"A noble would mark his slaves to honor the God he worshiped."
She balls her fist, feels the fire, all-consuming, the rage building, pressing against her ribs, lungs, choking, straining to breathe.
"After Arlathan fell, the Dalish forgot."
She remembers her people, uprooted and hunted, homeless, stateless.
Her people, always grasping, always reaching, always clinging by the tips of their fingers, culture slips through like soft sand, so easily lost.
Her people, always fighting for every scrap of culture and knowledge. Suledin, whispered like a mantra, burning bright, held tight against her heart - always reaching, hoping, praying, begging that they will endure.
That she will endure.
And all she was, is, will be, marked on her face. It is her mask, makes her seen, makes her known, makes her Dalish.
And he wants to tear from her the only thing she has left.
"That's bullshit!" she points at him, accusing, derisive, desperate to hit, hurt him. She will not let him take this away.
Everything that is left, slipping through her fingers, soft sand so easily lost.
"Is there anything you won't tear down to prove how smart you are?!"
She clings to her culture by her fingertips, giving away, holding, tight before she falls, broken, beaten, the tatters of her, all that remains, snatched away.
"Why would you tell me this?!"
She gives way. She falls.
She will endure. Suledin, suledin, suledin, she sings softly, a mantra that soothes, a salve to stop the pain in her chest from spreading.
Soft sand slipping through her fingers, so easily lost.
And all she was, is, will be, marked on her face.
Not a slave, never a slave, never submitting, never breaking, always enduring, she will endure.
Suledin, suledin, suledin.
"Because you deserve better…," he says.
She falls, broken and bent.
Suledin….suledin…..
The words are empty. There is no comfort, no reprieve.
Nothing to cling to, the last of her torn away, and nothing remains.
She's been stripped, molded, bent, and broken to the shape of Andraste's Herald, the Chantry's savior, Orlais's defender.
She yields, tired, so tired, of fighting, clinging, reaching.
And nothing remains.