Work Text:
With a groan, Omri rolled to the side. The early morning sun streamed in through the balcony’s wrought-iron door, almost entirely unblocked. He pulled a loose blanket over his head, but the sunlight still reached the back of his eyelids, reminding him of both its presence and the fact that it was, indeed, far too warm for a blanket. He could set up his makeshift shuttered, but that would require standing and fetching them… And if I am already up…
He forced himself out of his nest of pillows and blankets and half-clean laundry. He was up.
And the heat was already stifling.
He wiped at his face, feeling the texture of his three-day stubble and the layer of half-dried sweat coating every inch of it—and the rest of his body.
“Not to be the one to lament the lack of a storm,” he muttered to himself as he walked over to the wash basin, “but by the Ancestors.” Without even touching the cloth to himself, he already looked like he’d been left outside in the non-existent rain.
The water was lukewarm at best, but it did its job to cool him well enough—better than sitting about in the humidity and waiting for it to feel like a cold bath, at least—and he scrubbed off what he could of the night’s sweat before reluctantly dressing himself. He pulled on clean breeches—Ancestors’ tits, I need to do laundry… tomorrow—before adding on a pair of sandy-coloured wool trousers. He grabbed at his cologne from beside the wash basin, all but threading it through the blanket of hair on his chest, before he pulled on a pale blue linen shirt. He counted, uno to cento, as he washed his face properly and combed his hair and scrubbed at his teeth. After a quick dosage of poison to keep his body sharp, he rinsed out his mouth and grabbed a pair of pale blue hair ribbons.
His hands stilled as he pulled his hair over his shoulders, neatly split into two halves. He swallowed roughly, even if the poison had already fully disappeared down his throat. His knuckles ghosted over the Brand on his right cheek. It was, now, twenty-three years old.
He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to not return to his nest of soft things and spend the too-hot day weeping over the fact. It had never done him any good, it had never done Mom any good. No tears would make up for his sex, for the curse he’d been to her. His fingers repeated their daily motion, twisting his hair into two twin braids. Exactly how Mom always liked them.
The sun was still streaming in from the balcony door. It was, perhaps, half-past six. The warehouse, by now, would be settling from whatever horrors the night held. He pressed his lips together as he tied off one braid and started the other. He had not been in two days, pulled away by a job that had hardly required his level of expertise—some merchant prince so senile he was all but sinking his ships in paperwork alone, a man whose own son had paid for his father’s execution as some form of twisted mercy on a man too stubborn to give up the kingdom he’d created.
It had, then, been at least two days since Sherry’s last bath.
He finished his other braid and left his sorry excuse for a bedroom. Downstairs, in the little bathroom, tucked into the corner by a section of particularly chipped tiles, were his two usual buckets. Patched again and again by wood and plaster, they still did the job well enough to fill a tub in a few trips down the street. And thus, despite the fact that he knew he’d ruin his shirt in only one journey there and back, he picked up the two buckets in either hand, forwent his shoes, and started the trek to the nasone.
• ° • ◇ • ° •
It was just his luck that someone on the corner of the street, perfectly close to the nasone, had been foolish enough to leave their work unattended. With a quick look around, he stumbled, snatching the two little tins of pigment as he caught his bucket before it could spill. One crisis averted and another caused, he made his way to the apartment, covered the base of the tub with cool water, returned, waved good morning to the sleepy-eyed businessman now lacking the last bit of paint for his walls, and filled the tub more.
By the time he set the buckets down, his arms ached and his shirt was three shades darker than when he’d first put it on. And, he thought, lying down for a moment on the cool tile beside his small kitchen island, making that towel-bath utterly useless. Still, he sat up, straightened his hair, buttoned his shirt halfway back up, and pulled on a pair of socks and boots.
With the apartment locked behind him and bracing his eyes against the growingly high sun, he made his way to the warehouse. He cringed at the heat, knowing that, even in the darkness of the warehouse, the smell of sickness and waste and sweat and blood would be rising like steam over a boiling pot. And his darling Sherry, that strange and wonderful little girl, was always far too content to make herself a nest in the rafters. He hurried his steps along before he could discover that she’d steamed herself.
Alejandro sat at his usual post just beyond the door, and he looked over at Omri as he walked in, giving him a small nod. He wore the same pair of trousers as he had three days ago, but they sported a few new grass stains. His shirt was, logically, almost entirely unbuttoned. “Productive few days?” he asked, leaning back in his creaking wooden chair.
Omri snorted. “I could have easily been replaced by a week of patience, a few ignored commands, and the course of nature,” he said. “As you could be with a scarecrow, a tripwire, and a crossbow, ah?” he teased.
Alejandro swung his hand back and brought his poorly re-skinned novel down against Omri’s bicep. “Don’t tell me that, man,” he muttered. He snorted out a small laugh. “Does el Jefe have a suggestions box? Go waste your words there, man.” He gestured to the side. “And, ah, in exchange for your elf…”
Omri rolled his eyes and walked over to the footstool, kicking it lightly over to Alejandro’s side. “Passage paid?” he asked. Once Alejandro’s foot had been propped up, drawing a satisfied sigh from him, he waved Omri off, free, now, to take whatever fledgling he liked. He looked up to the rafters and whistled twice.
Up in the rafters, he was sure that Sherry’s long ears perked at the sound of the whistle. And, just as he thought, she peered over the side of the wooden beam within but a moment, those Dalish ears sticking directly out. After a moment, she disappeared to make her way to the shallowly notched pole and start her descent.
“By the Anointed,” he muttered, “she is going to snap her neck coming down one of these days.” He was hardly petrified of heights, but… he was not exactly perfectly honest with himself at all times, either.
Alejandro made a small, disgusted noise. “If she does, you can be the one to scrape her off the floor.” It was, certainly, more of an envy than an anxiety that caused the former acrobat to wrinkle his nose at the sight of Sherry shimmying her way down from the ceiling.
Omri lightly smacked the man’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Lightly for a Crow, at least. “Do I look like a custodian?”
“Do I?”
“Do you wish for me to answer that question honestly?”
Alejandro huffed and opened his book. The graphic woodcut print of a woman lying supine and spread betrayed that A Written History of Seleny had been readily sacrificed for its pelt.
It only took Sherry a minute to complete her climb down, and she padded over on bare, near-silent feet to stand at Omri’s side. Her ears may have been stiff, but her face was slightly ashen beneath her freckles, her lips were downturned, and her mirror-like eyes were dull with tarnish.
Despite her haunted look, he reached over as soon as she made it to his side, ruffling her hair and gently gripping her head. “Excited to come learn from a master?” he asked. He made her head bob up and down. “Ah! How wonderful to be in agreement,” he joked. “Say goodbye to the nice man, ah?” He nodded his head toward Alejandro, and, like a little puppet, he made her bow. “Ci vediamo presto,” he said, pitching his voice up.
Alejandro snorted. “So her manners can improve,” he muttered, not looking up from what, when the page turned, was more likely an oral history than a written one.
Omri grinned, propping her back up. “I am an excellent tutor,” he chuckled. “Come along, Scheherazade.” Guiding her by the shoulder, he led her out of the warehouse and into the open air.
Sherry’s long ears relaxed somewhat the second they made their way to the end of the long, stuffy hallway out of the warehouse. Still, however, she was terribly quiet, terribly dull. It was impossible to know exactly what had taken place last he saw her unless she herself wished to tell him—Alejandro was hardly the type to keep a written report, and any number of other trainers were loath to part with the details of their work. He suppressed a sigh and kept walking. If she wishes to, she will. Unlike himself, it never seemed to be shame that kept her mouth so tightly shut. Only… prideful anger. A desire to leave the warehouse in the warehouse, to let it keep its filth and horrors contained within it.
Once they turned onto the next street, slowly putting distance between them and that wretched place, he switched from holding her shoulder to gently petting it. Callused-over and scarred as his palms and fingers were, he could still feel the texture of dirt clinging to her skin, the dead flakes that had started to build and roll off as he applied some friction to them by way of his sturdy touch. He smiled down at her. “You smell horrible, Sherry,” he teased, trying to draw out a hint of what he knew could be a darling little smile.
Her flat nose twitched. “I know,” she grumbled, keeping the smile still hidden away.
“Ah, it is no worry,” he said, still smiling down at her despite his failed little joke. “In case you were kind enough to not notice, I ran myself ragged this morning to and from the nasone.”
She glanced up at him—even within a year, she was already starting to slowly creep closer and closer to his height—before she re-trained her gaze on the road ahead. “Thank you, Omri,” she murmured, her ears flicking just so.
“Such a dour little face,” he cooed. “Come, have you no idea what day it is?”
She shook her head. He could not blame her. From what he could gather, she had a small fraction of his knack for dates, and the warehouse only made such a thing harder to keep track of. Even up in the rafters as she was, the passage of the moons and stars were hard to see reliably.
Do the Dalish even keep track of the days? he wondered. The months? How far does an elven year stray from a dwarven-defined one? He pushed down such questions in favor of his usual theatrics, and he groaned, shaking his head. “Has it truly been so long that you have forgotten the day we met?” he sighed, guiding her toward the dark little street he dwelled in.
She looked over at him, her dark orange eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted. “Really?” she asked. “It’s today?”
“Unless I have my dates horribly wrong…” he hummed.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” she said, her voice distant.
He winced. Of course, you idiot. Of course this is anything but a pleasant day for her. No matter how much he adored her. No matter how much better she’d made his miserable life. “Me, neither,” he said lamely. He swallowed and tried to put some of the brightness back into his voice. “I promise my little abode is not as hot as it is here,” he joked.
She nodded stiffly. “Do you promise?” Any attempt at lightness was undercut by a childish weakness brought on by bitter memories and blistering heat. “I think anywhere is cooler than the warehouse.”
“It is a wonderfully high bar of wretchedness to compare myself to, ah?” he laughed. He hurried her along to his front door, threading his hands through the bars to grab and drag along the little chain until he found the tucked-away combination lock. In a few seconds, it sprung open, and he slipped the chain free, ushering her inside before he re-fastened the chain behind them. The second door was easier, even if it was the expanding wood and not the lock itself that was the main sticking point. He let out a small scusi, scusi as Sherry’s ears flicked at the noise of the handle banging against the wall. With little prodding, she went inside.
It was no small bit of luck that Sherry never seemed to mind the mess. Perhaps she thought, from what little she knew of the world, that this was simply how dwarves lived—coins and trinkets and pots and pans scattered all along the counter and meagre kitchen island, the sheet on the couch decently stained despite only being a year stolen from a laundry line, floors unmopped and yet still wet from sloshed-over buckets, the one window boarded up with loose pieces of lumber to keep the sunlight out, a few weapons lying about on the floor, a thin layer of dust over everything not constantly touched.
From what little he knew of the world, this was exactly how all dwarves lived.
Unbothered by it, she moved deeper into the apartment, and he closed the door behind them and locked it before he awkwardly started unlacing his boot. “Ah, if you would like,” he said, “the water in the tub should be nice and cold.” He nodded toward the open door to the bathroom.
She nodded in acknowledgement and walked to the bathroom. Finally, there was a little bit of bounce in her step, a bit of eagerness shining through at the promise of skin free from the warehouse’s filth. If he was nothing else to her, being the man who provided her a safe place to bathe and a bit of food in her stomach was enough.
“I will be in-” He tossed off a boot, and it landed with a thunk close by. “In just a moment, ah? I bought some new soap the other day.” Bought was, of course, a terribly generous term.
“Alright!” She left the door to the washroom ajar. Ever since she got stuck in it the first time—some unlucky combination of expanding wood and wobbly tiles and Omri’s mostly unintentional laughter—she was wise enough to not bother trying to latch it.
He heard the rustling of fabric as she pulled off her permanently dingy warehouse dress, followed by the splash and the little noise of the should-have-been-expected chill. He laughed loudly enough for her to hear him. “Still cold?”
“Freezing!” she called back.
“Oh, and I thought you were eager to get out of the heat!”
“I was! But this is worse than a lake in winter!” There was another splash as she dunked herself below the surface of the wash tub.
He tossed off his second boot. “I can boil some water if you are truly so miserable, Sherry,” he offered as soon as he heard her come back up with a splash.
“No!” Her voice was more of a squeak. “It’s- it’s fine!”
From sweating to shivering! Oh, what a day you’ve had! He laughed and fetched both a little wooden cup and the soap he’d left on the counter—a soft, sweet-smelling mix with what he assumed was milk and honey amongst the proper scrubbing agents. He knocked on the edge of the open door to warn her before he stepped inside.
Her ears perked as she turned around, watching him carefully as he came in. Bathing was not so strange a ritual. He had, after all, scrubbed her thoroughly as soon as he brought her back this time last year, but, in the months between, she had softened to him, learned to accept that all his touches were innocent ones, that he, unlike the giants that towered over them both, would never take advantage of her nakedness.
He rolled his sleeves up and hooked his foot around the stepstool, bringing it over to the space behind the tub. Like usual, she settled against the back of the tub as he sat down and, briefly, dipped a hand below the surface of the water to wet it. He picked up the soap and began to foam it between his hands as he spoke. “Let us get you clean, ah?”
“Please,” she said, nodding just a little before she leaned back, her now shoulder-length hair dangling beyond the lip of the tub.
He began to thread his fingers through her hair, slowly lifting the filth from those beautiful orange curls. With her eyes aimed away from him, he allowed himself to frown. He worked his fingers to the roots, easing into the stubborn knots and doing what he could to break them apart before he had to comb them out. Comb. They will come out with a bit of combing, he thought, nodding to himself. It had broken his heart—certainly more than it had broken hers—to cut up her curls when he first got her. All that time without a moment to preen herself and without the care to do so had left her matted beyond total repair. He tried not to linger on it, so he brightened his tone as he spoke. “Are you taking dust baths when I am not looking?” he teased. “By the Stone, Sherry.”
She let out a little huff. “The rafters aren’t exactly clean, Omri.”
“I will take your word for it!” he laughed. As gently as if he were picking a lock, his blunt nails set to work on a stubborn knot, teasing it out slowly and gently. “If you ever see me in the rafters, there is either a very good show going on below, or a very large animal set on having dwarf for supper.”
That, at least, made her giggle. “I hope it would be a good show,” she said.
“Perhaps, if we work on your Antivan…” He laughed as she groaned. “I could take you to see one.” He could already name a dozen. Funny little things, ones to draw out more of those precious little giggles. A bath, a bit of dinner, a show, and something nice and hearty before bed. Now that he’d thought of it, actually thought of it, he couldn’t stand to think of a world where it didn’t happen. Her lessons would have to start soon. Just in case.
She turned around to look at him and scrunched up her little, elven nose. “Why do they have to sing through the entire thing?”
He grabbed the comb from the floor and tapped her nose with it. “Why do you breathe?” he asked back, falsely serious.
“Because I have to,” she said, reaching up to bat the comb away. “But they don’t have to sing.” Her ears flicked. They tended to do that, to twitch like a dust-bathing little songbird’s wings, whenever she was thinking too intently about something.
He gripped the comb between his teeth for a moment as he tilted her head back to scrub at her hairline. Soap and water dripped onto his trousers, soaking him through—with a very unflattering pattern—that only grew worse as he began to comb out the soap-slicked knots. “Oh, no, no, they do have to,” he said.
Her little orange brows scrunched together. “Do not,” she said back, perfectly childish.
“It is a deeply Antivan art,” he explained, putting on a snobbish, serious tone to match his face. “At the start of every performance, every actor and actress has a tiny bit of poison put just-” One of his hands left her hair to tap at the back of his soft palate. “Here.” He could not taste the soap. “It is designed to only take effect once the voice stops singing. Talking, it is an entirely different register, ah? It shifts the poison out of place.” He dunked the comb in the water for a second and returned it to her hair. The stubborn knot by the base of her skull was coming out of place with, thankfully, very little ochre curls still attached to the wooden teeth.
“Ohhh,” she hummed. “That makes sense.” With what she had seen of Antiva, such madness must have made perfect sense.
He snorted. “Of course not, Sherry,” he admitted. As much fun as it was to play with her wide-eyed naivete, he did want her to see an opera at some point. Without thinking that all of the singers were one flat tone away from their demise. “They do it because it sounds pretty.”
“It sounds like something they would do.” She puffed out her cheeks in a small pout as she always did when he fooled her. “Antivans and their poisons.”
“I have some poison for you if you would like to practice a few songs,” he joked, grabbing a small cup and filling it with the cloudy water. He nudged her forward and pressed a soap-free hand to her forehead as he carefully poured the water over her curls. It would take a good few more before the soap left.
Her ears flicked, sending with them little droplets of water. “I’m good!”
“You are old enough for a sip or two,” he insisted. He hated to think of what would happen if her first glass of wine was not set in her hands by his own. Her first bit of intoxication not weathered in the safety of his four walls. “But, ah, we can always save it for another day.” He poured another cup of cold water over her head, working it through her thick hair with his fingers and the comb.
She went quiet as he talked on and on as he worked his way through her hair. It was an easy quiet—a Sherry quiet, not a Scheherazade quiet. It would be, he insisted to her silently whining form, a good idea to get her past the point of making faces at the smell. She agreed, at least a little, to smell them and decide if they were truly too noxious for her delicate little Dalish mouth. When her hair had been sufficiently cleaned and tied up out of the way, he set upon her arms and shoulders and back with a linen rag. The rafters had done their work on her, truly, and even a few days removed from him had left her with at least two layers of dust and sweat to scrub off until she sparkled.
Loath as he was to leave her, he handed off the rag to allow her space to wash her more fragile pieces and parts, and she accepted the cloth with a quiet thank you. While she tidied herself, adding more and more dark grime to the little tub, he retreated to the meagre parlor to set out his little boxes of pigment and plaster. A bit of pigment, perhaps, to turn a pale white and an expensive violet into a pretty lilac.
It took her quite some time to finish, but he didn’t mind. While he waited, paint was set aside, a late breakfast was planned, he changed out of his soaked-through trousers, and the little Getting Day present was retrieved from where it hung on a laundry line upstairs.
As he tried to press the wrinkles out against the island corner, he heard the tell-tale sloshing of her leaving the tub and padding over on damp little feet to grab her towel. He jolted as he heard the creaking of the door as it opened, and he quickly hid her present behind the kitchen island. She tilted her head at him and narrowed her eyes, suspicious, and he grinned. “Ah! Here, I found-” He pretended to look through a bag just out of her sight. “The other day…” His hand wrapped around one shoulder of the little white dress. It was, certainly, quite a bit too big for her, but it could easily be belted. “Something to keep you out of those warehouse clothes, ah?” He turned around, presenting the dress in all its still-wrinkled, frumpy glory. He grinned, trying to sell it like more than just a piece of pilfered laundry.
She reached out and touched it. She examined it as if it was a gown of fine silk. “Thank you, Omri,” she breathed, her ears twitching with thought as she ran her hand along the slightly low-cut collar. She mouthed something—perhaps an idea or two of how to embroider it was already bubbling up in her mind, some new way to use the sewing kit he’d gotten her for her birthday.
His smile became perfectly genuine. “Perhaps a piece of rope for a belt?” he offered, eagerly handing it off to her before hurrying over to a pile of various odds and ends tucked away by the veiled couch.
“That would make it perfect,” Sherry said, eagerly dropping her towel with a damp thump and pulling her new dress on. When he turned back to look, it was, indeed, quite a bit too big, but a little belt would fix it.
He grabbed a decently sized, thick piece of braided hemp, and he urged her hands up as he tied it around her waist, knotting it in a sturdy bow in the back. She looked adorable, like a little doll adorned in a Tevinter princess’ finery. He felt his heart almost shake with a pride he knew he could never admit, a wonder if, on her better days, Mom had stepped back from doing his hair and had thought that he was just as pretty of a doll as she had hoped for. It was almost too perfect to ruin with purple pigment. But, well… I can afford to wait a moment longer, he thought. “Did they feed you yet today?” he asked.
She shook her head. “They tried,” she said, swaying a little from side to side, watching the dress’ newly-made skirt swish back and forth, “but I didn’t eat it. It didn’t smell right.”
“Ooh, smart girl!” He hurried over to the kitchen. “Do we trust this old man with a late breakfast, then?” he asked, a hand to his chest. When Sherry smiled, he shooed her toward the sheet-draped couch. “Go sleep the damp off, ah? It is far too hot to lie about awake. Just a little bit while I cook.”
“Alright, alright,” she said, resigning herself to her nap. Without fuss, she plodded over to the couch and climbed onto it. After spending so long up on the rafters, a couch—however stiff and poorly maintained it was—surely had to be a welcome relief. Within moments, her eyes shut and her breathing grew slow and deep.
Once he was sure she was asleep, he began to carefully put the late breakfast together. It was one of the few everyday benefits of his training that he was able to work in nearly perfect silence, uninterrupted only by the way that the hot stove made the bread and eggs hiss as they cooked. Even if she shifted and made little noises as she slept, she did not rise while he worked on the simple enough breakfast. Toasted bread, butter, eggs stuffed with plenty of mostly-fresh vegetables, and a pot of tea. Only once the eggs and tea cooled enough to eat did he gently nudge her awake.
Her eyes fluttered open at the feeling of his hand on her shoulder. She let out a sleepy noise, a little mhmm? as she sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes.
She looked so comfortable. And, after so long sleeping in the rafters… “Here,” he said, hurriedly rushing to the stove, plating her a generous portion, and delivering it to her on the couch. He didn’t exactly have a formal dining table, after all. A couch was more than a good enough place to have breakfast. And lunch, he added. And dinner, too. “As much as you like, Sherry,” he urged.
“Thank you, Omri,” she managed to get out through another yawn. She picked up her fork and began to eat, taking small, careful, bird-like bites.
He ruffled her wet hair before he left to make up his own plate. Just a little. Enough left over to give her seconds. To give her thirds if she even so much as began to ask. Despite his small portion, he ate quickly, and he watched as she, in spite of herself, hurried along to match him. He piled another portion of eggs on her plate, refilled her cup, toasted up another and another slice of bread. She was so thin, too thin, but if he could change that, just a little…
Perhaps she could live. Just a little bit longer.
Eventually, the breakfast was hardly more than a memory, the only evidence of its existence left in the form of full stomachs and dirty dishes. He smiled at the way she fought the urge to return to the nap from whence she came.
“Tired, are we?”
She tried to fight back a yawn, but she failed within a moment. Her shoulders slumped as she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well,” he started, “you can either nap now, after our little activity, or… both. The first and last option gets you out of washing dishes, though,” he said, pointing his finger at her little, elven nose, “so weigh your options carefully.”
“Hmm…” She pondered it for a moment. “I’ll nap now,” she decided, a sleepy but satisfied smile on her lips.
He fought the urge to kiss her on the forehead. “And leave me all alone to do dishes!” he lamented, throwing his hands up. “Cruel girl!” He sighed and stood, leaving her side.
She smiled and curled back up on the couch, and it took no time at all for her to get comfortable again and fall back into a cat nap. While she slept, he cleaned the dishes the best he could before moving onto the proper activity of the day. Quietly, he began to tidy the floor around the walls, even if it meant that the center of the room became a bit of a hazard to casually walk through. Mixing the paint and plaster was hardly an easy job, but… Eh, he thought, staring down at the pale lilac paste in the metal tub he’d pilfered, if it is so terrible, it means I have an excuse to try again. He smiled to himself.
He sat down on the couch beside Sherry and tapped her nose—once, twice, three times—until her eyes fluttered open. “You like purple, right?”
She nodded. “My favorite,” she mumbled.
“How would this room look with purple walls, do you think?”
She sat up and looked around, the world clearly coming into focus as her mirror-like eyes took in the plain, off-white walls around her. “I think it would be really pretty,” she replied, nodding, her ears flicking.
“Would you like to help me?” he asked, smiling down at her, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.
Her eyes shone with excitement, all lingering traces of sleepiness vanished in an instant. “Yes! Now?”
“I have it all set up,” he grinned, standing up and offering her both his hands. She took them, and he pulled her up, making a little spring out of her and sending a burst of droplets flying out from her curls. “Have you ever painted before?” he asked excitedly, bringing her over to the bucket of pale paint he’d laid out while she slept.
“Once!” she said excitedly, looking over into the bucket like it was full of pretty fish, not paint. “Papae and Sileal were touching up the paint on our aravels! They let me help, too!” She looked over at him, the memory-conjured smile still on her face. “But I don’t think I was much help.”
He tried to ignore the little sting of bitterness that rose up in him. He had invited her recollections, after all. If you can remind her of her family, you are doing enough. He kept smiling. Be grateful. “I am sure you were key to the whole thing!” He grabbed a mop. “I believe we should wash the walls first, ah? Unless we want to memorialize all this dust.”
“And we don’t want that!” she agreed, nodding like a very serious little soldier. A twinkle of joy still shone in her eyes. He latched onto it. Let it spread to him.
Because there she was. Scrubbed and fed and watered and rested, there she was. His Sherry. Her bright, mirror-silver eyes, her stiff ears, the warmth of excitement on her face between her freckles, the memories of her family on her tongue. It would be unforgivably stupid to wish her anything else. Ah. Such a shame she’s about to scrub walls in this heat. He would make it up to her. Perhaps with lemon ice. Once the walls were finished.
He reached down and grabbed a stiff brush, dunking it in a clean bucket and tossing it to her. She nearly dropped it as she fumbled with the wet bundle of bristles. “Alright!” he declared. “You take the bottom half, I will do the top half, ah?” He dunked his mop in the bucket. “For I-” He jutted the mop out at her, grinning as she let out a small eek! and bounced back before it could collide with her stomach. “Have the superior reach!”
“Alright!” She held her wet brush as if it was the tiny bow she used to practice with on their walks beyond Treviso’s walls. She drew back one hand, as if about to shoot a watery arrow into the dingy eastern wall. Just as she let it fly, he poked her procrastinating little ass with the mop, and she squeaked, spinning on her heel and forcing him to dodge out of the way before a wooden brush revealed whatever embarrassingly small amount of brain he had.
“Starting on the western wall, ah?”
“Jerk!” she laughed, bounding across the room to fetch her brush and start to scrub.
The sun—just ever so slightly visible as it trickled in around the planks boarding his window and flowed down the stairs from the second floor—slowly crept higher and higher into the sky. Both he and Sherry grew soaked to the bone with sweat, but he kept her going with affectionate taps to the back with the cold mop. And, of course, with endless chatter. Much to her annoyance, he nearly got through the entirety of La Cambiale di Matrimonio in frequently interrupted bits and pieces, eked out between her whining that she couldn’t understand three words in five. Even so, he could see her ears twitching with interest as his voice slipped into the easy registers of Tobias and Slook and, with just a little difficulty, Norton. It was, if nothing else, a sign of her curiosity, a burgeoning musicality beyond humming while she worked or nodding along to his idle noises.
They took a break for lunch, Sherry sneaking in another little nap as he cleaned another set of dishes and ran to the nasone to grab another bucket for drinking water. After so much washing, they’d nearly burned through an entire one. Any warehouse poison in her system had certainly been flushed out by the second hour, at least. As comfortable as she had gotten on the couch, as happy as she was to enjoy sipping at her water and forget the stifling heat for a while, her eyes widened with a second wind when he produced two likely woefully small brushes with a proud little magician’s tada!
Her lips formed an excited little O before she turned to him and smiled. “It’s gonna look so pretty on the walls!” She took the brush as soon as he so much as indicated to her to come and grab it.
Despite the ache in his… everything, he couldn’t help but jump a little in place, feeling his braids swing and bounce along with his arms. “Your aravels were not lime-washed, were they?”
Her little brows knitted together. Likely as she tried to piece together how one could use a freshly scrubbed piece of citrus to refinish an entire Dalish wagon. “I don’t think so?”
“We shall learn together, then!”
She giggled. “I guess so!”
It was a mess.
A wonderful, lilac-speckled mess.
They were both covered in paint from their hair to their clothes to their arms and feet. Sherry was laughing, half out of joy and half out of sheer exhaustion. But she still managed to move, to see the job through—and well, at that. Giving it her all despite the way her arms wobbled. As horrible as it was, he felt pride at the way she insisted, again and again, I want to finish it, Omri! whenever he dared to suggest a rest. If she was going to survive the warehouse and the years beyond it, it was not going to be out of sheer luck. Even toward the end, the room nearly covered, she managed to stick it out, held up on his shoulders to reach the space just beneath the low for a human ceiling.
It was all easy enough to excuse as training. The acceptance of his hands in her hair and on her back. The quick fall into sleep at a moment's notice. The ability to follow his directions and to work through the pain and fatigue. The balancing act upon his shoulders, only half-braced against the wall.
There were a thousand excuses if he ever cared to make them.
Before the sun could dip entirely below the horizon, he ran out, covered in lilac paint, to the vendor in the closest piazza to grab two bowls of lemon ice. By the time he managed to run back, unlock the doors, and shove one into Sherry’s hands, they’d already started to melt.
“Quick!” he urged, grinning, ignoring the tired flush of exercise burning his face. “Before the heat can get any more bites in!”
She quickly shoved a spoonful of it into her mouth. She moaned happily and didn’t wait a moment after swallowing to shove another spoonful in. “Oh! It’s so good!” she said around a third spoonful.
He could only faintly taste the sourness of the half-frozen lemon juice, but the excitement in her voice more than made up for any sugar-sweetness that slipped him by. “A worthwhile reward?” he asked around his own spoon.
“Yes! Definitely!” She laughed again, even if she winced at the cold-headache her rush had summoned.
He took her bowl when she finished—after, of course, he showed her how to properly lick such a container clean, much to her amusement—carefully washing it with a damp rag. Cheap as it was, he could get another few uses out of it. He looked out of the tiny window. By now, the world outside was a dark orange.
A yawn escaped Sherry’s mouth. She rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to keep the sleep at bay.
Omri looked over his shoulder at her as he dried off the bowl. “It is getting late…”
Her long ears drooped. She looked at the door, at the little, dirt-soiled dress lying beside his boots. “Oh.”
“And…” He groaned, drying his hands with the towel. “Ancestors’ tits, I have done so much running about today…” he whined, wiping at his sweat-coated brow before tossing the rag onto the counter.
Her ears perked a little as she tilted her head to the side like a confused little cat.
“And, well, Alejandro did not say when you were due back by…”
Her ears stood straight up at attention. “I can stay the night?” she asked, sounding almost painfully hopeful.
“I-” He was glad he didn’t have his own set of overly expressive ears. He’d never be able to pull off a lie again. “I do not see why not.” He smiled at her.
She let out a sigh of relief that made him want to wrap her in his arms and never let her go again. To hide her away in his little abode and keep her flat on the ground, on his cracked tiles, never so much as dreaming of another night in the rafters.
But that was impossible, so he would simply do what he could.
He walked over to her, resisting the urge to pick her up by her underarms like a baby and carry her up to his little nest on the second floor. “I have a nice linen shirt for you to sleep in, ah?” he offered, urging her up and off of the couch with a small wave.
She stood and nodded. “Thank you.”
He shooed her toward the stairs. As often as he took her to his apartment, she rarely bothered to explore the second floor. The bath, the kitchen, the couch, the cooler air—all of them were nice and conveniently located just beyond the front step. “Up you go, then,” he urged. “And watch that third step, ah?”
“Right!” She heeded his warning just enough to bounce over the wobbly tiles as she raced up the stairs.
He stayed close on her heels. While it wasn’t the first time she’d seen what he called a bedroom, he could not help but cringe as she stepped inside and took in the mess of blankets and pillows and sheets and laundry, all forming a messy, sweat-scented pile half-pressed against the northern wall. As she saw the twine criss-crossing the room, weighed down by washed shirts he couldn’t be bothered to tidy away and the drip trays made of chipped old dishes laid out beneath them. The wine bottles. The stains from injuries he was too exhausted to clean up when they happened.
Her curls bounced as she tilted her head, looking around the room. Her back was to him. He silently winced as he heard her soft little oh.
“Here,” he said, hurrying further in and trying to ignore the embarrassment. I do, indeed, live in such a state, Sherry. This is a bedroom. It is still better than the warehouse, yes? “I should…” He dug through a pile thrown onto the chair by his rickety desk until he pulled out the plain, earthy-brown linen shirt. It would be more than large enough to swallow Sherry whole, small as she was, wide as his dwarven frame required.
She took it. “I used to sleep in Sileal’s shirts sometimes,” she said as she untied the bow behind her back and began to wiggle out of the lilac-splotched dress.
“Ah?” He hurried to change as she did, keeping his scarred and strange body out of sight, half-hidden behind the piled-high chair as he pulled on a loose pair of trousers and an old, worn-thin shirt.
“He was taller than Fen,” she continued, “so his shirts were perfect to sleep in. They were cozy.” She rolled up the sleeves. They rolled back down. She thinned her lips and tried again. She managed to get them to stick. “I missed it.”
He frowned. “Of course,” he said, nodding. More than enough, he tried to remind himself.
She tilted her head at the nest, as if studying it. Perhaps she was trying to find the hint of a mattress hidden beneath the mess. It would yield no results.
“It is… It is not so uncomfortable,” he said, chuckling a little nervously.
“It looks comfortable,” she said. She seemed to pick a spot, settling directly in the center, nestled on top of a half dozen blankets and hole-ridden sheets, her little body flanked by lumpy pillows.
“It-” He paused. “It does?” He let out a small laugh as he watched her settle. There was something truly absurd about how little she seemed to be lying.
She snuggled deeper, directly into the place he had spent the whole last night sweating through. “Yes,” she confirmed.
He could feel his heart ache as it melted. Perhaps, in amongst his clothes, she could smell something like the wilds’ earth, her father’s and brothers’ scents. More than enough. Just reminding her of Sheraliase Lavellan is enough. “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked, gesturing to the other side of the nest.
She gave him a sleepy smile. “I do not.” She already sounded over halfway to sleep.
He smiled and sat down a small distance from her, scooting over just enough to stroke her still ever so slightly damp hair. The sun had set. The air had cooled just enough. Still, she frowned at the warm breeze flowing in through the swirling iron door to the balcony. “Too warm, ah?”
“Better than last year, but yeah,” she huffed.
“Poor thing,” he half-teased, still stroking her hair as long as she would let him.
“It’s so hot all the time,” she mumbled. Her ears grew soft, as if they, too, were ready to bed down for the night. She did not roll away from his touch.
“Such is life in Antiva, ah?” He let out a soft hum. She was nearly gone, off to her precious Beyond. “There are worse places, if it is any comfort.”
“I know,” she yawned.
“So eager to leave me for the Fade, ah?”
“You can’t blame me,” she mumbled, half-giggling. “It’s so cozy, Omri.”
“It will be even nicer in the cooler months,” he promised. “When the nights get cold.” He could already picture it, already imagine his little Sherry snuggled up in the blankets as the cold winter air blew in from the balcony door, making her ears twitch as she burrowed deeper into the mass of soft things he’d collected. If I am so lucky as to keep her until then.
She let out a small, sleepy noise. Hardly a yawn. “The best time of the year.”
“I suppose it is,” he replied. It had always been the worst in Kirkwall. The freezing temperatures followed by the meltwater floods, the sick and dead piling up in the tunnels, the wretched starvation. The only comfort being Mom’s arms. Sherry did not need such comfort. Antiva’s warmth, its drizzling mildness, would never make him the only thing between her and cold-blackened toes. And yet a stupid, wretched part of him almost wished to be. He tried to stomp it down, to silence it into submission, but the gentle motion of his hand across Sherry’s hair made it bubble up, anyway. “Do not let me keep you awake, bambina.”
Her round, mirror-like eyes fluttered open to look up at him curiously. “What does that mean?”
He laughed to cover up his fluster. “It means,” he said, childishly half-teasing as he ruffled her hair a little, “that you are a baby.” Starting Antivan lessons early, it seems!
Her ears flicked and she scrunched her nose a little, but she didn’t frown. “I like it,” she whispered. Like it was a little badge of honor, shyly accepted.
He pressed his lips together, swallowing. “That is nice to know, bambina,” he said, allowing his voice to grow dangerously soft. A man like him was not supposed to have a baby. He was hardly so removed in age from her. Only eleven years. And yet… “Now, go to sleep, ah?”
She yawned again. She opened her mouth, as if to say something else, but she closed her sleepy eyes, snuggling into the mass of blankets and sheets and pillows and laundry. “Good night, Omri,” she murmured.
“Goodnight, Sherry,” he whispered.
He kept stroking her hair, and it was only a matter of a minute or two before her breathing settled, slow and deep. He laid himself down, just within arm’s reach, and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. With sleep-driven hands, she groped around for the palm that had finally left her alone, bringing it close to her, tucking it almost snugly enough against her too-slender frame to let him feel the steady thump of her heartbeat. Old lullabies echoed in his head.
He did not dare sing them out loud.