Disclaimer: I own absolutely and completely nothing. Bioware has that particular pleasure.
Summary: A City-Elf/Bann Teagan collection of drabbles and one-shots based on a prompt table from an LJ-community. These will be more or less in chronological order with the faintest traces of added plot here and there. Will vary from drabble length to one-shot.
Author's note: This took me forever to write down in a way that I liked. I kid you not. I deleted it so many times, rewrote it so many times that I almost felt like giving up on this blasted scene. It was that bad. Hence~~~ Do give me your opinion.
In this chapter: Why should he be spared?
028.
The past days sound like a bad romance novel, the kind Shianni would read her while she trained, dreaming about faraway adventures some unlucky bastard had and thank the Maker, they wouldn't. The irony of the situation cannot escape her. So Tasha simply tries not to think overly much. – kidnapped, injured, chased, threatened, conscripted, forced through half the country, forced out of a war camp and fed blood. What happened, what is about to happen, dear Maker, a war, what will happen in the future, what is happening now – Instead, there's a moment to breathe and ask but Duncan is a Commander, Duncan does whatever needs to be done and drags her along for the ride.
One amazing ride it is, the war council. On one side, this is the sort of people Tasha has sworn to hate from her early years. Only there must be something wrong with her – shock, confusion, loss, Maker knows what more – because her hate isn't making an appearance nearly as easily as usual. Dear Andraste and all her host this is the King and half her mind is divided between is that the Teyrn and a girlish side of her which doesn't come out often and real live mages, Maker help me. It doesn't come out often enough and it suddenly sits on her shoulder, grinning like a fool and forgetting these are all humans. She'll feel ridiculous later on.
They speak easily, arguments flowing back and forth and her understanding only goes so far. Tasha finds herself looking from one to another in silence as if following a bunch of children playing. They are not children, however, and what she had once played with sticks and stones, they play with an entire kingdom and countless lives. The cheer arrogance of it all makes her disgust bristle and remind herself to be an audience. Which is good, she realizes, to be audience. Audience doesn't have to make the kind of decisions who might kill countless others. She just hears, feels a little – very tiny – sliver of respect towards the Teyrn as she hears his arguments – sensible, an older man who has seen enough to not destroy something in a useless movement. Cailan sounds like a petulant boy playing with wooden horses.
After the whole conversation and banter, the elf is called to play only to discover they want her to hold a torch and light wood on fire. The honor cannot be described in words. Only in loud laughter once she's out of their ear shot.
That was the first time Tasha saw the General – not the Teyrn but the cold blooded General of River Dane. Its image overtakes the Landsmeet bringing Ostagar back to the surface, making her care little about measuring eyes and calculating looks. Even less about any kind of reproach. This is a whole new setting for her and a whole new type of battle. She is a beginner, facing a Master in both arms and words. And even now that he has lost and Alistair will be King, he still tries, still plunges forward with all his strength as if there is still hope somewhere. Maker knows her flesh is going to let her know this in the morning.
It didn't pass through her mind to allow anyone else to battle Loghain. This was their battle, as self-appointed leaders. It should have.
"Right. Right. No, no, turn to the left." The general aims at her arms, aims at her heels because those are the points in which any fighting style is based. He is too good. But all Tasha can think in between blows, is to stop this whole thing, ridiculous as that would be, and yell at Alistair to shut it because Loghain is just too good and she doesn't want to die before her thirty years are up.
He uses every weak point of hers and pushes, pushes so hard that she feels like falling behind at every moment while both arms split apart at the seams. Slower, she can be much faster but the General compensates it in strength. She can feel exactly when he lands a hit because her armor isn't that good and it's now ruined, a gaping metal wound overflowing with blood. He is pure steel and stone, a warrior of years and she is just a girl. The last time she felt this small, she was also facing a human. Humans are the greatest monsters, larger than any, more horrifying than any mindless beast.
Tasha finds herself wanting to kill this bastard merely because he could cooperate and make her life easier but, stubbornly, refuses to do so. Stop this because they are on the same side and he is being ridiculous. Slide and parry, strike and dodge. Just marry Anora to Alistair, Maker damn him. Is it that hard to come up with that stupid idea? Alistair might kill her if she comes up with it, hence, he should do it. Bastard.
And more than that, she finds herself hating the fact that she cannot hate his actions completely, that his lies harmed her and her people but that he fought for his own calling and Maker knows he was ruthless enough to forget the means on his way. She cannot hate completely because a little part of her believes she could do the same if forced – Cyrion, Shianni, Soris, Teagan, Alistair and the list goes and on and keeps going. Frightening as that is, she ignores it, hates him more for making her realize that, hates knowing that she'll harm others whether she wins or not. She just pure and simply hates him. Reasons upon reasons stash themselves on her mind, enough to make her wish to run him through as soon as possible. No one could fault her for doing this. No one except herself who has been trying and trying and trying yet again not to become a monster. Killing someone due to hate would undo her.
One reason. Just one reason not to kill him but all she can think are reasons why she should.
Smart, always pushing her into a corner. Tried to get her killed, – a blade comes too near, his shield hits her arm again and pushes. A loud snap and her left blade falls to the floor, useless metal to a broken arm. The Queen's father, a traitorous little noble who is certainly no credit to whatever parent which claims to have raised her. Besides, sparing anyone here will make Alistair unhappy.
He is a good general, she concedes with a grimace, and an excellent warrior too. The sword which keeps aiming at her, always too close, always hitting the right places says so ever so easily. She could use someone like this, the Warden in her says. The war isn't the over after all, Blight ravaging both land and lives. And she has saved others' lives before. Sten and Zevran. Jowan. But the elf knows, she never hated them. They did what they did without personal feelings attached, not against her but against what she stood for.
Loghain is different and this case is different. Here there is hate and dishonor, horror and confusion and this feeling which has no name but it is darker and crueler than any darkspawn. The one reason, the truest one which can save his life comes from that side of her, the only which actually makes sense.
It is fine to fear death. It is right to fear the end, a final punishment and then oblivion. But Tasha has been trapped inside stone walls and metal bars and knows different. Death isn't that frightening when it comparison. What he did, everything, all the lives he has taken, those won't return just because she can raise her blade and strike him down. Ending would be easy. It would be quick. It wouldn't be enough.
Up and down, circle and stab.
She is not kind, none knows it better than herself and her ghosts. Mortal as anyone else, filled with faults disguised beneath kind actions, spiteful, crammed with anger and hatred which no death can erase. And that's fine. That truly is fine. Hate is a part of life, just as kindness, just as caring and selfishness. Most just choose to ignore that, want to ignore it as only a hero can save them. Heroes still their blade when a shield falls, when their opponent is cut, its blade forced to the ground.
The teyrn bows at her feet, never mind the fact that her remaining blade will fall at any moment. Surrenders, place one's life in her hands. And her hands hold a sword and she is tired and hurt and hardly confused.
"I accept your surrender," Tasha says simply. And she wants to shrug her shoulders, run, laugh out loud as she wins against all odds and any injury is worth this feeling. Instead, she looks down at his kneeling figure and smiles – small and happy. If she were a hero, she would pity him then, kill him. She's not and his life is spared.
Not for pity though, she wills her eyes to tell him even as the Landsmeet explodes around them, as someone takes her sword away, helps her sit, tries to call for a healer. Nothing of this is important, only her message is. I just hate you.
Loghain never looks away, gaze for gaze.
He hates her too.
