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: Note about this chapter. Jowan is not here because. I can't believe Riordan would trust this secret when he has no idea if the new recruit can handle it without babbling. Loghain, yes. Jowan, not yet. That said, I am trying to cut on the dramatic content of the next chapters but then again, it's before the Archdemon. It's hard to do it not dramatic.
In this chapter: It is always hard to tell them they will die.
040.
For a Grey Warden, Riordan is old. Most of his kind do not last more than a few years, hardly enough to spend the three decades the taint takes to destroy them. He has seen much, lived through more and enjoyed every moment as only someone with a short lifeline can do. He liked his life. Some Wardens were dragged kicking and screaming while he, well, he walked freely. Walked wherever he wished to walk. That is a choice that makes him proud, the fact that, out of many he has seen, he has chosen this life. It makes everything easier.
More or less.
This task is still hard. Telling new Wardens that they have survived to die soon enough, that their lives were already claimed but they don't know it just yet, that they might die the following day because everyone else has to live. It is hard. Even harder for them.
The General was a good choice, Riordan can acknowledge that without worry. He is already a full warrior, has lived his golden years and, while it seems horrible to say, dying the following day is like the punishment for his crimes. The Orlesian remembers well the cell where he was kept, poison in his wine and a knife on his back. No. He cannot feel anything close to pity for this man. If his sacrifice is not possible, then it should be up to this man to finish the task.
The elf is worse to watch. Unlike the former teyrn, she lacks the proper experience to hide what she's thinking. He sees surprise as soon as his words are spent and then horror, pure and undiluted fear. A death in thirty years is still distant for a young soul. A life fighting is acceptable. A death the coming day, the last sunrise, one last breath so near, all of this is frightening even for him. For her, it must be terrifying.
"You need not to worry," lying through his teeth, he is the senior, he can do such things without guilt. "I will take the final blow."
Loghain sneers, very lightly, very Ferelden and the feeling is there, the distrust in every word Riordan has spoken. This subject maybe news to the man but the same feeling of the Landsmeet still runs in his veins. Whether he feels anything even close to respect for the younger Warden or not, it is very much clear he doesn't respect the Orlesian. Which is fine by him. Duncan lies dead, his brothers and sisters resting beneath snow in the south, laying without honor or care. He cannot forget. Therefore, the respect or approval of someone like him isn't required, needed or wished.
His young sister, however, remains silent, blank and lost in her own thoughts. Afraid, something he understand when taking her age into consideration. Duncan had made a child into a Warden, what in the Maker's name could he have been thinking? "You should rest now," he says, kindness in every sound. "Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us." And still she fails to speak, blinking silently, hands twisting and turning at her sides without her awareness, fingers pushed with careless abandon.
Loghain leaves with a simple mutter to the girl – tell the mage, tomorrow – and she moves to follow.
"Tasha?" The first time he calls her by her name but she seems so out of it, Riordan almost wonders if she's paying attention. Cruel but she needs to. If he fails – which he won't – but if he does, someone will have to take his part.
He has nothing to say anymore. But the girl does – now that there is an opportunity, freely given, and he sees that. Her mouth opens slightly, her lips mouth words without sound, hands twist and turn, move and tangle. Just like a child, she is, young and afraid, seeing her life under the danger of being cut even shorter without being able to do anything against it. Well, she could run, Riordan supposes. Maker knows she has already done enough to fight this Blight than many older men. The issue is just that though. She has done so much that he cannot see her turning back just now, even though it means she'll die before the sun sets once more.
"How do you do it?"
Poor girl. Poor, poor child.
"You breathe." Riordan feels his lips twitch into a smile, wry and dry and as fake as it has to be. To lie would be to disrespect her and, if nothing else, a Warden deserves more than pretty lies. "You walk. One step at a time."
"And then you die," she says.
"Yes."
"Are you afraid?"
Who wouldn't be?
"I think I should be," the elf continues, hands moving, wringing still, tossing and turning and she won't sleep tonight. To sleep would be a waste of breath, of sight and smell. She'll stay up all night watching what she'll lose. Riordan knows this. It's what he will be doing. "No. I think I am. I thought I still have twenty-nine years to go and not just one night."
"Is that bad? To be afraid?"
Shoulders move in this small shrug, saying all the words she cannot tell her superior. He wouldn't think her weak, if she did.
"If I'm afraid, it means I'm alive. And if I am to die tomorrow, I need to feel alive first." Hands stop wringing, stop moving and her eyes are blank. "I think I'm terrified which probably means I'm very alive. Not many can say the same thing, can they?" What reply can he give her? "At least I have something to brag about."
Childish but not, predictable but not, Riordan stares at her without realizing she is waiting for a reply until she leaves, no permission asked. She just does, like she is the superior, the elder, the eldest. And he has no will to tell her otherwise. In his mind, he replays her words and understands just what Duncan thought when choosing this wisp of a girl. Strong but not that strong, fast but lacking training and experience, young and afraid and wanting to live so much that her eyes seem more of a frightened child than a grown woman. Fiercely alive if nothing else and knowing others wish this too. He chose her because she would do whatever needs to be done to survive. What must be done, has to be done.
Maybe not as much of a child as he previously thought.
No Warden ever sleeps in Redcliffe.