The entrance to Orzammar held a gathering of dwarven and human traders, the snow packed down to slippery ice and squelching mud that tried to suck your boots from your feet as you went. Emma spent the morning flitting from one merchant to another, eyeing his or her goods, picking up a bow or arrow or knife to inspect it closer. There were a few targets scattered between those who sold weaponry and she tested the feel of each one, smiled politely and set it back down on the display. Currently, none of her three companions could tell where she and Nehn had disappeared to. Wynne had contented herself with looking at the finer things the merchants had for sale - enchanted rings and necklaces and belts, different colored inks, a few books for easy reading; Emma was doing remarkably well in their lessons together. Sten and Shale stood in companionable silence, no doubt both trying to determine which of them was the better giant, near the center of the clearing. Both were still spotted with blood after their encounter with mercenaries halfway up the mountain pass.

"Sten!"

The three started at her sudden outburst, turning to find her. She was waving from one of the merchant stalls closest to the wide, carved entrance into the underground city. The Qunari walked over with deliberate steps, his usual frown on his face. Shale and Wynne followed.

"Look," she said cheerfully as soon as he was close enough. "It's just your size, isn't it? It looks like it is. It's bigger than any sword I've seen before."

His frown deepened, accompanied with a low grumble of disapproval. "Do you want it," she asked, peering up at him with wide eyes.

"I know this sword," he began slowly. "But it is not mine."

The merchant took a step back, knocking over a stand of armor that he had set up, as the Qunari turned his red gaze on the man. Emma quickly stepped between them, hands planted on her hips. "What do you mean?"

"I was sent with others of my kind to answer a question. They were killed by these creatures, the darkspawn, and I was rescued by a family of farmers. I did not have my sword and the family had not found it with me. In a rage, I killed them -" the man gasped "- and then waited to receive my punishment. This sword belonged to one of my brothers of the Beresaad."

The elf put a hand to her throat, toying with the carved necklace she wore beneath her scarf, and spun to the merchant. "Have you another Qunari sword," she demanded.

"N-N-No. I did. But I sold it! I sold it o-on my way here. T-There's a dwarf in Redcliffe last I passed that way, named Dwyn. Sold it to him."

"I know Dwyn," she muttered. "We'll talk to him when we've finished our business in Orzammar. Ir abelas, Sten, it will have to wait. But I promise you, we will find your sword. It would be good for you to have something of home." He nodded stiffly at her smile. "As for that, we'll take it."

"Of course. That's seven gold pi-" She flicked a knife from her boot with ease, none of the four seeing quite when she did it, only knowing that she suddenly held a glinting blade in her hand as though summoned by magic. "T-take it."

She smiled curtly, the dangerous light fading from her eyes, slung the heavy blade over her shoulder and made for the carved doors leading into Orzammar. There was a party of humans arguing with one of the guards and the words 'King Loghain' could be heard from the base of the steps. Emma paused and stared at them, ran her fingers through her hair, took a deep breath, and walked up calmly.

"No entry will be granted to foreigners," the dwarf said, shaking his head, his brown beard covering his chin and neck with intricate braids, hair slicked and braided back, his armor tinted burgundy, an axe sitting diagonally on his back.

"My business concerns the Grey Wardens," the Dalish said. The men would have said something - anything - were it not for the golem and Qunari that accompanied the young woman. Had it been only the elf and the mage they wouldn't have hesitated, but the two giants with their intimidating stances and powerful builds gave them pause, made them think that perhaps it would be best to arrange an ambush of sorts for another time, a time when they could get the treacherous Warden away from her protectors. That was all they could be after all - hired help to keep her alive as she went about seeking to build an army against the regent. As an elf, she wouldn't have had any training with weapons herself despite the unusually large sword she carried.

The dwarven guard took the scroll she held out, looked it over quickly and nodded. "Only the king can fulfill your treaty but I'm afraid we haven't one at the moment. You and yours will be welcomed inside, if only for your status as a Grey Warden. Open the doors!"

"This isn't over, traitor," the man said solemnly.

"Not until the archdemon lies dead at my feet." She flashed a wicked smile and turned sharply on her heel. The walk through the hall of paragons was brief and there were few dwarves to stare, yet stare they did. She didn't stop until she'd made it through the second set of doors into the actual city. Shale knocked into the sword still unsheathed on her shoulder and the sound rang off the surrounding stone.

"E, Mythalan -"

"Thank the -"

"- enansal."

"- Maker."

Emma and Wynne stared at each other for a moment before sharing a smile, the elf realizing sooner than the mage that they had said practically the same thing - to their respective deities, of course. Their smiles were cut short however as a skirmish broke out between two groups of dwarves, shouting followed quickly by blades being bared and ending in one death as a city guardsmen arrived and the offending parties scattered in separate directions.

"Sodding," the guard grumbled, staring down at the blood staining the stone floor, the man's chest split in two from a single-edged sword that had stuck in his armor. "I find that duster, I'll send him to the Legion. Fighting in front of outsiders. Disgraceful!"

"Remind me not to fight a dwarf," the elf laughed nervously as the short man turned his glare to her.

Emma growled as she flopped facedown onto the mattress, sliding onto the floor in the same motion - not that there was much distance between the two. Every guard they met said that under normal circumstances, the Grey Warden and her companions would be treated as honored guests and given rooms within the palace, even sit beside the king during meals. But there was no king and these were not normal circumstances, and so the four had taken up residence in one of the inns around the bustling Commons.

It had been a week since they entered the last great city of the dwarves and while they had met with representatives of the two men who now contended for the throne they had yet to see either man himself. Both had asked ridiculous tasks of her to prove her loyalty to them. Wynne had cautioned against choosing sides and the elf had stomped away, grumbling about how the stale air must affect their minds and the shifting light provided by the pools and rivers and falls of magma made them just as shifty-eyed and paranoid.

"I hate this … these politics," she mumbled with a sigh, turning onto her back.

"Oh, child," Wynne laughed. "Politics are everywhere. We even had similar things in the Circle. Do the Dalish not fight over who the next Keeper of a clan will be?"

"No. The next Keeper is the the Keeper's First. The choice belongs to the Keeper and the Keeper alone. When Marethari steps down as head of the Sabrae, it will be my friend Merrill who takes her place. And she will choose a First so that when she steps down, her First will then be Keeper.

"There's no arguing or squabbling among the hahren. They don't put forth their own candidate. There isn't a chance for a 'usurper' to come into play because there's only one person in the clan who can make that decision."

"Well, that would make things easier. Were you out all night again?"

She nodded. "It's a different sort of people that runs around in the dark, with different opinions and different views on life. Not that anyone worth anything in this hole would listen to them."

"The Proving is tomorrow, you know," Wynne said quietly after a moment of silence passed between them.

"Yes. It only means I have to make a decision today."

"Will you be joining us for breakfast?"

"No. I think I'll get some sleep."

Wynne nodded and closed the door gently behind her as Emma climbed onto the short mattress and curled into a ball. She ticked off what Bhelen stood for on one hand, Harrowmont on the other, comparing them, trying to think which would be the better man not only for the dwarves underground but those above as well. They were all the same people, after all, and she thought that they should get along better. She took the downy pillow from beneath her head, hugging it to her chest and repeating the information she'd gathered over the last seven days in a whisper until her words had grown so faint and so spread that she stopped talking altogether without even noticing.

The Proving was packed to the rafters, the air filled with the rumble of hundreds of voices. It had been announced earlier that morning that the visiting Grey Warden would be participating but had yet to declare who she would champion for, and the line outside the Proving arena had grown and grown until it meandered its way up to the Diamond Quarter. Sten, Wynne and Shale were given their choice of seating before the crowd was let in and they took the very front row directly center of the field.

Wynne had seen their Dalish leader use a blade only once in the Circle tower. Ever since she'd reverted to any bow she could get her hands on - the last being a longbow made from ironbark that Master Varathorn had given her for her help with the werewolves in the Brecilian Forest. She didn't know whether the elf carried daggers in her pack or if she would have to borrow a heavier dwarven design but the Proving master had told her bows weren't allowed. "They don't test someone's strength or endurance down here, just their cowardice." She hoped that whatever weapon the elf was given, it would be something she could utilize, that it wouldn't put her at a disadvantage.

Emma's thoughts were much the same as she wandered the back room where the contestants waited. She twisted the necklace she wore round and round, feeling the different animals carved into the beads, comfortable in her Dalish hunter's armor - a set that she'd happily bought from Varathorn - but very, very uncomfortable beneath so much stone. She had once thought sleeping in a castle was suffocating but this …

The Proving master had sent out runners to the stores to find something to her liking but had as yet been unsuccessful. He grumbled to one of the dwarves as she made another round of the room.

She loosened her scarf to swoop further down her chest and brushed her hair back, hating the fringe she'd cut in to hide her vallaslin, feeling the ends of the material drag on the ground as her bare feet brushed against the brown stone with each step.

Gwiddon and Baizyl nodded when she passed them. They were two of Harrowmont's best fighters; both had backed out earlier that week after being lied to and blackmailed, respectively. Emma had lied to Gwiddon to gain his aid in the Proving, brushing it off as a necessity and telling herself that she could regret it later and come clean after she won - if she won. On one of the many nights she spent awake sneaking through the Commons, she'd climbed the outside of the arena - all of the architecture was breathtaking and magnificent, with murals carved in relief on walls and ceilings, and the smooth stone offered a surprising amount of hand- and foot-holds to scurry up the sides of buildings or from level to level due to the blocky, turning nature of the designs - and picked a locked door and then a locked chest to retrieve the letters that were being held against Baizyl.

Now they were both willing to stand by her side if she requested their aid in the group fights.

The Proving master sent a dwarf her way with a bundle in his arms. He inclined his head respectfully, set the bundle on the ground and unrolled it. "These are yours, if you want," he explained. "A family had them laying 'round and hasn't had a use for them since they were made. Said they're too flimsy for the way his boys fight but that they might suit an elf."

"At this point, I think I'll take anything," she muttered.

She picked up both weapons and stared at them. The blades curved like a snake slithering through the tall grasses of the forest, ending in fine points, the edges sharpened enough to draw a line of blood from her thumb as she pressed down lightly. One was tinted purple, the crossguard a lighter lavender that was carved to look like horns, a blood-red ruby inlaid just below it before the handle began, the pommel a stout and flattened circle perfect for slamming into the side of someone's temple. The second was a shining silver metal, the crossguard carved the same as the other's with a matching ruby, the handle a plain brown, the pommel spiked. They were elegant and deadly, the daggers a finer design than any she'd seen before and a higher quality metal than she'd ever worked with in her lessons with Ilen.

"These were made by dwarves," she asked.

"Made, aquired," the man shrugged. "They'll go back up on a wall if you don't take 'em."

"Warden," the Proving master urged.

"Do they come bare or -"

"Scabbards and belts, here."

She stood, buckled the weapons into place on her back and drew them up partially, letting them slide back into place, then nodded. The Proving master nodded in return and disappeared from the room. Another dwarf ushered her to a darkened entrance hall leading onto the arena's field. No doubt her opponent was waiting in a similar entrance somewhere else in the arena.

She raised her hand to shade her eyes when her name was called and she walked out onto the field. Not a good first impression, she mused and straightened. Shale and Sten were easy to spot among the dwarves, they themselves dwarfing Wynne who sat between them. She made sure there was a confident smile on her face as she strode forward to one of two grey stones set into the earthen field.

The Warden and her companions slouched on the short furniture, ignoring the staring dwarves as the blood dried. The visiting lords and ladies that supported Harrowmont taking the throne had all been hoping for a glimpse of and the chance to speak with the Proving champion and had been vastly disappointed for the past week as she was nowhere to be found; not even Corra had been able to say where the elf had run off to. And now here she was, rubbing at drying blood on her skin and armor, a frown creasing her forehead.

"Warden Mahariel."

She wiped a cut on her thigh as she stood. Dulin looked them over with shaded dark brown eyes. He knew, of course, that Pyral Harrowmont had set her about the task of clearing out the carta in Dust Town but he had never imagined she would show up at a lord's residence covered in blood and dirt from head to foot. She should at least have had the decency to bathe, he thought with a sniff.

"Follow me, please. Lord Harrowmont will see you."

They followed the dwarf down the halls in silence, Shale's steps nearly knocking the tired mage off her feet. Emma moved much more nimbly and kept up with the short guide but remained as silent and stern as Sten. Harrowmont waited in a back room, lavishly furnished, and stood when the four entered.

"Warden Mahariel. I take it by your appearance that the carta would not listen to you."

"You knew they wouldn't listen, wouldn't surrender and lay down arms. You knew it would be a massacre - ours or theirs!"

"Yes," Harrowmont said after letting the silence stretch between them, the fire behind the grate the only sound aside from their breathing. "Jarvia has always been … unyielding. I apologize, Warden. I should have been honest with you from the start. I worried you would not help me if you knew that the only way to stop the carta from operating would be to kill every member."

"Well, what's next?"

"Pardon?"

"I've proven you can trust me. I've dealt with your problems. There must be something else that requires someone to dirty their hands and, naturally, you would ask me. So what's next?"

"Yes, well … It won't be an easy task."

"No task set before me since my joining the Grey Wardens has been easy, ha durgen'len. Speak or it waits until I decide to come back."

"There is the small matter of convincing the assembly to crown me king." He paused and sat at a chair behind a desk. He motioned for the others to sit as well but Emma stayed standing along with Shale and Sten - who were much too large for the single chairs; Wynne was the only one to sit, sighing gratefully as she did so. "As it stands, they're split evenly between myself and Bhelen, though there are a few who could be swayed either way. I … I hate to ask this of you after you've already done so much but … Branka is our last paragon. She and her family disappeared to the Deep Roads three years ago and while parties have gone in search of them, there have been no signs. The quickest way - and the best way, Warden - to ensure that I am Endrin Aeducan's successor is to have the support of a paragon."

"Just," Emma began slowly, trying to mull over the unasked request. "What are you asking me to do?"

Pyral shifted in his chair, leaning forward on the seat, his chin resting on his hand.

"I am asking you to venture forth into the Deep Roads, find Branka, and return with her.

"E," the elf shouted, the word jerked from her lips as she stepped back. "Tel'dhrua!"

Author's Note: Emma got shiny new daggers! The Rose's Thorn and Thorn of the Dead Gods (tier 6 on that one; silverite). Now she really is a prickly Rosebush, running around with her Thorns.

ha durgen'len: old dwarf

tel'dhrua: I don't believe it!/Unbelievable!