InsaneJournal

The request from the Marquise had come unexpectedly, but of course Noëlle had been pleased to acquiesce. It was hardly a difficult matter to question Sorin Ghrian - in her experience, the eager elf would talk at length if only given the opportunity. He would never realize he was being questioned at all; he seemed the sort to gladly talk about his recent adventure.

He was not, however, at his usual post at Brouillard’s when she stopped by to see him - the woman folding blouses in his place informed the bard that he had taken the day to attend the Grey Warden tourney. Unexpected, but still - even in a crowd, a well-dressed elf lacking half of his arm could not be so very difficult to find. Thus thinking, Noëlle had made her way to the area of the market cordoned off for the tourney. The crowds were thicker than she’d expected - it was no grand melee, but even so - and it took a half hour before she spotted her target, dressed in what she thought of as his second-best shirt.

Sidling up to him, she followed his line of vision to the match currently playing out in the ring - two swordsmen, about evenly matched. She watched the Warden take a swing at the man in unmarked armor, then said, “I had not taken you for the sort to enjoy this manner of sport, somehow. Are you enjoying an afternoon off?”

So enthralled by the match unfolding before him, Sorin nearly jumped at the sound of Noëlle’s voice, but once he registered who it was and the question asked of him, he smiled brightly. “Hello, Noe!” he greeted, and then nodded. “I’ve never gotten the chance to see anything like this before, and I doubt I’ll ever have the opportunity again. I couldn’t miss it.”

Besides, he figured that this was a perfect learning opportunity: there was much to be gained from watching all sorts of trained swordsmen in combat, and if he was attentive enough, maybe he could apply some of their tactics in future bouts. It was only after discovering his mentor’s name on the combatant list that he had felt fully grateful for making this decision over trying to earn another day’s worth of coin.

“Do you usually watch these sorts of tournaments?” he asked, wondering. She certainly had the coin and means to, but he, too, did not expect this to be her style of entertainment. Of course, it could be a nobility thing, and he knew better than to hope he would fully understand.

“It seems most of Cumberland is here - how could I stay away? It is not unlike some of the contests of skill hosted in Val Royeaux on festival days.” These had always proven veritable mines of useful information; the people who chose to put their skills on display were so often the people with whom she might have to cross blades later. An informed bad was an alive bard, after all.

She lapsed into silence for a few moments to watch the bout. The Warden seemed to have the upper hand now - it would be called in minutes, she was certain. “It is sometimes difficult to believe that there is danger so close to the city,” she mused. “It is good that those who defend it keep their skills sharp. Who knows when they may be called upon? Though of course, everything here seems peaceful enough for now, bar brawls aside.”

Sorin’s smile was hesitant, his eyes still focused on the match but his mind churning over the past week. Yes, there was the Blight, but it had always seemed a distant worry until the Grey Wardens showed up, and even so, she was right: Cumberland seemed peaceful enough aside from the usual dangers of brawls, crime, and the occasional human deciding an elf needed to be “put in his place.” (He was still disturbed by the incident, and he hadn’t confided either to his mothers or to Nikolas yet that that had happened; he wasn’t sure that he would.) And while he hoped the demon had been an isolated incident, he somehow had a feeling that it was only the beginning of something sinister. Was it related to the Blight itself? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

“Hopefully,” he said slowly, watching as the Grey Warden began to undoubtedly overtake his opponent, “not too soon.” He frowned. “Do you suppose our luck will run out soon?”

“Hopefully not too soon,” she echoed. In truth, the Blight worried her very little: the Grey Wardens had stopped the last two Blights, hadn’t they? People were moving forward, learning, growing. They were cannier, better skilled at politics and war alike than their ancestors had been. It followed that this Blight would be defeated more quickly than the last.

She said none of this, of course.

The Warden won his match at last with a particularly skillful maneuver; she said, “At least our defenders are in fine form. I feel reassured, watching this.” A pause. “Although, it is not only the Wardens defending the populace, of course. Didn’t I see your name on the network the other day, volunteering to aid the Templars with an investigation?”

“I…” He blushed. “I only did what I could. The others who were there did a lot more than me. It’s nothing I can really boast about.”

“Simply volunteering gives you more credit than many others,” Noëlle disagreed. “I see you standing here, whole and well - if there was any fighting at all, that says to me that you acquitted yourself well, indeed. Unless, of course, the investigation turned up nothing and you simply had a nice, hot walk?”

His brows knitted together. The conversations around them started to pick up with the completion of the bout as the ring was prepared for the next match, and though he was advised not to speak too openly about what he had seen, he knew that Noëlle he could trust, especially with everyone else around them not paying them any particular attention, now.

“I almost wish we had seen nothing,” he admitted. “There was a demon there… and too much death. I won’t be able to shake the nightmares for days.”

“A demon,” she said, voice hushed, a bit awed, maybe just a touch frightened. “Andraste preserve us - I was hoping this was only the Knight Commander being overly cautious and jumping at shadows. A real demon! You are a hero in your own right,” she assured. “Why in the world would there be a demon so close to the city? En fait, this concerns me far more than the darkspawn, being so much nearer Cumberland.”

Sorin flinched from the guilt; he had not meant to worry or frighten Noëlle, and perhaps this was another reason he’d been warned against sharing too much of the conflict and scene. But the damage was done, and to say nothing more would not alleviate her concerns.

“It was just the one demon,” he said, hoping to reassure her. “Rage, I think they said? Which would make sense, as it was all fire and brimstone. The mage we had with us, her ice magic took care of most of the damage.” That much, certainly, no one could fault him for sharing; how to defeat such a monster should not be a secret. “It… was responsible for most of the casualties at the scene, but since we were able to dispatch it, there shouldn’t be more.”

Though the other body… Sorin shuddered. The implications, though he didn’t fully understand it, unnerved him still.

“Most of the casualties?” An almost exaggerated raise of her eyebrows (but just right for him). “Do not tell me they were butchering each other when the demon showed up? If human rage could summon demons on its own, we would be neck-deep in them by now.”

Oh, Andraste, am I saying too much? Or, perhaps, he worded everything too poorly. He only seemed to make things worse with everything he said.

Shaking his head, Sorin replied, “No! That is, I don’t think so.” But the more Sorin thought about it -- who else? True, the four who had been killed by the demon were not as well-dressed as the Orlesian (or who Sorin assumed was Orlesian by his manner of dress), but their attire and their caravan suggested that they were not mere bandits. Not that Sorin knew what bandits dressed like, of course. But if not them, then who? Would that mean someone else was involved? Maker’s breath, Sorin hoped not.

“Or… maybe. I can’t imagine who else might have done it, so it must have been.” Though somehow it didn’t make sense that the four others would have attacked the Orlesian, but he was not a templar, or a guardsman, and it was not his responsibility to draw such conclusions, he decided. “There was only one other, and his wounds… he…” Sorin closed his eyes. “It’s too difficult to repeat, but it was not the demon’s work, at least according to the templar and the mage.”

“Maker preserve his soul, then.” Noëlle bowed her head in sympathy for a moment even as the thoughts in her mind rearranged themselves. So, not a casualty of bandits, not of the demon, and not only the templar but the mage had had an opinion? The Marquise had given her few details of Alexandre Desrosiers’ final state, although she must have seen it, of course, as she had arranged for a cremation (a difficult thing to manage in Cumberland, Noëlle was certain, but it was the Marquise’s specialty to handle difficult-to-manage things, or she would not be here). She had tasked Noëlle with finding out about the scene, which indicated the wounds of which the elf refused to speak were in some way indicative of something more sinister than a robbery gone awry. Not to mention, of course, the fact that Alexandre Desrosiers had been missing (oh, it had been kept quiet, of course, but questions had been asked and palace servants liked to gossip).

So: the local authorities suspected a maleficar. Wonderful.

She placed her hand on Sorin’s shoulder, patted reassuringly. “Perhaps you ought not speak of it further, then, if it distresses you so,” she said soothingly. “What a terrible thing to have witnessed. But you were very brave indeed.” And to fully bring the subject back around, she added, “Look, the next match is about to begin. That Warden is quite handsome, isn’t he?”

Grateful, Sorin smiled at her and turned his gaze back to the ring. “He is,” he agreed, his grin brightening at the sight of the Grey Warden in question. His mind still lingered on his memories of the incident outside the city gates a while longer yet, but as the match began and intensified, it was something he was able to shelve once more, at least for a few hours anyway.

“Let’s see if his fighting is as pretty as his face, hmm?” And with that, then subject was dismissed. As she watched the very pretty (and indeed, rather skilled) Warden take on a man wielding two daggers with questionable form, Noëlle mentally composed her report to the Marquise.

Things in Cumberland were clearly getting interesting.