(no subject)
Here's to fiddling with LiveJournal! Not to mention, uh, trying to write anything that isn't crap. Spoilers to the middle of Dragon Age 2. Insert warnings of hairy-chested dwarves and a sad lack of Anders. Written as a prompt for 100 Fairy Tales. Prompt One: The Fox as Shepherd.
Varric hated the sanitarium and its odor of stale piss about as much as he hated the feeling of familial obligation that brought him to the old, stone building once a month. He was always greeted by the same Chantry sister who had undertaken the ‘Project.’ She was hard-faced, gray-haired and fully capable of scaring the shit out of small children in Varric’s expert opinion. Her robe was always faded and patched, as if she couldn’t bother to fix herself up any more than she could be bothered to secure the bars on the windows more tightly. ‘Mopping the goddamned floor once in a while is obviously out of the question.’
One could argue that he was roughly as fond of his brother as he was Bertrand’s caretaker these days. The visits were always quiet apart from the distant screams of others who had been shut away by relatives who couldn’t or wouldn’t deal with crazy relatives. ‘I can’t say that I blame them,’ he thought, a corner of his mouth twisting upward in a haphazard sort of smirk. The sister’s own mouth tilted downward as she glanced over her shoulder at him. Iron gray brows hiked upward, but all Varric did was allow his smile to widen just a bit.
“There’s a lesson to be learned here: a good throw rug will really bring it all together.” He drawled out the words as she stopped just outside Bartrand’s room. It was a heavy thing made of slightly rusted metal, with locks that needed to be replaced and a tiny slat of a window to let a bit of not-so-fresh air. Numerous visits had already prepared him for what he would find behind that door. If Bartrand had been in any decent frame of mind, he’d have hated the messy little box of a room with its scratch marks on the wall and an utter lack of anything that meant ‘Orzammar’ to him.
It was the soft, but curt way the sister cleared her throat that pulled him from his thoughts. Keys rattled in her hand as she unhooked them from the frayed red sash of trademark ‘Chantry’ belt. That belt said 'I represent Andraste. Also, I wipe your brother’s ass a few times a day.’ She tilted her chin toward the door before opening her thin mouth with its numerous frown lines. “Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter,” she said right back, quick as you please.
Varric was faintly surprised at the note of wry humor that crept into the old woman’s voice. He clenched his fist and pressed it to his heart, increasingly aware of the scuffing noises from within his brother’s room. “Ouch,” he emphasized, then tipped his head to her as she set to work on the numerous locks keeping Bartram from the outside world. ‘Or the outside world out.’
“Bartrand. Your brother is here to see you again. Say hello.”
Bartrand’s eyes were wild and strange in his messy room, those of a man twisted by greed and old magic beyond the poor bastard’s own comprehension. “Hello,” he droned in a way that reminded Varric entirely too much of Bodahn’s smart, smart boy back at Hawke’s place.
Varric stepped inside, wishing for the familiar weight of Bianca at his back, keeping the same smirk he’d been wearing fixed firmly in place. “Hello, Brother. Too bad they wouldn’t let me sneak in a couple of drinks.”
Varric hated the sanitarium and its odor of stale piss about as much as he hated the feeling of familial obligation that brought him to the old, stone building once a month. He was always greeted by the same Chantry sister who had undertaken the ‘Project.’ She was hard-faced, gray-haired and fully capable of scaring the shit out of small children in Varric’s expert opinion. Her robe was always faded and patched, as if she couldn’t bother to fix herself up any more than she could be bothered to secure the bars on the windows more tightly. ‘Mopping the goddamned floor once in a while is obviously out of the question.’
One could argue that he was roughly as fond of his brother as he was Bertrand’s caretaker these days. The visits were always quiet apart from the distant screams of others who had been shut away by relatives who couldn’t or wouldn’t deal with crazy relatives. ‘I can’t say that I blame them,’ he thought, a corner of his mouth twisting upward in a haphazard sort of smirk. The sister’s own mouth tilted downward as she glanced over her shoulder at him. Iron gray brows hiked upward, but all Varric did was allow his smile to widen just a bit.
“There’s a lesson to be learned here: a good throw rug will really bring it all together.” He drawled out the words as she stopped just outside Bartrand’s room. It was a heavy thing made of slightly rusted metal, with locks that needed to be replaced and a tiny slat of a window to let a bit of not-so-fresh air. Numerous visits had already prepared him for what he would find behind that door. If Bartrand had been in any decent frame of mind, he’d have hated the messy little box of a room with its scratch marks on the wall and an utter lack of anything that meant ‘Orzammar’ to him.
It was the soft, but curt way the sister cleared her throat that pulled him from his thoughts. Keys rattled in her hand as she unhooked them from the frayed red sash of trademark ‘Chantry’ belt. That belt said 'I represent Andraste. Also, I wipe your brother’s ass a few times a day.’ She tilted her chin toward the door before opening her thin mouth with its numerous frown lines. “Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter,” she said right back, quick as you please.
Varric was faintly surprised at the note of wry humor that crept into the old woman’s voice. He clenched his fist and pressed it to his heart, increasingly aware of the scuffing noises from within his brother’s room. “Ouch,” he emphasized, then tipped his head to her as she set to work on the numerous locks keeping Bartram from the outside world. ‘Or the outside world out.’
“Bartrand. Your brother is here to see you again. Say hello.”
Bartrand’s eyes were wild and strange in his messy room, those of a man twisted by greed and old magic beyond the poor bastard’s own comprehension. “Hello,” he droned in a way that reminded Varric entirely too much of Bodahn’s smart, smart boy back at Hawke’s place.
Varric stepped inside, wishing for the familiar weight of Bianca at his back, keeping the same smirk he’d been wearing fixed firmly in place. “Hello, Brother. Too bad they wouldn’t let me sneak in a couple of drinks.”