"And that down there, Lady Brosca, is Ferelden," Marcel said, pointing down at a snow covered valley. He and Natia were currently standing on a bridge which crossed a small gulf near the sheer face of the mountains. About a hundred yards behind them, upon a stone pavillion, stood the doors to Orzammar, built into the side of one of said mountains.
"It's not much to look at from here," Marcel continued. "But keep going East and you'll reach Lake Calenhad, and past that, the Bannorn, Ferelden's heartland." As always Marcel's way of speaking was strange, but not as strange the land Natia found herself in.
There were large pillars, of wood, for the love of the stone, jutting up from the ground and covered in a spiky green material, which Marcel had gathered, and now held in his arms. Marcel had told her the pillars were trees, and though Natia had heard of such things before, with Dusters who had been topside, such as Leske, describing them to her, she had never imagined they would reach so far to the sky.
The snow, as Marcel called it, was another intriguing feature of this alien landscape. It covered most everything, blown about by particularly strong cave drafts Marcel had identified as wind. When Natia had asked what snow was exactly, Marcel had told her it was frozen water, from the sky, no less. Obviously, Marcel was either lyrium addled, or he was messing with her, for when Natia had asked how it came to be that frozen water fell from the sky, Marcel had answered that he didn't know, and that the chantry, which, from what Natia had heard so far, sounded like a human shaperate, claimed the Maker sent it. Asking what "the Maker" was had not clarified matters.
But by far the most bizarre aspect of this new world was the lack of stone above. Instead there was… nothing. A vast abyss stretched above the ground Natia and Marcel walked on, space beyond space, with no borders or edges to speak of. The void had been blue like some of the noble's garb when Natia had first seen it, with a circle she had heard other dwarves refer to as the sun traveling across its expanse. The blazing shape was brighter than the smiths' forges, and acted as the lava did for orzammar, bringing light to the whole land. Indeed, it was so bright, Natia found she couldn't bear to look at it for long; her eyes would burn in response. Now, it seemed that circle was going to crash into the mountain behind them, and the sky, a word that had been meaningless for Natia until recently, turned to another of the nobles' favored tunic colors: red.
"We should get back to camp," Marcel said, turning from the view. "It's going to get dark soon, and I'd rather be by a fire."
Marcel had mentioned this before, as they were setting up said camp, that eventually the sun would "go down" and take with it the light.
They had pitched a tent near a stone dias that sat a small distance from the gates of Orzammar. Walking back to it was an adventure all its own, as Natia gingerly placed her booted feet down and felt the snow compact underneath. When the pair had reached the tent, Marcel set to work, clearing the white powder from the ground in an area nearby the tent. Natia watched, unsure of what exactly he was attempting to do, and if she could help in any way despite that. Once the powder was cleared, Marcel dropped the green brushes he had been holding, and began to build a earthen ring around them. When the ring was about three inches high, Marcel then walked to the tent, rummaging in the bags within, and returned with a small, burnished cylinder that tapered off at one end.
"Rod of fire, my friend." Marcel said in response to Natia's curious look, smiling and pointing the cylinder at the brush, removing a small metal cap-like object from the end as he did so. When the end of the rod got within a few inches of the brush, it immediately started to smoke, a burning smell becoming apparent. Seconds later, a fire had erupted from within the green needles, and Marcel replaced the cap, and turning to stow the rod back in the tent, began searching for something else in the bags piled inside.
"Are you a mage?" Natia asked in amazement. She had only heard stories of the surfacers who could command magic, which was surely what she had just witnessed.
"No, I just have accumulated some oddities in my travels," Marcel called from his place inside the tent flap. "And now, vittles!" Marcel eventually declared, hoisting a sack and what looked like two mats of unusual texture from within the canvas and turning to Natia. "I hope you're hungry my Dwarven friend. Your first meal as a Warden deserves some festivity."
"What are those?" Natia asked, looking at the mats.
"Wolf pelts," Marcel responded. "You'll meet the blighters soon enough. All too common in these parts."
Marcel placed the odd mats down a short distance from the fire, gesturing at Natia to sit, or so she assumed. He reached his hand into the sack and proceeded to withdraw and hand to her more food than Natia had ever seen in one sitting: a whole loaf of bread, two slices of cheese, and a fruit, browning in some places, but a fruit nonetheless. The closest thing Natia had seen to a real surface fruit before this was rotting in the Diamond Quarter waste dump, when she had cleaned it for a few coppers. Natia sat on the hairy mat and was already greedily biting into its surprisingly juicy flesh when Marcel muttered something about forgetting the ale, and crawled back in the tent.
The fruit, Natia didn't have a name for it beyond that, was… indescribable. The sweetness on her tongue, the mushiness in her mouth… After having eaten lichen bread, mushrooms, and the very occasional nug scrap her whole life, never having the funds for anything else, the fruit was something so astounding, it had to have been created by a Paragon, or whatever they were called up here. As her teeth tore ravenously into the flesh, she found it harder to consume the closer she got the center. Not wanting to slow down, Natia simply rotated the object of her obsession to a section yet unconsumed, gnawing without pause.
"Careful, Lady Brosca. Eat too fast or too much and you'll be sick." Marcel was back, two glass bottles in hand. He handed one to Natia, who took it and promptly set it down beside her, refusing to be distracted until her task was done.
Eventually however, the fruit refused to yield anymore of its bounty, no matter how Natia arranged her mouth. It had been reduced to a whitish-yellow column with an odd brown, stick-like, protrusion emerging from one side. Natia lowered the fruit from her now moist face.
"You seemed to enjoy that," Marcel said pleasantly, sipping from his bottle, his own portions in his lap. Natia ignored him. The bread and cheese demanding her attention. Only when she had consumed everything she had been given, did Natia turn to Marcel.
"You get to eat like this everyday?"
Marcel seemed bemused. "And here I thought I provided slim pickings. I was even going to give you a special treat, since it's your first day. That was the festivity, I mentioned earlier."
"There's more?" Natia was having difficulty believing what she was hearing. She'd already eaten more in one meal than she had on her best day preciously.
"Yes, my lady," Marcel said, digging into his bag yet again. "I was saving this for a special occasion, as it's my last one, but you only join the Wardens once, and something good should come of it. Besides, I think you'll appreciate it more." He withdrew a small cloth wrapped package, its design surprisingly fancy, or so Natia assumed. Unwrapping it, he revealed a rathered flattened, fragile looking cuisine that appeared similar to bread, in Natia's opinion, though unlike bread, parts of it flaked off onto its cloth wrapper.
"Here you are," Marcel declared cheerfully, handing the bundle to Natia. "An Orlesian viennoiserie, specially for you. I hope you'll forgive my pride, but Orlais truly possesses the foremost in baked goods. Pity they're difficult to find out in this differently fine country."
Natia took the bundle gingerly. Whatever the bread was, it was layered and bits of it came off like the shedding skin of a Deepstalker. Slightly uneasy, Natia raised the bread to her waiting mouth. It was… sweet. Weirdly crispy as well. On a whole, the sensation was not unpleasant, though in truth, Natia preferred the fruit. Something about Marcel's eagerly anticipatory face, though, made her want to refrain from stating so, uncharacteristic as that was. It reminded her a bit of when Rica had bought her a nug leg for her "birthday" all those years ago, using money she didn't have, and Natia hadn't the heart to tell her it was dried out to the point of being only technically edible.
"It's very good," Natia said, cramming the rest of it in her mouth. She was never one to turn down free food.
"I'm glad you think so," Marcel said, his smile growing wider. "I find that Fereldens, for all their numerous virtues, usually don't appreciate the luxuries of my homeland."
"I'm sorry I took your last one, then."
"Don't be. We are fellow Wardens, and I am just happy you found enjoyment in it."
The sky, by this point, had indeed begun to darken, as Marcel said it would. The glowing disk of the sun had since disappeared behind the mountains, but it must have still been emitting light, as the side of the sky it had vanished from was still noticeably lighter than its contrasting side.
Natia made to hand the cloth the viennoiserie had been wrapped in, only for Marcel to shake his head.
"You have few enough possessions as is, my new friend. Wardens often reuse everything we get our hands on, and I am happy to add to your beginning collection."
Natia looked again at the cloth. It was square shaped when unfolded, and portrayed a decorative pattern that seemed to be some kind of crest, though Natia had no knowledge of surface nobility. Still, it was certainly fancy enough to be, with shields and birds, and Natia found in her experience that the fancier the symbol the richer the prick.
"You a noble, or did you pawn this?" Natia asked, scrunching the cloth up and stowing it in her pocket; one didn't turn down free stuff. Marcel didn't seem self-absorbed enough to be a noble, but she supposed human society might be different.
"Son of a chevalier," Marcel said, poking the fire with a stick, stirring it around. He hadn't lost his smile, but it was more subdued now.
"What's a chevalier?" The word sounded strange on Natia's tongue.
Marcel was silent for a moment.
"I guess they would be analogous to the upper Warrior caste or lower Noble caste in Dwarven culture. They're a warrior order from Orlais."
"Do they fight darkspawn too?"
"No, they mainly fight themselves, with the odd exception." Marcel's wide grin was back, though he wasn't looking at Natia.
"They sound like Orzammar nobles," Natia said, reaching for the bottle Marcel had given her earlier.
"From what I gather, the two are remarkably similar." The good humor was back in Marcel's voice, without any indication it had left. "Still, I don't mean to paint a negative picture of Orlais. I assure you, its cities and countryside each have incalculable charms, and its people even more so."
Natia wracked her brains for another question to ask, sipping on her ale as she did so. She dimly recognized it as mid tier Dwarven brew. The Wardens must have restocked in Orzammar. Marcel seemed quite at ease, mimicking her movements.
"So you're both a chevalier and a Grey Warden? That's allowed?"
"I'm not a chevalier, merely the son of one."
"Oh." Natia didn't really know how to continue, except to ask: "How did you become a Grey Warden then?"
Marcel glanced at her with a smile, though Natia thought that there might have some strain in it.
"How should I put it? The city I grew up in, Val Gamord, is beautiful beyond compare, full of laughter, joy, and zest for life. Its ruling Marquise on the other hand is… less so. It was expected that I would follow in my mother's footsteps and serve her, but I thought it best to depart, and eventually, the situation forced me to. Luckily, Grey Wardens were nearby, and they gave me purpose."
"Are there darkspawn in Val Gamord?"
"Darkspawn near Val Gamord? That'd be a sight. The Marquise would have a fit." The image seemed to amuse Marcel greatly, and he appeared to hold back snickers. "No, the Wardens were there looking for recruits. That was about a decade ago now, and since then I've mostly served here in Ferelden, which has its own charms, as I'm sure you'll find out."
Marcel stretched and stood, waving a hand behind him.
"I'm going to gather more twigs for our crackling friend here. I'll be back, momentarily."
When Marcel returned, it was indeed with more armfuls of the green needles. Setting them down outside the earthen ring of the fire, Marcel sat back down on his mat, grabbing his bottle of ale, and looking at Natia.
"My deepest apologies, my dear Lady Brosca. I've just realized I spent most of our conversation talking about myself. Uncouthful behavior, for which there is no defense. Tell me of you, if you have no objections."
Natia hesitated. Marcel was looking at her as though he would like nothing better than to learn everything about her life up till this point. But even if she felt like talking, how did she relate what Dust Town was like to someone who had never lived there? To someone who had come from the upper echelons of his own society?
"You ever been to Dust Town?" Natia began, trying to gauge how difficult this was going to be, as well as how much she wanted to divulge.
"I can't say I've ever had that pleasure, no."
"Good. It's a big heap of nugshit." Natia took another sip from her ale. "I'm happy to be rid of it."
"And how did you come to be rid of it? I've only heard rumors of your performance in the proving."
"Well, I woke up in a cell today."
Marcel and Natia talked long into the night. Natia told him about Dust Town, about Beraht, the carta, and the fixed proving. She mentioned Leske and described some of their better misadventures, but found herself glossing over the type of jobs they typically did for Beraht. She felt Marcel wouldn't approve, but as to why that bothered her, she couldn't say. It was a curious sensation, the closest Natia had felt previously being her reluctance to tell Rica when Beraht had ordered her to off someone. Not that Natia mentioned Rica, however, or their mother, but who would want to mention her? Natia learned long ago not to discuss the things you cared about, even to those who seemed to mean well. It always came back to bite you in the ass.
The stars, as Marcel called them, were entrancing, and Natia gazed at them for a long time, she and Marcel in companionable silence. Eventually, however, Marcel mentioned a need for them to sleep, and motioned to Natia to go toward the tent, claiming he'd take the first watch. Natia complied, but once inside the flaps and among the blankets and sacks, she removed her new mace and her small bag of coppers and stashed them inside a random bag, memorizing its position. Marcel seemed earnest, but Natia had been one of Beraht's best enforcers precisely because she always expected the con. Everyone was out for themselves until proven otherwise, and not even then, truthfully. A viennoiserie and a fruit weren't going to change that, though they did make him the second friend Natia had ever had. Natia would treat him like she treated Leske: watching his back and watching her coin purse. Marcel was nice; Natia would be happy to watch his back. Happy to stab him in it too, if it came to that, though as Natia drifted off to sleep, she was surprised with how fervent her hopes were that it never would.
They were both looking at him now, his younger brother and his second, as they stood in the heir's room. The heir who was planning to murder Duran, as it turned out. Sibling quarrels, and all that. What was the measure of a brother? Of a house? Was one deserving of more loyalty than the other? Duran held little love for Trian, and apparently the feeling was mutual. Did that make it the honorable path to kill him? But then, who could claim honor other than the victor? The survivor? What was honor except the assertion of the righteousness of one's actions, and the lack of evidence to the contrary? These thoughts were ablaze in Duran's head as he contemplated silently. But a decision had to be made. And eventually, Duran once again regarded his companions and made it.
A.N. Wow, this took a while. Sorry about that. Critiques and suggestions are still welcome. I'll try not to take as long again.