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 wasn't going to update but this one just wouldn't leave me the hell alone. Last one for some time. That said, remember that PC or not, hero or not, Tasha is a person. Which means she can be cruel, she can lash out in her way just as anyone else. Frankly, I find it perfectly normal. Side note. The blades mentioned in the text are The Green Blade (Redcliffe) and Topsider's Honor (The Dead Trenches).
In this chapter: Like owner, like dog. Or like owner, like elf.
023.
Anora had been expecting this.
Grey Wardens are strong. Grey Wardens know how to fight and how to flee and this one, this one she knew would manage. After all, she has escaped time and time again from his father. In Anora's mind, childish concept or not, her father is the strongest warrior she knows. But her father appreciates subtlety, even when it's against him. This elf – dark haired, dark eyed, dark stained, dangerous – clearly does not. The first thing the human notices upon her stormy entrance is the two unsheathed blades on her hands – and Eamon who is saying something unheard in the background, who does not dare to come forth.
"Why should I spare you?"
The words are almost spat out, disgusting and painful.
"I am your Queen."
"Why would that matter to me?" The elf forces a smile, as bitter and dry as an act can be. "My people are the ones you keep inside a cage and use for your own purposes. That kind of royalty means nothing to me. I ask again. Why should I spare you?"
Swords, two blades neatly cleaned and chipped with use. "I am a woman," Anora declares. A noble, one who has never used a sword.
"So am I."
"You know what…"
A careless shrug and her swords still move. "I don't and I don't care." One of them is old, made of Veridium and with the strangest green tinge to it. The other is dragonbone, pure dragonbone and sharp and deadly like a dragon's claws. It finally occurs to Anora that she shouldn't have played with this Warden. Alistair would have been a safer bet. Even after trapped he would have never thought about harming a woman, especially one who ruled this country. He had been raised better than that. This elf cares little for life or propriety and, this time, Anora played with fire.
"I will not ask again," the elf continues, raising the green blade just a little bit closer, a little bit too close. "Why should I spare you, why should I when you clearly had no intention to?"
A Queen does not lower herself. A Queen does not beg. A Queen is above in both dignity and finesse and she never explains her actions. That is her right.
"I do not know." Anora tilts her chin slightly upwards and her neck is so vulnerable, so pale in its unspoken challenge. This is an elf, below her and below everyone in this room – stupid men, staring, staring at the both of them instead of interfering. She will not back down.
The elf's blades do. The green one remains on her hand but the other is carefully placed on her back. A bluff? It was a bluff?
"You do know but you lack the courage to speak it." There is no trace of a smile on the woman's face, not even a fake one. "I don't kill you because I am not you. I will never be you. I will kill myself before I become something like you. If to avoid becoming a monster, I must not kill one then I will not."
Whispers, someone keeps whispering but Anora can only breathe because she's alive, she won't die and the elf's words echo in her mind as even the last blade is put away. It takes little time for the other to turn away and filter her way through the small mob littering the entrance but Anora cares not. She is leaving. Thank the Maker, she is leaving.
"Your highness. A question, if you will." The elf stops exactly in the threshold and seems almost honestly curious for whatever reason. "Why should I spare your father?"
With those words, the Warden leaves.
Anora's heart shatters.