Pink
"You're born to wear a branded face in Orzammar, and you'll live your life in Dust Town."
From the youngest of ages you know you're casteless. You think it is normal to eat only once every few days, perhaps, and you've seen no cleaner blankets or clothes to think they could be less stiff and dusty. But you are not young for long. In Dust Town, you run with the carta if you want anything better than an arse sore from the stone where you plopped it when you decided to try begging today. Tadanza knew what the carta was about. As soon as she was old enough to walk the streets they came asking about her, but she always did her best to avoid them. After a while they stopped caring, assumed she wouldn't even make it to twenty; and if you asked the blonde-haired little not-so-innocent, she'd have said they made it their purpose to ignore her.
They trained their noble-hunters, taught them to read and speak well, groomed them and dressed them in fine fabrics. The carta girls had a number of things she did not have. Perhaps she was dumb to think she could get along with a pretty face, a straight row of teeth, and a neat braided bun. It didn't take long to learn the ropes of batting the old eyelashes. Kissing arse, it's not hard if it's what you do for a living. But that living is meager when the only people that will look your way are from the servant caste. Meager was all right, though, wasn't it? She had no need to be under Beraht, or whatever damned crime lord was running the show. Tadanza ate, she drank, she took beds where she found them. But she never got pregnant. For three years, and several suitors – the stone had given her sodding nothing for luck with fertility. Worse, she didn't know if it was the bleeding dusters that bedded her or, Stone forbid, herself.
This thought was the first crack in her foundation. She'd tumbled with absolute scum, just for the chance to move up one peg in the rank, and she'd nothing to show for it. She still hadn't even learned to read. No, Tadanza had nothing at all. Just a mostly-empty tin of red colour for her lips. Things got harder from there, too. The pickings had been slim as it were, and now that she'd shown her pretty face enough, she was 'known' - which made her undesirable, or something. It didn't seem like she had a choice.
This was verified when, four days later, she found herself selling the back tooth from the left side of her mouth just for enough to eat a few days. That night, in her corner under a crumbled archway in Dust Town, she quietly cried. It wasn't the pain from her tooth, though that wasn't exactly helping. She'd failed as a noble-hunter. … No, not even a noble-hunter, just a sodding prostitute, and now she was nearly eighteen. She knew what she had to do, what was left. The next day, she found Beraht.
It wasn't easy to convince him, and for what she can remember of the event it involved a lot of sobbing and begging and offering of herself. Honestly, she blocked it out. And the beating to put her in her place, or punish her for not having gotten in her place when she turned sixteen (like most dwarves they'd line up as noble-hunters.) He didn't have any damn use for some lowlife whore, no noble would have a sodding tumble with her for their life. He hardly would, … and any number of other insults you could imagine. But Tadanza begged and begged, and finally – he agreed. Sort of. She would not be a noble-hunter, but she would become a thug for them. And if she didn't survive the effort, then sod if he cared.
The offer was … something, at least, and with nothing but that mostly-empty container of lip colour and ten copper to her name, she accepted out of desperation if nothing else.
Some nights, even though she now had a cot to sleep in, and a blanket, she assumed she wasn't going to wake up the next day. The nights when Beraht had a tumble with her she really thought she wasn't going to wake up the next day. But for all the beatings and exhaustion, it was living, and she'd even learned to fight. One would need to give her some credit for trying to be optimistic. She'd made it to eighteen, hadn't she? And then she'd made it to nineteen, somehow.... And after a year, it seemed like she couldn't remember any other life but beating the sodding rocks out of anyone Beraht didn't like.
But then, one day, Beraht wasn't there anymore. Some dwarf – some sodding duster - that she didn't know up and killed the sot, and there was Jarvia in the lousy scumbag's place. What the hell could she say in complaint? Nothing, that's sodding what. Things had changed, anyways. She had armor now, and a two-handed mace. A proper one, not those half-arsed twigs they called daggers that she got when she started this path. She liked to think that if a Warrior caste dwarf walked up to her, she might be able to give him what for. Without the occasional tumbles from Beraht, life almost looked good. Though, Jarvia was … strict. Or maybe not so much strict as more, … proactive than Beraht. Tadanza had more to beat and less to bed, and that was fine on her.
But Tadanza was still a pretty face, and one night the job she got assigned sent her away from Jarvia's base. She was twenty now, and as much a part of the carta as one could be. And if Jarvia says 'sleep with this merchant', it's what you do. Even if you don't want to – even if you'd rather drink your own sodding vomit. There was a Grey Warden in Orzammar, she'd heard that on her way through the commons, but she didn't care. Tomorrow she'd be sleeping in her cot, back in her armor instead of this ridiculous dress, and life would go on like usual. Her possessions had grown, too. She now held a fingerbone token, three silvers, a comb, a hair pin, and a newly filled little tin of red lip colour. Granted, most of that was on loan for tonight.
The next day, sore and irritated, but with a sovereign to toss at Jarvia, she went back to the Dust Town entrance to the Carta ready to open the lock with that token. But the door was not locked. This was not just strange, this was not right. She found her initial reactions were correct as she continued through the halls. Death, everywhere. And worse, when she got to the bunks, her sodding chest had been unlocked and her armor was gone! Jarvia. Jarvia must still be alive. Wrought with panic, Tadanza ran the halls to the center of the headquarters.
The door burst open onto a scene of corpses, some charred by the explosive traps Jarvia liked to use as insurance against uprisings. This should be good news, right? That among those corpses just so happened to be Jarvia, that Tadanza was free of the Carta. Right?
Wrong. She fell to her knees. What would she do now? Oh, Stone sod it all, she was screwed. Her life, her livelihood, all a bloody rotten mess that reeked of decay. She didn't know how to find these 'jobs' that fed and clothed her, she just knew how to do them. Who was going to pull the strings now? She was reminded of that time she cried herself to sleep, and how bloody horrible she'd felt then, too. The crack in her foundation grew, and she broke one of the bloodied daggers from the cold corpse of a dwarf with brown corn rows. Sending herself to the stone, it seemed like a good idea. But she couldn't do that. She had to do something though... something, she needed to act out, hurt something, hurt someone, herself even, anything at all. She was sobbing at this point, and somehow, somewhere in all that mess, she decided that what she would do was cut that sodding braided bun clear off her head, that blonde hair seemed like it was the center of all of her problems. If she'd learned to be a warrior sooner, instead of running off as a prostitute, maybe she would have picked up enough on how to actually take care of herself.
It didn't do much to comfort her. As she leaned over to sob more a curtain of blonde hair, shoulder-length at best and jaggedly cut, pooled around her face.
Her life continued in this depressing fashion for almost another year; her twenty-second birthday coming upon her. She found gold here and there, and the sovereign she had from that fateful night had lasted her months, used frugally and protected as though her life depended on it. She had scavenged armor and a two-handed sword from Carta stashes, and those helped in finding business. But her hair remained short and jagged, cut only with dull daggers, maybe to remind herself of the pain of the night she first cut away that braided bun. Her hair had become an obsession, strange as it may seem. Eventually she took to growing out just enough to tie back two pigtails at the base of her neck, mostly because of some ribbon she'd found in a gutter.
But things were never as good as they'd been in the Carta. Even with Bhelen on the throne, Dust Town didn't hear much of it. Not yet anyways. And with the Carta wiped out, there were even fewer people there, and even less (if you could believe it) revenue between the dusters. Prostitute, warrior, it didn't make any difference it seemed. Or maybe, she wasn't able to be optimistic anymore.
She was breaking. Real warriors would have learned to use these feelings, how to turn them into rage, to fight as berserkers and run down their foes with terrifying ease. Of course, real warriors would actually have things to fight with some frequency. And an income, and food and warmth and perhaps a family.... This was the cycle she was plagued by, day after day, her thoughts and bitterness maddening. Just an everyday story for a duster.
'Til that one day that isn't like every day. For all the shit and carnage she waded through every day of her life 'til now, today trumped it all. She should have stayed in Dust Town, but today she decided to venture out into the commons. Maybe get a meal from someone, if she was lucky. Her chain-mail was tattered, her boots worn through in places at the bottoms. Carta used to pay to fix the armor; all she could do without them would be wear it 'til it fell right off. At least her sword would last. Or would it? The crazed up duster felt a tug at the leather that held the sword on her back and she wheeled around to see why. It was a warrior, a proper warrior from the proper caste, with a look so smug on his face it made her want to spit on him. She scowled as he berated her about worth and value and all those things the higher castes think they know about, and it got her in a whirl, a mental uproar, and she got swept up in the current. And..., and before she knew it, that sodding twit was split in twain. She stared a moment. It wasn't the first time she'd killed someone, but … this was the middle of the commons. There were witnesses, and she was casteless.
The guard was on her, and she panicked. She swept her sword wide, cutting or knocking back the patrol of four enough that she was able to run. Her last worthwhile possession, her sword, fell to the ground with a clatter. Tadanza knew nothing but death waited for her now, so she ran. She ran like she'd never run before, knocking over a merchant's stall on the way. She barged past the guards at the entrance to the deep roads, knocking one clear off his feet, and then she was gone - into the darkness. Orzammar probably figured it was just as well, that she was good as gone.
But they were wrong. Tadanza only came across one darkspawn, a hurlock with a sword not unlike the one she'd just thrown aside. In her desperation she managed, somehow, to beat the darkspawn til it dropped the sword, and then she was able to kill it. But one darkspawn was just the beginning of her troubles. They may send a squad out, they'd find her. But there'd be more darkspawn farther in the tunnels. Her crazed mind swirling, she latched onto a fleeting thought. No, not a thought, this was real. That was sunlight. Sunlight – outdoors – topside. Sky. Tadanza struck her sword against the stone to create a footing to climb on, clumps of the reddish stuff falling to the ground. This gave her pause. Red, like her makeup. Her hand ran across the stone. For a moment, her mind cleared. This colour had meaning. Red had brought her through everything, it had marked her as a prostitute and it had reminded her of her roots as a Carta thug. She still carried a mostly-empty tin of it. So, she looked down to see the clumps she had knocked off the wall. As she was shoveling them into her bag, she noticed something in the dirt. Dark metal. Gauntlets, with bones still inside them. They were heavy, so they did not rot in the dirt.
But, did she hear footsteps? Her heart raced, and her mind began to swirl again. She shoved the gloves, bones and all, into her bag and struck again at the stone. When enough footing was cut for her to climb, she veritably scampered towards the sunlight. The chain-mail she wore did not survive the tight squeeze out of the tunnel, and she heard the tearing of her small clothes, too. But she was out in the air, if cut and damaged. It was all she could do to not dally here, dizzied by all the oxygen, nearly blinded by the sky. She kept running, into the forest and away from Orzammar 'til she simply passed out.
It was a clanking sound that reminded her of the forge that woke her. Tadanza stirred slowly, groaning at the brightness that besieged her eyelids. The sound had gone now, and merely the ambient noises of the forest met her ears. Each of these sounds was as interesting as the last, and for a time, her mind was calm as she tried to listen to each one. She recognized one sound, the sound of water, and followed it. The brook was clear and perfect, and the water was the sweetest she had tasted. It made her realize the state she was in. She cast off the remains of the breastplate that had been wrecked in her escape, and finished the job of tearing the sleeves from her shirt. They had barely been hanging on. As though on an impulsive twitch, her hand flew back to check her pigtails, to be sure she still had both ribbons; and as quickly as it came, the panic was gone. Tadanza took the time to wash up, and cleaned the gauntlets she had found. She used her ruined sleeves to wrap a gash on her arm that required such attention, then stood to consider her surroundings anew. Her bag lighter, hands in new gauntlets, and stolen sword affixed to her back by that ever-wearing strap of leather, she began to explore.
It came to pass that the clanking sound caught her ear again. Tadanza followed it, ignoring as ever, the gnawing of hunger at her gut. She found herself spying on what appeared to be a human version of a smithy. She was reminded of castes, and her face twitched into a scowl from the bitterness. But wait, something caught her eye in a pile at the back of the store. Something shiny and silver. Cautiously, Tadanza crept forward, rooting as quietly as possible through the pile of filth she'd found. There, beneath a burnt and disgusting sheet of linen, several weeks of rotten food, and a bag whose bottom had broken out, she found a set of armor. It looked masterful to her, she who had never worn anything better than a duster's armor, and she could not in the least fathom why someone would throw it out. Before the smith made to change his mind, she gathered it up and ran back to her brook.
One leg was a little too short, and there were a number of hammer dents in the chest piece. It was probably meant to be melted down, to try anew. Too bad for them, sodding fools, it was hers now. Was this good fortune, having slain that warrior in the commons? She had found new armor, though her boots were still in a sorry state, and a new life was starting here on the surface. She had heard that the humans don't care about your caste. Yes, this might be all right.
With this theory, Tadanza left this town and found the road, knowing she could not stay, as the smith may try to reclaim his armor. It was slightly big for her, but as far as she was concerned, it was the most beautiful armor in the world. Along the road she found more good luck. A tree with reddish-orange bark that intrigued her so fully that she had to take it, to store it with that red stone she'd found. Her pack a little heavier, she continued. In the next town she was able to find a meal through begging – in only two hours, as well. Things were simply too good here on the surface. But no place was quite her home. She'd found no other dwarves, not even a single merchant, in either of the two towns she'd yet been through. And so she kept travelling, the soles worn clear out of her shoes. By fortune, yet again, barely two days after she finally did away with the greaves entirely, she found a hanged man in a tree. Perhaps not fortuitous for the hanged man, but for her in the fact he still had his boots. She took them, and again they were a little big, but they were warm and they were hers.
Every day in this air, with this 'sky,' she felt calmer. She felt like there might be hope. Her collection of "red things" had grown now, too. A feather, her tin of lip colour, the stone (which turned out to be red iron ore), the bark, and a tiny gemstone. It may have value, but she refused to sell it. Her hoard was her own, and having things was a new part of her freedom.
But then, the blonde-haired dwarf had another of those "days," the ones where everything she dared to hope was utterly ruined. It happened when she came across a caravan on the roads. The ruins of a caravan, more appropriately, a corpse or two here and there. She figured they were all dead, so she began to scavenge. She smashed open a crate with her sword and even found food that was yet fresh. So, happily she feasted, and tossed a thin gold ring she'd found on one of the corpses. It would sell, she figured, and she'd eat again another day. As she prepared to leave, she slid the ring into her pack, as well as two flasks of alcohol she'd found, and leaned down to check the last corpse in the wreckage. That was when she heard them. Murderer and bandit and a hundred other curses if they'd said even one. Tadanza panicked again, just like in Orzammar, and took the defensive. She didn't know how many died when she was done, but she ran and ran and ran, knowing those that lived would be after her.
They would find her, if she ever showed up again. How many dwarves were around? How many with blonde hair, how many with blue eyes? How many female dwarves with blonde hair, blue eyes, and her armor? She had to do something. Anything.
Red. She opened her pack to comfort herself with the colours and realized that red really was the answer. There were dwarves with fiery hair. If she put this colour in her hair she would look entirely different. Just as someone with dark hair may hide themselves by lightening it. She knew a little of the process. Many noble-hunters had their hair treated to make them more attractive. They used a different liquid than what she had, but perhaps this alcohol would work? Perhaps … was it worth hoping? She was desperate enough to hope.
Every time she dared to hope, everything was ruined. She boiled a mixture of the ore and the bark, both ground fine, with alcohol as the base. The texture was thick, like a paste, and it smelled terribly strong. But it was red. It was red, and her fair hair was sure to be changed by it. So she smeared it into her hair and across her brow, let it cake and sit 'til she wasn't sure it would wash out, and then she found water to try.
Pink. PINK. Her hair had not turned out red in the least. It had become little more than a washed-out PINK, the dye having too weak a base to really set the colour in. PINK! Her wet hair stuck to her cheeks as she sobbed endlessly. She had hoped to be lost, look like a new person. But now she just stood out. Pink was not a natural colour, there were not even any animals she knew of with pink hair. Even nugs only had pink skin, not pink hair. A nug … she'd been called a nug, when all her life was meaningless tumbles.
No, no! She would not have any of that. None of that life, none of this failure. She had too much, she'd gone too far. Her entire foundation crumbled now to the ground, broke into so many pieces, and she left it there. She just gripped her blade and stood again, so far beyond grief and madness that she'd simply broken into an entirely new person. Pink. Fine. Pink it would be.
Pink traveled again, finding food and work when and where she could. She did as much honest work as she could, building her strength as she tilled fields or moved boxes. She still took hire as a mercenary, but she gave no room for prostitution. Her existence based entirely on ignoring her past. And she was successful.
Until Denerim. There was this one sodding duster that wouldn't leave her alone, some blacksmith dwarf that had taken to point out the sad state of her armor – the armor she'd pieced together through her travels before she'd become Pink – and berate her about her past. The past she had blocked out. The past she avoided by slopping that disgusting red goo in her hair every sodding few weeks. The past that, as far as she was concerned, never happened. But he had to keep asking her name. Her real names, thought he maybe knew her. Thought she looked familiar.
Alpha by Sresla of the Dragon Age Community at BioWare Social Network.
Beta by TanithAerys of the Dragon Age Community at BioWare Social Network.