Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening, Part 7: PERMANENTLY FROZEN

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Dragon Age: Origins - Part 7 is
PERMANENTLY FROZEN

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g u t t e r e d [ 3a / ? ]

[anonymous]

Velanna was the second notable Dalish to join the ranks of the Grey, and hers was as volatile and wounded a temperament as Madh's could often be, but likewise did she exert as much generosity and freedom with affection when the cider was open, throwing a skinny arm over Sigrun's broad shoulders or looping a string of herbs playfully over the back of Anders' neck instead of handing them to him. But else, she was just as much the thundercloud of Dalish severity, except with Madha'in himself, who answered her with a calm obeisance despite the difference in Warden seniority.

Madh was content to answer Velanna as he would a Keeper, and Velanna was content to keep Madh safe from shemlen ruination - from over-friendly recruits and lingering gazes, from the embrace of drunk dwarves (and wasn't that a mysterious friendship, Oghren and Madh curled together over their tankards half asleep on one shoulder or the other), and from shem mage and shem noble (who together found brotherly rivalry in their youth and indescretion, besides the whole forced-into-Wardenhood thing they had in common).

It was Anders who flirted the most with Madha'in because it was Anders who flirted the most with anybody, but Anders especially flirted with Madh whenever Velanna was near enough to witness because Anders was also somewhat of a shit who enjoyed stoking ire.

Luckily for all involved, Madh, sober, could defend his own virtue and acted toward the joke of it, escalating proposals absurdly between them until a suggestion of amorous violence left Anders chuckling in disgust. Nathaniel would find a smile overtake him even just remembering the exchange, his day of brooding introspection in the halls of his childhood estate now ruined for the laughter.

But this day, the day the bloomtide weather threw a stormy cloak over the shoulders of the morning and the patrol changing shifts did so dripping and sniffling, Anders sawr Velanna and tossed a raucous compliment Madh's way, words clear and succinct through the metallic tang in the cool rainy air; and this morning, sober, Madha'in flinched from the hearty greet, brows crumpled together over the wide pale yellow of his owlish stare.

Nathaniel felt the heat of anger stir in his throat, for the first time, against Anders' playfulness; but Velanna had a leg past all present and was already marching her reprimand to the Commander himself, who was there in the main hall to oversee that those staffing the keep wore their silvermaille uniforms correctly, without blemish, and to a trim fit (a thing with which Oghren, poor dwarf, struggled - miserably alcoholic and skinnier than when they enlisted him). They had a king visiting soon, that day perhaps, and needed to present well in the hopes of impressing his entourage to donate to their cause (the King himself, of course, already an advocate).

Anders, confused by Madh's reaction, sought Nathaniel's counsel across the longtable and was delighted to glimpse Nathaniel's scorn, however quickly Nate tried to bury his anger under the twist of a shrug. Anders looked to Madh, to Nate, then back to Madh, eyebrows wagging at Nathaniel (whose resolve to ignore the bait crumpled easily into a glower, because Madha'in was just an earnest Dalish thing trying to do well by his Wardenhood and Anders couldn't take anything seriously and -)

At the sharp knock on the tall double doors, muffled by their thickness, Madha'in stood from his claimed chaise and stepped one way, as if to accompany the porter in answering, but paused, took up his shield and sword, shouldered them again, then all but fled the hall as the doors opened to reveal the entourage's runner, sent ahead to notify the keep.

g u t t e r e d [ 3b / ? ]

[anonymous]

Nathaniel left the table to follow, heart in his stomach with a gnawing hunger of curiosity; for the secret knowing Madh harbored of Ferelden's King, for the cryptic sorrow he had shared with Montague, for his, for his everything, his history and innermost dilemmas, his open wounds and old scars, his laughter and the hollow part inside of himself in which he hid that laughter, swallowed it, buried it. Nathaniel followed Madha'in, step quickening with the realization it would just be them, alone, Velanna and Anders answering the Commander and left behind. Nathaniel followed Madh like the moon had no choice but to follow the sun, half hidden some nights, invisible other nights, but always following.

"How do you know Alistair Theirin?" Nate demanded, though it was not what he meant to say and not the tone in which he meant to say it.

"I fought at Denerim," Madh answered just as severely, shrugging his sword and shield to his bunk on finding their rooms. "We fought at Denerim."

"Then you knew Mad Mahariel?" Nathaniel pressed, though he set his longbow and quiver to their stands without the violence of emotion, highborn raised to know better. The door did slam against any who might follow, however, a loud bark of wood that punched another flinch through Madha'in.

"I knew of him," Madh spat, arms crossed defensively in a rasp of heavy chain, watching Nathaniel's brewing mood cautiously, uncertain.

Nathaniel, just as cautiously watching Madh from his post by the door, realizing how much larger he was in body and knowledge, lost his breath all at once with mortification. "I'm not here to, to," Red-faced, Nate stepped from the door, arms falling down in a swing. "Look, I don't mean to fight you. That's not what, er, not why I - there's just this wanting, you see, for answers. I'm behaving impatiently, forgive me."

g u t t e r e d [ 3c / ? ]

[anonymous]

"He was ill with grief," Madh pressed, scar again tugging his dismay into something that reminded Nathaniel of lamplit passions. "And you know Velanna, the things she did - much was the same under Mahariel's grief. The Wardens had been all but slain by that shem king-reagent, hadn't they? And Alistair and Mahariel both, hunted by the lawmen even as they saved the realm?"

"Then," Nathaniel reasoned carefully, taking a slow sit to the edge of Madh's cot so as not to catch skin in the silvermaille of his uniform. "If Loghain had to answer for his deeds, should it not have been to a punishment equal his offence? Did he draw the sword against Duncan himself, no. So why would your Mahariel see justice in such bloodshed and vandalism and barbarity? His daughter didn't have a head to bury with his body, did you know that? Somebody's child had to anoint her father's headless corpse, not even to mention the scatter the streetdogs made of his flesh."

Madh's gaze fell, and he joined Nathaniel's side to perch a while in thought, rain drumming against the flagstones outside in a dull wash. Then, "I cannae answer for that. Only Mahariel knows the horrors for which Loghain answered, by the Wardens. I only know the horrors I saw against my people under Loghain's rule. The papers accepting coin from slavers, the trade made against Ferelden's alienages?" And here Madh's gaze glassed over, fury darkening the skin around the vulnerability in his eyes. "He drew no sword against my people, 'tis true. Still would I have left his corpse in some deeper, darker hole. Where no beast could sour its stomach on him."

"That's fair," Nate conceded, bumping his shoulder lightly against Madh's, his own ill mood eased apart by the mere closeness they now shared, their quiet honesty, the pocket of warmth between them against the morning's chill. To a nobleman, their current position was as good as scandalous - no chaperone, no waitstaff or wards standing just inside the door to play witness. Nathaniel had lived an entirely different life outside these walls, a life that knew their sullen moment of separate but shared misery was nothing to write about; but inside those walls and inside the life that could have come about had Nathaniel stayed under his mother's preferred tutelage, well. They were sitting in scandal.

This eased the ache in Nathaniel's lungs and quelled the hunger of his gut, though nothing more significant passed between them before a page asked them back to the parade ranks.

Leaving the rooms, Madha'in pulled along the thing he had fled there for - an undented full-cover helmet.