By coming here with Rahse, Leena Craynore had escaped a certain and wretched death. She sat now in the dark, a little bit away from the attic inn room’s tiny round window, watching the road for Frost or his men. Shit, they didn’t even know if they were being followed. Not really.
She suspected it. Bastien was not the sort of person to let anything go. Keeping the sisters apart had to have been about control. Where was Siora? Leena fiddled with the end of her braid, curling in on herself with every shout or too-loud noise. This little town was probably of a similar size to the Frost family keep, a close and sooty/smoky quality to everything that felt very similar from her hiding place.
Or perhaps she only saw similarities because she knew nothing else.
Rahse would be back soon. Picking her hair loose, Leena moved back from the window and began unpacking her bag. There wasn’t much in it – she’d fled with nothing more than one set of totally inadequate clothing. At the bottom, though: trinkets stolen from the mistress. Running her fingers over these fine things brought her no pleasure anymore. But they might yet keep them fed.
In a perfect world, they’d take it all apart and melt the metals down. Even Leena knew it would be dangerous to sell recognizable pieces anywhere in the Free Marches.
But that took time and contacts and resources that were unlikely to be available in this place. She set out a few of the smallest pieces on the table and lit the lamp, then settled on the bed, back to the wall and sloping ceiling.
Rahse would know what to do next. Maybe he’d even bring up supper for the two of them.
In the quieter moments today, Rahse could have almost pretended that nothing had changed. Alone, in a strange town he'd only passed through before, strangers exchanging looks with him, idle winds breezing through the main street, idle chatter and din denoting a few hundred peoples' worth of trade, it all conjured a mood he'd long since learned to embrace. A yearning for travel. A curiosity for people, both in search of opportunity and knowledge, the thrill of reading each often deciding which gained priority. And only so many obligations as he cared to sling over his shoulder and carry down the road, coin in his pocket, something new to read in his bag, some mark or target somewhere promising more roads yet to come.
That last part was where it had all broken down today, the crushing weight of his new reality coming back to bear. He wasn't alone, he had a great deal more thrill than he knew what to do with in the past few days alone, and he had very much chosen very dire obligations that would follow him down many roads.
All for a woman, no less. Maker, if his mother could see him now...
Returning to the inn with an overstuffed bag full of gains, Rahse would spare the inn-keep a nod as he walked silently upstairs. Stopping at the top, he would look over his shoulder, keep still, and listen, letting a good 20 seconds tick by as he pretended not to exist for a bit. When no following eyes, no idle footsteps, no... phantoms, he supposed, came following, he adjusted his grip and went up the ladder to the attic room, knocking on the hatch in the floor with the pattern they'd agreed to before waiting another few seconds and pushing it open, hauling himself up with an exhale.
Letting the wood back down gently for less sound, he would finally come to the bed's edge and set the bag down, glancing at Leena's face.
Seeing that she looked like how he felt, he opted not to; with a hand run through his hair, he would flick his chin up and shoot her a little grin in greeting. "What'd I miss, darling?" Reaching into his bag, he would begin to produce a number of items that represented most of his remaining gold; a few bundles of hard tack for emergencies, some plain clothing for them both, a duo of simple wool cloaks, and other such traveling basics. The sorts of things that would only make a trader recall "ah, yes, I can't even recall what that gentleman bought".
Grin maintaining, he'd nevertheless glance at the window, tone remaining light. "See anything?"
Leena flinched at the noise, then forced herself to calm. Deep breath, hold it, count … But it was only Rahse, as expected. She blew out that held breath and sat up, scooting to sit at the edge of the bed. Rahse was frightening in his own way, of course. The only lifeline she had. If something had happened out there, how would she have known?
Then there was the matter of all that gold he’d paid to Bastien. She did not like its new weight between them, the suggestion of something owed that she could not afford to repay.
“A rider came through but they didn’t stop. We might be okay?” Her voice raised at the end, looking for reassurance. Leena watched his hands as he unpacked the treasures from the market. She swept up a pair of moccasins and hugged them to her chest – her slippers had been the first casualty of the road, beginning to rot from the mud and damp in only a matter of days.
It was so infuriatingly clear now, how she had been a kept creature. Unable to do even simple things like walk outside properly. Leena would never submit to that again. And Siora – Siora’s trials had been different, but at least she’d been sent outside the estate sometimes.
Oh. But Leena could hardly be jealous of that, having seen the way Frost hurt her with his demented ‘training’.
“Thank you. They’re lovely.” They weren’t decorated, per se, but the lining was butter soft and a joy to pet with her fingertips. The hardtack raised an eyebrow – she wasn’t sure she could do much to improve that, especially with just a pot and a campfire.
"Mm. For tonight, I think." Smile unfading, the glance out of the corners of his eyes at the windows again betrayed a certain anxiety. He'd been in situations like this before, a single wrong move worth most of his skin, on the run from people with far greater reach. It could be thrilling, in its twisted way, especially when a piece of history burned in his hands, wrought with potential, with the weight of the ages.
It was a different feeling with Leena, and altogether much scarier. None of those artifacts or scrolls had been alive, a living piece of the present. A life trying to navigate history in the making, its next breath playing out before his very eyes.
It terrified him in a way he'd certainly never admit.
Her question made him shake it all off, frowning at the bag as he reached the bottom, the final item decidedly inedible; a spare knife, rough-forged with a cheaply-made handle of leather scraps. Collapsing the sack, he'd shake his head. "I'd thought to when I left, but the change in weight of my purse stymied the idea." That and the prospect of sitting and eating, exposed, so early into their fleeing. A sleepy town like this could be made quick work of by men the likes of Frost, and a murder in broad daylight wasn't beyond him. Especially depending on how "betrayed" he felt by his "employee".
Rahse would rather have kept that topic to the realm of idle wonder, some ten years from now. Preferably when he and Leena were dining somewhere glamorous, not a care in the world, wine flowing like the tides. "We'll go down for bowls of the inn's stew in an hour or two. Gruesome, I expect, but it'll do."
Finally sitting on the bed, he'd allow himself one moment of relaxation, slumping only so much as he dared. By all accounts, this was the first rest they'd had in days. Even if his mind could keep up the charade of pretending it didn't bother him, his body couldn't. "Did you sleep any?"
“Oh. Alright.” Leena tried to brush off her disappointment with limited success, wilting visibly the longer she considered the hour and the innkeep’s stew. The bottom of the common pot was likely burned. She turned her tired smile to the crude knife, wondering if that too was for her. Rahse surely had finer things, from long before she and Frost had disrupted his life.
It would be nice to have a weapon of her own. Even if she didn’t know how to do much with it besides gut fish and slice up vegetables.
“Okay. Sleep for dinner it is.” She stuck out her tongue, knowing she’d take that back in a little while. Even if the stew was disgusting slop. Say one thing for working in the Frost family’s kitchens, there had always been plenty to eat. Life on the run was an adjustment, to be sure.
“I don’t know. A little bit, maybe?” A few moments here and there before jerking awake. She wasn’t sure that really counted. It didn’t feel as if she’d rested. Leena set the moccasins aside and scooched back to the far side of the narrow bed, laying on her side to watch Rahse. Perhaps she was reading too much into it. If he was unusually quiet, there were plenty of obvious causes that she’d no need to dig for.
“Where do we go now?” Any Free Marches citystate might have ties to the Frosts. They’d have to go further than that. The thought was daunting, beyond anything she’d ever known.
But there were stories. Arlathan, for one. The ancient city of the elves.
Or would Bastien expect them to flee north? Leena reached over to squeeze Rahse’s hand.
A huff of amusement inflated Rahse’s slumping posture. Sleep for dinner? A bold joke coming from a woman who had endured a few such nights in recent memory. Leaning toward her, Rahse would slide onto his side facing her, planting an appreciative peck on her forehead even as her tone returned to considered sobriety, a good question soon to follow. She’d need that humor to get far enough to find an answer. Hell, he’d need it more.
”I don’t know.” Melting into the bed a bit, Rahse’s guard lowered than he intended, eyes closing as his smile became more and more weary, threatening to slip entirely. For a moment, he’d lie there in… not defeat, far from that, but belabored wonder. For just a moment, there was no answer.
Then the wheels began to turn.
”The Free Marches are the Frosts’ purlieu. Even if we secure ourselves in one of the more upstanding city-states, say Hercinia or… maybe Starkhaven… we would have to continue to contend with their methods. Spies. Investigators. An assassin once Bastien knows enough.” Bringing a hand up to pinch his nose, Rahse would flop onto his back, half his body hanging off the bed. Nose in-hand, he’d continue.
”Escaping the Marches entirely to deny them their native advantages, their established contacts and coin-for-blood employees-” Rahse would click his teeth, well aware of the irony of him deriding prioritizing gold to morality, Finally opening his eyes, he’d scan the ceiling for a moment, his musings turning internal. When they clicked together in some fashion, he’d turn his head to face her again.
”Tevinter slavers treat run-away foreigners like escaped sheep. That leaves us two options. We play ‘the game’ in Orlais, or we try to fall off the map in Ferelden.” Smile returning, it’d be smaller this time, a little more honest perhaps.
”How’s your stomach for double-speak and entendre, love?” Ferelden would be a matter of hiding, and running, and hiding. But Orlais, with its politics and its masks and its secret deal, was perhaps the only game Rahse could match their frigid pursuant at. Especially with both of them starting with a blank board, forced to collect pieces all their own.
It wasn’t a pretty picture. All the places they could go and why they would still be in danger if they went there. Leena scooched over and rested her head on Rahse’s shoulder, closing her eyes to listen as he talked.
“I wouldn’t mind wasting all their money on a wild nugg chase.” Favors, spies, investigators, assassins all cost gold. So did Bastien’s usual entourage of mercenaries, though. “Though I admit, being the bait loses its appeal by the moment.” What was that old saying? Something about how the wolf only had to catch you once. She would prefer not to be caught at all.
Tevinter was definitely a no go. Ferelden, perhaps, wasn’t so bad. Everywhere needed food cooked and children watched and clothes washed. Rahse’s skills were a little less universal, but likely to fetch a much better price.
“Orlais?” It seemed so far away by foot, but if they could get on a ship … Leena opened her eyes and propped herself up on one arm, to better watch his face. “Aren’t there darkspawn there?” Rahse was far from defenseless but she had a hard time imagining feral monsters being stopped by the whip or light blades that he favored.
“What about Antiva? Rivain?” She knew next to nothing about them, only that they were to the north. It seemed unlikely that the Frost family’s connections stretched that far.
“Or Arlathan? They say there’s elves living there now. If we could get there, we might be safe.”
“Well you would be fetching bait, at least.” For a moment, Rahse allowed his mind a bit of dramatic, dark humor. The two of them dashing runaways, on the lamb, clothes tastefully torn, dramatic gasps always primed, reactions always perfect in their timing to save the other only so closely. Snow and his men could be the perfect novelized goons, snarling and obvious and comically inept, contributing to their survival as much through their own antics as their own blunders. A village stage show turned romantic comedy, finished at the very end with both of them standing with a foot each on Snow’s unconscious body, cheeks in hands, kissing romantically.
It was a sweet, fleeting thought. One that offered a moment’s reprieve from the many, many, many horrific ways he could imagine Leena being killed in front of him, or he in front of her, or both of them in an inglorious, graphic end.
Her mention of darkspawn helped filter those visions sharply, beasts from a world buried beneath their own making him stroke her head against his shoulder with a hand. “There are. It would be trading one hell for another, either with the beasts in the wild or the monsters behind the walls.” Supernatural terrors on the one hand, and duplicitous backstabbing on the other. Perhaps not.
Rahse’s expression would lighten at her last mention. “Arlathan?” In all this excitement, he hadn’t focused much on that news. The ruin was so far afield, so… removed from the public consciousness, so unimportant…
“... that might just be the perfect idea, darling.” Kissing her forehead, Rahse would sit up, a glint of genuine excitement in his eyes. “I can study up on it enough to know it better than Snow could ever hope to. We can both blend in with the pre-existing demographics, take new names, form natural alibis. It’s enough of a frontier for there to be no authorities to be bribed to sniff us out, and yet enough of a civilization that when nosey human mercenaries come asking about a duo of criminal elves-” He’d smack a fist into a palm. “Gold won’t be enough to tempt anyone. There’ll be nothing to even spend it on, ha!” Swooping down, he’d give her a quick, proper kiss before standing up in a hurry, his posture reinvigorated.
