(I don't own Torchwood, Dragon Age or Bloodsong 13T's works. Trigger warning for this chapter.)

-Assan-

"How about the beginning?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This... I've rarely, if ever, spoken about this before. It never got any easier. I opened my eyes.

"What I'm about to tell you... you have to promise that it stays between us."

The other elf took in my serious expression for a moment before nodding, "I promise."

I took a deep breath before allowing myself to remember.

Nikalle and I moved through the forest like ghosts, swift and silent, following the trail of blood with heavy hearts. We did not expect to find the halla alive.

We heard racous laughter ahead, and a halla's terrified and pained bleats for help. Nikalle and I both shared a look, but I obviously misread what I figured it meant; I slipped my bow from my shoulder and reached smoothly for an arrow, but Nikalle grabbed my wrist. I turned and gave him a dirty look as I roughly jerked my head towards the direction of the halla.

Nikalle shook his head and nodded back the way we had come. He began to slip back into the forest, expecting me to follow; I didn't.

I came close to doing as I was supposed to, but the halla cried out again, a desperate scream of pain and terror, a plea for help that I couldn't find it within me to ignore.

I grit my teeth and whipped back around, moving forward without hesitation. Nikalle's breath caught in his throat as he noticed, but he dared not give away our location with a yell.; he lunged to catch me, but I was already out of reach.

There was a whole goup of shems and my breath caught in awe at the sight of them. Here was my childhood stories brought to life before me as I saw shems, actual shems, for the first time in all my sixteen summers.

These were the monsters that took everything from us? These things were the reason we have no choice but to spend our whole lives running from place to place? They didn't look like much.

Their ears looked very weird, and the shems looked kind of chubby from my vantage point. Every elf I had ever met was smaller and slimmer than these hulking creatures. They even had hair on their faces, not just their head!

Even worse, they were tormenting my favorite halla, which automatically made me hate them. They may be my childhood stories come to life, but it felt less like meeting a unicorn and more like coming face to face with a troll's behind, if you ask me.

But I was nothing if not an elf willing to give people a chance. Maybe they just didn't understand the harm they were causing, like a child stepping on an anthill.

I put my bow away and stepped into the clearing, hands raised in peace. Hopefully I could settle this without violence and keep my clan from being put at risk; I bit down the vengeance and rage that burned in my heart at the sight of the halla's snow colored pelt streaked with blood.

The laughter immediately ceased as the shems spotted me. The halla didn't hesitate to take the opportunity to break free from where they had her cornered and she limped as quickly as she could back to the safety of the trees. I hoped she'd find her way back to the hallakeeper safely, where she could be helped.

"What's an elf doing with weapons?" one of the shem sneered at me, "and so far from the alienage, too? Wat'cha say, m'lord? Teach the little elf a lesson and drag him back?"

The shem he had looked to, the one with the most expensive looking clothes, looked me over, a smile growing on his face; I felt like a rabbit being examined by a fox, "now, now, Walter, I'm sure I could possibly be... convinced... by this pretty little elf that he has a good reason to be out here."

"Peace, humans," Nikalle stepped forward from the shadows of the treestrees, holding his hands up to show that he was unarmed. He positioned himself between me and the shems, quickly pulling me behind him as he watched the lead shem carefully, "we are simply passing through these lands."

"Oh!" the lead shem's entire face seemed to light up, "Dalish elves!"

"Yes," Nikalle nodded respectfully and I almost bristled. Respect!? To a halla abusing shem!? I had been ready to protect my clan by remaining peaceful and patient, but to deem so low as to act like you had even any scrap of respect for them!?

"Looks like we've caught ourselves some savages, boys!" the lead shem said cheerfully, raising his arms to the other shems, and they eeulted into mocking laughter and whoops. Nikalle had tensed and I prepared for a fight. There were eight in all. Could Nikalle and I take eight armed and armored shem?

"Assan," Nikalle said, voice low, scratching at his wrist almost absently so that they wouldn't notice it was a move to get his hand close to his dagger, "Assan, I want you to turn around and run. As fast as you can. Don't eveb look back. Just run."

"You can't take eight shem at once," I hissed back, "they'll kill you."

"Assan," Nikalle met my eyes only once before looking back towards the shems, "you must warn the clan. Immediately. Tell them that we need to leave as soon as we can. Warning them is the only thing that matters."

In that moment, I swear Nikalle looked as if he had all the courage and power of Shartan.

"Now, Assan!" Nikalle snarled; in the blink of an eye he had slashed out the throat of the nearest shem and gutted a second before the first had even fallen, "run, da'len!"

He did not give me time for hesitation. I turned and took off as fast as my feet could take me; behind me, the lead shem whistled and the sound of dogs barking and howling filled the air as the hunting dogs gave chase. I could hear them tearing through the foliage after me, filling the forest with their noise, and I knew I couldn't lead them to the others.

I turned and leaped upon the nearest tree, scaling it and leaping to the nearest branch of the next tree and then on again to the next, flitting through the trees like a squirrel. Below, the hounds fought each other as they scrambled to keep track of me. Behind them, the shems were yelling and shouting at each other as they started after the trails the mabaris left behind, and I prayed to any Creator that was listening that Nikalle was okay.

Nikalle was the closest thing to a dad that I have ever had, and if he was dead because of me...

I misjudged the next branch and it snapped beneath my weight. I plummeted with a yelp of surprise that was echoed by whatever had just cushioned my fall.

I gasped and scrambled off the shem I had fallen on, and he quickly put his hands up in surrender, looking baffled as he pulled himself up into a sitting position and shaking the dead leaves from his hair. He was smaller and slimmer than the other shems I had seen, his face not even carrying the faintest hint of stubble. I half expected him to be an elf, if I hadn't had a glimpse of his rounded ears.

"Hi," the teen blinked, staring at me as if Andraste herself had been the one to just fall on him, "you-uh, you just fell from the sky."

"Tree," I corrected stupidly, not knowing what else to say.

"Oh, that- that makes a lot more sense," the boy said, brushing his hand through the unruly mop of black hair on his head to shake free the last few leaves and bits of dirt. His hair wasn't too long, just barely curling at the height of his chin.

I stared at him for a moment, but the hounds were catching up. He heard them too and quickly brushed a couple loose strands of his jet black hair behind his oddly shaped ears as he leapt to his feet, letting out a soft whistle that barely reached the trees. A tiny little form waddled hurriedly over from where it had been sniffing at a bush, and he scooped it up in spite of the little sniff it gave in complaint. I leaned forward to get a better look. It was a mabari pup, brown and very small, barely larger than a young raccoon.

"What's going on?" the young shem frowned, clutching the small puppy in one arm as he glanced in the direction the barking and baying was coming from. The hounds were too close to escape from, not that I had much of a chance in the first place.

"Sh-shems!" I trembled even still, "they- the shems!"

"Details, I need details," the kid prodded. He didn't look much older than me, maybe only a summer or two more, and he didn't look very formidable holding a cute little puppy that kept trying to lick his face; the sword on the shem's back looked very sharp, and his armor looked very well made, but I doubted he'd be able to fend off all the bigger adults even with my help. I was a hunter, not a fighter! I was trained to go up against whatever we might come across on the road. Anything other than a human. That was for the warriors, with their heavier armor and their swords.

"They killed Nikalle!" I cried out, "and now- now they're coming for me!"

It seemed I had earned myself an ally, by the way he handed his mabari pup to me and pulled free his sword with an ominous sound of metal scraping against metal. The hunting dogs had caught up, and they leaped into view like charging bulls only to skid to a stop at the sight of the shem. They'd been set on an elf, not a shem, and now they were confused as to what to do.

"Run," the young shem told me, "this is my fight. You and Barkspawn get somewhere safe."

"They made it my fight," I growled, unwilling to have to run and leave someone to die. Not again. Never again. "They hurt my halla, and they hurt Nikalle. I'm going to make them pay."

The young shem nodded, "fine. We face them together, then. I'm... I'm Graves."

"Assan."

Graves smiled and nodded, "well met, Assan."

Well met? Had I just heard him right? Well met, says the shem to the elf?

But there was no time for me to question the odd shem, as the adult shems had caught up and I clung to the young mabari pup, Barkspawn, who squirmed in my arms and tried to lick my face.

"Bann Hyder," the young shem greeted curtly as the lead shem caught up with his hounds, "fancy meeting you here, m'asshole."

Hyder's face twisted into a grin, twisted by the gash now slashed across his face; his eyes flickered between Graves and I, "ah, Graves Cousland. Is this your little bitch, then? You should keep your dogs on a tighter leash."

Graves narrowed his eyes, so obviously bitch must be a bad word, though I had never heard it before except in regards to a female canine. But Barkspawn was male, and none of the other mabaris here belonged to Graves.

Graves didn't look afraid, even though I could hear his heart beating quicker than a frightened rabbit's in the claws of a hawk; he was terrified, and his grip tightened on his sword as two more shems stepped followed Hyder into view. There were three of them, then, and I felt a burst of pride at Nikalle's abilities before it was overcome by a staggering sense of grief.

"What are you going to do, little Cousland?" Hyder tilted his head, "little teen pretending to be a man? What do you think you're going to do?"

"You'll be singing a different tune when I cut off your family jewels," Graves scowled, "does the name Ashanti ring any bells? She was an elven servant girl. You raped, beat, and killed her. She was my friend, and Uriel may have turned a blind eye just as he does for his son, just because they're elves, but the Couslands wil not."

"Really?" Hyder spread his arms out and gestured to the world around us, "because the only Cousland I see is Bryce's hot-headed brat!"

"A pretty little brat that could be worth something, m'lord," Walter spoke up, and damnit I had hoped he had been one of the ones to die on Nikalle's blade.

Hyder rubbed his chin, staring at Graves and I, "why, yes. That is true, isn't it? Hide his ears, dirty up his face, it would be easy to sneak him home. Any visitors would assume he was an elf! Oh, the fun we could have!"

"Worth the lives of your friends? Because I'm not going to leave until I've killed every single one of you. But not you, Hyder. You'll get to live the rest of your life as a eunuch... only without the dangly bit, too," Graves growled, and I clung to little Barkspawn as the threat was met with a laugh by Hyder.

Hyder stuck two fingers into his mouth and let out a piercing whistles that startled the birds from the trees. Two more shems broke through the foliage, making four survivors in all, and they dragged a form between them that fought even still. Hyder nodded and one of the shem's jerked the bloody figure's head up, pressing a dagger to the figure's throat.

"Nikalle!" I almost dropped the dog at the sight of him, alive. He was bloodied and bruised, but he lifted exhausted, fight-filled eyes to meet mine. I almost cried in relief at seeing him alive.

"Drop your sword, turn around," Hyder ordered us both, "failure to listen will result in this savage's death."

I didn't expect Graves to drop his sword, not for a couple of Dalish elves. Everything I had ever known about them told me he wouldn't. But he did. He dropped his sword and turned around, grumbling curses as he allowed Hyder's buddies to wrestle him roughly to the ground and bind his hands.

"Gonna kill us all, Cousland, are ya?" one of the shems spat before driving their foot right into Graves' gut. The young shem's face twisted, but he grit his teeth and didn't cry out.

"You, too, elf."

"Assann, no," Nikalle growled, "it's alright, da'len. Run."

The shem holding the dagger growled and pushed the dagger harder against Nikalle's throat, but Nikalle didn't even wince. Nikalle glared at the shem, defiant even now.

I put the mabari down, much to its annoyance, and turned around. The shems wasted no time in shoving me to the ground and yanking the rope tightly across my wrists behind my back.

Once Graves and I were securely bound and they had wrestled a growling Barkspawn into a bag, Hyder nodded towards his buddy, "kill the knife-ear."

"NO!" I struggled, and the shems hurried to hold me down, grunting with exertion at my almost feral attempts to get free. Warm blood was already trickling down my wrists, but I didn't stop tugging, trying to free myself, to save Nikalle, "NO! NIKALLE! PAPA!"

The shem killed him. I couldn't see it, but I heard the wet sound of it driving through his neck, heard the spatter of his blood hit the leaves, heard the shem let his body fall with a limp thud. I stammered out a quick prayer for him, barely able to see through my tears as I sobbed.

Graves spit and cursed and threatened and screamed, but it was too late. We were trapped, the two of us, and at the mercy of the dishonourable, halla-abusing noble.

You brats honestly thought I'd let that savage live? I love Tame the Savage, sure, but that thing killed four of my men!" Hyder snarled, but his anger turned to laughter so quickly that it terrified me, "they honestly thought I'd let them live!"

The other shems gave nervous chuckles. They were scared of him, too, too scared to speak up against what Hyder had just done.

"You know, this leaves me with quite the hankering for a round of Tame the Savage," Hyder said, but I couldn't see him from where I was pinned, "and here I've got two savages to choose from! You love the little knife-ears so much, little Cousland? Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can consider yourself an honorary knife-ear savage in my eyes! Eunuch, huh?What was that part about making me a eunuch, boy!?"

I heard him kick Graves, a lot harder than the other shem had, but Graves only returned the attack with an attack of words.

I heard the sound of a belt buckle being done, and suddenly Graves went deathly silent for a moment before shouting again, louder than before. Panic edged his words, loud and frantic as he cursed Hyder's entire line to hell.

"What about you, little Cousland? Want to play 'Tame the Savage' first? Or how about you, little elf? Hmmm? Don't worry, you'll both get a turn."

I closed my eyes and blocked out the world. I prayed.

I prayed as Graves went from snarling and furious to sobbing and humiliated.

I prayed when it was my turn.

I prayed.

Not a single Creator answered.

"He..." Fenris frowned, "but.. you said Graves was a Cousland, a family held in such high regard that I hear they were once even offered the throne."

"It didn't seem to matter to Bann Hyder," I said, gaze focused on Barkspawn. The mabari whined and looked up at me, those brown eyes sad. Did he remember it, too? I wondered how much he remembered, and I wondered how much he understood, "Hyder had us for a month. I spent the first week so closed up in my own head I barely understood what was happening around me, but I snapped out of it when Graves started having night terrors. We took care of each other in there. Lethallin. Binded through our experiences, tied together from only having each other to count on. Just me and Graves, the tw-"

Barkspawn let out a bark of disagreement.

I smiled softly and petted the mabari's soft head, "yes, yes, and you, too, Barkspawn."

"And the entire time you were trapped there..."

"Hyder played Tame the Savage a lot, yeah. I was a bit bitter during the second week, I remember, because I thought it was only me, but it turned out Graves was just being left alone because Hyder had beat him badly enough during the first week that he got internal bleeding. After a mage was brought in and healed him, Hyder started making him play his twisted game, too. I felt terrible for ever being bitter at all."

"You know it wasn't a game, right? No matter how twisted of a mind he had to call it such-"

"Yeah, Fenris. It was rape. I know what it was," I said, looking away from the other elf, "he raped us, okay? You don't need to get all squeamish after I've poured out my guts, Fenris. You wanted to know, and now I've told you."

"The Couslands saved you both? Got you out, then?"

"No," I shook my head, "they didn't even know Hyder had us. There was this one time... Creators, this one time they were right outside the door of where we were kept, but Hyder had taken Barkspawn that morning and promised he'd feed the mabari to us if we made so much as a single peep. We heard them talking to Hyder, begging for his assistance in finding their beloved son, and we heard him promise to do everything in his power to help. He was a good actor. The Couslands were crying, we could hear them, and once they'd left, Graves cried, too. Hyder laughed for a long time after they left, but we got Barkspawn back."

"You two stayed silent? When freedom was right there in front of you?"

"What could we do? The Couslands thought Hyder was an ally and so they were outnumbered in that castle, and we had no doubt Hyder would keep his promise to us about feeding Barkspawn to us. The three of us were all we had. Me, Graves, and Barkspawn. We weren't about to give him up, give any of us up to death, even if the Maker himself had demanded it."

"Then... how did you escape?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before finding the strength to speak, "it was Hyder's birthday. He had a huge party, and afterwards he...celebrated. Except, instead of locking Graves and I back up in the closet he had turned into our prison like he usually did, he fell asleep. Barkspawn brought us a key, and we used it to free ourselves. We ran off to find our way out, and Hyder's guards spotted us and they woke him up."

"He dragged you back?"

"I had grabbed a knife," I shook my head, "when we cut through the kitchen I grabbed the closest one as we ran through. Later on, when he opened the door of the cupboard we were hiding in, I... I pounced out and started stabbing him and didn't stop. Graves grabbed his sword and bottlenecked the guards through the doorway. I..I carried out Graves' eunuch threat, while Hyder was still breathing, and a little bit after that I killed him for good. Graves dragged me out of there, the two of us coated in blood, dripping with it. It's... not exactly an event I like to remember."

Fenris tapped his fingers against the ground, thinking about what I had said, "and afterwards?"

"The Couslands and our allies were furious, once we reached them and told them what had happened. Bann Hyder's family aren't even nobles, and a couple of the people living on Cousland lands even torched Hyder's castle. Graves was well liked."

"And so you went back to your clan, after that, then?"

"I stayed with the Couslands for the winter," I said, "but I left come spring when the Lavellan clan came through. I'm Dalish to the core, Fenris. The Couslands were some of the greatest people I've ever met, and they treated me like one of their own, like their very own son, but the call of the Creators beckoned me home. I lived with the Lavellan clan until I was nineteen summers. Had even settled down with a nice elven girl named Elgara, but things got... complicated.. when at the Arlathvhen I decided to return to my own clan when they arrived."

"Arlathvhen. That gathering the Dalish have every decade or so that you were talking about earlier."

"Yeah. It was hard leaving the Lavellan clan, but the Sabrae clan was where I belonged. The Sabrae clan was where Ashalle was, the closest thing I ever had to a mother. She was bonded with Nikalle, and I guess seeing me home again after so long was the closest she could get to family again. Tamlen and Merrill were there, still, too, my closest friends. But not as close a friend as Graves had been. I miss my lethallin even now."

"Speaking of Graves, I suppose you two met up again, considering the fact that you have Barkspawn."

Barkspawn let out a grieved whine and I shook my head, eyes burning.

"The spring I left after that winter was the last time I ever saw him," I admitted, "Arl Howe murdered the Couslands. All of them. I hear Graves slaughtered many of Howe's soldiers, but he was wounded and vastly outnumbered. He never even made it out of the castle."

Fenris frowned, "but- but Barkspawn?"

"All we know is that he got out somewhere, caught the Taint somewhere in the Wilds, and ended up being found and taken in by the forces at Ostagar, before everything went to hell. Long story short, I recognized him and he recognized me."

I trailed my fingers across the old scar that ran across the bridge of Barkspawn's muzzle.

"He got this trying to protect Graves and I, even though he was too small to do much of anything. It happened when Nikalle died, but we didn't notice until we realized he was bleeding after they threw him in with us in our cell."

Fenris trailed his fingers across the scar, "you said he caught the Taint?"

"Yeah. I found a flower in the Wilds that the kennelmaster was able to use to heal him. I thought he died at Ostagar, but he caught up with us afterwards and we've been buddies again ever since."

Fenris' face softened as he petted the mabari. After a long moment of silence, he spoke up again, "I... was a slave in Tevinter."

"Yes, Varric's book mentioned that."

"Did it mentioned that Danarius used me like Hyder used you?"

"He... did?" I tried to imagine the deadly elf having to go through that and failed.

"It is.. unfortunately common for slaves in Tevinter," Fenris said softly, "but I killed Danarius, in the end. I'm not sure if I could have done it without Hawke."

"I don't think I would have ever even survived if not for Graves."

Barkspawn yawned and plopped himself over more comfortably, obviously very interested in our conversation. Fenris and I both chuckled at the mabari.

"Those scars that circle your wrists. They were from the chains, weren't they?"

"We are the Dalish and never again shall we submit," I echoed, "yeah, they are. After I snapped out of it, I started fighting again."

"And you've told Zevran then, all this about Hyder?"

"Yeah."

"And he still said that earlier?" Fenris grit his teeth and narrowed his eyes, lyrium brands lighting up along his skin.

"Zevran didn't exactly have a sparkling childhood, Fenris," I said, glancing at the elf that had just lit up the closet "few elves probably have. And, besides, he was probably talking about what happened at Lothering."

"You were at Lothering?" the brands on his skin went out, curiosity winning over anger, "wait, what happened in Lothering?"

"Well, uh, it's kind of a long story. A story I made the mistake of letting Morrigan tell Zevran. The story Morrigan never gets tired of talking about and the very same story that Alistair swears we never speak of again."

"Wait.. you slept with the king of Ferelden?"

"I- what!? No!?" I stuck out my tongue, "Alistair is my lethallin! A band of mercenaries was moving through, called themselves the Chargers. They had to stay on the outskirts because their leader made the Lothering folks nervous. He was a big Qunari called The Iron Bull. And that's all you get to hear of it!"

"A qunari? Tal-Vasoth?"

"No. Ben-Hassrath."

Fenris stared at me as if I had grown a second head, "Assan Mahariel, are you telling me that you slept with a qunari spy?"

"A very skilled qunari spy," I corrected, "except Alistair interrupted near the end and didn't get his normal coloring back for a week. A week of a beet red Alistair avoiding me and sputtering his words every time I tried to talk to him."

Fenris stiffled a chuckle.

"No. Do not even laugh about it."

He laughed. He laughed like it was the funniest thing that he had ever heard.

"You're exaggerating!" he wheezed, trying to regain control of himself, "there is no way he was red for a week!"

"You're right. It was an understatement. Even now, he still gets red every time somebody says qunari and Assan in the same sentence."

Fenris broke out into laughter and this time I joined him, the two of us laughing until our chests hurt and we couldn't laugh anymore. We calmed down, eventually, delving into a silence that was more comfortable between us than it had ever been before.

"You won, you know," Fenris said softly.

"What?"

"Hyder's cruel and twisted game. You won. He's dead, and you're not."

I smiled at the idea, "yeah. Yeah, I guess I did. But that means you won, too, Fenris. Danarius is dead, you're not. We won."

Fenris smiled, "yes, I... I suppose we did."'

"May they rot in Fen'Harel's clutches," I grinned.

"You can say that again," Fenris agreed, "I hope they bug the hell out of each other for the rest of time."

I laughed, content for the moment as I leaned my head against the closet wall, thinking back on the good memories Graves and I had shared: climbing trees in the Cousland courtyard before the snow rolled in, chasing each other through the halls with Barkspawn on our heels, stealing food from the kitchens between meals and eating so much Graves' mother yelled at us for spoiling our dinner. There were countless memories.

The winter spent at the Couslands' was one of the best times of my life, despite following one of of the worst months of my life. I hadn't even realized I had shoved the memories away to help push away the grief learning of the Couslands' demise had brought.

Even the Hyder memories didn't hurt as much as they used to.

"Thanks, Fenris."