Author's note: I expect to be updating this often - every day, if I can remember. I've got about 10,000 words already written on this story (and probably room for expansion in a few areas), but i want to try my hand at frequently updating a single story instead of jumping around all over the map with different one shots and half-written long stories. For those of you still waiting for the next chapter of "Armored," take heart. I'm plugging away at it in tandem with another fairly large project, and hope to have new reading material for you soon.
As for this story, I always felt there weren't enough M!Aeducan stories, nor enough M!Warden x Leliana stories, so I figured I'd try recounting the tale of the hero of my first playthrough of DA:O in short vignettes, focusing on his relationship with everyone's favorite lay sister. I rather doubt the rating will exceed T, but I guess we'll see. Happy reading!
Duran Aeducan knows he should be paying attention to the armed and armored men in front of him. The dwarf can feel Alistair's tension like a creaking slip fault at his back, but he can't pull his eyes from the willowy red-haired female human in front of him, and he doesn't know why. The sound of her voice makes him think of the stars he'd never seen before a week ago: beautiful, distant, and somehow as deeply alien as the rest of this strange, changeable place above the ground.
He has just enough attention to spare to wonder why, of all the threats Loghain's man makes, the one against her is what makes the knuckles of his right hand tighten on the haft of his axe and his left creep up to the guige strap of his shield. Still, he says nothing. Stone, what's wrong with me?
Into the pause, Alistair pipes up, "What makes you think we're traitors?"
She's speaking again, but he isn't listening to the words, just the sound of her voice, ringing softly like silver bells one moment and sweet and slow as clotted cream the next. Her eyes are on him now, and his on hers, lost in their blue depths, and he feels rooted, frozen to the stone like a stalagmite until the growl of Loghain's man drowns hers out and his eyes snap back to the captain in time to hear:
"...kill the sister, and any..."
It's a sentence the human will never finish. The rising blade of the dwarf's axe shears off his right arm at the elbow on the forehand and carves a bloody gash through his neck on the backswing. The heavy round shield crunches forward, tossing the broken man backwards into the bar, streaming blood as he stamps forward, knocking the soldier to his right off his feet as he punches the steel weight of the axe-pommel into his jaw. He can hear bone crumble. He keeps his shield-arm head-high between him and the third man, his hands and body drilled to smooth, instinctive precision by the finest armsmasters in Orzammar. Pivoting easily on his left foot, he moves to engage the man closest to the strange human woman, axe rising to striking position...
...and pauses in surprise as he sees the human female gracefully pirouette into an overhand stab with a long-bladed dagger that slips between the man's collarbone and neck and drops him to the floor, stone dead. The pressure drop and the sound of shattering ice from behind him tells him that Morrigan has dealt with the last man, and poor Alistair is looking forlornly at the bodies, his blade still unmarked and wavering in his fist.
Duran shakes his head. He wanted to keep one alive to carry a message back to this fool of a human noble, but the man whose jaw he broke is the last one alive, and there's no way he's going to be repeating any kind of message to anyone. He lets the haft of the axe slide through his fingers as he chokes up on the blade for precision, and stoops by the semi-conscious soldier to end it. Strong, slender and unexpectedly callused fingers wrap around his wrist, and he pauses, held as much by surprise as the strength of the grip.
"Wait," she says. "He's learned his lesson." She looks up and around at the group. "We can all stop fighting now."
She's looking into his eyes from less than a foot away, and he feels himself frozen in place again. After a moment, he lowers his weapon and moves to straighten up. There's a blast of cold and his ears pop, and he whirls, bringing his shield up under his eyes into a defensive position and sees Morrigan shaking ice crystals off of her hand. A quick glance down tells him that the broken jawed soldier is snap-frozen to the floor and well beyond mercy now. The human behind him makes a frustrated sound through her teeth, for all the world like a disappointed dwarven matron. He almost smiles.
After a moment, she takes a deep breath, collects herself. "I'm Leliana," she says.
"Duran," he replies.