Chapter 12 – An Interlude

Varric

"Oy! Varric, darling – look at what I've found!"

Varric glanced up at Isabela. He had just finished cleaning Bianca of the viscous, black goop that the darkspawn had had the gall to spray everywhere when his bolts had taken them down. The pirate was crouched amidst the bodies of several of the creatures they had taken care of, carelessly rifling through their few possessions for anything useful.

"Oh, come on, Rivaini – don't tell me you actually see anything you like on these monsters?"

The pirate raised an eyebrow and gave a devilish grin. "Unless this 'stone sense' you've been raving about actually decides to pay us a visit before we all starve to death down here, no." She pulled a roll of parchment from behind her back, waggling it invitingly.

"What in the name of my brother's bloody paragons do you have there?" As he sauntered forward, Varric got a better look of the yellowed paper, and didn't even want to know what had caused the rest of assorted stains on it.

"I'm not really sure," Isabela mused, gingerly switching the parchment from one hand to the other. "Maybe our resident Grey Warden might have an inkling?" She eyed the mage in question as he picked his way through corpses to meet up with them, an eyebrow cocked in question.

Anders took the parchment without comment, and gently unrolled it, wincing at the cracking sound of old, tearing paper. His eyes darted across the page before widening in disbelief.

"Well, don't keep us hanging here, Blondie," Varric goaded, "what's the big deal? Are these things more literate than we give them credit for?"

"Actually," Anders began, keeping his eyes on the papers, "it seems that they are. This is a map – it's written entirely in Thedosian, in fact. How did the darkspawn get hold of these…" He thumbed through the pages.

"Anything useful in there, or are they all passages leading to Orzammar?" Varric stepped closer to peer at the scribbles across the pages depicting roads, forests, cities, and underground entrances.

"It looks like this might be just what we need, actually," Anders said quietly, his finger tracing the small, calligraphic characters on one page. "Yes! These three maps are the entire underground system that we're in right now!" He hastily shuffled through the pages in question, dropping several others in the process. With a growl of frustration and flick of his wrist, a soft, green light rose from his palm to hover between the three of them, illuminating the maps far more clearly than the dim lyrium veins had.

"Is it just me," began Isabela, her slender finger pointing at a spot on one of the maps, "or is this where we are right now?"

Anders snatched the page, holding it closer to the wisp that bobbed in the air. Hope was palpable, and Varric thought idly of how best to elaborate on the finding of the useful maps… perhaps he could fight off an ogre single-handedly to gain access to a locked chest that holds them? No, a pack of deepstalkers would be more dramatic.

"You're right," Anders' voice broke through his reverie. "This is exactly the tunnel we must be in, which means..." He trailed off and traced their path ahead. "There."

Isabela and Varric exchanged glances, neither of them having understood what the mage was talking about.

Isabela grinned and looked over Anders' shoulder before asking for clarification. "Um, sweetheart, you're going to have to spell it out for us simple folk. What's 'there'?"

Anders whirled around, his eyes blazing with purpose. "Our tunnel meets up with the one that runs parallel to it up ahead – can't be more than a few miles according to this scale. Don't you see? That's the tunnel the elf and Bethany are in."

Varric saw his own shock reflected in the pirate's face before he recovered quickly. Never one to sit idly by while there were adventures to be had and tales to be told, he brushed the dirt from his jacket and motioned to the other two to follow.

"In that case, Blondie, we'd best get moving."

A/N: Well, dear readers, I have some sad news: my Firebird muse seems to have deserted me. Fear not! I have *every* intention of finishing Bethany's story – I love it dearly, but the words have been very forced as of late. I have decided to focus on "Duty and Devotion" for the time being, as that story is simply begging to be written, and when the mood strikes, I'll work on this as well. I would be doing a disservice to both my story and my readers if I tried to force this story to come out when it wasn't happening. I hope that you will stick with me while I wait this dry spell out, and maybe even check out D&D if you are enjoying this in the meantime :)

Thank you to all of you for your incredible support as I've worked on Firebird, and I promise that I'll work on it as the inspiration hits! Thank you as well to my dear Eve Hawke for her beta, and to all of the other writers in the group I'm a part of for constant words of encouragement, and for helping me come to the difficult decision to focus on one story rather than try to hash out two and have them both suffer.

Hugs and Love, Kyla