Kalya came to with a jolt. The thick bag covering her head made it difficult to breathe. Her hands chafed, bound tightly behind the back of a rickety chair. Still a bit drunk, the only thoughts that took hold in the blackness were furious rage and promised revenge. The crown of her head throbbed where the pommel had crashed down on her. What she wouldn't give to wake up just once without a splitting headache.
With a flourish, the bag was pulled off from behind. Dusty, cold air flooded her lungs. A beam of moonlight from a high window was all that illuminated the room around her. A warehouse. Abandoned? No, the floor was swept clean. This place was used frequently, but not for storage – not the legal kind, anyway.
"I hope you will accept my most sincere apologies."
Zevran stepped into the blue beam of light with his palms up, composed and congenial as a Sister of the Chantry.
"You!"
"I had intended to bring you here, er… conscious. I am sorry to say you forced my hand with your screams. Couldn't have Denerim's night guards following me to this place."
The elf circled her like a mountain cat, lithe and sleek. And threatening.
"I truly apologize for the bump on the head. Although it does segue into our first lesson quite poetically."
"Lesson?!" Kalya spat. "You planning to teach me with your throat slit?!"
Zevran's mouth turned down into an almost comical pout. What the hell was this? After a moment absorbing her glared daggers, he took a deep breath, eyes closed. The guy could have won awards in the play-actors' troupe with the mask of regret he was pantomiming.
"Kalya, I've… been watching you. The nobles in the market. The rapists outside the Alienage. That woman who beat her mabari."
Hairs pricked up along the back of her neck.
"That was… that was months ago."
"You're a skilled rogue – a skilled fighter – when it's on your terms. But that alone is not enough to survive those who might want you dead."
"Who, the Arl's guards? I'm sure they have better things to do than hunt me down."
"Doesn't take much coin tohire someone to do the hunting, mia cara. Many live for the hunt."
Kalya's eyes widened. With an uneasy chuckle, Zevran held up his hands in defense.
"Not me, no. Maker, I'm doing this all wrong."
He sank to a crouch before her.
"I wish to train you. There is darkness in the coming months. Neither of us can avoid it, and I fear you won't survive without my help."
"And when I agreed on the rooftop to let you train me, you thought you'd start by dragging me unconscious to a warehouse for our first lesson? You're twisted."
His stoic expression cracked into a guilty smile.
"On that I won't disagree. Forgive me for being blunt, but it's… discipline you lack. You'd show up nightly for lessons, with an apple for teacher?" He clucked his tongue. "No, you're not built for that. Not with your, shall we say, thirst for self-flagellation."
She spat bitterly onto the cold floor. "You know nothing about me."
"I know you're as stubborn as I once was. It's stunning how much you remind me of me."
Kalya cocked her head. "Then you'll understand why I'll stick around just to stab you in the back the first chance I get."
A twinkle from the moonlight caught in his eye. "I'm counting on it."
He clapped hands over his knees and rose to his feet.
"It will take time before you can trust me. That I understand. That's why, in lesson one, I promise not to harm you."
Kalya rolled her eyes. She loathed being a pawn in whatever twisted game the elf was playing, but what choice did she have? Her head still throbbed angrily. At least the dizziness from the ale was slowly ebbing away.
"And what is lesson one?" she asked.
"Pain."
She blinked. The way he tasted the word sent shivers down her spine.
"But you said –"
"I won't harm you today." The elf couldn't stifle a vicious smile. "Rope hurts."
Kalya acted in an instant, hoping his sadism bought her a moment of distraction. With a widened stance, she lifted herself with the chair and curled forward savagely, driving her head to butt against his. One more contusion to add to the lot.
Zevran was taller than her, but not by much. Her forehead connected with the bridge of his nose and sent him staggering back a meter or so. It didn't unleash the spray of blood she'd imagined. Still, the elf wiped his nose with the back of his hand, eyes wide. Hopefully, it had hurt. A lot.
Still hunched over, Kalya closed the gap between them and swung to the left with all her might, driving the chair into his ribs. Zev dropped his weight. The force barely moved him. He pushed the chair with both hands in the opposite direction, swinging Kalya with it. The rope bit into her wrists as she tried to work them over the back of the chair, to no avail. Splintery heat split into her skin like an overripe fruit as she skittered to her right.
When Zevran advanced again, she kicked out a leg towards his crotch and missed its height by centimeters. Still, with one leg between his, she scissored with brutal force, toppling them both to the side. Kalya landed hard on her shoulder and scraped her cheek across the stone ground.
At this angle, she was able to hook her ankles around the chair's crossbar and push free, slipping her arms over the back. She kicked it towards him and rose from her crouch, hopping backwards over her bound wrists.
Her blood colored the rope red. Every movement cut deeper, stinging to dizzying distraction. Zevran shook his head as he advanced slowly.
"You're doing well. Will you allow me to set you free?"
She spat in his face. He wiped it away with a thumb, still smirking.
"I do not blame you the betrayal you feel. But a day will come where you will thank me."
With a roar, Kalya swung both her fists in an arc towards Zevran's face. He caught them with one hand.
"Can we at least level the playing field? Unfair fights with beautiful women grate on my conscience."
Reaching behind him, Zevran procured a sharp dagger that glinted in the moonlight. Kalya winced when he slashed forward with it, but it slid silkily through the ropes binding her wrists.
The rush of relief was momentary. The rope had been acting as a cork. Now gone, her wounds bled freely. Color drained from her vision, and she shook her head to clear it. Hands raised, ever-defensive, Zevran made to slip the knife back in his belt, when Kalya lunged forward and slammed a fist in the crook of his elbow. He dropped the blade, and she caught it by the handle on its descent. She slashed towards the elf, and he bowed inward, missing being gutted by centimeters.
Kalya continued jabbing wildly while Zevran danced out of its way, seeming to learn her rhythm and anticipate where to juke. But he never advanced. Kalya could feel his restraint, only acting on defense, and the insult fueled her rage. She longed to make him regret going easy on her, but every furious thrust missed its mark.
When her swings finally exhausted her, Zevran caught her by one forearm, then the other – squeezing tightly so as not to slide down to her tender wrists – and bowed his head in respect.
"Kalya," he said, gulping for air, "will you save this rage for another time? If you are sore tomorrow, it will be harder to make me suffer. That's what you want, is it not?"
Her chest heaved, gaze boring into his with an ungraceful snarl.
"I deserve all you want to befall me and more," he said. No smirk belied his emotions now. What she had read earlier as pity, suddenly looked genuinely like… worry.
"What do you care?" she asked. "Huh? What's one more drunk elf gutted by the Arl's soldiers to you? We're strangers, or we would be if you weren't such a creep!"
Zevran took a chance dropping her hands. She didn't raise them again. Exhausted, she averted her gaze, hoping he couldn't see the frustrated wetness gathering in her eyes.
"As I said, you remind me of myself. If I had someone to prepare me, I swear I would have preferred the training to the test."
"Prepared you for what?"
Zevran's shoulders fell. He broke eye contact.
"The coming darkness. That's all I can say."
:::
Kalya refused to let Zevran walk her home in the early morning hours. He probably followed her anyway, but she was too tired to care. She did not refuse the three vials of healing potion he had tucked into her hands before they parted ways outside the warehouse's back alley.
As she lay in bed, aching all over, filthy, and still bleeding, Alistair's face crept into her consciousness, as it often did when crushing guilt felt too much to bear.
Of all Zevran's inappropriate actions and arrogant words, one judgment rang too painfully true to ignore. She wouldn't have gone to him for training, and look how badly she needed it. Her own rituals had gotten her this far, and she'd thought that was enough. Zevran had proven it wasn't.
Now that she no longer had a death wish, she'd eased into a false security when she ensured the fights were unfair. But the one time a noble in the market could fight back or the rapist wasn't a sniveling coward caught off-guard… She shuddered atop her chilly mattress.
Alistair, Riordan, Nelaros. There was no one left to chastise her for negligence, and without outside motivation, she had become careless. Unless she believed what the Chantry said about the afterlife, in which case, all three were looking down upon her, sharing her shame.
When the Witch saved her with the cryptic rationale that Thedas needed her vengeance, the sentiment hadn't resonated. She had no sense of country, no pride for Denerim. Kalya's enemy was on the smaller scale. Evil in the hearts of singular men was a darkness that transcended borders and politics. That was what she fought for, and the appetite to quash that evil was still alight within her. Who did that sound like?
In a world where their own countrymen lost faith in them, Grey Wardens saved sometimes one soul at a time from the oncoming Blight. They exercised unimaginable discipline, even when it was excruciating. Even when they'd lost loved ones. Even when they had nothing left to live for but the salvation of those too weak to save themselves.
While she had a feeling she would meet Zevran again whether she wanted to or not, this time she would be willing. She owed Alistair that much.