Disclaimer: I own absolutely and completely nothing. Bioware has that particular pleasure.

Summary: A City-Elf/Bann Teagan collection of drabbles and one-shots based on a prompt table from an LJ-community. These will be more or less in chronological order with the faintest traces of added plot here and there. Will vary from drabble length to one-shot.

Author's note: Was thinking about uploading this later on but it's the continuation of the previous one. Might as well finish it up and be back next week~ A very very special thank you to Shakespira, Eva Galana and Forestnymphe. Your reviews are always so nice, I truly appreciate your words. So thank you ;)

In this chapter: One should not have to love an illusion.

009.

The night still dances around the fire, thick and beautiful. There are stars, no clouds, Recliffe is exactly what it represents to him. Life and hope, home defined in between a river and a dozen houses cramped together. This is precisely what he fought to preserve – and what he managed to, he adds with satisfaction. To live to cherish it once more is just result of the Maker blinking for a moment, luck or too many events to be listed. Teagan does not wish to remember those moments though. Comfortable, warm, satisfied, an arm resting lightly on the woman's waist as they stopped dancing just before she walks away from the fire. He likes to think there is no other option but to follow.

Eyes pursue their forms, wide and accusing. In but a moment, his arm falls away, reality crashes and the elf doesn't seem nearly as relaxed as before. Her face is slightly red, – or seems to be, he cannot be sure. It reminds him of the fever which had taken her and the scarce hours of sleep it demanded. The noble knows she sleptbut not exactly for how long. The fact is that, when they begin discussing his brother's healing she is already there, sitting between the Mage and the Qunari, listening – dare he say - with approval. When the party begins to be planned, he forgets she does not belong to Recliffe. When she stares at his adoptive nephew through the fire, wondering and unaffected, he remembers every word he overheard with clarity.

"He asked me if it was because of what he was."

And wonders if she knows he did so.

"Human," the woman elaborates, like her previous words and his knowledge of her are too flawed to understand her meaning without aid. "He asked me if it was my prejudice. If I hated his kind and that stopped me from caring for him."

The silence is heavy, thick with unsaid questions, weighted by all both fail to understand. There are still some singers but hardly any dancers. Some sleep, some have retired, some still linger drunkenly in every corner, all of those away from the circle which starts with her and ends with him.

"It isn't."

Alone, they aren't. The quiet still pushes between their forms, creates this barrier he cannot cross. If he could, Teagan would open his lips and reassure her he has no idea of what she means. As he cannot lie – should not, does not want to – he gives up, surrenders to his own curiosity. She will be silent if he breaks this silence. And he is as interested to her explanation as her suitor had been. No. That cannot be right. Of course the other man would be far more interested. He has nothing to do with this woman.

She only saved him, his nephew, his village, his honor. Will save his brother, he has no doubt.

But they begin to have this odd kind of relationship. Teagan recognizes, oddly enough, that he can tell her half statements and something in her will be able to find the missing piece. No need for further explanations, no need for added questionings and nothing can ever be considered too personal because they truly do not know each other. All they know are labels. Bann. Warden. Human. Elf. Each defines the other by them and attempt to know nothing else. That is why she speaks of this to him. Not to the mage, not to the other mage, not to the bard.

"Then why was it?"

He is a good man, Teagan could say. Heir. Bastard. Noble. Powerful. Childish. Strong. Loving. Confusing. He doesn't just because. He is being selfish.

Tonight, she has smiled fully, around him, around everyone. The morning must be arriving though because her shoulders seem weighted, carrying yet another burden, another task forced upon her which leaves no option but to be accepted. Reality is breaching in. Her current smile is a good attempt to seem normal – makes her seem childish, younger and more approachable – but it just an attempt, a façade. Like looking through a fogged glass, it is not supposed to show the correct reflection.

A shrug, he predicts. She shrugs in reply – sadly – and smiles – just barely – before walking to the side of the road, head tilting to the side as she searches assisted by the growing light. It is a lovely gesture.

"Here." Stinging Nettle. It grows tall in the summer and dies out in the winter. Large leaves with soft fur, poison in each tip, serrated blades giving it edge and fur. The small plant is held between her fingers, frail and innocent looking and, to him, she extends it. Without gloves, he would have still held it – that is the measure of the trust she has earned. Teagan looks at her, more unsaid questions and silence barring its way, piling over honorable ideas and racial distinctions, everything both stack in between them, everything that keeps her trying to smile when there is falsity all over the tentative.

Another smile. Remorseful.

"Roses cannot be born in between walls," she explains, fringe falling over impassive eyes. "They do not like the shadow, they hate barred windows, they thrive where they are free and admired. Their defense is a façade, easily broken away. You can chip thorns and evade them, you need to protect them or anything can break them. Too much sun, lack of water, too much wind. They are fragile and shatter on their own." There is perception in her expression now, dry and unhappy. "I never saw this flower grow in the Alienage."

She is strong, all sharp edges and layers of leather and metal over skin. She is gentle curves covered in stone, flesh which never sees the daylight because she walks in shadows and lives during nightmares. She knows prejudice, walks with it and by its side every day so she has learned to shoulder it, to bend and try not to break since she has no right to and no one has the right to protect her. A Grey Warden needs no protection. Even now, dressed in linen and wool as she is, Teagan still sees the shadow of armor over her body and a large blade in her hand.

"It is not because he is human," Tasha finishes turning around, ignoring him, ignoring the last villagers, ignoring everything else but the answer she has just found in between her own questions. "It is because I am not a rose."

Years after, it is Connor who finds a stinging nettle carefully kept inside a book, locked away in Rainesfere.

Note: Prompt 009 (Human) from Troyed community table of prompts.