(no subject)
Title: Following Fate
Chapter: Chapter Seven: Lessons in the Qun
Words: 2,002
Rating: PG
Characters: f!Hawke, Taarbas
Summary: The Circle has been annulled. Marian Hawke was left to stand amidst the carnage, a hero to many and a scourge to so many more. The Templars hailed her as Viscountess of Kirkwall, but all the power in Thedas could not hope to fill the void she now felt inside. Turning her back on politics and her people, she set out to fulfill a promise to an old friend.
Chapter Seven: Lessons in the Qun
The days that followed were gloriously uneventful. The only reason this was glorious was that Marian did not look forward to being raided by other pirates while she had no armor to speak of. It was rather strange. They had passed a number of other sailing vessels that could have easily overtaken them but had let them sail on unaccosted. When asked, Isabela gave the reason as being this ship was still widely believed to belong to Castillon. It was a rare sea rogue indeed that dared go up against that particular Orlesian, and by the time the ship’s newly painted backside was in view, there was no way for the would-be assailants to catch up.
“Don’t expect it to last, though,” Isabela added. “On our return voyage, we probably won’t go a single day without an attempted boarding or bloodshed.”
The journey being uneventful did not necessarily equate to it being easy. Isabela ran a surprisingly tight ship, and everyone aboard--trained sailor or otherwise--was expected to pull their weight to keep everything running smoothly. Varric was often up in the crow’s nest to keep watch and help navigate. His eyesight was among the sharpest of those aboard. Fenris and Taarbas were used to help adjust the sails and tacking as their weight and strength was a good counterbalance to the force of the wind in the sails. Marian found herself being assigned the position of First Mate, taking charge of operations whenever Isabela needed a break. The sailors were from all over Thedas, but there was not a one among them that had not heard of the Champion of Kirkwall, that she had slain a High Dragon and bested the Arishok at single combat. Her reputation held that she was just and fair. They immediately would leap and set to it if she so much as half-breathed an order.
Free time was most commonly spent in the galley. Sailors at their leisure crowded the tables with mugs of grog and handfulls of cards and dice. Marian also learned it was where Taarbas came with the viddathari for their continued education in the Qun. She had listened in on several occasions while pretending to be more interested in her bowl of steaming gruel that counted for a meal. But after nearly two weeks at sea, she knew that to spend another day pretending that she wasn’t interested was only to waste an opportunity. On a day when the weather was too calm for the sails to even capture the slightest wind, Marian made her way to the galley, wove her way through the half-drunk gamblers, and approached the trio of Qunari.
“Shanedan, Taarbas,” she said with the now customary nod of reverence. “Might I join in on the lesson?”
The two elves looked from each other to the kossith in relative surprise, but the latter merely looked up at the Champion for a moment in stoic silence. His violet eyes regarded her face and fixed on her own eyes as if through them he could bore a direct path into her soul. When he spoke, his voice was low and rich in such compassion as she had never heard from his kind before.
“To attend this lesson is to seek to understand. It is not merely to understand the Qun but to find your place within it, to live it, to believe it, and to achieve your true purpose. Is that what you seek by asking me this, Serah Hawke?”
As Marian stared back into Taarbas’ eyes, the silhouette of the Arishok flashed across her vision. The feeling of conviction she had always felt when he asked something of her or recommended how she should proceed with a task involving Qunari surrounded her heart and exploded like a shot of adrenaline. Never had she felt more justified in her actions, more conscious of a sense of duty to a greater whole. Even when she had stood that final time before Meredith and Orsino, she remembered the Arishok’s words echoing through her mind and only then understanding their true meaning.
Fixing your mess is not the demand of the Qun! And you should all be grateful!
Fixing Kirkwall’s problems hadn’t been her responsibility, either. She’d made them her responsibility merely by trying to regain her family’s high status. One act of selfishness turned into a slew of selfish acts until even the selfless intentions couldn’t even be separated from the gangrenous whole. She’d thrown the armor received from saving the city out the window like so much poison. She’d kept the Bassrath-Kata, the sword that implied she had a foreign heart of glory, and relished in the status she’d earned with it. Ben-Hassrath, the Heart of the Many, an implication that she stood up unfailingly for the Qunari. The title of Champion was historically always earned with blood and not necessarily nobly or justly. Marian had in fact received it for betraying her own values and intuition.
“Talan toh ash-eba.”
The Qunari words pouring from Marian’s mouth took the two elves by surprise even more than her initial appearance had. Taarbas responded only with a shallow nod and a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“Then, if it is truth that you seek, Serah Hawke, sit. And learn.”
They met every day in the mid-afternoon. The elves Taarbas continued to call viddathari, as he knew not what their titles would be until their purposes were determined by the Tamassrans at the colony in Rivain. Marian he called either Ben-Hassrath or Ashkaari, a title that he explained meant “one who seeks”. When she asked why he felt so confident giving her titles when he would not for the elves, he merely responded that basalit-an could be observed as having Qunari qualities even if they had not yet dedicated their lives to the Qun.
“For now, ashkaari is temporary. Should you choose to follow the Qun and are brought before the Tamassrans, they might find a more appropriate purpose for you.”
Marian learned how Qunari viewed themselves and each other. They were all brothers and sisters in the Qun and lived their lives for the sole purpose of mutual gain. They worked as a cohesive unit, and none was considered more important than any other. For, indeed, could the mind function without the heart? Without the stomach? Could the body move without the feet or grasp without the hands?
Should a Qunari stray from the Qun for selfish reasons, they were given to the Ben-Hassrath for reeducation...which sounded to Marian very like an apostate mage being brought before a Templar justicar...only without the torture and threat of demon possession. The punishment always fit the crime. If a Qunari, male or female, took a lover without sanction to breed or merely for pleasure as bas did, they were removed from the pool of potentials until it was evident they’d abandoned their wantonness. One of the elves, a young man who had turned to the Qun after his betrothed had been murdered by a drunk nobleman, asked why the Qunari did not mate for love or even maintain cohesive family units.
“Qunari are charged to defend the Qun and all those that follow it,” Taarbas explained patiently. This was, apparently, a popular question among converts. “To have a family unit as bas do upsets the priority as that smaller unit would come first before one thought of the village or the community or the people as a whole. Such short-mindedness has been the downfall of many nations. It has been recorded by Qunari scholars by observing the nations and empires here...Tevinter, Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches. All have known foreign rule time and time again and have never successfully stood against it. The Qunari have never been ruled by bas because we understand that each Qunari--viddathari or true-born, male or female, adult or child, high ranking or low--is as important as any other. We have lost land but never our identity.
“We mate to produce children, but each child is raised communally with every other regardless of parentage. That prevents any single Qunari or couple from defending one child alone or each other alone. To be selfish is to die in body, mind, and soul. Asit tal-eb.”
“But to not know your family...” the elf breathed. Marian understood his concern. City elves maintained very tight family bonds because that was all they had to cling to. She knew very well of such things herself, but she also could relate to what Taarbas explained next. Your friends and comrades became your family, for the bond formed between brothers and sisters in the Qun was far stronger than any bond of blood. Parents could still disown. Siblings could quarrel. Warriors charged by the Qun to defend each other to the death had no room for such trivial behavior. Even those very different in spirit would never abandon one of their own.
The Qunari knew of love, the deepest expression of which was to declare another kadan, or held close to the heart. Emotional bonds would run deep, especially when there was compatibility of spirit, but there was never a physical need to express it. To understand was enough, and Taarbas regretted that there was no way to tell the viddithari how that felt...merely that they would, indeed, learn on their own.
“And what of war?” Marian found herself asking. “Is it the demand of the Qun to attack those who are not?”
Taarbas shook his head. “It is the demand of the Qun to bring others to the Qun wherever and whenever possible. We have learned that, amongst bas, change is always greeted with defiance and consternation. As dathrasi they only wish to keep things as they are, no matter how miserable it makes them or how wretched. You have witnessed this first-hand in your Kirkwall. The Arishok was not there to convert. Nor was he there to kill. His demand was entirely separate, yet he was seen as the most dangerous of threats. Only you, Ashkaari, understood otherwise.”
“But that threat was perceived based on the mutual history of the Qunari and other nations.”
“Our histories record that the first bas we encountered here were the saarabas of Tevinter. They were unchecked with no handlers and even other bas feared them. As we were forced to reside where we landed, it became the demand of the Qun to educate those of Tevinter before they destroyed themselves and others.”
Marian rested her chin in her hands and smiled whimsically at Taarbas. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds like the Qunari were doing all of Thedas a favor. Why, then, did every nation revolt? Even enemies of Tevinter came to their aid.”
“Dalish stories relate that the Qunari had to fight even to land their ships in Par Vollen,” one of the elves claimed in defense. “If they were greeted with violence, the only logical course would be to respond with violence.”
Taarbas held up a hand before an argument could break out at the table. “It is not so simple as that, but for a Qunari to be passive is to have no honor. Par Vollen was attacked out of necessity. Tevinter, likewise, became a necessity. For as long as there are those who deny equality, war will always be a necessity. The demands of the Qun are clear.”
The smile fell from Marian's face when she realized the truth of those words. No matter how the Qunari came to Thedas, it could not be said that they were wrong in their way of thinking. Every society will fight to preserve what it holds sacred, but the Champion had to admit that, while other nations squabbled with themselves even in times of peace, she had never once heard of a Qunari civil war.
Chapter: Chapter Seven: Lessons in the Qun
Words: 2,002
Rating: PG
Characters: f!Hawke, Taarbas
Summary: The Circle has been annulled. Marian Hawke was left to stand amidst the carnage, a hero to many and a scourge to so many more. The Templars hailed her as Viscountess of Kirkwall, but all the power in Thedas could not hope to fill the void she now felt inside. Turning her back on politics and her people, she set out to fulfill a promise to an old friend.
Chapter Seven: Lessons in the Qun
The days that followed were gloriously uneventful. The only reason this was glorious was that Marian did not look forward to being raided by other pirates while she had no armor to speak of. It was rather strange. They had passed a number of other sailing vessels that could have easily overtaken them but had let them sail on unaccosted. When asked, Isabela gave the reason as being this ship was still widely believed to belong to Castillon. It was a rare sea rogue indeed that dared go up against that particular Orlesian, and by the time the ship’s newly painted backside was in view, there was no way for the would-be assailants to catch up.
“Don’t expect it to last, though,” Isabela added. “On our return voyage, we probably won’t go a single day without an attempted boarding or bloodshed.”
The journey being uneventful did not necessarily equate to it being easy. Isabela ran a surprisingly tight ship, and everyone aboard--trained sailor or otherwise--was expected to pull their weight to keep everything running smoothly. Varric was often up in the crow’s nest to keep watch and help navigate. His eyesight was among the sharpest of those aboard. Fenris and Taarbas were used to help adjust the sails and tacking as their weight and strength was a good counterbalance to the force of the wind in the sails. Marian found herself being assigned the position of First Mate, taking charge of operations whenever Isabela needed a break. The sailors were from all over Thedas, but there was not a one among them that had not heard of the Champion of Kirkwall, that she had slain a High Dragon and bested the Arishok at single combat. Her reputation held that she was just and fair. They immediately would leap and set to it if she so much as half-breathed an order.
Free time was most commonly spent in the galley. Sailors at their leisure crowded the tables with mugs of grog and handfulls of cards and dice. Marian also learned it was where Taarbas came with the viddathari for their continued education in the Qun. She had listened in on several occasions while pretending to be more interested in her bowl of steaming gruel that counted for a meal. But after nearly two weeks at sea, she knew that to spend another day pretending that she wasn’t interested was only to waste an opportunity. On a day when the weather was too calm for the sails to even capture the slightest wind, Marian made her way to the galley, wove her way through the half-drunk gamblers, and approached the trio of Qunari.
“Shanedan, Taarbas,” she said with the now customary nod of reverence. “Might I join in on the lesson?”
The two elves looked from each other to the kossith in relative surprise, but the latter merely looked up at the Champion for a moment in stoic silence. His violet eyes regarded her face and fixed on her own eyes as if through them he could bore a direct path into her soul. When he spoke, his voice was low and rich in such compassion as she had never heard from his kind before.
“To attend this lesson is to seek to understand. It is not merely to understand the Qun but to find your place within it, to live it, to believe it, and to achieve your true purpose. Is that what you seek by asking me this, Serah Hawke?”
As Marian stared back into Taarbas’ eyes, the silhouette of the Arishok flashed across her vision. The feeling of conviction she had always felt when he asked something of her or recommended how she should proceed with a task involving Qunari surrounded her heart and exploded like a shot of adrenaline. Never had she felt more justified in her actions, more conscious of a sense of duty to a greater whole. Even when she had stood that final time before Meredith and Orsino, she remembered the Arishok’s words echoing through her mind and only then understanding their true meaning.
Fixing your mess is not the demand of the Qun! And you should all be grateful!
Fixing Kirkwall’s problems hadn’t been her responsibility, either. She’d made them her responsibility merely by trying to regain her family’s high status. One act of selfishness turned into a slew of selfish acts until even the selfless intentions couldn’t even be separated from the gangrenous whole. She’d thrown the armor received from saving the city out the window like so much poison. She’d kept the Bassrath-Kata, the sword that implied she had a foreign heart of glory, and relished in the status she’d earned with it. Ben-Hassrath, the Heart of the Many, an implication that she stood up unfailingly for the Qunari. The title of Champion was historically always earned with blood and not necessarily nobly or justly. Marian had in fact received it for betraying her own values and intuition.
“Talan toh ash-eba.”
The Qunari words pouring from Marian’s mouth took the two elves by surprise even more than her initial appearance had. Taarbas responded only with a shallow nod and a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“Then, if it is truth that you seek, Serah Hawke, sit. And learn.”
They met every day in the mid-afternoon. The elves Taarbas continued to call viddathari, as he knew not what their titles would be until their purposes were determined by the Tamassrans at the colony in Rivain. Marian he called either Ben-Hassrath or Ashkaari, a title that he explained meant “one who seeks”. When she asked why he felt so confident giving her titles when he would not for the elves, he merely responded that basalit-an could be observed as having Qunari qualities even if they had not yet dedicated their lives to the Qun.
“For now, ashkaari is temporary. Should you choose to follow the Qun and are brought before the Tamassrans, they might find a more appropriate purpose for you.”
Marian learned how Qunari viewed themselves and each other. They were all brothers and sisters in the Qun and lived their lives for the sole purpose of mutual gain. They worked as a cohesive unit, and none was considered more important than any other. For, indeed, could the mind function without the heart? Without the stomach? Could the body move without the feet or grasp without the hands?
Should a Qunari stray from the Qun for selfish reasons, they were given to the Ben-Hassrath for reeducation...which sounded to Marian very like an apostate mage being brought before a Templar justicar...only without the torture and threat of demon possession. The punishment always fit the crime. If a Qunari, male or female, took a lover without sanction to breed or merely for pleasure as bas did, they were removed from the pool of potentials until it was evident they’d abandoned their wantonness. One of the elves, a young man who had turned to the Qun after his betrothed had been murdered by a drunk nobleman, asked why the Qunari did not mate for love or even maintain cohesive family units.
“Qunari are charged to defend the Qun and all those that follow it,” Taarbas explained patiently. This was, apparently, a popular question among converts. “To have a family unit as bas do upsets the priority as that smaller unit would come first before one thought of the village or the community or the people as a whole. Such short-mindedness has been the downfall of many nations. It has been recorded by Qunari scholars by observing the nations and empires here...Tevinter, Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches. All have known foreign rule time and time again and have never successfully stood against it. The Qunari have never been ruled by bas because we understand that each Qunari--viddathari or true-born, male or female, adult or child, high ranking or low--is as important as any other. We have lost land but never our identity.
“We mate to produce children, but each child is raised communally with every other regardless of parentage. That prevents any single Qunari or couple from defending one child alone or each other alone. To be selfish is to die in body, mind, and soul. Asit tal-eb.”
“But to not know your family...” the elf breathed. Marian understood his concern. City elves maintained very tight family bonds because that was all they had to cling to. She knew very well of such things herself, but she also could relate to what Taarbas explained next. Your friends and comrades became your family, for the bond formed between brothers and sisters in the Qun was far stronger than any bond of blood. Parents could still disown. Siblings could quarrel. Warriors charged by the Qun to defend each other to the death had no room for such trivial behavior. Even those very different in spirit would never abandon one of their own.
The Qunari knew of love, the deepest expression of which was to declare another kadan, or held close to the heart. Emotional bonds would run deep, especially when there was compatibility of spirit, but there was never a physical need to express it. To understand was enough, and Taarbas regretted that there was no way to tell the viddithari how that felt...merely that they would, indeed, learn on their own.
“And what of war?” Marian found herself asking. “Is it the demand of the Qun to attack those who are not?”
Taarbas shook his head. “It is the demand of the Qun to bring others to the Qun wherever and whenever possible. We have learned that, amongst bas, change is always greeted with defiance and consternation. As dathrasi they only wish to keep things as they are, no matter how miserable it makes them or how wretched. You have witnessed this first-hand in your Kirkwall. The Arishok was not there to convert. Nor was he there to kill. His demand was entirely separate, yet he was seen as the most dangerous of threats. Only you, Ashkaari, understood otherwise.”
“But that threat was perceived based on the mutual history of the Qunari and other nations.”
“Our histories record that the first bas we encountered here were the saarabas of Tevinter. They were unchecked with no handlers and even other bas feared them. As we were forced to reside where we landed, it became the demand of the Qun to educate those of Tevinter before they destroyed themselves and others.”
Marian rested her chin in her hands and smiled whimsically at Taarbas. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds like the Qunari were doing all of Thedas a favor. Why, then, did every nation revolt? Even enemies of Tevinter came to their aid.”
“Dalish stories relate that the Qunari had to fight even to land their ships in Par Vollen,” one of the elves claimed in defense. “If they were greeted with violence, the only logical course would be to respond with violence.”
Taarbas held up a hand before an argument could break out at the table. “It is not so simple as that, but for a Qunari to be passive is to have no honor. Par Vollen was attacked out of necessity. Tevinter, likewise, became a necessity. For as long as there are those who deny equality, war will always be a necessity. The demands of the Qun are clear.”
The smile fell from Marian's face when she realized the truth of those words. No matter how the Qunari came to Thedas, it could not be said that they were wrong in their way of thinking. Every society will fight to preserve what it holds sacred, but the Champion had to admit that, while other nations squabbled with themselves even in times of peace, she had never once heard of a Qunari civil war.