As the dawn bell tolled, Nadira and three other people slowly awoke from sleep, all on big pillows in a tent in the Sot market. Two of them were in purple from the day before, while Nadira and Arturri had some plain linen tops and pants thrown on.

Arturri had curled himself up with one of the two Sot. She had dark brown hair streaked with various colours - primarily the purple of her house. Among the colours were many smaller braids, with beads and jewels woven in. Her eyes flickered in dream beneath heavy eyelids and streaked makeup. It was strange seeing them cuddled there, as Nadira felt that she was intruding on a very personal moment by being in the room. The girl’s name was Sadie. It was connection to her that let them in during the middle of the night. It was she that was going to get them into the Dar Yi Home.

The other figure was Sadie’s twin brother, Kro. He had come along to support his sister and was the representative to hand her over for her coming wedding the next day on behalf of the Sot family. There would be others, but he was the one trusted for this particular part of the job. He didn’t care what they did, he had said, as long as the send off went alright for his side. He had said this while looking at Arturri, knowing that even when against his own personal justice, his love for Sadie might intervene in the proceedings. But, strangely to Nadira, Arturri seemed resolute that his name was more important.

Kro was comfortably laid out by the wall with his head on the large cushion. He had the same eyes as his sister. His eyebrow had a scar on them, and his ears were full of piercings he slept without taking off. His hair was to his shoulders and was dyed a deep purple, no streaks. His hair was also filled with trinkets and charms in his braids.

Nadira had the urge to try to get a closer look at some of them. Some shapes of the charms were hard to make out from a distance. She knew it was strange perhaps but he had fascinated her since they met last night. Kneeling down not far from him, she tried to look at the shapes in his hair. There was a small rabbit on one blue bead, and not far from it was a glass clasp of an odd bat mid-flight. It had a strange pointy face.

He opened his eyes. She watched him do so with fascination.

“Good morning,” she said, as if her crouched near him and looking at his hair wasn’t strange.

He didn’t seem to mind it, looking back at her with interest. “Good morning, Orphan girl.”

She wanted to say something else to him, but she wasn’t sure what could be said. Hanging in that moment made her feel embarrassed somehow.

The last night, Arturri had dressed in his Dar Yi outfit, having symbolically given up the Orphan robes - but for Nadira that was never an option. So she came in black, and Kro had seen her as an anomoly. Kro had clearly met Arturri before, but for an actual Orphan to take off their veil before him? He seemed to have been - not shocked - entertained. As Nadira had never felt so much attention before, let alone been entertaining, she wasn’t sure how to act or what to say.

Arturri woke behind them in a start, pulling himself completely upright as if from a bad dream. Sadie was woken by the sudden jolt, and groaned against his shoulder for five more minutes. They had only been asleep for a small handful of hours, but the sound of the Dawn bell was enough to startle them.

“We have to go,” was the first thing he said. He was already pulling himself as upright as he could without stumbling.

“Breakfast, first,” demanded Sadie. There was a basket in the corner that had a few supplies in it, and she crawled over to pull out some fruits, tossing one to each of the guests, and throwing the last at Kro to wake him up.

“I’m already awake,” he complained in a whisper.

The jowb fruit was a orange-yellow colour misshapen thing with a pale flesh. Nadira was astounded by the amount of flavour it had, each bite sweeter than the last. She could hardly keep herself focused. She didn’t realise how hungry she was after the excitement of the night before.

“So we have to be really discreet. People are only waking up now but we don’t have a lot of time. We’ll eat this quickly. As soon as the matron notices we’re missing we’ll be looked for, and the market will be the first place she looks. We have to be smart about this,” Arturri said, rubbing his silver hair back from his forehead.

Nadira nodded, but she didn’t think it was as serious as what he was saying. If they were caught, it would be a massive disappointment sure, but she didn’t think anything bad would come of it. Then again, she didn’t have her reputation and chance for redemption at stake like he did.

“We must disguise you,” said Sadie to them both. “You’ll be found easily without a charm. Here, I’ll craft you one quick.” She got down a violet scarf from a hook on the wall and a pair of scissors from a small desk and began to work.

Within a few seconds, Nadira started to feel a strange atmosphere in the room. It was like someone had let in a draft. Her skin had goosebumps along her arms. Something in the fruit for a moment tasted sour. “Alright,” Sadie said, “they’re ready.”

Sadie handed out two bracelets she had tied for them. “Try them on. No one will see you as you are.”

Nadira took hers curiously and placed it on her wrist. Sadie pulled out a small pocket-mirror and held it to them.

Instead of her usual mousy brown hair, Nadira had wavy black hair, pale freckle-less skin and bright lilac eyes. Her nose had become more angular rather than stumpy, and her chin was made rounder, rather than pointed. She had to say, she kind of liked the new her, although it was hard for her to recognise herself. She stuck out her tongue, and peered in to her new eyes. “Black hair?” she complained.

“Consider it an in-joke!” Sadie shrugged. It seemed that Nadira would never escape the veil after all. But it was better than nothing. She would go out without her face being covered, and that was much better. Why hadn’t the Orphans just hired the Sots for this kind of service generations ago, she wondered?

She could hear Leliana explain why in her head, an echo of a life lived with her. She would have said something about how, oh, ‘Magic of the Families are not for us, the Orphan Prince wouldn’t have bladiblah blah’.

“Let’s stay focused,” Arturri said, finishing his fruit to the core. He had donned the bracelet too and had dark brown hair and a slimmer stranger face, “Let’s refresh ourselves on the plan.”

Nadira nodded, “So Sadie’s marrying some guy, and we’re going to go along as her servants. When we’re to attend her in her room, we’re instead going to head out and snoop.”

“I will do the snooping, Nadira. You will act as the lookout, understand? You’re to follow me exactly and do whatever I say,” Arturri insisted.

“Yes okay, sure. You’ll get whatever you need, and I’ll say coast clear, then we go back to the room, and take it from there?” Nadira wasn’t sure how he was planning exactly to use any information even if he did find it. Did he really intend to just go up to someone and accuse them of being the murderer if he figured it out?

Arturri looked away at the question. “This is the only chance to get in. We’ll figure out the details later.”

“Then what are we waiting for? I believe, dear sister, your other lover is awaiting us,” Kro teased, bringing himself to a stand. He offered Nadira a hand up as well, which she gladly took, only to remember her hands were sticky from the fruit. He didn’t seem to even notice.

As they were leaving the tent, Sadie took Arturri’s arm.

“Don’t worry, Arturri,” said Sadie, “I’ll still see you on the side. This is just a marriage of convenience. I have no problem with loving you.”

“You might think differently later. You will be trained as a Dar Yi, and a Dar Yi take their oaths very seriously…”

“Hah. As if I’d change. I’ll make an oath to you now then. I’ll be your lover. There, now it’s a promise, and my integrity will be tied to it as a Dar Yi, how’s that?”

“Don’t say that. Not unless you mean it,” Arturri said pitifully.

She laughed warmly and rest her head on his shoulder before they separated to leave the tent. They each took a purple cloak from the hanger.

“Is there anything, I don’t know, Sot-like as a servant that we should be prepared for?” Nadira asked.

“Well a servant is still a Sot. Don’t hesitate if we ever ask you a question in public, a Sot doesn’t mince words. We don’t care so much for that respectful pussyfooting, and we’ll tell you so if brought to it,” Kro told them.

“I always wanted to be a Sot,” Nadira said, happily.

Kro laughed, “Well, it’s a shame you can’t be one!”

They began to walk outside. The market was starting to gain in volume, with more and more people flooding in from the tunnels leading to the Family properties. The Sot market was almost always open, and so was thankfully the most busy for that hour, meaning they wouldn’t stand out too much.

Nadira thought she’d try on the values for herself, like a mask she was playing with. “What if I married a Sot, would I become one then?”

“Are you kidding? We couldn’t marry an Orphan, that’s hilarious.”

She faltered. Being a Sot was more difficult than she’d thought. “W-why not?”

“What kind of match would that be? Besides, you must be a criminal or in some other way unwanted, so why should we take some other Family’s scraps.”

“Hey! I am not scraps!” She felt her eyes start to water.

“No, I guess you aren’t,” he said with a grin to her. His smile was shining and dangerous. Even despite his harsh words she felt butterflies at his conceding the fact. “But you are what you are, and we are what we are.” The butterflies died.

She saw a black figure in the crowd. In a panic, she tripped on a bit of fruit that had fallen, catching herself on Kro’s cape. He turned to catch her, curious.

She saw Leliana turn her cloaked face towards them.

She could feel herself panic, but remembered that she was masked to look differently. Her heart beat through her like a drum. Would Leliana even be tricked by such magic? It had always seemed like the woman could see through anything. She tried to continue on, and draw back down her head. But she could not change her gait. Would that be enough for Leliana to recognize her?

Things were quiet for a few minutes as they made their way through the opening stalls, then Kro glanced around and took her under his arm affectionately. She stiffened up completely. “We’re being followed, friends.” He said quietly with a smile, trying to be low-key. The closeness was simply to share the message.

Nadira’s eyes opened wider as if she might spot the threat that way. “What do we do?!”

Sadie and Arturri glanced behind them as well. Nadira found herself doing the same. Sure enough, there were red cloaks behind them in a small cluster at walking pace, starting to fan out between the stalls.

Kro groaned, “Could you be less obvious about it?”

Nadira remembered learning about the Bheorse, and what they could do. It wouldn’t matter that they looked different to them. She looked over to Kro in a panic, “Can’t they read minds?”

“Oh yeah,” Kro said, as if he had forgotten, “That could be a problem.” He thought for a moment. “That’s alright, we can muddle them!" He stopped casually at a stall they were passing, quickly exchanged some words, and came back with a pair of small glass vials.