Bittersweet Goodbye
-InquisitorAllandra
Disclaimer: Don't own it. Well, Taleal is mine as far as OC's go.
Summary: After so many months on the road, Tamlen finally finds the Wardens camp…
The group had been amicably sitting around the camp fire after a day's travel – Zevran was dramatically regaling the group with a fantastical story of one of his exploits in Antiva, Alistair snickering and laughing at the elf's antics; Taleal was cleaning and mending her gear, sitting next to Leliana as the girls spoke quietly – everyone was going about their individual tasks in the light of the fading twilight. Kelesann, Taleal's mabari, as well as her wolf companion Shardani, sat to either side of their mistress.
The comfortable atmosphere was broken abruptly with a yell from the small corner Morrigan always took apart from the others. The area was suddenly alight from a fireball, the roar of the magical fire nearly drowning out her cry of warning, as well as the howls of the mabari and wolf.
"Darkspawn!"
Everyone was on their feet at once in a scramble, weapons singing as they were drawn from their sheaths.
Taleal met her first target head on with her daggers, just dodging a downward swipe with the large, crudely made bastard sword it carried. The small elf ducked in, a dagger going for its gut – the Hurlock was not quick enough to block or dodge, and the knife buried itself in its tainted flesh. Blood gushed from the wound, spraying the huntress' face and armor.
Letting the dead darkspawn fall to the ground, Taleal looked around, seeing the rest of her comrades in their own fights. As she was moving off to aid whoever was closest, a dark figure to the back of the clearing caught her eye. It just stood there, not attacking – a shiver ran down her spine, realizing with dread suddenly in the pit of her stomach that it was watching her.
And only her.
Something drew her then, like a sirens song, towards the figure. Sounds of the other darkspawn dead and dying surrounded her; the battle was coming to an end. Faintly, she heard her name called from not one, but two sources. One before her, and one behind.
Taleal drew near the shadowed figure, green eyes widening when light glinted off his eyes, giving them a faint, familiar glow. Then she saw the vallaslin….
"Tamlen! Tamlen, how-?" The cry erupted from the Dalish elf, so strange to her own ears, as if she was suddenly walking in a waking nightmare.
Oh, the elf she had known all her life in the Sabrae clan stood before her, a hollowed, rotting farce of what he had once been. Tanned skin from days in the forest had the sickly hues of purple and browns. Parts of his ears had rotten and fallen away. His head was bare – no hair grew there anymore.
"Oh, lethallin…Lethallin, where did you go? I couldn't find you. Y-you…I woke and you weren't there." The voice was strangled, gnarled, broken. It was Tamlen's voice, but yet it wasn't. An echo of what had been.
Tears stung Taleal's eyes as she stood before the grotesque visage of what had been her friend, her hunting partner, lethallan, vhenan…
"I could not find you, Tamlen. We looked, and looked. A grey warden found me, took me back to the Keeper. Oh, Mythal, lethallan, why did you have to touch the mirror…?" Trembling hands reached for the other elf.
With a cry, he shrunk back from her touch. "No! No, do not touch me!" Taleal jumped at the shriek, surprised at such a reaction. "Lethallin, Taleal, vhenan – it…it hurts. It hurts so much…" he twisted, hands jerking to his head as he cried out. "Make it stop…"
"Just…hold on, Tamlen. We can help you, we're Grey Wardens – we can…we can get you help, the—the Joining. That's how they saved me. Please, let me help you!"
"No! No, I cannot take it anymore! I hear them, always singing, digging, looking, searching, hunting. The song, it calls them, it calls me, and they will not get out of my head! Calling, coaxing, lulling, begging…" He cried, falling to his knees. "Lethallin, please, let me go…"
Nothing else existed for Taleal right then except Tamlen and herself. "T-tamlen, Tamlen no, do not ask that of me…" A sob caught in her throat, tears streaking down her face.
And just like that, in an instant, Tamlen was gone. His head jerked upward, eyes flashing an eerie yellow…and it was not Tamlen that stared at her now, but an elvhen darkspawn husk. It lunged at her, hands splayed as the dived for her throat, nails sharpened to points threatening to tear into Taleal's sun darkened skin…where had her daggers gone? She froze, time slowing as the fear held her in its grasp like the deer they had hunted in the forest an age ago…
The sound of metal slicing, sliding into skin, a gurgling release of air, broke the terrors hold, breaking the slowed haze of fear. Taleal felt her heart breaking all over – this time, it was as the creature that had been Tamlen smiled, lips curling in release from his torment.
Shaking, sobbing, Taleal barely registered that she held her shortsword in her hands, the blade lodged between the ribs of the shell that was once Tamlen; the broken husk of a body fell into her arms as she stopped its descent to the ground. The head rolled forward, forehead resting against her shoulder.
Someone knelt next to her, a hand came to rest across her back. "Tal," the voice was like a beacon, something soft coaxing her out of her grief. "Tal, who-?"
She had to blink away the tears that blurred her vision to make out Alistair's features, so full of concern and worry and fear. Still she held on to Tamlen – the bloody sword that had fallen from her grip just barely registering.
"I-I…I killed him. T-tamlen…" Her voice hitched, a sob breaking through. A cry ripped from her being, a mournful howl of loss. If she had seen Alistair's pained expression, there was no sign of it. Sobs wracked her small body, her cries breaking the still of the night. Through her grief, the only sounds anyone could decipher was broken Dalish, and the other elf's name.
"Alistair seemed at a loss for words. He tried to wrap an arm around her, do something to comfort her, but she kept shaking him off. Kelesann and Shardani crowded in, mabari and wolf sniffing and poking wet noses at their mistress in their own attempts at comfort.
The others, her friends, companions, all watched with varying degrees of concern and worry. Alistair looked lost, unsure of what to do.
Wynne moved around to Tamlen's body, aged fingers delicately try to pry him from the dalish warden's grasp. "Come now, my dear. He is free the blight that befell him. Let us put him to rest."
Taleal looked up again, taking a moment to focus and recognize who was talking. Her first reaction was to hold on tighter, but at the insistent, gentle prodding from grandmotherly Wynne, she conceded. Sten, who had been stoically standing nearby, picked the body up at a gesture from Wynne.
"We will clean him up, and ready him for cremation- "
"No!"
Those that were still around jumped at the sudden sharp tone.
"No. Not your way. We do not burn our dead, as you do." She murmured, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped. She'd curled in on herself as soon as Tamlen had been taken from her. "We…a hole. In the ground. With a tree. We plant the tree over them, so it can…so it can grow." Alistair still knelt beside her, but she did not move toward him for comfort. Instead, she stared at her hands, covered in blood. Taleal was dimly aware of the fact that she was covered in quite a lot of blood, in fact, from the darkspawn she had killed, as well as Tamlen's blood.
"I…I have to – I have to go find a sapling." She murmured again, trying to rise on shaky legs she wasn't sure would support her weight. Alistair tried to help her stand, but Leliana eased her way in. She shook her head, arms wrapping around the smaller woman's shoulders.
"Why don't you leave the arrangements to us, Tally, hm? See – Sten is now digging the grave, and Wynne is taking care of Tamlen. We will go down to the river and clean you up some, yes? There is a lot of blood." The redhead spoke softly, her lilting voice murmuring softly to her elvhen friend. Above Taleal's head, where she could not see, Leliana mouthed to Alistair, 'go find the sapling for her.'
Taleal gave the barest of nods, letting Leliana guide her first back to camp for the bathing things, then off towards the river.
Alistair stood and watched as they left, tense and worried and scared, lost in his own thoughts. He felt useless – when Taleal needed him most, she'd blocked him out. The former Templar tried to will his feet into moving, to get a shovel and go find a suitable little tree, but he seemed to have become a tree himself, rooted to the spot.
"Come, my friend. Searching the forest for this sapling will help things settle down. I am sure by time the ladies return from the river, you and our lovely warden will be able to talk things over, hm?" Alistair started, Zevran suddenly next to him.
Rather than a usual comeback to the sudden intrusion, Alistair lets out a rather large sigh, nodding as he finally finds the ability to move again. Zevran, it appeared, had already found shovels and a small canvas sack to carry the sapling in.
The two trudged into the wood line, tailed by Taleal's wolf and mabari.
It must have been around midnight when they finally performed the burial for Tamlen. The companions all stood near, doing their best to be supportive to Taleal. At the warden's request, Leliana sang a few songs.
Soon enough, everyone drifted away to find their bedrolls, to get what sleep they still could. Wynne and Leliana did not leave before giving Taleal a hug and murmurs of comforting words. Morrigan and Sten preferred to simply slip away – not out of insensitivity, but more for trying to give Taleal a bit of space and privacy.
Taleal, however, barely took notice – her world had currently shrunken to the fresh pile of dirt and a small tree. Grass tickled her skin as she knelt, the dirt digging into her knees as she stared off at something beyond the little sapling that had been found. Kelesann and Shardani sat to either side, low whimpers coming from the pair, trying to comfort their two-legged mistress.
The crunch of grass from behind alerted her to the presence of another. She did not need to look to know who it would be. Wolf and mabari shifted to look, but were not alarmed. Silently, the pair of animals stood, nuzzled Taleal, and made their way back towards the camp.
It was some time before the silence between the two now sitting there was broken. Taleal began, in a voice barely above a whisper.
"We were hunting that afternoon, when we came across some shemlens who had wandered to close to the camp," the elf was interrupted by a sniffle; shaky fingers fluttered outward to find Alistair's larger, callused hand, "we'd only meant to scare them off, Tamlen and I, but then they babbled about finding these…elvhen ruins."
Alistair shifted where he sat, slightly uncomfortable. He'd wanted to talk about how things had happened earlier, but all thoughts of doing so vanished when she'd began speaking – Taleal hadn't spoken of what happened to anyone. At least, not more than a vague bit about some corrupted artifact.
There was a pause as Taleal let out a small hiccup. "Tamlen insisted on investigating, he was so excited, you see. Perhaps we'd find something huge, something that…that could be invaluable to our people."
Alistair listened silently, scooting in as much as he could and held the elf's small, deceptively delicate hand. Taleal had curled in on herself unconsciously – shoulders slumped forward, knees up to her chin, ears drooping. It made Alistair's heart ache to see someone he saw as so strong to seem so small and potentially helpless.
"So, into the cave we went. It was our- our first encounter with darkspawn. We didn't know what they were, at the time. Had no idea what we'd find. Had no idea how long we'd been in there, either, when we found the mirror. I tried to make him go back, I – I tried…" her soft voice cracked, tears stinging at the deep green eyes that squeezed shut as a sob escaped her lips. "I told him not to touch it, b-but…h-he did, said he saw things. It -" there was a sharp intake of breath, shoulders shaking with sobs as Taleal turned to Alistair, burying her face into his chest and clinging to him for dear life.
The former templar frowned in worry, arms now wrapped around Taleal. "H-hey. Ssshhh." He ran his hands over her back, up and down, letting her cry out her grief. He listened as she babbled incoherently for some minutes before falling silent.
Brows knitting together, Alistair shifted just enough to get a look at his fellow warden's face, only to find she had exhausted herself, and fallen asleep. Careful not to wake her, Alistair slipped an arm under her knees, his other arm supporting Tally's back.
With a final look to the fresh grave, Alistair made a silent promise – to Andraste, to the Maker, to Tamlen – but most importantly, to himself and the sleeping elf in his arms.
I'll take care of her, now.
Honey colored eyes turned briefly to the night sky before looking towards the tent the two wardens shared, grass crunching beneath his boots as he carried Taleal away from Tamlen's final resting place.