Come What May
Chapter 2: Dreams
She could see her shivering against the lean-to, soaking wet in her black hoodie and skinny jeans. The girl with the red hair was surrounded by the city elves, most of them starving and begging more fortunate souls for scraps or money. Her feet were bare - covered in scratches and scabs - she hadn't any shoes for weeks now; someone had made off with them in the forest… she was lucky to have escaped with her life. The bastard hadn't found anything worth stealing, so he took her shoes, called her a dirty shem, and ran off.
But this girl, so cold and hungry, whose eyes shone like the deepest blue oceans and whose lips were soft and pink, albeit cracked and dry from thirst - she was beautiful. She huddled into the shack and repositioned herself in some attempt at grasping warmth in the frigid winter air but it didn't work - it never did. She was caught in the rain and the natives were staring at her strange clothes. The elves used words she didn't understand and spat at her feet while the humans glanced at her and rolled their eyes, perhaps taking offense at her condition, yet none did anything to help her, they all just avoided her for fear she might carry some unknown pestilence.
"Stay back," they said ,"you're sick and disgusting." Her heart broke just a little more each time a child ran away from her, getting a warning from their parents to stay away from the homeless. Was that what she was? She thought she'd find better refuge in the forest but the Dalish had already cast her out and she didn't want to anger them, they had already seemed riled up over the state of the world. Many wanted to help but most keepers wouldn't allow it - at least that's what she could overhear when hiding near their camps. Dalish spies were sent to something called the conclave, and then it had been destroyed, and they had lost their lives. She wanted to be near them instead of this sickened and broken city, but she couldn't. She was an outcast no matter where she went. This was not her world.
Ellie sat up and was shocked at her own dream for how real it felt to her. That woman looked like someone she had seen at the campsite. It was just a dream but it made her long for home. 'Yeah, I thought this world was a dream,' she thought to herself, 'and look how that turned out.' After the ice attack she had fainted from the pain and shock but when she woke the Dalish were gone and their camp was picked clean, only scraps of bedding and forgotten blankets remained. She was going to die here if she didn't figure something out. She had been a fool to argue with them no matter how much of a farce she thought they were playing on her. If she really was in some magical mystical world, why had she been so brash as to verbally attack people that were clearly already angry? It had to be the lack of food and water.
Her ears perked up slightly at the sound of rushing water far off in the distance; the river was close enough that she could follow the sound. Maybe she would be able to figure out a plan after she had something to drink. Her lips were cracked and dry, they were splitting open from lack of moisture and then closing, and then re-opening and bleeding. She brushed away some of the blood with the back of her hand and pushed herself up from the ground, her legs were wobbly and weak and wet...it had rained. She herself was only damp so the rain must have stopped sometime in the night. How long had she been asleep? Questions didn't matter at the moment, she needed something to drink.
She walked slowly as each stride was painful and difficult and she thought she had never taken more pained breaths in her life. She felt faint and weak and her body burned everywhere. She touched her left shoulder and pulled back in pain; her wounds were stained red and brown, no doubt from the caked blood and dirt that had mixed in from her forest floor slumber. Luckily the wounds themselves didn't look infected, they just hurt like hell. Time seemed to go on forever until she finally reached the stream but was not lucky enough to reach it alone. There were two armored men there, each covered in a bath of blood which they were washing off in the river. She crept back into the brush and hid, not feeling as stupidly bold as she had the day before, and listened to them in quiet fear.
"Wash it off already would ya? We gotta get back to Denerim before sundown. Sasha's makin' goat stew an' she'll rip my damn 'ead off if I'm late again."
"The shite's in my smallclothes, Rion, but yeah, I'm gonna get it all out in a pinch," the other replied,"I don't give a damn about what your knife-eared wench has on the fire. You'd be better off putting her in the fire."
"Keep sassin' me church-boy an' I'll just run you right through and be done with it. Disrespect my wife again and I'll lop off your 'ead. I mean it this time."
"Templar. Tem-Plar. Can you not speak? Oh forget I asked. If you want me to be done then come and help me wash the damn blood off."
"I'm not the one who shaved off that Dalish's ankle; clean up your own mess Justin."
"He was a damn mage and it was my duty to turn him over to the circle -"
"What circle? Did ya forget the whole world's comin' apart? Ain't no circle no more, hasn't been for a long while. Shit, an' now those - what are they callin' 'em - breaches? They're in the sky. I wanna get home to my wife and daughter...never know if today'll be your last."
"You know what I mean damn it. The circle will be restored once the 'end of the world' is set right on its ass and order is restored. Besides," he said while he washed away the last of the blood splatter and tossed the cloth off to the side,"I feel like every day is my last. I'm a templar."
"So you keep sayin' yet I ain't seen you bring down one mage the entire time I known ya. You're not very good at what you do."
"And you can't speak a proper sentence to save your life. We all have our flaws, but at least I'm trying to do what's right." Justin said and took a seat on one of the flat-surfaced rocks near the river bank.
"Justin you don't do anything right, try or not. You're a Maker-damned murderer. That's all templars do isn't it? You stopped talkin' to me after you were assigned to the circle but I know you were a part of that purge. You killed my wife's cousin and he wasn't a damn abomination. He was with -"
"How would you know anything about what went on in that tower? Were you there? Did you see the children screaming and begging for my protection? Did you see the abominations tearing people apart? Desire demons mesmerizing fellow templars and - wait, what was that?"
"Shit," she said under her breath. She must have moved and stepped on something and as a result put the men on alert. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard she thought it was going to come right out of her throat. She was waiting for them to come rushing at her but they turned in the opposite direction. She waited for a few seconds before taking the time to breathe a sigh of relief; it didn't look like they were coming back. Yet she waited still just to be sure she wouldn't be met with another confrontation - she didn't think she could handle it. She needed water, badly, and it was right in front of her.
When she was absolutely sure they weren't coming back she inched herself out of the cluster of shrubs and slowly made her way to the bank of the stream, leant down and dipped her hands inside the cool refreshing water. She cupped her hands and smiled as the cool liquid pooled therein. 'Finally,' she thought to herself as she drank greedily. She kept drinking until her gut was near to bursting to which she then collapsed back onto the ground, but this time with a sense of renewal and a feeling of collecting energy swirling within her. This may have been just enough to get her going so she could find some food.
She gently raised herself into a sitting position and looked around the sorry excuse for a camp - even though determining from their conversation it had probably just been an impulsive spot to refresh themselves - and saw that there were cluttered rags all around. Nothing of real interest was within eyeshot until she rested her sight on a bag, or a knapsack of some sort, just sitting on top of a bunch of gathered sticks and twigs. She calmly stood up and regained her balance, gripping onto a nearby tree trunk for support until she could steady herself, and then walked over to where she saw it. Excited, she fumbled with the twine rope until she got it loose so she could look inside.
"Biscuits? Better than nothing I guess." She whispered to herself yet cursed under her breath for being so ungrateful. She hadn't had anything to eat in several days and here she was bitching about biscuits. She rolled her eyes at herself and slumped down to rest against the smoothness of the rocks barricaded around the collection of firewood, where she then began to eat. The biscuits were stale and very salty - under any other circumstance she didn't think she'd be able to stomach them, but these weren't normal conditions. Grabbing at the biscuits, she quickly devoured them but was still hungry after she had consumed them all. There were only four afterall and they weren't that big.
"Damnit it. Now what am I gonna do? There isn't anything left."
No sooner had the thought passed her lips than did the two she saw earlier come back from the forest, but this time they were accompanied with an entire squad of soldiers. She froze in her position, daring not to utter a word for fear it might earn her a decapitation...or worse. The man with what sounded liked a cockney accent stared at her and then at the emptied bag nearest his position, shook his head and then asked hoarsely,"did you eat 'em all? Andraste's ass girl!"
"I-I'm sorry. I'm - I mean, I was starving. I n-needed to eat. I haven't had any food in three days…"
"Right, and we're supposed to believe that you somehow miraculously survived just so you could stumble into our camp and eat our food?" Justin asked but it was quite clearly a rhetorical question. "She's probably a run-away from one of the piss-poor villages around here. I swear, you Fereldens smell worse than you look."
"Watch it - jus' because you're some ass from Kirkwall -"
"Enough! There's a thief here Rion, we don't have time to waste on political arguments. Shackle her up. We'll bring her with us to Denerim. They can throw her into a dungeon or put her to work. Something...or maybe we could give her to the Chantry?"
"We can't give her to the Chantry for eating stale bread. I may be pissed 'bout havin' to wait until we get to Denerim to eat anythin' else but they were just biscuits. 'Sides, I was lookin' forward to the stew." Rion laughed loudly with a voice that boomed and whose echoes bounced off the trees and cliff walls around them.
Justin sighed,"I'll be the judge of that Rion. Just grab the little harlot and let's go. She may be a mage, she may not be, either way she's going to pay for stealing from templars."
She didn't want to go with them; they were a sketchy bunch - but really, what choice did she have? She was too weak to fight back or run away and maybe in this city of theirs she would have a chance to eat something substantial. She could always make more complex decisions once she was full and had a good night's rest. She decided not to throw any sort of fit or give resistance as Justin bound her wrists in shackles even though they were so heavy she couldn't keep her hands up which in turn forced her to just drop them in front of legs and walk with them. Justin looked at her with a gaze colder than the chilliest wind; she was used to this sort of look from white men but something about this was different. He thought she was a mage or something suspect, and he claimed they were part of a group called templars… she had heard of templars back in school but they weren't like this - they were medieval knights. These goons certainly looked like knights but there didn't seem to be anything even remotely chivalrous about them.
Though her voice was meek and shaking she spoke up,"these are very heavy. I can hardly tolerate them. Don't you have anything lighter? L-like rope?"
"Shut up. You'll take what you deserve and deal with it. I don't run an Inn girl, this isn't chose whatever you'd like and be on your merry way. Open your mouth again and I may just see fit to cut out your tongue." He snapped back, looking down on her in annoyance.
She wanted to punch that look right off his face, that one that said 'I'm better than you are.' She wanted to kick the back of his knees so she could watch him fall face-first into a puddle of mud and horse shit. She could imagine the others laughing hysterically while she kept her own amusement to herself, quietly gloating in his embarrassment. Maybe another time, when she could actually kick his ass afterward; she wasn't some helpless filly that men could walk all over - she was a god damn black belt in karate and she knew how to fight. She doubted these asses knew anything but basic hand-to-hand combat and sword and shield play. But then again she didn't know anything about these people, they could have something she had never seen before. She definitely hadn't seen magic before now - she never thought of it because the very idea of magic was laughable to her. The church sometimes spoke of magic as being Satan's work, but she never really paid any mind to that sort of talk. Yet here, in this world she barely knew anything about, she had already seen a clan of elves...that could wield magic.
The trip was long and exhausting. She overheard the men saying they were sick of the Bracillian forest and couldn't believe they lucked out in staying in the northern part of Ferelden.
"Can you believe we saw Dalish? All the way out here?" A woman asked. "I mean what were they even doing here?"
Ellie was surprised to hear a female voice as she had suspected all soldiers were male. Considering what time period she seemed to be in she assumed women would be treated like baby machines and not much else. She felt a small ping of pride in seeing another woman in a position of power even if she was on the side that was holding her captive.
"Trying to escape the shit in the sky I'd imagine."
"How? I heard they found someone to deal with the breaches but that's only one woman. Qunari or not, how can she seal all of them? And of she can't get to them all in time to save everyone how in the name of the Maker do the Dalish think they can escape something like this? Don't you think they'd be a little more involved? They live in this world too. Why are humans always the ones busting our arses to solve problems?" She asked, or more-so blurted out.
"Because it's what we do Joslyn. It's what we've done for thousands of years and it's what we'll still be doing thousands of years from now. We're the ones who've gotta get the other races in order to get things taken care of. They may like to take credit for more than they've given but really, we have lost more lives to fighting Blights and protecting people from war and such…" Justin trailed off for a moment, but then resumed,"it gets tiresome when folk don't appreciate it."
"You're starting to sound like a Warden." She replied softly.
Justin laughed,"Right. Well enough of that."
The conversation lingered on from one political topic to another, speaking of King Alistair and Empress Celene, talking about something called the Circle and mabari - whatever they were, sounded like dogs. She tuned it out after a while and just followed Rion in the lead. It was getting dark and her heart beat was racing. She didn't like the dark. Eventually -after many hours - they reached Denerim and the one called Justin decided to turn her over to the Chantry. She was given into the order as repentance for thievery. This entire ordeal was ludicrous. She wanted to protest but she was beyond exhausted from the journey, so she simply accepted the bed offered and slept for the night.
That girl again, she was sitting in the street with barely anything to her body but some drab burlap sewn garment. The other townsfolk had harassed her out of her clothes and she was forced to dig in trash heaps to find something to shelter her from the growing cold. The month's first frost had fallen and she still didn't have any shoes. She thought she was going to freeze to death out here. But there was a shadow standing over her - the silhouette of a nobleman blotted out by the harsh sharpness of the sunlight. She covered her eyes to try and make him out but it didn't help. She asked weakly,"what do you want? I don't...I don't have anything left."
"I don't want anything from you. I want to take you out of this cold and give you a warm bed to sleep in." He responded softly.
"And what do you expect in return?"
"Nothing. I just hate to see you suffering out here. I've seen the way the people treat you - as if you're a piece of rubbish they can just toss out and forget. But you're not rubbish, I can see you're special."
"Leave me alone. I don't want to play games," she cried weakly,"stop making fun of me."
"My lady I do not jest. Please, come with me," he asked as another figure stood beside him,"come Tavin, help her. Give her the cloak."
She could see them a bit better when her eyes adjusted. Tavin was an Elf but he was well-dressed and his face looked kind. She didn't like the human nobleman, he made her feel weird. She didn't want to go with him but if she didn't do something soon she would die in the cold, stiff and frozen like an icicle. Reluctantly she acquiesced and took the hand of the nobleman, though it was Tavin who held her interest. He wrapped the cloak around her shoulders and walked behind them. What was she getting herself into?