The daughter of Mahariel lifted the heavy canvas flaps of her tent and slipped inside.
She settled in to the low-lying canvas structure, unclicking the clasps of her armour. On any other night, she would take the clean water in her tent, and take the hour to meticulously scrub the blood from the day's battles off her armour. This evening, as the buckles came undone and her armour released its grapple from her body, she simply laid it aside, uncleaned. She reached for the towel near the bowl of water, and where she would normally use it to restore her breastplate, instead she wet it, bringing it to her face.
The towel, perhaps too worn out and not washed enough, was rough on her skin. She leaned forward, using the small mirror fastened to a tent support, looking at her face. Her mind wandered as she scrubbed at the flecks of dried blood – perhaps human, perhaps darkspawn, maybe werewolf, who knew, really – and as she found the droplets, she considered her face.
Her Dalish face.
Her eyes, so blue, were more round that most of her counterparts. In her tribe, her rotund eyes were not especially beautiful. The colour, however, reflected the sky above. Her nose was petite, and round; her lips were not quite a full as human lips, but proportioned to her elven face. Her ears, like most of her race, were dainty and pointed, and stuck out from under her dark brown hair. No matter how she would try, the tips of her ears peeked out from her hair, and in her adulthood would regularly plait the sides of her head to show them off.
She looked at her vallaslin, her tattoos – twisting around on her forehead, and her two curls on her chin, and remembered how much time and effort went in to getting them as a youth, and how much she adored them. She remembered meditating about her choices in the Forest, the sounds of the birds and how she had breathed life itself into her lungs during the purification rituals. She had never felt so alive, and the life of the forest moved within her veins. She recalled the pain she endured when her Keeper applied the blood writing to her skin, tracing the ancient worship of the pantheon on her skin. She dared not twitch, lest she disturb the magics of the blood on her forehead; for this, and other reasons, she adored her vallaslin, for their personal meaning to her, and for the little vanity she allowed herself: how much they enhanced the beauty of her face.
Her skin was dark - not as dark as some, but differing in hue than those of her Clan, and the other Clan of Dalish they met in the forests. Her skin, while still soft, was showing the wear from so many days in the harsh, bitter and biting climate of Ferelden, outside the comfort of the Forests. It was not the alabaster of her clan-mates, nor her hair golden like so many others...
The towel paused on a cheek as she looked at herself, half admiring herself and half criticizing, when a memory flew into her mind, someone she had not thought of it quite some time.
Tamlen.
Had it been so long since that day, that when on a standard patrol of their territory in the forests, that her and Tamlen happened upon those three bumbling shemlen? Three stupid, human men who somehow unearthed an ancient ruin?
No. It hadn't been long. Not long at all. Her old life, her Dalish life in the Brecilian Forest, patrolling for shemlen, all seemed so ancient, so far-away, like a fever dream.
A dream where Tamlen still lived. That his aquamarine eyes still saw and his golden hair still shone in the sun; a dream where two children of Sabrae were not lost. A dream that imagined her still in the Forest, still patrolling, hunting with her Tamlen, the first recipient of her affections.
A dream where they would have been wed one day. A dream where she could have had a family, an elven family, nestled in the rivers and trees of the Brecilian.
A dream, that suffered a sad, silent death when those three peseant men told them about a ruin nearby with elven artifacts, finding the corrupted creatures inside the crumbling tomb and stumbling upon the tainted mirror of course, since Tamlen's curiosity getting the best of him, since her sickness and Duncan identifying the taint within her, since her Joining to the Grey Wardens and witnessing Loghain's treachery through Duncan's murder on the battlefield, which thrust her into the world of men.
A dream that would not have come to pass in the weeks since meeting Alistair.
She removed the towel from her face, satisfied she had scrubbed every nook and cranny, then used the small mirror to look at her décolletage for any more blood. After some consideration, she dipped the towel back in the water, which took on a red hue, wrung it and began washing. Her mind returned to focus again as she waited.
Alistair.
Her mind flooded with him. Every battle she had fought since her Joining, he had been at her side. For as many times as she had fallen and he helped her up, she had done the same for him. They had learned each other's movements, and fighting together was elegant, like the dances her Clan used to do at celebrations. Moving with him, so she could slip behind the enemy and strike true, had become natural to her.
Just as helping care for his wounds after battle. Though she helped with all her companions, she had always been more concerned with Alistair was injured. She took an extra second or two when cleaning the blood from his face. Her gaze would stay on him just a moment longer. Her touch, just a bit more gentle.
She had seen the heartbreak of his loss, his pain, and he had seen hers. In a world that often made little sense to her, he brought her comfort in her transition from a Dalish hunter to Grey Warden. There had been so little time to process the events of the last few weeks. He had been there in the fleeting moments they did have, with a kind heart, and with empathy and compassion. More than anyone else, he understood the changes that she was undergoing as a new Grey Warden.
This would not be the first time he entered her tent, though the last time was to calm her from her thrashing, caught in a darkspawn-taint induced nightmare.
In his oddly charming, yet slightly bumbling way, Alistair had been a steadfast constant as she figured out her new existence in this world. She had not been without him since the Joining, and had come to realize that she could not bear to be away from him for any long period of time. She drowned in the contentedness of being in his presence: his voice, his scent, his manner, his features.
His eyes, so different from hers. Where hers were the river, his were the burning forest, the colour of deep amber embers. While her hair was dark and plaited, his was cropped short, and glittered like gold in the sunshine. His nose was large, but narrow; his eyes were just a hint angular and his cheekbones were sharp. She had only stolen a few glances of his body, when she assisted him in releasing his armour a few times, when she helped Wynne a few times with binding his injuries, and once when he was bathing in the nearby river.
She shivered. The air was cold in her tent, and she was sitting with wet skin, not moving save for the scrub of the rough towel across her collarbone.
A lifetime ago, she would have been sitting in wait for her golden-haired elf. Now, she waited for a golden-haired human.
A shem.
Even in her wildest musings, she couldn't have predicted that this would be her reality. A few weeks ago, the scent of human would have completely repulsed her, but now she longed for Alistair to finish taking off his armour, and pull back the curtain of her tent. She longed to see his face, to run her hands over his body and explore every inch of it. To let his scent, his very human scent, intoxicate her senses.
Checking herself in the small, faded mirror and feeling satisfied with the results, she placed the towel down to rest behind the now-ruddy water bowl. Her ears could not pick up Alistair's footsteps, not yet at least. She took a few moments to light the small lanterns placed about her sleeping area.
She still wore the linen tunic from underneath her armour. She was unsure of when she should remove them. While her and Tamlen may have shown affection, and had a few stolen kisses in the woods during a quiet patrol…or a few very passionate kisses, one after the other, pressed up against the trees…an occasional session where they worshiped each other from their knees…she had never found herself quite in this position. The position where she would wrap her body around another's.
She hadn't felt this way about Tamlen.
She did for a shemlen.
She tried not to consider what her Clan would think of this. That she had fallen in love with a human. A part of the race that subjugated hers, that destroyed her culture and enslaved them. She had been brought up to be wary of the shemlen, and as a young adult, she active slew them for wandering in to Sabrae territory. She had killed the three peasants who had directed her to the forgotten caves, which had changed her life-path so drastically.
They'd mourned her as much as they'd mourned Tamlen. They sang over her as they sang over him. To the Sabrae, she was considered dead and gone, resting forever.
She would never again be in the comfort of the enclave of her Clan. Instead, she was sitting in a tent in the middle of nowhere, awaiting Alistair's arrival.
He had never shown her hostility where other humans had; nor questioned her words or decision. It was he who first identified her as the leader of their small group. He was a human who had always treated her with respect, and who reciprocated feelings without a care that her eyes were too round, as was her nose; that her skin was a bit dark, along with her hair. That her ears were pointed instead of flat.
A human who saw her as Dalish, and actively sought her attentions. He didn't love her in spite of being Dalish, or because she was Dalish. He loved her, as she was. The tender inflection of his words echoed in her mind, 'Maker's breath, you're beautiful'.
That made the difference.
Her ears picked up footfalls, the subtle soft sound of feet on dirt and grass, unlike the heavy clank of plate or rustle of leathers. The feet stopped at the threshold of her tent, and she smiled to herself as she imagined that Alistair was also mentally preparing himself. She wondered if his heart was racing as fast as hers.
As she turned toward the entrance, his fingers wrapped around the lip of the tent flap, and her worries melted away as she saw him also in his linens. As he slipped into the low-lying tent and turned to her, she saw the crinkle of warmth in his eyes – oh, their vibrant colour! - the ripple of his body underneath the thin cloth as he settled on his knees. A smile was on his lips, and she could not resist moving toward him. He reached for her, pulling her in and enveloping her body in his arms, wrapping them around her waist as her legs split, one on either side of him, straddling his lap. She held the sides of his face in her hands, studying it, memorizing each line, wrinkle, flaw, perfection.
And as she leaned in to steal a small kiss, she could not remember how their linens moved from their bodies to the floor. She remembered the kisses, the touch, and the warmth as she laid back and looked into Alistair's eyes, happily drowning in their worship of each other.