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shivunin · 2 years ago

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Breath of Life

In which Zevran meets a familiar Crow in the streets of Denerim

(Full version (Explicit) on AO3 here)

CW: Hurt/comfort; Blood, wounds, combat, death, spiders; references to near-death experiences

“When I heard that the great Zevran had gone rogue, I simply had to see it for myself.”

Arianwen stared up the stairs at the stranger with the cruel face. Her hand rested on one of the daggers at her back; if Zevran had not made it clear that he knew this man, she would have thrown it already.

“Is that so?” Zevran said, his voice holding an unfamiliar cold note, “Well—here I am, in the flesh.”

“You can return with me, Zevran,” the Crow at the top of the stairs said, his face twisting into an expression of false sympathy that set Wen’s teeth on edge, “I know why you did this, and I don’t blame you. It’s not too late. Come back and we’ll make up a story. Anyone can make a mistake.”

Somewhere behind her, she heard Alistair take a slow breath. There was no need to look at him; she knew his hand was already on the hilt of his sword.

Ready to step between them if Zevran tried to stab her in the back.

Anyone can make a mistake. Yes; that was something Wen knew all too well. She’d made far too many herself, though she tried to think about them as little as possible. Had it been a mistake to trust Zevran? To fall in—

No.

No, she didn’t think so.

Wen turned to look at her lover, lifting her chin, and spoke.

“Of course, I’d need to be dead first.”

Zevran met her eyes, reading something there, and gave her the smallest nod before turning again to Taliesen.

“And I’m not about to let that happen,” Zevran said, resolution coloring every syllable of the words.

She had not doubted him—not really, not after the past few months—but even so, some unnamed fear melted away in Arianwen’s chest.

“What? You’ve gone soft!” Taliesen spat. Scorn painted deep lines on either side of his mouth, and to her right Zevran’s shoulders loosened slightly.

Someone was creeping closer to Wen’s group; she could see them out of the corner of her eye, shifting slightly beside the stairs. The blade at her back came free from its bandolier soundlessly, slipping into her hands like the touch of an old friend.

“I am sorry, my old friend,” Zevran said, and Wen knew him well enough to know that the note of sadness in his voice was real, “But the answer is no. I’m not coming back…and you should have stayed in Antiva.”

The Crows who’d been creeping closer struck, Taliesen among them. As Zevran finished speaking, Tabris’s hand whipped out from behind her back and her blade bloomed from the throat of the fighter by the stairs. They fell soundlessly, not that any of them could have noticed; battle had been joined in full, and she and her friends had their hands full already.

Zevran darted past her and up the stairs, sword and dagger in hand. That seemed right; a betrayal by an old friend must be his to handle by rights. She did not try to stop him, nor did she follow him. When another Crow raised her blade to intercept Zevran, Arianwen threw another dagger, and then another when the first failed to incapacitate the woman. While the steel spiraled through the air, she slicked her sword with poison and blocked a blow meant for her shoulder.

There had been a break in the crowd right at the beginning, which was how Zev had gotten through, but the rest closed ranks around them now. Wen found herself back to back with Alistair, batting away another slash at her torso before she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled hard.

She’d no idea where the lovely spider kept herself while they traveled through Denerim, but Princess dropped down from a rooftop nearby and leapt for a bowman, snapping him up in her pincers with a sickening crunch.

“Ugh,” Alistair said emphatically, and Wen laughed, already caught in the high she always felt when fighting.

“Don’t fuss, Ali, I’m sure it’s delightful—right, Morrigan?” Arianwen said, but it was no use; the mage in question did not have a mouth fit for speaking at the moment. A bear battled at their side instead, batting one Crow into another with a crushing blow of the paw. When the two fell, the crowd around them opened for a moment and she had a clear view of her lover, still fighting at the top of the stairs.

Zevran could hold his own; she knew that. What Wen did not know was how to balance her feelings for him with an honest estimate of his abilities. For example—he bled from a wound along his side now, and though it was plainly a slice across the ribs the sight of it filled her with an unbounded rage.

How dare this stranger lay hands on one under her protection? How dare he harm what was hers?

She fought all the harder, some of the joy of battle going from her all at once. She threw a handful of dust into the face of one man, then slit his throat while he was still coughing. When he fell away, she shifted forward, and drove her foot between the legs of the man who tried to block her. It would have been smart to stab him in the heart when he fell to the ground, but she leapt over him instead and started up the stairs. Alistair cursed behind her, and there was another horrible crunch, but Arianwen paid them little mind.

Taliesen was laughing, batting away Zevran’s dagger and returning the attempted blow with a strike across Zevran’s forearm. She could see the jump in the muscle along his jaw, a sure sign that he was in pain, and his sword fell from his hand.

A body was in her way; Arianwen hardly even looked at it as she drove her longsword into its belly and shook it from the steel.

At the top of the stairs, Zevran danced away from another blow and sliced Taliesen’s cheek. The latter laughed as blood poured down his cheek, then swung hard at Zev. Dodge, dodge, strike—but Zevran had overextended himself and knew it, from the way his brows drew down even as his dagger drove toward Taliesen’s throat.

She was not moving fast enough. He needed her—he needed her and she was—

Wen spat in the face of the person before her, drove a dagger through his eye, then threw it at Taliesen. It would have hit—she knew damn well how to throw a dagger, even one with a hilt like this—but another Crow got in the way, dancing back from the bear ascending the steps behind her. The dagger killed the woman, but it was too late.

Taliesen caught Zevran’s wrist, grinned, and drove his blade into her lover’s belly.

“No,” Tabris screamed, ducking the Crow’s body that slumped before her. Magic hissed past her face and struck Taliesen, but Wen paid it little mind. Zevran slid from Taliesen’s blade, his face turned up, one hand still clutching a dagger—her mother’s dagger, the one her father had hidden under the floorboards for over a decade.

Arianwen felled another assassin and dodged their falling body to race upward. It felt like all of this was happening too slow; she couldn’t seem to lift her leaden legs, nor to make her eyes focus as they ought.

Taliesen laughed when Zevran hit the ground. Then, he bent and reached for the rosewood and silver hilt of her mother’s dagger.

No; he would not. Could not. She would not allow it.

Wen found a burst of speed from some hidden well within her and threw herself at Taliesen, knocking him back several steps before he recovered.

“Don’t be mad,” he laughed, “It’s what he wanted!”

Wen dodged a blow, rapidly scanning the wounds Zev had scored into the man’s body. He was favoring his left side and his arm was bleeding badly. Good; she would make this quick, damn him.

Zevran needed her.

“Didn’t you know?” Taliesen went on, swinging for her arm and dodging back when she took advantage of the opening to stab at his side.

“He came here to die. I’m only giving him what he wanted.”

Taliesen grunted when her sword dug deep into his bicep, then dropped his dagger when Arianwen pulled away. Good; she’d hit something important, then. There was a buzzing in Wen’s ears that did not entirely sound like the usual battlesong her blood hummed to her. No; it was fear, fear she never felt when she fought anymore.

Zevran lay on the ground beside her, choking on his own blood—and the man who would call him dead was still talking.

Wen ducked a strike, spun up beneath his guard, and drove her poisoned dagger sideways between his ribs—a trick Zev had taught her.

Damn him, he had to live.

“Clever tr—” Taliesen began as the blood began to spread beneath his tunic. He did not go on; ice spread from his chest to his mouth, stilling his tongue, and Arianwen did not wait for Morrigan’s spell to wear off.

She kicked her mother’s dagger into the air, replacing the one she’d left on the stairs, and caught it in one smooth motion. When she drove it into the man’s heart, it made a soft crackling noise, as a kitchen knife cutting into frozen meat.

“Shut up,” she spat, and pulled the dagger loose with a practiced tug.

Taliesen fell to the stone behind her, but she was no longer looking at him—or anything else. The fight might still be going on down the stairs. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. The others could take care of themselves; her Zevran could not.

“Zev, Zevran,” she said, falling to her knees and dropping both blades without a second thought, “Look at me. Look at me?”

His eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, as if he was trying to do as she said, and one hand pressed over the gaping wound in his belly.

Maker; she’d seen the blade go through to the other side. He wasn’t—he wasn’t—

“Open—open your mouth,” she said instead, slipping one arm under his neck and tugging a potion from her belt with the other hand, “Open—for me?”

Zevran’s lips did not move; Wen had to do it instead, pressing his lower lip open so she could tip the viscous red potion into his mouth. He swallowed reflexively, his breath wheezing horribly as soon as he’d finished.

“It’s going—you’ll be—” she could not find the words. Wen had never been good at comfort, and now that she needed to know what she was saying the right words flew right out of her head. She positioned herself more fully underneath him, cradling the curve of her head in one hand.

“...wen,” he said, the words more of a rasp than they were words, and she huddled over him.

If anyone stood behind her with a blade, the strike to end her life would be very easy. She could not even say that she was wary or paying attention; there was no ounce of her focus directed anywhere but at the limp body in her arms.

“...I,” he tried again, but she shook her head.

“Don’t—don’t try to talk,” she said, though it felt like there was a hand gripping her throat to stop her words, “Rest, just rest, please.”

Zevran sighed, the exhalation whistling painfully, and he went still in her arms.

“Zev?” she said, jostling him slightly, and pressed a hand to his throat.

Was his heart beating? Could she feel the pulse there? She couldn’t tell; her hands were shaking too hard to feel his skin properly, and he was so still.

“Zevran?” she said again, her voice high and unfamiliar, “Zevran? Look at me, please, oh—No, no, you can’t. You can’t. You promised me, you promised—”

Water dripped down his face, and it was several dizzying breaths before Arianwen realized that they were tears. Her tears, and he was not stirring at the touch of them. She kissed him instead, desperately and repeatedly somehow certain, certain beyond the touch of any doubt, that this must be the thing that made him open his eyes again.

His lips remained still and unmoving beneath hers. Even dozing in the mornings, he responded to her touch; he had never failed to kiss her back. Never, never.

“You promised,” Wen said again, weeping in earnest now. Her grip was tight around his shoulders, and as she spoke Morrigan knelt across from her.

“Hush,” the witch snapped, firmly enough that Wen’s mouth snapped closed. She could not see the magic the other woman called, but she could feel the hum of it in the air, like a struck tuning fork. An armored hand settled on her shoulder—Alistair’s—and she flinched at the touch.

“Is he—” Wen began, but Morrigan glared at her until she shut her mouth again.

It only took a moment; she knew, because she’d seen Wynne cast this same spell a hundred times. Even so, time seemed to stretch before her like a hallway in a nightmare, looming and threatening and dark. Wen’s hands curled into the warmth of Zevran’s body, a silent entreaty, and Alistair’s hand bolstered her, steadying Tabris when she felt she might shake apart.

Morrigan’s hands fell away. Arianwen, still weeping no matter how she tried to stop, curled over Zevran again and cleared the bloodied golden hair from his face.

“Come back,” she whispered, as if words could hold him to her, as if words had done a single thing when she’d watched her mother cut to pieces in the street before their house in the alienage.

“Please,” she said, “Please. Come back to me. You promised.”

A moment; one silent, awful moment, and then—

Zevran coughed, convulsing in her arms, and dragged his eyes open. They took a moment to focus on her properly, but when they did a smile crept slowly up the sides of his mouth.

“Now, Warden,” he said, his voice worn and ragged, “Tell me you are not crying over a little flesh wound.”

She stared at him for a moment, tears still falling unchecked from her cheeks. Zevran beamed up at her, as if he’d just done some clever knife trick, and that was what did it.

“I hate you,” she sobbed, bowing over his body until she clutched him too close to see his face, “I hate you, you awful man, don’t you ever—”

“You do not—”

“—ever do that to me again, I thought—”

“—hate me, my dear, I am far too—”

“—you were dead, I thought you—”

“—handsome and clever to hate, and in any case—”

“—left me alone!”

At the vehemence of her words, Zevran sighed and fell silent. The others shifted on either side of them, and soon she heard feet on the stairs beyond. Thank the Maker for that; she felt like she was shaking apart, and the only thing holding her together was the arm he’d wrapped around her back

“I am right here, mi vida,” he murmured, and she squeezed, “Though I may not be if you hold me any tighter.”

Arianwen loosened her grip, sniffling faintly, and turned away to wipe her face clean when he sat up under his own power.

This—this was exactly what she’d feared when he’d kissed her by the fire all those months ago. She cared too much; it hurt her too much to see him hurt, and the thought of him dying—of leaving her—

She could not bear it. She had to bear it. Tabris was caught between the knowledge of both, the very breath squeezed from her lungs by the conflict between the two.

Wen lifted her mother’s dagger from the stone beside her, pulled a cloth from her pocket, and turned her face away from him while she cleaned it. She took her time, as if the task demanded all her attention, as if each speck of blood on the steel was a personal affront. Zevran drank another potion from his belt before resting his arms on his knees and sighing.

“And there it is,” he said after a moment, “Taliesen is dead, and I am free of the Crows.”

Wen glanced at him, wiped her face on her shoulders, and returned her attention to the blade. She would need to oil it, she thought, once they returned to Eamon’s estate. It ought to be fully, properly cleaned.

It was several minutes before Zevran went on.

“They will assume that I am dead along with Taliesen,” he said, ”So long as I do not make my presence known to them, they will not seek me out.”

Wen had to take a drink from her waterskin before she could answer him; her throat still felt too thick, too dry, as if the nearness of losing him had tattered her vocal cords.

“That’s a good thing, right?” she said at last, and Zevran chuckled. The chuckle grew to a laugh, until he clutched his stomach and coughed instead.

“A very good thing—it is, in fact, what I’d hoped for ever since you decided not to kill me,” he said, once the coughing stopped.

Wen nodded once. Away down the stairs, the other two were arguing over a body, Morrigan’s hands in the air and Alistair’s on his hips. Princess was slowly and methodically wrapping a corpse in her web, her long legs delicate and graceful as they spun the body around. Good; they were all fine for the moment.

Arianwen held the dagger by the blade and extended it to Zevran without looking. He took it from her hand, careful not to cut her, and she heard the soft noise of steel against leather when he tucked it away again.

“ I suppose,” he said tentatively, “it would be…possible for me to leave now. If I wished, I could go far away, somewhere where the Crows would never find me.”

Arianwen stood and retrieved her sword, leaning against the wall beside the platform. She could not watch him while he told her he was leaving; she could hardly look at him at all after what had just happened. He was still sitting in a pool of his own blood; was she to ignore that while he spoke of traipsing across Thedas without her?

Zevran rose with a grunt of pain and she straightened at once, ready to offer aid. He didn’t need it—he rose without help and ran a hand over the blood covering the front of his armor.

“I think,” he went on contemplatively, “however, that I could also stay here. I…made an oath to help you, after all. And…saving the world seems a worthy task to see through to the end, yes?”

Zevran looked up at her, then, a hopeful glint to his eye, and her heart thudded against her ribs. Stay—oh, she wanted him to stay. Hope hurt her, almost more than the fear had, and she had to push past both before she could bring herself to speak.

“I would be glad to have you stay,” she said, and the words sounded wooden, not like her at all. Zevran didn’t seem to care; he moved closer stiffly, one hand still pressed to his stomach. Tabris turned to face him when he moved, until both of them were leaning against the wall, only inches apart.

“Then stay I shall,” he said, resting one hand on her face and stroking the swell of her cheek, “I am with you until the end.”

It might almost have been romantic; Wen was already stepping closer to kiss him, in fact, the relief of him living and staying stronger than her need to find a small, quiet place to hide away in.

But—then Zevran went on talking.

“Provided you do not tire of me first,” her lover said with a foolish little smile, “Or I die. Or you die. But—there you go.”

Arianwen tipped her face against his chest, incapable of speech. Or I die—like it was a joke! Like she hadn’t thought she’d lost him not twenty minutes earlier!

Zevran kissed the top of her head by way of apology.

Arianwen snorted, then laughed; there was absolutely nothing funny about this, or anything that had just happened. She had killed one of his oldest friends; she’d held his dying body in her arms, incapable of doing a single thing to keep him here.

And she was desperately, endlessly glad that he was still here to make the stupidest, most ill-timed jokes. Wen tipped her head back and laughed, and laughed, until his mouth caught hers and swallowed the sound of it.

They stood there kissing for a long time, his lips still tasting strongly of elfroot, until the other two went silent behind them and Wen had to walk away to make sure neither had killed the other.

But she could feel him still, walking along behind her, watching her back—as he was meant to do, for as long as he’d stay by her side. She had only to reach a hand behind her and he would be within reach, reassuring her—reassuring both of them—that this had not been an end after all.

“Let us move on,” he said when they neared the others, and Arianwen finally let herself relax.

(For @greypetrel's prompt, "a kiss shared while holding your dying lover." It got away from me a bit, but I hope you enjoyed the pain!! c:)

#zevran arainai #arianwen tabris #zevwarden #zevran x warden #zevran x tabris #dao #my writing #da fanfic #zevwen #am i expanding this to include a nice 'i thought you were dead and i have to touch you right now' scene back in her bedroom? oh yes #as soon as i finish this other prompt lol #no way is she actually level yet after that; just level enough to walk away #god i love this trope!! best trope top trope all other tropes inferior in comparison imo #i'm not confident in my editing here but i have been looking at this for like two hours lol #sorry if there are errors #they will magically appear to me as soon as i hit 'post' i'm sure #shivunin scrivening

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