The Legionnaire who sees them off is baffled at proceedings. Can't blame her. Few enough humans, fewer who look like that — and ten years on, Vance still sounds high caste.
(She's had introductions, the night before; the price of her escort's admission. A sprawl of cousins, and courtiers, and assumptions. Is Nevarra very much like Tevinter? Is it true, that the sky burns you? She does know that Wardens are infertile? The Deshyr, for her part, did not attend. Vance, for his part, kept a fork out of anyone's eye.)
"Look, I know the answer. But I have to ask," They've been traveling a while, and there's longer to go. Steely as she is, she's not built for this; no shame in that, half Orzammar isn't. He pauses, on the sloped edge of tunnel. "You sure you don't want me just to cart him back?"
The hive hums at the edge of his perception. Empty as the Roads have been, since Corypheus came Calling... well, they're never so empty as you'd like. It's gonna get ugly.
Dead, dead. Hard to get much deader. His ribs splinter like a busted piano. Armor's rotting, what's left of it: There are scavengers, even this deep; there's a hurlock somewhere wearing his breastplate, else melted down to their strange slag shapes.
Bones score with the marks of scattered black teeth. His face, hair, are little more than sludge. He's dead. He's been dead a long time.
But someone's been here, new enough to pick the shield out clean, and lay it over his legs. To arrange the remains of an arm at his side. Sign of respect. Means something, when Surfacers come down here to die. And Hansen, he was known.
Vance stoops up, smearing ichor from his gloves. Doesn't matter how long it's been. Tainted bodies go a bit — runny.
"You want a moment?"
Of quiet, maybe. Can't grant her any distance. They're in the thick of it here; and if he gets a Mortalitasi killed, that's a whole diplomatic incident.
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indoor cat;
(She's had introductions, the night before; the price of her escort's admission. A sprawl of cousins, and courtiers, and assumptions. Is Nevarra very much like Tevinter? Is it true, that the sky burns you? She does know that Wardens are infertile? The Deshyr, for her part, did not attend. Vance, for his part, kept a fork out of anyone's eye.)
"Look, I know the answer. But I have to ask," They've been traveling a while, and there's longer to go. Steely as she is, she's not built for this; no shame in that, half Orzammar isn't. He pauses, on the sloped edge of tunnel. "You sure you don't want me just to cart him back?"
The hive hums at the edge of his perception. Empty as the Roads have been, since Corypheus came Calling... well, they're never so empty as you'd like. It's gonna get ugly.
mr hansen if ur nasty;
Dead, dead. Hard to get much deader. His ribs splinter like a busted piano. Armor's rotting, what's left of it: There are scavengers, even this deep; there's a hurlock somewhere wearing his breastplate, else melted down to their strange slag shapes.
Bones score with the marks of scattered black teeth. His face, hair, are little more than sludge. He's dead. He's been dead a long time.
But someone's been here, new enough to pick the shield out clean, and lay it over his legs. To arrange the remains of an arm at his side. Sign of respect. Means something, when Surfacers come down here to die. And Hansen, he was known.
Vance stoops up, smearing ichor from his gloves. Doesn't matter how long it's been. Tainted bodies go a bit — runny.
"You want a moment?"
Of quiet, maybe. Can't grant her any distance. They're in the thick of it here; and if he gets a Mortalitasi killed, that's a whole diplomatic incident.