As a child Alim Surana is sharp-featured, dark-eyed, crowned by unruly black hair that won't get cut clean until years later. Otherwise fair and light-boned, he gets sick more often than his mother likes. Something he inherited from his father, who he has never met, who slipped away before he entered this world. Mother says that's where his looks come from too, and Alim tries to imagine him in the differences between their features. Her nose tilts up a little more, her mouth is fuller, her jaw is softer. Their brows form the same expressions.
He doesn't know what to make of that.
Alim spends more time brewing herbs than fighting. Mother worried for a long time that he would break something, but eventually surprised him with a practice sword that was short and blunt and felt like an extension of his arm more than a tool. He threw his arms around her and for a long time couldn't even find words to say thank you. She laughed, and kissed him on the cheek, and told him not to beat the other children too badly or they wouldn't invite him again.
He finds himself memorizing more stories about human heroes than history they struggle to retell here at the alienage. Humans, for their part, watch him like he's a mabari that could prove rabid at any time.
Or worse, pick their pockets.
He hears the word shemlen before knife-ear, in the apothecary from one of mother's customers. When he asks she tells him it's Dalish and it's rude and not to say it again. Some humans seem to appreciate her efforts when they visit from more respected districts in search of potions.
Some, however, do not.
Knife-ear seems more bizarre than insulting at first, coming from a person whose ears are small and curled like snail shells. But he sees the way mother's face falls, and the frustrated grimace her customer flashes before walking out, and he knows it isn't that simple.
"We're like sharks to them, da'len. Mindless, greedy, ruthless. To chop us into pieces and eat us alive is only beating us at our own game in their heads."
The first sign of magic comes when he is seven years old, sobbing while mother wipes away blood as it rolls down his leg, administering elfroot to the gash where he'd tumbled to his knees. She bites her lip, intent on removing every trace of dirt and dust to avoid infection.
Slowly, haltingly, the wound seals itself over.
Mother's hands freeze, hover in place for a long time. Carefully move across the newly knitted skin. Pull back.
"Be more careful," is all she has to say.
The second sign he is nine, and it's in public. Fighting breaks out in the streets, city guards against drunks. This time has blood too, and screams more like animal-screeching, and he finds himself trapped against a wall wondering if someone will die if he will die as the dagger arcs into a space beneath breastplate and rips.
There are animals screeching and they grow they saw away the space behind his eyes until he feels himself split open louder darker wetter hotter on his hands and knees trying to empty himself people cry out their disorientation fleeing visions they cannot name.
Someone gets his mother. She holds him, murmuring a lullaby in his ear. When the templars come his bags are packed and he is barely conscious, lying in bed. They keep their voices down.
His mother kisses him on the forehead. "Dareth shiral," she whispers, "little love." Her eyes are red and swollen. He can't remember when they got that way.
He's too tired to struggle against the man who takes him in his arms, who carries him away from home, away from the alienage, away from Denerim. His ears are blunt as spoons, but he's more gentle than he might have been.
Alim doesn't know if that makes it better or worse.