This is the story of how the Dalish took a human infant.
Hahren, you are saying, that is a shemlen lie! We steal no quickling children. What would we even need them for?
Ah, I did not say steal. Come, and listen.
Long ago, a woman of the People was out hunting when she heard the sound of an infant crying. She followed the sound and found the child, red-faced from screaming, her thick arms and legs striking strongly at the air.
This was deep in the woods. There was no reason for a babe to be there, alone and naked, unless it had been left to die. The hunter felt Mother Mythal's gaze upon her, and she knew she could not leave the innocent child to perish. Whatever the shemlen had done to us in the past, this helpless creature had nothing to do with it. So the child was brought back to the aravels, where the Keeper named her Avalyn. A woman who was still nursing her own son offered to foster the babe, and so the Keeper gave Avalyn to her and her bonded husband.
Avalyn grew quickly. She picked up her first bow when her brother began to learn, even though he was two years older than she. With her sling, she caught more hares than any other child. When it came time for her to learn to defend herself with dar'misu, she was too big and strong to spar with the other adolescents - she knocked them over easily, bruising flesh and breaking skin. The Keeper asked the clan's best warriors to train her, and she dueled with dar'missan and round shield until she was the equal of them all. And then, she was their better.
By then, Avalyn well understood that she was not like her brother, nor her mother and her father. She was much taller and much heavier than any of her clan. At her parents' request, her trainers ran with her to the edge of a human village, to show her the shemlen.
"Am I then one of those?" she asked her parents when she returned. "One of the shemlen who have ruined our people?"
"You are quick, like the hare or the hawk," her father said. "And you are my child."
"Mother Mythal brought you to us," said her mother. "By her will, you are of the People."
Reassured, Avalyn remained with her clan, taking her vallaslin with her brother. But memories of the human village remained with her, and she became curious to know more about them. When the clan camped within two days' ride of a great city, she frequently lingered at the forest's edge to watch the people come and go. One day, she returned home, much excited.
"Mother, Father!" she said. "There is to be a ritual battle in the human city. There will be many tests of skill. I would like to go, to test myself against the humans."
Her mother shook her head. "They will see your vallaslin and know you for a Dalish. Our gods offend theirs, and you will not be permitted in the city."
"Then I shall wear a helmet in their style, that conceals my face."
Her father frowned. "You should not conceal your face. We wear our marks with pride."
But her mother hushed him. "She should see how the humans fight, and perhaps she will learn things that will be good for our warriors to know. Surely, none of us could enter their combat with such a disguise. We are too small, we would be spotted as elves. And her trainers say that she needs to test her blade against stronger opponents."
"Very well," her father relented. "But I mislike it."
The clan prepared fine armor for Avalyn, and a sword made in the human fashion, straight-edged and long. She walked from the forest to the road and along the road into the city.
She did not return. Her brother, waiting for her by the forest's edge, overheard from passers-by that she had defeated all comers in the ritual combat save one, and as she was about to vanquish him as well, he broke the traditions of the ritual. Rather than best her with his weapon, he bore her to the ground. This was shameful, a mark on his honor, and in anger he slew her. Her body had been burned, as the humans do. Her family grieved and the aravels quickly moved from that place, and her parents wished that they had never shown her the shemlen.
Before you draw your lessons from this tale, hear one thing more: the son of the Keeper of the Orlesians had been at the ritual combat, and he too had been defeated by Avalyn. He knew her prowess, and was angry with the warrior who killed her. When he became Keeper, he did her great honors, such that fighting Orlesian women today revere a Dalish warrior for her strength and skill.
Even if they say she was Orlesian.