9:30 Molloris 8
Last Watch, Diamond Quarter, Orzammar
From there, Lýna quickly ran over her promotion, the battle, their retreat long before the fighting ended — which she'd hated, but Ferelden couldn't be left without Wardens — travelling north, picking up Lèlja and Morrigan. Deciding to disobey Duncan's orders, instead of heading east to Denerim to find Riordan they went west to Redcliffe to find Eamon. The senior Wardens agreed it was the best thing they thing could have done at the time, Duncan couldn't have anticipated Loghain's accusations against the Wardens, they might have just gotten themselves killed if they went to Denerim.
And of course Redcliffe had been a mess when they got there. They would later learn that Connor, the young son of the Arl, was a mage — he'd become an abomination some weeks before, a deal made with a demon to keep his father from going to Ostagar and maybe dying to the darkspawn. In the way the stories Lýna had been taught said demons liked to do, Connor was given exactly what he asked for...at the cost of everything else.
Oddly, the Captains weren't nearly as surprised by Redcliffe's inability to deal with the undead as she was. "Common people don't know much about magic, Lyna," Sidona explained, sounding a little exasperated. "Yes, we know animated corpses are empty, mindless things, that can be easily dealt with using the proper tactics, but they don't know this. All they see are their neighbors and friends, raised by evil magics and set against them, impossible and horrifying and wrong. They don't know what to do, and so they are terrified."
"This is stupid. Everyone in the south knows this."
"I imagine you see more undead where you come from — not in large numbers, but one or two here and there — and so people need to know. Yes?"
Lýna opened her mouth to respond, then paused. She hadn't thought of that. "Does that not happen here? People still die, in accidents out in the hills, or farms far off." The Alamarri did burn their dead, but if nobody found the body...
"True, but it's very rare, the vast majority of people will never see an animated corpse in their life. Especially in a place like Redcliffe — any undead who do rise in more isolated areas will stumble across smaller villages and be dealt with before getting that far."
...Oh. Well, she guessed their incompetence made a little sense, then. "Is stupid all the same. You tell people more of magic, and they know what to do if this happens. And they be less afraid of magic, and spirits, and all things. Maybe you are right about Redcliffe, but these are things that everyone should know."
Iaşneru smiled at her. "Yes, this isn't a problem in the north either. I agree."
She bit her lip to keep herself from smiling back. "Stop that, it's weird."
The battle up to the castle, Lýna setting the entire hillside on fire — Reynaldo laughed, choking on his wine a little — and then she had that nasty scrape with the abomination (she still had flashes of dead children sometimes, but it wasn't so bad anymore), but they managed to deal with the crisis while taking no deaths and only a handful of injuries. Because terrifying magical threats were actually very easy to end if one knew how to deal with them, so the Alamarri really should tell their people more about magic. Not only would they have been better equipped to face the dead, but none of it would have happened in the first place: if Connor had been taught more about spirits and demons, in stories and songs like they did in the south, he would never have been possessed. His mother did find him a teacher, but by then it had already been too late.
Sidona let out a harsh scoff. "Quelle putain d'hypocrite — the Circle is for commoners, couldn't give up her son to the Templars, perish the thought..."
"I'm surprised, Sona," Reynaldo drawled, smirking. "I would think you want children kept from the Circle."
"I do, but I don't think she does. She didn't break the law in principle, but in selfishness. Due in no small part to her actions, maybe hundreds of people died — did she show any regret for what happened, and her part in it?" she asked Lýna.
"Ah... I don't know. Whenever I was there, she was yelling at me about killing her son. Which, Alistair struck the final blow, not me, but I guess he's not a heathen elf." Sidona scoffed again. "I don't know for sure, but I don't think she ever asked about any of it. She didn't help with the rebuilding, that I know, didn't seem to care."
Clucking her tongue, Sidona muttered, "Quel typique. If you want me to show sympathy for les aristos, Reyno, you'll be waiting until they show sympathy for us first."
Reynaldo's lips twitched. "I think I need to wait forever for that."
"Maybe, maybe not, but I would not hold my breath."
On with the story, then. Eamon hadn't woken up, so after a few days' rest they moved on to the Circle. And of course the Circle had also been a mess when they got there — that seemed to happen to them a lot. They actually knew of the rebellion at Kinloch Hold, Sidona had heard it from the same mage friend who'd told her about the new Dreamer, though they hadn't known the Wardens had helped end it. Sidona and Iaşneru were both furious that Greagoir had been trying for the Rite of Annulment, and surprised that Esmond had refused him, instead walking up to deal with the rebels himself, sparing all those he could.
And so, finally, Lýna got an explanation of who the Seekers were. One of the remnants of the old Inquisition — Lýna only vaguely knew who they were, but Sidona said it'd take too long to explain — the Seekers were a more powerful kind of warrior-shaman, who followed the Divine in Val Royeaux directly. (That was what the leader of the Chantry was called, Lýna knew, though she didn't know much more than that.) They had the same anti-magic powers the Templars did, but were also completely immune to the influence of spirits or demons, and could do something to incapacitate Templars (Sidona didn't know how it worked). As Templars watched over the mages, the Seekers watched over the Templars in turn — they were supposed to make sure the Templars were following the rules, treating the mages under them fairly (or as fairly as slaves ever got treated), and investigated cases of abuse or other crimes in the Circles. They were supposed to be neutral, not a part of the Templars or the mages.
Sidona said it didn't normally work out that way — most Seekers thought of the Templars as their people, and would almost always side with them against mages. A lot of them were just as stupid about magic as the worst of the Templars Lýna had met. It sounded like Esmond was actually a good Seeker, Sidona had never met one before.
Knowing all this now, Lýna decided they'd gotten very lucky: if Esmond hadn't wanted to save the mages, Wynne might not have survived, and they wouldn't have been able to revive Eamon, and then where might they be right now?
The fight against the first abomination had been scary, its way of getting in her head extremely uncomfortable. (Lýna was a little embarrassed thinking back on her reaction, it hadn't affected anyone else so badly...) The second had been short and easy, and also Lýna had taken lyrium, which wasn't something she'd done before, her memories of that night from that point on were kind of...weird. Sharp and colorful, but also drifting and confused, it was... Weird, it was weird. Weird enough it was kind of hard to tell which parts of that night had been in the Beyond and which she'd been awake. But the third one...
Coming up on it, Lýna heard her own voice shaking. She took a long, slow breath, leaned forward to refill her wine. There wasn't much left, though, only a little splash fell in her mug before the jug was empty. "Oh, hold up." Iaşneru threw back the rest of his own mug and pushed up to his feet, plucked the jug off the table. "I'll ask one of the slaves to refill this, one moment."
An unpleasant twitch shooting through her, Lýna reared back in her chair, staring up at Iaşneru. But he didn't seem to notice, sauntering off toward the door. Out in the hall, she could hear the chatter of voices — she didn't understand any of the words, must be dwarven again. Turning to the other two, Lýna muttered, "Did he say...?"
She kind of didn't want to finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. Grimacing, uncomfortable, Sidona admitted, "The staff at Last Watch are slaves, yes."
"Why? I thought it wasn't allowed."
"It's illegal in Ferelden and Orlais," Reynaldo said, avoiding her eyes. "And Nevarra too, of course. We're not in Ferelden or Orlais." Right, of course, stupid...
Sidona let out a sigh, her head tipping back against the chair. "Last Watch was started back during the old Imperium, everywhere was Tevinter then, more or less. By our treaty with Orzammar, slavery is legal in these walls. It's legal in Orzammar in general, in fact, though only for casteless."
Lýna didn't know what casteless meant, but she also didn't think that was important just now...other than the new information that the dwarves had slaves, she guessed... "That is... You are good with this? Truly?"
Reynaldo sighed, one hand coming up to rub at his face. Sidona's head tipped down again, fixing Lýna with a glare, the air seeming to tingle around her, like the moment just before a lightning strike — she stiffened, her breath catching, belatedly remembering that she was talking to a mage. "No, Lyna, of course I'm not. But we can't amend our charter without the agreement of the First Warden and three-quarters of the Assembly, and most of the staff don't have anywhere else to go even if they wanted to, so I can't see what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it."
She was supposed to free them, obviously — if the First Warden and the Assembly weren't happy about it, so be it. Lýna didn't see what was so complicated about that.
When Iaşneru returned, it was into a stiff, uncomfortable silence, Lýna, Sidona, and Reynaldo all avoiding each other's eyes, glaring at nothing, Lýna's fingers tapping at the arms of her chair and Reynaldo's foot bobbing. His swaying, sauntering gait stiffening as he approached, Iaşneru stopped next to his chair, eyes flicking from one of them to the next. "Okay. Is it only me, or is it cold in here all of the sudden? What did I miss?"
"No use going on without you here," Reynaldo said, forcing a smile onto his face, "we were simply waiting for you to get back."
Sidona rolled her eyes. "Lyna didn't know the staff are slaves, Neruş."
"Ah." Iaşneru flopped down into his chair, limp and careless, Lýna had the feeling he might be a little tipsy. "I see why that might be a shock. They're fine, don't worry about them."
Lýna glared. "Maybe I don't take your word for it."
He smiled back at her — but it wasn't a pleasant smile, holding an edge of...annoyance? "It is my opinion that is most clear on this, I think. Of the four of us in this room, only one of us was a slave."
The anger simmering in her throat abruptly fizzling out, for a few seconds Lýna could only blink at him. "Eh?"
"I was born in service of the Lucreţi, a Magisterial family of Sarjală, and I was a slave all my life before I Joined the Wardens. So maybe I know just a little bit more about it than you do."
That... Lýna had absolutely no idea how to feel about that. They didn't have slavery in the south, she only knew of it from stories, the People being conquered by Tevinter and then Orlais. Although, the Orlesians didn't call it that — vilainage was supposedly a different thing, but Lýna wasn't clear on how it was different, exactly. (Alim had called it slavery with extra steps, but that hadn't been very helpful.) It wasn't...entirely real, in some ways, just a horrible, evil thing that happened a long time ago, and did still happen in lands far away, but...
She didn't know what to say.
"You... You are good, with this? It doesn't trouble you?"
Iaşneru shrugged. "No."
"Why not? I don't understand."
"As I said, they're fine." That didn't help at all, and apparently Iaşneru realized that, his eyes tipping to the ceiling with a sigh. "They are fed — the same food we eat, even. They have warm beds, in a place they are safe, from the Carta or common thieves. Every one can read, and if they wish to learn a trade and we can find someone to teach them, they can learn. They can see a healer, if they need to. Anything they need, clothing or whatever else, they get. They may even leave, if they wish to — this is an agreement the Wardens made long ago, when slavery began to be ended in the south. And some do leave, sometimes. Some Join us. Most stay.
"Our Sister and Brother here, I guess they are too uncomfortable to tell you this so plain, because they know the People's history, what has been done to the elves. But it is truly quite simple. What use is freedom if there is no place for you? What use is freedom if some poor duster slits your throat for your boots, or whatever trivial thing? What use is freedom if you starve to death? I know you are new to city life, Lýna, but I assure you, the people here are far better off than the 'free' casteless outside our walls."
...Iaşneru sounded very, very certain, his voice firm and insistent. There was some kind of feeling on it, a subtle heat of...something, she couldn't read it. She wasn't sure she could believe that though. Everything she'd ever been told by everyone for her whole life told her the very opposite...but she remembered, talking about Perry's... That people here were allowed to go hungry, even when there was enough for everyone, this was still not an idea she was used to. Honestly, she couldn't quite wrap her head around it — she still didn't understand why Alamarri should have any loyalty to their leaders or their people if they were neglected so.
If Orzammar were like Perry's story painted South Reach to be, if what Iaşneru said about the slaves here was true...maybe this was okay. It made her feel vaguely nauseous thinking it, but, these weren't her People, they didn't live the life she had before, she didn't know. "You approve of slavery, then."
His lips tilting into a smile — without the edge from before, softer and warmer — Iaşneru said, "Now, I didn't say that. To be poor, to not have the things you need to live well, this causes suffering. To be weak, to not have the means to protect yourself or choose for yourself and your family, this causes suffering. But these things, they are not only the lot of slaves. Many who are free are poor, many who are free are weak. The slaves here at Last Watch, if they were freed, what then? In Orzammar, it is illegal to pay casteless for their labor — we would be forced to pitch them out on the street," Iaşneru said, with a little flip of his fingers, a hint of anger slipping into his voice. "Freedom for them would mean only that they are more poor, more weak than they are now.
"I don't approve of slavery, no. But I am against abolition, and do you know why?" No, of course not, she didn't know what abolition meant. "Because as things are now, it would do many people more harm than good. Here at Last Watch as in my homeland. If we change how we live so people's needs are met — if we feed everyone, if we give everyone a home, if we protect the life of the lowest slave the same as the highest king, if healing and education are made open to all — then I will fight for freedom as powerful as anyone else. But until then, I will not doom who knows how many people to poverty and starvation on principle."
...Lýna didn't know what to say to that. That didn't quite feel right somehow, like two voices singing in grating disharmony — slavery couldn't be preferable to freedom, that didn't make any sense, like burning ice or comforting steel — but she completely failed to come up with an argument. Maybe if she had more facts, knew more about what people's everyday lives were actually like, then she'd be able to dispute whether or not the people here would be better off free, but she simply didn't. So she ended up just staring back at Iaşneru, feeling lost and stupid and very foreign, speechless.
Finally, she mumbled, "That– Was that from the Chant? All men are work of something something..."
Iaşneru grinned. "Yes. How do you say it in Alamarri? All of this world is..."
"Finite," Sidona said. "All things in this world are finite. What one man gains another has lost."
"This is it, thank you. This is good kiffu, no?"
Lýna heard the footsteps approaching a few seconds before a dwarven men stepped through the door, carrying a fresh jug of wine. As he walked up to the table, she took a closer look at him. He looked well, pale skin clear and dark hair thick; Lýna hadn't spent a lot of time around dwarves, so she hadn't an eye for these things, but as much substance as there was to his figure he couldn't possibly be starving. His movements smooth and even, no sign of lingering injuries, the linen of his clothing without patches or fraying, relatively new. As he approached the table, moving around to set the jug down near Sidona so she could heat it up again, there wasn't a trace of hesitation or distaste on his face, still pleasant and friendly as most of the staff here had been — no sign that he feared or hated any of the people around the table, seemingly more at ease than even the servants at Redcliffe with Eamon.
There was a mark on his cheek, ink a deep blue-ish black — it was hard to tell for sure, the proportions not quite right and curving along his skin, but Lýna thought it was the letter B. She remembered, back at Redcliffe, Solana had explained that the only dwarves who mark their faces were criminals, though she wasn't really certain what that word meant, to be honest. People who did crimes, obviously, but "crime" was such a vague concept to the Alamarri that it was hard to draw any conclusions from that. Other than that, he was perfectly ordinary, could be any random person in Redcliffe...though healthier and better-dressed than most of them. He seemed well.
Lýna had no idea how to feel about any of this.
As Sidona laid her hand on the jug, magically heating this one like she had the other, Iaşneru said something to the dwarf — again, in dwarvish, Lýna didn't understand a word. Whatever it was, the man's heavy brow stitched with a confused frown, his eyes flicking over back and forth between Iaşneru and Lýna. He said something, maybe a question, making Iaşneru laugh, Reynaldo grimace, and Sidona roll her eyes.
"I think Mórtsjek here is a little offended by the question," Iaşneru explained. "Last Watch is his home, has been to his family for generations now. The idea that someone would want to force them to leave for their own good is confusing and troubling." He said something else to the dwarf, Mórtsjek — Lýna didn't expect to remember, she was bad with dwarven faces — who let out a deep huff, muttered something in dwarvish, getting another chuckle from Iaşneru, before, like the woman earlier, giving Sidona a quick, shallow bow and walking out again. "If nothing else, Lýna, if I learn someone is mistreating our people, be sure I will kick their teeth in myself. Maybe tell your company that, I don't want to have to hurt one of your Wardens or our guests."
...Yes, Lýna should probably do that when she got back. She hadn't seen it herself, but she'd heard multiple times — from Alistair, Lèlja, Solana, Perry, Fergus, Edolyn, and Justien — that some people could be quite cruel to even free servants at times. So far, she'd only seen uncaring dismissiveness at worst, but she'd been told far worse happened all the time. She didn't think she had to worry about it from any of the people with them, most of them having grown up poor themselves, but she should still pass on the warning.
"Why don't you go ahead and tell her the story, Neruş." The heating done, Reynaldo picked up the jug, started pouring faintly steaming wine into the empty mugs. "How you go on, I'm surprised you stopped yourself from stealing the show so long."
"Ah, yes," Iaşneru drawled, smirking, "it is a thrilling tale, I confess. A story of lords and slaves, soldiers and mages, love and war, Kuneşti and darkspawn, the greatest joys and lowest sorrows—"
Sidona snorted. "Just get on with it then, tu bâtard flamboyant."
That was definitely an insult of some kind, judging by Reynaldo's amused snort, but Iaşneru didn't mind, just gave Sidona a grin before, like Sidona and Reynaldo before him, launching into the story of how he came to be here. He'd been born a slave of the Lucreţi — as had his parents before him, and their parents before them, and so on — one of the Magisterial families of Tevinter. It sounded very elven, actually, their people being ruled by the heads of powerful families coming together in council — the Republic had been the same, many of the clans had been one of these families once, including the Maharjaj and Savhraj. (Humans called it a kingdom, but there had never been such a thing as an elven king, that was a human thing.) She wondered if that way of doing things was how Tevinter had always been or if it were something they'd picked up from the Ancients, but she guessed there was no way of telling now.
Iaşneru grew up on the family's estate on the edge of Sarjală — Sidona said the city was called Asariel in Alamarri — until Summerday after he turned fifteen. Summerday was a much more solemn occasion in Tevinter than in the south, but like in the south it was the day people were said to come into adulthood. (Lýna still thought it slightly odd they had a special day for that.) It took a couple back and forths with Sidona to decide how to say it in Alamarri, but they landed on public service — everyone in Tevinter, shortly after their coming of age, was required to spend a couple years working for the benefit of their people as a whole. Often this was as a soldier in their army, but it didn't need to be. Another option that a very large number of people took was to work building or doing repairs on roads and homes and public halls and forts and even on farms, doing whatever needed doing. Some worked as servants at offices or universities or Circles, or as sailors moving supplies, or as assistants for alchemists or healers, all kinds of things.
While Iaşneru explained the concept, Lýna found herself uncomfortably shifting in her chair. It did depend on the details of how it worked, but that sounded like a good idea to her — she didn't like thinking that Tevinter actually had good ideas.
Anyway, Iaşneru didn't have many special skills — between lessons and just playing around with slave and Lucreţi children, he'd mostly only helped out in the gardens — so he decided to go into the army. If possible, the people running this public service thing liked to keep people from the same household or neighborhood together, believing it helped them adapt to their new situation more quickly. Iaşneru ended up going into the army with a few other slaves he'd known his whole life, and also a mage of the family they belonged to, named Viză Lucreţă — though she was older than the rest of them, mages were allowed a few more years of magical training before doing their public service. After about half a year of training, Iaşneru's company were sent to Saţârnu, which was called Seheron in Alamarri.
Lýna knew practically nothing about the Qunari. According to the stories, they were large people, even bigger than humans, and had horns growing from their heads. They had a godless faith Lýna knew no details about, save that they somehow hated magic even more than the Alamarri. A few centuries ago, they'd invaded from across the sea in the far north, hitting Tevinter first, in time getting into a long, awful war with the human kingdoms — mostly in the far north and the Dayscourse Valley, they'd never come as far south as even Ferelden. The Andrastians had been so focused on dealing with the Qunari that the People had been left mostly alone. They'd actually done very well in that time, growing so much some were forced to split apart, forming new clans in significant numbers for the first time since the beginning of the Exile. She really knew very little about the war with the Qunari beyond that, or much of anything about the Qunari themselves.
Iaşneru said the rest of the humans had screwed Tevinter in the treaty that'd ended the war. Almost every human kingdom had been part of the negotiations, and most of them — the only exception were a pair of kingdoms called Rivain and the Anderfels in Alamarri — hated Tevinter and would like them to cease to exist anyway. The agreement they'd made with the Qunari reduced Tevene lands by over half, giving a place Sidona called Par Vollen (Iaşneru called it something else only once, switching to the Alamarri term after Sidona corrected him) and the islands in the northern sea over to them, basically abandoning the Tevene people living there to Qunari occupation. Furious, Tevinter and the Anderfels refused to sign the treaty, and continue to fight the Qunari to this day, one hundred fifty years later.
"I think you are mistaken, Neruş," Reynaldo interrupted. "The King of the Anders did sign the Llomeryn Accords."
Iaşneru smirked at him, wagging one finger in the air. "Ah, so he did! But their King can't make those decisions himself — back home, the Alsgader voted to reject the treaty. Few Anders fight Kuneştii with us, but they are still, technically, at war with them too. Silly Navarrano, did you think the Anders were on your side? They like us better than you."
Reynaldo let out a huff, but took a sip of wine rather than respond.
Apparently, the war in Seheron was absolutely miserable. Much of the land was covered in dense forests, raining a little bit almost every day and occasionally hit with dangerously windy storms, felling trees and even toppling buildings, running boats aground. Iaşneru had been there for one storm where the boats in the harbor were lifted on the waves and dropped dozens of paces past the shore, some stuck between trees. It was also terribly hot, enough that it was sometimes hard to breathe, the thick, wet air cooking them in their armor. Sometimes people were made badly ill from the heat alone, without mages on hand to cool everyone off Iaşneru suspected some of them might well have died from it.
And, of course, the fighting itself was awful. The Qunari were large and strong, and absolutely fearless, carrying out their orders without disobedience or mistake, and unwavering in the face of shifting tactics or injury or even magical assault. They were also masters of smithing and alchemy, their weapons all but unbreakable, potions slathered over their skin giving them protection often just as good as enchanted silverite armor, with no obvious weak points. They always had the supplies they needed, with no shortages of any kind ever, and trying to interrupt shipments was extremely dangerous — their boats had weapons on them that could fling bits of metal large distances faster than the eye could follow, the force of the impacts shattering wood to bits, only a few shots enough to sink nearly any boat. Slipping spies behind their lines was very difficult, and they had spies of their own, humans and elves converted to their strange religion, all but undetectable.
There were few large, open battles, but small skirmishes were almost constant. Bands of Tevinter and Qunari warriors would stumble into each other in the forests, killing a few dozen of each other and retreating again, or maybe a couple boats would trade shots in passing, one sinking the other or fleeing before reinforcements could show up. (The Tevinters had copied Qunari "cannons" — theirs were more difficult to make, so they had fewer of them and were more careful how they used them, but they enchanted the flying bits of metal so they hit even harder.) Rarely, a village along the border would be sacked, the residents sent fleeing and the buildings burned, the attacking force retreating before the other side could respond. Back and forth it went, one side pushing the other back by inches before being pushed back in turn, going on now for a century and a half to no end.
As brutal and constant as the war was, Iaşneru had lost many friends to the Qunari. Most to the fighting, yes, but it was so miserable, the heat and the storms and the memories of battle after battle and the constant fear that they might be attacked at any moment, that some had taken their own lives rather than continue on. Iaşneru kept a tally of the days as they passed, counting down until their assignment was over and they would finally go home.
In one of the larger skirmishes, several of his company had been captured, including Iaşneru. He didn't remember much of his time as a prisoner of the Qunari — they'd all been drugged, in part to make them compliant and in part to try to get information out of them. It was decided it would be too much of a risk to try to free them, the town too well-defended to be worth the risk. Instead they would bring boats around and level the town with cannons, hopefully killing Iaşneru and the other prisoners before the Qunari could get anything useful out of them.
Viză, the commander of Iaşneru's company, was infuriated by the orders she'd been given to abandon her men, and blatantly disobeyed them. She asked for volunteers, from their company and the others in the regiment, and immediately set off for the town, hurrying to get there before the navy. They made a big, noisy, distracting attack, at the same time sending smaller bands in to sneak through the town looking for the prisoners. Iaşneru and the others were found, their captors killed, and they were all snuck away, Viză only retreating once they were out, the mages setting every single boat in harbor alight as a final fuck you. By the time the Tevinter ships got there, the prisoners were free, and the town was already burning.
Afterward, Viză got a terrible lecture from her superiors about disobeying orders, and it probably ruined any chance she would ever be promoted. But as annoyed as the higher officers were with her, she'd solidly won the loyalty of not only their company but also most of the regiment — which might have something to do with why she hadn't actually been punished for it.
Lýna was a little blindsided by a Tevinter Magister — not a Magister, Iaşneru insisted, that was what the heads of the families were called, their Magister was Viză's great-uncle — actually caring at all about the people under her. Needless to say, that was not the impression the stories she'd heard about Tevinter had given her.
After two years of war in Seheron, their duty there was over. That meant their public service obligation was also over, but they had the option to stay if they wanted to — since Iaşneru was a slave, he needed permission from the Lucreţi, but that permission was often given if it was for a good cause and the family could spare them. Viză decided she would stay in the army — largely because she would have been expected to marry if she went back, she would later tell him — and many others in their company decided to stay too. He hadn't asked, but part of why Iaşneru had stayed was to stick with her, and he suspected many of the others had done it for the same reason — that rescue mission had made quite an impression on the soldiers, apparently.
They hadn't been sent back to Seheron, though. Instead, they got a much easier assignment helping to keep trade open between the surface and the northern dwarven city. Sharok was much further underground than Orzammar, so they had to work to keep the Deep Roads there clear of darkspawn. There were plenty of barriers down there blocking the side tunnels, both physical and magical, but the darkspawn would open a new tunnel now and then, so they had to keep a constant lookout. Over the first year, they had a few skirmishes with small groups of darkspawn, but despite being underground all the time and how terrifying darkspawn were his company found this job much less terrible than the war in Seheron.
Until one night — as much as "night" had any meaning down there — the darkspawn attacked their camp while they rested. The battle was chaotic and confusing, but it ended quickly, the darkspawn vanishing back into the tunnels. It took a little while afterward, scrambling to treat the injured and figure out just what had happened, before they realized they were missing people — fifteen in total, all women, including Viză.
Confused and uncertain, some talked about going to the nearest Tevinter or Warden outpost for help, but Iaşneru didn't want to wait that long. The darkspawn's trail was going cold as they dithered about, by the time they could get help there was no telling whether they'd be able to find them again. They had no idea what the darkspawn wanted the women for, but it couldn't be anything good, and there was no way in hell Iaşneru was just leaving — Viză had rescued him in a similar situation, after all, he couldn't not try to do the same. After a little bit of arguing, he managed to rally most of the company behind him, and they set off down deeper into the earth.
They caught up a couple days later, deep in the darkspawn's warrens — in a blob of connected caverns, with several broodmothers around. The soldiers had no idea what the things were, of course, but they didn't have to to find them absolutely horrifying. They made straight for the captured women, rescuing them at the very last moment possible — when Iaşneru was told what had nearly happened a couple months later, he spent a whole day in a Chantry praying in thanks for getting there in time — and then went around killing all the broodmothers too, along with all the infant and adolescent darkspawn they could find. Eventually, they heard the screams of an approaching mass of darkspawn, and they fled, the mages torching the caverns and littering the tunnels with glyph-based traps as they went.
In the weeks afterward, nearly half the company was found to be tainted. After talking about it with their commanders, they all left for the nearest Warden outpost and underwent the Joining immediately — most of the time, they'd be brought out to fight darkspawn a couple times first, but obviously these soldiers had already done that plenty. There'd been about fifty of them who'd been tainted, and only twenty-three survived. Iaşneru and Viză both lived — all the mages did, actually, they had better odds than normal people for some unknown reason — but the only other Lucreţi slave left hadn't, Iaşneru and Viză alone of those who'd left the Lucreţi estate together four years earlier to survive both Seheron and the Deep Roads.
Viză had taken a nasty hit to the head in the ambush, which was why she hadn't simply killed all the darkspawn dragging them off. She'd mostly recovered, but her coordination was shot, so she couldn't really fight very well anymore — she was an archivist now, managing their papers and researching old lore and doing magical experiments and the like. The Tevinter Wardens had been very impressed by Iaşneru's leadership in their rescue mission, and that they'd actually managed to kill a few broodmothers, so he'd immediately been promoted to Lieutenant, put in charge of his old comrades.
Huh, all three of the Captains had been made Lieutenant soon after Joining, due to the circumstances that had brought them to the Wardens in the first place. Interesting pattern, there.
That had been about ten years ago now. Iaşneru had slowly been building seniority in that time, until he'd been promoted to Captain three years ago, put in charge of the Wardens watching over the Deep Roads around Sharok — which was an important position, they were fighting darkspawn almost constantly to protect the city and keep trade open. He'd only been moved to Last Watch in the last year, to help the Wardens here prepare for the rising Blight.
Lýna realized that, despite not being in command of Last Watch, Iaşneru was actually the most experienced of the three Captains, having been in a proper war for a couple years and directly fought darkspawn for over a decade. Huh.
It was starting to get late by the time he was finished, and Lýna was rather tipsy now, so she quickly continued on with her story. Finishing up the disaster at the Circle, Conscripting Solana — Sidona had heard of her before, there'd been a lot of gossip in Orlais about the Amells for a little while — the promise she had from Esmond to march against the Blight. Back to Redcliffe, her negotiations with Eamon, Conscripting Jowan. She got the feeling the Captains were amused with how she'd handled her talk with Eamon, but they didn't jump up and say she'd fucked up, so that was fine, she guessed. The month after that, they'd mostly been focused on training their new recruits. They'd left Redcliffe a week ago, and here they were.
"So, you have been the senior Warden in Ferelden for..." Reynaldo trailed off, his eyes tipping up for a second. "...two months, only?"
"Yes, about that." A little less, actually...
"How many Wardens have you recruited?"
Lýna had to count on her fingers. "Two mages...four shieldbearers...five archers, and...four spears. That is, how many, fifteen in all? There are three more mages, Lèlja, and Fergus and his people who come with us, but they aren't to Join. So, fifteen."
Iaşneru let out a low whistle, Reynaldo nodded. "And the only Circle in Ferelden is committed to face the horde, guaranteed by their Seeker. You have two noble allies, one of whom is providing material support, and the other is likely to be King before the end of the year."
"Yes."
"Damn, kid."
"What...?"
"He means," Sidona said, "that you've done excellent work, given that you're practically a new recruit yourself and have had no support at all. Ordinarily, a lieutenant would never be given the responsibility of acting independently as you have, or trying to organize allies to face a threat like the horde in the south — especially not one barely a month past the Joining. I'm not sure any of us would have done better. At your age, I might have gone to Denerim to confront Loghain, and perhaps gotten myself killed."
Iaşneru snorted. "Probably. I don't think I would have left Ostagar, go to the line instead — and gotten myself killed."
"I too would go to Denerim," Reynaldo admitted. "Not to confront Loghain, no, but try to meet with Riordan and rally support from commoners and nobles. With what I know now, that wasn't going to end well. Or, maybe, I would go to Last Watch or Jader to get help."
"Any of these, Redcliffe dies, and perhaps Fergus with them, and the rebellion at the Circle would have ended up even worse off. And in every case, Ferelden would be without Wardens of their own to face the Blight. Instead, you have a sizeable force of poorly-equipped but well-organized recruits, multiple noble allies, and a feasible if nebulous plan to unite the country. Honestly, Lyna, your arrival puts us in so much better of a position than we anticipated, this is all very, very good news." Sidona gave her a smile. "I'll be writing to the First Warden tomorrow, and I'm certain he'll confirm you as Warden-Commander. You will likely be sent a more experienced constable to advise you, but I don't imagine you'll be replaced. You've done very well, truly."
Oh. Well. All right, then. She'd been kind of worried the Wardens wouldn't approve of Lýna making herself Commander, or anything else that'd happened since Ostagar, so that was...good? The praise was kind of a little much, actually, making Lýna feel...twitchy, shifting in her seat, she covered her discomfort with a sip of wine.
(She wasn't used to getting approval from her elders, she wasn't certain what she was supposed to say here.)
"So!" Sidona chirped, sitting forward in her chair and noisily clunking her mug against the table. "Now that we have been caught up, it's time to catch you up. How much have you heard of what's going on here in Orzammar?"
Lýna shrugged. "Not much. The King is dead?"
"Yes, that business. It's all rather...suspicious, to be honest. Endrin was ill, and has been for a while — there's a disease of the lungs dwarves get quite often, the details aren't truly relevant just now. It's been clear for a couple years that he wasn't long for this world. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem, as Endrin was fortunate enough to have three healthy adult sons.
"The eldest, Tirán, was Endrin's favorite son and chosen heir. Many were not happy about this. To be honest, Tirán was a stupid lout — he was competent enough of a soldier, no doubt, but he was foolish, arrogant and abrasive. He was desperately unpopular in nearly every segment of dwarven society, and had few enough friends to support him. It was likely he would have been King after Endrin, but his rule would have been fraught with difficulties, weak and unstable. Quite possibly, the worst King they could have with a Blight rising under their feet."
"Honestly," Iaşneru drawled, "I think Bélen did us a favor. Tirán was a liability, it is good he is gone."
Voice low and grumbling, Reynaldo said, "Neruş..."
"I know, I'm only saying."
Sidona continued as though the interruption hadn't happened. "The second son is Durán. He is also a soldier, but a much more competent and personable one — he made many more friends in the nobility and the military, and is well respected by his men, though not truly loved by any segment of society. His greatest faults are that he is uncreative, very traditionally-minded, and has little understanding of or respect for the economic life of his Kingdom. Tirán had been Endrin's favorite for most of his life, but in the last few years Durán has begun to be favored more and more. In fact, there are rumors that Endrin changed his mind recently, and that Durán had replaced Tirán as his favored heir.
"Of the three, Bélen, the youngest, is the most controversial. He is considered to be a radical thinker, by the standards of Orzammar, speaking often of how they must be willing to adapt to survive. That some of their traditions are only holding them back, stopping Orzammar from truly thriving. There are rumors that he is involved with certain...unsavory elements, smugglers and criminals, though never any proof so far as I'm aware. While the warrior caste is skeptical of him — he is the only one of the three brothers to never serve in the military — he is well-liked among the younger noble houses, and extremely popular among the mining and merchant castes. Interestingly, of the three he is the only one the casteless have any good will toward at all."
Iaşneru huffed. "Of course he is, he's the only one who gives a damn about them. What other dwarven noble have you ever heard speak to the conditions of the casteless at all?"
Sidona lifted one shoulder in a shrug, wordlessly agreeing. "There was a great scandal early in the year. It is all very complicated, and the details aren't so important — to put it briefly, Tirán was killed during a raid into the Deep Roads, and evidence soon came to light that suggested he was killed by Durán. The story goes, Durán wishes to become King, so he had Tirán killed to clear the way for himself. After a trial before the Assembly, where he fiercely professed his innocence, Durán was exiled into the Deep Roads to die."
"Of course," Iaşneru said, "that 'evidence' is all nugshit. Durán has sand where his brains should be, he isn't devious enough to come up with something like that." His lips curled into a smirk. "Bélen, on the other hand..."
"You mean to say..."
"Yes, we think Bélen had Tirán killed, and made it look like Durán did it — leaving himself as the only heir to the throne. Endrin's health worsened after that, due to grief over having lost two of his sons to such a horrible crime. Or perhaps," Sidona said, her head tilting suggestively, "someone helped speed him to his grave."
"...Oh." So, the most likely man to become the dwarves' new King was a kinslayer, responsible for the deaths of both of his brothers, and possibly his father as well. "Then we don't want him to be King? Who else is there?"
Iaşneru let out a hum, his head bobbing thoughtfully back and forth for a second. "Don't be so hasty, lassaţică. There is good reason to support Bélen."
"What? He's kinslayer."
"By any means necessary, Lýna," he drawled, smirking. "Maybe Bélen does what he thinks is best for his people, hmm? How are we to judge him for this?"
Lýna was taken aback by that for a second — that was a good point...assuming Bélen truly was doing what he thought best for his people, and not just killing his family for his own benefit. In the right circumstances, she was willing to overlook a lot, but it would be...difficult for her to trust a man who'd murdered his own family. "And is that what he does?" If he was, then the situation would be much like with Loghain, but at least Loghain wasn't a kinsl—
Oh, no, he was, though. Loghain was Cailan's uncle, by choice if not by birth. Loghain and Cailan's father had been blood-brothers, and Loghain's daughter was Cailan's bonded — Alamarri might not call him Cailan's uncle for that, but Lýna (the People, the Avvar, and the Chasind) certainly did. If Lýna was willing to consider allying with Loghain, passing over what he'd done at Ostagar and in the weeks since, she must also be willing to ally with Bélen, as his crimes were surely no worse. Hmm.
Why did everything in the north have to be so terribly complicated?
"I believe he thinks so. Whether he's right about that, well." Iaşneru shrugged. "Orzammar is dying by inches, Lýna — if they go on the way they always have, the city will fall, in time. Perhaps a radical thinker like Bélen is exactly what they need. He would do better than Harrogáng."
"Who is this?"
"The other contender for the throne," Sidona said. "Püröl Harrogáng is the head of an old, wealthy noble family. He's a respected figure, has a reputation for temperance and fairness, but is a very traditional thinker. In the Assembly, he is one of the more conservative voices, certain in the inherent rightness of their traditions. Never mind that it is the uncompromising rigidity of their ways that, in part, has doomed them to their slow decline. He claims Endrin made him his successor on his deathbed — but, as with Bélen's crimes, there is no proof of this.
"As unseemly as it may be to say, it is better for us if Bélen is to become King. It is difficult to tell for certain what either will do on the throne, but Bélen's talk of empowering the lower castes, even the casteless, of turning greater efforts to reclaiming the Deep Roads, to building closer ties with the surface, this is all good for us. If it is Harrogáng... We will not lose Last Watch, no, nor the material support the dwarves give us. But it will stop there. Harrogáng will focus far more on internal politics, on maintaining dwarven society as it is, and Orzammar will remain turned inward, continuing down the slow road toward extinction. And they will almost certainly not lend us soldiers against the Blight. If Bélen speaks honestly of his intent, it gives the dwarves a chance to reclaim some of what was lost, and aligns their interests even more closely with ours.
"No, as unpleasant as we might find what he's done, I suspect the reign of a King Bélen would be to our benefit. But who can say whether that will come to pass."
"Okay." Lýna didn't know enough about what these dwarven traditions were to have any opinion on the matter. The dwarves were less than they had been — they were much like the People, in that way — and the stories did make them out to be a people rigidly set in their ways, so it was very possible that what Sidona said about their traditions holding them back was true. Mẽrhiᶅ had said the same of the People, now and then. She had just arrived in Orzammar, and the Captains were older, more knowledgeable about the dwarves, and far more knowledgeable than her when it came to cities and nobles and kings, so for now she was willing to take their word for it. "What do we do, then?"
"Oh, we don't do anything, not about the succession. Dwarves do not tolerate the interference of outsiders in their affairs — if we tried to help one of them, it would likely do them more harm than good. Under their law the Last Watch is a chartered member of the warrior caste, if an atypical one, so we are allowed to speak to a preference for one or the other, but we can go no further than that. The dwarves must work that out for themselves, I'm afraid."
...Right, she'd been told pretty much the same thing about the Landsmeet. Fergus and Eamon both wanted to be seen with the Wardens, but they didn't want the Wardens to do anything to actually help them (besides fight off anyone sent to kill them), or even speak in their support. Just, the Fereldans distrusted Wardens for stupid reasons — the dwarves actually liked them, she hadn't expected the same idea would apply here. "I see. What do we do here, then? I mean, you said you were expecting more Wardens from the north, outside, and you're watching the horde, so you are planning something."
Iaşneru smiled, his voice sounding slightly slurred from drink, chirped, "Of course we don't do nothing, there's a Blight on. No, we can't do anything about the succession itself, but we can be clever instead."
That didn't explain anything, but thankfully Sidona took care of that. "As things stand, the dwarves can't commit any forces to the Blight, even with it rising not far outside their Gates. Orzammar is more vulnerable now than it was even twenty years ago. The Deep Roads are not a web," she said, lacing her fingers in front of her face (she sounded a little drunk too), "all evenly-spaced, no, they are more like a river, running into each other and flowing to important places. There are roads to nearby settlements overrun by darkspawn, yes, but Orzammar is joined to most of the old empire by a single highway.
"Those roads come together at a place called Kal-Bónammar, the City of the Dead. That was not always its name, it was a fortress guarding the Roads meeting there once upon a time, but after the collapse of their old empire it was taken over by a group called the Legion of the Dead. It is a little more complicated than this, but you can think of the Legion like dwarven Wardens — dwarves who have given their lives to oppose the Blight, by any means necessary."
"There are dwarves in the Wardens," Lýna said, confused. There were branches of the Wardens in every human kingdom — and the Republic too, back when it'd existed — she didn't see why there shouldn't be in Orzammar too. In fact, there was a branch of Wardens in Orzammar, sort of, the Last Watch could just recruit locals...
"Ah, true, but the Legion is older than the Wardens — they were founded very early in the First Blight, before the darkspawn truly threatened the surface. They are old enough they exist both in Orzammar and Sharok, despite how long they've been separated. We work closely together, and Legionnaires who are falling to Blight sickness will come to Join us if they can, but we are separate orders.
"Anyway, as I was saying, Bónammar fell to the darkspawn almost seventeen years ago now. This means those roads are no longer being watched and guarded — Orzammar is far more vulnerable, they need to be prepared for an attack at any moment. Which means they can't commit forces to fight the horde on the surface."
"I thought they couldn't go because they have no king."
Sidona shook her head. "No, the army is loyal to the King of Orzammar, but he doesn't command it. The army is led by certain figures in the noble houses and the warrior castes themselves — they will march if their King orders them to, but they will also march without him should they choose to."
"...I see." Then, it kind of didn't matter to the Wardens whether the dwarves had a king or not? According to the Captains — well, Iaşneru and Sidona, Reynaldo hadn't said anything and had looked very uncomfortable during that part of the conversation — it would be better for them in the long run if Bélen were king, but it wasn't something that they had to deal with right now. That was a big relief, honestly. Lýna didn't know anything about kings and nobles and assemblies and whatever, or really the dwarves in general — she hadn't been looking forward to trying to figure out what to do. "So, you are preparing to take Bónammar."
"Yes, that's the idea," Reynaldo said, perking up a little. He was clearly more at home talking about fighting darkspawn than the dwarves' politics. "The Legion have been making plans for some time now. They would try without us, but once we learned of their plans we offered to help. There are a couple dozen Wardens on their way from the north to join the hands we have here already — mostly Anders, though there are some Tevinters, Rivainis, and Antivans too."
"We are already preparing the field, scouting out their forces and collapsing side tunnels to prevent being flanked. The Legionnaires have the expertise to do that work, we only sent a few Wardens so they wouldn't stumble into darkspawn on accident. One of our scouts is from the wandering clans too, by the way, I'll introduce you when he comes back." Lýna just blinked back at Sidona for a second, not sure what to say to that, but Sidona moved on without waiting for a response anyway. "It will be some time before we are ready to move out. I can't be certain, but it could easily be another two months — I hope you weren't planning to move on before then, your help would be greatly appreciated."
It was still odd how long it took other peoples to prepare for war, but she guessed there was still work to do and some people weren't even here yet. "I don't think so? We're to meet Eamon at the start of Harvestmere." That was what they called one of the months, she knew, but she honestly didn't know which. It was Solana's job to keep track of that sort of thing.
"Oh yes, you will have plenty of time to make it back by then."
"Good. Yes, we will stay to help. I don't know about Fergus, I will ask."
Sidona nodded. "Good. You might want to blood your new recruits before then, but there is time enough for that. We have plenty of the liquor for the Joining, if you need it."
"No, Duncan gave me his." Though, if they did the Joining for all of their new recruits they'd probably run out, she should take a few fresh bottles before she left. She suspected many of the soldiers who faced the horde would be tainted, and she might as well recruit as many as she could, to rebuild the Fereldan Wardens in the aftermath.
"Clever man," Reynaldo muttered into his drink. "Always had a back-up plan, that one." Iaşneru and Sidona both nodded, agreeing.
"Well. I don't think there's anything else we need to discuss tonight. Neruş?"
Shaking his head, he said, "No, I think we're good. There is much you must know about Orzammar before you go out — you might offend someone eas, and we wish to be good neighbors." Lýna found herself nodding, the motion making the room sway in her peripheral vision a little. That was part of the reason she was trying to learn the Alamarri's ways, after all. "In the morning, gather your people in the great hall, and we'll tell you all you need to know. There is a lot to remember, but it's not too bad once you learn it."
"Okay. Is that all?"
Sidona's lips twitched. "Yes, Lyna, that is all. Go back to your people and get some rest. We'll talk more in the morning."
She had no idea how they were supposed to tell when it was morning down here, but presumably she'd figure it out. They all stood, some with more difficulty than others — the jugs hadn't been filled all the way to the top, but they weren't little things, they'd gone through more wine than she'd realized. Lýna's mug was almost empty, so she might as well finish it off, tilting her head back to get it all...which made her a little dizzy, the room swaying around her, had to put a hand on the arm of the chair to stop herself from falling. Woah.
Yep, she'd gotten drunk on Alamarri spiced wine again, oops. She never noticed it happening in the moment — the stuff just tasted so good, and she was always sitting down talking while drinking it, she couldn't tell how bad it was until she stood up again...
Lýna clasped arms with all of them, getting more comments about the Captains being pleased she and her people were here, and they went their separate ways. Their rooms were downstairs, she knew, it wasn't difficult to get to the hallway down there, but she couldn't remember which direction their place was. She glanced around the branching hall, the angles made by the turns giving her a niggling sense of familiarity. Maybe she should just wander around until— Ah! No, it was this way, around this turn here...
She stepped through a door into a sitting room, at a rounded table in the middle of the room were Alim and Lacie, Alistair, Perry, Edolyn, Jowan, Morden, Wynvir, Justien, and Sedwulf. They were playing cards, she saw — she'd seen people at it, but Lýna had never bothered learning how yet. "Hey, boss-lady!" Alim chirped, grinning. "I was wondering when you'd come back."
Edolyn had all but jumped out of her chair when she realized Lýna was behind her — Morden had started to stand up too, but he'd only made it halfway before changing his mind and sitting again. Solana had explained that it was expected for people to stand when their commander (or lord or whatever) walked in the room, but Lýna had told the recruits not to bother several times.
While she was squinting at the cards, trying to make sense of the figures drawn on the faces, Edolyn took a few steps closer. Edolyn was more than a head taller than Lýna, slender and graceful, had taken to the spear rather well — better than Dairren or Gwenys had, anyway. She had that weird hair color some Alamarri had, neither brown nor red, as though it couldn't decide which it wanted to be. It'd been long when they'd first met, but she'd cut it short since, for some reason. It wouldn't have been for the same reasons Avvar did it. Just to stop it from getting in the way, maybe? "Did you need something of us, Commander?"
She couldn't help frowning a little — it was late, and half of them were drunk (she could tell at a glance), what did Edolyn think she would ask of them now? Also, she'd told them to stop calling her that all the time, it was silly. She meant to say no, of course not, I'm going to bed, but what came out was, "You're very tall."
Edolyn blinked down at her, taken aback, chuckles sounding from around the table. Alim called, his voice shivering with a giggle, "Careful, Edolyn! Drink makes Lýna cuddly."
Twitching in surprise, Edolyn took a hasty couple steps back. There was more laughter from the table, the human woman's cheeks pinking with embarrassment — more than they already had from the wine, anyway. "Ah, I don't— No offense, Commander, but..."
It took Lýna a couple seconds to put together Edolyn was worried she'd offended Lýna by so quickly retreating out of arm's reach. She brushed that off with a flick of her fingers. "Anyway. The other Wardens have plans for the Blight, we'll talk about it tomorrow. Nobody leave Last Watch — the dwarves have rules, the Wardens don't want to offend them, they will tell us what we need to know in the morning. Oh, and Iaşneru said if anyone is cruel to the servants he'll kick their teeth out, so. Tell the others?"
Sedwulf muttered something under his breath — Lýna hadn't been paying attention at first, giving Iaşneru's warning but she was pretty sure he was insulting Orzammar dwarves and their traditions Harrogáng liked so much. Yeah, she was going to guess that was the sort of thing they were supposed to avoid saying. Alistair, Justien, and Morden all said things about making sure everyone else knew, so Lýna gave them a nod, turned to walk deeper into the Fereldan Wardens' rooms.
The silly, overly large and fancy bedroom she'd been given wasn't empty when she got there. Lèlja was sitting in one of the chairs with a mostly-empty glass of wine in one hand and a book in her lap. She looked up as Lýna walked in, lips curling and eyes crinkling in a smile. Lýna only met her gaze for a second or two before glancing away — Lèlja smiling at her made her uncomfortable.
She knew why, of course, but that didn't make her any less uncomfortable, she was trying not to think about it. The wine wasn't helping.
(She tried not to remember what kissing her had felt like, and failed miserably.)
"Lýna." She heard the rustle of the book folding slowly closed. "How did the meeting with the Warden-Captains go?"
"Good. They thought the Fereldan Wardens all died at Ostagar. Sidona's going to tell the First Warden to keep me as Commander in Ferelden."
"Oh, that's wonderful, congratulations. I've heard of Warden Sidona Andras — she was a quite controversial presence in the Winter Court. We've even met before, but I doubt she remembers me."
She wasn't sure what Lèlja was trying to say. "I like her."
Lèlja giggled. "Yes, I expected you would. I won't keep you from bed long, I only wanted to show you something. Come on." She heard Lèlja stand up, brushed past her toward the door — Lýna tensed, biting her lip — and then out into the hall.
Lýna took a long breath, trying to force out the distracting thoughts, before turning to follow her.
They didn't go far, just a few doors down the hall. Lèlja stopped, turning back toward her. "I'm in this room with some of the women," she said, tilting her head toward the door. "If you have trouble sleeping again you can come wake me, if you like."
"That... I don't think that's a good idea."
Lèlja smiled at her, soft and warm but with a hint of shaman-like absence, Lýna had to look away again. "I didn't mean to suggest we would share your bed — I understand you're not comfortable with that right now. I only meant that I would keep you company, if you needed a distraction from whatever might confront you in your dreams."
Lýna grimaced before she could stop herself — there was just something embarrassing about Lèlja offering to help her with her nightmares, like she were a small child or something. "It's better now, I'm fine." She was exaggerating a little bit, but it wasn't that bad anymore...
"I don't mean to...make you uncomfortable, Lýna, but I have heard you start awake more than once on the journey from Redcliffe."
Yeah, this hadn't stopped being embarrassing. "That isn't from the demons. The Archdemon sings to Wardens in our sleep."
She wasn't looking directly at Lèlja, but she could still make out her face in her peripheral vision — so she could see how Lèlja's mouth jaw dropped a little, her cheeks paling. "You... Truly? Oh, that sounds terrible..."
Lýna shrugged — some nights were worse than others. "It's why the Wardens knew this is a Blight so early, and why the others are preparing to move. It's not so bad."
"Just because something is useful doesn't mean it's pleasant to experience. I'm sorry you have to endure that."
She didn't know what to say, so she just shrugged again. "I'm going to sleep now."
"Of course..." Lèlja cleared her throat, trying to shake off her horror at what Lýna had just told her...which was probably a Warden secret, maybe Lýna shouldn't have said that... "Goodnight, Lýna."
"Nýdha dy-ma." She turned on her heel, stumbling a step when the hallway tilted around her, and walked off. A moment later she was back in her room, shut the door behind herself with a sigh. She really wished she could work through this faster — she'd enjoyed talking with Lèlja before, but it was so awkward now...
Lýna stripped off her leathers, folding them over a rack in the corner — meant for the armor and weapons of the person sleeping here, her bow and quivers and sword were already here — eyeing the bag sitting on one of the chairs. She should probably wear Alamarri clothing tomorrow. Most of the chairs and things around were too soft, she'd just tear things, Sidona couldn't follow her around to protect them all the time. Which she was less than pleased about, the fit was still a little uncomfortable to her. She should probably wear the pourpoint or whatever this time — she hadn't missed the looks people had given her when she'd gone without it earlier today, it'd just been too late to fix it by then.
Not that she minded too much, it wasn't any tighter than her leathers. She just wasn't used to it yet, was all.
Once she figured out how to dim the lamps, she crawled into the too large bed, burrowed into the thick, strangely soft blankets. As much wine as she'd had, it took her longer than she would have expected to fall asleep. Her head was too noisy, thoughts bouncing back and forth, keeping her awake.
She'd like to claim it was only important things — Loghain and the Alamarri lords, their upcoming dealings with the dwarves, the battle to come in Bónammar, her Wardens and the Blight — but a lot of it ended up being Lèlja.
Lying awake, staring up at the dark ceiling, Lýna wondered if it was supposed to be this...distracting, or if there was just something wrong with her. She wished Mẽrhiᶅ were here, she was who Lýna would ask...also she just missed her, how long had it been? over two months now? She hoped Mẽrhiᶅ was okay, wherever she was...
(The Blight left her alone that night, the dreams she had instead altogether more pleasant but far more confusing.)
Saţârnu — The original form of Seheron was "Sachernos", which is an ancient Fex name. (I've headcanoned a Fex civilization into existence, Greek-speaking, early allies of Tevinter.) Classical Tevene didn't have the [x] sound (like loch), so they pronounced it with a [k] instead. I then modernized (that is, Romanian-ized) the old name to get Saţârnu. There's a similar process of taking the canon names, in some cases re-Latinizing them, and then running through the sound changes in Romanian to get the modern Tevene behind a lot of things. I did the same thing to get Iaşneru's name, though the etymology for that one is elven — the iaş is from the same root that became iśa in Lýna's dialect, meaning "fire".
Yes, I realize I think about this shit too hard.
Lassaţică — If any Romanian speakers in the audience are wondering about this one, it's an elven borrowing.
By the way, the ş is pronounced "sh", the ţ is "ts", ă is a schwa, and â and î are both a high central vowel [ɨ], which is rare in European languages but appears in "roses" in my dialect of English. Because Romanian. The â/î is the same sound in Lýna's elvish written ý, which is why Iaşneru is the only one of the Captains who pronounces her name correctly.
Harrogáng — Seriously, why is Harrowmont's name in English? Am I the only one bothered by that?
Please don't mistake Iaşneru's opinions for my own. He has reasons for believing as he does, based in complex socio-political factors and his personal history — I can see where he's coming from (obviously, I wrote him), but we would have disagreements. Let's not get carried away.
One of the things that seriously bothered me about the original canon is the total absence of foreign Wardens. We're told Wardens see the Archdemon in their dreams, and that it woke up at least a couple years before Ostagar...so where the fuck are they? You can't tell me they were just going to sit back and wait to watch what happens, that's a fucking idiotic thing to do — the more time the Archdemon has to operate unopposed, the worse the Blight will be once it gets somewhere people actually care about. (I'll admit most of the rest of the world probably doesn't give a damn about Ferelden.) I've only read one fic that came up with a halfway reasonable explanation — that in the long centuries since the Fourth Blight the various kingdoms have gotten stingy with their tithes, so the First Warden wants to let Ferelden burn to show everyone else how important they are — but it's one that makes the Wardens out to be criminally stupid and diabolically evil.
Honestly, for all that the Wardens have a reputation for badassery in canon, we never see it. Established Wardens are virtually non-existent in Origins, save for Duncan and Riordan's heroic sacrifices (and Duncan's accomplished nothing). All the NPC Wardens in Awakening are killed off-screen before the game even starts. Their cameo in DA2 barely counts. And worst of the lot, in Inquisition they're easily-manipulated morons, and pushovers in a fight — maybe this is just me, but I always blow through them without much trouble, even on the highest difficulty. Aside from player characters and Riordan's crowning moment of awesome, I don't think they've ever been shown to do anything impressive in the games.
Since I was already cutting Paragon of Her Kind, though, it was easy to make some more alterations to the plot and fix both of these problems. Needless to say, the battles of Bownammar and Denerim are going to be...different, they'll be different. I hope you aren't all too disappointed that I've decided not to repeat the canon plot beat-for-beat, like practically every other DA:O fic I've ever seen.
Also, to the nerds who recognize the name Sidona Andras, yes, that's exactly who you think she is. She isn't going anywhere.
Another quick note: when I originally planned this fic, Endrin's middle child was going to be female, but I changed my mind — I don't know if anyone noticed, but the tags on AO3 have been changed to match. Hmm, any other important things in this chapter... None of them speak Alamarri natively, the dialog is supposed to be kind of awkward? Can't think of anything else...
Right, that's quite enough babbling from me. Thanks for reading my nonsense, until next time.