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: Continuing the 'human-not-golem' style, this is the first kind of touch to romance. Hopefully, it makes sense instead of seeming rushed. In a way, I like it. I would really like opinions on this one, truly. It's one of the longest chapters~ I hope people enjoy it. A big big thank you to Shakespira which was kind enough to beta for me ;D

In this chapter: Home is people, he knows. And a home can be anywhere.

025.

There is a grand total of five seconds allowed to admire the giant tree in the middle of the square before Teagan feels his arm being grabbed and then used as lever to physically haul him into a house. The grip is ridiculously small, the voice is unknown - What are you doing here? - but female and that knowledge is used to, stupidly, stop any violent reaction to a possible dangerous situation.

"You. You idiotic buffoon!" A couple of shelves, a wooden desk, boxes of unknown contents behind a counter the elf man just standing there. Looking. Staring. Not the most welcoming stare he has ever received. It does pale in comparison to the outright glare his attacker is giving him. "What did you think you are doing here?" This is new. "You are a human. A human noble. The riots started because of a human noble. Do you think anyone here wants to see someone like you around? You're lucky someone didn't stab you in the back as soon as you entered the Alienage!" Yes, definitely new.

The woman is still glaring – managing to seem quite haughty while barely reaching his chin – her words coming out fast and clear, scolding and managing to insult him, his ancestry, his birthplace and his unborn children in quick succession. If she wasn't still hissing in his face, he might have laughed. As she is and they are in an unknown location where the existence of blades is entirely possible, he takes the inteligent route and keeps his mouth firmly shut, waiting for the moment when she'll stop to regain her breath.

"You aren't even listening to me." Listening, he is. Just too incredulous to do more than looking at all five yelling feet of her. "He isn't even listening to me. Maker, I am ignoring her oddities next time. Alarith?"

Her rant is cut short as the woman turns around, her simple dress moving sharply on her wake, gluing itself to ribs, shoulders and legs. She's a little thing, red-headed, short hair, pretty eyes, frail looking as most elves. A comment definitely not be done out loud, not while she's still moving in closed angles and sharp gestures.

"I can wait outside if you want. There are daggers on the back." Not amusing. The shopkeeper – because it is a store and he is that particular shopkeeper and she is just someone somewhat odd – needs to refine his sense of humor. Or perhaps, Teagan realizes, he should try not to seem as serious when speaking such things. One might believe them.

Smiling, he's sure she's smiling. "If I hurt any other noble, they might just throw me in the dungeons and destroy the key. Not today." They speak easily, with the abandon of family or friends who spent their time together as children. She leans closer the counter, her elbows on the harsh wood, he tilts his head to the side, nodding to her words, replying in hushed tones to whatever she's whispering. There's confidence and trust – Elves look after themselves, protect each other, help each other, hate humans on a whole, hate him by association. By their actions, Teagan feels aside, isolated as he has seldom felt.

A bundle of clothing is pushed against his arms without warning. Or without any warning he might have paid attention to. "Dress quickly, I'm waiting outside." Rags. Why is he…? "No one uses clothing that fine in the Alienage. It calls too much attention. In the dark, best to blend in. Just do what I ask." Except she's not really asking. It's a sort of forceful suggestion which is more of an order than anything else. "I'm waiting outside. Be quick, Alarith doesn't want you around."

She doesn't sound apologetic with the last sentence, implying she agrees with just the correct undertones. It's fine, she shouldn't be. He is human, they are elves. It's almost a given he shouldn't expect a nice welcome.

Still, he slips into the harsh clothing as soon as she leaves. It is tight, doesn't fit right and he feels like he's trying a much younger brother's apparel instead of his own. Fitting in, the woman had said. Teagan allows himself a brief moment of incredulity, noticing the – extremely – short pants and smaller shirt. Anyone who looks at him with surely think of him as a heavily retarded human instead of an elf. Still better than being stabbed.

"There you are." The tall tree presides over the square, strong and beautiful, hovering over them both as the night sweeps around. She waits for him by the roots, tapping her foot absently, her hands against her waist. His mother would have done this years before, ages ago. What sort of mad elf is he pitted against? "Up. Start climbing." A truly mad one. "I am not kidding," she continues, pointing at the branches above. "Start climbing. Just don't take too long, I promised Alarith you'd be out by morning." Which means he should hide in the tree until dawn? "Oh by Andraste's sake, you didn't come here because of me, did you? You came because of her, the giant told me you might. Start climbing!"

And it makes no sense except it sort of does. She likes heights. He has seen her sitting closer to the cliff enough to fall if she turns too fast, too close to the edge. She likes nature too, the sort of enjoyment he'd expect from any Dalish and not from someone born and bred between city walls. It's this knowledge that makes the noble walk closer, look farther and up to where the tree towers over the roofs.

"And remember. Out by morning! Tasha, visitor!"

The redhead beats her fist against the trunk once, twice, thrice and waits. Waits until a small shadow above moves and looks down, meets his eyes and blinks in silence. Simple clothing, simple hairstyle, nestled and protected by the taller branches, looking at him up and down and she looks younger, looks smaller, looks like the woman who brought him here. And he's already climbing – slowly, these elves have the oddest habits – and by her side, trying to keep himself from falling and wondering if the other woman's plan was exactly that.

"You do know you look absolutely bizarre dressed like that?" Tasha even sounds like the other woman now. "Then again, we should be grateful. She could have given you a dress." Or stabbed him, there is always that. "You're sitting all wrong." The Warden moves naturally – normally – even though they are sitting on a tree in the middle of a destroyed area in which most would kill him on sight. She guides him quietly, her skin on his hands, against his arm as she chooses a place for him to take, one leg to one side of the branch, the other caught in two others, preventing a fall and this is normal. There's her solid presence by his side, warm torso against his just barely and only the tiniest strand of her hair touching his neck as she makes sure he's not falling anytime soon. "There. Safe. Relax, this is a place to rest."

Teagan wants to relax, his body just refuses to forget two details. Height and touch. He tries to relax but limbs move, complain, make him more aware. To climb was a mistake. He doesn't like heights, never did.

"Relax," she says again. And she makes it seem easy when she sits, – experimented – back against the tree and a foot on the thick branch. It could break. They could fall and get harmed. She trusts the tree, however, and he tries to trust her yet again. "We all do this since children, it never broke. Not once. Vhenadahl never breaks."

They slip into silence. This day – night – Teagan has no questions to be made. He does not speak, keeps quiet, waits. He uses her breathing to steady himself – control the fear each time the branch trembles beneath his weight – and counts the time. Waits. Wait. This night he is not there for himself and cannot force her to speak, it is hardly fair or any of his business.

"I'm surprised you haven't asked anything yet." Leaning forward with her head against a knee, carefully hugged by both arms, Tasha sits in a way that makes him want to grab her arm and pull her against him. She even swings lightly in the same place. "But no. You wouldn't. You wait. You are patient." And he is not there to ask anything. He is there to allow her to speak.

Back and forth, back and forth she moves. "If I asked, you would lie. So I have no reason to ask anything. Would you please remain still?"

A faint smile is half-hidden in her dress and the disappearing light. "Trust it, it doesn't break." It swings and trembles, balance is hardly kept, he could say. Back and forth, forth and back. "There is nothing to say. I wasn't harmed. I left. The Alienage is free. I'm safe."

Grey Wardens lie by omission. She is not done and he waits.

"I just wanted to come home."

He hadn't been in the Palace after the rescue mission. Teagan had seen the group leaving and had struggled not to leave with them. Because he is the Bann. Because he is Eamon's brother and someone who carries a target on his back almost as large as the Arl's. It doesn't matter to him – it's a reality of war, after all – but it matters to Eamon. Teagan is his heir now, after all, he should be careful, Redcliffe depends on him. And he goes on and on forgetting that Isolde is still in the Castle, young and full of life and that his brother has no wish for more power than what he holds. There will be another child to inherit the Arling. But he allowed himself to be convinced – this time. When he had returned, the party had already come and gone from the Alienage and she was gone without warning or request.

A fugitive always turns to home. She would not avoid the Alienage, she would avoid the place which seemed too much like the prison she had been thrown into. But she's not home, she's outside, alone. If there's a logic somewhere in there, he's not following.

"Soris was being difficult." Suddenly, he needs no more information.

There is a story Teagan doesn't know which lies in the Alienage. There are whispers of a marriage which never happened, there is blood on the streets, between elves and humans, between this woman and the other and the male too. There is a ton of things he doesn't know nor understands, even more that he cannot ask because she would just lie, omit, reply as if he's a fool and imagining something. But one thing the Bann has learned early in life. Home is not a place. It can be a shack, two sticks and a straw cover, a cavern by the sea or a hole in the middle of wilds. Home is people and, right now, she needs home.

On an impulse, he grips her wrist, a larger hand closing around her skin, – nearly toppling them both from their perch when he startles her. No more swinging, he wants to say, no more hesitation, no more questions. He already had his answers anyway. "Stay. Relax," he whispers carefully into her ear, keeping his fingers tightened on her arm – small, small arm, marred and black. "You are safe."

Tasha doesn't look at him – because she is not swinging anymore, she is close, silent, an animal ready to flee if he says something wrong. And her gaze is even stranger, locked with the branch beneath them or the fabric of his ridiculous outfit. It is confused, wrinkled in the deepest frown he has seen in her.

"Repeat it." Exposed form, wounded body, her confidence has been chipped in the past days. He doesn't need to ask anything else, he already understands. A Grey Warden is not a person, it cannot suffer. This is why she searched for her house, where she's not a Warden but only herself. This is why she came home. To lick wounds that cannot be shown and heal.

Carefully, Teagan shifts in the trunk – Vhenadahl is the tree of the people and the elves do not break so it will not either – and releases her arm in order to slip his around her shoulders. Thin shoulders, thin frame, tonight she is just a little vulnerable. Just tonight and just in that place.

"Relax. Breathe. You are safe." His arm tightens, trust floats around them, in her, in him, in the tree which shelters them and in the unknown figure keeping watch by the store's door. "Relax. Breathe. You are safe." We are safe here, he thinks – believes – repeating those five words over and over throughout the night.

And during that time, Teagan swears Vhenadahl feels almost like a home.