘pretty,’ but I do greatly appreciate your back muscles, as well as your enthusiasm whenever we so much as smell a dragon. And the eyepatch is rather dashing.”
The response seems to satisfy him, and his roving eye lands upon Solas. “What about—”
“I think we should get packed up,” Lavellan hastily interrupts, not wanting to let that particular thread of questioning go any further. As it is, she can already feel a hundred different things she should definitely not say to Solas fighting for a chance to emerge. She abandons her meal with a few spoonfuls left and hurries to begin packing up their things before anyone can ask her anything more. Stupid porridge, she thinks. Stupid curse.
The Iron Bull cannot seem to resist the opportunity to pick her for all the information she’s worth. If it had been Inquisition secrets, like Leliana’s schemes or Cullen’s troop movements, she could almost have forgiven him for it. At least then she’d know it was out of duty—after all, he’d always been upfront about his orders from the Qunari military.
But no. Instead, he peppers her with questions about her childhood, her life, her preferences—most of the information so inconsequential she wouldn’t have thought twice about answering him truthfully on a different day. Her favorite color: green, like new spring leaves—and also, absurdly, her second favorite color: the soft purple-grey of lilacs in spring, or dried lavender flowers. If she had any siblings: one brother, a hunter, still with her clan. Whether she preferred her preserved fruits pickled or dried: pickled, when she can get them from someone else; but dried for ease of travel.
Now that she cannot resist giving him answers, it is nearly maddening. He doesn’t push her enough for her to truly snap at him—she could see him tossed from the Inquisition then and there if she wished, after all—but just enough to keep her heart racing and all her other, more valuable secrets tumbling around the front of her mind.
Instead, Lavellan picks up her pace, putting a bit of extra distance between her companions and herself. They’d already been in Crestwood for over a week, clearing bandits out of the farmland in the region. Not the most glamorous of tasks, perhaps, but Leliana had advised she return to the area every few months to give the impression of a more constant presence. Clearing Caer Bronach once had been bad enough; and no one wanted to risk it being retaken because they’d gotten lax about patrols. Inquisition soldiers or scouts moving through every few days was one thing, but to make sure the people of the region stayed on her side still required occasional visits from “The Inquisitor” herself.
All in all, she doesn’t hate it, usually—the region is only a five or six day journey from Skyhold, and while the rains can get a bit oppressive, the air is fresher than the Fallow Mire’s and she won’t get as soaked as she would on the Storm Coast. So the throb of this spell in her mouth is of particular annoyance, during what otherwise would be an almost pleasant break from the heavier duties of leading the Inquisition. And of course they were all the way at the southwestern fields of the region, about as far from the way home as you could get. She hoped the spell would wear off on its own—it wasn’t like she was wearing an amulet, or anything with a power source to keep it sustained—but the fact that it had lasted almost a full day with no sign of waning already sent slow tendrils of dread creeping down her spine. If she couldn’t figure out how to remove it herself, there was doubtless someone who’d be able to help—perhaps Vivienne, with her healing experience and her dealings with the trickeries and plots of the court would have some advice. But until then, unless Solas and Dorian could puzzle it out, it seemed like she’d be stuck babbling her every thought to them all.
It was going to be a long week.
Her reprieve lasts until they break for camp that evening. The sun is setting over the hills to the west, and the chill air of evening whispers against Lavellan’s skin. They’d made it almost to the coast; near the river crossing that will take them around the northern tip of Lake Callenhad and into the Frostbacks. They’d managed to scare off another troop of bandits along the way as well, the prowling men ambushing what they mistakenly believed to be a small and weary party on the road.
The clearing they’ve made it to isn’t a permanent Inquisition post, but it will do, Lavellan decides.
“All right,” she announces. “Let’s just get a bit farther into the trees. I want to be able to keep an eye and an ear on the road in case anyone passes by, but I don’t want to make ourselves an open target, either.”
“Sounds good, Boss,” Bull replies, and drops the pack he’s carrying. Lavellan feels a momentary pang of guilt, and before she even has time to think about it, the words are out of her mouth.
“I’m sorry for always making you carry most of the gear—you just never seem to mind, and it’s heavy, and I can’t manage my staff as well when I’m the one with the tents, and I didn’t want to spend the night at an Inquisition post in case they realize what’s happened to me and someone or other gets wind and decides to try to exploit it—damn,” Lavellan gasps as she finally manages to cut herself off. All day, she’s been biting her tongue against the torrent of words. All it takes is a momentary lapse in concentration and they come spilling out. Iron Bull is grinning at least, and makes a point of flexing a burly arm as he picks up the loaded canvas bag in one fist.
“You never apologize to me,” Dorian pouts, gazing critically around the clearing. Lavellan is already halfway to the trees, looking for likely branches to suspend the rest of their supplies from overnight. She had, of course, been perfectly truthful about her reluctance to engage with bears unless absolutely necessary.
“Apologize for what?”
“For bringing me camping. A trip to Val Royeaux? Anytime, happy to oblige. I don’t mind Redcliffe, even, if we stay at a decent inn. But all this… nature,” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Let’s just say I enjoy the finer things in life, and waking up with a rock in your spine is not one of them.”
“It’s good for you,” Lavellan insists, inescapably. “Can’t have you sitting around in Skyhold all day and wasting away. Besides, you were the one who mentioned more Venatori might be making a move into the area again. Also, I slept outside for years and turned out perfectly fine.” She stops herself from wincing, barely. She’s proud of her Dalish heritage. But it’s just another weapon for others to use against her, to undermine the power of the Inquisition. Perhaps she has gotten too used to biting back her words, Lavellan realizes.
“And with all that in mind,” Dorian sighs, seemingly not noticing her mild slip, “I’ll be sure to let you know when Tevinter next so much as glances towards Antiva. Fine wines, quality fabrics, what more could a rouge mage hope for?”
“A well-cooked meal and to not be cursed to speak only the truth,” Lavellan retorts automatically, pulling open her own pack and examining one of the tight cloth bundles of food inside. “Unfortunately, looks like it’s dried peas, rice, and beef stew again for us tonight. And far too much talking.”
Despite the cause of her recent debacle, Lavellan volunteers herself for gathering wood for the night again, insisting that it will also give her a chance to look for any herbs to improve the night’s dinner. Not that anyone had asked for justification. When she has wandered far enough away to be out of earshot, her arms half-full of moderately sized dead branches, and a few sprigs of elfroot in her pocket, she leans against a tree and lets out a long breath. Rubbing her temple with her free hand, she considers her predicament. She’d been hoping the effects would wear off over the course of the day—but all her attempts to thwart the spell with an untruthful whisper or two have only left her tongue sore from struggling against it’s invisible bonds. Cautiously, she reaches for the Fade, letting a small trickle of magic flow into her awareness. The anchor inside her palm hums in response, as it always does, but it no longer breaks her concentration. Holding on to the thin vein of power, she turns her awareness inwards, probing at the radiant core of her own self. She can just see the spell, now that she’s looking for it. It’s like an extra shimmer just beneath the surface of her skin, a hint of iridescence where there should be nothing. She pushes against it, but her magic slides off of the spell like water over glass. Pulling on it does nothing, nor a direct bolt of energy that makes her teeth ache when she casts it. As far as Lavellan can tell, there’s no core tangle of essence within the spell that she can work to unweave.
“I’d be careful with that, if I were you,” a soft voice remarks behind her, and with a gasp Lavellan loses her focus, the glimmer of spell dissipating from her view. Even as she reflexively pulls for more power, ready to send a bolt of energy into whoever approaches, recognition floods her, and she lets the unused magic fizzle into the air like static.
“Solas, I didn’t realize you were there,” she says as she turns to face him. “I was trying to get a handle on this spell, but I can’t seem to figure out how it’s put together.”
He stands unassuming in the fading light, the trees casting further shadows across his face.
“There’s no direct power source, but I also can’t find an internal net that would be actively pulling from the Fade to feed it.” Her voice is a little too loud as she rambles, her smile a little too stiff as she ever so carefully does not look at the stark angle of his jawbone in this half-light. “I thought maybe if I could cut off whatever is channeling it, the spell would dissipate without needing to be specifically untangled.”
“An interesting approach,” he comments in approval. “Though I doubt the wisdom of trying it in an area already so full of untapped energy. The veil here is thinner than elsewhere, I believe.” He raises one of his hands as he stares thoughtfully into the distance, as though he is unconsciously stroking the boundary between here and there.
Lavellan tilts her head, and mimics him, closing her eyes and reaching for the source of power herself, and yes, now that he mentions it, she can feel the fluttering pulse of it behind the crackle of energy. Just a slight edge of chaos to the magic, an extra surge pushing lightly against her control. “I can feel it, yes,” she agrees, opening her eyes again. She is startled to find that his gaze is now locked on her, the steel and blue of his eyes boring into hers. She can feel her face flush instantly in response, and the dreadful welling up of words in her mouth. She doesn’t know what she might even say, but she heads off the impulse by hastily bending down to grab a few more fallen branches.
“Enough of that, then, I guess curse examination will have to wait for a more opportune time. The others must be wondering where I’ve gone, I should really be getting this firewood back. It’s starting to get chilly at night, and Dorian always builds it up much higher than necessary as soon as the sun sets.” She winces at the chatter. Idle thoughts, not anything she’d be even half inclined to say normally. She feels foolish and stuttering under the weight of both the spell and his gaze, but he only nods his head once, the barest of smiles on his lips as he turns to accompany her back to where the others have already started the night’s dinner. Bull has launched into a story of some particularly amusing job he’d taken with the Chargers, and the low rumble of his voice pushes away the thoughts all clamoring for her attention. Exhausted, she finishes her food in blissful silence while he chatters, and excuses herself for an early night.
It is only as she is falling asleep—again, alone in one of the two tents she’d made Bull carry for them—that Lavellan realizes that Solas alone of their group has not asked her a single question of her since she fell under the power of the spell.