The Daughter of Tethras

Disclaimer: Don't own Dragon Age

A/N:

Chapter 12 (Faith)

Bianca walked the Frostback with Scout Harding, admiring what little view there was. The breach in the sky, while deadly, bore an oddly pleasant feeling that was hard to describe.

As they pressed ahead, she couldn't help but notice a nervousness in Harding. The woman shuffled her feet and was constantly scratching behind her head. "So." Harding looked over her shoulder with a smile and squinted eyes. "It's nice not being the only dwarf involved anymore. Or, I mean, the only female dwarf here."

"Yeah, I don't really feel like leaving." Bianca crossed her arms and shrugged. "I don't like being regarded as some holy symbol or whatever, it makes me uncomfortable, but there are some people that make me want to stay."

Harding's hands moved to her waist. "You have to admit, here is better than the response. Although, I do feel like Leliana's watching me constantly."

"She watches everyone, doesn't she?"

"Yeah." Bianca raised an eyebrow and watched the woman turn around and continue on ahead. "I've recently started seeing someone, so she might be making sure it doesn't take away from my duties."

"I'm sure it wouldn't." Harding was a strong woman, a force to be reckoned with, and of course her job always came first. "I'd talk to her, but as quickly as she came back, she left. I'm not sure what she's doing."

"Looking for someone. Which is basically the bulk of what she normally does." Harding folded her arms and looked towards a bird flying overhead. "She's protective of you too, you know? I can't figure out why."

"I don't know. I have ideas, but I don't know for sure." The idea was that Leliana was the nurturing woman from the past that held onto her in the deep roads, and she knew it. "Varric's protective too." She ran her hand over her neck and let out a sigh as Sandal came to her mind. "I bought some boots from this attractive merchant, and Varric looked ready to tear the guy apart."

Harding started to laugh, much to her surprise. She started to speak up, but the woman spoke first. "I can't say I'm surprised. Honestly, that guy probably regrets never having an actual family."

"Oh." She wouldn't actually have a problem with that if it were the case; it was nice to be treated like someone's daughter. "I think, it would be nice if he were my father." Harding shot her a skeptical look and shook her head.

"I don't know if he has the qualifications to be one. But then, anyone can be a father. You look like someone who could be in use of a dad."

Bianca bent her arm upwards and curled her forefinger over her upper lip. "I wonder if I have time to develop a relationship with my birth father." She hadn't meant to say the words aloud, but to her fortune, Harding likely didn't know who she was referring to.

"If you want to." Harding looked towards some bushes, staring at the berries for a time. "I don't see what's keeping you." She lowered her hand with a sigh and looked back towards the chantry.

"Like it or not, I have to give my time to the inquisition." She walked forward, staring at the path in front of her. "What about you? Your parents?"

"They live pretty far away, but I still make time to write. If they were here, it would be a lot easier to deal with."

"Because then they'd be here?"

"Yes. I'd get to spend more time with them. Even better if they were scouts like me."

As Harding pressed ahead, Bianca stopped and looked towards the ground with a solemn gaze. The woman's words picked her brain, forcing her to consider the situation she was in. Varric was here, and they could journey plenty of places. There truly wasn't a reason for her not to be able to develop a relationship with her father.

"Alright Bianca, up here." Her eyes turned up and she spotted Harding squatting on a high tree branch. The woman's smile was stretched out and her hand was beckoning her. "Come see the view."

She placed her hand on the thick trunk and peered at the armor she had on. Bianca took a deep breath and began to climb while ignoring the doubts that she would be able to position herself with such heavy weight.

Harding put an arm around her shoulders once she positioned herself in place beside the woman. Her gaze cast out over the skyline and the chantry down below, and the breath she had been holding onto was released into the crisp wind.

"Amazing…"

"It's great, isn't it? You can see the entire landscape from high up, so this is one of the best ways to scout. This way, you know where everything is-I form maps of the area in my mind as well."

Bianca took in the view and started to think on what the scout was saying. It was a useful skill, and something she could certainly apply in her travels.

Her hands gripped the branch carefully and she looked towards the ground below in hopes she wouldn't fall. "Can I ask you something, Bianca?"

"Anything."

"Um, it's about Lantos." She raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways. Harding's eyes were closed and her body leaned against the trunk. Harding's left leg hung off the branch and her right foot was positioned on the top. "He was abusive to you, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. To be honest, I'm a little surprised you know about him."

"I know about as much as anyone else." Harding opened her eyes and turned her head towards the Chantry. "Everyone knows about him though; he did attack you after all."

"Right."

"Do you think people can change?"

"If they want to." She wasn't the best expert on the subject, but she did believe if someone tried hard enough, they could change their ways-even Lantos. "Maybe with a little help from the right person." Harding started to smile, and she visibly relaxed. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious." Harding studied her for a minute until a smirk gradually appeared on her face. "So I was up here earlier, looking out, and I saw you watching that shoe merchant." A blush appeared and she turned away, not wishing to reveal anything "I'm sure neither of us are the type to talk about guys, but what's going on there?"

"Nothing. I was admiring the merchandise."

"Oh. The merchandise?" Harding's smirk grew and her eyebrows pushed her forehead up. "Okay then. Do you enjoy the merchandise?" There was something about Harding's voice that conveyed teasing, and she didn't like it.

She squinted her eyes and spoke with a growl. "What is that supposed to mean. I'm not pursuing anything, if that's what you think." Sandal just seemed like a good guy, that was all. "He gave me a pair of really nice boots."

"Oh, is that all?" Harding leaned forward and pointed towards the entrance of the camp. "Look! Leliana's back, and someone's with her." Bianca leaned in the woman's direction and held her hand above her eyes to shield from the sun.

Down below, the caped spymaster walked with Cassandra and Varric. Beside Varric walked another dwarf whose chest was puffed out with pride. From what she could see, he had short red hair and a long braided beard.

Bianca squinted and tried to figure out who this dwarf was. He was clad in similar armor and had a long white axe whose blades glinted in the sunlight. "Where have I seen…" The light reflected off the blade just as the dwarf looked up towards her.

Her eyes grew large as she remembered this man having once stood over her, protecting her from the darkspawn so many years ago. She threw her hands over her mouth and nearly fell out of the tree. Harding had to grab her to keep her steady from the jolt of excitement.

"Careful there, Bianca. You don't need to fall…" Harding straightened her and looked down at the dwarf below. "So who is it?" Tears welled up in her eyes and she tried to explain, but could only utter excited gasps.

The scout rolled her eyes and began to descend from the tree, helping Bianca down as well. When she was able to, she wiped away the tears from her cheeks and poised herself to appear strong. "A real hero, Harding. Not someone like me, not some imagined fantasy to worship, but a real hero…"

"Okay?"

"Sorry. We'll talk some other time?"

Harding smiled back and gave her a swift pat on the shoulder. "Sure." Bianca ran for the group, stopping just short of her hero while panting heavily.

Leliana crossed her arms and looked at Bianca with a gentle smile. "Bianca, I believe you already recognize him. This is-" The dwarf raised a closed hand to his mouth, belching loudly and apologizing immediately afterwards. Leliana groaned in disgust and slapped her forehead. "Oghren. Some things never change."

Bianca watched Oghren pat his belly and laughed. "It's fine. The guys back in…you know…they would have belching contests all the time."

"So." Oghren appeared to glow in the sunlight, his expression appeared mighty and strong as it had been so many years ago. She watched his shoulders rise as he breathed in and turned his eyes towards her. "When Leliana told me about you, I had to come meet you in person. You have grown a great deal, and now look, you're a part of something yourself."

Bianca rubbed her neck and shrugged. "Thank you." She started to stutter as she often did when she became too nervous. Her head bowed and she listened to Leliana mention that she wasn't too eager to fight. Her head rose sharply and she spoke rapidly to explain herself. "It's not that I don't believe in the inquisition, I fully support what we're doing, it's just…the fighting, the chaos-killing."

She began to sweat and flailed her right arm during her attempt to explain, surprised that she somehow managed to never take a breath. "I didn't choose any of this, it just sort of happened. I'm not a hero, I'm not some great person with great power. I'm nothing, I'm nobody. I can't be a hero when I'm not even important. I don't enjoy fighting Templars or Mages, I don't enjoy the killing or being attacked by-"

She was interrupted by a rough sounding huff. "Stop and breathe." Oghren's features softened and his powerful arms folded across his chest. "I get it." The man stepped forward and started to smile as he placed a hand to her shoulder. "No, the killing isn't something you ever get used to. I never enjoyed that either, and I'm surprised to even be remembered by a small ten year old girl I rescued so long ago…you know who would normally be remembered in that? The warden. David."

"Well yeah, but he wasn't the one that shielded me." Bianca ran her hand over her upper arm and closed her eyes. She drew in a small breath of air and shrugged. "I'm terrified of the monsters, I freeze up whenever I see one. I'm claustrophobic and have a terrible upbringing…I would hardly call those heroic qualities."

"So what? Do you know what I was before I joined Dave?" She raised her head and caught a glimpse of a smirk. "A rat living off beer day and night at the local pub. People in Orzammar hated me as much as they hate the casteless-"

"You are and were casteless," Varric reminded him.

"Yeah." Oghren let out a grunt and shook his head. "I was nobody's hero either, and certainly like the others in the shadow of the Hero of Ferelden, unless you were Alistair-or Leliana here-we were doomed to be in his shadow. No one would remember us, nobody would thank us, it would always be him." Oghren looked into her eyes and held her gaze, and for a moment, she thought he was looking into her soul.

The man leaned back and pulled his hand from her shoulder. "Imagine my surprise when Leliana tells me that a girl we rescued from the deep roads remembered me."

"You stopped." Bianca smiled back at him. "You stopped first, you called and shielded me until the others got to me. So you're my hero."

"And do you know how much that means to me?" Oghren chuckled softly and put his hand to her back, guiding her towards the stone wall. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap as Oghren knelt on one knee and hung his elbow on the edge of the wall. "You don't have to be great to be someone's hero. You don't have to be famous or someone important, you just have to be there. To make an impact."

Oghren's eyes moved towards Varric and he turned his head slightly. "My wife, Felsi, and our children? As my kids' father, I'm their hero. Even your own father could be your hero if he wanted, and how? Just by being here, supporting you and caring for you-making an impact in your life."

She held her breath as the tears welled up beneath her eyelids. "Just make an impact in someone's life, kid, and they'll remember you." Oghren stood up and reached for the large axe on his back. "Speaking of which, I dusted this old thing off just for you." Bianca's jaw fell to the floor and her eyes quivered as she watched him lay the axe horizontally on his palms and extend it towards her. "Faith's Edge, my best weapon."

"Y-You're giving me your axe?"

"It's been ages since I've used it. She belongs to someone else now." He smiled at her, and a gleam of light glistened in his eyes. "You say you don't have what it takes to be what everyone sees you as, but all you have to do is impact someone's life in a way that they'll remember you, and while you may never feel 'important'-sure as hell you will be important to somebody."

Bianca stuttered again as she placed her palms beneath the axe's staff. "I don't know what to say." She looked down at the long handle and read the inscription with a trembling breath. Her heart was pounding so fiercely that it might plunge itself from her chest. "I can't believe you're just giving me your axe…" She raised her head to him, furrowed her brow and started to frown. "Why?"

Oghren moved his hands to hers and carefully curled her fingers around the staff. At first, she felt like it would fall from her hands, but after a few seconds, it felt light as air. "Because, this thing you're involved in? Whether or not you believe it, you will change lives, you can be a hero-you already are."

"'Are'? How am I?" She chuckled with disbelief and Oghren stood up. His arms swept out and his shoulders rose and fell.

"You went into the Hinterlands, did you not? You saved the refugees and dispersed a few of those rifts in the sky already, haven't you?"

"Yes…"

"Instead of looking at the Templars or Mages that are now dead as a result, think of it this way…" A lump formed in her neck and her grip on the axe's handle grew tighter. "Every refugee now sheltered in blankets, every life that wasn't snuffed out by the blade of a rogue Templar or the spell of a Mage, and for every person who lives because a demon is dead…."

Oghren pointed a finger at her and squinted his eyes while his mouth twisted into a smirk. "They live, their lives are saved because of your actions. They can look back and they can say without fear that you are the reason they're alive-you are their hero. Even for something as small as collecting food for a starving refugee, they'll remember you for it."

Bianca looked down at the blade, gasping softly as she recalled the pleased faces of the refugees that were rescued went they stopped the rogue Templars and Mages.

It never hit her until now just how much that mattered, to her and to those. The thanks she received from Corporal Vale, the joyful cries of the hungry refugees that received the ram meat; it was all music to her proud ears, and she never thought about it.

"You're already someone's hero, and the more good you do-the more you stand for what's right-the more likely you will become somebody important in the eyes of many…no matter who or what you may have been before."

"I was just a scared little kid lost in the darkspawn caves." She closed her eyes and felt a shiver running through her veins. "Someone that left an abusive family for an abuser. Someone with no meaning, no purpose, no one that cared enough about me…I was ready to take my own life, but Cassandra wouldn't let me…"

Cassandra huffed, and then smirked just as Oghren glanced at her. "Good. No matter what life you had before, no matter the life that you led, you do have a future whether you see it or not. It's up to you to decide where to go from here, regardless of what came before. Just, don't ever give up."

Her cheeks were wet with rivers of tears, and her fingers were tingling the longer she held the axe. "I'll try not to."

"Listen, you may not feel like much, even now if you start to doubt yourself…I can't tell you to think of the good you're doing and expect that to make you feel right in the world, but you do have people here as far as I can tell that are more than willing to shoulder you if they must."

"Thank you for your advice." She stood up and cleared her throat. "It means a lot that you would come all this way just to meet met me. Your axe? It's called Faith's Edge, right?"

"Faith for short, kid. In this crazy world, we all could use some faith." Her heart swelled and she placed it carefully on the holder attached to the back of her armor. She was partially afraid it would shatter into pieces if she wasn't gentle. "And, sorry for the corny line, but I thought I might try and give you some faith."

She chuckled softly and ran her finger across her cheek. "I'm going to try and keep afloat the best I can. It's just stressful, and I've already come from stressful situations. Hell, I'm just glad I don't have to deal with my adoptive parents."

"Marcus and Amelia Cadash?" Oghren crossed his arms and looked towards the sky. "Ah yes, I know a golem who would love to have some words with those two, but I haven't seen her in years."

"You haven't? You haven't kept in touch like Leliana?"

"No. Recent headache aside, David told me I could go be with Felsi and the kids if I wanted to, and that's what I chose to do."

"You must have been good friends with the Hero of Ferelden."

"Yeah, I am. Would have gone with him, but I didn't feel leaving my wife would be right." She saw Leliana bow her head for a second before turning away, but in that last minute there was a glimpse of pain in the woman's eyes. "Anyway, I must get back to my family. I haven't been feeling too well lately, so they've been worried sick."

"Wait? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He held his head high and postured himself again while looking off to the sky with a stern look. The expression broke and he started to laugh. "Ah don't worry about me kid, it's just a headache that I'm able to ignore."

"Okay." Bianca gave him a hug for good measure and brightened when he hugged her back. "Thanks again, and be well."

"You take it easy." Oghren stepped back and reached for her cheek, wiping a tear with his thumb. "And if Leliana gives you a hard time, just let me know." Leliana gasped and flashed a pleasant smile as the dwarf turned and started to leave.

Bianca watched him approach the gate, only to stop and glance back over his shoulder. "Things will get better for you, Bianca, you just have to keep the faith and be open to that better future. It will happen." Her heartbeat skipped and she latched her wrists together behind her back, blushing as she kicked the snow. "See ya, kid."

"Goodbye." Oghren belched loudly and sighed contently before marching off. Behind her, Leliana and Cassandra groaned. Varric approached her, placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Hey? You okay?" She looked at him, his head was in the way of the sun, causing a bright aura to surround him. Everything behind him and near blurred, and he smiled with concern.

"I'm okay." She took a deep breath and looked back in the direction Oghren left. "I think I'm ready to go to Redcliffe now and see what Fiona wanted with us." She reached around her back, placing her hand over the handle of Faith's Edge. A sense of peace came over her as she thought about the conversation with Oghren, and she could hardly believe that she was holding the weapon that once belonged to her hero. "You heard what he said? I might already be important to some people."

"Yeah." Varric's eyelids fell halfway and his smile grew. "You are, and you always will be."

So a hero's visit, and some good advice. What do you think of it? I hope you do know what that headache refers to, Oghren does have the calling thing too, but I kind of figured he'd be like Alistair, Stroud and a few others, able to either ignore or combat the calling. And Varric in the end there, what are your thoughts? Maybe he means she's important to him? I should probably let you know that there are two sectors, where by the time they're at the ball, they're going to talk about their connection. Also, do you have any thoughts regarding the talk between Harding and Bianca? Oghren? The rest of the chapter?