#probably ought to be zevwardens lol

[shivunin]

First Touch

Merry Christmas @scribbledquillz! I said it at greater length on AO3, but thank you so much for sharing your Revka with me. This is but a fragment of a much greater and lovelier whole, but I'm glad to share it anyway. Here's to our girls being absolute fools over each other for another year!!

(Warden/Warden/Zevran | 4,083 Words | No warnings | AO3 Link)

Summary: Denerim's alienage is a dangerous place without friends, as Tabris learns when she is young. It is fortunate, then, that someone reaches out of the alley shadows and snatches her from danger when she needs it most.

“If only I could recollect it, such  A day of days! I let it come and go  As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;  It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;  If only now I could recall that touch,  First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!” —Christina Rossetti, “Monna Innominata”

Later, Arianwen would not remember what the fight was about. 

It didn’t matter, really. She fought with the other children in the alienage constantly, over any cause they could dredge up. Oh, she’d admit readily enough that she’d thrown her fair share of first punches, but they were sparse in comparison to every hurt.

She didn’t remember what started that fight, but she did remember how she felt. One of her teeth had been lost three or four alleyways ago, her hair had been torn from the braid her mama’d wound it into that morning, and her bottom lip was swollen and achy. The breath burned in her lungs with every pump of her legs and her pursuers were gaining on her. It was only a matter of time before they caught up. And then—

Quick hands reached out of the darkness and yanked her bodily into a hidden alcove. Whoever had found her, their grip was strong around her wrist and then her upper arm. Wen opened her mouth to protest or bite (she hadn’t decided which), but her captor clapped a hand over her mouth before she could yell. 

“Quiet,” a low voice hissed. “’Less you want them to catch you. Do you?” 

Wen stopped struggling, but every aching muscle stayed braced. This could be a trick, a trap. Nobody had ever bothered before, but then they’d never knocked her teeth out before, either. There was a first for everything. 

The feet that’d been following her neared their hiding place and thundered past. Wen closed her eyes and counted: three, four… Her captor would have lifted her hand and moved away to check, but Wen shook her head. They waited there in tense silence, both of them breathing shallowly, Wen’s split lip stinging worse every second there was a sweaty hand pressed to it. 

At long last, a final pair of feet dashed past. Wen waited one second, then another, and sagged back against soot-smeared bricks. Her captor—savior?— stepped back at last and surreptitiously wiped her hand on her trousers.

“Thanks,” Wen said, drawing the back of her wrist across her mouth. Not good enough; her tongue still tasted copper-hot. She turned her head and spat, then gathered her sleeve and did her best to clear her face of blood and tears alike. 

The other girl had stepped back into the dim light of the afternoon. It settled gently over the neat braids of her hair, the warm brown of her skin and the sharp points of her ears. An elf, then. One about her age, though Arianwen did not think they’d met before. Odd, that; it was hard to find any corner of this warren that didn’t already bear the mark of her feet. And yet, here—a girl she’d never seen before, a part of the alley she’d never hidden inside before now. 

“What’d you do?” the girl asked, tilting her head. She was holding something—a satchel, Wen thought. Someone had carefully embroidered little plants into it to hide a long rip in the fabric. 

Wen shrugged in response and ran a hand along her jaw, feeling for the hole where her tooth had been. 

“Must’ve been bad,” the girl said, eyeing Wen’s jaw. 

“It doesn’t take much,” Wen said, and stretched her chin to one side, then the other before offering her hand. “Wen. Arianwen, I mean. Thanks. They would’ve caught me.”

“Could’ve still gotten away,” the girl said, peering down at her hand, “‘fore they caught you. Made it to the market, least”

“Probably not,” Wen said, and thought about taking her hand back if it was going to go on hanging in the air. Before she could, the girl reached out a hand, scarred at the knuckles, and took hers. 

“Revka,” she said, and squeezed once. She was turning away before Wen could squeeze back, peering into the shadows of the alleyway beyond. “They’re gone.”

“Good,” Wen said, and squeezed past to look in both directions. 

“See you,” Revka said, edging away. “Don’t get caught.” 

Wen watched her for a moment, if only a moment. Odd—but odd things happened to her all the time. She turned to the bricks beside her and foot a handhold, then a space for her bare feet. When she glanced down again to check for any watchers, the girl had already vanished. Wen shrugged inwardly and went on climbing. She was quicker on the roofs than the others; they surely wouldn’t catch her if she made it up there.

Whoever the girl had been, Wen was certain they wouldn’t find each other twice. 

|

“Tired?” Revka’s voice was low in her ear. 

Wen roused herself and straightened, blinking at the ruined wall beyond them for a moment before registering the sunset properly. It was a wash of purples, lavender and gold already giving way to lilac and indigo. Soon, it would all be dark. 

“Never tired,” she informed her oldest and dearest friend, yawning wide enough that her jaw cracked. “Not me.” 

Revka huffed and nudged her aside. Wen rearranged her old coat so they’d both fit beneath and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. 

“Sleeping with one eye open?” Rev asked. 

“Mmm,” Wen agreed. 

In fact, she’d been here since she’d fought with her father sometime in the early afternoon. She’d planned to leave and find something else to do, but the allure of this particular hideout—Revka’s first, and then theirs together—could not be underestimated. She hadn’t slept the night before, too restless to tuck herself in with the sounds of Shianni and her father breathing softly in the night. Something was coming. She could feel it like tiny thorns catching on her skin, like the distant lightning gathering in stormclouds at sea. Something was coming, something bad, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. 

But right now—she could feel Rev’s chest rise and fall with her breath, could hear the steady drum of her pulse in her throat. Wen’s coat hadn’t been worth much to keep the cold off alone, but she was warm from ear to toe now. 

“Everything alright?” she asked Rev, half-dozing. Her friend shifted under her and Wen wrapped an arm over her waist to hold her still. 

“Fine,” Rev said, her voice creaky. “Fine. Looking for you.”

“You found me,” Wen said, and opened her eyes enough to watch the last of the light fade from the clouds overhead. A thought struck her, and she turned her head to peer at Rev through the evening’s shadows. 

“How long has it been?” she asked, trying to remember. A dash through the alleyway, blood on her chin, a hand reaching out from the shadows…

“Since?”

“Since you grabbed me in that alley.”

Rev snorted and shifted again, but this time she gathered Wen closer. 

“Ten years?” Wen went on, trying to think. “Fourteen?” 

“Thirteen,” Rev said after a moment. “Somewhere near that.”

Wen hummed again and closed her eyes. She was tired, she decided. Not just weary. Tired. Tired of keeping her head down, tired of holding herself taut and careful and still as a rabbit under brush. She was restless enough to want to get away from this place. 

The two of them had talked about it more than once—running off to somewhere new. Kirkwall. Amaranthine. Redcliffe. Anywhere had to be better than here, where the ghosts of their mothers haunted them both. It was all just idle fancy; Wen knew that. Rev’d never leave her brother behind, and they had no way of keeping him properly safe between the two of them. Whatever Wen had known of fighting had gone to rust like a blade left in the rain. Her ma would be ashamed to see it. She was sure of it. But Ma had been a fighter, and Wen was not. 

“Why?” Rev asked, her voice reaching out to drag Wen from her thoughts. 

“Why what?”

“Why’d you ask?” 

“Oh,” Wen pressed her lips together. “I’ve known you longer than I haven’t.”

“Yeah?” Rev’s head moved—thinking. She was always thinking when her chin tilted like that. 

“Sure. I was twelve then, I think. Feels like forever ago.” 

“Forever,” Rev echoed quietly. Her hand brushed back and forth over Wen’s shoulder. “Can’t remember not knowing you.”

That same unease gripped her again, like cobwebs against her skin or the prickle of hair at her neck when she knew someone was watching. Wen sat up abruptly, throwing the coat off of both of them in the motion, and the cool night air gripped her in its greedy hands. 

“We’re—Rev. Listen.”

“What’s—” Rev began, but stopped abruptly when Wen turned and seized her hands. They were callused and worn, scarred as ever, and Wen thought she must know them better than she knew her own. Rev blinked at her, frowning, but Wen was already speaking again. 

“We’ll stay together, won’t we?” 

“What d’you—”

“Promise me. Whatever happens, it’s me and you. Right?” 

“’Course, Wen,” Rev said fiercely, and: “Here.” 

She wrapped her arms around Wen so tightly that Wen couldn’t see anything but the threadbare fabric at Rev’s shoulder. How annoying this fear was, all the worse for its namelessness. She could not even explain it to herself, except that something was changing and change had never been kind to her. The two of them had lost so much: three parents between them, every belief that the world had been kind, and through all of it they’d still had each other. Whatever was coming—if it was bad…the worst thing she could think of was losing the few people she had left. 

Wen closed her eyes tight and tried to will the world to stay just like this, imperfect and cold as it was, for a little while longer. Whatever it needed to be so she could keep holding on to her dearest friend—whatever she had to do to make that happen, she would do it. 

Nothing could stop her. She wouldn’t let it.

Revka held her tight for a very long time, the two of them swaying in the dust-ridden old warehouse, far above the alienage. Before she let go at last, she spoke again. 

“Me and you,” she said. “Promise you, Wen. Always together.” 

|

The early strokes of sunset shone brilliant off the fields beyond Vigil’s Keep. Wen watched the light go, feet dangling over the vast empty space beneath, and waited. 

“Aha—caught at last,” a low voice announced, and she glanced up when Zevran landed on the stone beside her. The upper wall was thick enough to sit on, but it made for a narrow landing space. She was not surprised that he’d made it, but she was surprised he’d found her so quickly. 

“Brooding again?” he asked, and clicked his tongue against his teeth while he bent to sit beside her. “You worry so, mi vida. She will be home soon enough.”

“Of course she will,” Wen said, but her eyes drifted back to the road. It twisted and turned on the way to the Keep, obscuring any visitors with its hills and fences and shadows. Revka had been due back the day before yesterday, and yet she was still gone. 

Of course, clearing the nearby caverns of darkspawn was not without its hazards, but it wasn’t as if the two of them hadn’t faced worse before. They’d been due back yesterday, but Wen had been expecting them for days and she was growing impatient. 

“If we fetch her back,” Zevran said, nudging her side with his elbow, “she will be delighted. ‘Arianwen,’ she will say, ‘I am terribly glad you have come to interrupt my mission. I was lonely, given that I only have a dozen of our best fighters with me.’ We should go now. Come—I will pack our bags.”

“Hush,” Wen said, and leaned against him. “She doesn’t sound like that.”

“Mmm,” Zevran said, skepticism thick in his voice, but he turned his head to kiss her cheek.

“I wasn’t going to chase after her,” Wen said after a moment, her voice quiet. 

“I never said that you would,” he told her. 

Wen sighed, picked up a rock from the wall beside her, and dropped it. The two of them watched it skip off the lower part of the wall and skid off down hill below. They were still watching it when the first call rose up from the gate. 

“Warden-Commander’s back!” 

“Rev,” Arianwen said, flowing to her feet. She hesitated for only a moment, muscles taut, and looked at Zevran. 

“Go, go,” he said, laughing and levering himself to his feet. “I will be right behind.”

She needed no more encouragement than that. Wen turned and ran. 

There were many secret ways in the castle. Some she had found, some had been shown to her by Nate, and others she had made for herself. She took a combination of these now, swinging down rafters and dashing through secret corridors. The whole expedition still hadn’t made it through the gates by the time Arianwen made it there herself, but she could pick Revka out of the crowd in an instant. Could’ve picked her out of a far larger crowd in seconds, probably, so familiar was her shape to Wen. 

She didn’t call out as she made her way down the last of the stairs, the wind dragging her hair loose from its careful braid. She didn’t need to. One of the other Wardens saw her coming and moved out of the way. The others followed suit, laughing or passing coin back and forth as she came. Wen paid them no mind, though she knew this sort of thing sometimes made her Revka uncomfortable. Let them make their bets. She’d already won the only ones worth anything. 

Revka was the last one to notice her, it seemed, for she turned from handing someone a report just as Wen reached her. There was only enough time for her to throw out her hands and Wen was there, nearly unbalancing them both. 

“It’s been weeks,” she said, the accusation plain in her voice, and turned her head to catch Revka’s mouth with hers before Revka could answer. 

She must have split her lip somewhere; Wen could taste blood on her tongue. Likely, there would be other bruises and cuts, and Revka would pretend she was perfectly fine right until she sat for too long and couldn’t stand again. Whatever had happened, Wen didn’t especially care. Revka was back, and she wouldn’t have to wait anymore, and that was enough. 

She pulled herself away at last, when she could no longer ignore the hoots and shouts of their fellow Wardens, but they quieted somewhat when Revka glared at them. 

“ ‘S enough of that,” she said sharply. “Lot of you, get yourselves inside and clean off before you give someone the Taint.” 

There was more grumbling, the requisite ribald jokes, but the rest of the ranks split off to unload their gear and make their way to the baths. Zevran strolled up as the last of them vanished into the Keep, and Revka brightened at the sight of him. 

“There you are,” she said. 

“Here I am,” he agreed, and leaned forward to kiss each of her cheeks. “Ah, the torments endured since you were gone. The sobbing, the gnashing of teeth, the constant pacing and wondering when you would return…”

Wen scowled at him. Zevran winked before he wound up the joke, pressing a hand to his chest. 

“And that was just our Arianwen.”

“Rude,” Wen muttered, but moved out of his way so he could embrace their lover, too. 

“Ah, but you enjoy it,” Zevran said, tipping Revka’s chin up to press a kiss to her mouth. He looped an arm behind her back and caught Wen’s hand, their fingers tangling together easily. He must have seen what she had, which was that Revka was favoring her left leg. 

“‘M—” Rev began, but the other two did not let her finish. 

“Fine,” Wen said with emphasis, casting a look over Revka’s shoulder at Zevran. 

“Really,” he went on, his voice taking on the lilt of Revka’s. “Way you two fuss—”

“Can take care of myself,” they finished together, and Wen lifted a brow at Revka. 

“Right,” she said, tilting her chin up. “So—fuss, then. You’ll carry me up the stairs.”

“With pleasure,” Zevran said, and the three of them made their way to their quarters. 

There was a certain amount of official business managed along the way. They stopped more than once so Revka could sign something or send someone off with the more pressing news. Wen grew increasingly impatient with these interruptions, eventually glaring so balefully at the messengers that they gave up on approaching at all. I was a relief when Wen finally shut the bedroom door behind them and slid the lock home.

“Commanders,” Wen informed Revka as she was sat on the bench before the bath, “are supposed to send other people off for the dangerous work.”

Curls of steam lifted from the washtub—Zevran must have paused to send someone here and draw it for them. 

“Can’t send you on every mission away,” Rev said, and made a soft noise of pain when Wen began to tug her leathers off. 

“Let us leave the bickering for later, yes?” Zevran asked. He’d rolled his sleeves up to test the water. As soon as Revka was stripped of her bloodstained armor, he helped her to her feet and into the sweet-smelling bath.  

“How we missed you,” he said fondly, and crouched beside the tub when she’d settled herself into the water. Wen folded her arms and looked at the two of them, relief warring with irritation in her chest. 

“Sounded like it,” Revka said, and peered at Wen through half-closed eyes. “Planning to sulk?” 

“Yes,” Wen said, but moved close enough to take Revka’s hand. It was wet with flower-scented water, pleasantly warm with the heat of her body, and dear to her beyond words. 

Wen unfolded Revka’s fingers carefully and pressed her lips to the very center of the palm, deeply lined and marked with old scars. She held it still there for a moment, closing her eyes, and listened to the soft murmur of her lovers. Whenever one of them was away, something lay tense under her skin, its teeth bared and back up. The fear tucked itself away now, quiescent in the knowledge of their safety. 

Home had come back to her at last. 

She marked it in the laughing undertone of Zevran’s voice, in the way Revka’s hand lifted to stroke Wen’s hair absently. Home was only in this room when all three of them were, too, but she always knew it when she felt it again. She would sleep like the dead tonight and be glad of it—though not, perhaps, as glad as Zevran would be, for he’d borne the worst of her restlessness this past week. 

As if he knew what she was thinking, Zevran glanced at her across the bathtub and winked. 

“The bed is a better place to rest, if we may pry you from the water.”

“I’m ’wake,” Rev murmured, giving every appearance of the opposite. Wen snorted and rolled to her feet, snagging the drying sheet from the bench. 

“C’mon,” she said, and held the unfolded cloth out to Revka. 

Revka rose, yawning, but only with Zevran’s help. She’d done something to her hip, Wen thought. There was a bruise there, stretching from the swell of her upper thigh to her lowermost rib. In the end, she had to stand still while Arianwen ran the cloth over her body. 

“Bed,” Wen said, more statement than question. Revka tried—she did—to pull away, but she only managed to lean back for a moment before she pressed her face into Wen’s neck instead. 

“There’s letters…” she began, but the rest of the sentence was stolen by her yawn. 

“So you can sleep on your desk instead?” Wen asked, and bent to slip a hand behind Revka’s knees. “C’mon. You can scribble plenty in the morning.” 

And she would be doing just that; they both knew it. There wouldn’t be any stopping her. Rev put her hands around Wen’s neck and sighed. 

“Stubborn,” she muttered, but it sounded more like an endearment than a condemnation. Wen wrapped her arms more tightly around Revka’s waist, savoring the weight and warmth of her. She stepped over loose pairs of boots and the pillows they’d left on the floor last night to deposit her in the bed. Rev shifted only enough to tuck her legs beneath the blanket and move to the center. That would be convenient—neither Wen nor Zevran would have to decide which of them got to sleep wrapped around her. It was a reassurance they both needed tonight, and one they’d both get. 

Wen shed her clothing a moment after Zevran and turned to put out the lamps. Only the fire in the hearth was left, warming the room as it shared its glow. She made her way to the bed by its light, surreptitiously checking the door and other exits. All secure, as it should be. 

The sheets were still cool against her bare skin when she slipped beneath them, but she warmed quickly when she found the others.

“There you are,” Rev murmured, moving her arm out of the way. 

As she had a hundred—no, a thousand—times before, Wen let her head rest on Revka’s shoulder. Zevran’s hand found hers in the dark, his thumb stroking the back of Wen’s knuckles. Rev sighed, contented, and turned her head to kiss first Wen, then Zevran on the forehead. 

“Missed you, too,” she said, her voice thick with sleep. Wen squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe around the thickness in her throat. 

There was so much wrong with the world. They’d seen too many awful things, the two of them. It seemed impossible that they’d landed here, of all places: safe, much of their horrible pasts set behind them at last. They’d taken the Joining cup together, their lips brushing against each other while the bitter taste of blood filled their mouths. They’d fought their way through Ferelden together, too, and they’d killed the Archdemon with both of their hands on a single sword. 

Somehow—and this was stranger to Wen than the rest had been—they’d found new love together, too, in each other and in another. She’d never once known what she was looking for, but Revka had found her anyway. Over and over again, she’d reached out and pulled Wen to safety. It only seemed right that they’d found peace together, too. 

Zevran’s hand tightened on hers. Wen picked her head up to look at him, catching the gleam of gold in his eyes almost at once. He didn’t say anything—wouldn’t want to wake their sleeping love, just as she wouldn’t want to—but she could see the reflection of her own feelings in his eyes. 

Relief. 

It was a relief to be together every time, no matter how long they’d been doing it. How incredible, how unbelievable it was to know that tomorrow there would still be more of this. 

Wen squeezed his hand in turn and set her head back down, breathing as Revka did until her own thoughts began to slow. She wouldn’t remember what she was thinking when she woke again. This didn’t worry her—thinking was overrated, she’d always thought—but for a moment, just before she dropped off, she remembered hands reaching out from the darkness to snatch her to safety. She remembered the burn of a split lip, the ache in her legs from running, and the relief of being still for a moment with someone who did not mean her harm. 

When she woke, she would not remember. That was fine. They’d left those girls far behind, years and leagues away, but they’d found each other again and again. 

Whatever came next—they’d do that together, too.