Dust Calls Dust
Random Idea rattling around my head again.
They say you can never go home again. That if you do, nothing will await you but despair and disappointment. That the longer you spend away from home, seeking fortunes unfamiliar, discovering new glories that never quite measure up, in 'flawless' hindsight, to your home, the dirt you grovelled in and praised. They say that when you find out that what you went looking for, your worshiped, unidentified goal, as distant and alluring as a diamond as the other end of the mine.They say you will eventually realise that you chased a Nug through a Deepstalker hole: You started the hunt. You can keep on trying to achieve what you set out to do, but eventually you will turn back, when the tunnel ahead is simply too narrow.
They lonely few that make it this far, overwhelmed with the realisation of their folly, will then cast their nets around for something to hold on to, some rock on the cliff edge, now that their entire existence is crumbling around them along with their drive and their focus. They throw out their hands, cast out their nets and snag Home.
So they traipse back, with nothing to show for all their blood and toil, all the while telling themselves that home is up ahead, which now fixed in their minds as a beacon of all that is good and right in the world.
Then they reach home, and they find it has all been for naught, for Home is subject to all the realities of the World, and is not somehow exempt from the way the world works because you happened to be born there.
But most never reach home, for on the way back they find a new place to cast the nets of hope, and find themselves inflicted with new purpose and drive.
And they are the lucky ones, for they never find out the ugly truth.
You can never go home.
I can never home.
Isn't that lucky?
I don't want to go home again.
Not that Orzammar ever wanted be there in the first place.
Duster, Brand, Casteless, Dirt. Same insult, different name, but does the word choice matter when they're beating you to the brink of death for fun?
Does it matter what they called my sister when they took her for sport?
Does it matter what this Brand looks like on my face when the function remains the same?
Does it matter to them that we're Criminals, beggars and whores because of their laws?
Does it matter to them that this will never change, ever, because tradition demands it?
Of course it doesn't.
I was just another Duster, Just another Brand. Then I beat them at their own game: Single, one on one honourable combat. Champion of the Proving! All done in plate armour! Plate Armour! Do you have any Idea how heavy that stuff is! I couldn't fight like I normally do! I had to play by someone else's rules, and I still won!
The Grand Proving, celebrating Thirty Years of the Reign of the 'Good King Endrin Aeducan'. Didn't matter to me. Never mattered to Dusters. Never did. Why would we care who's arse warmed the throne of Orzammar when nothing changed for us. Survival, power, influence. Only three things of value in dust town, and coin could buy you all three.
I beat them at their own game. I had just beat some Noble Lordling, I was about to face the King's favourite, his second child, his only daughter. Then it all went wrong! Evard, that Drunken, idiotic Sod, wandered onto the field, wearing nothing but his smallclothes and with enough drink in him to put a bronto under the table.
But Princess Aeducan, intervened, stating (remember that she didn't know I was a brand, with my face concealed beneath my helmet) that I had made it this far, and that I should be allowed to go further. I had taken the place of a man who had not competed, a man still only half coherent, and thus I had given the crowds of Orzammar entrainment that they wouldn't have received had I not been there. She also declared that if I won, I could leave; with the armour, my face concealed, and that, the winner of the Proving would be recorded in the memories as 'The Unknown Warrior'.
I agreed. What choice did I have? To refuse meant death, for me and Rica. Mother as well, but maternal devotion could only stretch so far, and had thus had snapped under the weight of mosswine bottles long ago, and too be brutally honest, if the old bat walked into a pit of lava tomorrow I wouldn't give a single shit.
So I agreed. And we fought. It was long, and it was Brutal, it was the hardest fight I'd ever fought, but by the end I stood victorious, and Aeducan at my feet! She should have one, though, I swear it. She was so fast! And strong too. And yet, for all that, her technique held all sorts of flaws that an amateur could have spotted. But that was because she made it sloppy, I swear it. She left gaps in her guards, blocks ever-so-slightly skewed, footwork that left her ever-so-slightly off balance. I took advantage of her forced imperfections ruthlessly, forcing her sword and shield off her arms and her hands to the gesture of surrender.
She submitted, her pretty face not showing humiliation or anger, as I half expected. Instead, she smiled slightly, the sort of smile I gave myself after some crappy assassination or intimidation job. It was the smile of a Job well done.
So I helped her up, and returned the salute of Warriors: the right hand, in a clenched fist, over the heart.
I turned around, oblivious to the cheers of the crowd, numb to the taste of victory, and walked out of the proving arena.
Out of the Proving Ground.
Out of The Commons.
Out of the Hall of Heroes.
To the Surface.
Because that would be the only road on which I would not be followed.
Because it was only a matter of Time before Beraht joined the dots and sent his loyal Carta Muscle after me. And Rica.
I erred, but only for a moment. No. If I tried to protect her then we would both die, and half of all the Dusters in Orzammar along with us. I could only hope Leske would protect her. Or her mysterious Patron, some stuck up Noble Caste from what she said. Onwards, Upwards, to the Throat of the World, and into foreign air.
A year has passed since then, that fateful day when the unknown warrior won the Glory Proving, then disappeared into the surface sunset. Perhaps I am still remembered, still talked about outside the halls of the Shaperate.
No matter. I have a more pressing need to garner my attention with, a more pressing distraction: I was writing a fucking Elven tale, except instead of noble princesses and dashing knights It was a fucking duster saving a stupid Alienage Elf.
My brief musing and moping session over, I drew my attention back to the crossbow in my gloved hands.
It was made out of whitewood, loaded with Ironbark Bolts with Veridium tips and ready to fire. It looked new, and it fired as well as the day it was made. Ah, the advantages of not having to pay for your weapons.
At my feet was its twin, lifted from the same store, at the same time. Whitewood was light and strong, and an Ideal material for building bows and crossbows. The Carta didn't have many of them, as wood was rare in Orzammar, and more often used for Noble's furniture than weapons and battle. Fools. I had been using these beauties on a number of occasions, and they had never let me down, or missed unless I was the one at fault.
Strapped to my belt were another pair of matched beauties, the smaller siblings of the crossbows. They functioned exactly like the full sized ones, but this pair could be aimed and fired with one hand each. I stole these from the same store, which, alas, was driven out business by my philandering ways.
Strapped to the outsides of my thighs were two racks of steel throwing knives, perfectly balanced for throwing, their handles curved downwards for easy grabbing and thus quicker throwing.
My daggers were strapped to the sides of my shins. They were steel in make, Dwarven in forging. A little taste of home. I had to steal these, as the smith wouldn't 'befoul' his work by selling them to a Brand. I told him there were no castes of the surface, flipped him off, and stole them that night.
Oh well. I would have stolen then anyway.
I was clad in Reinforced Leather armour: Hardened Leather Plates worn over padded linen laced with chainmail. The Armour, which should have been grey, had been dyed midnight black. My helmet, unlike most Light Armour helmets, covered my face until it stopped below my eyes, With the eye holes gauzed over so my eye colour was hidden from the world. Then, the leather curved around the edges of my face, keeping my coal black hair out of view. The helmet then curved up, covering my face completely until the leather came above my mouth, where the leather curved over my nose, concealing and protecting it from harm. The main point was that it provided maximum protection... while leaving my Brand seeable. Many a man in Denerim now bore it, branded like me as Criminals by me. They were the Rapists and the Racists. They who would seek to harm my adopted charges. They will be Branded and be damned in their Maker's eyes.
Completing the ensemble was a black cape, also interlaced with chainmail. On the inside of the cape, depicted in gold, was the casteless brand, over and over again.
These Guards will die. Worthless Thugs, no better than those I used to work for. The Nobles, however... Justice will be more exquisite than death for those three.
I do not fear death. Why should I? Death is the ending of a story or a song, the final bow in a play, sunset on city walls, the torch held to the pyre. Death is Autumn, suffering and dying so life can spring anew. Flowery language aside, I've been hurt enough times to take the pain of dying. I'll be fine.
Can't say the same for this lot.
Sight. Aim. Exhale. Squeeze the Trigger...
With a near silent twang, inaudible even in the deathly silence that the young Lordling's entranceand armed escort had secured, the crossbow bolt sprang from the stock of the bow as if it had the Legion of Steel on its tail. It span through the air gracefully, swiftly embedding itself in the gap between the Left-most guard's helmet and his breastplate with a slight squelch: severing his spine and piercing major arteries in process.
Or so I hoped. I was already tracking the right most guard with the now discarded crossbow's twin, the first having been sent clattering to the ground with not so much as a creak, which belied it's fine make. I swiftly aimed and fired again, this time for the guard on the far right, in exactly the same manner, for exactly the same target. I had hit my mark twice, and both fell, gurgling and spluttering, the metallic tang of their blood leaking out over the dust floor of the Alienage square.
Dropping this crossbow too, secure in the knowledge that my precious beauties were in no danger of breaking or splintering, I sprang from my crouched position, somersaulting in mid-air into the square from my perch, my cape billowing out, Sunlight glinting off Gold. Hands, free from the duty of balancing due to long years of practicing, grabbed my younger set of twins from quick-draw holsters and swung themselves to the perfect position. As soon as my knees bent to take the weight of my body again, dust billowing from the air rushed forth from my landing, my fingers pulled their respective triggers. By the time my feet kissed air again, My youngest had been cast aside, with my hand palming throwing knives.
Leaping forward, it became clear to me that the (now two) remaining guards were starting to realise the fate of their fellow enforcers, but they hadn't got past the conceptual barrier of seeing their moral support dead. Right on schedule.
Then the throwing knives left my hands and embedded themselves in their arrogant, confused, pompous faces, and they thought and lived no more.
I landed, this time on both feet, still silent hands reaching for Dwarven steel. While I could draw my blades without making so much sound as a silent sister, I needed the shock and awe factor that this Lordling knowing your impending doom would give me. So he turned around and what did he see? A figure, clothed and caped in black, drawing well-made daggers, with his guards dead around him. His lordly friends shocked beyond belief. They hadn't even brought swords, by the ancestors.
Vaughan looked around and knew fear.
Unarmed, Unarmoured, outclassed and outmatched, Vaughan fell back on his bluster and his Pride.
"Don't you know who I am?" He asked, his sneer forced, panic and anger intermixed.
"Of Course I do, Bann Vaughan Urien. But you don't know who I am. Only that you will know pain!"
My voice, solid and stoic. Perfectly counterweighted to his panicking pride.