*sneaks in, attracted by the chocolatey scent...snarfs brownies...leaves fanfiction* 
Part 29 - Making Beautiful MusicShe’d wanted to blast him for misleading her. She’d almost done just that. To know Alistair had been so close…
so close after all this time but was now on the move again because Zevran had kept quiet to both him and her for one reason or another…
Truly forgiving someone was allegedly easier said than done, but she was seeking her own reprieve and had remembered that as soon as the word ‘retrospect’ had left her lips because it had been rolling around in her own head for weeks now.
In retrospect…You would have won a crown you didn’t want. You might have died getting to the archdemon, or sacrificed yourself killing it. Morrigan would have brought her…choice…to me asking for you
rather than Loghain. And, in retrospect…Loghain died anyway. Just like you wanted.So it all worked out, right? He’s dead, we’re alive, you didn’t have to sleep with a maleficar and father a demon child, you don’t have to be king, and you can still be a Grey Warden…with me.Right…?All that had burned through her brain in the space of a second, making it impossible to condemn Zevran for a lie that had done no worse than delay the eventual confrontation that much longer. The former Crow had apologised. Sincerely. Twice. She had the feeling he’d even been a little afraid of what coming clean might cost him…a tongue-lashing at best, being told to leave at worst.
Leave...when he has no home, no family, no trade besides murder, and a country full of former ‘friends’ who are out to kill him.Or yell at him…when I am the only one he has in the world right now, and being screamed at is exactly the thing I fear getting from Alistair.And so she’d swallowed the venom she’d almost spat out and given him the forgiveness she so sorely craved for herself.
And she did forgive him…in retrospect, and as the hours rolled by while they rode west through the Green Dales. It was dangerously easy to be angry and reckless in the heat of the moment; Asleena Cousland could spit fire as well as any woman, but be damned if she’d do it at friend who was actually
sorry. One small transgression he openly confessed and obviously regretted was not enough for her to rip into him.
Remembering the hell she’d put Duncan through after he’d forcibly removed her from Highever, she wondered if the old Warden Commander would be proud of her.
Then she wondered if he’d feel proud of how she’d dealt with Loghain and Alistair and, knowing she’d never get an answer for that, turned her attention resolutely to the trail ahead.
It would take roughly three days to reach Starkhaven mounted according to Galahan. They would be riding through forest most of the way so it would not be the fast and easy pace Asleena and Zevran had enjoyed across the Wildervale, although they would travel as swiftly as they could considering Sindel’s condition. Asleena and Zevran again took to horseback while the two Dalish rode double atop a halla stag, Sindel sitting before Galahan with her hands resting lightly upon the animal’s huge horns. The advantage of riding at something slower than a canter was the opportunity for conversation, and it flowed freely. There was talk of the Blight and the parts Asleena and Zevran had taken, most of which Galahan already knew up to the Landsmeet thanks to Alistair, though he paid attention to the entire account as though fully expecting to glean new information from the fresh perspectives. Sindel had heard next to nothing about it and drank it all in, especially the bits about battles that ended with darkspawn being reduced to the consistency of paste. There was some mutual sharing of histories. Asleena spoke of her life in Highever before Rendon Howe’s betrayal and her conscription by Duncan, Zevran of his childhood in an Antivan ****house until being sold to the House of Crows to become an assassin. He even admitted the Dalish origin of his mother, her fall into prostitution and eventual death giving birth to him, which horrified Sindel.
For their own parts, Sindel and Galahan had always lived with the roaming clans and never amongst humans. Both had had dealings with shemlen on occasion, peaceful and violent, but neither had ever set foot within a city. Both had travelled far across Thedas in their lifetimes, but they had not lived in the same clan until almost two and a half years ago when they had first met in the Planasene Forest, some weeks travel southwest by aravel. Sindel had been running around as a hare—and plunged headlong into a game trap laid by Galahan himself.
“Being trapped I couldn’t change,” she said. “Fortunately it was a cage rather than a twine snare, or I’d have probably broken my neck. When he came along I was
terrified. I thought he’d kill me, skin me and eat me!”
“How’d you let him know you weren’t really an animal?” Asleena asked, riveted by the story.
The black-haired elf laughed loudly and leaned back into Galahan’s chest. “By behaving like no ordinary hare would! The Dalish always stop to say a prayer or make an offering to Andruil before taking the life of one of her chosen creatures, so he didn’t try to kill me straight away. That gave me enough time to get his attention.”
“I seriously thought I was losing my mind when she started tapping the bars of her cage in time to my singing,” Galahan said with a roll of his eyes. “I was convinced she was possessed by some spirit.”
“He tried talking to me,” Sindel said, grinning, “and after a few nods and shakes of my head he let me out, I turned back into myself, and he fell over backwards.”
Asleena, Zevran and Sindel laughed, while Galahan shook his head with a wry smile and kissed the crown of his betrothed’s head.
“Love at first sight?” Asleena inquired afterwards.
“Are you joking?” Galahan chuckled. “When she transformed I thought she was Ghilan'nain come again into elven form to curse me for trapping one of Andruil’s favoured animals!”
Sindel laughter came once more. “We got off to a rocky start. But he caught me again in the end, and I suppose I stayed caught. That’s when he joined Turii’s clan. We’ve been betrothed since then.” Her look became pensive and the levity faded from her voice. “We were to have wed before our Keeper two seasons past, but the darkspawn had started to appear in the Green Dales by that point.”
“That is a long time to be promised to one another,” Zevran noted, then grinned slyly. “I do hope you have consummated your commitment by now.”
Sindel’s said nothing and looked even more closed, while Galahan said, “It is not the proper way of things. Once the Elvhen were a patient people who did not rush.”
Zevran shrugged. “And once the Elvhen lived forever. That is no longer how the world is, my friend, and considering one or both of you may die in a few days time, perhaps some rushing is in order.”
“Can we not talk about this, please?” Sindel asked quietly, the darkness circling her eyes somehow looking quite a bit deeper in her white face.
“Explain the hawk and the hare thing to me,” Asleena said before Zevran could put his foot in it any more deeply, though the assassin looked like he’d suddenly realised how close he’d been treading to a sensitive topic. “Why are they Andruil’s…totem animals? Is that right?”
“Close enough,” Galahan said, his arm wrapping a little more tightly around Sindel’s waist. “They are the two aspects of the hunt: predator and prey, hunter and hunted. It is nothing more complex.”
“May I ask which of the Creators your tattoos indicate?”
“They are the markings of Dirthamen, Keeper of Secrets.”
“I would have thought a hunter would choose Andruil,” Asleena said thoughtfully, comparing his vallaslin to Sindel’s. “Not that I can claim to know much about your ways,” she added, not wanting to give offence.
Galahan smiled. “We revere all of our gods, not only the one we take the vallaslin of, Asleena. Dirthamen…” he shrugged. “He just felt right for me.”
“Do you have any special talents, like our dear Sindel here?” Zevran asked, watching the golden-haired elf closely.
Asleena raised a brow but Galahan shook his head. “No, I’m nothing so grand as my beloved. Anyone can do what I do.”
“And what is that, precisely?”
Galahan mulled the question over, turned his green eyes to the assassin and then grinned suddenly. “Listen to the harmony as well as the melody. Know when to count yourself in. And if you don’t know the song, at least recognise what keys are being played in.”
Asleena blinked.
Zevran did not seem in the least surprised by the odd answer, and gave the hunter a shrewd look. “So anyone
musically inclined can do what you do.”
He laughed at that, seeming highly amused. “Maybe that’s a better way of putting it, yes. Very good! Perhaps ‘anyone’ was an exaggeration. I could as well say anyone can swing a sword around, but fewer would be good at it, fewer still excel, and the true masters of the art would be the rarest of the breed.”
“And you would consider yourself a master, no doubt.”
“Not of swinging swords,” Galahan replied with an arched brow and a slight curve of his lips. “Although I am a very good shot with a bow, and I’m told I can sing quite well.”
“I think I’m…lost,” Asleena said, looking at Sindel for help.
A smile transformed the former Keeper’s tired face. “He does that sometimes. It used to drive me insane.” She touched Galahan’s arm. “Do you mind if I get down? I feel a need to stretch my wings.”
The halla stopped and Sindel dismounted. Galahan lifted her chin with two fingers.
“Stay close,” he said quietly.
“I will. And I’ll whistle for Ferrix if I need to,” Sindel added, giving the mabari a fond look and a pat on the head. Lifting her arms she changed and swept upwards with a stroke of her wings, heading for the few golden shafts of light penetrating the canopy. It was the first time Asleena had seen the elven woman shapeshift, and she found herself staring after the ascending hawk with a sense of wonder and no small amount of envy.
“It must be something to fly,” she said wistfully.
Galahan had also dropped from the halla’s back. He stooped, collected something from the forest trail then mounted again. Two long dark feathers were in his hand.
“Does she normally moult this much?” Zevran asked carefully.
Galahan reached back to slide the feathers into his quiver, glanced at Zevran with worried eyes and shook his head. “No.”
They rode on.
**
Night fell, camp was set, wild rabbits cooked and consumed, and Asleena took first watch with Ferrix keeping her company. She fed some fresh wood into the cookfire and sighed to herself. She still hadn’t gotten up the courage to ask Galahan anything about Alistair besides where he was headed.
“He is going to Starkhaven as we are,” the elf had said while de-boning a rabbit for Ferrix. “Some of my clanmates went with him as guides when I could not, so he is in good company.”
The distance was closing…
She sat down and glanced about the silent camp. There were three tents, one her own, one Zevran’s, the last a Dalish affair shared by Galahan and Sindel. Asleena found herself looking at this one a bit longer than a person would normally look at a tent, rubbed her arms, then reached down and rubbed Ferrix. He rolled onto his back and wagged his tail happily.
“Keep the ears open tonight, boy,” she muttered, patting his ribs. “Darkspawn are about.”
Their presence was distant, a prickle along her spine…not threatening right now, but if they picked up on her ‘scent’ there could be trouble.
After about half an hour, Zevran emerged from his tent and came over. Simple clothes rather than his customary leather armour and a slight rumpling of his blond hair indicated he’d lain down to sleep but given up. In deference to the fact trouble could strike at any time, dagger and sword hung from the belts criss-crossing his chest and he’d pulled his precious Antivan boots on.
Without speaking, he sat down opposite her.
It was a custom that had taken hold without either even giving it voice. Since coming to the Free Marches they’d always sat opposite each other with the fire between. Except for that one time with Valar, but those had been…unusual conditions. Asleena had initially thought of it as putting temptation faaar out of reach, with the added bonus of a fire providing some sort of physical and mental barrier between them.
Zevran Arainai, the heat-warped air would warn whenever she looked at him over the flames.
Don’t touch or you’ll get burned. It’s pretty. It’s hot. And it’ll hurt.This hadn’t exactly worked to plan back in the Vimmark Mountains, but that had been a once off and it hadn’t happened again. He was waiting. Asleena knew perfectly well he’d been honest about his offer to give ‘comfort’ should Alistair turn her away. She’d been honest about not having brought Zevran along to use him, but her stance towards the assassin had changed substantially over the past weeks. The longer this chase went on, the closer they became, the easier it was to think that a little Antivan-style ‘comfort’ might not be such a bad thing…
“Thinking about it will only make the itch worse, my dear,” Zevran said, breaking the quiet.
Asleena’s eyes snapped from the Dalish tent to the former Crow. “What?”
“There is no need to be shy. I was trained to recognise certain signs, after all, and it has been a while for you.”
Heat stung her cheeks. She hoped that was just the campfire. “So, what? You’re going to try and seduce me again?” she muttered, humiliated, angry and a little afraid he could read
that in her so easily.
But he shook his head. “Not at all. You are still chasing Alistair, and I rather like living.” He grinned. “Compromising your virtue, while quite tempting I admit, might lead to all sorts of awkwardness. Him trying to stab me, for instance.”
As usual, his way of putting things dispelled her irritation. “I would have thought you’d find that kind of thing fun,” she couldn’t help saying, and he chuckled.
“Ah yes…
fun. I never told you about the time I was caught with another man’s wife, did I? Caught by her husband, that is. I was forced to flee out the window and across the rooftops of Llomerryn without a scrap of clothing to my name.”
The thought of Zevran scampering across rooftops in all his bronze-skinned glory was surprisingly easy.
“My point is, I prefer not to cheat. It saves a lot of unpleasantness.”
The fire crackled and spat up sparks. Asleena looked at the flickering, shifting red and gold swirls. The desire to ask ‘What if the time came that it wouldn’t be cheating?’ was shockingly strong. She clamped down on it hard, appalled with herself. She couldn’t say that. She suspected Zevran’s feelings for her and saying such a thing was tantamount to giving false hope, leading him on. She loved Alistair, and it would end well. It…it
would.She liked Zevran. She really did. When they’d first met in Ferelden and she’d spared his life, she had never thought she’d ever come to trusting him. He was a thief. He was an assassin—an assassin sent specifically to kill the Ferelden Grey Wardens. He killed people for money. He
enjoyed killing people for money. He also quite liked the art of seduction and wasn’t above letting his marks beg for their lives through carnal acts before killing them anyway.
In another lifetime she would have despised him as utterly contemptible. People who met him on a casual basis probably thought she was insane for associating with him, let alone counting him a friend, but after his loyalty during the Blight, even to killing his old companion Taliesen and standing with her against the archdemon, the longer she was with him, the more they relied on each other and the more of himself he revealed she…she couldn’t help feeling
something for him.
Friendship, affection…not love. Not love. But she knew then, with sinking certainty, that it could easily
become love if she allowed it. If she let herself be swept away by it. If she was right about him.
And finding Alistair suddenly felt…a lot more difficult. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Zevran had neither asked for nor expected anything of her, taking only what she offered. He knew how things stood. You couldn’t just tell someone off for being respectful of your wishes and carrying an unobtrusive torch, could you?
Maker’s breath…why do feelings have to be so bloody confusing?“Why are you up?” she asked. It came out more abruptly than she’d intended. She tried to soften it. “Trouble sleeping?”
The fingers of his right hand curled around something hidden in his palm. “I had been thinking, actually,” he said. “It occurred to me I had not really thanked you for getting me out of that mess in Markham.”
“I thought you were ahead in the whole ‘saving lives’ tally. If anything, I owe you now.”
“That does not mean I can’t still thank you, does it?” he asked. “Besides, I wished to give you something.” His hand opened and firelight struck glints against the precious metal and tiny jewels of a single earring. “I acquired this on my first mission for the Crows. The mark, a Rivaini merchant prince, was wearing this earring—“ he grinned “—and only this earring. I thought it beautiful and so I claimed it, a trophy if you will. And I would like to give it to you.”
He rose to his feet and crossed the distance, passing the fire to crouch before her and hold out the glittering token.
Asleena’s heart sank even as it pounded with betraying, shameful swiftness. “Zev, I…it’s beautiful, but you don’t have to give me anything for helping you.”
“I wish to. It is a simple gift, nothing more than that. I know your ears are unpierced, but you do not have to wear it. Keep it, sell it even. Do whatever you like with it.”
“Nothing more than a simple gift?” she repeated, and to her dismay saw the small ripple of uncertainty wash across his usually composed features, heard the hesitation in a voice that was normally as sleek as fine satin.
“I…just take it. Please. It has meant a great deal to me but so do…so has what you have done.” He offered it again, golden-brown eyes watching her intently as he repeated his request. “Please. Take it.”
Somewhere back in Ferelden, maybe in her room at Highever by now, there was a rose…
Asleena returned Zevran’s gaze steadily and, in a soft tone, said the word she felt she must: “No.”
He was still, and then he was standing, looking down at her. Anger, confusion and frustration chased each other over his face briefly before finally settling for the former emotion. The assassin
glared.
“No?” he echoed. “And why not? How is this any different from the gloves or the boots I received from you? Why is an earring from me more unacceptable than a ring prised from the dead finger of some monster we have slain?”
His words had begun with deceptive softness and calm. Anger gave it volume halfway through, and the last word had a lethal hiss to it.
“Zev—“ she began painfully, heart aching to see her friend like this, but she got no further.
“No. Fine. As you desire.” With a flick of his fingers, his hand was empty. “You don’t want the earring, you don’t get the earring.”
“
Zev!” she tried again as he stalked away for his tent, but he ignored her, not even breaking stride, and vanished within the canvas-enshrouded gloom.
Damn! Damn, damn, damn…Asleena ran both hands over her face and raked them through her hair, shivering, heart pounding, chest hurting, bewildered and upset. Should she have said something else? Just…just taken it for what he’d said it was?
She suddenly didn’t want to think anymore. She was tired of thinking, questioning and doubting. She always wanted to do right by people, she always
tried, so why did it
never work out like she wanted?
Fury and bitterness seethed through her veins. After the near-argument she’d deliberately terminated this morning, she got this. Well, fine. So be it. Seized by a sudden need to be anywhere but here, she got up, strapped Duncan’s shield to her left arm and started off into the trees. Ferrix ran to catch up, and stopped when she did.
“No,” she said shortly to the mabari. “Stay. Stand guard here and start barking if something happens.”
Ferrix whined a little, but retreated to the circle of the campfire and sat down. Brown eyes stared at her reproachfully.
“Not tonight,” she apologised, feeling worse than ever for taking her anger out on her faithful dog—who, she reflected with a certain childish petulance, was more dependable than ex-Templars and ex-Crows thrown together. “Be good.”
She turned her face away from the fire, towards the night, reached out for the distant presence of the darkspawn singing through her blood.
Then she strode purposefully towards it, sword whispering from its sheath.
Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 01 avril 2010 - 12:40 .
Speechless and eager as always for more!
Retour en haut
quite disgusting actually :/ Still another good chapter though, keep up the good work =)
Nate!
)
