WOOOO! 8D
I'm soo tempted to list all (2) of the reviewers like I did for a story in the past, if only to show how (sadly) grateful I am, but I quickly got up to high numbers of readers and spent about ten minutes every chapter combing through reviews for new people jumping on the wagon. Still, it was fun. I feel pitiful, though, because nowadays I still think of those people as my family or something ^^
Hey, they were all awesome. We saw a story through together.
Ah, I love FFNet.
Disclaimer:*cries* I MISS MY REVIEWERSSS~ D8 (but I do have moar now XD)
x.X.x
To Ara, it seemed as though her whole life became a lesson. She was constantly learning, constantly being told to learn, or constantly suffering for what she had neglected to learn. Evening practices with Zevran continued, though for the life of her she could not seem to turn her mind off and achieve the blank look she now noticed in many of the fighters' eyes as they took on the Darkspawn on the road. Every time it was almost clear, clean as a newly washed sheet and just as easily stained, a twig cracked or some taunting, idle observation danced across her thoughts. She would open her eyes in frustration, and then it all was lost.
Zevran tried overwhelming her with attacks to unlock her rather berserk side, but she only stopped moving on impulse when he moved too close. He asked her why one night.
"You did it again," the elf remarked. Ara's eyes, which had suddenly turned dull and listless, ever-so-slightly brightened again as she came back to her senses.
"Did what?" she inquired, sounding as if she really couldn't make herself care about what she did.
"I have noticed," he began thoughtfully, "That when I move to fast and too close you seem to simply...stop. Ah...how do you say...shut down. You do not respond to anything until I move away. Why is this?"
"I dunno," Ara muttered, shrugging and pushing away a few reasons she could come up with. "No use anyway. It's not like that's going to help me do anything but block three consecutive attacks without breaking down." It was true, he admitted. Even if she didn't go into that strange comatose state, he always got an attack under her waning defenses after only a few seconds. True, battles did not last that long, but against legions of Darkspawn and many attacks at once this would not keep her alive. Yet he felt sure, if he could only shut her thoughts off without shutting her entire mind off, that she would actually begin to improve past only knowing her strikes and blocks. As it was, he was either a very bad teacher or she was not cut out for the work of a rogue. Because he was Zevran, he was convinced that it was the latter.
Meanwhile, a few members of the group had taken to watching the practices, which did nothing to help Ara's edginess. When they could, she dragged Zevran into the seclusion of some deer trail in the forest, but mostly that was unavailable.
A matter of particular confusion to her was Sten. He, especially, took to watching her very intently one night after she had "shut off," as Zevran said, more than twice. The elf was curious, testing what made her stop and what only overwhelmed her, and he had convinced himself that it was not some sort of reverse-Berserker skill. Sten, however, being brought up to think like a Qunari, had his own ideas. He kept watching every night, whenever he could, and it was his attentive presence that became the biggest source of distraction for Ara.
Finally, when she had not shown any improvement over the course of a week and Zevran was beginning to grow impatient, Sten spoke with Nesiria.
"We are nearing Redcliffe," he murmured as they walked. "Perhaps a week's travel if we travel quickly, two at the most."
"Yes," she answered carefully. Sten angled his head subtly toward Ara, flanking the group with Leliana and exchanging a few words now and then.
"I would say that she learns as an imekari, but children improve. As of late I have seen no advance in her skills, and Redcliffe will not be a kind place to one who has not yet learned of no-mind."
"What are you suggesting?" Nesiria asked, keeping the intrigue out of her voice. That Sten was volunteering what she assumed was unexpected. "Do you have a better way to teach her?"
"Better than the elf."
"Would you like to take over for him? I don't think he'd object."
"I would call it a service to you for freeing me. Losing a fighter is not something you are keen on, I assume."
"You're right." Sten, clearly, had not yet forgotten Lothering. Nesiria nodded, continuing, "I'll speak with both of them. Would you pick up the threads tonight?"
"If I must."
She dipped her head, letting a brief smile show when she was turned away from the Qunari, and slowed her pace to speak with Zevran.
"Sten has...agreed to take up Ara's training in your place, if you don't object." She was careful to phrase it so that the elf would assume she had asked and he had not volunteered, and Zevran raised his eyebrows.
"This is surprising," he remarked, but nodded. "Of course." The flicker of relief showed only when the Warden looked away, to Ara, and jogged a little to catch up with her and Leliana. She explained what had happened, putting Sten in the same light as she had with Zevran, and Ara did not do as good a job of hiding her gratitude. At least neither of them are averse to it, Nesiria thought wryly. That had been positively easy.
She told Ara that she would begin tonight, and the girl sighed but retained some semblance of happiness at being liberated from her nightly lessons with the assassin. Leliana seemed to find this highly amusing, and they walked on.
The day was largely uneventful, with only a few minor battles on the populated trade roads the party took for a few miles. Then, as night fell, they veered off into the grass and made camp on the plains with the silhouetted wagons still in sight, rolling gently over the well-worn dirt of the trade route.
After dinner, Sten did not say a word, but instead got to his feet and disappeared into the grass. A glance from Nesiria and a prod from Leliana got Ara to take the hint and follow, and to her surprise he led them both directly to a small clearing of rocky, untilled soil where there seemed to have been nothing growing for quite some time. The rock gradually gave way to soil and the soil gradually sprouted fronds of silvery green, but in the middle of the area it was perfectly clear of all vegetation. Ara tried not to spend too long thinking about the reason why, because Sten had already drawn his sword. She glanced down despairingly at her two knives, her longest less than a third the size of his, but before she could say a word he was upon her.
His sword moved faster despite its size, though she still searched for that vaguely uncomfortable look-and found it, more than once-that came when he struck. She saw no way to take advantage of this, though, and instead concentrated on staying upright and blocking his sword with her two pitiful knives instead of being continually knocked down by the sheer force and weight of his blade. After a few attacks and unsuccessful blocks, her arm was turning numb.
He stopped when she brought one of them up to block an overhead strike, his weapon a few inches from hers. Ara opened her eyes-which had squeezed shut as she flinched-and glanced up, wondering if he expected her to take advantage of his pause. But he spoke.
"You have no faith in your weapons," the Qunari said shortly.
"What?"
"They will break in half like twigs against mine because you expect them to. But if you tell them that they will not, their resolve will strengthen and I will not be able to hurt them by sheer force of will. Then it is a matter of mind. Whoever has the deeper resolve will break his enemy's sword as if it were no more than a stick."
"So you're suggesting my dagger can hear me?" Ara asked skeptically, thoroughly bewildered-both by what he was saying and the fact that he was saying it at all. Strange as it was, though, it almost made sense to her. She was more confused by his motives for coming out here tonight. Sten nodded.
"Your weapon should be like your arm. Not a part of you, because when it is yanked from your grip you will be left as defenseless as if your hand had been severed, but close to you."
Ara nodded slowly, trying to keep the cynicism out of the raise of her eyebrows, but it looked like he saw it anyway. She concentrated now on imagining her daggers as made of Orzammar diamond, and Sten's as frail as the bone of a bird. Much as she concentrated, though, she could never get past his sword-much less break it-because he simply wouldn't let her. Zevran had played easy a little, letting her get in every now and then when he thought she was improving, but it seemed that Sten would not be beat until she could honestly beat him.
Throughout the whole lesson, his mind was clearly somewhere else. She simply fought him over and over again while he remained mindless, instincts taking over and thoughts going in a different direction. Ara tried to learn, but where Zevran had given her ten things at once to cram into her mind every lesson, Sten seemed determined to only give her one. She kept at it, focusing as best she could, but by the time the lesson ended she was almost as frustrated as she had been that first night and quite sure that she would never be able to get the phrase "Concentrate on your weapons being stronger" out of her head. Sten nodded in approval and led the way back to the camp, where most everyone had gone to sleep. Morrigan stood by her own fire, seeming determined to distance herself as much as possible, and without a parting word Sten dipped his head at Ara and walked over to stand by the entrance of the trail as if guarding the camp. She paced to the fire, and as she passed Morrigan the mage asked innocently, "No injuries this time?"
Briefly wondering if she should laugh at the jest or keep a serious face and push the apostate further away if only to try and gain her respect, Ara decided not to answer. To come to a decision would have been to stop, think, respond, and then keep walking, and so she tried to pretend she hadn't heard. Morrigan fell into a strange silence.
Ara threw out her blankets, rolling closer to the fire in the thin Fereldan wind, and dropped off almost immediately.
The morning broke bright and cool, and as Ara woke she found one of her hands dangerously close to the sleeping fire. She groggily pulled it back, laying still for a few more minutes before sitting up and rubbing her eyes, then opening them in surprise as she found that this morning she had been the last one to wake. Leliana was passing as Ara sat up, and stopped with a light smile.
"You really shouldn't sleep so close to the fire," she chided. "You almost rolled into it." The Orlesian paused, walked back over to where a few others were congregated, and added an extra apple and a few slabs of meat to her leather "plate." She sat on the log parallel to Ara and handed her the food on another strip of hide. Surprised and slightly moved-because good food really was the way to her heart, after stealing burnt meals or skipping them altogether for a year or two before she'd really begun to make a living, something she had never forgotten-Ara sat up and bit viciously into the apple, making no protest as Leliana sank down onto the ground beside her.
"You do eat very well," the bard remarked, almost teasingly, as Ara finished the apple core and tossed it into the fire, starting immediately on one of the pieces of pork. She shrugged in reply and swallowed, answering, "Well, I doubt business would be very good if I were all skin and bones." Leliana laughed without thinking.
"We do not care about that here," she said with a smile, but Ara's face darkened imperceptibly. The Orlesian stopped.
"Oh...my apologies if I said something wrong..." she began, but her conversation partner shook her head.
"No, it's nothing. Anyway..." She searched for a new topic. Feeling as if she should make up for whatever she'd said, Leliana offered, "How did your lesson go with Sten?"
Ara paused for a moment, and again Leliana wondered if that had been the right thing to ask. "All right. It was...um...different. It seemed like he was both not paying attention and watching my every move at the same time."
"Yes, I have seen that," she laughed again. "Did you learn anything?"
Ara shrugged. "Sure."
Sensing that she was withdrawing out of the conversation, the bard stood with a temporary goodbye and tossed the remnants of her food into the fire before going to Nesiria, who was overseeing a few last-minute preparations for taking the camp down.
"Anything I can help with?" she asked, and the elf nodded with a smile and directed her over to the last few tents still standing, following as well when Leliana walked over.
Ara got to her feet and rolled up her blankets, leaving her food to try and be helpful for once. She assisted in the dismantling of a tent and then finished her breakfast, scattering the ashes of the now-smothered fire with her feet and walking over to where many were already gathered, ready to go.
"We should be getting to Redcliffe in around eight, perhaps nine days," Nesira announced as they began moving. "Start brushing up on your people-skills." At this she looked pointedly, albeit jokingly, at Alistair. He bowed like a true gentleman.
"I shall."
The elf smiled, doing a once-over if only to check on everyone, and smiled to herself as everyone slowly migrated to where they generally walked: Sten near the back, Ara and Leliana flanking, Morrigan as far as possible from anyone else, and Wynne and Zevran walked in the middle-either behind or next to Alistair and Nesira. Bear loped wherever he pleased, preferring to stay next to Zevran, much to the Antivan's displeasure.
At every battle, which happened anywhere from every few hours to three in one hour, Ara tended to stay back. Sometimes she caught a few stragglers from the main group, but mostly she watched with a vaguely interested expression. They stopped for lunch, sometimes eating on the move, and at night came her lesson with Sten.
The Qunari always found some secluded place to practice, and had her improving focus for almost the entire week. He seemed to find the blade-fighting the most important, and kept her ruthlessly on it, sometimes for hours. Not particularly tiring, though it was sparring and therefore required short bursts of constant movement-which worked up a sweat rather quickly. The mental part was perhaps the most taxing, because he somehow had her thinking about more things than Zevran had ever told her to remember, though he had taught her far less. Sten was, Ara thought dryly, a much more urgent teacher than Zevran had been. Still, she was pleased to see her own improvement, and began joining in a few of the smaller battles the party had on the road.
After awhile, she fought in all of them. Though sometimes she darted in and out as quickly as her less-than-nimble feet would allow (and had tripped once or twice, though she hardly thought about that), she still managed to land at least a few strikes every now and then, or at the very least keep herself alive. She had never been more pleased when, as they were less than a day from Redcliffe, her teacher remarked on her improvement in a decisively Qunari-like way.
"You take to your weapons well," Sten told her when she finally blocked one of his double-strikes-almost Zevran's style. She stopped in surprise, and he quickly took the opportunity to kill her (had they been truly fighting) as he spoke. "There have been less nicks to be repaired in your armor and less wounds to be bandaged on your limbs."
"I have noticed that," Ara agreed, grimacing. She had always been the one to sew those nicks in her armor, and sewing leather was not a very rewarding task even if it did stay together when you were done-or, really, if you even knew how. "Ah...thanks." She kept from laughing to herself, turning his statement over in her head. Limbs was such a Sten-like word.
The Qunari didn't answer, only killed her again and then sheathed his weapon and bowed. When Ara copied his movements, the lesson was over.
She followed him back to camp and gratefully slid under the blankets, happy to bend her knees and be something other than standing. From there, sleeping was an easy thing.
The next morning, however, was different. They woke to chaos, and Ara bolted up at Nesiria's panicked scream of, "Darkspawn!" She skidded off her blankets and tumbled over to her knives, mercifully close to her sleeping place. She hadn't begun to sleep with them yet, convinced that she would gut herself the moment she tried rolling over in the night, but now it seemed like a good idea as a Hurlock kicked the blades out of the way with a deep laugh. Ara changed direction and rolled out of his range, scrambling to her feet with no room to circle him in the thick of battle around her. At the same time, she felt herself slowly being overwhelmed as her mind frantically tried to keep track of her allies and enemies in order to just keep her alive-much less fight her opponent now.
He lunged, fists outstretched, and she gasped and barely missed him, turning her back to the creature as she pivoted to get out of the way. But he, a far more accomplished fighter, merely stopped and wrapped his arms in a chokehold around her neck from behind. And no matter how much punching, kicking, writhing, or biting she did he would not even flinch. Ara's struggles grew weaker as the pressure inside her head built from lack of oxygen, her mind ready to simply pop. She tried to give a choked scream, but the air in her lungs felt as though it was entirely gone.
And then, before she had even given up to death, the arms grew limp and slid off her shoulders, pulling her to the ground with their weight. She collapsed backward, almost on top of the Hurlock, not even breathing for a moment as if getting used to the oxygen flow again, and finally gasped for air and looked around for the reason she was still alive.
She almost expected it to be Sten, but he was too far away to have gotten over here in time. Whoever it was had simply disappeared back into the battle. For a moment, unnoticed, Ara thought guiltily that they saved their allies on instinct in the thick of battle: she took twice as long to register that anyone was even in danger.
Then the fight began to surge too close around her, and she stood and caught her breath as best she could before jumping back in.
There were bruises already blossoming on her neck by the end of the skirmish, but she was slightly distracted by the gash running the length of her forearm. She shuddered-she had only noticed icy steel grazing her skin before the blood streaming down her arm was far too hot and caused her to nearly lose the grip on her dagger. Had she not been wearing gloves, she would have been weaponless for the second time that morning. As it was, the full-body armor was also seeming like a better and better idea.
She joined the others, stepping over Darkspawn corpses and closing her eyes for a moment when her foot squelched in the blood-soaked mud. Then she crossed paths with Morrigan, who appraised the gash and bruises and nodded warily. Ara nodded back, still undecided on how best to act around the mage whose respect was so important to her.
Nesiria raised her staff upon seeing the two of them, but Sten shook his head in her peripheral vision. She turned slightly in confusion, and he tilted his head toward Ara.
"She is in no danger. Let her learn to heal on her own."
"What?" Ara spluttered, arm burning and making her voice even sharper. Morrigan gave a sudden and unexpected chuckle.
"Well, that is amusing," the mage said with a decidedly sadistic grin. "Especially because I am no part in your training, Qunari."
"Do you know how to wrap your own injuries?" Nesiria asked, looking as though she didn't think the proposition was a very bad idea.
"I'm not a child," Ara protested, nodding jerkily. "Don't you think I'm a danger as it is? I'll just die tomorrow if I can't use my arm." Her voice was snappish and had a tinge of sarcasm, and Nesiria glanced at Sten. He shook his head again.
"She will learn. But,"-he directed his gaze at Ara for the first time in awhile-"you only prove my point. You have begun to rely far too much on magic, a virtually uncontrollable power, and so when these mages turn demon and let themselves go you will die." At this, try as she might to stay angry and stare him in the face, Ara shifted uncomfortably. Damn truth. She did, however, have one last feeble argument.
"So you're just going to throw me to the wolves when I have virtually no pain tolerance...as you put it?"
"No." He turned and ended the conversation. Ara sighed and resisted the urge to punch someone, for the first time feeling the bruises on her neck and wincing as she brought her good hand up to prod them with her fingertips. She had always wanted a pain tolerance to be proud of, sure, but suddenly it wasn't so important anymore. She could hardly turn her head without something being pulled, and if Sten wanted to get her killed he sure had a tedious and sadistic way of going about it.
Before they began walking, a roll of cloth and a few bandages landed at her feet. She glanced at whoever threw them, and Nesiria gestured for her to pick them up.
"Might want to wrap that before we start moving," the elf said, keeping the sympathy out of her smile and instead filling it with a knowing glance and a head-jerk toward Sten. Ara nodded, lips curving, and knelt as she unstrapped her gloves and rolled her sleeve up. In all honesty, she had only ever constricted a few scratches with cloth and put cold water-albeit dirty, because the Gnawed Noble was not known for its sanitary food, which was mostly covered up by its temperature overpowering its taste-over bruises. The ice water had been quite good for that.
This, however, was a different matter. The blood was slow to congeal, still flowing sluggishly, and Ara knew only a few things about stopping it. She knew, however, as all alley rats did, that she had to stop the circulation to that place until she got it wrapped. So she yanked a strip of cloth tight above her elbow, grimacing, and rubbed the skin around the gash until the blood had been soaked off the intact skin, all the while hoping she looked like she'd done this before. The bandages were a mystery: she randomly slapped a few on to keep the wound closed, and wrapped the entire thing in a good deal of cloth, glad now for the few things she knew about this kind of thing. She tied the knot with her teeth and wondered if she should loosen the cloth keeping the blood from the cut, and when her hand began to turn colors she decided that it might be a good idea. The blood flow started back up again, giving a fresh wave of scarlet saturating the white dressing, and Ara stood and made to give the supplies back to Nesiria. The elf, she now realized, had been watching silently, and pushed them back toward Ara.
"You'll probably have to change the bandaging later. Keep them," she said with a nod, making no remark on her ally's healing skill. "Let's go."
x.X.x
Jeez. I started writing, ready to tell myself to take it slow before Redcliffe, and we haven't even gotten to Ara's nightly lesson with Sten yet. Hard to stop once I get going ;)
TADA!
Thanks, everyone! (and this chapter was written before suggestions were read, so next chapter I'll use those wonderful nuggets of insight)