Autumn Gifts (Through a Glass Darkly 3)

He paused what he was doing, his hands grubby from the dirt. It was quiet up here as the fall breezes whipped across the upper parts of Kirkwall. The smell of the soil and even the few weeds reminded him of life growing out of the dark soil.

Exhausted, they marched toward the surface through the Deep Roads. The dwarven encampment when they found it again was empty of most everything but Varric's curses. Items abandoned, Bethany cried in dismay when their hopes faded in the dimness of the mage's staves.

As they resumed their trudge, Bethany looked worse with the taint that poisoned her souring her usual mood. “Varric, Merrill's an out and out blood mage and she deals with demons.”

Varric's tired grunt from behind was agreeable.

“Why do you call her, 'Daisy,' when she's not innocent? Why do you have to call me 'Sunshine?” she asked petulantly.

“Hmm?” Sounding relieved at a new topic, the merchant brightened his voice a little. “Sunshine, you are usually bright and sunny. What should I call you? Tulip?” He followed that with kissing noises. “Or maybe daffy-dill?”

A snort could be heard from Hawke who marched ahead.

Shuddering, Bethany's voice sounded distant somehow when she spoke next. “It doesn't seem right, as far underground as we are. It's so cold and dark...”

“Here is where it's most right. The sun is still up there, even if we can't see it here. You'll see it again, Sunshine.” Varric's voice in the darkness was either encouraging or pleading.

The stone planters and terrace, making a small garden on this roof, was the closest thing this barren rock could get to a real garden. Some of his patients or their children found dozens of bulbs for him, and he wasn't planning on asking where they'd found the tiny dogwood sapling either. Anyone who had so many could live without a few of them. Other losses were much worse...

After Stroud had taken Bethany further into the darkness, continuing was harder. Tunnels were darker, stray darkspawn more disheartening, and each footstep more dejecting. Hawke drooped and he took her hand and only her hand. Varric snickered at that.

Despite the looming disapproval, he needed to feel warm flesh after the cold and guilt for sending someone to the Grey Wardens.

They marched and marched, until they all smelled the faintest whiffs of rain-laden air, fresh air better than any potion. He'd had no words to express his joy and relief to have gotten out of the Deep Roads again.

But Hawke still drooped, and he damned himself to the Void briefly. She'd left sunshine in the dark, unlikely to see her ever again.

He'd heard that the final approvals were almost a formality after Varric made it out with treasure and a story, but the family didn't have possession yet. He set the dozens of bulbs in the barren planter, and he mixed in some of the nicer muck gathered from the smellier parts of Darktown by one of his more enterprising patients.

Come spring when they lived in this mansion, whatever this mix of tulips and crocus and flowering tree was that he'd found, it would bring a little sunshine to remind them of Bethany.