"She had eyes like firelight." The drunken Dalish babbled over his mug.
Sylandra didn't have time for a drunken elf's bullshit. She was overworked per usual and just to make things fun a small band of thugs for hire was intent on drinking themselves into a stupor in the midst of the festival crowd. They were driving off her regulars which would mean no tip and a lot of clean up.
"Beautiful...fierce...st-stupid...keeper." He continued muttering.
"Look, pay up and get out or shut it, right? I don't have time for you and you're bothering the others." She sighed. She felt for elves, they didn't deserve to be mistreated but if he didn't shut up and get out the thugs would hurt him.
"She was to be mine, my wife, mother to my children, instead….she ran off to that Shem inquisition." He sighed and spat on the floor in disgust.
Sylandra gave up and moved behind the bar, she kept a cudgel there for nights like this.
Three of the four thugs were still sober enough to stand. They got to their feet and began lurching and stumbling toward the lone elf.
Sylandra had dealt with Dalish bands fairly frequently. The local clan swept through the village about twice a year. They rarely spent time in her bar usually if they did they bartered up front for any refreshments. This one had arrived alone and spent good coin. He was on the large side for an elf, a slim and wiry people by and large, armed with a sword at his hip but no shield and only thick hide armor to protect him. He was a hunter not a warrior and he was going to get himself killed.
Silently cursing herself she picked up the cudgel and tried again to get the elf to leave before blood was spilled.
"Please, just go, I don't want trouble and I can't protect -"
The nearest thug stumbled into her and laughed as she lost her footing and fell to the rough wood floor.
In a flash the drunken Dalish was on his feet blade drawn. He grinned at the thug that had knocked Sylandra down and jerked his chin up in an invitation to battle.
Too drunk to realize this elf was not going to be an easy mark the human moved to attack. Sylandra scrabbled out of the way and behind the bar. By the time she had retrieved the cudgel and gotten to her feet the thug was laid out. She couldn't see any blood, as she was making up her mind that the thug was alive, his two compatriots attacked the elf, clearly having failed to learn a lesson from their companion's fate.
The elf nimbly avoided their clumsy blows and in a handful of seconds had rendered them senseless.
Sylandra blinked at the elf. Now that he wasn't bent over her cheapest ale lamenting fate she could see he was quite handsome. Features sharp and long, normal for most elves, but softened with an easy smile and bright sparkling blue eyes. He half bowed to her and tossed a full golden sovereign on the bar.
"I appreciate your intentions mistress but I've been tracking these animals for days. They like to bait and assault innocent elves."
"You...wait you weren't -"
"Drunk or betrothed to inquisitor Lavellan. I do, however, lie, a lot and enjoy teaching dangerous shemlen that not all of the People are helpless."
"Who -"
"I am called Assan."
He bent and helped her out from behind the bar. His hands were strong, calloused, but gentle.
"Assan? That's an unusual name."
"It's not my name, it is what I am called." He said gravely.
"Were...were you talking about -"
"I've never met Inquisitor Lavellan, but she's well known and the Inquisition and the role of one of the People within it is a sore spot for hateful shemlen."
"So you just go from village to village picking fights? What about the elves that follow in your path? These morons will just be crueler in repayment."
"Who says they will be around to wound more of my people?" He snapped and his sparkling eyes lost their light.
Before she could react or stop him he drew a long bladed knife and slit the three's throats. She stifled a cry fearing to draw his attention again. She watched as he walked to the fourth member of the group, the handful of regulars still in the tavern too drunk or frightened to intervene.
"Assan wait, he's asleep -" she cried.
"He will seek vengeance for what I have done." Assan said simply then cut his throat as well. She gasped and reached for the cudgel. He looked at her and his flashing blue eyes were dark in the dim light of the bar, dark and angry. The regulars remained silent and still.
"The People are not prey!" He snarled and left the bar.
Assan moved quickly and silently into the woods. He lurked just within their protection listening and testing the air for signs of pursuit. As usual there wasn't any. He chuckled to himself and retrieved his gear from a hollow living tree. A warm nondescript cloak with a hood, a quiver of arrows a precious ironbark bow, and a satchel of food and medicines.
For weeks he had haunted this area of Ferelden now he was pushing his luck, there were bound to be soldiers heading his way by now, this recent kill was risky but, he believed, justified. He had to move on his work here was done for now.
Grinning to himself in the dark he checked over his gear by feel and set about readying himself for the long overland trip, if he was lucky and fast he would be in a new arldom by dawn.
Assan was well on his way to fresh territory, an hour left of full darkness before predawn would light the sky when he heard someone following him. He froze, felt for his killing blade, then spoke.
"You have a light tread but you're tired, your breathing is loud." He said sharply.
"What makes you think that was an error?" A sweet female voice asked and then Assan was on his back in the underbrush his blade kicked out of reach and a stranger's steel against his throat, before he could react.
"Don't speak." The woman said softly.
Assan remained very still.
He could smell her, a heady mixture of sweat, leather, and crushed elfroot.
"You must go north little arrow. These lands are claimed by the Inquisition."
He thought to speak and she put a hair more weight on the blade.
"You're a liability, your actions put the Inquisitor in a delicate political situation."
For a few long moments the forest was still and cool, only the sounds of their mutual breathing filling the small space between them.
"You can speak." She said, the pressure of the blade did not ease.
"Are you the Lavellan's lickspittle?" He asked hoarsely. Rumors of the Inquisitor's elf-blooded cousin had slipped and oozed from Skyhold over the weeks since Corypheus had attacked Haven.
"I was so hoping you wouldn't be a fool." She shifted her weight and released him. He carefully regained his feet and tried to get a clear look at his attacker. She was about his height which would make her tall for an elf but on the short side of average for a human.
"So, you work for the Lavellan. What's that like?"
"I get better results than cutting throats will get you."
"I doubt it." He sneered.
"You do the Dalish no favors when you kill our harassers. Half the people that witness your crimes lose all sympathy for us and turn their political will against us. You're hurting your own people."
"What would a shem know about my people?"
"I'm Elf-blooded by my Dalish mother." She snarled.
He spat on the ground.
"Her clan took me in, raised me as one of their own. My loyalty has always been to the Dalish."
"Not the Inquisition?"
"Lavellan is Dalish first."
"I don't believe you."
"I don't care, your beliefs are irrelevant. You will leave this territory immediately or you will die."
He considered his options. He couldn't go back south. He had to go north or die.
"What if I join you?"
"Become an agent of the Inquisition?"
"Certainly. You have seen my skills."
"You are far too notorious and well known."
"Then give me a day to get out of your lands, I cannot go south I will be killed."
"You should learn to plan ahead, shall I kill you now?"
He felt for his hidden blade, realized she must have taken it without him realizing.
"I will escort you out of our lands." She said raising her blade ready to throw it.
He relaxed and after a few seconds so did she, the blade disappeared and she regarded him sternly.
"Your word you will not try to escape my custody or take my life until this time tomorrow?" She asked.
"My word."
"As one of the People."
He ground his teeth then nodded.
"Say it."
"My word as one of the People that I will not attempt to escape your custody or take your life until this time tomorrow."
"Okay. Good. Hungry?"
He cocked his head to the side and studied her silhouette then nodded.
She made a small smokeless fire and cooked several sausages and a filling porridge. He ate gratefully and studied her in the firelight and then the growing sunlight as the warm sun began to fill the woods.
She was beautiful, and although Elf-blooded rarely if ever displayed elven features she moved like the People, she was also remarkably lithe and light, graceful and elegant. Likely thanks to her life among the Dalish.
As if sensing his thoughts she spoke, "Vallaslin would attract too much attention on a human. I'm of more use to the clan if I can pass among them." She held his gaze.
She had soft looking dirty blond hair offset by bright green eyes and smooth skin that was lightly tanned with freckles showing through.
"You're beautiful." He said as he finished his porridge. She stiffened and looked hard at him.
"Just an observation." He said licking his lips.
She put out the fire and busied herself restoring the camp to as close to natural as she could. When she was done there was very little sign of their presence remaining.
"You learned well." He said.
Again she stiffened and studied him. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw she gestured for him to walk ahead of her.
They made good time, around noon they made another small camp.
"What is your name?" He asked.
"What is yours?" She countered.
He smirked and didn't reply.
"What happened to your mother?" He asked as they were cleaning up.
"Why do you ask?"
"You spoke of your clan raising you, not her."
"She died having me."
His face clouded and he looked away.
"Your father?"
"I never knew him."
"Well then Dah'len, let's get moving." He said rising from a rotten stump where he had been resting.
She smirked and shook her head but gestured him forward anyway. They walked until dusk.
"We could camp." He suggested.
"No, we should not have stopped earlier."
An hour after sunset he sighed and turned to her.
"This is foolish. Let us stop for the night, rest, and continue in the morning."
"Your oath - "
"Can be extended. Unless you'd like to duel to the death?" She asked calmly. He looked into those forest green eyes and suppressed a shiver. She would win, he was certain.
"Move." She said sharply her eyes growing cold, her stance shifting low and settling in a way that left her ready to run or attack.
He swallowed and kept walking.
As the end of their peace approached he found himself thinking of ways to reason with her, to stay in the south, to join her. It was idiocy, she was right. If word leaked that lethal Assan, scourge of Ferelden was a member of the Inquisition all hell would break loose. The Dalish Inquisitor would be accused of conspiring to murder Fereldan citizens and allies would flee the Inquisition like rats from a ship.
"Two miles ahead and you'll be in the Free Marches." She said as they stood at the crest of a hill. A light rain began to fall.
"Your name?" He asked again.
She looked at him with those too green eyes and sighed.
"I'd wish you luck but you only make things worse. Every time you kill a human they learn that their suspicions and fear of the Dalish are justified. Everything your people have earned from the rise of the Hero of Ferelden, to the Inquisitor is washed away when you take a human life Assan."
"You may have a point." He conceded looking away from her across the wooded valley leading to his future. "Then again, it's quite a bit of fun." He grinned.
She waited until he was almost among the trees then raised her fist high and spread her fingers.
Two hidden archers let loose arrows they entered his torso high, between the shoulder blades, within inches of one another.
Assan never cried out, simply dropped to the soft loam of the forest and was still. Slowly she lowered her arm. The rain began to fall harder. The two archers, both elves, drifted up to her. One was bare faced the other sported the curling Vallaslin common to the most local clan. They were silent as she looked down at their work.
"He was a threat to the Inquisition and the People." The tattooed archer said finally.
"He was a living person. One of the People. He deserves to be mourned." She said softly. As the rain settled into a steady deluge she waited for the archers to retrieve his body. They would retrieve their arrows and together the three would honor Assan.
Leliana would disapprove of the time they had wasted. She could have killed Assan at any point in the last 24 hours, easily. Instead she had given him a chance to reform, given him her companionship and time. She had wasted precious time because he was Dalish and he cared. Now he was dead, they were wet, and there was still more work to be done than time or hands to do it.
As the archers brought his body to her she knelt to greet him. His handsome features might have been those of a sleeping man instead of a dead one. Ever thorough she pressed her fingers to his throat feeling for the flutter of life. All was still.
Quickly, efficiently she searched his body. He had been well armed and while lightly armored it had been decent enough. Few things could withstand the powerful bows of her companions. Silently they parceled out his weapons and supplies among themselves. She kept his bow and a packet of papers that were well wrapped in oiled skins. She would examine them in dryer conditions.
"Orders?" The tattooed elf asked once Assan had been laid to rest.
"Return and report to the Nightingale. Our grim work is completed." She said softly.
"Did you know her?" The bald faced elf asked as her Dalish companion picked up their gear. "You're clan Lavellan aren't you?" she continued.
"Yes. I knew her. She saved my life and I hers countless times. We grew to adulthood side by side."
"What's she like?"
"He was right about her eyes." She whispered looking down at Assan's grave. Then she cleared her throat and smiled at the curious elf.
"She's...strong, fair, and...funny. Sarcastic mostly." She said softly.
"A funny inquisitor." The elf mused.
"Good work, you both did well today."
"If my friends in the alienage could see me now, they'd never believe it." The bald faced elf said with shy pride.
"Running with wild elves and Inquisition spies?" She gently chided the young woman. She blushed in reply and followed her friend into the woods.
The rain fell on Assan's grave, the freshly turned soil turning to thin mud.
"I'm sorry." She whispered.