Something in Common

In the dream, there was a strange sort of music. She could barely make it out over the din of grunting, growling, seething darkspawn. They were everywhere; their monstrous faces grimacing as they gnashed their teeth and roared in fury. Above all of it, she could hear another sound. It sounded like a voice, but not any kind of voice she'd ever heard. Almost like a howling wind or a crackling fire or – no, she couldn't describe it. It was saying something. She couldn't understand it, but as it continued, the darkspawn became angrier and more aggressive. The voice urged them into a frenzy. They began stamping their feet in an odd rhythm and marching forward in a giant mass. She searched for the origin of the voice and as the darkspawn surged by her, she looked up, up, up into the eyes of –

She gasped and sat up, laboring to breathe normally. Alistair was there. He explained it. The Grey Warden dreams, the archdemon, how she would hopefully learn to block it out, but not everyone did. She was grateful for his help, she really was, but she couldn't help but feeling like this was something he should have told her. She should have known about this. She was tired of all the secrecy and now she was angry again. She didn't want this, didn't ask for it, and now she wasn't going to be able to sleep? Like, ever? Another fabulous side effect of being a Grey Warden. She went over to Leliana and relieved her of her watch. Someone might as well get some sleep around here.

She began to calm down and looked around at the camp. Leliana had gone to her tent. Alistair was presumably asleep in his. Morrigan was off hunting or summoning demons or whatever it is she did when she wasn't around. Dinadan was snoring contentedly next to her pallet. Sten was taking watch as well. She studied him carefully. Stoic as ever. She wished she had a mirror so she could practice her "Sten" expression. It would come in useful someday, she was sure.

"You know, Sten, I've been thinking."

Sten raised his eyes to meet hers, then lowered them back to the fire. She took that as encouragement to keep talking.

"I mean, you say that the qunari are born into their station in life. That they don't stray from it or wish for anything else. So what happens when everything changes? When they can no longer do the thing they were born to do?"

Sten didn't reply.

"I was born to marry a nobleman. And produce heirs and run a household and settle the odd dispute or so. It's what I've been raised to do; it's all I really know how to do. But now that's all gone. Everything's changed, and I can't have that anymore. I can't be that anymore. I don't know who I am without it."

Silence.

"If you had your sword back, could you go home again? Could you go back to being who you were before all this?"

"Yes."

She looked at him. "Then I'll help you find it, Sten. We'll get it back for you, I swear. And maybe someday we can both go home."