7. An Elf Among Shems
Medb Mahariel held back a grimace of pain as she slipped back into camp, her catch slung over her shoulders. She dropped the carcasses off at the kitchens, ignoring the suspicious looks from the shems. She was getting used to them, but the memory of laughter she would never hear again tore open the still bleeding wound in her heart.
Her throat closed up in grief, but her response was to curl her fingers tighter around the grip of one of the daggers at her waist. The shems were undeserving of seeing her grief. Pain rippled through her, fuzzing out her emotions, and all she wanted to do was run back to the open arms of her clan and never leave. As soon as she got the cure, she'd be gone. Her clan needed her, especially if there were darkspawn.
Speaking of which, Duncan should be returning soon along with another recruit, according to the Wardens down in the main camp. They were the only ones who didn't treat her as an inferior, for the most part, so she tried to spend as much time with them as possible when she wasn't out in the Wilds. The only thing she didn't quite understand was the glances tossed her way. They alternated between pity and knowing, neither of which she appreciated.
So lost in her thoughts was she that Medb didn't notice the cages until she walked into one. A muffled curse in elvish escaped her lips before looking up. The lines on her forehead disturbed the clear lines of her vallaslin. There was a shem in that cage and, more interestingly, he only seemed to be wearing his small clothes. Her lip curled.
"I don't suppose you're here to sentence me are you?" the shem asked dryly. There was some hope in his eyes, though. She frowned again.
"What are you talking about?" she asked. The hope faded and the shem sighed.
"Apparently not. Oh, well. Here's to hoping."
Medb watched him settle back down in resignation. "No, I genuinely do not understand. Why would the shems lock one of their own in a cage?" Her eyebrows inched toward each other.
"Oh, you're a Dalish, aren't you? I guess you wouldn't understand, then."
Anger bubbled up. "Explain or I will walk away."
"They think I'm a deserter just because they caught me sneaking around camp after dark."
Her green eyes met the shem's. "What is a deserter?"
"You don't know?"
She shook her head. "We don't have a word for that in the clans, I don't think. And I don't think I've ever heard that word in common."
The shem studied her long enough that she felt the tips of her ears turn pink. "That must be nice. A deserter is someone who leaves his post in the army."
Horror fluttered through her, weaker than she would have expected. Leaving a post could mean the difference between life and death for the clan. And shems did that willingly? It was common enough that they needed a word for it?
Her eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to the caged shem, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the stench. "Are you?" she growled. Pain lanced through her, but she merely tightened her grip on the dagger, shrugging it off.
"No!" the shem denied, shaking his head. "Look, I got this key off of one of the Tranquil. I can't use it from here."
"Why wasn't it found when…" she trailed off, waving her hand vaguely.
"I swallowed it. But it's, uh, come back into my possession, so to speak." The shem smiled sheepishly, ducking his shoulders.
Medb did wrinkle her nose at that. "That is disgusting."
"Yeah, well." His eyes suddenly brightened. "I'll give it to you if you'll do something for me."
That was something she understood. "What do you want?" she asked cautiously.
"I haven't been fed in ages. If you could get me food and water, I'd give you the key."
Outrage flared in her eyes and her whole body stiffened, but emotionally, her reaction was muted. Numbed. "Why haven't they fed you?"
"I suspect no one's thought of it with the battles and such."
Without another word, Medb turned and saw a beefier shem in armor standing nearby. He looked bored. Guard. Only a shem could look bored while on guard duty for another shem, especially one who was suffering like the caged one was. She stalked up to him, every muscle tense. Pain made her steps falter briefly but she simply tightened her hold on the dagger.
"Why hasn't that shem been fed?" she demanded, jabbing the guard in the chest with a finger. He looked down at her in disdain. She could almost watch the words "knife-eared bitch" flit across his eyes.
"What's it to you?" the guard asked with a sneer.
Her movements were slower than she'd like, slower by far than they were before the mirror, but he was still startled by the long curved dagger that barely trembled as it was held to his throat. She willed her eyes to remain away from the blade. The shems didn't deserve her grief. "You will give me the rest of your meal that you put away. And don't tell me that you don't have any left. I can smell it. Now, you have two options. Either you can give me your dinner without a fuss or I will cut your throat and I will take it from your twitching body. Your choice."
"You can't kill me, knife-eared whore," the guard growled, though he was paler than he had been.
Medb leaned in close, unblinkingly staring at him. The shem swallowed nervously despite his clear desire to withstand the threat. "I'm a Grey Warden, shem. You can't touch me." That was possibly a lie; she wasn't entirely sure what being a Warden meant but she would use whatever she needed to do to get what she wanted. The shem must have found something in her face because he paled further and without another word, he retrieved the bundle of food from his nearby pack as well as a partially filled water skin. "Wise decision," she said unsmilingly.
"Psycho bitch," he muttered under his breath as she turned away. Had she been human, she wouldn't have heard him. As it was, a jolt of pain slammed down her back just as the words registered. She stopped in her tracks and gripped the dagger tighter as she sheathed it before moving on her way.
Her gait had changed slightly when she went back to the caged shem; a sharp tension that was the product of trying to fight off pain and show that she wasn't affected.
She slid the food and water skin into the cage. The shem's eyes lit up with almost blinding gratitude and it made Medb feel vaguely uncomfortable. "At least if I'm going to hang, there will be some weight on the end of the rope," he said cheerfully before pulling apart a chunk of bread. "Oh, before I forget," he said, mouth full. He picked the key up from where it had been at the edge of the cage and offered it to her. The Dalish elf gingerly plucked it from his hand and tucked it away.
"How can you joke about dying like that?" she asked, trying not to think of...him, and looking up at the shem with a puzzled expression.
"It helps with knowing what's going to happen. Otherwise I'm fairly certain that I would go mad locked up in here all day."
Medb blinked slowly. "You're all right for a shem," she said slowly. "And I hope you are released, if you did not desert. Dareth shiral."
She turned and strode away, passing the shemlin guard and just the sight of him had her scowling again. Pain forced her to stop to catch her breath, and that was when a young woman turned and met her eyes. Despite the dirt and distance, Medb could see that she was beautiful, but there was something different about her.
The shem came over moments later, grey eyes curious and bright. "You're Dalish, aren't you?"
Medb blinked. "What?"
"You're Dalish. I can tell by your facial tattoos. What are they called?"
"Vallaslin." Medb was so startled that she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out so she closed it.
"That's the word. Sorry, normally I'm pretty good at remembering what I read. I'm from the Circle, which doesn't exactly mean anything now. I was recruited into the Grey Wardens."
When she stopped to inhale, Medb asked quickly, "Are you normally like this?"
That gave the woman pause before she forced herself to exhale. "No," she admitted sheepishly. "This usually only happens when I'm writing a paper. I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean to introduce myself this way." Pink tinged her cheekbones, making the woman more stunning than she had been before. For a shem.
"You haven't introduced yourself," Medb pointed out with a twitch of her lips though the amusement she felt was dull, muted.
"Oh, sorry. Got carried away. I'm Tasha Amell, former member of the Fereldan branch of the Circle of Magi, currently a Grey Warden. Or at least a Grey Warden recruit." She shrugged, then winced.
Medb digested those words for a moment before carefully replying, "You may call me Medb."
"What's your clan name? Unless you don't want to tell me. From what I've read, I understand that the Dalish are rather secretive. But you seem all right. I never believed the stories anyway. I'm sorry," Tasha suddenly apologized again, interrupting her own tirade. "I'm babbling. I try not to do that but it's just so fascinating being around someone who can actually answer my questions about your culture because as much as you can learn from books they're still finite. They don't breathe the experiences, only record them."
Medb surprised both of them by bursting into such loud, pealing laughter that people around them actually stopped and turned. "It's fine. I'm from clan Sabrae, but my family name is Mahariel." Pain lanced through her and she began coughing. Tasha instantly looked concerned. With a raised eyebrow, asking permission which she got from a nod, she carefully placed her hand on the exposed skin of the elf's upper arm. Then she closed her eyes.
A slightly intrusive cold radiated from the slight touch and Medb had to fight the urge to squirm away from the unfamiliar sensation.
"Relax," Tasha murmured, eyebrows pinching together. "I'm pretty much a terrible healer. I don't have the finesse for much more than surface wounds. But I can handle fevers, part of the ice thing, and you have a raging one." She opened her eyes in concern. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Medb almost said she was fine. Almost. But there was something about Tasha's being that demanded to be trusted. Besides, it didn't seem like Tasha would find her weak. "No." She took a deep breath. "The reason I had to leave my clan, which was not entirely my choice, was because I became sick with an illness that apparently can only be cured by becoming a Grey Warden." She looked down at the mud that had started to dry on the halla hide boots she had received upon leaving. "I wouldn't have left but it was this or die and I can't very well help my clan if I'm dead, can I?" She looked up to see Tasha watching her with understanding gleaming in her grey eyes.
"Duncan saved me too," she said softly, lips twitching though Medb was startled to see a flash of hurt anger across the mage's face though it vanished fast enough that Medb wondered if she'd actually seen it. "Not in entirely the same way. But my fate could have been worse than death. How long have you been here?" Tasha asked suddenly.
"Almost two weeks. Why?" Her back muscles tensed to the point of a cramp before relaxing.
"I'm supposed to finding the other recruits, which I assume includes you, and some Warden named Alistair. From what I've heard, and Duncan's general worry, there aren't a lot of Wardens in Fereldan and they probably all know each other."
"Alistair?" Ah, the blond shem. "I know who he is."
Tasha grinned, eyes gleaming brightly. "Excellent. You wouldn't happen to know where," she paused, brow furrowing before her expression cleared, "Jory and Daveth are, by any chance? Apparently, they're the other recruits."
"I can take you to them if you want." She left off the fact that neither particularly liked her, Jory far more than the shifty shem from Denerim, when the mage nodded gratefully. With a mostly concealed wince, Medb bent to pick up her pack and shrugged it onto her back with careful, practiced ease.
AN: I'm a fan of Medb. She was not a part of the original plan and she surprises me more frequently than Tasha does.
Anyway, Alistair definitely shows up next chapter.
Oh, and huge thanks to helenget. Not that I write this for reviews or favorites or follows or anything, but I still smile like an idiot when I get one of those. You're a champ.