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: Once again, keep in mind the whole 'she is a person not a bloody golem as wynne seems to think' thing when reading. And yes, it seems like the title of this prompt has little to do with the text but read Apostle as someone who represents or origins faith. It makes sense to me, for some reason. Might have some typos, I was sick so x.x Hrm. Enjoy?
In this chapter: He doesn't believe in the Maker, Andraste or Creators. So he gets none of them.
024.
City elves have legends. Most people don't know this, most humans laugh about the sheer idea and even elves forget to correct them. Some do know. They float in the back of their minds guiding their footsteps, whispering beneath their actions. It is the same type of stories he has told his daughter when she was being stubborn – refused to fall asleep, refused to eat, refused to follow or marry, refused to be refused. The Maker watches your steps, the Sky guards your secrets, the Creators protect you, Ancestors guide you. These are stories and he is an old man. He didn't believe them when younger and now, staring at metal bars, he can't summon the will to do otherwise.
That is the problem with their legends, he tells to himself while his fingers caress the cold steel. Somewhere along the line, their legends became less of a belief and more of a myth. Myths cannot give one hope. It is why he doesn't pray – in the Chantry, in the house, anywhere – and why he sits alone and in silence. Staring at metal bars is all he can do not to yell. Uselessly because he doesn't believe. No one will save them, no one will come for them, in that he can believe.
Believes correctly because it is not a dream that comes. It is a nightmare which smashes through the doors without warning.
They move like vultures, this group. Confusing and messy, blades scattering blood and flesh alike, as if they don't care that their opponents breathe and move, nothing more than animals. Which they are but animals who talk. Animals that move and cry out in pain. The group doesn't care, he sees, about life, about suffering, they murder without pity, their voices like howls in the closed space. And this must be an illusion, Cyrion thinks over the madness. Nothing other than an illusion can be this crude, this unreal or amazing at the same time.
The elf should push himself back but finds himself leaning forward, smiling an icy smile that he never uses just because these people made him suffer, his own harmed, hurt and dragged around like cattle. And if he's going to die – one slaver, another, he cares not – then at least he'll die with the satisfaction that these things will die before him. Coldly, bluntly and without mercy. Like animals.
"Wait. Wait."
No. Don't wait. Cyrion says nothing but thinks it fervently, wills the Leader to hear his words even though no sound leaves his lips. Kill him like you killed the others.
The Leader waits. Caladrius speaks. Cyrion watches.
"So…do we have a deal? Even you must admit it's much better than resorting to barbarism, yes?"
What does he call sell people like animals? Is this civilized? Proper? Correct? Shems. Always the same thing, always thinking themselves above, more proper, stronger, owner of everyone else. The sheer arrogance of it is worse than the previous bloodshed. Use him, use their blood, Maker, how can this be allowed? How can someone have the power over their lives like this? Their Chantry says it is wrong but this man says it is acceptable, as long as the target are those who have no defense possible. And this is why he doesn't pray.
The Leader remains silent for a short time, apparently staring – considering – the proposal. That's what he thinks, his nerves on edge until it shakes its head just barely and Cyrion can almost swear it chuckles under that silver helm. Which is completely awkward. Warriors do not laugh when in a discussion like this and definitely not after drowning themselves under an entire battalion's blood.
"I have a counter-offer," it says. Cyrion's blood freezes, his heart stops, his mouth opens and remains open.
"Keep going."
A light shrug. His girl also shrugs as reply too often. So many times he has tried to make her stop that foolish habit. Use words, girl. Use words and say what you mean instead of shrugging and letting everything remain unsaid. Say you don't want to get married, argue with everyone, remind him of the old days and what happened outside when they were father and daughter and he was not inside a cage. Oh this is an illusion, this is nothing more than an illusion, he realizes, because his daughter is dead, his wife is dead and he has little else. This cannot be his daughter – even though it sounds like her – metal covered, sharp weapons and sweet tongue, but he finds himself praying that it is.
"My offer is this," the Leader begins, her helm shaking from side to side. Her hair is longer, it hides things better peeking underneath that silver cover. She's pale but the slaver is so much more. Trembling, he trembles just as everyone else, fears like the ones he sold. Do not underestimate elves, Cyrion wants to say but doesn't. He smiles again because they never fear, never think they'll remember and take revenge. "I'm going to kill you."
Coldly, bluntly, quickly, this woman he doesn't know.
Before he can realize what's going on the cage is being opened and the unknown warrior wears his daughter's face. There are tears and armored arms around him while her head hides against his shirt – warm and sharp and wet, so red as her voice mutters his name father again and again.
"I'm here, my girl." Because it is his daughter and that is all he can say because the rest doesn't make sense, sort of a windwhirl in both mind and heart. Or he's just afraid he's going to breakdown like the girl in his arms.
He doesn't pray. He never prays. Not in the Chantry, not at home, not anywhere, not to the Maker, not to Andraste, not to the Creators or the stars in the sky. Now that he did and it was answered with his daughter in his arms, he cannot find the will to thank anyone. Instead, he holds her fast – she was two and hungry, she was five and scared, she was thirteen and harmed, she was eighteen and leaving – and believes in a happy ending.
"Are they staring?"
Cyrion looks over her shoulder, hiding what's probably embarrassment from countless faces he doesn't know – the group who just saved them – and those he does. "Yes."
There's a movement in his arms, as if Tasha knows she should get up, move away, do whatever great heroes and warriors do after a battle but it leads to nothing. She refuses to move and he refuses to let go.
"I can kill them later," she states simply.
None wonders if she was joking and Cyrion, he just focuses on his miracle.