Old Roads: Pitiless Games, Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven tells a secret, shows its hand, and then suffers the first of what will be many, many arrivals. It goes by Difficult as the Silence After. (and on AO3.) Warning: references to rape. Chapter is SFW; story overall is rated M.
Title: Old Roads: Pitiless Games
Rating: M (for the sexytimez, and for occasional graphic violence)
PC: Amell
Word Count: ~100k, ~11k this chapter
Spoilers: At this point, it's not so much spoilers as it might not make any sense if you haven't played through Origins/Awakening...
Summary: Amaranthine is destroyed, and Warden Amell travels to Vigil’s Keep to take command. But one either must play the game of politics or be used as a pawn, and like it or not, every last one of Kathil’s demons are about to come home to roost... Amell/Zevran/Cullen, post-Awakening, multiple viewpoints, Part 5 of Old Roads.
Kathil was giving him a calm, long look. "It's strange. I almost think you're avoiding me."
He stretched out his legs in front of him. They were in the Warden-Commander's office, which meant that this was an official talk. It had been a few days since they had come up from beneath the Vigil, long enough to get used to suddenly having memories of his family he hadn't had access to for years. He'd remembered a little, more than most: that his family had turned on him when they'd found out he was a mage, that his mother had marched him into the nearest Chantry herself.
He hadn't remembered that his older sister had tried to bodily block the door to keep their mother from getting out, that his two younger brothers had watched wide-eyed as Mother had hit his sister with a fire poker and then stepped across her prone form as she writhed in the doorway, holding her probably-broken arm. His father had told Jowan that he was no longer any son of his as his mother had dragged him out the door.
He wondered what happened to his father, if his sister had grown up and married. If any of them had survived the Blight. He wouldn't mind seeing his sister, but Maker only knew where she was now. They had lived somewhere in the Dragon's Peak bannorn, but Dragon's Peak had been overrun during the Blight and most people had fled if they could.
Jowan had been six years old. He probably wouldn't be able to find the place again if he tried.
He blinked and brought himself back to the present. "Sorry. I've had some things to think about."
Kathil signed and put her elbows on her desk, dropping her head to knead the base of her skull with thin fingers. "I still want to know what you and Anders' problem with each other is. I have to assume that Anders is going to resurface some day, and when he does I'm going to have to talk to him about it." She lifted her head, and sat back in her chair. "So. Talk."
"I know lots of things I don't want to know, Jowan. I'm good at it."
Title: Old Roads: Pitiless Games
Rating: M (for the sexytimez, and for occasional graphic violence)
PC: Amell
Word Count: ~100k, ~11k this chapter
Spoilers: At this point, it's not so much spoilers as it might not make any sense if you haven't played through Origins/Awakening...
Summary: Amaranthine is destroyed, and Warden Amell travels to Vigil’s Keep to take command. But one either must play the game of politics or be used as a pawn, and like it or not, every last one of Kathil’s demons are about to come home to roost... Amell/Zevran/Cullen, post-Awakening, multiple viewpoints, Part 5 of Old Roads.
Kathil was giving him a calm, long look. "It's strange. I almost think you're avoiding me."
He stretched out his legs in front of him. They were in the Warden-Commander's office, which meant that this was an official talk. It had been a few days since they had come up from beneath the Vigil, long enough to get used to suddenly having memories of his family he hadn't had access to for years. He'd remembered a little, more than most: that his family had turned on him when they'd found out he was a mage, that his mother had marched him into the nearest Chantry herself.
He hadn't remembered that his older sister had tried to bodily block the door to keep their mother from getting out, that his two younger brothers had watched wide-eyed as Mother had hit his sister with a fire poker and then stepped across her prone form as she writhed in the doorway, holding her probably-broken arm. His father had told Jowan that he was no longer any son of his as his mother had dragged him out the door.
He wondered what happened to his father, if his sister had grown up and married. If any of them had survived the Blight. He wouldn't mind seeing his sister, but Maker only knew where she was now. They had lived somewhere in the Dragon's Peak bannorn, but Dragon's Peak had been overrun during the Blight and most people had fled if they could.
Jowan had been six years old. He probably wouldn't be able to find the place again if he tried.
He blinked and brought himself back to the present. "Sorry. I've had some things to think about."
Kathil signed and put her elbows on her desk, dropping her head to knead the base of her skull with thin fingers. "I still want to know what you and Anders' problem with each other is. I have to assume that Anders is going to resurface some day, and when he does I'm going to have to talk to him about it." She lifted her head, and sat back in her chair. "So. Talk."
"I know lots of things I don't want to know, Jowan. I'm good at it."