The first thing Natia did when she woke up was check the bag she had stashed her loot in. It was still there, the mace gleaming slightly in the early morning light and her pouch of coppers jingling satisfyingly. It was not the same bag she had utilized previously, having changed them when she awoke for her turn at watch. Marcel had evidently not touched them throughout either his first or second watch, a fact that, while gratifying, did not mean that Natia was going to be less wary around him.
Stretching, Natia crawled out of the tent and saw Marcel poking a stick into the dying embers of the fire, humming to himself. The great glowing disk from yesterday, the sun Natia remembered, was peaking over the horizon, but in the opposite direction from its previous descent, a fact she found baffling. Marcel, noticing her emergence, looked up and smiled.
"Ah, Lady Brosca! How was your rest? Do you wish to partake in the great Warden tradition of breakfast?" He said the latter bit while extending a canvas sack towards her with a bemused grin, presumably offering food of some kind.
Natia, who had never turned down food and likely never would, seized the sack and retrieved the wolf pelt she had sat on the previous evening from within the tent. Sitting down, she dug in the bag, pulling out some bread and cheese and beginning to consume them with ravenous intent.
Marcel, still smiling, returned to poking the fire, seeming to realize without her saying so that she wished to eat in silence, an act that Natia greatly appreciated.
As she gnawed on the bread, Natia's eyes wandered, taking in the surrounding mountains and valleys as the first light of morning hit them. They stopped, however, when she saw splashes of crimson upon the snow between the camp and the entry gates of Orzammar.
"That yours?" She asked Marcel after swallowing. No need to ask what it was; she had seen enough of the color in her line of work.
"No," Marcel replied. "Merely some company from Orzammar we had in the night. They wanted a word with you, but I told them you were indisposed."
Natia nodded, eyes returning to her food. She wasn't really surprised. No matter where a casteless went in Orzammar, there was always someone looking to put them in their place. It wasn't that big of a stretch to think that, if the insult to Orzammar's honor was large enough, some noble or warrior caste prick would take that social enforcement slightly past Orzammar's front door, if they absolutely had to. The rest of the meal passed in silence between the two, as the sun revealed more and more of itself from the edge of the horizon.
Drip. Drip. Drip. It was an alarmingly mesmerizing sight, his older brother's blood on the stone. Trian's face stared up at Duran, who had crouched to the side of his brother's corpse to examine him. When people were "related by blood," did that mean that their blood was identical? Could that be Duran's blood now, staining the smooth stones and sinking into the cracks? Impossible. Duran and Trian were nothing alike, a fact that the younger sibling took great pride in, and yet… Duran could hear Gorim saying something behind him, but took little notice, instead continuing to watch the trickle of blood that ebbed from his brother's temple. The sound of people's footsteps, however, caused Duran to look up; he was surprised he could hear their approach with the roaring in his ears.
It was Bhelen, Harrowmont, and their men. And among them, Duran's father, king Endrin, wearing an expression his middle son had never seen. Was it alarm? Fear? Shock? It was difficult to think, for the roaring inside Duran's head was not going away. Turning his head to Bhelen, Duran observed him speaking, but like Gorim's earlier words, couldn't quite make it out. Duran simply continued to stare at him, watching his mouth move, tongue always silver. Watching his eyes, always so clever. He was related by blood to Bhelen, the same blood currently staining the floor. Three, now two. The roaring was receding, finally, and being replaced by a whisper. The whisper stretched in Duran's mind, finding little thoughts and connecting them, weaving a distinct pattern within his head. Bhelen, always so clever and yet so unnoticed. Bhelen, always siding with Duran against their elder brother. Bhelen, the only one of the three of them with seemingly no ambition. The whisper was tightening the thoughts it had ensnared, pulling them together into a distinct picture, and then evaporating into the recesses of Duran's mind, allowing him to hear his surroundings again.
Endrin stepped forward, towards the body of his eldest son and the crouching form of his middle. He fell to his knees, mirroring Duran's position on the other side of Trian's corpse.
"My son, tell me this isn't what it looks like." Horrowmont said, coming to stand by Endrin.
Duran didn't answer immediately, hesitating for a second to allow his eyes to roam over his father's tortured face, which was still casting about for answers, to that of his younger brother, standing behind.
Bhelen smiled.
Natia's arrow veered past the tree she was aiming at for the fifth time in a row. Swearing under her breath at once again being bested by the wood and sinew contraption, she threw the bow aside, pulled her one of her daggers from her back and hurled it with all the force she could muster at the trunk, where it struck right in the middle, the blade digging in some inches deep.
"Well, that's one way to go about it," Marcel commented from behind her.
It was slightly after noon, the sun having just passed its zenith in the sky, with most of the day having been spent by the two in training. Natia had shown Marcel her skills with her daggers, being careful, however, to keep some of her moves to herself. Not out of modesty, but out of necessity. If this Warden thing went south, Natia didn't want anyone knowing the full extent of what she could do with a couple of short blades. Marcel had shown her his bow, a weapon that Natia had relatively little knowledge of, being rare among the dwarves. He had fired arrows off into the valley, calling out what tree they were going to hit before they inevitably did. When Natia had asked to try, he had handed the bow over and she had attempted to fire it with various difficulties, one of which was the fact that the weapon was only a few inches shorter than she was, and her arms, not as long as Marcel's, had physical difficulty in drawing the bowstring back far enough to put any meaningful power into the arrows. Now, she was beginning to hate the weapon with a passion.
Marcel walked over to where she had tossed his bow, picking it up and brushing some of the snow off with an almost caressing hand.
"Did you want to keep trying, Lady Brosca?" Marcel asked, turning to look at Natia, but still rubbing the wood of the bow gently.
In response, Natia plucked the other dagger from her back and sent it soaring at the same trunk as before, embedding it an inch from its partner.
"I'll take that as a no, then." Marcel said, sounding amused, a fact that slightly irritated Natia. "Grab your blades and we'll have some lunch. I think we still have some fruit."
As Marcel turned to walk back to camp, Natia strode forward to the trunk, grasping one dagger in each hand and pulling them free of the bark with one, smooth movement.
As she followed him to camp, Natia stared at Marcel's back and considered. The Warden had been nothing but friendly to her, and she had yet to find his motivation for doing so. Talking with him was different from Leske. Leske and Natia had always been sarcastic with each other, joked with each other, and cheated each other. Natia had almost always known what Leske was thinking, because she was always thinking along the same lines. They were more than just partners, they were kindred spirits, in a way. Meeting Leske had been about the only decent thing to come out of signing up with Beraht all those years ago. Marcel, however, was nothing like Leske. Natia had no idea what Marcel was thinking, his mind utterly foreign to her. No matter how much she ribbed him, he never failed to provide one of his polite and cheerful responses, neither adjective of which had ever colored Natia's interactions with Leske. It was baffling; he was baffling. He reminded her of Rica, in a vague kind of way, not by personality so much, but more because of the fact that the two of them had been the only ones to ever act like there was some kind of dignity in Natia's existence, like she wasn't a living mistake. Not even Leske had treated her like that; both he and her had known better. Of course, Rica had the excuse of being Natia's sister, and thus the familial bias that came with it. Which begged the question, what was Marcel's angle?
"Here you are, Lady Brosca," Marcel said, handing Natia some food wrapped in a small cloth when she finally arrived back in camp, the wolf pelts already having been set out. "An apple and some jerky each! Apologies for the jerky, but it stores well, so Wardens eat a lot of it."
Natia's mouth watered at the sight of the fruit, apple was it? It was different than the one she'd had last night, being wider and more spherical than the previous, as well as being red instead of yellowish. Still, the one fruit Natia had ever had was so incredible, she was more than willing to try another of its ilk. Biting into the red skin and revealing the whitish flesh underneath, Natia consumed the apple with every ounce of concentration she had. The taste was different, but the flesh was still juicy, and thus still magnificent. Eventually the same thing as before happened, with the fruit being reduced to a rough cylinder that refused to offer up any more of its deliciousness. At that point, Natia discarded the remains and turned to the jerky, several brown strips of dried meat that she could identify as nug. It was tough and salty, but having eaten lichen bread for most of her meals, and its amazing ability to have no taste at all, the jerky was still among the better meals of her life.
As they gnawed on the jerky, Natia and Marcel, they sat in companionable silence once again. Natia occasionally broke it to ask questions that popped into her head, but for the most part, the only sound to be heard was the grinding of the tough meat in the two's mouths.
"What's Val Gamord like?" Natia eventually asked, swallowing the bit of jerky in her mouth. She had heard Marcel mention it yesterday, which made it the only surface city she knew of. It would be nice to know what to expect.
"It's a wonderful city, Lady Brosca" Marcel said, his voice ringing out in enthusiasm. "My words could hardly do it justice! But, let's see if I can convey its feeling. It lies in Eastern Orlais, and is known for its weaving. The town's main festival started as a weaving competition, and everyday of the year tapestries and carpets line the streets, being shipped and sold, creating corridors of vibrant color. And when the sun shines upon the central fountain, you'd think there was no more beautiful place in the world."
Marcel's gushing did little to inform Natia's worldview, but it did give her an interesting mental image to picture, so she didn't comment on his nostalgic answer.
"Have you been back since you left?"
Macel smiled thinly.
"No, I'm afraid Wardens almost never return to their homes, even those that have homes to return to. Simply a facet of the job."
Marcel fell silent, though Natia felt no need to keep him talking. Marcel clearly missed his homeland quite a bit, which was not exactly a feeling she could sympathize with. Natia was already hoping she wouldn't be stuck on this mountain much longer, eager to put those doors, and thus the last reminder of Orzammar, far behind. She would have left years ago, regardless of what the surface held, if she didn't have Rica to think about.
At the thought of her sister, however, Natia's heart seemed to squeeze within her chest a bit. That's right, she was never coming back. Orzammar and the vast majority of its people meant less than nothing to her. But Rica… the goodbye they had in front of the carta's shop seemed much too short, all of a sudden.
The minutes passed as Marcel and Natia both sat, lost in their own thoughts.
"Marcel," Natia said hesitantly, not out of concern for bothering him, but because she could hardly believe she was going to ask.
"Yes, Lady Brosca?"
"Would it be possible for us to go back inside Orzammar for a few hours?"
Marcel turned to gaze at Natia, surprise and confusion upon his face.
"I'm fairly certain returning to parade ourselves in front of Orzammar would defeat the purpose of camping out here, and be contrary to Duncan's orders. Why? Is there something you need?"
"There's someone I'd like to speak to before we leave for good," Natia responded, remembering she hadn't told Marcel about Rica. She didn't particularly want to now, either.
"And this someone is?" Marcel inquired, seemingly not fazed by her evasiveness.
"Someone I need to talk to before I can leave things be."
Marcel stared for a few moments, pondering. Eventually, he broke his silence.
"I don't think it wise. I'm sorry."
Natia ground her teeth, glancing away from Marcel. It wouldn't be hard to sneak away in the night; she'd been sneaking around Dust Town all her life. If Marcel thought he could keep her here, he vastly overestimated himself.
"Since I assume you're planning on going anyway," Marcel continued. "Perhaps I can offer a compromise."
Natia regarded Marcel once more, her wariness barely concealed.
"If you go into Orzammar, you will undoubtedly be accosted by those dwarves in the same vein as last night's visitors. While I have no doubt to your capabilities, and I'm quite certain you would prevail with or without me there, killing or injuring the warrior caste will do nothing to endear the Wardens to Orzammar, and thus is a course of action we can't afford at the moment. If however, you tell me this person's name, whom you so desire to converse with, then I will do everything in my power to bring them to the front gates so you may speak in safety. While it is unfair, I am far less likely to be impeded than yourself."
Natia considered Marcel's words. She had no real desire to confide in him about Rica, and the idea of relying on someone else for something went against every natural instinct she had. Still, it was true that if Rica really was really staying in the Diamond Quarter, as she had stated she would be in their previous goodbye, Marcel would stand a much better chance of actually getting to her than Natia would.
Natia was quiet for a few seconds, weighing her natural mistrust of people in general against the actual reasons she had to distrust Marcel.
"Her name is Rica," she finally said, deciding that she would probably get to talk to her sister more quickly if she sent Marcel rather than sneaking into the Diamond Quarter herself. "She's staying somewhere in the Diamond Quarter, but I don't know where."
Marcel raised his eyebrows in response to the latter information, but did not otherwise address it, instead asking, "And her last name?"
"Why do you need to know?" Natia responded, rather coldly given Marcel's offer. But in spite of her "fellow" Warden's generosity, Natia was not going to reveal that she had a sister. Information like that was only revealed if you wanted it used against you.
"It might merely help me locate her," Marcel said pleasantly, ignoring Natia's aggression, as he always did. "Perhaps a description instead, then?"
"Uh..." Natia hesitated, wondering how to describe Rica in a way that wouldn't reveal their relationship. "She'll be dolled up, but have a brand anyway. She's slightly shorter than me."
Natia almost rolled her eyes at herself; her description was pathetic. If Marcel could distinguish Rica from all the other noble hunters, it would be a sodding miracle.
"She has red hair," Natia fumbled, regretting sharing the detail even as she said it. Of course Marcel would find out anyway if he actually found Rica, and the color wasn't exactly rare among dwarves, but it still was evidence of their relationship she'd rather he not know about. "And she's got some patron among the nobles, but I don't know who."
"I'll do my best to find this woman then," Marcel said, standing up after placing the remains of his jerky in a pocket. "Given the size of the Diamond Quarter, I better start now. I'll bring her to the edge of the front gates, so keep a watch out."
Marcel grabbed his bow and slung it over his back, where it hung next to his quiver. He turned to go, but stopped short and then turned to look back at Natia.
"A word of caution," he said, not smiling for once. "There are those in Orzammar who know that the two of us are camping out here. If they see me within, walking the streets, they will assume correctly that you are out here alone. Those among the warrior caste that overestimate their own skills and underestimate yours may decide that this fact makes you easy prey and attempt to conclude what they couldn't last night. Be on your guard, and take all measures to defend yourself. For all their talk of honor, I suspect they won't fight fair if they come."
"Don't worry about me," Natia grunted, returning to her jerky.
"All right then, I won't." Marcel's smile was back. He turned to stride away. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
The cell was dark, but that mattered little to Duran. It was fitting actually. Dark thoughts should be at home in the dark.
As he stared at the grimy, feces stained floor, the roar that had been so prevalent in Duran's head upon finding Trian's body seemed a distant memory, now replaced with a hollowness of the chest. As he dug his fingers into the dirt-caked wall, he heard footsteps sounding off the stone of the hall outside the cell. It was Gorim, whose sunken eyes seemed at home in the gloom of the dungeon.
"My lord," Gorim said, drawing near the bars. "I… I would have come sooner had they allowed it. How are you?"
A ridiculous query in Duran's opinion; It should be fairly self-evident how he was, given his presence inside a cell. Still, Gorim was steadfast enough to him that Duran refrained from saying so. Instead, he listened to Gorim explain that the Assembly had already voted to condemn the two of them, a fact that was as unsurprising to Duran as it was outrageous to his former second.
"My Knighthood will be stripped, my name torn from my family records… but I will be allowed to attempt some sort of life on the surface," Gorim continued, looking down in what could be shame, indignation, or resignation. There was no shame in living, Gorim. In fact it was slightly heartening to hear, and did a little to alleviate the hollowness that had descended upon Duran. Still, he was hardly foolish enough to expect the good news to last.
"Lord Horrowmont moved for a similar exile for you, but Bhelen's supporters overwhelmed him."
Ah, so the old man was looking out for him, was he? Curious. Privately, Duran had always considered his father's old friend, Lord Harrowmont, to be little more than a half-senile old man, but the young dwarf supposed one should take allies where they found them. Certainly no one else was rushing to his defense.
After a brief pause, Gorim continued.
"You are to be sealed in the Deep Roads to fight darkspawn until you are overwhelmed and killed."
The way Gorim said that… was he expecting the news to be devastating? It was what Duran had been suspecting he would hear ever since he was first placed in this cell. Since when had the deshyrs ever destroyed something they could use? It was what Duran would do, given reversed positions.
"Lord Harrowmont gave me access to you so I could tell you this:" Gorim leaned forward, as though the Stone itself might overhear his words. "That human, Duncan, and the rest of the Grey Wardens are still in the Deep Roads, in tunnels connected to those you are to be left in. If you survive long enough to find the Grey Wardens, you may be able to escape with Duncan."
Duncan? He was the human Duran had met in the Royal Palace, wasn't he? He had been welcomed there, though rather coldly after the proving in his honor yesterday. Or was it the day before yesterday? Time gets funny in a cell.
Regardless, the human's recruitment of the casteless who defiled the proving, which was again, in his honor, had infuriated many of the noble and warrior houses. Though Duran's father had still allowed the Wardens to stay in the palace and accompany the army the following morning, even he had been slightly put out. As far as Duran had seen, none of the nobles besides himself had made any attempt to even converse with Duncan, a rare occurrence indeed for an "honored guest."
"I begged to go with you and fight at your side, but Bhelen's pet nobles wouldn't hear of it." The bitterness in Gorim's voice surprised even Duran, despite it all, and the former prince found himself hoping that Gorim's new life on the surface would be a prosperous one.
"The surface will be safer, Gorim. Thank you for your service."
"I would give up all the safety in the world to go down this dark path with you."
More approaching footsteps were sounding of the stone. Gorim looked away to peer down the hall.
"It appears our time is up," Gorim said, turning back as a guard appeared in Duran's periphery. "May the Paragons guide you and your sword and the Stone hold you up."
"The same to you, my friend." It was a struggle for Duran, normally the image of a stoic warrior, to keep his emotions from his words.
"I'll always be your man, my lord Aeducan."
As Gorim left, two things happened. Firstly, the emptiness inside Duran seemed to intensify as he watched his friend and constant companion walk away. All of the hollowness coalesced and hardened, becoming something sharp and painful, something he yearned, needed to inflict upon his younger brother. Secondly, the roar returned to his mind, and it carried with it images of the Grey Wardens. As before, his mind whirred and shifted, pulling distinct pieces together, though before it had done so to reveal a plot, now it did so to create one. This was not the end. Neither the Deep Roads nor the darkspawn were the end. Never.
There were three of them that Natia could see: large hulking dwarves with shining helms. Huh, she had expected more. They had emerged from within the mountain and talked to the guards posted there, gesturing towards Natia. Then they started lumbering towards the camp, though they kept looking up at the sky, shuddering, and immediately looking back down. All were heavily armored, though not wearing Orzammar guard uniforms. Natia lounged by the fire, watching their approach. She thumbed the edges of her daggers, which lay in her lap alongside the whetstone she had been using to sharpen them. Guess it was show time.
Grasping her blades, Natia got to her feet and strode to meet the envoy. This seemed to confuse the warriors, and they stopped several feet away when the distance had finally closed. Good, perfect position.
The one with the longest beard stepped forward, a menacing gleam in his eye.
"Are you the duster whore who tricked her way into the Wardens?" The man said, one hand going to the massive sword that hung from his back.
"Why? You paying?" Natia sneered. "You'd be better off finding a nug, like your mother clearly did."
"Know your place, brand!" One of the dwarves spat at her from behind his companion. "We won't allow an honored ally of Orzammar to be polluted by your kind."
"Sod off, you bronto-shit sniffing blighters. Crawl back to your manors and your imbecilic ancestors before you wet yourselves."
The warrior in front blinked slowly, unable to conceive of a brand speaking to him in such a way. Then, he snarled, wrenching his greatsword from his back as his companions readied their weapons as well.
"This casteless bitch should know what happens when she insults the ancestors," the warrior strode forward across the few meters separating Natia from her new acquaintances as the rogue in question lazily readied her daggers. "Let's show her the justice that…"
Whatever sort of justice the warrior was going to mete out, however, was never announced, as the iron jaws of the claw trap Natia had planted beneath the snow sprang closed around his leg with a sickening crunch. The warrior screamed, collapsing to the ground, fingers grasping uselessly at the crumpled and blood soaked plate that emerged from where the trap's serrated teeth had his leg in their vice.
The other two warriors looked on in shock at their comrade howling on top of the snow. Their pause only lasted a few moments, but it was enough for Natia to send one of her daggers sailing into the small gap between the arm and chest armor of one of them, causing the dwarf to drop his maul. He clutched at the dagger instinctively, and thus it was easy for Natia to pin his arm when she bowled him over, having launched herself just after her dagger.
With his arm pinned by Natia's weight, his vision blurred by the sudden wrenching pain in his shoulder, and his maul lying just out of reach of his uselessly groping fingers, the warrior was panicked and helpless in the short few seconds it took Natia to wrest his helmet off and for the tip of her other dagger to find his throat. Natia then rolled off him, narrowly avoiding the swing of the mace from the third warrior.
Orienting herself so that her roll ended with her back on her feet, Natia surveyed her final opponent. He wielded a mace and shield, and though his expression was hidden behind his helm, his movements, conservative and controlled from behind said shield, suggested he was greatly wary of the speed with which his compatriots had been dispatched. The other two dwarves lay on the ground, one still holding his leg and trying in vain to peel the iron jaws from it, the other clutching his throat, eyes bulging in horror as the physical embodiment of his life-force escaped from beneath his red-stained fingers.
The dwarf with the shield struck again, swinging his mace through the air while still trying to keep his bulwark between him and Natia. Idiot.
Dodging his overly cautious blow, Natia grabbed his shield and immediately dropped herself, dragging the heavily armored warrior to the ground alongside his companions. As the warrior wildly tried to bash Natia with the mace, panicked by his sudden fall, Natia scampered away, leaving only her final dagger lodged in his forearm. That on its own wouldn't be enough to stop him. Good thing the blade wasn't alone.
While the warrior surged to his feet, Natia retreated to the body of his dying partner, pulling her dagger from his shoulder and rearming herself. When the choking dwarf saw Natia approach, he tried to reach out to her, one arm still clutching his throat, but Natia kicked his hand away.
The mace wielding warrior was advancing now, slowed by his wound and, unknown to him, the poison coating Natia's blades. His swings, different than before, were now large and wild, desperation and fear apparent in his form. Natia stayed just out of reach, waiting. It would only take the right moment. Eventually, she saw it. With his shield lowered from both poison and his arm wound, his current swing would leave him open. Just as the tip of his mace reached the midway point of its arc, Natia was darting in. When her dagger lodged itself in the eyeholes of his helm, the warrior's limbs jerked before sagging, his body toppling over as Natia pulled both of her blades free.
Looking back over her handiwork, Natia walked to pick up the maul dropped by the second warrior, who now lay still. Hefting the weapon with an audible grunt, Natia dragged it to where the first warrior still lay, clutching his leg. Seeing her approach, the dwarf scrambled to get a hold of the greatsword he had dropped, but Natia ignored him. Using the shaft of the maul, Natia began to dig in the snow, revealing the various other traps she had buried. Springing them with the end of the maul, the traps' jaws rapidly clamped down on the wood of the shaft. They'd be a bitch to get off, but that wasn't her problem. It wasn't her maul, after all.
Once all the traps were sprung, Natia cast the maul aside and turned to regard the one warrior still living. He had managed to clutch his greatsword and its point was brandished in her direction, though the considerable wobbling of the blade along with the warrior's still prone positioning wasn't exactly intimidating. Rolling her eyes, Natia threw one of her daggers at a point beside his head, and when the warrior flinched, bringing his arm up to cover his face, Natia batted aside his greatsword, stepping on the blade and pulling it from his weakened grasp.
With his weapon safely out of his reach, Natia plucked the dagger she had thrown out of the snow and withdrew to a few steps away. The warrior returned to grasping his leg, a palpable fear in his eyes.
What to do? Natia could see the guards observing them from their place by Orzammar's entrance, but they made no move to intervene. Perhaps leaving their post would be a greater offense than allowing three "rogue" warrior castes to snuff it 100 yards away. Callous, but Natia wouldn't complain. Anyway, with the guards a non-issue, all Natia had to concern herself with was the man right before her. She pondered her options, tossing her dagger to herself while the warrior whimpered on the snow.
She could kill him, certainly. Given that the guards hadn't moved even though she'd killed two already, she doubted the culling of the last one would motivate a response from them. Letting him go was a significant risk, after all. He could be sending his friends to attack her in a few hours, and more of them next time. If he was part of the same group that Marcel had repulsed last night, then he had already demonstrated that he wouldn't give up. On the other hand, would killing him provide more problems for the Wardens? Or was that Bronto out of its stall, regardless? Just because the guards didn't intervene did not mean they wouldn't remember, or tell Orzammar that the newest Warden recruit had butchered a man while he lay defenseless. But perhaps the Wardens' reputation in Orzammar was already unsalvageable. After all, they had just recruited her, deeply insulting the warrior caste in the process, and now two more warrior caste members were dead, regardless of the circumstances. Natia was no politician, but she knew that the crews of Dust Town never let the killing of their mates go, even if their mates were morons who struck first.
Natia stared down at the man, grinding her teeth. What would happen if she let him go? He would return to Orzammar, and likely recover his injuries. Even if he didn't send any of his friends after her, he would still be another stone in the pile that crushed the life out of the casteless daily. The beatings, the blind eye to suffering, the merciless punishments for their existence, this man would perpetrate all of them upon Natia's kind with the years she would give him by sparing him. Natia still had the scar on the back of her head from where a warrior caste dung-licker had kicked her for getting in his way. She had been seven years old at the time. And Rica… Rica had scars too, despite her beauty.
Thoughts such as this pounded in Natia's head as she offered her hand to the warrior, and she could vaguely hear herself saying something about helping him to the gates. A few moments later, as she was wiping his blood off her dagger and hearing the man's gurgling breath fade, Natia turned to walk back to her camp. The guards could retrieve the bodies if they wanted or leave them to rot, it was all the same to Natia. And if the people of Orzammar wanted mercy, they should have learned to show it.
The Deep Roads were as black as the darkspawn blood currently staining Duran's blade. He had pried the great-axe from the corpse of a hurlock and already it was stained with the black essence of the darkspawn and the red of the deepstalkers. If Duran had thought the cell he had been in was dark, he had been fooling himself. The Deep Roads, as all other times Duran had been in them, seemed to defy the light and revel in its absence. The torches placed sporadically within the winding, serpentine corridors and maintained intermittently by scouts from Orzammar could only beat against the darkness in a futile display of civilization. These halls no longer belonged to the Dwarves, not really, and the darkness was the proof.
Not that any of that mattered. What was the dark to Duran?
Duran came upon another group of darkspawn, genlocks this time, and fell into the form he had known and prepared for all his life. One of the stocky blighters was decapitated before the others had even got to Duran. The other two soon followed their monstrous brethren.
Pitiful. Stragglers is what these were. Where were the rest of the spawn? Perhaps the human hadn't been lyrium-addled when he had spoken of the Blight beginning on the surface. Duran had been in the Deep Roads countless times, on expeditions and as his father's second, and to see them so empty was … unsettling.
Deepstalkers again. Keep moving, avoid their spit. Isolate the pack leader and cleave him in half. Bat aside the others. Find the Wardens. The rhythm of combat was a welcome balm for Duran's whirring mind, and his goal was the only thing he allowed himself to ponder when the silence fell again. Otherwise, his thoughts would dip their edges into a dark place in his heart, a place that was blacker than the blood coating his blade or the shadows around him. It was a place Duran didn't want his mind encroaching on. Not yet.
Time seemed to have little meaning within this labyrinth, minutes and hours switching their roles without any qualms. How long had Duran been searching, how many times had the shrieks of the spawn and stalkers arouse only for the silence to fall again? Irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the goal.
"By the Maker, it's a dwarf!"
There were humans in front of Duran now; how had that happened. There were three of the gangly creatures, all of which Duran recognized as the wardens from the palace,and the exclamation had been uttered from the bald one. Duncan, his form still garbed in his unique armor, stepped forward, echoing his companions shock.
"Lord Aeducan!"
There, the Wardens were found. The goal was reached. And now, the shadows in Duran's mind could begin to spread again.
Eventually the guards did collect the bodies, or at least, they dragged them to the front gates for someone else to take in. Guarding that door must have been crucially important, for all they seemed to care about what happened slightly off their 'property', so to speak. Of course, Natia could only see this all happening from a distance, as she was currently back in camp, admiring her new mace and keeping an eye out on the off chance that the guards decided to confront her after all.
But no, one of them simply came to retrieve the corpses of Orzammar's honored and then returned to his post. He did turn his helmeted head to gaze in Natia's direction for several seconds, but he made no attempt to approach.
And so, Natia felt the hours pass. She practiced a bit with her blades, and looked again over her new mace multiple times, running her thumb over the marks of House Aeducan and a Smith House she thought was Galro. She couldn't wait to get to a city and sell it. It would fetch at least a couple of dozen silvers, and that was more coin than Natia knew what to do with. Still, even admiring her new source of wealth began to be of little interest eventually, and Natia resorted to staring off at the doors of Orzammar, hoping Marcel would hurry his ass up.
The sun was sinking towards the horizon, a sight as enrapturing tonight as it had been on the previous one, when Marcel emerged from the heavy metal gates into the mountain. Finally. Natia could see him waving and she stood, stowing her mace back in its bag and rehiding it in the tent. As she started to walk toward her new comrade, Natia saw a red-haired dwarf walking beside the giant human and knew that the day hadn't been a complete waste.
"I came as soon as the human found me," Rica said, hugging Natia with a force that surprised the younger sister. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
Natia returned the hug for several moments, barely hearing when Marcel excused himself from the embracing siblings and began his walk to the camp. Natia then withdrew from her sister's arms and stood back to study her. Rica looked much as she had yesterday, though there was a tiredness in her eyes, and her vivid, red hair was beginning to come out of her tightly bound bun.
"No, nothing's wrong," Natia said, taking her sister's hand and leading her to the stone platform in the middle of the clearing. "I just … might not ever come back. And so, well… I wanted to see you again." Natia mumbled the last part, digging a toe into the stone and not looking at Rica. "You look tired. Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Rica said, clenching her sister's hand tightly. "Things are just hectic in the city right now. I haven't seen my patron all day; there's been an urgent assembly meeting."
"Are they still up in arms about me?"
"No, your proving has pretty much been forgotten in the face of bigger problems." Rica sat down on the edge of the stone platform and was looking upon the sunset with the same kind of bewildered fascination Natia had first seen it with. Natia sat down beside her, still holding her hand.
"Really? What's going on?" Natia asked, grinning despite herself. "Was Lord Meino wearing an unseasonable doublet again? The entire Diamond Quarter practically shut down last time."
Rica didn't smile, looking away from the sunset to return her gaze to her sister's eyes.
"The Crown Prince is dead." She said quietly. "Endrin's middle son has been convicted of fratricide. The assembly has been in chaos."
Well… damn. That was a big deal. Certainly a bigger deal than a casteless infiltrating the provings. Figures that the one time Natia had stuck it to the traditions of Orzammar, the nobles had to upstage her anyway.
"I just hope that my patron is okay," Rica continued, her eyes returning to the sunset. "I'd like to be there to… to comfort him, if nothing else."
"Why, did he know the Crown Prince?"
"...Yes, he did. Oh, but, Mother and I are alright, so you don't have to worry. We just moved into our new lodgings and you wouldn't believe it if you saw them!"
Natia leaned back, bracing her arm behind her in her signature lounge.
"Tell me about them."
Natia listened to Rica talk for a long time, long enough for that great sky disc to once again start to disappear beneath the horizon. Her sister described everything about her new lodgings, from the silken sheets to the lush dresses she had been gifted, and then went on to how their mother seemed to be in shock from it all.
Natia talked too, surprising herself with how eager she was to explain her newfound knowledge. She told Rica about the sun and its path across the sky she had witnessed, and how even though the mountains looked to be eating it right now, it would reappear behind them later. She told Rica about the snow and how Marcel had said it was from a snow-maker who lived in the sky. She told Rica about the trees, and what Marcel had said the surfacers made out of them, shields, weapons, and houses. Rica had laughed and gasped at her explanations, and for a brief time, there in the fading light of the great flaming disk, Natia felt as though the world couldn't be so bad, if moments like this existed.
But as the very last light of the sun was vanishing, Rica caught sight of the red stains on the surrounding snow. Her head cocked, and her expression froze.
"What is that?" She asked Natia, an unnatural lightness in her voice. Natia knew Rica was being deliberately ignorant. Noble hunter or not, she had grown up in Dust Town; she knew what blood stains looked like.
"Just some nug-humpers. Don't matter," Natia said, not wanting to broach the subject with her annoyingly moralistic sister. "Tell me about your new man, why don't you?"
"Who were they?" Rica asked, not to be put off. She was gazing rigidly in the direction of the dark spots on the white powder, not allowing Natia to see her face.
"Told you, nug-humpers." Natia was really hoping Rica would get the hint, but apparently, she was to be disappointed.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, now about your…"
"And what about them? Are they… what did you do to them?" Rica's voice was quiet enough that Natia could barely hear it, even in the stillness.
"What I had to."
Rica abruptly stood, moving away from her sister and beginning to walk towards the gates of Orzammar.
"Rica, come back," Natia said, also getting to her feet to follow her flaming-haired sibling. This was just what she needed right now.
"You killed them, didn't you?" Rica had stopped, but she still wouldn't look at Natia.
"I've killed a lot of people, Rica," Natia muttered, trying hard to keep from rolling her eyes. As much as she loved her older sister, Rica was always so squeamish about mortality. There was a reason she could never have told her about half the things she had done for Beraht.
"Which clearly justifies it now."
"What in the sod do you want from me?" Natia growled, feeling anger bubbling up from somewhere deep inside. An anger that surprised even her as it flowed forth, ready to bite into anyone. "They attacked me. For what was apparently the crime of being alive and having some dignity, surprising as it may sound. Far as I'm concerned, I just made Orzammar a better place."
"And you didn't have any other options?" Rica asked, whirling around to face her sister, expression carefully wooden.
"Options like what, lick their boots? Beg for mercy? Let them run me through? I'm sorry that my survival bothers you so much."
"Don't you dare," said Rica, pointing her finger at Natia with wavering voice. "I bet you didn't even try to avoid the fight, did you? Try to talk them out of it?"
"They came out here to kill me, Rica," Natia coldly stated. "I don't think chatting with them about their sodding motivations was going to help anything."
"So no, you didn't." Rica brought her hands up and pressed them against her face, blemishing her make-up.
"Why the sod do you care, Rica?" Natia could feel some palpable fire flowing through her veins. It crept around her lungs, and through her heart, and choked her throat. "I probably saved future dusters some broken bones. Those "warriors"? They were the type that would have pushed a casteless in the lava flows for not moving fast enough. The kind to kick children for getting in their way. Why would I give them the chance to leave?"
Rica stared at her sister for several moments. Then, her mask of an expression broke.
"You didn't have to kill them, did you?" she whispered, her eyes moistening even in the growing cold. "You didn't… there was a chance they could have lived, wasn't there?"
The fire in Natia's blood was now seeping into her bones. It felt like she had drunk from the rivers of Orzammar, and their fiery splendor was now racing throughout her body. It was crystalizing now, into something sharp, hard, and righteous. Something that she needed. She could have lied. But why should she?
"No, I didn't have to. But I sure as the stone did."
They stared at each other for what seemed a lifetime. Then Rica let out what sounded like a sob, once again covering her face with her hands.
"I thought you could change." Rica was mumbling now, almost to herself. "I thought this was your chance…"
Natia still felt the anger, and it was trying to squash another emotion which was arising at the sight of Rica's tears. Natia should be comforting her. She should be. She should be.
"You never understood, Rica." Natia said, her voice emotionless.
Rica eyed Natia through the cracks of her fingers, eyes still glistening.
"All that bronto shit about making something of myself that you fed me every single day while you went to the Diamond Quarter? I never listened to a word of it. You think what happened here was wrong? Everyday you told me those things, I did worse. Here I just offed some warrior-caste pricks who deserved it. But back then, you were talking about greatness to a duster who was spending her days breaking the knees of servant-caste girls and slitting the throats of ambitious merchants."
The words were pouring forth from Natia, and she couldn't stop herself no matter how much Rica recoiled from them.
"And you know why you never understood, Rica? It's because you never had to. Because you never had to plunge your blade into an old beggar's throat for not handing what few coppers he had begged over to Beraht. Because you never had to cut off a boy's hand for trying to pick your boss' pocket. Maybe you forgot while you strutted in silks in the Diamond Quarter, but in this world the ones clinging to the moral high ground are usually the ones in the gutters come morning."
"Shut up!" Rica's face contorted with such rage that Natia was startled into trailing off, despite the fire in her body. Rica's watery eyes now had a steely glint to them, a look Natia usually reserved for the stone-cold dusters who lurked in back-alleys.
"So I don't know how the world works? Rica is the naive girl strutting about with the nobles while her little sister works? How could I possibly know how unfair the world is? After all, I only lounged about in the Diamond Quarter. It's not like I spent the previous two decades of my life fighting for my survival and that of my sister. It's not like I've seen dusters die before, or took what little they had off their corpses. It's not like I spent every day among the nobles saying yes to whatever was asked of me, no matter what it was or who was asking."
Rica was advancing on Natia now, and the younger sister found herself backing up. Her sister's usually pleasant demeanor had been replaced with a ferocity that Natia had never seen.
"So yes, little sister, I know how the world works. It's you who doesn't understand." The force of Rica's words was accompanied by the now flowing tears on her flushed cheeks. "You don't understand that this was your chance to be better. To finally prove to everyone that you deserve respect. But even more than that, this was your chance to take some of that unfairness of the world and make it a little less. But you're not interested in that, are you?"
Rica finished her soliloquy and stood, fists balled, gazing in defiance of what seemed to Natia to be the entire world. Then she looked behind Natia to see that there was no light left in the sky.
"I have to go. If I'm out here too long they'll take me for a surface dwarf." Rica turned to go, and Natia felt something clutch her heart, not bright and hot but leaden and heavy.
"Rica, please…"
"I love you, sister. I hope I see you again someday. Remember me as best you can."
Natia's sister left her then, in the growing dark and growing cold, in the midst of the Frostback Mountains.