L'appel Du Vide - "What has Thedas ever done for you? Why do you want to save it? " "Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it." / A half elf from Rivani does what she can, and nothing horrible goes wrong because Arista knows exactly whats shes doing, thank you very much. (Take some fucking notes Anders)

AN: Tis' the year of airing out all my old fics and letting other people finally read them. This is a bit of a departure from my style, a bit more purple prose than I'm used to, but I'm still fond of this story and I might as well share it.

Updates are *vague hand gestures* just tell me if you liked what you saw in the reviews and I'll probably want to keep writing more

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Chapter One - Set To Simmer

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The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but-the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.

Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match Girl

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She been told that her family were people of the ocean. Traders and sailors, tough and unyielding as the open sea. The stories Arista's mother had told her at night as she brushed her hair ("-Rista! Your hair gets more and more unruly each day, we'll be out of house and home with all the combs and clips you end up breaking!") often mentioned the freedom, the waves, the peace that her ancestors knew in their home of Rivain. They were a country that bled freedom, to its very core. No circles, no bloodshed, no barriers separating them with their neighbors.

The way her mother spoke of her homeland, with such a warm, tender voice, whispering memories of old into Arista's ear, there was no way she could silence her. Despite the rainfall outside, or the leaky ceiling, or the drenched, dripping blankets around them… it all bled away into the background as the two dreamed of a land beyond their own, a place only one of them had seen as a little girl.

It was a fantasy. But at the very least it was theirs.

As the winters grew colder and the frigid, ocean wind threatened to blow straight through their little shelter, it became apparent to the both of them that Kirkwall was no home for them. Darktown was the only safe place for the both of them to live—the elven alienage, nor the chantry would take them, too crowded in the winter even for one more mother and child. Everyone wanted shelter from the cold. The summer prior had been short, cut off by an early attack of frost. The year after had been just as cruel, if not more so.

They dreamt of hotter days huddled up by candlelit fires, warming their fingers pinched by the cold by the heat of each other's joints. Arista always squirmed when her mother wormed her fingers through her hair and onto the back of her neck, but she let it slide because her mother was always so much colder than her.

"I need it more than you do. You have a mane keeping your cute little face warm! How will your poor old mum survive?"

"You're not even that old!"

"Have you seen my wrinkles? I'm falling apart. You took all my hard earned beauty away when you were born."

"Mama—"

"Shush, you wear it better than I ever did darling."

They had nearly frozen to death together on the third winter. Arista would never be fooled otherwise. She had grown used to her mother's games and long stories when the cold set in. Those who went to sleep in the cold often never woke again, she learned to watch her surroundings, and to trust in her mind when her instincts played her for a fool. They would stay up until the sun rose and sleep during the day. They would talk of many things, anything, nothing at all—if only to stay awake just a little longer.

When her brother came along, Arista learned to keep a fire going hot enough—but dim enough not to be spotted—suited for keeping a baby warm while her mother worked.

(Beautiful Niccolai, a little boy with dark skin and curls like his mama and eyes the colour of tea, to his half sister's coffee brown. Their mother had spoke of Niccolai's father in passing—Arista didn't have much of an opinion on the man. She knew he was a human, and Niccolai had his eyes, but that was it. They didn't have the luxury of knowing more.)

Arista was eight, young enough to still hold onto her remaining childhood but wise enough to recognise the tell-tale signs of frostbite and know how to combat them. Warming water over their fire and then wrapping the digits in cloth until the skin returned to a healthy colour.

"Thank you, 'rista, you always know the best way to save your clumsy old mother."

The clay pot smashed on the ground blended in with the dirt and grime of darktown, and after a while, Arista gave up and swept the whole mess away from their bedrolls.

"You need to take better care of yourself mama. I know you don't want me knowing what you get up to at night these days, but if you keep coming back half frozen, I don't know if i'll be able to help all the time."

"Such a smart little girl... "

Her mother would kiss her temple and smooth back her hair when she hugged her, and it would always help smother the mess of worry in Arista's chest. As she grew up and noticed more things going on around her— underhanded gestures from strangers to her mother, hidden messages in expressions, the code they used to keep Arista out of the loop— she didn't know if worrying would help them both or simply get them into more trouble.

"You know my job takes a toll… I wish I could be with you and Niccolai more and keep you two from staying up all night waiting for me."

"You've been working more hours than usual," Arista murmured, setting their dustpan to the side and burrowing back into her shawl of tattered wool and sheets. It was little protection against the autumn wind. The fourth great winter in a row. The Maker must've been punishing them for something they did in their past life.

Niccolai was bundled up in their warmest blankets by the fire, and Arista watched with great satisfaction as he murmured in his sleep. Their mother's face came to life as the three of them huddled around their little campfire. She gestured for her daughter to scooch closer so their voices wouldn't carry in the wind, Niccolai snuggled into her side for warmth. "I have a secret, but you can't tell anyone."

Arista pulled a face. "Not even Nicky?"

The two of them had shared a lot of secrets together before Niccolai got older, most juvenile and pointless, never something that really made her mother this lively, but Arista was pulled in despite her trepidation. Secrets—real secrets—meant danger, promises of false wealth, and resulted only in pain. People always found out. It was always a risk to hold onto something like that when one lived surrounded by people so desperate they'd risk everything just for a warm bed.

Arista had learned everything from her mother, most recently by watching the poor woman struggle to sustain them both. She learned what was safe and what wasn't. She learned how to fail by nursing her mother's wounds and patching her back up. She learned the best routes through the market, how to outrun guards twice her size, and how to steal from vendors without being caught. Arista was not new to secrets and danger, but she was weak for that spark of life in her young mother's eyes. It was so rare these days.

"Alright, out with it."

"I've been skimming some money off of what I'm supposed to hand in—I know, I know, just look," her mother huffed, pulling a small roll of cotton out from the lining of her dress. The coins were heavy in her hand and the light from the fire glinted off each one.

Arista found herself tracing the edges of the largest one in her mother's palm. The golden colour was unmistakable even in the dark. "Is that…?"

"Yes, but keep it down." She wrapped the Sovereign back up and quickly hid it away before anyone else saw. Her cheeks were stained with a flush of red that had nothing to do with the cold, and she cupped Arista's hands with her own. "Rista, you know how we always spoke of finding a boat and sailing away from here? We can finally do that now. We can make it."

"Mama, are you sure your boss won't find out? Surely they'd know you took their money."

"It's my money, I did the work for it, I deserve more than the scraps I'm paid—"

Arista could feel how cold her mother's hands were in her own. She looked around at their little shelter, the place she had grown up, and wondered what tugged at her heart to make her possibly want to stay. When her mother stifled a cough, she looked back up at her. "...do you think if we leave soon, we'll get far enough away so they don't follow?"

"That's my girl, always the smart one." The two of them leaned closer together and held tight onto their blankets as a particularly large gust tore its way through their shelter and blew out their fire.

Niccolai, safely tucked between them, whined and tugged his blankets closer. "Someone tell the storm to tone it dooooown."

With a quiet curse, their mother abandoned her struggle for body heat in favor of bringing their fire back, but Arista slapped her hand away and got to work. With their flint by her side, she coaxed the coals back into a little flame by cupping her hands together and tenderly blowing on it. Her mother held back her hair as she worked, careful not to let her dark curls catch any sparks.

A tiny flame licked the tinder as Arista fed it, her mother spoke in dulcet tones of ships and sailing, of a home in a land where they would not have to steal for a living or give away parts of themselves for coin. Arista had grimaced at that point, images of the red lantern district and memories of sitting in forgotten corners of taverns, soaking up the heat as her mother worked, talking to no one and keeping her eyes on the floor lest she draw the attention of unwelcome advances. In buildings such as that, anyone with a pulse was fair game, and Arista was more than aware of the fact that she was getting older. Her brother was too young to notice—five to Arista's eight—but the moment she saw people eyeing him up, she kept her little brother on a tight leash and a dagger hidden in her skirts in case anyone got any ideas.

She drew up memories of warm food and pretty, kind hearted, working girls to dull the flash of anger in her chest. She might have called the women friends if her mother hadn't swapped partners so frequently. Her mother had told her that it was because the pay was better, but Arista had a suspicion that tiny tagalongs were just 'bad for business'. The kind of business it was? Not of Arista's concern (she worried about it anyway).

The longer they stayed up that night, the more ludicrous their talk of the future went on. From running away with a handsome Qunari to becoming queen of the underground went, dreaming about a life far from their own was intoxicating to the both of them. By the time the fire went out again and the sun came up, they had plotted out the perfect ship and route to Rivaini all in their heads. Envisioning exactly how the captain and ship would look like, to the very detail.

"And he'll be handsome, but not too handsome, because of his eyepatch and his scar down the side of his face. Oh, you can tell by the scowl that he's seen his fair share of battles, but he has a heart of gold and a son at home with his eyes, and—"

"You mean his eye, right?" Arista held onto her mother's arm as they made their way to the docks, all their belongings packed into two small bags. They had waited weeks for the ships to come in for a final shipment before the winter storm made passage impossible, and time was of the essence before they set off again.

"That's an awful joke." Niccolai groaned.

Her mother snickered. "Hush, you. He had two eyes before the incident with that sea monster—"

"The one he didn't sea coming?"

Arista hissed when her mother pressed her freezing fingers onto her neck, and knocked her forehead into her hip. Her mother choked on her laugher, torn between wonderful trills and sickly coughs that only seemed to worsen with the changing season. "One of these days, that mouth of yours will get you into trouble. You know, I ought to—"

"To what?" Arista stopped moving a second later than her mother did, only a moment too late to catch a glimpse of whatever caused her to freeze in her steps.

Niccolai clung to her skirts. "Mama? What is it—"

"Nothing, kids, don't stop moving, we're almost to the docks." She cleared her throat nervously. "Niccolai, come close, let me carry you so we can move faster."

Arista knew better than to stand around like an idiot, but uncertainty curled in her gut as she noted her mother glance around each corner as they walked on. Soon enough, they were making a brisk pace through the market and down the stone steps, passing strangers with reckless abandon. She didn't ask if her mother recognized any of their faces.

"Mama, slow down!" She couldn't feel her arm from the iron grip clasped around it, and a blast of wind knocked the breath out of her lungs—she stumbled on a loose piece of stone paving. Niccolai cried out, telling their mother to stop.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, here, are you alright?" Her mother kneeled down and tucked her daughter's black curls back into place, cupping her face in her hands. "We're just a couple boats away, can you try to keep up? I can carry your things for you if you do something for me in return."

Arista struggled to catch her breath, but was more than relieved to lessen the weight on her back in favor of carrying just a small purse holding their valuables. She didn't check what was inside, that would only draw attention.

Her mother had been dead on about what sort of man their captain would be—she had cheated in their little game of make-believe. He did have an eyepatch. She had met the man before, had spoken with him and worked her way into his good graces so they would find a place on his ship. There was a crowd of people surrounding the boat, all clamouring for their ticket to another life.

Niccolai clung to his mother's neck as she drew Arista into her shawls, squeezing their way into the throng of people. A man called out her mother's name from behind and Arista felt her mother jerk, her hand caught by in an iron grip.

A last call was heard for the boat as people filtered on, the crowd slowly thinning and providing less resistance to the struggle. Arista held tightly onto her mother's other hand, trying to drag her to the boat as the two adults traded heated words, but she was young and weak and her fingers were chilled by the ocean wind.

"You know you owe us too much money to just run away from—"

"Hey!" Arista's grip slipped from her mother and she stumbled backwards, saved from tumbling into the freezing water by the ship's captain. "Are you getting on board? The water's getting worse for sailing and we only have a short time before we're all stuck here."

"Y-yes, but—"

"AH—!" Niccolai caught a good look at the man's face and quickly slid to the ground, startled by what he saw. Mercenaries? Men their mother worked for? The man's eyes were a cold, tea colour.

"Let go of me!" her mother put up a weak defence against the man, his body made of mostly muscle, and their arguing drew only more attention from passers by.

"You're a thief! I should turn you into the guards!"

Their mother took a defencive step backwards, pulled sharply back by her attacker, and knocked Niccolai over onto the ground. Hands scraped by the sharp rocks, his eyes filled with tears and he sucked in a sharp sob. Arista stood, shocked. The captain called out to them again.

Arista's world tilted on its axis. Her breath came in short, laboured breaths. What could she do? What could she do?

Her fingers were already numb and her throat closed up, preventing her from speaking. She felt like a trapped animal, watching as her mother was slowly dragged away from the boat, leaving their belongings on the ground for anyone to pick up. That was their livelihood, their everything. Worse yet, her mother was being taken.

She had to do something, she had to do something, she had to—

"Stop!"

She found her voice she same time she found something else entirely. Her hand outstretched, she found a target in the man with his back turned to her, pushing her mother into an alleyway where fewer eyes could see them.

She tuned out the sounds of his screaming in favour of pushing whatever it was she felt that the moment further, pushing, more more more—

His hair crackled with flames and the freezing dock lit up with a new light unknown to the muted blue tones of the waters nearby. Her flames devoured his head in a halo of ravenous light and swallowed him up in a cacophony of roaring flame—

Fire, fire—! The one thing that kept them alive, the one thing that could save them—

"Maker almighty." Her mother fell to her knees despite the cold wet floor, her hands clasped over her mouth as the smoke rose up, forcing her into another coughing fit as the man smouldered in front of her. "W—What did you do?"

The pyre Arista had summoned had too soon drawn the eye of templars, brought by the guards in their haste to retreat from the sudden blast in desperate, heretical magic. They brandished their swords and approached with their shields drawn, their armour blazing with a white fury so unlike Arista's burst of flames.

She had heard of mages and the circle, seen the way the templars walked and acted as if they owned the city as the people died and started on the streets. She knew nothing of what awaited her in the circle tower, but she knew that any life with the templars meant it would be away from her only tie in this world. "M—Mama, I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!""

"A—Ari…?" Niccoli sniffled, wide eyes uncomprehending of what just happened. "Why are they all looking at you like that?"

"Niccolai get on the boat."

He looked at her like she stung him. "What?"

She tossed the coin purse at him and roughly shoved him to his feet. "You heard me, go!"

The templars descended, driving Arista further away from their mother, her back turned to the water and her head to the wind. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know what she did— was it truly magic? Had she really just killed a man?

Swords raised, the templars began to speak, but their meaning was lost on her through the panic. She wanted to curl into a little ball and go back to their hovel in darktown, she wanted to go back to freezing and to forget about dreams and Rivaini and ships instead of this. She wanted to go back, she—

A pair of hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her backwards, in her panic, because there wasn't supposed to be anything other than water and death and the cold there, she lost her balance and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable splash of water and the cold to eat her up.

She waited, but the moment never came.

She opened her eyes at the sound of shouts and and saw overcast sky and white sails, only after quickly scrambling to her feet she saw the ship captain and her brother.

"Arista—!"

Too soon she found him clinging to her side, and she saw the ship's first mate letting go of the boat's ropes attaching it to shore. She saw the templars cursing at them and hovering around the water's edge like hungry dogs, and she saw her mother huddled in the alleyway, her dark skin smudged by soot and her face lit by the underglow of the smouldering body beneath her.

Their eyes locked onto one another, and between the tears sliding down her mother's young face, she saw light and she saw hope, mixed with the shock and horror. Arista could not make sense of it at the moment, but the templars grew smaller with each moment the boat set sail. No matter how many times she begged the ship's captain to turn around and get her mother, the old, eye-patched man would not budge, and they left Kirkwall and it's deadly winters behind.

Despite the warm bunk waiting for inside, Arista stayed up all night watching the twinkling light of Kirkwall snuff out as they sailed away. She would not let dreams take her until the city was gone from view, and the warmth had long left her small body.

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