"Hello, Herah."
Herah Adaar moved surprisingly quietly for someone her size, but Leliana could still pick out the sound of the qunari's footsteps as they entered her tent and without looking up from her papers, she greeted the woman who had recently become central to the fortunes of the newly-reformed Inquisition.
"Hey. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to chat."
"Of course. Is there something you need help with?"
"Sort of." Herah paused, sounding unsure of herself, something she had seemed to be frequently since her survival in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. "They say you knew the Hero of Ferelden," the mercenary said, her words somewhere between a question and a statement.
"Is that what they say?" Leliana turned and slid down the hood of her cloak, favoring Herah with a mischievous smile.
"It is. Among other things," Herah riposted, a matching smile now on her face. The woman seemed to enjoy a good verbal back-and-forth almost as much as Varric, a fact that had come as a surprise to Leliana. A sense of humor was not something she associated with qunari.
"Really? Such as what?"
"That you're a bard," Herah told her with a chuckle. "Or an assassin. Or a priest thrown out of the chantry for deeds too dark to speak of. That you sleep with two knives under your pillow and traps around your bed. That you were the Hero's lover. Or maybe the Divine's. Or both."
She laughed back. For those in her business, a colorful reputation came with the territory. "That is quite a lot for one woman to be up to."
"Well, let's just say that your past is an especially popular topic of conversation around the campfires here," Herah explained. "It's not like anyone thinks Cassandra or Cullen gets up to much worth gossiping about."
"One should not be too quick to assume such things," the bard replied with a sly smile, "But to answer your question, yes, I did know the Hero of Ferelden."
"Were you two close?"
"Close?" Slim hands that normally dispense lighting and ice run over her chest before dipping down between her bare thighs. It's a different kind of magic Nissa is performing now, but one no less remarkable then that she wields against the Darkspawn. Leliana's body sings under her Warden's touch, her back arching, her skin flush with heat. Later, she'll repay every caress, every pleasure in full, but for now, she just lets herself be lost in the mage's passion.
Leliana drew in a long breath, trying to shake off the memory, hoping that the dim light of the tent had hid the blush of arousal it brought to her body. "Yes, we were," she agreed. "That, at least, is one thing that rumor has right."
"One thing, huh?" Herah cocked an eyebrow. "What about the rest of the stories?"
"There is truth in some of them, perhaps. But only some. In any event, what did you want to know about the Warden?" Leliana always thought of her as Nissa, but she had grown so accustomed to hearing others call her lover by her many titles that they came easily to her full lips.
"I guess I want to know how she did it", Herah explained. "Look, I was in Ferelden at the tail end of the Blight. It was all our company could do just to stay alive in the middle of all that madness. I can't imagine how you'd actually stop it. And now, out there in the Hinterlands, it's like the Blight's happening all over again. The mages and the Templers were tearing everything apart even before the rifts started appearing, and now you throw in these damn demons… Where do you even start?"
Herah sounds overwhelmed as she asks the question and it reminds Leliana of Nissa at the beginning, of they way she was when they first met at that inn in Lothering. The warden had tried to put on a brave face, to act like the world didn't weigh quite so heavily on her shoulders, but as practiced an observer as Leliana had known better. Nissa had made mistakes back them, some small losses of temper, others darker choices that, wherever she is, Leliana knows still bother her beloved. Now, Herah is in much the same position, and the bard hoped she could find some way to help her navigate her way through the fog with fewer regrets.
"You begin with the people in front of you," Leliana told her. "When Nissa and I travelled together…" At the mention of her warden's name, Herah looked surprised, and the bard added, "She was not always the Hero of Ferelden, you know. She does have a proper name, even if it is rarely used these days."
The qunari chuckled and Leliana continued, "When we travelled together, we knew where it would end, that some day, we would have to face the Arch-demon and its horde. But the in-between, the gathering of the army that made defeating it possible, was often a twisted path. As we walked it though, Nissa tried her best to make right the things that we found awry. The boy separated from his family in Redcliff Village. The dwarf girl who dreamed of leaving her home and studying magic. The qunari looking for his lost sword. The deeds that make up the legends are built atop those little moments."
Herah nodded her head, her dark mood seeming to break at least for the moment. "Thanks. That's… I guess it's someplace to start. There's no shortage of people who need our help out there, that's for sure. One thing though… The qunari who lost his sword? What was that all about?"
"That was a favor for a friend actually. Sten was a qunari warrior who fought with us against the Blight. He had… misplaced the blade in a battle with the Darkspawn."
Herah drew one of her daggers and flipped it casually through her powerful but clearly dexterous fingers as she reflected, "It's nice to know I'm not going to be the first qunari to go and do something so crazy as try to save the world."
"No," Leliana agreed. "And even if you were, what of it? Nissa was both an elf and a mage, a combination most people would find even more unlikely in a hero. We are all the Maker's children and he has a plan for each of us."
"Do you really believe that?", Herah asked, holding up the hand with her mark. "That I'm Andraste's Herald? That this is part of some divine plan?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I believe that the Maker has a plan, but long ago, I realized that it is not for me to know its details. I do think that what happened to you happened for a reason, though."
"I hope you're right," Herah told her, re-sheathing her dagger and patting the bard on the shoulder, "But either way, I'm lucky to have you here helping me out."
The qunari turned to leave, and Leliana smiled at her departing form. Even if it was not the hand of the Maker behind Herah's selection as the bearer of this mark, it was the Inquisition who were the lucky ones, the bard reflected. There was a good deal to be said for the woman whom fate or chance had selected to aid them in this dark hour. The qunari was brave, and capable, and had a good heart. True, she was innocent in many of the things she would need to know in the days ahead, but Leliana would be by her side to guide her. She had already lost one of the women she served under, and failed a second. This time, she vowed she would do better.
I had initially considered writing all the chapters from Herah's POV, but decided it would be better to get a variety of perspectives here.