Challenge Prompt: shield, family, splintmail
Rating: T
Words: 1700-ish
Characters: Alistair, F!Tabris
Summary: Alistair and Tabris bond in the Brecilian forest.
A/N: Written for the fiesta challenge. I...don't normally share fanfic (am shy!), but I set myself a challenge this week, to do just that. ;)
shield
The Dalish elves aren't nonsense or childish stories; she's vaguely disappointed that this is the case. She can't tell that to any of the humans - shems, she thinks, unthinking, racist shems - about why she feels this way, and by the time that she, Alistair, Sten and Morrigan make their way into the Brecilian Forest, she's already exhausted and done with all this, thank you very much. The Dalish are cruel, crueler than humans; she finds herself unexpectedly flushed, angry, remembering Gheyna, that whey-faced bitch calling her a flat-ears. Helleyn marvels at their nerve, their snobbery. Just because they choose to live with the trees and commune with nature and craft things from wood (not even very good things, she thinks to herself, a little dishonestly, testing the taut string of her new Dalish longbow), that they're somehow better than her, above her, exalted.
And the werewolves, the werewolves! Not my problem, she wants to tell Zatharian, just kill the infected and move out of the forest, end of story. The thought makes her feel selfish and small, but Maker save them all - how is she supposed to find one werewolf in the middle of the sprawling, deadly Brecilian Forest? She may as well have blindfolded herself on the King's Highway, with the end objective of making her way home to Denerim. In either scenario, she figures, her chances of success are about the same.
She can't say that, though, to the shems; what to say - we're going to fail and probably die, orgy in my tent before our inevitable, gruesome maulings by werewolves, yes? She's their leader, and Alistair gets anxious and starts with the sarcastic, defensive humor when she gets negative and she thinks, but she's not absolutely sure, that Morrigan's the same. Sten's a soldier, of course, she had that figured out from the word go, and soldiers need their generals; sadly, she's his. Of course, this doesn't bode well for their ultimate mission. That someone like her, a plucky elf who doesn't know when to shut up and isn't half bad with a bow, the marginally more capable misfit in a band of cast-offs, outcasts and overly idealistic former...wait - what were they, clergy members...? Oh yes, Teyrn Loghain must be pissing his trousers somewhere, in absolute fear.
Maker, she's tired. The Brecilian Forest is like an ice chest in winter. All she wants is a warm fire and to be back at the Alienage with her father, wrapping presents for Mickelmas and getting pleasantly, warmly drunk with Soris and Shianni over a bottle of spiced wine. Instead of all that, here she is, trying to shoot a blight wolf with a flaming arrow that is supposed to be flaming, but is not cooperating, while her eyes tear up and blur from this damn, incessant, never-ending winter's cold.
Should've died back at Ostagar, she thinks and she pulls back her bow only to rip open a blister on the pad of her index finger. Pus and blood trickles down her hand, and she doesn't know what's worse: the fact that she's, apparently, turned into a whining child or that her arrow has just missed the mark and the blight wolf has now sunk it's mangled teeth into her thigh.
That'll leave a mark, is her only thought as she watches the sharp edge of Alistair's shield cleave the blight wolf's snarling, spitting head from its shoulders.
"Nicely timed," she manages, as the wolf's head tumbles to her feet, and that's when things go dark, blurry and painful.
Spiced wine...Soris...Shianni, and then distantly - a shem, a male, calling her name...
family
She dreams of stone, blood and screaming. She's back in Denerim, in the arl's manse, and Lord Vaughan is there, too. He takes her bow from her and her knives. His fingers rip along the seams of her wedding dress while she tries to scramble back, to get away.
She can't, he's everywhere. This one has spirit, he whispers to her, while he undresses her. He takes off her bloody wedding dress; his hands are methodical, relentless (Maker have mercy, it's the wound, she's running a fever...no, no, not too many blankets, too much heat will burn her up...) and when she's naked, he lies her down on the floor and tells her: no, no, you're all right; Alistair, come here, take off your chest piece, your vambraces, just hold her while I wash her leg, keep her from thrashing; yes, like that. She's shivering now, and Vaughan puts his arms around her. She thinks that she tells him my Lord, please don't hurt me (and it kills her to beg), but she's not sure if she says this out loud or only thinks it in her head.
She feels water on her thigh, cold and slick. Vaughan's murmuring strange, silly nonsense above her - no, just stay still, Leliana, she's going to be fine, right, right... - and she twists and turns in his arms. Nola, Nelaros, and oh my family, you killed them, they're dead... Someone is smoothing her hair, which feels damp and sticky about her face and telling her to please stop, you're safe now, I've got you, I'm here.
She opens her eyes to a violet twilight, where all the colors of her world are crashing together. From the tent's open flap, she catches sight of Nola and Nelaros, in the distance. They're pale, wavering ghosts in this darkness, and they make her want to cry. They're home to her and family, and they're gone...forever. She reaches out to them, yearning for touch, but both Nola and Nelaros simply watch her...waiting, silent, cold.
They're dead, she thinks, they're waiting for me in the Fade, and Vaughan cradles her against him, kissing her brow while his hand slips down past her blankets to the bare skin of her neck, her chest, her belly.
***
The last thing she remembers is the Brecilian Forest, the wolf and its sharp, sharp teeth. Everything else is a blur, a fever dream swirl of dead men and soft voices and heat.
splintmail
"You had me worried," Alistair tells her, after Leliana has changed the white, crisp bandages around her thigh and left them alone together. He's sitting on the ground, next to her bedroll, and he's trying to be calm, casual, but he doesn't quite pull it off, in Helleyn's opinion. He looks upset, disturbed, and Helleyn feels awful for a moment: she's his leader, like Duncan had been (Maker, she prays, I hope this doesn't make me his surrogate mother). He's lost so much, in a short amount of time, all of his friends, so she forces herself to smile at him.
"I'm pretty tough for an elf." She flexes one of her arms, a mimicry of what Oghren does, sometimes, when he's drunk and showing off. In response, Alistair laughs, and it sounds...very...masculine. It's the only word that she can think of to describe it and suddenly something hot and fevered takes ahold in the pit of her stomach, as she watches him watch her.
"I thought you were going to die," he says, and he tries to laugh, but his voice breaks in the middle. "So...yes, let's not do this again; I told you, I...I can't do this by myself."
His voice is rough, full of a thousand unspoken, shadowy things; he can't disguise his emotions very well, she knows. To lighten the mood, she's about to say something smart and sharp, but it's then that he touches her bandaged wound, tentatively at first but then with more confidence, curving his hand over the cloth where her skin should be; she can feel the warmth of him even through the layers of bandages. His hand, he's touching her, and she realizes then how close he's sitting to her - how big he is, how broad-shouldered. She remembers another time too, with another shem (pull up your skirt, knife-ears, or I'll slice that pretty throat of yours to ribbons). She cringes back from him and her toes curl in involuntary revulsion. Her mouth puckers up, unpleasantly.
"No, it hurts," she says when he looks up at her, to cover her discomfort. His face is blank, and his eyes are dark in the spluttering candlelight. She can see, though, that his cheeks are turning a dull, tomato red. He pulls away from her and his fingers twitch clumsily, as he drops his hand by his side.
"I'm sorry, so...sorry. I didn't mean..." He looks at her, then quickly away. His face looks like it's burning now, on fire; she almost wants to laugh, he looks like a little boy with his hand caught in the sweets jar, but all she can think of, in a constant, horrible loop, is: knife-ears, knife-ears...pull up your skirt...
"Hmmm. It'll leave a scar." She traces the faint, bloody edge of her wound through the bandages with light fingers, and looks everywhere, everywhere, but at him. "And there are teeth marks in my splintmail. Do you know how cold it's going to be, walking all over the woods with armor that has holes in it?"
She pulls a face, and it's meant to be sarcastic, yet amused, warm and funny. It doesn't put him at ease, though. He's still staring at her, nervously, like he's trying to figure her out, unwrap her like a present, expose all of her secrets to the light of day. She wonders, for a heavy moment, if it's possible that he might realize...? But no, of course not, because he's Alistair and she knows that he, wonderfully naive and innocent, would never, ever understand something as ugly as... She shivers, a little, and bites her lip, unable to even think about it any longer.
"Does Bodahn...?" He asks, after a small silence, but she shakes her head vigorously before he can finish.
"All he has is some used heavy armor. It's all steel and plates and chainmail. It's made for a dwarf, anyway. I think he picked it up at Orzammar and hasn't been able to unload it since."
"Well," he moves forward again, but he doesn't touch her, "you're actually not that much bigger-"
"Than a...dwarf," she finishes for him, incredulously. "You're joking, surely?!"
The opressive air of tension is broken then because he starts laughing, and she decides to laugh with him; they're laughing togther, a little hysterically. In the back of her mind, she's thinking and you finish each other's sentences too and pretty throat to ribbons and a hundred other things which mix uncomfortably together inside her head and give her a headache to even think about.
Words: 1700-ish
Characters: Alistair, F!Tabris
Summary: Alistair and Tabris bond in the Brecilian forest.
A/N: Written for the fiesta challenge. I...don't normally share fanfic (am shy!), but I set myself a challenge this week, to do just that. ;)
shield
The Dalish elves aren't nonsense or childish stories; she's vaguely disappointed that this is the case. She can't tell that to any of the humans - shems, she thinks, unthinking, racist shems - about why she feels this way, and by the time that she, Alistair, Sten and Morrigan make their way into the Brecilian Forest, she's already exhausted and done with all this, thank you very much. The Dalish are cruel, crueler than humans; she finds herself unexpectedly flushed, angry, remembering Gheyna, that whey-faced bitch calling her a flat-ears. Helleyn marvels at their nerve, their snobbery. Just because they choose to live with the trees and commune with nature and craft things from wood (not even very good things, she thinks to herself, a little dishonestly, testing the taut string of her new Dalish longbow), that they're somehow better than her, above her, exalted.
And the werewolves, the werewolves! Not my problem, she wants to tell Zatharian, just kill the infected and move out of the forest, end of story. The thought makes her feel selfish and small, but Maker save them all - how is she supposed to find one werewolf in the middle of the sprawling, deadly Brecilian Forest? She may as well have blindfolded herself on the King's Highway, with the end objective of making her way home to Denerim. In either scenario, she figures, her chances of success are about the same.
She can't say that, though, to the shems; what to say - we're going to fail and probably die, orgy in my tent before our inevitable, gruesome maulings by werewolves, yes? She's their leader, and Alistair gets anxious and starts with the sarcastic, defensive humor when she gets negative and she thinks, but she's not absolutely sure, that Morrigan's the same. Sten's a soldier, of course, she had that figured out from the word go, and soldiers need their generals; sadly, she's his. Of course, this doesn't bode well for their ultimate mission. That someone like her, a plucky elf who doesn't know when to shut up and isn't half bad with a bow, the marginally more capable misfit in a band of cast-offs, outcasts and overly idealistic former...wait - what were they, clergy members...? Oh yes, Teyrn Loghain must be pissing his trousers somewhere, in absolute fear.
Maker, she's tired. The Brecilian Forest is like an ice chest in winter. All she wants is a warm fire and to be back at the Alienage with her father, wrapping presents for Mickelmas and getting pleasantly, warmly drunk with Soris and Shianni over a bottle of spiced wine. Instead of all that, here she is, trying to shoot a blight wolf with a flaming arrow that is supposed to be flaming, but is not cooperating, while her eyes tear up and blur from this damn, incessant, never-ending winter's cold.
Should've died back at Ostagar, she thinks and she pulls back her bow only to rip open a blister on the pad of her index finger. Pus and blood trickles down her hand, and she doesn't know what's worse: the fact that she's, apparently, turned into a whining child or that her arrow has just missed the mark and the blight wolf has now sunk it's mangled teeth into her thigh.
That'll leave a mark, is her only thought as she watches the sharp edge of Alistair's shield cleave the blight wolf's snarling, spitting head from its shoulders.
"Nicely timed," she manages, as the wolf's head tumbles to her feet, and that's when things go dark, blurry and painful.
Spiced wine...Soris...Shianni, and then distantly - a shem, a male, calling her name...
family
She dreams of stone, blood and screaming. She's back in Denerim, in the arl's manse, and Lord Vaughan is there, too. He takes her bow from her and her knives. His fingers rip along the seams of her wedding dress while she tries to scramble back, to get away.
She can't, he's everywhere. This one has spirit, he whispers to her, while he undresses her. He takes off her bloody wedding dress; his hands are methodical, relentless (Maker have mercy, it's the wound, she's running a fever...no, no, not too many blankets, too much heat will burn her up...) and when she's naked, he lies her down on the floor and tells her: no, no, you're all right; Alistair, come here, take off your chest piece, your vambraces, just hold her while I wash her leg, keep her from thrashing; yes, like that. She's shivering now, and Vaughan puts his arms around her. She thinks that she tells him my Lord, please don't hurt me (and it kills her to beg), but she's not sure if she says this out loud or only thinks it in her head.
She feels water on her thigh, cold and slick. Vaughan's murmuring strange, silly nonsense above her - no, just stay still, Leliana, she's going to be fine, right, right... - and she twists and turns in his arms. Nola, Nelaros, and oh my family, you killed them, they're dead... Someone is smoothing her hair, which feels damp and sticky about her face and telling her to please stop, you're safe now, I've got you, I'm here.
She opens her eyes to a violet twilight, where all the colors of her world are crashing together. From the tent's open flap, she catches sight of Nola and Nelaros, in the distance. They're pale, wavering ghosts in this darkness, and they make her want to cry. They're home to her and family, and they're gone...forever. She reaches out to them, yearning for touch, but both Nola and Nelaros simply watch her...waiting, silent, cold.
They're dead, she thinks, they're waiting for me in the Fade, and Vaughan cradles her against him, kissing her brow while his hand slips down past her blankets to the bare skin of her neck, her chest, her belly.
***
The last thing she remembers is the Brecilian Forest, the wolf and its sharp, sharp teeth. Everything else is a blur, a fever dream swirl of dead men and soft voices and heat.
splintmail
"You had me worried," Alistair tells her, after Leliana has changed the white, crisp bandages around her thigh and left them alone together. He's sitting on the ground, next to her bedroll, and he's trying to be calm, casual, but he doesn't quite pull it off, in Helleyn's opinion. He looks upset, disturbed, and Helleyn feels awful for a moment: she's his leader, like Duncan had been (Maker, she prays, I hope this doesn't make me his surrogate mother). He's lost so much, in a short amount of time, all of his friends, so she forces herself to smile at him.
"I'm pretty tough for an elf." She flexes one of her arms, a mimicry of what Oghren does, sometimes, when he's drunk and showing off. In response, Alistair laughs, and it sounds...very...masculine. It's the only word that she can think of to describe it and suddenly something hot and fevered takes ahold in the pit of her stomach, as she watches him watch her.
"I thought you were going to die," he says, and he tries to laugh, but his voice breaks in the middle. "So...yes, let's not do this again; I told you, I...I can't do this by myself."
His voice is rough, full of a thousand unspoken, shadowy things; he can't disguise his emotions very well, she knows. To lighten the mood, she's about to say something smart and sharp, but it's then that he touches her bandaged wound, tentatively at first but then with more confidence, curving his hand over the cloth where her skin should be; she can feel the warmth of him even through the layers of bandages. His hand, he's touching her, and she realizes then how close he's sitting to her - how big he is, how broad-shouldered. She remembers another time too, with another shem (pull up your skirt, knife-ears, or I'll slice that pretty throat of yours to ribbons). She cringes back from him and her toes curl in involuntary revulsion. Her mouth puckers up, unpleasantly.
"No, it hurts," she says when he looks up at her, to cover her discomfort. His face is blank, and his eyes are dark in the spluttering candlelight. She can see, though, that his cheeks are turning a dull, tomato red. He pulls away from her and his fingers twitch clumsily, as he drops his hand by his side.
"I'm sorry, so...sorry. I didn't mean..." He looks at her, then quickly away. His face looks like it's burning now, on fire; she almost wants to laugh, he looks like a little boy with his hand caught in the sweets jar, but all she can think of, in a constant, horrible loop, is: knife-ears, knife-ears...pull up your skirt...
"Hmmm. It'll leave a scar." She traces the faint, bloody edge of her wound through the bandages with light fingers, and looks everywhere, everywhere, but at him. "And there are teeth marks in my splintmail. Do you know how cold it's going to be, walking all over the woods with armor that has holes in it?"
She pulls a face, and it's meant to be sarcastic, yet amused, warm and funny. It doesn't put him at ease, though. He's still staring at her, nervously, like he's trying to figure her out, unwrap her like a present, expose all of her secrets to the light of day. She wonders, for a heavy moment, if it's possible that he might realize...? But no, of course not, because he's Alistair and she knows that he, wonderfully naive and innocent, would never, ever understand something as ugly as... She shivers, a little, and bites her lip, unable to even think about it any longer.
"Does Bodahn...?" He asks, after a small silence, but she shakes her head vigorously before he can finish.
"All he has is some used heavy armor. It's all steel and plates and chainmail. It's made for a dwarf, anyway. I think he picked it up at Orzammar and hasn't been able to unload it since."
"Well," he moves forward again, but he doesn't touch her, "you're actually not that much bigger-"
"Than a...dwarf," she finishes for him, incredulously. "You're joking, surely?!"
The opressive air of tension is broken then because he starts laughing, and she decides to laugh with him; they're laughing togther, a little hysterically. In the back of her mind, she's thinking and you finish each other's sentences too and pretty throat to ribbons and a hundred other things which mix uncomfortably together inside her head and give her a headache to even think about.