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From the shores, two elves can be seen dragging their feet back to the Inquisition’s ship and in complete silence to one another. Not one word has been exchanged since the Red Jenny snapped at Solas, when their scheming was nearly exposed with a shout at the top of Sera’s lungs. Coming from the direction of two well armed elves walking through wide open streets, districts away from the Alienage and the high walls protecting elves from humans for the past three days .
They had one day, uniting for one goal and one cause. They were rhythmic in how Solas commanded Sera’s spies and spun subterfuge through the nobles of Wycome. One foot forward and then the other person continues. Sera became less of an enigma to Solas, a tactician that saw every possibility while countering obstacles placed by their targets, a leader that she trusts her own people to, and perhaps even a mentor. That last one, Sera will never say to anyone.
That day of work has now passed and they returned to being oceans apart. Sera will never make the mistake of handing over the trust of her network to another individual again. The dreamer bragging that he has seen every possible scheme that spies have ever used, also happens to be exemplary as an actual spymaster. Sera refuses to tolerate that. All seeing and cold as he moves the Jennies, like his hand plucking the top of chess pieces but he is the mage surrounded by all pawns. Expendable if he needs them to be, that is what happened to one lowly contact in this city. Merely a peasant merchant wanting to do better for his city, used like fool’s gold as bait for the guards and for the rest of Sera’s people to run free.
Against Sera’s wishes for noncombatants, Solas had him block a patrol route with his goods. The distraction accomplished what Solas needed it to, the Red Jennies were able to scramble from the city at the cost of one merchant being interrogated. It was luckily that the elves found the merchant before worse things could come to pass.
They have done what is needed at Wycome, nothing more will come after that.
The equipment storage is a blessing to them. They have every available excuse to not address one another while undressing and shelving their gear. Sera rushes to unclasp the buckles on her breastplate, while Solas places his staff on the rack and carefully tucks away his bag of herbs and potions. Once they finish unpacking, then they can both happily reside at opposite sides of the boat.
Solas finally breaks the silence. “You have done well to gather your forces…”
“Stop it!” Sera suddenly snaps, turning away from organizing her stuff.
She stammers a centimeter away from Solas’s angular nose, her glare as sharp as a knife’s edge. She has always found Solas arrogant, this time is worse.
“The nobles who wanted to burn the alienage are pissing their pants now, good. I like that.” Her finger drills into and thumps Solas’s ribcage. “They listened, yea? Good, Jennies do that if they want something done. It’s not happening again!”
Knocking a hole through Solas’s face is coming too easy to her but it’s also not something that she actually wants to do to a member of Inner Circle, instead she paces in circles about the equipment room.
“You know how spies work, good on you! I’m sure the Fade can teach you lots of stuff, great.” Scratching away those flaring nerves isn’t helping. “But we choose to fight for the grandest Lady Herald, that’s on us! Some Jennies aren’t like us, they shouldn’t be risking their heads for us.”
“Complications are a given for any well thought out plan.” Solas states, shifting pass the hands stringing at him. “What matters is that we corrected that and found your agent.”
“Don’t want to hear it!” Sera’s twitching arm strikes her satchel.
Ending their argument with a rainfall of cards.
“Got it as a gift from one of the alienage elves.” She kneels to pick back up the deck. “She didn’t have much else to give us, not sure why a deck of cards though. Not sure where she found them either.”
Solas chuckles, rummaging his fingers through the individual cards. He rubs over the smooth, sandy. matte texture of the Angel of Death, a visage of Andraste draped in raven feathers. Gloomy, but there was much iconography to enjoy; he made a mental note to add them to his sketchbook later.
“Perhaps the game is a way that their community bonds, disenfranchised communities are often known to find comfort in games of luck.”
“Pfft. More than you’d think in an Alienage. Always a few adults playing in the evenings.” As the boat rocks, Sera watches her cards slide further away like scattering coins. “They never had much but still threw it away for a quick bit of fun.” She bites on the corner of her lips. “So stupid.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss their troubles so readily.” Solas sighs. “People have always tried to seize a moment’s respite when they can. Sometimes having a small bit of luck can give a great sense of control over their outcomes."
She blows a raspberry. “Not like you know the full of it. Alienages are always full of elves getting spit on. Some of them can’t even have a wedding without a rich nob knocking down on them. It’s not winning if you stay where you started.”
“Then what of my life do you truly know?” Solas returns the question, met with the shrug of Sera’s shoulders. “But I don’t suppose you’d be interested in playing a match or two.”
“Pfft. Against you? Think I’m stupid enough to take that up?” Sera crosses her arms, biting back a toothy smirk. “Blackwall already tried once. Remember him walking back, didn’t even have his breeches.”
“It does you no good to lower yourself to Blackwall’s level.” Solas reassures, smiling when that night floods back to him. “You already have enough sense to not wager away your small clothes.”
“With that big beard and hair, he’s still got clothes after losing.” She finally cracks into giggles.
Solas wraps his hands around the deck, pinching his fingers to close the fan of disordered cards. Before returning the cards to its rightful owner, he shuffles them. He halves the deck with his index finger, folding them into a crescent and letting the cards waterfall whole again. Like a rogue dancing their knife around their fingers, Solas seems too familiar with the stack of thick parchment in his hands as a mage with the pages of a tome.
When Solas’s hand finally extends back with the deck, he inches back almost reluctantly.
“I doubt that we’ll need to procure a bucket for our own game.”
Sera turns her head away from the cards, humming under her breath about needing to take rest in her bunk. Though her hand still instinctively reaches to grab the deck.
“Come on! We ought to get going before the Chargers take all the tables.” Her voice chirps up, eager to play their game and to do some shuffling like her opponent did earlier.
Sera skips up the steps with a coin purse strapped to her hip and a deck of cards in her hands. She splits the deck in half and practices the trick shuffle that Solas showed her, weeks back. Rather unwisely, as one unintended flick of her fingers can send her cards flying over the railing. That has not stopped her though, her deft hands will claim this hand trick eventually.
It isn’t often that she expects to go up to the Inquisitor’s room. Up there are Solas and Tali’s private quarters; she avoids them together if she can. If Sera wants to talk to Tali, then she can be found at the War room or hacking away at some mysterious magical something in the Undercroft with Dagna. And Solas, well, she never wants to talk to Solas but there’s a first for everything. Finally finding something that won’t involve them arguing about elven history or lectures on how wrong she’s acting, wicked grace is something they can both appreciate.
She collapses the hand full of cards back into a deck, finally knocking on the bedroom door.
“The door is unlocked. You may come in.” Solas spoke from the other side, already at the table.
He sat cross legged with his legs posted up onto the table, his sketchbook and pencil in hand. That grin lifting up his cheeks is still a strange sight to see, coming from him to her.
“Weren’t you two supposed to be playing Wicked Grace tonight?” Tali raises a brow, she rests on top of the bed with her own book in hand.
Sera nods, scrambling to place her coins and cards onto the table. “We are. There’s always too many people at the tavern. Solas thought it would be quieter up here.”
“Our game tends to garner onlookers.” Solas chuckles, closing his journal and straightening himself to play. “Varric spurs the soldiers on to make bets. I preferred a setting without so many prying eyes.”
“I think Solas is lying though, he’d rather not be in one of Varric’s stories. It’s all good innit, no one really does.” Sera says the obvious, her lips curling into a smirk as she shuffles the deck one last time.
“That is the truth!” Solas objects, he snorts at the insinuation. “But you are correct. I prefer to never know of that image Varric conjures up whenever he writes your story with all his flourishments.”
“Alright. Clearly you two want privacy.” Inky shrugs her shoulders, and gets out of her bed. Before leaving the room, she walks over to peck a good luck kiss on Solas’s forehead. “Make sure to win big.”
Sera blushes when she spots the kiss, she turns her head away to not get seen by either of the lovebirds and deals out everyone’s cards to not let her lust for Taliesen flood back to her.
“I wonder where Dagna and Merrill are, tonight.”
“Check in on Twinkle Toes, would you? Make sure she isn’t up to more trouble!” Sera asks Inky as she descents down the steps.
Solas lets out a barely audible sigh when relinquishing his silvers to Sera. It’s now the third round that the two elves have played, he has won but one round with abysmal hands for every round played. Though as Varric has said previously, there’s more to be gained from Wicked Grace than coin.
“Sera, there is a skill that the Fade Hunters practiced that can block demons from reading your mind.”
Sera shudders as the final dealt card lands on the table, she scrunches her brows at her opponent. “Hey Elfy, stop ruining the night with your lost empire rubbish.”
“I too would rather not divert time away from our game.” Solas picks up his cards, now needing to not scrunch his brows. Another mediocre hand. “I merely wanted to inform you that it’s possible to block the intrusion of a demon.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” Sera’s eyes skitter around their table, only looking at her cards once. “Need to think about that. Fade’s still scary.”
Solas nods, their game continues. The ever present chatter from the Throne room beneath has now deafened. To fill the silence that they now have, Sera scrunches her lips and eyes as close to each other as she possibly can then scratches the itch on her sideburns as if she plans her bid.
Solas snorts, deciding to make his own exaggerated expressions. He massages the top of his head while squinting his eyes as far as possible.
“Hmmmmmm.” Solas hears through Sera’s shut lips. It finally causes him to raise a brow.
“Hmmmmmm?” Sera looks up with feigned surprise.
Neither can hold their expressions for any longer, instead they crumble into laughter as Sera slaps her cards and coins onto the table with Solas unable to hold his arms straight enough to take his winnings.
Then begins another round of their games of luck and misdirection.
A tilt of his eyeballs spies the cards in his hand, a two and a five, spades. Not helping matters is that he’s acting as the big blind for this round, were their situation switched it would be obvious to save the effort for another hand. Although there isn’t much to be saved, when faced with the metallic sheen of Sera’s great pile glistening back at him.
Two fingers pitch and release his silver into the pot, while his opponent laid down two cards on their table. A six and an eight. No matching suits.
Solas drops the same coin as before.
Sera raises with triple of his count.
He raises a brow at his mischievous opponent, only to be met with fits of giggling. Presumably, the tribulations from being surrounded by so much death for someone so young, has gotten to her. Even so, it would be unwise to misjudge one’s opponent.
Straightening his gaze, Solas matches Sera’s bid. He keeps his maddening eye contact on the unpredictable elf, carefully inspecting for any sign of nervousness or a twitch of her fingers.
None to be seen, knitting his brows together only for a millimeter, he starts his bid with the same that Sera placed previously.
Sera matches, then another card lands on the table.
The same toothy smirk coloring Sera’s expression continues to make him weary.
The cautious elf puts in his bid, Sera matches. Their game continues.
Solas looks at their table. Six, Eight, Seven, Ace, and Queen.
It is maddening how little his opponent is showing him. No uncertainty to be seen, only the same frantic twitching that is often characteristic of Sera. In many ways, it sends more shivers. Yet Solas pulls one final gambit, five silvers thrown on the table. Sera simply matches with irksome irreverence.
Without even time to let out a huff, Sera reveals her hand and pushes forward a single Jack in her hand.
The tension on Solas’s shoulders fizzles into a moment of laughter, shocked felt too simple of a word to describe how he felt. He reveals his cards to show a hand almost as empty as her’s.
“When did you know?”
“You were playing too slow. All wiggling your nose for this and that” Sera flails mockery from her hands, then frantically scoops her winnings over. “Think I saw a vein pop over your brow, looked like you sniffed a fart or something or another.”
“I was not wiggling my nose,” Solas protests, a gasp for his wounded ego almost escaping. His hands pick up the deck to prepare it for another round, grinning as he does. “Regardless, I’m surprised by how little I saw of your tells. It’s perplexing for someone who’s usually so colorful.”
“That’s just you thinking too hard…”
Solas finds much joy in listening to Sera ramble about her victory. Tucked away in Tali’s room, the two of them can enjoy themselves without attracting curious onlookers of their grand match. Here he is able to take time to appreciate being outplayed by his equal in deception.
In many ways, this has become the most free night to Solas, more relaxed than most nights at Skyhold.
Two Hearts, Eight and a Queen. A silver is tossed into the pot, beginning their round.
Two hearts are dealt to the table. Sera purses her lips, the same tactic won’t work twice. Carefully watching for the slightest of wrinkles in Solas’s eye, she tosses two more silvers into the pot.
Solas matches her bid, and then another Heart is revealed.
“I fold.” Solas swiftly states before another bid can be made. “Lest I embarrass myself here.”
Reveal his low mismatched suits.
Sera shrugs, gathering the cards and her winnings.
“This will also be my last round tonight.”
“Hate to mention it Elfy, but you’re out of coin.” Sera points a finger at the meager four silvers that Solas still had. “Clothes go next. Not much fun for either of us in seeing your breeches.”
Solas chuckles, the brashness of Sera’s words seem endearing to him this one time. “I would prefer not to wager my tunic. Perhaps this would be more enticing to both of us.”
From his pocket, he takes a wolf’s fang made into an amulet, sparkling blue crystals decorate where the roots once were. It would have been enough to cause most lifelong thieves to salivate at the chance of grabbing it.
It does captivate Sera, her curiosity peaks at the new prize. “What is it?”
“You craft elements of magic into flasks, brimming with energy. A spark then it’s gone, light in a bottle as it were.” The amulet bounces between both of the mage’s hands, smiling as he explains it. “This is permanent. Lightning trapped forever for you to use.”
“Pfft. Innit too good to be true?” Sera had wide eyes for a moment, but her eyes were still entranced by prize just slightly out of her grasp. “Not even Dagna has something like that.”
“I would advise you to sell it if you don’t believe my claims. It’s a rare piece that hasn’t existed since the time of Arlathan. The price should be worth the effort expended.” Solas is still smiling like a peddler wishing to sell their goods, waiting for his rival to follow along. He places his goods into their pile, “that is, if you win it.”
“Sometimes you talk and say things that make sound so good. Usually is, shouldn’t trust that.” A fit of giggles flies out of Sera, pumped up for the bet dangling in front of her. “Can’t believe this is happening. Shut up.” She slams her silvers onto the table. “This will be grand!”
Their cards swiftly land on their table and hands, as if Sera is flinging arrows at Solas. Impatient with her fingers as cards are revealed and coins get gathered, up until the last card hits the table and the last coin…
“I fold.”
Sera’s adrenaline spiked heart pops and diffuses at the sudden forfeit, wordless and stiffened. Too baffled to gather her winnings.
“It’s yours. All of it.” Solas pushes over his silvers along with the amulet.
“Just like that?” She finally shakes off the shock, hands starting to pocket her loot. Her eyes still wobbling and expecting deception, she searches for the two cards that her rival held. “Guess you won’t mind if I…”
Solas’s own hand blocks her, the one time he turns stern as a mentor would be to the young elf. “That is not for your eyes to see.”
“Whatever.” Sera simply shrugs it off, the money collected into her purse along with the amulet. “Good game though. Never thought winning against you would be this much fun.”
“Indeed.” Solas nods, smiling at having spent another evening that they didn’t squabble over. “You’ve been a formidable opponent. Care to play again, another time?”
“Maybeee.” Sera gives him a hesitant squint as she backs up to the door. “Listen, you’re usually going on about elfy glory and other buried shit or whatever. Usually ain’t my thing. Not sorry.” Sighing as she walks off, but she smiles back before finally disappearing through the room. “But on this, you’re alright? I would love to do this again.”
“I suppose that's the best compliment that I’ll be able to muster out of you.”
“Don’t try your luck.”
Solas holds his smile for as long as Sera is in his sight. Slowly letting it fade away with the elf’s footsteps until he’s fully alone in the empty room that isn’t his own.
“I hope you do learn to treasure it, da’len.” He mutters his hopes that will go unheard.
The amulet is the most precious gift that he had to give as the trickster god of the elves, a marker to become one of his agents. So long as she keeps the fang, Sera will be one of Fen’harel’s most trusted. One of the few that he wants now harm to ever come to, no matter what their uncertain future holds.
Solas sighs as he returns to his sketchbook, all that he hopes that his last wager will not go wasted.