20 Truths About Aífe Cousland
1.
Aífe was born in 9:07 Dragon during a big storm. The wind came from the sea and brought rain and thunder and lightning. Some people thought it was a bad sign – her father did not care, not after he picked up his little baby girl and looked into those grey, earnest eyes.
2.
She never once broke a bone until she was 23 years old and an ogre lifted her up to smash her against a wall. That day she broke three ribs, an arm and her collarbone.
3.
Aífe was named after a warrior maiden, who was said to have lived many hundred years ago and fought the wild tribes of the south and bandits and led her own tribe into battle time and time again. Her mother never liked the name because she thought it foreshadowed bloodshed and pain for her daughter's life, but accepted it when she saw the look in her husband's eyes as he watched the tiny, pale bundle of human in his arms. Bryce Cousland, however, did not give her that name because he wanted her to be a warrior maiden, he gave her that name because the Aífe from the legend grew to be an old woman despite all the odds.
4.
Aífe met Anora three times and not a single time they parted as friends.
The first time Aífe was a small girl and thought Anora to be more beautiful than any princess of all the fairytales and she told her that. Anora did not take it well and glared at her. She walked away briskly and did not talk to Aífe anymore that day or the following days. Needless to say, Aífe was more than puzzled.
5.
The second time Aífe was not quite so small anymore and was travelling with her father to Gwaren. She actually liked Loghain, even though he was gruff, but there was a gentleness in the way he helped her down from the horse that reminded her of her own father. That time she met Anora at the training grounds and found herself in the dust not minutes later, gasping for air. It was then that Anora told her that princesses couldn't do that, could they?
6.
The third time Aífe was even more puzzled afterwards than the times before. That time Aífe bowed with a friendly smile when they met and asked for a rematch, only to have Anora laugh into her face. That time Anora told her that only a fool of a woman would keep training and trying to be a man, when she never ever would be able to reach a position of power like a man would and that she, Aífe, better stop dreaming and learn something useful. It was then that Aífe decided she did not like Anora.
7.
Aífe did, however, like king Cailan, even though she did not know him very well. When she met him, she knocked him off his feet, made him bump his head hard enough to see stars and had the royal guard try to arrest her. Cailan was nice enough not to have her arrested, he just teased her a bit and that should count for something, shouldn't it?
8.
She always wanted a pony up to the point when her father gave her a little mabari puppy. That was the day she decided, that nobody truly needed a pony. A mabari, on the other hand, was the best pet in the world because you could take him to bed with you and clearly a pony wouldn't fit in there. She kept thinking that even when he gnawed on her feet at night and made her dream of dragons eating her slowly from her legs upwards.
9.
Aífe never thought much about marriage and even less about whom she would marry until she was almost 20. When she was six, however, she told her father she would marry Bann Teagan, because she had madly fallen in love with him – and who could not fall in love with a man who brought you strawberries and smiled while he helped you wash each single one patiently?
10.
Aífe knew that she needed to marry an Arl at best or at least a Bann, because the Couslands were few and they needed to strengthen their bonds with the other nobles. She also knew that normally this would have been Fergus duty as the older one, but then he had married Oriana who was no more than a merchant's daughter. When she saw the love in his eyes and they way how Oriana took his face into her hands, smiling up at him like that, she could not be mad at him for even a moment.
11.
She loved the sea and Highever and always thought that in comparison Denerim was dull and boring. She loved the feeling of sand under her toes, water washing around her body and how the wind played with her hair. Most of all she loved that if you wanted to, you could find a bay for yourself and sit there for hours watching the waves.
12.
Once she found the most beautiful shell and listened to it all the way back to the castle. When she saw that Arl Rendon Howe was about to depart, she gave it to him as a present so he could hear the sea on his way home. He smiled at her then. In the years yet to come she won't be able to stop wondering whether that smile back then was genuine.
13.
There was a moment when she was seventeen and they had been training on the beach and Ser Gilmore leaned in quite close, suddenly burying his hand in her hair. In that moment she had been sure he would kiss her and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he had pulled a huge beetle out of her hair and let it fly away again, smiling at her before he turned away. Aífe still hated the disappointment she had felt back then.
14.
In the chest in her bedchamber she had a tiny list of the Banns and Arls that were unmarried and that had come to visit Highever in the last years. By the age of 23 all but three names were crossed out: Bann Teagan Guerrin, Bann Loren's son Dairren and Bann Sighard's son Oswyn. Some nights she sat by the candle light and stared at the list, read the names over and over again, just to put it away again. Just one more year of freedom, she thought. Only one more year.
15.
Only once Aífe ever hit somebody. She truly believed that nobody should be allowed to raise their hand against somebody in an argument. When Vaughan, the Arl of Denerim's son, had her pressed against the wall and crushed his lips against hers, however, she hit him as hard as she could and nearly broke his nose. She could not bring herself to feel regret when he called her a bitch and stared at her with so much disdain and hate that the urge to flee grew overwhelming.
16.
Aífe has been a Daddy's girl since day one and didn't stop to be one until the day she flees through a dark forest, bleeding and broken and crying so hard she does not see anything anymore. In a way, she will never be able to put herself back together again.
17.
Despite what people thought, she did not kill her first man with 23 when she fought for her life, but years earlier at the age of 20. That day she was on a simple routine patrol with her father and saw him go down with a sword in his chest. When she saw him fall she stepped out from the ring of soldiers guarding her, too quick for them to hold her back, and she beheaded the leader of the attackers. She would remember all her life how easy it was to let her blade glide all the way through his neck. Aífe did not stop until the last of them was down on his knees, begging for mercy.
She stood there for a whole minute, staring at the man, thinking quietly, until Ser Gilmore put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close, telling her that her father was going to be okay.
18.
Aífe would not have admitted it, but she was afraid of spiders. It was a fear not founded in reason, really, and it was ridiculous as she knew very well. Still, the hairy eight legs and the staring eyes drove her insane. So, quietly, she would slip out of her room and go get her father or Fergus and on some very rare occasions Ser Gilmore, blushing to a bright red when they looked at her with raised eyebrows. Never once they refused to kill her very own dragon for her, though.
19.
On rainy days Aífe could always be found in her grandfather's library, reading through books twice or three times if she really liked them. She soaked up legends and stories like a sponge, read accounts of battles, read the family history the history of Ferelden. When she dared and it was late enough to be sure that only the guards were left awake in the castle, she would climb on top of her chair and take "The Art of Passionate Love", flipping through the pages with a blush. Ser Gilmore once asked her whether she had a fever when he caught her coming out of the study. She sputtered and backed away and waved her hands so wildly, she could distract him long enough to flee to her bedchamber.
20.
Aífe would not have admitted this either, but she was a sucker for hugs. Her father hugged her whenever he knew she was sad, letting her head rest against his shoulder and putting his arms around her while he told her that everything would be alright. Aífe loved those hugs, because she knew he would protect her from everything. Her mother hugged her whenever she saw her after they had been parted for some time, pressing her close and smiling softly at her. Aífe loved those hugs, because she felt like nothing else mattered because somebody would always have her back. Her brother hugged her, when he thought he could annoy her with it, mostly when he was sweaty or dirty or simply wet. Sometimes and very rarely he hugged her because he simply wanted to. She loved those hugs, because she knew she would never be alone, no matter what. Sometimes she was daring enough to hug Ser Gilmore, just quickly and briefly and always to his surprise, but he never failed to hug her back. She loved those hugs, because he felt so warm and firm against her, that she truly felt like a woman – and the blush on his face was also quite endearing. Years later she would remember those hugs and press her hand against her chest trying to feel it again. When the memories started to fade more and more it was like losing more and more of herself.
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This is one of those "20 Truths" ficlets, that I know from other fandoms. I just love the idea of this, revealing bits and pieces of a character that cannot (or hardly) be used to make up a full story. This one is centered on Aífe (pronounced Ee-fa) Cousland, my own kinda (Non-)Warden which I am also using for many other one-shots and a story I have written for my own amusement and I guess I just wanted to see how you generally like the whole 20 Truths-idea. =) I also wanted to add that this is more or less at the point of time before she was at Ostagar, so it is only about her past; this left me the possibility of doing a second one for after her family was killed. Hope you like it!