#Maelia Mercar

[supacutiepie]

My poor girl

Maelia Mercar - aka the "oh baby a triple!" rook because this poor girl: -Was adopted by a fairly prolific general, okay good her dad genuinely loved her and had her well trained to be his successor.. -Well, turns out her father became a high level Venatori General and only Got Worse From There. But he still adores her and expects her to follow up. -She in fact, does not want to follow up. She doesn't believe in this insane plot for the revival of tevinter, she loves tevinter and wants it to grow and finally break through. -So, she becomes an 'informant' for the Shadow Dragons. Without ever directly revealing how she gets her info - she's feeding direct venatori and tevene political schemes to the SD faction but playing into this idea she's just an assistant or something using the 'Mercar' moniker to hide her identity like The Viper does. -Cool! Great!.... She has to break out a bunch of slaves and an important dignitary she finds in her own fathers camp. She did so under the 'Rook' guise though, think blue mask style. So now, the Venatori are wary about someone infiltrating, and the SD are weary about how Rook got involved (claims SHE got kidnapped! but the truth? someone in the venatori caught her slipping the slaves free and she made up this big con on how its her in to the shadow dragons and wow maelia what initiative!) -Messy, but ok she's managing? She's managing dammit. She's got the SD convinced she's spying on the Venatori, but because she fucked up and got risky, she now convinces the Venatori she is spying on the Shadow Dragons. -The Venatori who are now looking Solas' way and send Maelia that way towards the people aksing too many questions (Neve, Varric, and Harding) -Well, then she gets dumped on Varric. A spymaster, who gets on good look at her and fucking laughs in her face like "Ooohh kid, you're in for it..so whose side are you really on?" Obviously, "The People's." -So, Varric helps her with the back and forth. Keeping up her cover, Maelia wears some heavy paint and a veil mask when working for the SD and Varric, and then she's clean cut and aristocratic for the Venatori. -So. Let's recount: Maelia is Rook, the Shadow Dragon hunting down the Dread Wolf and using her insider information to spy for the SD against Venatori. -Maelia is also the daughter and heir to a very powerful general of the Venatori, who has her on orders to spy on Varric and the Shadow Dragons. -Then she is reporting EVERYTHING back to Varric. It's one hot fucking mess of her teetering this line. Going back and forth as Rook then Maelia, slipping away from the Veilguard to report to the Venatori juuust enough information about the Shadow Dragons to be satisfying while then going to the Shadow Dragons with juuust enough information to be useful and then going back to the Veilguard and handling ALL THAT SHIT TOO... It's bound to bite her in the ass. Especially when there is a fucking evil elf god in her mind that clocks her as Rook and then she's trying to not only con Elgar' fuckin' nan but also Solas, and the Shadow Dragons, and the Venatori, and the Veilguard-- And and and--

And then the Dragons. She didn't know about the Dragons. This was too early for the Gods to have noticed her, and it was such a high level stunt she hadn't been approached by any of the Venatori for it. Because, the Venatori assumed she would already be in Minrathous, and be on their side. Minrathous, her beloved home. Her friends, her Shadow Dragons, who knew she was with the Veilguard but surely she'd come for them... But Treviso is a merchant city. It's just canals, and innocent lives, and no army and a lot of innocent people barricaded into the city by Antaam. And she thinks the Crows will do their best, but knows they can't handle the Venatori like this-- Minrathous, her shining gem, was built for siege. Was built and armored and has soldiers and the fucking Archon's palace has a gods damn canon in it so!! She hadn't heard about the Venatori plan to take over the Palace. She didn't know... Treviso still stands, but her home...her faction? "Rook--" Neve, someone she though was going to be so important to her one day, looks at her and the hate there puts a cold iron into Maelia's soul. Tarquin...Ashur... her friends, her mentors, blighted. And they look at Rook like she betrayed them by putting faith in their skills. It fucking sucks. And she tries so hard to get the Shadow Dragons out, to field the Venatori demands, the pressure is so intense... she's losing her grip on where what lie lay. One thing after another, and the cracks get thicker. She can't get to one place after another fast enough, she's trying to keep people alive, she's trying to stave of Solas and that fucking look...he sees right through her. Varric helps, his quiet reassurance the only thing she feels secure in. She keeps meticulous notes and documents every lie, every rouse, misdirect, and order. She's couriering for favor across northern thedas, she's fighting gods.... And then, the Dalish are taken. And then, Strife is saying they need to infiltrate the ritual. And then, Maelia cannot hide behind the Rook Mask - and Maelia goes from being Rook-- to 'Lady Maelia? I was not aware you'd be joining us for the festivites!" And fuck, she knows everyone here. She knows these Altus', these mages, these god awful brats hanging onto their parents coattails. She knows them, she's sat with them for dinner, magic theory, these grand ideas of a better world they think they're closing in on... Neve isn't the one to get them in, Bellara is so sick she can't even look at Maelia... "I just got in, something big to report you know. When is the ritual starting, I don't have all day to time this." "Soo, your father is actually further in, should I let him know you're here?" "No-- gods no, he'll want to chat and catch up, and with all this mess, time is of the essence." "Ah, always the pragmatic one, well go right ahead. But don't forget, we're getting new orders after the ritual, I'm sure you're expected." "Of course, let me hand these reports over first and maybe I'll catch up.." Maelia can't look at the team. Can't look around. People greet her with familiarity, old and new. The deeper in, the more obvious that Maelia is one of them-- But Maelia gets them past the mess, and beelines for the prisoners, and Elgar'nan calls her out-- To everyone.