Author's Note: Trigger Warning: attempted rape.
The gigantic Chantry doors clicked shut behind Kalya, and she rested against them to compose herself. When she had located the Chantry from her perch high above the city, she'd made a beeline right through town, keeping her eyes low to the ground for danger in the immediate surroundings, but now with streets quiet, the massive architecture loomed around her, making her feel very small and very alone.
Not far to her right rose a tall, impressive castle she hadn't noticed before that caused her heart to race. A structure that close to the Chantry could only be the wealthy home of Highever's teyrn, sworn ruler of the soldier she had murdered in the forest. Although it was unlikely his body had even been found by now, Kalya was eager to head straightaway in the opposite direction, toward the increasingly shabbier part of town. She didn't fancy ending up at another Alienage, but the surrounding area was sure to be shady enough to take rent money from an elf, no questions asked.
As Kalya started on her way, the mabari huffed at her in the darkness. She spun around to find him no longer at her side. He swayed his heavy head in the direction of the castle.
"So this is it then?" she asked. "Just making sure I didn't sell them into slavery, and off you go?"
He cocked his head to one side.
"Didn't need another mouth to feed anyway."
The mabari squared off and growled quietly.
"All right! All right! I was just – It was nice meeting you, sir." She bowed, and he huffed at her again, turning around.
"Hey! Thanks for your help. Keep fighting the good fight, yeah?"
He snorted and continued on his way towards the castle.
:::
The stillness of the night air was perfectly suited for allowing niggling doubts to creep past the barriers one tried so hard to keep fortified.
For three days, Kalya had crept around the town during the day, hood raised to hide her ears, searching furtively for abandoned shelter and discarded food. Denerim had enough closely stacked apartments that fell into such disrepair, the human inhabitants simply up and left, open for all self-loathing elf squatters who preferred cast-off human dwellings to compulsory Alienage squalor.
In Highever, there seemed to be only the latter. Kalya had spent each night in a different dark alley, buried beneath overflowing sacks of grain that were terribly itchy but blessedly inconspicuous. She was a light sleeper, but every time she jerked awake at a sudden noise, the drunk or cutpurse was simply passing through.
Street crime was an order of magnitude less than in her hometown, but it certainly existed, rising steadily after sundown. But the largely wealthy people of Highever carried with them a false sense of security that served Kalya well, allowing her to walk amongst them somewhat surreptitiously during the day.
At dusk, after most humans had cleared the streets, Kalya liked to shimmy up the higher buildings to take in the breathtaking surroundings and catch a gulp of the sea air. It was all she could do to convince herself leaving Denerim was the right choice.
Highever Castle was situated on the northern coast, overlooking the sea. The town radiated around it, with import roads leading in from the east and west. The Alienage was pocketed in the southernmost corner of the city, and rich farmlands dotted the northeastern border.
As she surveyed the town from her perch one evening, Kalya spotted a patch of light emanating from a small building just outside the Alienage. She scurried down from her vantage point and zigzagged through back alleys, slowing only when she approached the entrance, yellow light, music, and laughter spilling out into the street around her.
The smells drifting from within made her mouth water. This was clearly not an establishment that only turned its grill on every few weeks for the rare customer. Her stomach growled angrily, and it took everything for her not to throw caution to the wind and march in there as if she belonged. Truth was, even with the hood on, the pronounced bridge of her nose announced her race to all who looked closely enough, and there were surprisingly no elves within the establishment so close to their living area.
Allowing herself one last masochistic inhalation of the sweet grilling meats, Kalya was about to turn and go, when she saw a subtle commotion at a table at the far end of the bar.
The other tipsy patrons weren't like to notice, but a woman in a booth was pushing a man away from her as he leaned sloppily in for a kiss. She was giggling at first, but when he continued advancing with undue strength, fear swept across her eyes. Jerking her arm out of his grasp and turning to escape, she stumbled backwards towards him when he grabbed hold of her roughly. Jerking them both to standing, he took hold of her shoulders roughly, making their unsteady gait look like a drunken couple stumbling home.
In an instant, Kalya melted around the corner into a side doorframe, watching intently as the two emerged from the tavern. She gulped hard as they passed her hiding spot in the dead-end alley. Kalya remained frozen in wait as the human manhandled his victim down to its shadow-darkened end. He kicked the woman's feet out to spread her legs and kept one tight hand around the woman's neck as the other hand began unbuckling his trousers.
The world around Kalya stopped, and there was no room for doubt as she snatched the blades from inside her boots, advancing silently on the couple. From a few feet away, she launched herself forward, aiming for the back of the man's leg and slamming her knife handle into the crook of his arm. Rather than crumpling to the ground as the soldier had, the man simply shifted his weight. Spinning around in shock, he landed his elbow square in Kalya's face, stunning her into dropping both knives as she slammed into the side wall. The captive woman gave a choking sound and a cough, causing her attacker to slam her head again against the hard stone.
Dazed on the ground, Kalya scrambled to regain her balance. Blood gushed from her nose, seeping through her swelling lips, as the bitter, metallic taste met her tongue. There was no time to feel around for her blades, but perhaps she could stun the man long enough to loosen his grip on the girl.
The assailant swung his one free arm wildly as she tried to duck out of its way, but he grabbed onto Kalya's hair and yanked her to her feet, fixing his strong hand around her neck, as well.
"Looks like it'll be two for the price of one," he sneered.
With his arms occupied, however, he couldn't block Kalya's harsh kick to the groin, and he doubled over in pain, dropping both of them. The woman ran off crying, but when Kalya went to juke around his other side, he caught her again and slammed her head back on the ground beside him, hands around her neck.
"Oh, you're gonna pay for that one, bitch!"
He mounted her and squeezed her limbs between his thighs too tightly for her to wriggle out of as her peripheral vision became hazy. She tried to inhale but his thumbs pressed tightly on the base of her neck, making it impossible. In her last seconds of consciousness, she saw his head fly back and a leather-bound hand slice a line across the man's neck, spurting more blood onto her face. His body collapsed on top of her, and the world went black.
:::
Bubbles of pain burst against Kalya's face in the blackness, matching the rhythmic precision of her heartbeats. She could sense a dim, flickering candlelight as consciousness slowly crept in, bringing with it more aching discoveries. A throbbing in the chest, a raw slash across her arm. Trying to move as little as possible, she willed her heavy eyelids to open, revealing a small wooden room surrounding her, candle by the bedside.
Other senses returned all at once. A clattering in the opposite corner startled her as a pungent odor filling the room hit her nose, sending her scrambling shakily to the top of the bed against the wall.
"Easy there, stranger." A man's deep voice rose in the darkness with a whisper of an Orlesian accent. Kalya's eyes adjusted enough to see a dim flame of a stove where the man stood, stirring the aromatic substance. He was facing away from her.
"What do you do?" he asked calmly.
"Excuse me?" Kalya's voice creaked, and her lips felt unnaturally thick. The voice sounded distantly familiar, but her clouded mind couldn't connect.
"You wake up in a dark room with a strange man whose back is turned. What do you do?"
Kalya searched the room. To her left was the small candle. To her right on another small table were her twin blades, glinting in moonlight spilling in through the window.
"I stab you in the fucking back," she said, heart suddenly racing like a trapped animal. She considered lunging for them, but had the distant impression this was a trap.
Without turning around, the man slapped a hand across his back with a dull, metallic thump.
"Leather with a layer of mail underneath. No good. Next?"
"I…what is this? If you're going to kill me, do it before the lecture."
"I'm not going to kill you, but that rapist would have in an instant."
The man spun around slowly with a simmering pot in one hand, raising the other with his palm towards her, supposedly, she assumed, to show he meant no harm as he approached. He sat on the end of the bed and dipped a cloth into the steaming liquid.
"Well?" he asked again.
"I would…I'd try to blow out your knee and attack you on the ground."
Lifting the cloth out of the thick solvent, he squeezed it lightly in one hand and dipped his head in unspoken permission, leaning towards her to dab it on her cheeks. The salve felt hot and cold at once, and though her face tingled beneath its touch, she could feel some of the pain slowly wicking away.
"When you're weaker than your enemy – which is everyone to you, elf – that will only work on the rare chance the attacker is unbalanced or distracted. That man was neither. Kicking his legs and hitting his arm only made him choke his victim tighter."
"Well, what was I supposed to do? Let her get raped?"
He gently dabbed the salve higher, circling both her eyes. She sucked in through her teeth at the sharp sting, but the feeling was quickly replaced by soothing warmth.
"As an elf, you're also quicker than many, and more dexterous. A yank of the hair pulling the head back will stun just about any human, opening up their neck for your blade, or if you'd rather, distracting them long enough to make them more susceptible to leg or arm attacks."
"I'd rather have stabbed him in the crotch," she muttered. Her companion chuckled softly.
After returning the cloth to the pot to re-saturate, he gently lifted her arm and ran the material over the gash.
"Did I miss anything?" he asked.
"Um, my mouth," she said. "Thanks, I can..." She trailed off, reaching out her able hand.
He handed the bowl over. She lifted the cloth to her face and then sheepishly tucked it underneath her shirt to smooth the rising bruise on her chest as the man averted his eyes.
When she was finished, Kalya returned the salve, and he placed it next to the candle on her bedside table. The light illuminated his rugged features and dark hair pulled into a half-ponytail. Her heart leapt when she made the connection.
"Wait, I know you!"
"Do you, stranger?"
"You – You were there with Alistair. In Denerim. You're a Grey Warden!"
"That I am. Riordan. You're the elf from the Spotted Pig, are you not?"
A smile escaped through her throbbing lips, and she lightly shook his hand.
"Are the Grey Wardens in Highever?" she asked.
"Only me, I'm afraid." Kalya's shoulders dropped, and Riordan poorly hid a small, knowing smile.
"I'm actually headed back to Orlais in a half-year's time, but I was granted leave to spend some time at my childhood home." His voice trailed off, suspended in thought, as he stared at the ground ahead of him.
"And, um, the others?" she asked, hoping to sound nonchalant.
"Alistair and Duncan went south, while the rest of the group you met continued due west through the Bannorn."
"What, is there a Blight or something?"
Riordan's gaze remained on the floor. "We'll leave that for your king to decide."
"Oh. I was…sort of kidding."
A few moments passed, and Kalya shifted uncomfortably on the hard bed.
"How's the pain?" Riordan asked.
"Better than before, I suppose. Thank you."
Riordan nodded towards the foul-smelling mixture. "Best to keep that near you for a while. You'll swell back up in a few hours, but you can apply whenever it starts to ache. Here."
He reached in the table's drawer and procured a smoothed silver disk, holding it up to her face. When she caught sight of herself, she jumped back in surprise.
"Maker! You could have said something!"
Riordan chuckled. "The potion can't do anything about the coloring, but I should think you look worse than you feel."
"Yeah, thanks a lot," she scowled at her reflection. Two black eyes stared back at her, and the sides of her nose were outlined with angry dark bruises. Her lips were double their usual size. No wonder talking felt foreign.
"Well, I should… let you get some rest. I can mix something to help you sleep, if you like."
"No. I mean, no, thanks. I don't think I'll have a problem."
Riordan rose and crossed to the room's entrance, opening the creaky, wooden door.
"I'll be right in the next room. If you need anything, just give a shout. Breakfast will be at sunrise."
He bowed his head toward her and clicked the door shut behind him. Kalya inched back down the scratchy, hard bed and gingerly flipped on her side. The night's stars looked move vivid than she could remember them being, and she exhaled a deep breath she didn't notice she'd been holding. She could get used to being on this side of the windowpane.
