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: I am sort of pleased with this one and sort of not. Hmph. Well, longest chapter yet as author prepares to do little bar work for a while~
In this chapter: About disagreements and decisions. Or disagreements about decisions.
015.
The Grey Wardens collect party members as a child collects stones or trinkets. Bard, Dwarf, Qunari, elf, templar, mage, mabari, it sounds like the beginning to a bad joke if one adds a tavern somewhere in the sentence. They walk through the Redcliffe party only rarely, preferring their own company and conversations, odd in their lightness and companionship. Maybe the oddest thing is that they seem normal. They speak and laugh, joke around and discuss the most varied subjects as their feet eat the path towards the capital and tiredness should have stole their breath miles before. It seems like a picnic – with the odd beast attack thrown in just to make sure none thinks things are normal.
Teagan decides none of this can be considered normal when he overhears the male elf and the dwarf discuss how attractive the other is, in between a disturbing amount of insults. Both female mages seem to be arguing – all in a manner that seems to have been repeated countless times – bard and templar are lost in some philosophical debate he cannot begin to comprehend and the last members walk in the beginning of the line, Qunari by the Warden's right, the killer right by the Warden's left and her hand lost somewhere between the Mabari's fur. The group from Redcliffe is larger, noisier and more imposing but the Grey Wardens distance themselves for being completely ignorant of those they accompany, overall indifferent and locked into their own universe. What for Redcliffe is a trip not many have done, for them it's nothing more than a stroll compared to the many travels repeated in the last months.
"Would you stop speaking of my bosom?"
A lovely idea. It is something the noble doesn't wish to hear about.
"Eh, you got small breasts for a gal."
Right.
"I have…thick ankles?"
Thick chest, arms, legs, head, virtually everything, Lady Golem.
"Once the Wardens flourished, their ranks full, their caliber certain. Now they even accept people like you, Alistair."
The little he hears is enough to wonder just how these people have managed to keep themselves on the road, unhurt and alive during this whole time. Conversations meld, fuse into one another while they walk, the Mabari barks for attention, is given, someone yells at him, there is laughter and chocking, coughing and metal shifting. They seem like a family – a very dysfunctional and overall wrong in many ways but a family – walking with the abandon of knowledge and the recklessness of experience. Whatever the disagreements between the different members, they know each other and – to some degree – care for one another.
"You knife-eared pipe-cleaner, you couldn't carry me on your best day!" Mostly.
It is like a theater play, Teagan thinks, a comedy show with too much blood but that, somehow, still manages to cause laughter. Only that doesn't sound quite right and he spends the good part of half an hour trying to define the strange relationships. There is little else to do on the road, though if asked, the man might comment on the absence of bandits being result of the same group he has been observing. According to Tasha's detailed account of recent events – overheard during an irritated rant done to his brother – bandits are becoming rarer on the paths and much more abundant underneath them. It passes through his mind that – Darkspawn excluded – this is probably the safest the road to Denerim has been for the past year.
"Rather distracted, are you not, my Lord?"
Tasha appears out of nowhere, apparently oblivious – or perhaps simply not caring – that Eamon is close enough to eavesdrop, that there are soldiers all around ready to comment, that her own party has filled her absence in the conversation but still look at her randomly, Qunari and Mabari more than any. Making sure she hasn't been lost.
"I am focused," he says plainly. It is a half truth, obvious in its simplicity. He is focused, just in all the wrong things. For example, her scale mail has finally been replaced, silverite shining like pure crystal, definitely much more protective than anything else he could have suggested. It suits her – sort of – but he cannot help but to notice how dwarfed she is by the men around her, by his own figure. So small, this woman. She could carry much more than two longswords and Teagan would still be inclined to dismiss her strength by appearance alone.
"Not at the present, I believe." Tasha's comment is his own put into voice, the former formality dropped but for a moment. He can see Eamon turning on his horse, head lowered, eyes confused – annoyed – with the loss of ceremony the Warden is indulging in. Teagan tries to silence him without words, to will his gaze away. This is one thing his brother has no right to dwell on, never mind the aggravation in his eyes or the fact that he doesn't seem to have forgotten for a single moment she saved the mage's life.
"You speak too much." It is supposed to sound as a joke and yet, even to him it sounds slightly bitter. After the mage's conscription, he is not sure she has forgiven him. He is not sure he forgives her either. It was his brother, what could he do but support him, wish for the mage's prison, at the very least?
"You speak too little," she sends back easily. It does not sound like a joke either, finally a low tone and just for him. She isn't speaking about his recent silence either. This is about another, one where she had needed aid and none was given bar from the Qunari. A possible argument floats between them, controlled solely by the crowd which keeps watching.
Teagan knows his face has turned impassive, the perfect reflection of Eamon's when angry, of his father's when he still lived. "He nearly killed my brother."
"He saved your nephew."
"He is an apostate."
"He is a good man."
"A blood mage."
"Who used it save others. And?"
He wants to argue. He wants to raise his voice and let her know this discussion is foolish, that she is being an idiot – has been since saving the mage's life – that she, of all people, should understand what it is to have someone of blood laying for weeks in a bed, tipping onto death ever so often. She is supposed to know this is nothing to do with the fact that he is a blood mage – though that ranks high in his disgust – but the fact that Jowan tried killing his brother. Sometimes Teagan is forced to notice that this elf can be an annoyingly irrational woman. Like now, staring up at him, stubborn glower, annoying, ever so annoying and he wants to shake her for baiting him and himself for being stupid enough to bite it so easily.
None of the two notices that they have stopped, staring at each other with what can be enmity and anger, frustration or lack of control. All of those together, Teagan realizes. He has gotten used to have her listen and understand, to hear half a dozen words and need no more. This is their first argument and they are having it in public, no less. Perhaps it is better. Half the things passing through his mind are spat, angry and hurtful. The others he cannot voice, not even in thought.
"I will not apologize for my feelings on this matter," he hisses under his breath, close enough to see her narrowed eyes, the darker blue which surrounds the irises.
"And I won't apologize for doing my duty. You should have…" Known better? Feel less, perhaps? Tasha doesn't seem to have finished her tirade – because a woman always has to be right and will not stop until the male has agreed – but her voice is cut off without permission, eyes widening, her body shuddering under her armor as if she has just been stabbed. It pushes Teagan's anger to the background for its suddenness just as she pushes away from him and the entire conversation is dropped. "Darkspawn! Alistair!" She's already running ahead, her blades ready even before he realizes that something is wrong. Hell breaks loose.
They come from the floor, from the forest, from the shadows, Teagan cannot be certain. He just knows that the Grey Wardens are now around them, a cohesive unit divided into smaller sections. Back to back, warriors in the front – Tasha in front of him, her two blades in her hands, slipping, cutting, slashing with unexpected ease – mages at the back, their spells trickling down his body when he slides his blade out, his shield so he can join the others. And then the creatures, snarling and biting without giving the defenders a chance to breathe. How many times, he wonders – a sword too close, a blade too near, the Warden's own parrying, pushing him out of the way, himself following the movement because the Alpha aimed at her back – how many times has the group done this? All those trips, the weeks out of Redcliffe to Maker knows where, how many times were they caught in a fight like this?
Down you go. Do you wish to be beaten by an old woman? Too many times, their voices whisper in between the battle cries. Less fighting, more dying, blast you.
It ends as quickly as it started – a moment, a century – and then they are surrounded again solely by dead and dying. Even then the movement of the Wardens doesn't falter, already kneeling next to the bodies, knives stirring, finishing those still breathing, collecting what can be salvaged. This is gruesome, everything is gruesome. And in the mist of it all they still congratulate each other, insults and arguments forgotten because they fought side by side and won.
He kneels next to Tasha, hands resting on hers as she wrestles a particularly resistant piece of armor off the Alpha, pushing with her in time. "I am still annoyed with you." Wry, her voice is dry, – a hint of tiredness somewhere in her tone - eyes avoiding his carefully while focusing on her task. The man cannot find the will to be angry at her, not now, not when he has seen firsthand the kind of life she leads and why she does what she does. More importantly, why she did what she did. Jowan, he cannot forgive. Tasha, he cannot blame.
Teagan takes wisdom where he can find it and, in their actions, he finds his answer. Gruesome or not, his hands aid hers when needed and he does not touch the subject of their argument again. It is useless to try. She has her reasons, which he tries to understand, even accept and he has blood, kin, those the mage harmed and that are reason enough for him to keep arguing. They will never find even ground on this subject, they will never understand each other completely.
"I dare say it is hardly going to be the last time." And that's fine. Tasha gifts him with a small look, a suspicious twitch of her lips betraying the last remnants of her supposedly annoyed mood. "Now pull. Though I do warn, good armor or not, I will not wear this."
After all, he concludes when she beats back a smile, relationships are built around concessions.
Note: Prompt 015 (Compromise) from Troyed community table of prompts.