My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "Your mom cannot stop bragging about you to...pretty much anyone she meets," his dad said, gently slapping him one last time on the back before letting him free. That wasn't such a surprise, his mother would talk up anyone she felt needed a boost. Lana Rutherford, defender of the underdog.

  As Gavin slipped back, trying to shake off the stupid blush burning on his cheeks, his father -- the stoic Commander of old that people thought was cold and emotionless as stone -- smile wide as he said, "And neither can I."

  His lips undulated with a smile twisting into a painful gasp of too much too quickly. "Thanks, Dad."

  "So," Cullen patted him on the shoulder, then gestured down the stairs, "How about you go check in with your superiors, then join your mom and me for a game of chess?"

  "Chess? How can three of us play?" Gavin laughed, happy to try.

  "You help your mother. She hates losing," his dad whispered the last part as if saying a single negative thing about his wife would cause thedas to crumble.

  Gavin laughed, beginning to walk down the stairs to check in quick, before he paused to say, "I don't get it. How did she raise an army, lead it to end a blight, and yet be so bad at tactics?"

  "As she likes to say it, it doesn't count as a proper representation of a battle if she can't have a drunken dwarf, a libidinous assassin, and a golem."

  The libidinous assassin reminded Gavin of his proper job, Anjali no doubt floating around unwatched by anyone. What would come of that big mess? He should probably ask Ser Daryan what his assignment was to be, but... Rising off the stairs, Gavin returned to his father's side. Cullen questioned him, but he said, "My friend can cover for me. Also I think my mother might have some sway with the King."

  His dad patted him on the back, returning them to his parent's room. While he didn't question Gavin's dodging duty, he did groan, "Don't blighted remind me."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Stuffed Crocodile

  She could tell when her dad was at the super grumbling stage. Oddly, not a lot of people could. It wasn't that he was great at putting up a front like Rosie and pretending he was happy. He just didn't give the same 'I'm sick of your shit and want you all to go away' signs as most people. His cross comebacks seemed more like bitter jokes, most landing hard on the ground, not that he ever cared when he was in that bad of a mood.

  "Hey," Myra began, staring into the darkened study where her dad recused himself to. That was exactly how he put it. Stood up in the middle of dinner after glaring at his first born for a good twenty minutes in between courses, shouted "I recuse myself," and then booked it to the first empty room he could find.

  Alistair twisted the chair around a bit, his head lolling to the side until he spotted his youngest clogging up the doorway. "Wheaters," he called, Myra promptly rolling her eyes at the nickname that would never die. "What are you doing here?"

  "Oh, ya know, dinner was getting dull. They didn't even set the cake on fire. What's the point of making a fancy cake if you don't then set it on fire?"

  She expected him to laugh or add on his own string of terrible ideas to liven the solemn party up, but her dad faded into himself. Maker's sake, how did it land on her to try and cheer him up? She was so bad at this stuff, usually talking nonstop to people until they either faked a smile or ran away screaming.

  "You wanna sit with me, kiddo?" he turned his head over at her and then gestured to an old divan with a stuffed crocodile of all things stretched upon the cushions. Myra glanced over at her father in confusion at the reptile's appearance, only to understand how it got there with a King's assistance.

  With a shrug, Myra slid into the dampened room. She plucked up the crocodile that was at most four feet long from snout to tail, then plopped down to the cushions and placed the lizard on her lap. While her dad stared into the fire, Myra began to smooth her fingers over the glued on scales, absently rubbing the thing as if it was a pet that fell asleep.

  "Dad...?"

  "How was your trip?" he interrupted her quickly, turning in the chair.

  Was? Oh boy. She knew he hadn't talked to Rosie yet, the Princess still out there playing hostess or whatever she did best. But the grit in the pretty girl's jaw and the way she kept flexing her biceps as if looking for a fight was all Myra needed to know. Things were not going to end well for anyone tonight.

  "Not bad. We got to that lake, the north one outside of Highever. Oh, and Bryn and I saw a frog as big as our heads. We tried to take it with us, but...turns out frogs don't really like living inside crates holding handmaiden's silken dresses."

  Her dad snorted at that. No doubt he should be chastising her with a "Now Myra, we need to respect other peoples things and not leave amphibians inside of them," but he let it sail on past. With a slow hand, he took a pull from the mug beside his chair. She didn't know what it was, but the fumes were strong enough to warp the air around the girl on the couch. It could probably strip paint.

  Rosie was in so much trouble.

  "Then, uh...I nearly punched a boy, but my sister stopped me." She expected a reaction, to at least acknowledge that was the right move, but her dad only shut his eyes. "Lots of Banns giving tours of places to the point I think mazes and corridors will fill my nightmares for years."

  I made out with a boy, a lot.

  Myra pursed her lips, trying to shake off the thought. Her dad would flip and probably turn all his building wrath upon her for bringing that up. Plus, she didn't really want to talk about Gavin at the moment.

  "After that, the darkspawn. Which...I have to say are not a lot of fun. They should name them nofunspawn."

  "Did you fight?"

  She expected her dad to either growl at the mention, or maybe throw out a few of his own jokes. When it came to darkspawn, he had a million of them. Such a simple, straight forward question threw Myra for a loop. Her fingers slid into the crocodile's open mouth, worrying up and down a tooth as she thought.

  "Yeah."

  "With a sword?" he turned in profile to her, a sliver of his white-grey eyebrow raised.

  Myra felt her cheeks burning hotter as she rubbed her neck, "No. It was, I had...I used a flagpole to, ya know, whack whack."

  Alistair sighed and took another drink. "We're going to have to tell your mother."

  "She doesn't need to know about that bit. Or the frog part."

  "Wheaty," now he turned fully in place to look over at her. "You're good with a staff, you should have a staff."

  "But Mom says..."

  "We can change her mind."

  Myra snorted hard at that, "Since when?"

  "Okay, give me a month head start," he added before winking at her. "If you don't like a sword, you don't like a sword."

  "They're so...heavy, and I hate having to clomp around with one hanging off the side like, hello, yes I am armed. At least with a staff most people think, 'oh, walking stick. No reason to bother her.'"

  "All good points. Save them for when your mom blows sky high," her dad laughed perhaps the first one since he learned the truth. Reiss was notoriously stubborn, a point he somehow found charming instead of infuriating. Though, he would sometimes confess to the daughter staying up at the palace with him while her mother was on a job that it could be infuriating too.

  "So..." Myra began, undulating the crocodile in her lap up and down as if it was riding the waves. "Things."

  "Things indeed," her dad was glaring at the barely flickering fireplace, his fingers tented to his temple while he tried to smooth out the embossed frown. "All kinds of things. Things you think," he tipped his head back and blew a great gust of air out of his lips, "you think you don't have to explain to people. Too many damn things."

  "Dad?" she sat up higher, waiting until he looked over at her. "It's not that big a deal."

  Her father's always silly eyes narrowed, "Wheaty, this isn't the time..."

  "But it's not," she didn't know why she was sticking up for Rosie beyond sometimes her sister hid the dumb things Myra did. Like that time she was
climbing the southern wall, slipped, and shattered a dozen pots in the fall. Rosie was outside doing whatever Rosie did and spotted her sister shaking broken terra cotta out of her shoes, but never said a word. Claimed one of the dogs did it. "Really."

  Sliding further out of his chair, her dad rested nearly knee to knee with her. At an almost shared height, it was easy for Myra to look him in the eye. "Look, I get that you're okay. You're...tough. Sometimes scary tough, but even your mother will be spitting hot tacks when she hears about an assassin. Your mom."

  "She hasn't even done anything," okay, aside from punching Gavin a few times. That was not very nice.

  "It's not about the friendly assassin you pick up, it's..." he paused and regrouped, "It's sweet that you're trying to protect your sister, to help her and all, but this doesn't involve you, or Cailan."

  Suddenly, Alistair groaned and tipped back into the chair, "Maker, I know you can handle yourself and even Rosie when she's not being a wilting flower for no good reason, but that kid..."

  "He did good, Dad." At her insistence, Alistair turned in confusion at her. "Cailan led a bunch of civilians, servants and the like, to safety."

  Snickering in surprise, her father shook his head as if he drank something strong, "Really? That's what Cailan chooses to be all humble about and not mention? Helping people? That kid is nothing but surprises." He kept patting himself in a half hug while mulling over his middle child's accomplishments, when the King suddenly grimaced.

  "Wheaty, that doesn't mean that I can just ignore you all being in danger. You know that. You know how quick a situation can turn on you and go tits up."

  Like a magic throwing darkspawn rising from the woods and setting itself upon them all.

  Myra's lips dragged down into a huge frown, her fingers digging into the scales of the crocodile as if she could pop each one off. The change was so obvious even her somewhat deluded father looked over and asked, "What is it?"

  "You were one of those mage hunters, right? A...ah shit, what were they called?"

  "Templar."

  "Right," Myra snapped her finger as if that was all that was on her mind. But her dad was still staring through her. He knew there was more. "Right, templars. And you, they could do stuff to mages. To...like, to stop them. Right?"

  "A few things," her dad fully honed his eyes and focus upon her. "Myra? Why are you asking?"

  She popped open her lips, wanting to explain, but the words clogged tight in her throat. It was silly, it was foolish, it was probably incriminating. To keep quiet, she jammed her jaw shut and began to twist the crocodile back and forth in her lap.

  "Did someone attack you with a templar skill?" her dad reached over to lovingly hold her hand.

  "No," Myra shook her head, aware that a few stupid tears were rising in her eyes. "No, not at me. At the...the thing we were fighting. It, it hit on -- I don't know -- accident."

  "Ricochet," he nodded his head, sliding backwards a bit but he didn't let go of her hand. "That can happen, especially to the young and inexperienced." Suddenly her dad's head shot up and his eyes opened wide, "You didn't like it did you?"

  "What? No! Why would anyone like that? It felt like someone kicked me in the gut."

  "I've wondered that myself a few times," Alistair suddenly tugged up the front of his hair, clearly wanting to change the subject before Myra asked any incriminating questions. After dropping his hands and listening to his daughter's agitated breathing, he turned to her, "My? What's really bugging you?"

  "It's just...he, I mean, the person did it without warning. I had no way to know it would happen. And boom, felt like...like someone you li-- Like someone you trusted suddenly hit you." She felt the stupid tears building again in her throat.

  Alistair groaned and mashed both of the heels of his hands into his eyes. He continued to rub away her questions a few more times before letting them down. The attack left him with red circling around his eyes like a bandit's mask. "The, I assume, dispel technique he used, did it take out whatever you were fighting?"

  "Yeah, that emissary had no idea what hit it," Myra smiled waving her hand through the air at her remembering the way Gavin hacked it apart with ease.

  "An emissary? Sweet Maker, that boy's only..." her dad froze up, his eyes meeting with Myra's as both realized their farce was pointless but neither wanting to call it out. "Whoever did that skill must be well trained, and probably gets a lot from his, or her, mother. Most definitely."

  "Dad," Myra glared at him for bringing up that old feud.

  "Fine, fine, forget I made any mention. But I don't understand what's the problem? Emissary dead, you safe. Both of you. Seems it did what it had to."

  "Yeah, great and all, but that's a templar skill. Big, scary templars that would hunt and kill mages. Keep 'em locked up, became so bad they had to be disbanded and destroyed. Now he's...someone's throwing it around without thought for people caught in the crosshairs," Myra's voice deepened into a growl as she continued, her hands using the crocodile to emphasize her point.

  Her father slid back into his chair and wrapped his hands around the mug. For awhile he just sat there, staring into whatever was left while swirling it around. Myra almost didn't expect an answer and thought maybe she should leave, when he finally spoke up. "The templars were dangerous and did become a problem, not just for mages. They had to be eliminated. But, just because an order went bad doesn't mean they all were."

  With a laborious rise out of the chair, her father began to step back and forth in front of the rug, "There were good people in the templars, good people that wanted to do...good. Like me, or even..."

  "The Commander?" Myra threw out fast before slapping a hand over her mouth. Her mother didn't have to tell her that Dad and Gavin's father didn't get on, the fact was blisteringly obvious. Though it took her until she was a bit older to ferret out why on her own. She wondered sometimes if Gavin knew.

  Expecting her dad to groan or crack a joke, Myra braced herself, but he didn't. He sighed, "Is a good example of how good can become a problem."

  "What?" She was confused. Everyone knew Cullen as heroic, stoic, other -ics probably. Never someone bad or dangerous, unless you were the bad guy.

  "Take your would-be templar. I assume he's nice, kind, all those wonderful things they put down in poems, but he also fights. He knows how to kill, how to maim, how to hurt people. How to use a weapon to his advantage. That's what a templar's skills are."

  "A weapon? Like...a sword. That seems a little easy. Sword kills one, but that can... What if, I mean the Qunari powder, that's scary stuff. It can blow up entire buildings in one shot."

  "Wheaters," her dad leaned closer to her, "so can mages."

  "But mages wouldn't..." she began to race to defend her own, before realizing she didn't really know her own. There were no mages her age she ever interacted with, the few on the streets were mere background in her life. What if one of them ever turned on the citizens?

  "Dad? Did mom ever have to take down a mage?"

  "A couple," he admitted with clenched teeth, "but I'm the one who's killed far more. Blood mages, dangerous beyond measure. And sometimes just people trying to kill me."

  "Bad people," Myra said, trying to not feel her world shudder under her feet. She knew that it was live or die for her father during the blight, often the same for her mother when she worked the streets. It was simple, the bad people were bad and deserved whatever shit they stirred up. The good people were good because they stopped the bad people.

  "They did seem rather not nice at the time, especially the Tevinter slavers. Kid, I can't tell you how to feel. I'm not even sure what one of those skills feels like on the other end."

  Myra nodded her head dumbly, wanting her dad to run in and scare the monsters away. To turn everything back into the villain versus hero. This idea that heroes can shift into villains and villains become heroes unnerved her.

  Gripping onto her shoulder, Alistair said, "But try to not judge him too harshly on it. I
know I can't, not if he was trying to save you." He looked misty eyed at her and Myra felt her cheeks burning. Without trying to be too schmaltzy, Myra leaned forward to hug her dad's waist, her head burying into his side.

  For a beat, her dad fiddled with her braid while completing the hug before he suddenly froze, "But you two aren't... You better not be, ya know, with him..."

  "DAAD!" Myra shrieked, releasing the hug and flopping back onto the couch to cross her arms. "Maker's sake, don't be gross."

  "Pretty sure it's a father's prerogative to gross his daughter out. Let's invite a couple of your friends in here. I can tell them all about the time you got it in your head to rip off your diaper and decorate the walls of the armory in poop."

  "Andraste's butt," Myra fumed, her cheeks and forehead bright red. She glared at nothing, seething as she clicked her teeth from the embarrassment only her parents could cause.

  Laughing at his kid's misfortune, which he caused, Alistair crumpled back to his chair. He took his time finishing his drink, before upending the empty mug onto the table. Myra caught the movement and asked, "Should I go?"

  He glanced over, his eyes so haunted it looked like his soul was wounded. He really didn't want to have to confront Rosie, which was all that was left. Shaking it away, her dad laughed, "Nah, you can stay a bit. Tell me about other things. Things that don't involve you having to stare down a hurlock's ugly mug."

  Myra nodded. She tipped the crocodile upside down to expose its belly and began to scratch it, as if the thing was alive and also a cat. "How's mom? Her stuff?"

  "Good, busy. You know how the heat messes with people, but she's been staying back more, thank the Maker." That was a near on constant argument between the two. You should remain back. No, I'm needed. Yeah, I need you. Somehow they always made up after, even if Reiss got her way 99% of the time. "She sends her love, she also thanks you for the letters even if you wrote them all before you left."