"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Dear Alistair,
I'm sorry it's taken me this long to contact you. I was hurt, then angry, then guilty, and now I only feel regret for leaving it this long, for causing you worry. I'm doing okay. I'm also… experiencing the same Grey Warden-y thing I'm sure you are, as is every Warden in southern Thedas. It's okay, though, the Inquisitor, Hawke, and I are going to go figure this out as soon as possible. Everything will be fine. Maybe when this Breach thing is all over we can finally meet and talk…
Toriana crumpled up the parchment on which she'd begun her letter, throwing it on the floor in the pile of other failed letters to be disposed of later. She pressed her palms into her eyes and fought the temptation to throw her bottle of ink into the wall and give up. The right words eluded her. Everything she wrote was either too emotional or too cold, too falsely lighthearted or too morbidly despairing. She'd received so much tutelage in the Circle on how to write eloquently, how to craft her words to suit different situations, and yet now she found herself floundering to make the most basic contact.
What words could she say that would fix what she'd done? She'd pressured Alistair into becoming King beside Anora, putting both their hearts and desires in the garbage for the sake of Ferelden, hating that duty and love for her country and the innocents living in it took precedence over her own wants... and he had been so miserable when she'd told him. Both their hearts had shattered that day, when commitment to country meant their own pain. If it hadn't been for Morrigan's lifesaving ritual - something else Toriana had pressured him into doing, to save his life, for he refused to let her take the killing blow - Toriana would have gladly given her own life to see Thedas saved, and also to escape the agony that awaited her in a life without Alistair, the man she'd grown to love so dearly.
And then, after she'd forced him into ruling an entire nation beside a woman who seemed irritated by his very presence, Toriana had shut him out completely. Ran away. Hid. Ignored his letters, avoided his visits, and kept as far away from Denerim as her Warden duties would allow. She'd thrown away the friendship he offered her as consolation for their broken romance. He'd not only lost his dreams that day, but also his lover and best friend. She'd compounded the pain she'd caused him, she could sense it in the words he wrote in those letters, and for what? Her own fear, her own anguish?
Regret gripped her heart and she squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her hands roughly over her face. She dropped her quill on the small desk and pushed her chair back, taking a deep breath, her earlier resolve to do this task now eroded into nothing. She'd write to Alistair later, perhaps. For now, she was done agonizing. She felt a bit guilty to admit to herself that at the moment she'd much rather bask in the excitement of a new romance than torture herself with trying to write to an old love she'd hurt.
The giddiness over her earlier kiss didn't come, however, as she picked up the crumpled bits of parchment and left her room to toss them in a nearby brazier until they crumpled to ash. Toriana could feel the stiffness in her leg growing more insistent and she stretched, taking in the fresh air and the cool sunlight playing hide-and-seek from behind small clouds. Without giving herself time to dwell on her thoughts, she began to jog, Rabbit loping along by her side.
She was slow at first, her legs protesting as the muscles were put to use, still not fully recovered from the poison or the days - possibly weeks - of hiding out in that cave, not exercising. But as she trotted down the stairs from the battlements and made her way out of Skyhold proper, down the mountain towards the camps that housed the Inquisition's armies, her muscles began to release and ease into their old regimen. The path down to the camps was long and winding, as much a defense against a siege as it was a means of travel, and the wind whistled past her face as her momentum carried her ever faster. Rabbit's tongue lolled in his mouth, pure unbridled joy in his face as he ran ahead, slowed to her pace, then ran ahead again.
By the time she reached the large tents and hastily-constructed huts in the valley she was breathing hard and a thin layer of sweat coated her body. The exercise in the crisp air was invigorating, and she continued jogging through the camp until she spotted Ferelden soldiers sparring with wooden weapons in a large clearing. Normally she wasn't much for melee combat, but with the potential that she could be fighting Grey Wardens she wanted to at least try to hone her skills in using her staff as a blunt weapon. She didn't want to murder her brethren, and her magic was simply too deadly to be used freely against them, lest they end up like the Warden on the shore of Lake Calenhad, unintentionally skewered to death by icicles she'd conjured as a defense.
Still breathing heavily and with flushed cheeks and nose from the chill air, Toriana walked up to the woman who seemed to be overseeing the training. The Grey Warden nodded respectfully at the other woman, gesturing to the soldiers, "Mind if I hop in for a bit? I could use some lessons in fighting with a staff."
The woman - old, grizzled, and clearly a veteran of many battles - eyed Toriana and the staff strapped to her back, clearly not too impressed by the mage. She sniffed and crossed her arms before nodding, "No magic, just straight fighting. No serious injuries." Turning, she called out to one of the men who was instructing a few of the others as they fought. "Roberts! This one wants a lesson in staves."
Toriana directed Rabbit to stay out of the sparring ring and approached the bearded man. He grabbed a wooden staff from the sidelines and waved her to one of the empty areas of the clearing. "Alrigh' then, mage, le's do a practice spar an' see wha' we got to work with," he said in a thick eastern Ferelden accent. He seemed friendly enough, and as Toriana pulled her own staff off her back and dropped into the loose, fluid form she always moved in during combat, he nodded approvingly. "Good form, yeh, good fer you to rely on speed and duckin' outta the way o' hits instead o' meetin' 'em head on. Now le's see an attack then."
She took in a deep breath and lunged forward, sweeping low and aiming a blow at Roberts' shins. He blocked and shoved her staff away with his own, his thickly muscled arms looking as if they barely strained themselves to do it. Toriana's face reddened a bit, her pride a bit wounded that she was so effortlessly being brushed aside, and she quickly spun, feinting another sweep at his legs and at the last moment pivoting her staff to strike at his arm.
This one he barely blocked in time, and his grin was approving. "Nice, nice, no' too shabby fer a mage are yeh?" His words were in jest, and she could see none of the usual wariness or resentment often reserved for mages in his eyes, so she smiled in return. He knocked her staff away and readied his own in an aggressive stance, "Now le's see yer defense, shall we?"
For such a burly muscled man, Roberts moved startlingly quick, and Toriana was caught off guard, bringing her weapon up too late and ducking rather than stepping back, so that the jab he aimed at her chest caught her directly in the face with a sharp 'crack!' and knocked her flat on her back. She could feel her left eye, lit up with stabbing pain that throbbed across her cheek, already beginning to swell up and cursed her botched reaction to the attack.
Rabbit was at her side whining and trying to lick at her face; she shoved him away before his dog breath could knock her unconscious. As she sat up and put a hand to her eye to heal it as best she could (she'd likely have a bruise there for a couple of days, Maker curse her for not properly learning healing), Roberts came over and held out a hand to heft her to her feet. He clearly didn't take any satisfaction in knocking people down, though he didn't look devastated by it either. Simply another part of training. "Sorry 'bou' tha', miss… I don' believe I caught yer name?"
She brushed some of the dirt off the back of her armor, cursing her red cheeks. "Toriana," she muttered, a bit ungracefully.
Roberts' eyes widened as he looked down at her armor as if just now noticing the white griffons emblazoned on her breastplate, "Bloody 'ell, yer the 'ero of Ferelden!" He let out a bark of laughter, "Bloody 'ell, I can' believe I sparred wi' the bloody 'ero of Ferelden!" He stopped and looked a bit stricken, "Awfully sorry 'bou' hittin' ya, ma'am!"
Toriana wanted to sink into the ground as the nearby soldiers stopped their sparring and turned to look at her with amazement. It seems her past deeds hadn't been forgotten in the shadow of the Inquisition working to save Thedas… and she couldn't say she was happy about it. She'd never been one for the spotlight, and she hated the reverent looks on their faces now, as if she wasn't just a regular person with her own faults and troubles.
Forcing a lighthearted laugh, she waved her hand dismissively at Roberts, "Don't worry about it, if I were better at fighting like this it wouldn't have happened now would it?" She tugged briefly on a strand of her hair before she realized what she was doing and forced her hand to grasp her staff instead. "I do appreciate any teaching you can give me, clearly I need to learn to defend myself better." Rabbit barked at her side, not wanting to be forgotten, and Toriana gave him an affectionate pat on the head, "You can't always protect me, boy, I need to be able to protect myself." He let out a grumble of dissent and licked at her hand before returning to his patch of grass to roll around.
Roberts was grinning as he watched the exchange, looking proud. "An' a bloody mabari bonded to ye as well, by the Maker, yer practically a livin' Fereldan icon."
Toriana cleared her throat uncomfortably and let out a self-deprecating laugh, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she joked, "Sure, if you don't count the fact that I'm a mage. Tends to color people's opinions of me." She hefted her staff and nodded to Roberts, desperately wanting the conversation to change from the focus on her fame. "Shall we continue? I could use any pointers you have for me."
She spent the next few hours working with Roberts and even Rabbit joined in, helping the soldiers learn how to respond to mabari attacks. A few other soldiers stepped in, wanting to be able to tell their children that they got to spar with the great Hero of Ferelden! Toriana wasn't a very good melee fighter at all, especially without her magic abilities to give herself a barrier or boost her speed, and she took quite a few hits from the men. Each time they looked a mix of thrilled that they got a blow in against someone so famous, and guilty that they hit the nation's hero as well.
Eventually she swallowed her pride and met each new hit with as much grace and humility as she could muster as she wiped away blood from her lip or brushed dirt off her armor and out of her hair. Her jokes and determination to learn without giving up earned her respect from the men, and even the grizzled woman - Marta - who'd been so unimpressed with her before. In their eyes Toriana went from a faceless historic hero to just a normal person (who'd admittedly done heroic and incredible things) who struggled to succeed at some things just as they did.
In those three hours, seeing the Hero of Ferelden get knocked down over and over and keep getting up, keep joking and trading playful banter, and treating ordinary soldiers with the same respect as she gave rulers of nations, gave the soldiers around her hope. It left many of them with the thought that though they followed the Herald of Andraste, even ordinary people can also do great things in the face of evil.
Author's Note: I know this is a short, relatively uneventful chapter, but I had continued writing it after this point and it was getting up to 7k words with a couple of breaks, so I figured I'd chop it into more manageable pieces and post what I've got so far :) Next chapter is still quite long, bear with me, lmao, keep an eye out for it over the next few days!