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Five Times Emilia de Riva Danced to Forget…
I.
The first time Emilia de Riva lost herself to the call of the dance floor, she still had flecks of dried blood under her fingernails. She had never realized how hard it would be to scrub them clean when she couldn't stop her hands from shaking.
Her hair and skirts swirled to the thrum of guitar strings while the beat of the drums rivalled the way her heart still raced in her chest. As the music carried her to and fro across the dance floor, the steps kept her feet moving without giving in to the desperate need to run.
When she'd told Viago that the job had gone sideways and that she'd been forced to kill two innocent people in order to get away, the Fifth Talon had merely shrugged.
“Sometimes that is how it goes, Mia,” her brother said finally, once he realized that she wouldn't be breaking the unusual silence that fell between them. “It is not ideal, but…”
Crows always finish a contract.
She could hear Viago’s voice in her head without him ever finishing the sentence. Sometimes she thought it might echo there for the rest of her life if she let it.
Hours later, the whirl of the dancers and the beat of the music had finally drowned him out, and she could forget about the blood still staining her hands - at least for the night. Viago and his hard truths would return eventually. Still, in Antiva, you were never very far from a dancefloor.
II.
“You're saying in Ferelden that this is dance music?”
Emilia hid a smile behind her mug of ale at the affronted scowl Harding wore at her question.
“I'm so sorry the national music of my homeland doesn't live up to your high Antivan standards, Rook.”
The nickname still felt strange to her, even after a few months of traveling with Harding and Varric. It fit about as well as the secondhand armor she wore, actually - functional enough, but obviously not designed with her in mind. She didn't let herself think about the single set of Crow armor buried at the bottom of her pack that she knew would fit her like a second skin.
Or would it? What if she pulled it out one day - and she had to believe that one day she would - and she found herself so changed by her time away that it no longer fit?
Swallowing her doubts along with the last of her drink, Emilia hopped to her feet.
“Come on, teach me the steps to this national treasure of yours,” she dated the scout.
Laughter filled the tavern as the handful of Ferelden natives took turns guiding the Antivan through the swinging, arcing patterns of the dance. As she focused on the quick changes in partners and the stomp of her feet to punctuate the lilting of the fiddle, there was no time to waste on idle worry.
Emilia would hold onto the memory of Lace’s bright smile and laughter from that night in the years to come. Even the conjured echoes of that night could drown out the darker memories still to come.
III.
The firelight flickered on the walls of the Hilt as the Rivaini drums echoed in her ears. When Taash had offered to take her mind off of Minrathous, Emilia hadn't expected this. There was something joyous about the steps the Lords of Fortune led her through, leaping and spinning with abandon.
Elek’s tired eyes still lingered in her mind, but there was nothing more Emilia could do to change things - other than win a war against the ancient gods. And once she had… maybe they could come here again. It would be nice, she thought, to have someone to share these moments with.
IV.
The dingy bar in the outskirts of Minrathous had little in common with the Lamplighter, aside from being equally filled with Threads. What were left of them, at least. Emilia tried not to think about how many faces were missing as she followed Elek through the crowd.
Instead, her eyes searched the crowded room in search of two faces in particular. Assuming all had gone well with their end of the job, the First Talon and Minrathous’s favorite detective should be arriving any moment. It hadn't been one of the worse jobs they'd worked together since the gods’ defeat, using Crow contracts to slowly recoup the ground lost to the Venatori. With the benign indifference of the new Archon and Neve’s quiet leadership, the Threads were finally beginning to rebuild.
Every time, though, Emilia had to swallow the guilt of her choices and failures when she returned to the devastated city. From the knowing brush of Elek’s knuckles against her own, he could tell where her thoughts had drifted.
She caught sight of Neve and Lucanis just as the music began a low, gentle pulse that echoed through the room. With a sigh, she turned away from the part of the room where the dancers began to form a loose circle to go join report on their half of the job.
Elek’s soft laugh interrupted her as he gently shooed her away toward the dancefloor.
“Stop thinking so much and go dance,” he instructed, pressing a quick kiss to her mouth as punctuation. “I’ve got this one.”
“You still owe me a dance, you know,” Emilia called as she let herself be pulled into the group of dancers.
“And I think you know where to find me to collect,” Elek retorted with the quick, sharp grin she had fallen in love with what seemed like far longer than a year ago.
V.
Emilia had never stopped to wonder about the comfort of traditional Antivan wedding costumes until she found herself being cinched into one by a merciless seamstress. Yards of skirts, a laced bodice, and absolutely impractical high heels were apparently the price of family.
Technically, Emilia could have evaded this whole saga entirely - if she had better immunity to Lucanis’s sad brown eyes as he talked about their wedding plans. Emilia hadn’t known she was stepping into a trapped alley when she asked Lucanis about their plans for the customary dances between the bride and groom’s attendants. She’d just been trying to make conversation until Lucanis’s meeting with Viago started.
“Neve is not from here,” Lucanis had said, somehow mournful and resigned even while sipping from a cup of (not poisoned, Emilia had checked) coffee. “She has no family to dance for her. It would not be fair.”
“Don't be stupid,” Emilia had retorted without thinking. “We're Crows. The blood that makes a family has never been what flows in our veins.”
“You sounded uncannily like Viago just now,” the older Crow observed.
“There's no need for personal attacks just because you know I'm right.”
Somehow, this had resulted in Emilia stepping into the role that Neve’s sister would have played if her family had been willing to make the journey to Antiva. Weeks of work with Antonia to meld traditional Antivan dance with more of the Tevinter style, and even more rehearsal time with the mix of Threads, Crows, and a very enthusiastic Bellara had taken over all of Emilia’s free time leading up to the wedding.
It was all worth it, though, to see the way Neve’s eyes shone as she and Lucanis watched their chosen families take to the dance floor, starting their marriage with the harmony and rhythm that would hopefully carry them through a lifetime of pain and happiness. Antivans always knew to prepare for both, after all - a fitting tribute to a detective who always had a plan or ten up her sleeve.
And One Time She Danced to Remember.
As she lay sprawled across a lounge on the terrace outside the Dellamorte opera house, Emilia didn’t think she had ever been so tired in her whole life. Well, maybe after fighting Elgar’nan… maybe.
She could start to see the faint pink of dawn breaking above the canal, but inside the orchestra still played as Lucanis and Neve’s reception continued on through the night. The bride and groom had left at least two hours earlier, but that had never stopped a party in Antiva.
Exhaustion pulled at her, but a smile still tugged at her lips as she heard a familiar step behind her.
“I wondered where you’d got to,” Elek said, running a gentle hand through the hair that Emilia had freed from two dozen pins shortly after the last formal dance of the night. “You gonna make it?”
“Yet to be determined,” Emilia murmured, shifting her legs slightly to let him sit next to her on the lounge.
When calloused hands started working at the laces of her impractical shoes, she hummed in grateful relief.
“You were incredible tonight. I’ve never seen Neve look so happy. She threatened to drown me in the canal if I told anyone she almost cried.”
“It’ll be our secret,” she promised with a tired grin.
“Did I know you could dance like that?” he asked playfully.
“Maybe you would if you’d ever taken me dancing,” she teased back.
“So dance with me now,” he said, letting her second shoe drop to the ground next to the first.
“You literally just took my shoes off,” she protested. “I’ll have to put them back on before we can go in.”
He stood, catching her hands in his and tugging her insistently to the edge of the lounge.
“Then we’ll stay here,” he countered. “Just us.”
She laughed, leaning back so he had to put some effort into holding her weight as she sagged in his grip.
“C’mon, Mia. Dance with me.”
Stilling at the quiet sincerity in his voice, Emilia took in the soft smile that had just started to line the corners of his eyes as he looked at her. Instead of answering, she leaned forward again and let him propel her to her feet.
There on the terrace, they could just make out the soft sounds of the orchestra’s slowing rhythms, now that the night was finally winding to a close. She pressed herself into Elek’s arms under the last of the Antivan stars, falling easily into the slow swaying rhythm of their first dance - altogether a different one than she had imagined when she asked him to take her dancing what felt like a lifetime ago.
When a yawn snuck through without her consent, Emilia could feel the chuckle rumble through Elek’s chest in response.
“I think it’s time for somebody to get to bed,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple through his smile.
But Emilia shook her head.
“One more dance,” she told him, leaning more fully into his embrace.
If one turned into two, only the small grey cat sitting on the canal wall was a witness - and Treviso’s cats never spill their secrets.