Work Text:
She doesn't mind a sudden rain. Back at home it meant almost everything would be gloriously green for a few hours. Afterward, she could wade to the top of the hill, through the switchgrass, and be soaked to her knees the same as if she'd stood in some windswept surf.
But Kirkwall isn't Lothering. There is no high grass, whipping like waves, and there will be no suffusion of color to every little thing after the storm passes. A sudden rain in Hightown means she and Fenris must sling their shopping packs over one shoulder, and take refuge beneath the overhang alongside Worthy. The dwarf crosses his arms, his bearded expression unreadable to Bethany. Rain pounds the white stone to gray, and coats every stall with wet grime.
"It will not last long." Fenris offers. He pulls a slender shaft of dragon weed from between the cobblestones, strips it, and tucks it in the corner of his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Bethany sighs.
"I hope you're right."
A voice beckons her, thick with the syrup of an Orlesian tongue. It calls from a deeper corner of the market.
"Hello? You there, lovely. Would you like a portrait while you wait?"
They turn, and Bethany spies a vendor, an artist, that she's never seen before. Portraiture in this place, she thinks, is like a mad joke. But curiosity takes her hand and pulls her feet. Fenris pushes away from the wall and follows her down the damp corridor to the corner. The man wears a droopy cap, and sports a scraggle of ginger beard below crinkly, bright green eyes.
"You're not the normal sort we see here. Do you come often?" Bethany casts her eyes over his easel, his oil-blackened box of charcoal nubs, and what she thinks are paints, gathered loosely in his satchel. He pulls at his cap, scratching at the remainder of his flaming hair.
"To be honest, no. But it's worth the trip every once in a while, even when it rains. . ." His potbelly swings over stiff, thin little legs when he stands. The artist gestures at the stool opposite him, bowing with a wink. "If a beautiful girl comes along like a burst of sunshine."
Fenris looks at her then. He doesn't roll his eyes exactly, but Bethany knows what that lifted eyebrow means. It's a laugh that doesn't have a voice. Truthfully, she wants to smile at the artist's clumsy sell, and his floppy hat. But the green eyes tell her he is genuine in spirit, if not commerce.
"Thank you, but I haven't the coin for it." She smiles at him, nodding down at the collection of paraphernalia pushed away from the encroaching rain. As the artist is about to protest, Bethany finds Fenris at her elbow, nudging slightly.
"How much?" He's not looking at her as he sifts through the clink of scrape of metal in his purse. Not looking, but definitely smiling in the only way he knows. Bethany starts to huff her disapproval, but gets sidetracked by the elf's smirk. The dragon weed shifts in his teeth, rolling around that smile. The warmth between them is something she neglects to see as difficult for him. With others, yes. But Fenris is easy with her. "Is this sufficient?"
The artist ducks his head to the elf and takes the coins. Small thing, she thinks, but it makes her like the stranger a little more. So she sits.
The scritching of charcoal does not begin immediately. Instead, the artist regards Bethany for a few moments in silence.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, I am simply thinking of things to ask you. Normally, I sketch children. Questions help show me their little personalities."
The word comes off his tongue as if a personality were a velvet robe, trimmed in fur.
"What do you ask them?"
He turns his head to the blunted clatter of rain in the market.
"I ask what they would like to be when they grow up."
Bethany thinks this is rather a dull thing to ask of a child. Perhaps because her own childhood is not so far removed, she can easily recall the tiresome way adults interrogated her about her studies, her crushes, her brothers. When she frowns for too long, the artist smiles and begins at last. Fenris moves behind him to lean against the wall.
"What do they reply? The children. What do they want to be?" Bethany inhales, closing her eyes, and superimposes the laughter of her lost friends over the rain's monotone litany.
"It depends on the location. In Kirkwall, such children as there are, they would all like to wear fine things and stand in court." His hands are hidden from her, but Bethany watches the artist's eyes make swift calculations. The nub scratches and glides, and his voice loses its too-sweet lilt. "In Orzammar they would all be adventurers. And, in Ferelden they want to wield a blade for the glory of their king."
Fenris looks up at her, lips curving for the blink of an eye. He leans toward the artist's shoulder, closer than a man of his profession would like. And the dragon weed is still there, twitching between his teeth. But the man scoots himself to give the elf a better view and continues. They betray nothing to Bethany, the two pairs of green eyes glancing at her from behind the easel, and she's suddenly aware of what an odd talent it is to sit still and be observed. It isn't unpleasant, but she feels foolish and frivolous anyway.
Strokes and strokes go by, as if pushing away the minutes with a cloud of black dust. She watches Worthy pack his things. Korval, too, seems to conclude that the rain has thwarted his sales for the day, and wraps his blades in soft cloth before tucking them in his trunk.
Bethany's cheeks go a little numb, rain-chilled, and she hears Jean-Luc arguing briefly with the market's lone city guardsman.
"None of them wants to be a mage?" She blinks at herself, at her frank speech, and drags her face away from the gray sheets pelting against canvas in the courtyard. Fenris tightens. The artist pauses, and she waits for his eyes to cloud over. Bethany feels the weight of her staff in its sling on her back. But it's not there now, of course. No matter how it completes her, how it bumps her rear with all the reassurance of a shepherd's crook, the staff stays at home for times like these.
"Almost never," he says finally, with a haunted smile. "In Tevinter, of course, they would all be magisters. But in the market squares, where a scribbler might make a living. . .no, there are no children eager for that."
Behind the wet snap of his stall's awning, Hubert snorts and crosses his legs. The entrepreneur looks around at the three of them before turning back to his book.
Something in the downpour gives over, and Bethany watches the artist dive back into his work, expression stony. Behind him, Fenris discards his stalk of dragon weed and watches. But, his body has lost its ease. Even before the word magister drifts out, things go darker for him. Because of her. Even with the rain diminishing, their brief fun is over. Entropy takes everything, she thinks, as she lets her eyes droop. After a few moments of silence, shot through with the gritty drag of charcoal, the artist leans back. His working hand slides under his cap and pulls it off. Bethany watches Fenris' eyes go soft, open and sweet, over the top of the man's bald head.
"My girl, I think we are done." He tosses the charcoal in his sooty tray and waves at her. "Would you like to see?"
When she steps around, crowding Fenris, Bethany is stunned. The portrait is rough but graceful, hard strokes giving her face an angle she's only seen on Carver and Garrett. But it's her. . .and them. . .all of them in one face, sharing a life as well as a cramped little home. More than that, though, the artist has given her a staff. What she can't say out loud, and shouldn't, is how powerful she looks in black and white, rendered in a fluid moment of action that few have ever seen her perform. Beside her, the elf is quiet and his warm breath makes her a little self-conscious. The two of them forget to be fearful, and instead they touch the corners of the paper, where it curls with the strain of humidity. Entropy slinks away under the artist's bright green gaze.
"Maybe it would surprise you to know that even fewer children want to be artists."
Bethany breathes. The charcoal version of her stares out at the world with eyes both too fierce and too sad to be her own. Those aren't her eyes, are they? It suddenly feels like a sort of improper effigy. Something before its time.
"Thank you. It's a . . .lovely drawing." What a pitiful collection of words, but it's all she can manage. Her back twitches with that phantom weight again.
"It is a good likeness." Fenris nods. The artist, with his keen eyes, watches how Bethany can't look at the piece any longer, how the elf glances across the market toward the exits. He places a tissue-thin sheet over the work and rolls it carefully, quickly, tapping the ends, before slipping a hard cuff over it.
"The sun is shining already. You were my good luck charm after all." He hands the tube to Bethany. She inclines her head and takes it, color crawling into her cheeks.
"Good day to you, serah." Bethany's voice finally clears, and it feels like fading mist in her throat.
The artist waves his blackened fingers as they step into the sun. Fenris hoists their purchases and follows her across the slick stones. Above them, the clouds creep away, flat and wrung out, revealing a tease of blue.
"You should keep it." She tells Fenris, when they reach the first of endless steps down to Lowtown. The portrait is important, or she thinks it might be something they need. Any one of the men in her life.
"What would I do with it?" And somehow it isn't rudeness from his bow-curve mouth. Bethany watches his ears turn a little red at the tips. A red nearly as sweet as the cheery curve of the artist's lip. She wants to unroll the drawing again and stare at it.
"I don't know." Stones, thick with the mineral smell of rain, drop away beneath their feet as they go down, and down. His feet are silent, while hers make a rhythm. Fenris glances at her, waiting for her to smile at everything he does. Which she can't help. At the same time, she wants her voice to be the best kind of teasing. "Give it to Garrett one day. As a gift."
The ears go deep crimson, like little pennants of war rising through his white hair. If he would let her, Bethany would hug him until the color went straight to the tip of his nose. As usual, she settles for the twist of his mouth, knowing how he wants to laugh as easily as she does, and hoping she'll see it one day.