Author's Note: The more I work with Fianna, be it in This is War or her cameos in other pieces, or the sequel to TIW (working on it, really!) the more I see of her past. So I decided I wanted to write her origin story, only I wanted to go to her real origin, if that makes sense. This will be fairly short, and follow her through some key scenes in her life. I'm trying to tie in the cameos from Sneaking, telling it from her perspective, and cut down on the flashbacks she has in the in-progress sequel to TIW. Mostly she's such a pain in the butt that it's fun to write her and see how and why she's that way. So without further ado...
Rogue Heart
Chapter 1: In The Shadows
The air smells of the ocean; the wind sounds of seagulls. Fianna looks out the carriage window, squinting into the sunlight. She shifts onto her knees and sticks her head out the open window, inhaling the freshness.
"Fianna, sit like a lady, dear," Mum says, arms around her waist with a firm grip. She pulls Fianna back inside the carriage and sets her on her rear, then smoothes the ugly yellow dress over her knobby knees. Mum gazes down at Fianna with kind blue eyes, and Fianna looks away. She'd rather be out playing, but her parents insist on taking her to Highever. Fianna tugs on one auburn braid, and Mum gently pulls her hand away. "Nan worked hard on your hair, dear. Don't muss it." Her voice is kind but her eyes have grown stern. Fianna knows the look well.
Across from her Fergus sits tall next to their father. He's eleven, but his dark hair and eyes and serious expression and posture make him look older. Their father's hair is graying rapidly, and he has facial hair but aside from that Fergus is a smaller copy of Teyrn Bryce Cousland of Highever. But he gives her a slight smirk when Da isn't looking. Fianna sticks her tongue out at him, but Mum sees and nudges her, hard. Fergus sticks his tongue out, but of course Mum and Dad miss it. Fianna huffs a sigh and leans back, her feet hanging off the edge of the carriage seat.
Fianna wriggles her feet in her smart leather shoes, tugs on one braid, and chews on the end of another. Fianna starts to think she'd rather be at Chantry listening to Mother Mallol than in this carriage, but then the horses stop and she scrambles to her knees to look outside.
No more grass, and the sky is farther away than before and smaller, though Fianna can't understand how. She leans out and stares, mouth gaping, at the walls of gray stone reaching for the blue sky. Horses stir up dust and people run about in the dust, talking too rapidly and too much for Fianna to make out what they're saying, or understand what any of it means. She's overcome by the reds and greens, the blues and tans and browns; gone is the relative silence of the wind and the gulls.
She loves it.
"Come, Fianna," Da says, taking her hand and pulling her from the window. Fianna hesitates on the top step of the carriage, and Da wraps his arms around her waist and hefts her onto his hip. Mum looks like she's about to say something, but Da just shakes his head and carries her along the road. "Thank you for greeting us, Seneschal Cameron," he says to a man who walks alongside them.
Seneschal Cameron nods his thinning, blond head. "Teyrn Cousland, your family's comfort is my duty and my pleasure. How fares the Teyrna and young Ser Fergus?"
"They are well. This is our youngest, Fianna," Da says, pausing and turning so the man named Cameron can see Fianna. He bows his head again and reaches out his hand to her, but Fianna turns away. He's boring. She wants to see more of the people massing behind the family, watching them. They cast glances full of awe. They whisper to one another with eyes turned on Da. A little boy stands nearby, staring with wide eyes. Fianna waves at him, and he turns and runs away.
She's glad Da is carrying her; if she had to walk she wouldn't be able to see everything. People greet Da, and Cameron scribbles things down on a small piece of parchment with a short piece of charcoal. Fianna is nearly dizzy with all there is to take in; there's so much more than she's ever seen at the castle, and she thought that was the busiest place in the whole world.
Da sets her down outside a doorway and bends to one knee. He holds both her hands in his own and stares into her eyes. She can't look away from Da's serious gaze. But then he smiles. "Fianna, this is Highever. This is one of the most important cities in Ferelden, and it is the city our family has ruled for many hundreds of years." She nods, her eyes wide. "As you grow up, you'll learn that you have a very important part to play in this country. This is just the first of many visits you will make." He rises and takes her hand, guiding her into a building. Mum and Fergus walk ahead of them. "Fergus, can you tell your sister why we're here today?" he asks.
Da releases Fianna's hand and joins Mum, while Fergus hangs back. "Highever's so big," Fianna whispers, looking around the stone hallway. Strong men in armor shove the heavy wooden doors closed behind them. The darkness closes around them and she stops, but Fergus tugs at her hand.
"Denerim's bigger," he says. "But Brother Aldous hasn't taught you about Denerim yet."
"It's the capital city," she snaps, wresting her hand from her brother's grip.
"Whatever," Fergus says with a sigh, as if being asked to explain the day's proceedings to his five-year-old sister is the most sufferable job in the world. "There's a debate over orchard boundaries on the Highever-Amaranthine border." He speaks as if he knows everything about it. Fianna thinks he's just repeating what he overheard Da say.
Fergus drags Fianna to a hard wooden bench toward the front of the massive hall they are now in. It's even bigger than the hall at the castle. Skylights cut in the heavily beamed ceiling let in streaming sun, filling the room with puddles of light. Mum and Da sit in big wooden chairs, though they're not as big as the chairs in the hall at home. Fergus sits down and watches intently; Fianna sits too, her legs too short to do much more than hang off the edge of the bench same as they did in the carriage.
Trumpets blast and people say something about honor and the Cousland family and the village of Highever. Fianna stares at the ceiling, then her eyes rove down to the people around her. Mum and Da have serious faces while they sit in their chairs; next to her, Fergus leans forward. She's not sure if he's really interested or just pretending. All Fianna knows is she's bored. She sighs and Fergus shoots her an angry look.
Sometimes she catches people looking at her, and she stares at them until they look away. But that's only fun for so long. She slides down the bench so she can see into the aisle. Fergus stares at Mum and Da. Two men stand in front of Mum and Da, and they sound like they're arguing. Mum and Da are focused on them. Fianna keeps her eyes on them as she slides to the floor in her yellow dress. She crawls down the aisle on her hands and knees, pausing to look back, but no one is following her. And most of the people in the rows of benches are watching what's happening, hardly mindful of a bored little girl crawling among them.
In the dark foyer she watches the guards. They don't seem interested in much of anything, but she knows if she asked them to let her out they would march her right back to her parents. It's happened more than once in the castle, after all. Still, hiding in the shadows is better than sitting in the great hall and listening to people talk about stuff she doesn't get.
The doors creak and light slices across the foyer. She stands up straighter as the door opens more and Cameron enters, muttering to himself: something about landholders and shopkeepers and petty squabbles. Fianna doesn't think. She just makes a break for it, her auburn braids flying out behind her and her hazel-green eyes trained on the light. She grabs her skirt and pulls it up so she can run without it tangling around her ankles, the way Nan does when she's chasing a hound out of the larder.
Cameron yelps in surprise as the yellow blur streaks past him. He grabs for Fianna's arm but she laughs and dodges. She runs the way the Mabari puppies do, mouth wide with laughter, eyes sparkling with the joy of freedom. She runs with the wind rushing past her ears in a wild roar and the blurs of colors flying by her eyes, too fast to focus on. She runs until she can't run anymore, her legs aching and her lungs bursting.
Fianna stops suddenly and looks around. She's still in the city. After running so long she would have thought she would be out of the city and running toward the coast now, but no. Highever is even bigger than she thought! The houses around her are low with thatched roofs. The scent of fire permeates the air, and the sound of ringing echoes through the street. It sounds like the smithy just outside the castle stables.
Fianna ducks under a rough-hewn wooden rail to get closer to the building. Her leather shoes squelch into deep mud. Her toe catches on a rock and she pitches forward, but the mud is soft and breaks her fall. Fianna gets to her knees, the cool damp soaking through her skirt. She looks down at the dirt covering her frock. Mum and Nan will be mad, but Fianna hates yellow anyway, and the dress looks better this way to her. She gets to her feet and slogs toward the back door.
She leans against the whitewashed wall of the smithy, leaving a small muddy handprint in her wake. She squints into the darkness, the flickering flames mesmerizing her. She watches the burly blacksmith: sweat runs down through the dust on his huge arms. The hammer falls to the anvil, sending up a shower of sparks like bright flowers that disappear as quickly as they appear.
The smith turns, holding the white-orange blade out at arms' length. He plunges it into a tub of water with a hiss that sends up a cloud of steam. Fianna imagines that's the noise a dragon would make. Someday she'll see a real dragon, she knows it.
There's another man standing against the dark wooden pillar in the center of the room, watching the smith work. "How much longer?" His voice is gruff. The fires cast shadows over his scarred face.
"Soon, ser," the smith says, lifting a weapon from the water. Fianna squints. It's much shorter than Da's sword, but longer than the fighting knife Fergus has been permitted to train with. Water streams down the metal, which gleams in the orange light. "This is the last one. The first blade is on the weapon rack."
The scarred man limps over to the rack and draws his first blade. Even in the dim orange light Fianna can see him smile. He grips the blade in his black-gloved hand and tries a few parries and thrusts with it while the blacksmith sharpens the second blade's edge.
Fianna is torn between edging into the room, keeping to the shadows, and running back to the boredom. The danger is thrilling, but scary.
She thinks of home: the Mabari pens, her big bed, the treats Nan gives her. This man exudes none of the happiness. She should run but she can't. She ran too far, too fast earlier, and now she's paralyzed by the fear. She holds her breath. Maybe he won't hear her breathe. Maybe he won't hear her heartbeat, but it's so loud in her ears that he must hear it, too.
Fianna backs up. The mud sticks to her feet, holding her close to the ground and making walking too hard. Her eyes lock on the two men. Scarred Man takes the second blade and twirls the both of them with the ease that Da swings his sword. The silver blades move too quickly for her to see them. But she does see the bright shining wetness that blossoms across the blacksmith's chest and the way his eyes bulge. Red blood trickles out of his mouth and drips to the ground when he looks down at the daggers piercing his stomach.
Scarred Man yanks the blades out and the smith falls to his knees. "These will do nicely. Thanks, mate." He wipes the blades off on his trouser leg and sheathes them. Fianna turns and trips in the mud. She yelps in surprise and struggles to her feet as Scarred Man appears in the doorway. "What have we here?" he asks, smiling, but there's no kindness behind it. Fianna hikes up her skirt and runs, ducking under the railing again and heading in any direction but toward the blacksmith's. Her legs ache but she keeps running, goaded on by her fear. If Scarred Man will stick his knives into the blacksmith, she's sure he'll do it to her, too.
She's blinded by exhaustion and fear when she slams into another person. She doesn't stop to see who it is before taking off again. Strong arms catch her around the waist and she screams. Scarred Man will find her and stick a knife in her belly. "Fianna, darling, it's me. It's Mum," the voice says, but Fianna slams her fists into this person who must be lying. Mum wouldn't stop her and let Scarred Man catch up with her!
"Fianna, you're a sight," Mum says, struggling to hold onto the flailing girl. "We looked all over the city for you! Only to find you've been playing in the mud!" She swings Fianna around so she can look at her properly. Only then can Fianna see it really is Mum, and she won't let anything happen to her. Of course, she won't be happy about the mud now covering the bodice of her violet dress, and even though she seems happy to have found Fianna, she's not pleased about the mud all over Fianna's once-yellow dress and encrusted in her braids.
"Teyrna Eleanor! I wasn't aware you and your family were coming to the city today." Fianna glances up and sees Scarred Man bowing low before her family.
"Ser Alrik. It's been too long. I thought you'd joined the templar order?" Mum says, polite as always, but Fianna hears the strain in her voice. "We came to present our youngest, Fianna, after the hearings, but as you can see she's hardly presentable." She shifts Fianna in her arms, but Fianna buries her face in Mum's neck. Scarred Man, or Ser Alrik, won't do anything now that he knows she's the Teyrn's daughter. But before he knew that he would have hurt her. And that's what scares her.
Mum takes her to the carriage instead of back to the hall. "This is no way for a future Teyrna to behave," she says. "You are to remain in sight at all times and learn your place." It's too abstract for Fianna to understand. All she knows is she watched a man kill another, and get away with it. And he knows who she is and where she lives. That is not too abstract for her.
Da lets two horses with the excuse that he's going to teach Fergus more advanced riding on the way home. Fergus shoots Fianna a pitying look from the back of his reddish brown gelding; he waves, and she just pouts as tears streak through the dried dirt on her face. As the horses plod their way to the castle she watches the fragrant orchards of Highever pass by while Mum lectures on what it means to be a Cousland. "Fianna, look at me when I speak to you," she says. Her voice is firm, though no longer angry. "Our family is very old and well-respected. We have a history, and thus a reputation to maintain. Someday you may represent Highever, and the Couslands, in front of all of Ferelden. Right now you may think you're just a little girl, but you're a little Cousland girl, and that has meaning."
That night Fianna dreams of the Scarred Man; she stares into the dark corners of her room, expecting to see him appear, wielding his daggers. She wants to learn to use daggers of her own so she can fight him.
But the next day Mum has Brother Aldous begin teaching her to write "Lady Fianna Cousland", and her unsteady hand scrawls unsightly letters all over clean parchment. When news of the blacksmith's death reaches the castle gate, she is the only one unsurprised, and she uses the excitement to sneak away from her lessons to go see the Mabari puppies.