Dragon Age Origins One Shot
Rating: PG-13 for gore and nudity, nothing really sexual though.
Pairing: heavily implied Leliana/FemDalishWarden
She had told them she was scouting.
Long thin legs eat up the distance like a starved crow eats a corpse, old fallen leaves stir underfoot and whisper as they cross through the still air.
"By yourself?" Alistair had been incredulous and fearful, the others looking at her like she was crazy.
Sweet breath is drawn deep into her lungs, whistling past a lolling pink tough and sharp fangs, a thousand different scents clamor at her sharp nose.
She just grinned wickedly at him, her eternally youthful energy coursing through her blood, a fizzling need making her fingers tremble. "Of course not," she dismissed, looking only at Alistair, anyone else in the group could tell her lie if she looked them in the eye. "I'll call some wolves to help, it's their forest, they'll know it better than most dalish."
Never feeling more free, more alive, she bounds over a fallen tree with a single leap, hardly making a sound as she ghosts through the forest. Ears pricked forward, she can hear almost every stir between the trunks and thick underbrush.
"Well, I guess that's okay then…" he looks less than sure, but he gave up any right to contradict her when he let her, a dalish warden barely out of her seventeenth summer, take the reins of their mad quest, and he knows it. "Just don't… don't stay gone too long, or go too far, please? I doubt if anyone in the group would be able to track you through the woods, you being dalish and all that…"
She smells and hears the deer, the rabbits, even the birds in the trees before they even know she's there, and it's a source of pride, knowing that she could hunt, could kill the prey, with ease if she wanted. She senses them scatter from her before she could see them, and she does not pursue, not this time.
"Of course not." It's not pride or arrogance, just the truth. Even if she planned to 'scout' in the way they recognized her, none of them would have a chance of finding her, and given how she planned to run, they wouldn't even have the barest flicker of a trail to follow. "Don't worry so much, lethilan," she flicked him on the head "I'll be back soon."
She slows, paces to a standstill, panting hard, and looks around. It's much like the woods anywhere, she can hear a small brook babbling a short way off, squirrels chatter angrily at her from their trees, the warm breeze plays pleasantly through the strands of her gold coat, for a second, it's as if nothing had changed, as if she would turn and run back to her clan, her family, and pick up her life again.
"Da'len!" she had called over Alistair's shoulder, and the mabari bounded over with as much glee as any puppy, the innocent comparison somewhat ruined by the bandit blood stains that marred his coat and kaddis. "Stay and keep everyone safe, won't you? And if you hear me in trouble, please grab somebody and come help," she had grinned around camp, jovial tone eliciting varying shades of emotional reaction from the group. "even if you have to drag them, you know how they get on rest days."
Da'len had barked agreement and nuzzled for a treat.
The moment is shattered quickly, as the breeze changes direction, turns cold, and sour.
She twists her neck and inhales deeply, recognizing the dread smell even as her blood darkens and vibrates in her veins.
Ears drop back and lips curl away from fangs, an instinctual snarl is in her throat as she reaches, sensing. Hair on the back of her neck rises when she realizes the scent drifts from the way she had come, and under its cloying blackness are the faint traces of much more familiar, pleasant smells, elfroot, oiled armor, antivanleather, Andraste's Grace…
Full throated snarl tearing from her throat, she throws her head back and howls. One long, hard note that cuts through the serenity, she feels the forest scatter at the desperate warning in her call, and all she can do is hope Da'len heard, heard and understood.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to go off on your own?" the question was quiet on the accented tongue, and it had drawn her gaze upon the speaker with unconscious intention.
"Not you too, Leliana." She had laughed, failing to dislodge the fluttering in her belly at the worried look in the shem's- Leliana's- sky blue eyes, unable to look fully into her pretty face, but unable to look away either. The older woman was part of the reason behind her want, her need, to run free, their growing and unspoken feelings for one another playing across her spirit like talons on ice, persistent, painful, altogether too real. "I'll be back swiftly, I promise."
She draws in a huge breath, and then bolts. Her strides longer and more powerful now, heart pounding in her chest as she races back, a thickening blackness pressing tighter at her senses the further she runs.
Her claws tear lines in the soft earth, her ears pitch forward, searching for any sound to tell her what was happening.
Leliana had pursued her lips and glanced at Alistair, who looked conveniently away, apparently aware enough to not want to get between… whatever it was the two of them had. "Alright then, I guess you know what you're doing, just please, be safe."
Far ahead of her, a shout tears through the air, closely followed by several others, paniced yells and war cries, then the deep, mad cackle of darkspawn, and the clash of metal on metal.
She speeds faster still, instinct and feral power pushing her further than she thought possible.
The smells grow stronger, darkspawn blood and gore cloying her nose, the sounds clash together, snarls and spells and steel against steel, the twang and whistle of a bow.
She recognizes where she is, smells her carefully hidden pile of armor and weapons, and dashes right by, there is no time to change, and the time for secrecy is past.
A spiteful howl tears from her, and she bursts through the last forest barrier and into the battlefield camp had become.
And it's suddenly sharp again, no distant thoughts or unrestraint untamed nature, she is Hariel, in her wild body.
She surges forward in one bound and collides with the bulk of a Hurlock bearing down on one of the others –Alistair, judging by the smell of cheese- her muzzle clamps and tears at its throat as the two of them crash to the earth.
She holds tight and gives one viscous shake, hearing and feeling bone break under her grip, before she lets go and bounds to the next target.
Behind her, Alistair yells in confusion, and internally she smirks, even as thick dark blood streams from her teeth and drips to the ground.
There's no time to analyze the field, to rely on tactics or plans, and so it is instinct that guides her when she bowels over a genlock attacking Da'len, and wrenches it's throat open.
The mabari knows her, even in this form, and he moves to intercept an attack from another genlock as she finishes her gruesome chore.
They move in brutal harmony, biting, dragging, tearing at the swarms of genlocks, tooth and claw renting at exposed flesh.
It's only when a graze of burning barley misses her shoulder and lands behind her that she looks beyond the ragged ranks and spots the unmistakable headdress of a Hurlock emissary.
A short snarl is all it takes to command Da'lens attention, and the two of them disengage the weaken grunts to charge the spell caster, their every step synchronized.
Without words, without command or intent, they fall upon the emissary together.
She leaps mightily, front paws stretched out, claws tearing and gripping at the flimsy garb, body falling hard against chest and torso. Below, Da'len's raw bulk slams the darkspawn's legs, his mighty jaw crunching bone in one easy bite.
The crash to earth is hard enough to dislodge her perch, and she scrambles back around, lunges for the downed foe, Da'len's grip unwavering against the weak struggles.
This one lasts longer than the others, using magic to try and batter them away, to heal its wounds, but their shared onslaught makes its efforts useless, and it takes her a few moments of biting and tearing to realize that it had stopped fighting back, stopped moving at all.
She pulls back, her mouth raw and thick and sour with darkspawn blood, scratches from the emissaries nails burning under her coat, but if she's received any other wounds, the adrenalin keeps her from feeling them. She takes a split second to look over the others, to consider her next move, even now she feels the battle nearing it's end, their enemies ranks chiseled to nearly nothing, her friends all still standing strong.
Rushing forward again, Da'len a step behind, she effortlessly brings down a Hurlock stalking behind Oghren, and manages to move out of the way when the dwarf pivots and brings his hammer down on the darkspawn, hearing the bones crack under the blow.
Oghren spots her and their gazes lock for a moment, the man's stupefied stare made comical by the slather of ichor on his skin.
"What the…?"
She only hears his raspy question in passing, darting on to latch onto the back of yet another hurlock's neck.
The Hurlock drops both weapons and abandons it's attempt to disembowel Leliana, flailing in what would have seemed to be a comical manner to try and dislodge her from its back.
The poor angle prevents her from a quick kill, so she sinks her teeth as deeply as she can and hangs, waiting.
A single cry of distress is all the warning she gets before her ride slumps forward, it's legs having been taken out by Da'len. She gets her footing in seconds and twists, hearing the satisfying 'crack' between her teeth.
As she dismounts the corpse, she can tell the battle is over, and glancing around, confirms her suspicion as she watches Sten cut cleanly through the last live darkspawn, adding to the already large pile of corpses on a formally pretty clearing.
Panting hard, but exhilarated, she reciprocates Da'len's playful licks and nips, her eyes counting off her comrades as they tend to themselves with after-battle checks.
It takes less than five seconds for the attention of everyone to be on her, in no small thanks to Oghren's cry of,
"Where'd the bloody gold dog come from? Why don't you people warn me about these, these critters! I about crushed the sodding thing!"
Well, juding by the sudden zeroing in of attention on her, it doesn't seem like anyone is too badly hurt.
"That's no dog, fool dwarf." Morrigan snipes, striding forward, though still stopping a good few yards from her.
"No indeed, that's a wolf." Wynne looks warily at her, leaning against her staff, stance tired but unhurt.
Oghren snorts. "Dog, wolf, what's the difference if I accidentally smash it into a bloody puddle on the ground?"
"Quite a lot, actually, one being that wolves don't normally attack darkspawn without provocation, and certainly not to help a bunch of random humans." Alistair picks his way over the bodies, and she notices with some discomfort, that he still has his sword drawn.
Da'lan 'harrumphs' at them, and sits next to her, a good half a foot taller than her even while sitting. She is amused that he seems less than impressed at their failure to recognize her, and is struck again by the deep wisdom of the dog.
Leliana's moves forward, squinting at her, and she feels her tail wag, without express permission, it's annoying. "Is it one of Hariel's wolves, then? The ones she calls from the woods?"
"Isn't the esteemed warden usually around when her wolves are? I can't imagine she has enough control over them to send them off to battle without her, they aren't exactly as local as our mabari friend there."
It's her turn to 'harrupm' at them irritably, Zevran's intentional insult notwithstanding, she's growing tired of the conversation, and knows them all well enough to know that it will go on for some time if not interrupted.
Relaxing, she turns her thoughts inward and reaches for that spark, that imbue magic all dalish are born with, brushes against it, and then lets go of her wolf body.
"do you think we should-"
Alistair's question died on his lips when her body shifts. There is no flash, no whispering sound, no overt magic at play, she just sort of molts from one body to another.
It's not painful, not like it was when she was a child. Her muzzle recedes into her skull, teeth shrinking, flattening, limbs stretching, huge paws lengthening into thin hands and fingers. Her gold fur pulls back into her body, pale skin untarnished and completely bare to the air. Her tail recedes, the bones shrinking away and withdrawing back to support her thicker elven spine.
The transformation, smooth, like a busy stream flowing into a still lake, takes only a few seconds, and then she's standing upright on her two legs, bare to the world, head tilted slightly back as her ears finish their quiet change.
There's a moment of unreal stillness, before she inhales sharply, every muscle tensing and then relaxing in one continuous motion, adjusting back to this, her birth form, no more natural or right than her wolf one.
She drops her eyes from the sky to look at the group, uncaring at her nudity, smirking at the shock on every face, even Morrigan looks flabbergasted, no small feat.
She enjoys the moment a little longer than necessary, before intervening over any questions or accusations.
"What? You didn't think people fear the dalish simply because we are viewed as barbarians, did you?" she settles her burning look on Leliana, who has recovered enough to blush deep red and is attempting to stare only at her tattooed face.
Knowing that her eyes still glitter golden, she stalks slowly towards the redhaired bard, victory glee still ripe in her blood and devil-may-care attitude turned on high. "Every child born in a dalish camp had at least one gift of magic, and while not as impressive as Morrigan's shapeshifting," she nods at the witch in passing, "my gift is of shared-spirit, meaning besides my own body, I have also the form of a wolf."
Leliana doesn't move as she approaches, though she can see her swallow, hear the catch in the taller woman's throat.
No words here, no smart comment as she moves into the bard's personal space and further, pressing her bare self lightly against the form fitting leather armor, tilts her head up, and catches Leliana's lips in a possessive kiss.
Leliana's slow to react, and when she starts to tentatively reach for Hariel, she pulls back, wicked grin still in place.
Action, always action, the wolf in her knew this, it was just a matter of remembering it.
She turns from the shell shocked Leliana and places her hands on her hips, completely ignoring the keening sound Alistair has started to emit, or the way Zevran's eyes trail over her body.
"Well, damn, now we'll have to move camp again." She pushes a strand of short blonde hair from her eyes and sighs. "I'm going to go grab my things, and when I get back we'll start packing."
She moves off without another word, Da'len trotting happily at her heels. There will be intense conversation later, she's sure, questions too, and she'll grin and be glib and bear it like she always does but…
She glances over her shoulder and meets the smoldering sky blue gaze of Leliana, and suppresses the urge to shiver.
But maybe she'll have something really fun to look forward to afterwards.
AU in which all Dalish have some magic, Harieal Maheariel is a 'shared-spirit', meaning she can shape shift into a wolf (not werewolf, straight up wolf), neither fact is known by large, and not to the blight group.
Inspired by www.*youtube* *watch?v=PVzljDmoPVs&list=FLMPnx6fb4wFT2sC8UXYDXhQ&feature=mh_lolz
Really quick one-shot done in one evening, title is Elvish for Wolf Spirit.