Aven Lavellan did not break.
She had not always been the Herald, the Inquisitor, the pride of her clan. As a girl, she had simply been another bare-foot wilding wandering the forests of the Free Marches. She had not been the fastest – Corran, with her long legs and easy grace had always outpaced her. She had not been the strongest – Destal could carry a full stag over his shoulders and the others always asked him to lift the aravels when they needed to make repairs. She had not been the smartest – Vessa was the first of the da’len to speak and read and she had never needed her fingers to figure out numbers.
But Aven, her Keeper had said, Aven had something all her own. Something that, without which, the fastest could not run, the strongest could not lift, the smartest could not learn. Aven had grit, she would say. Determination. Iron.
Corran might outpace her, but Aven ran harder and longer, and when she could not run, Aven crawled. Destal might bring home the hunt, but when Aven’s arms shook and sagged and could not carry anymore, she dragged her catch behind her. Vessa never needed help handling money and spouting trivia, but Aven asked questions, to anyone and everyone, resolved to learn what she did not understand.
“You are steel,” the Keeper had told her, “and you do not break.”
At the time Aven had frowned and squirmed in displeasure on the Keeper’s lap. Determination had not seemed like much of a talent. Anyone could try, and fail, and keep trying. Aven was not special in that regard – not in the way the others were, the way that made the hunters and hearthkeepers and the hahren light up with pride, that made them pat Corran and Destal and Vessa on the back and tell them what an asset they’d make to the clan one day. “You’re determined,” seemed another way of saying “you’re good at failing.”
But Aven Lavellan did not break, even as a young da’len who seemed doomed to be nothing but determined.
As the years wore on, and Aven bloomed from toddling child to something between da’len and adult, the Keeper’s words did not leave her. When Vessa came to her, eyes dark with mischief, and said she found a spring where they could swim and play and shirk their chores, Aven went. When splashing in the spring turned to games in the woods, Aven played. When their games turned to a short rest in a case, Aven followed. And when the bear that made its home in that cave found two Dalish children napping at the mouth, Aven grit her teeth and fought.
The bear had cornered them in the cave, rising to its full height, great paws raised to make quick work of them. Vessa screamed and panicked and waited for it to fall. Aven, desperate but not defeated, searched and searched and suddenly felt it. A trickle, a tingle, sparking beneath her skin, burning and bursting and begging to be released.
So she threw up a hand and threw out her first spell at the beast, a crack of lightning that stopped it dead in its tracks.
Silence fell. Smoke curled from her fingers. A small, slow crept across her face. A mage. She was a mage. Her first reaction was relief. Relief that she saved their lives, relief at the revelation that she had the rare gift of magic, relief that now she might be more to the clan that a determined failure. She was beaming when she turned to her friend – but Vessa, always shrewder, could already see the consequences. Her face was filled with horror, and it made Aven’s own realization steal over her.
She was a mage. In a clan with a Keeper, a First, and a Second. The three of them argued long into the night with her parents, after Aven and Vessa returned to camp and told them of how they had survived. She and her friend sat side-by-side on the steps on of the Keeper’s aravel, listening to them yell back and forth. For hours they sat in silence. When Aven reached for her hand, for a scrap of comfort, Vessa flinched and snatched her hand away.
“I’m sorry,” she told Aven, eyes shining, before she disappeared into the dark.
But Aven did not cry. She did not tear up, not even when the five emerged from the aravel and looked at her with heavy eyes. She did not tear up, not even when the Keeper told her – in a cold voice, with his gaze looking at everything but her – that a clan could not keep more than three mages. She did not weep, not even when her parents packed her things, and stroked her hair, and led her out to the edge of camp.
Aven Lavellan did not break, not even as she was left in the woods to watch the fading lights of her Clan.
She clenched her teeth, stilled her shaking, and steeled her will to survive.
For in a time, in fact, Aven almost reveled in it. She could catch and hunt what she wanted. She did not have to do chores if she did not want to. She could splash in the river and sleep in the trees and spend her days doing as she pleased. And if, at night, her smile fell and her steps faltered and she could not turn her mind from her family, well, no one was there to see.
Aven was not the greatest hunter, but she caught enough for herself, practicing her magic so she could start fires and snatch prey. The clan had left her with the bear’s pelt, the only luxury they allowed her, and she would hunch over her fire with it draped over her shoulders and slip into the Fade.
She was like that when Clan Lavellan found her, at first thinking her a flat-eared apostate, until Aven stumbled through what Elvish she could remember and babbled to prove her Dalish accent. The clan, wary but unwilling to kill their own, sent Aven to speak to their Keeper. Deshanna was a tall and towering woman, her white hair pulled back into a long and loose braid. Aven stood in her shadow, all scraped knees and matted hair, and told the Keeper her story. When she finished, Deshanna merely nodded, looking over the wisp of a girl before her. Her gaze flashed to Aven’s, her gray eyes collected and cold, challenging the child to fall apart, to prove her need and desperation.
But even then, Aven Lavellan did not break.
It was good that she did not, or she may have missed the smile that curled in the corner of the Keeper’s mouth.
Lavellan took her in on the spot, to the protests of some of the unconvinced. Deshanna, however, was desperate for a successor, and the same night that made Aven a Lavellan made her a First as well. Aven slipped back into the life of the clan, vowing now to never shirk her chores or sneak off to springs. She buried herself in the studies of Dalish culture and lore, in the twists and turns of leadership, in all the things she’d have to do or know when she became Keeper. She hunted with the others, she honed her magic to heal their wounds, she laughed and listened to their stories by the fire. At night, she held the bear pelt close, and wondered if her parents ever thought of her, if Vessa had found a new friend, If her old clan slept beneath the same stars.
But then her new clan would wake her, and she would drown in the demands of the Dalish. Her life became hunts, chores and studies. Dusty tomes on ancient Elvhen, lectures on lore and legend, the academics of keeping Arlathan alive. But there was the practical side, too – the ways a Keeper had to deal with shemlen and their politics, the currencies they used, the language they spoke, the world they lived in and how Aven would one day have to keep the clan alive in it too. She devoured it all, dutiful, determined.
She blossomed into adulthood, taking her vallaslin, the cradle and shield of Mythal’s blessing curling over her cheeks. She evolved from Deshanna’s student to her lieutenant, her second-in-command, the one who dealt with the merchants, who ventured from the clan, who laid down her life for the duties that Deshanna was too important to be risked on. And when the human merchants mumbled of some shemlen conflict, of this “Conclave” to the south, it was Aven who was asked to go.
There was no arguing, not from her, not to Deshanna. Aven knew her duty. She’d do as she was asked. So Deshanna packed her things, and stroked her hair, and led her out to the edge of camp.
And Aven did not cry, not even as she left the clan to clamber aboard some bulky shemlen ship. She did not tear up, not even as the Conclave shattered apart, tearing holes in her memory and in the sky. Aven did not weep, not when she blacked out and woke up in some dark human dungeon, hounded and hassled for answers she did not have.
Aven Lavellan did not break, not even when the shemlen warrior pulled her from the dungeon, out into the light, to see the swirling nothing in the sky.
She clenched her teeth, stilled her shaking, and steeled her will to survive.
She would need it.
Retour en haut
and totally that vallaslin fits perfectly! And I gotta say when you said that how they brought new things up of themselves as they fell in love I actually said '' AWW '' in real life.
I guess I'll keep going with this until I run out of steam? I've never actually written an AU that I let see the light of day, and usually whatever I write has a very clearly set start and endpoint because otherwise I have a nasty habit of losing interest and stopping partway through. I'm like a cat. But this is just silly fluff, and I'm only writing/posting it here, so hopefully it's not that big of a deal.
