What Secrets Await

Chapter 30: Vallaslin

Basins of water and soft towels were perched near the door. At the center of the large room was a long table and chairs holding food and drink. After cleaning the dust from their hands and faces, a few of their number settled down at the small oasis. Maeva joined them, stuffing a large bite of cheese into her mouth.

Ellana breezed into the room with a flock of unrequested servants in her wake. "At last! The entry process took so long I worried we'd miss the introductions!" she said, dropping heavily onto the large bed that Maeva had been eyeing. "Josie, tell me we're not late."

"We're not late. They would certainly accept us even if we were, Inquisitor," reassured Josephine. "We still have most of an hour, and first-bell isn't until later still."

A sarcastic grumble emitted while Ellana yawned, stretched, then rose again. With the room's large doors shut for privacy, she, Cassandra, Leliana, and Josephine began changing into their red uniforms with efficient speed. Despite the long travel, the Inquisition's true work had not yet begun.

Leliana handed Maeva a shirt of dark green ring-velvet. "Put this on. It will go under the coat."While Maeva removed her usual jerkin, the woman headed for a half-unpacked chest filled with smaller boxes of various shapes and sizes. "I believe Vivienne packed us a selection of cream paints, now where are they... Inquisitor, who is to paint her face?"

Ellana stood in front of a paneled mirror where the Inquisition sash and emblem were being fastened over the blood red uniform. "Hmm? Oh, right, Maeva's face. Get Solas to do it."

"Solas, to paint a Dalish face?" asked Leliana in surprise.

"Yes. June knows I would if I could, but I haven't the skill nor the time. Solas is an artist, and he certainly knows what vallaslin looks like."

Leliana guided Maeva to an empty side chamber, one of the few places where no one was in mid wardrobe change. She handed Maeva the paint supplies and told her to wait.

Somewhat alone for the first time in days, Maeva sat down on a nearby tufted bench next to an open window. It was nice to be out of the mountains again. Orlais was a temperate climate and the late-afternoon sun warmed her face as she looked outside.

While she waited, idly testing the ply of the paint brushes, she wondered what the application of a real vallaslin felt like. It was a tattoo; colored ink embedded pore by pore into the top layer of one's skin. Maeva had not known what a tattoo was until she witnessed one being made when she lived in Denerim. In her memory, the man receiving the tattoo had chosen a dragon design. The skin around the edges was reddened and he was clearly feeling pain but trying his best to conceal it. She'd asked her mother at the time about her vallaslin.

Did it hurt?

Many things in life hurt, but the pain is worth it.

Why did you get it?

It is tradition among the Dalish. It is symbolic of who I was born to be.

Should I have one too? What was I born to be?

Your path is not yet decided.

Some minutes later Ellana appeared in the doorway with a scowling Solas. An attendant trailed behind the Inquisitor, still working on the final touches of the leader's uniform.

Solas wore the same red uniform top like the rest of them, but had on the most ridiculous hat. Thanks to Josephine's crash course on palace hierarchy, she recognized the hat as indicating a high-placed servant of Free Marchean order. He still looked ridiculous in it.