A Memory
Alistair
His first thought was that she was pretty. Really pretty. Even as a ten-year-old, he could spot a pretty girl.
He'd run here after being screeched at yet again by the Revered Mother, hiding in some of the hedges. His older self would come to say that the Mother "attempted to both deafen and depress me by the age of twelve. Go to give her credit, really."
Now there seemed to be a very pretty girl about his own age crouched on the other side of the Chantry fence, smiling at him. With cheese. Cheese. This day was rapidly going from dreadful to wonderful in a very short space of time.
Well, since she was sure... He cautiously took a piece, and she frowned when she saw the state of his hands - red raw. She opened her mouth to ask, and he explained, "From... from the pots. Soap."
She nodded, and he asked, "Your name?"
"Merra," was the slightly shy reply, and he answered her own question with, "Alistair." Well, it was his name; what else would he have said? No matter what the Revered Mother said, he was, by nature, a very honest boy.
Too honest, sometimes - he was beaten to within an inch of his life by the old witch when he asked if he could call her Carol.
He was just about to ask what sort of cheese it was - not that he would have known, they only had one sort of cheese in the Chantry and he swore sometimes that it was grey - when a rough pair of arms grabbed him round the waist. "Got the bastard!" came the loud call, from one of the templars to his friends, no doubt. Andraste's knickers, it was always "the bastard", never "Alistair". He had a name - why didn't they use it?
He already knew from months of escape attempts and hiding in various different places that struggling would be useless - they were bigger, stronger and downright scarier - so all he could do was wave apologetically with a small smile just for Merra as he was dragged back to the Chantry, to another beating. He managed to mouth "thank you for the cheese" before he was dragged through the hedge backwards, leaves and branches catching in still-bright-blond hair.
Before the leaves blocked his vision, he could have sworn he saw a tear trickle down her cheek as she waved back.