Trusting a Shem- Fanfic- Prt Seven
Title: Trusting a Shem, prt 7
Author: Promisetruth
Rating: T
Characters: Fem!Mahariel, Alistair, Tamlen, Zevran, Wynne, Morrigan, and all the other party members we have come to know and love.
Pairing: Fem!Mahariel/Tamlen, Fem!Mahariel/Alistair
Summary: Female Dalish Elf (Mira Mahariel) and her journey as a Grey Warden. Her conflict with her old life and clan, more importantly with Tamlen, interferes with her choices and with her reactions to a certain Alistair. After leaving Orzammar, the camp gets raided by shrieks. The voice is gone.
Other parts/chapters can be found at: promisetruth or promisefics (Fanfiction journal)
Note: Big thank you to signcherie ! Cherie has been oh so wonderful and kind to keep me motivated and answer all the possible questions I could ever come up with. You're wonderful. :) And so are you, my kind and lovely readers, thank you for being so patient as I very slowly drag this out. :D
*******
Mira could summarize Orzammar and dwarves into three words: Darkspawn enclosed drunkards. The Dalish practically growled when she heard that she had to settle politics by choosing sides and running errands for them to earn loyalty. Then, she shuddered at the memory, she had to go into the Deep Roads. With the only person to guide them being no other than a drunk berserker who wanted to find his power crazy wife. All the foul things she learned while being down in the dark abyss. Broodmothers, golems, twisted lust, and oh Creators, what happened to the mentality of those with the taint.
"Finally, we rid ourselves of that most disgusting smell." Morrigan remarked as they made their way out of the city. Oghren snorted at the mage.
"Don't worry lass, if you had stayed in there any longer you wouldn't have been able to smell anything."
"Oghren you reek like an old ale house." Wynne commented disapprovingly, her face scrunching up.
"You can tell?" he grinned. "Glad ya noticed."
"My dear woman, why you do not notice me in that way?" said the Antivian. "I am wounded. It is a strike to my heart, no?"
"Heh, guess we know who she likes best already. Can't resist the might of the dwarven hammer!" Oghren winked at the mage.
"The dwarven what? I do beg your pardon!"
"You can beg anything you want from me sweetcheeks." a gruff laugh was followed shortly.
"He is worse then the elf. Is that possible?" Morrigan frowned. "Now we have two men, if you can call them that, whose libido is ruling their mind."
The noise was driving Mira insane. None of them would stay quiet. Her head was pounding, the voice had been eerily quiet, and she felt bad that Alistair was back at camp sick as a mabari.
"Enough." she hissed. Mira felt an arm loop through hers.
"So sullen today my fearless leader? That look does not suit your beautiful face my dear," Zevran told the Dalish as she gave him a ruthless glare. "Is someone sad that their favorite Templar is not here with them?"
"I hardly see what she sees in that man," Morrigan shook her head. "Tis but a mystery." Mira rubbed the sides of her aching temple. Why was every human so nosy?
"Enough." the Grey Warden repeated. She felt Zev chuckle lightly and told everyone to back down.
"Fair enough, our leader has spoken. Now...how to pass the time?"
******
Mira was chasing Tamlen again. It was the same dream that she had not had since they left Lothering. Once more Tamlen was at the mirror, his hands just centimeters away from touching the glassy object. Mira called. She begged. She pleaded. She screamed. But her lover would not turn around. Arms wrapped around her in an almost comforting way, like a mother holding a child back from something both fascinating and deadly. The embrace felt almost apologetic, as if whoever was holding her did not want to but continued for her own good. There was no surprise in seeing that the arms belonged to Alistair.
"Why?" she asked as Mira struggled to break free.
"Help me first, then you can go." the voice did not sound like Alistair nor did it pronounce the words like the tangible Templar would have.
"With what?" Mira growled, all she wanted to do was reach Tamlen.
"The Archdemon, then Tamlen. Help me, then Tamlen. Love me, then Tamlen."
"Love you?" the Dalish questioned, her eyes turning from Tamlen to Alistair. "Love you?"
"Mira!" she heard her fellow Grey Warden cry. "Mira!" her mind slipped out of the dream and into the waking world.
"Alistair?" the Dalish conformed as she blinked her eyes open. "Why are you shaking me?" as the grogginess left Mira she felt herself become more and more awake. "Is there an attack? What is going on?"
"You’re awake! Did you feel it, too? It was like the Archdemon saw us. Saw us! What does that mean?"
"Archdemon?" she sat up. "What do you mean Alistair? I had no dream of the Archdemon..."
"You didn't?" his head cocked to the side in confusion. "But that doesn't make any sense. You were thrashing about and making all sorts of noise and I just a had a dream about-"
"Wait," Mira stopped him. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what? I don't hear anything. Are you sure your not sick?"
Then came the shrieks.
"Maker's mercy!" the human cried as he started to crawl out of the tent. "Darkspawn!" Mira pushed Alistair back into the tent and reached for her bow.
"You are sick. Stay, and that is an order Alistair," Mira climbed from the tent and shuddered at the cool, night breeze as it hit her skin. She was dressed in nothing but a light tunic that reached past her knees. A Dalish should always be prepared. Scolded the voice in her head. "Oh not now..." Mira muttered as she loosened an arrow to the nearest shriek. It was not a terribly long battle but Mira did not move from the front of her tent; Alistair was on his own in there and he was in no shape to fight. Leliana's song trailed down, Wynne was casting healing spells, and the raw scent of burning flesh still hung in the air from Morrigan's flames. The Dalish was about to relax when her eye caught sight of one lone shriek running to the far side of camp. "Not on my watch." she growled as she picked up one of Zev's fallen daggers.
Wait. The voice commanded. Something is wrong Mira...something is off. The elf shook her head. How could anything be off? Just another simple Darkspawn to kill. The shriek had turned away from the Grey Warden, its back hunched over. Mira readied the weapon in her hand. One quick smooth motion and it would be over. The creature turned around.
“You... Lethallin..." was the words that the thing formed from its mouth. Time stood still.
"Tamlen?" Mira asked. Her voice sounded rough and jagged, not giving the owner of the name any justice. Mira could not help it when she reached out to caress Tamlen's cheek, because past the dying skin, and the Darkspawn taint was her Tamlen. Her lover. And nothing would stop her from touching him. Mira did not know what hurt more, Tamlen pulling away or him saying to her:
"Don’t come near me! Stay away!” then Tamlen jolted away. At first Mira stood there, too dumbfounded to move. Mira follow him! panicked the voice. You can not let him get away, we can help him! The voice was right. Of course it was. They could save Tamlen! Mira ran after her lost love.
"Tamlen, Tamlen please!" she called. "Please stop Lethallan!" in so many ways, in so many wrong ways, this whole thing felt like her dream. Tamlen running from her and Mira trying to get him to stop. But this time there was no Alistair to hold her back. Tamlen had chased himself into a trap, surrounded by a rocky wall there was no way out.
"Don’t look at me!” his voice matching Mira's own. Hoarse and painful. “I am sick...” We can cure him Mira. Get him back to Wynne or take him somewhere, just calm him down! The Grey Warden did not need to be told again.
"Tamlen, I can help you! I can do whatever I can to help you. There is no one," she said with a slight twinge of regret. "That will come before you."
"No, no help for me. The song in my head. It...calls to me. He sings to me! I can’t stop it!” Tamlen protested. Help him... It was the first time she had ever heard the voice become desperate. Not sure of itself. Tamlen continued. "Don’t want to hurt you, Lethallin. Please...stop me...”
"Stop you?" Mira had no reason to parrot his words. She knew what he wanted. Tamlen, who had shoved a knife into his body for her. Tamlen, who carried her through the woods for hours not even worrying about his own health. Tamlen, who had loved her. Who still loves you! The voice argued, but it was a weak argument and they both knew that. "I..." she could not even finished the thought.
"Always...loved you..."
The Archdemon then Tamlen. The Alistair in her dream had said. Truer words had never been spoken as Tamlen eyes shut tight together and he lost what little control he had. It was easy to dodge him. It was easy to outmaneuver the talons that had once been hands. It was easy to keep her own blade away from Tamlen. It was not easy ignoring the voice repeating over and over again in a obsessed way: Save him, save him, save him... It was not easy to sink the dagger into his heart. It was not easy to hear the final cry of Tamlen. It was not easy.
The first thing that tore Mira away from her crying as she cradled Tamlen's body was the silence. The voice had not said a word since his death. The Dalish remembered what it had said so long ago: "I am not leaving till you find him." But the voice can't be gone. No, because maybe the creature that she had found was just another Darkspawn and not Tamlen.
"Please, I will do whatever you say. Yell at me, curse me, tell me I am being a Da'len for crying over a Darkspawn," Mira begged out into the night. "Just say something..." No words were said. Mira wailed into the night. She was met by no voice. Tamlen was gone. The Dalish looked down at the body and lifted the torn remnants of his shirt up so that it revealed a trailing scar. A scar that matched her own. Using her thumb she traced the outline of it, subconsciously placing her hand over her side where the same mark lived on the Dalish's body. "Doesn't hurt," she murmured to the cooling corpse. "Doesn't hurt..."
"Mira?" came a hesitant voice. It was Wynne. "I came to see if you had gotten hurt, you've been gone for quite some time now. Oh my! Is everything okay?" the woman asked as she saw the body Mira clung to.
"Go away. I wish to be alone." the mage opened her mouth to protest but closed it. The human knew that she would not be able to move their leader alone. The parade of voices that came after Wynne annoyed Mira. The elf could find fault with every words of comfort thrown at her.
"He is with the Maker now."
'These things...happen..."
"Asschabs!"
Silence.
Sympathetic barking.
"We must move on, there is no time to mourn now."
She knew that Zevran and Alistair watched her from the side. Neither of them had ventured close to her, or said foolish things of sorrow. Mira looked over to them, her face sticky and swollen with dried tears.
"Tamlen..." was all that she found herself saying. Both men knew what it meant. Both knew what had to be done. Mira found herself being torn away from the body by Alistair. She was kicking and screaming, threatening him on many levels. "Do not dare touch him! I will give him the proper burial he deserves."
"You will...just please, Mira, stop kicking." Alistair winced.
"Mira," Zev soothed. "Mira, my dear, please look at me," she did as she was told. "You will. Just take a deep breath. Good, now tell us what happened."
"Tamlen," the Dalish spluttered out. "No voice. Dead..."
It all hit in one, dramatic, horrible, sickening wave. Tamlen was dead.