"So, what're we doin' fer the Wardens, exactly?" Kallian asked once everybody had calmed down and things had gotten settled again. Rido and Aedan were nearby listening in on the conversation and providing moral and physical support in case things got nasty again, though Aedan was wearing his most grim face while doing it. He was in no mood to keep it a secret that he didn't approve one bit with this turning against Loghain thing.
Solona and the elderly mage Wynne were tending to Sticker and Norris. Though Solona had healed up the younger elf's legs, she'd only done a patch job at best and claimed that he needed further healing if he wanted his legs to work properly. Wynne, being the healer type that she was, agreed, and the two mages saw to it that everything was all connected and put together properly before lapsing into a quiet conversation a little off to the side. Sola was watching Noris like a hawk, obviously worried for her little brother despite being given a clean bill of health by both mages. Pita and Sticker were patrolling again once he had been patched up from the arrow to the shoulder, more to keep Pita out of everyone's hair than anything. The woman was a bundle of nerves at the best of times, and the Warden's entrance had done nothing to settle her down. That, and all of the city elves were feeling a bit tense around the Dalish elf. In the Alienage, they'd all heard terrible things about what the so-called free elves did in their spare time, none of it pleasant to hear.
Currently, the Dalish was seated on a crate, his bow leaning by his side still strung but out of immediate reach. Alistair was sitting on another nearby, his hands clasped together with his forearms resting against his knees, though the Quinari was seemingly content to stand by and glower at everything. "As you pointed out earlier," Theron gestured toward Aedan "We need spies. The ransom note on the Chanter's Board for your group mentioned that you were a constant nuisance to the nobility, having an uncanny knack for getting in and out of their manors without rousing the residents or the guard."
Kallian leaned back and folded her arms across her chest, appraising the Dalish elf silently. "We steal stuff." She gestured behind her in the general location of their cache of stolen goods, the mound of golden goblets and jeweled candleholders covered partially by a square of canvas. "We're not… spies an' the like. Not really. We're just doin' it ter survive."
"Well, while you're out stealing stuff-" Theron emphasized the word just like Kallian had, and tried his hardest not to roll his eyes "-keep an eye out for official documents, preferably the incriminating kind."
Kallian shook her head slowly. "I wouldn't know an incriminatin' document from an ass wipe." She said with a slightly defeated tone. "I figure that Sola an' Noris are the only ones here that can read any, an' they're just good with their numbers mostly." Three pairs of eyes stared at Kallian, Theron, Alistair and Aedan all shocked to hear the news that none of these elves could read.
"You can't read?" Theron asked first, his tone absolutely incredulous. "No wonder the shemlen keep you flat-ears under their boot."
There was only a split second of warning when Kallian suddenly got to her feet, cocked back her arm and let her fist fly. She connected the punch with a solid crack against Theron's jaw, her face flushed with rage. Theron didn't have time to properly react and literally fell off his seat when he got punched, sprawled backwards over the crate and staring at Kallian, entirely unsure what to make of the situation.
"Don't you dare act all high 'an mighty just 'cuz you're Dalish." Kallian whispered, her voice trembling with her anger, glare absolutely acid and fists bunched at her sides squeezing so tight that her knuckles turned white. Everyone went silent, all eyes on her as she loomed over the Dalish elf. She was aware that the Quinari warrior had his hand on his weapon ready to fight, though Alistair looked just as dumbstruck as Theron did and made no move to draw arms. "You Dalish get to stay outta the city an' be free. Nobody tells you what to do 'an you worship yer pagan gods. Well here it's different. We don't got a choice but to survive as best we can. That means you gotta work, an' you gotta work hard. We don't get the privilege of bein' able to waste time learnin' how to read. If you wanna be able to eat, then you gotta sacrifice that. We don't live like this 'cuz we like it. We live like this 'cuz there's no other choice."
Slowly, Theron drew himself up, rubbing his jaw where a splotch of purple was beginning to form in the shape of Kallian's fist. "You could leave." He replied calmly, though his eyes were simmering with dark anger, just barely leashed beneath the surface.
"An' go where, exactly?" Kallian retorted hotly, spreading her hands in a helpless gesture. "Outta the Alienage? Yeah! Because every elf that's ever tried that's ended up worse than poor! You end up dead if you try an' pretend that you ain't some dirty gutter scum knife-ear. Where would we go outta the city? To the Dalish? Yer people are half a legend, and the other half monsters. Any of the elves that try an' leave to join you either get caught an' are punished by the guards or we never hear from 'em again. It's hard enough knowin' that yer in the country, an' that's sayin' nothin' of actually findin' you damned tree huggers."
"I don't have to take this from a flat-ear." Theron said with a wave of his hand, grabbing his bow and shouldering it. "It was my mistake to think that I could talk some sense into you."
"What? So now yer runnin'?" She spat, her body going rigid again. "Is that all you Dalish do? Run?"
"We survive." Theron replied with the same amount of acid in his voice that Kallian was using, the red-headed elf looking slightly quailed by the statement for once, though she didn't back down. "We Dalish are tasked with remembering the trials of our people and recovering our shattered past. I wouldn't expect a flat-ear to understand, since you've been content to forget what our people were and wallow in squander."
"Content? You think we're content?" Part exasperated, part bewildered and mostly angry, Kallian was very tempted to punch Theron in the face again. "Do you even know what the shems do to us when we try an' get things changed? They close the doors an' throw away the key. They send soldiers into our home, an' if we so much as sneeze wrong, they'll gut you. Rebellions are always met with a Purge, an' many of us die for tryin' to get a better lot in life. So don't talk to me about bein' content."
"Enough." He made a gesture to quiet Kallian, and then nodded to Alistair, who got to his feet. "I'll spare your life because it's obvious that you are no enemies of ours, but having any further dealings with you seems like more trouble than it's worth. I hope we never have the misfortune to meet again."
Her face flushed with anger, and Kallian made a mocking curtsy to the elf. "Thank you ever so much for yer benevolence in sparin' our worthless lives, O Great Mighty Dalish."
"Kallian…" Aedan murmured, getting to his feet as well and standing at the elf's side, placing a warning hand on her shoulder.
Theron snorted but otherwise made no reply, a disgusted look on his face as he turned to leave the ship assembly building, Alistair and Sten close in tow. Wynne and Solona said something to one another quickly before the younger mage hugged her former teacher and let the matronly woman go with the rest of her party.
"Kallian, are you trying to get us all killed?" Aedan asked once the Wardens were well out of the door. The others gathered had all eyes on the two, wondering if their fearless leader had finally popped a screw.
"What, you wanted me to sit there an' take it?" The elf turned on Aedan quickly, her anger at the Dalish obviously unabated despite his departure and getting the last word.
"I want for you to not punch a Grey Warden in the face." He replied, refusing to be cowed by Kallian's display of anger. "He deserved it for the things he was saying to you, so I understand your anger. But Kallian, the four of them were incredibly strong. I'm not sure that we could have beaten them if it came down to a fight."
"Tch, I've been fightin' against the odds my whole life. I ain't gonna sit here an' be lectured to 'bout how my people are cowards by some uppity Dalish, Warden or no Warden." Though she tried to simply wave off the argument, Aedan stopped her with an outstretched hand, and Kallian's vivid green eyes snapped to his face, all venom and barbs.
"All the same." He tried for a gentle tone, but it came out far more stern than what he was aiming for. "We need to be more careful about who we make enemies of." They locked gazes for a moment, then Kallian turned and stalked off, claiming that she was going to go see where Pita and Sticker had gotten off to on their patrols.
•º•.•º•
His dog's bark was the first indication that something was up in the forest. The mabari only barked once, then a rumbling growl settled deep in his chest, the animal crouching low to the ground with eyes locked on the forest beyond.
"Foe or beast, Falonfen?" Theron asked quietly, his bow already drawn with an arrow ready to fly should something leap out of the bushes unexpectedly. Night crept over the land, and he was on first watch for the night, the others no doubt already sleeping back at camp around a banked fire. He'd simply been too full of thoughts in order to go to sleep just yet, so had planned on exhausting himself by doing an extremely thorough patrol around the camp. They weren't far from Denerim, but given their luck, he would be unsurprised to see a genlock or a hurlock come stumbling out of the brush. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time a patrol of darkspawn managed to unwittingly stumble on their camp.
A bush rustled with movement and Theron immediately sighted the tree with his bow, aiming at about waist height. He didn't feel the nagging tug of darkspawn, and his hound didn't bristle and begin to go mad, only continued to stand warily by Theron's side. Something crashed ungracefully through the bush and suddenly there was an elf standing there. Narrowing his eyes, Theron let his grip on his bow relax, recognizing the hot-headed elf woman from before stepping around a bush, pulling leaves and twigs out of her hair. "This is no place for a city dweller." He drawled, watching the woman carefully. "What are you doing out here?"
"Well, you know, you take a wrong turn at the market an' suddenly yer in the middle of the woods. Funny how that happens, eh?" She responded with a lackluster tone of dry humor, patting herself down for more bits of forest stuck to her hair and clothes before meeting Theron's gaze. "Don't be gettin' your skirts in a twist there, Grumpy. Look, I ain't gonna apologize, but I do wanna say that it's no good fer us to be at odds. I don't like you much, an' you aren't by biggest fan, I know. But I wanna see Howe gone, an' I figure you do too since he's Loghain's right-hand man. We'll get dirt on him if that'll get him outta the picture."
Theron considered her words, a humorless grin tugging at his lips. "That's the worst alliance proposition I've ever heard." He saw Kallian go rigid at that, and couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him. Whatever her faults as a flat-ear, she certainly had a spine, something he would never have expected from a city-born elf. "We're headed to the Frostback mountain range right now." He said, shouldering his bow and tapping the feathers of his arrow against his leg absently. "We will be gone from Denerim for some time, and probably cut off from much of the rumors of the land while we're there. I don't want to come back to Denerim and try to face Loghain with nothing against him. Any information that could prove damning in the eyes of the other shemlen nobility you could provide would be a great boon to our cause."
Kallian nodded in understanding, eying the mabari at Theron's side. "Alright, I get it. There's a slaver operation that I'm sure is bein' supported from the top, so I'll see if we can't get papers from them or somethin'. That's a start, I figure." For a moment she simply stared at him, then as if realizing that she was forgetting something, Kallian started and began unraveling one of the red gloves around her hand. Once she'd gotten it unraveled, she walked forward and held it out for Theron to take. "If yer ever in Denerim wear this. It'll probably save you from getting' mugged by one of my people."
Hesitantly, Theron took the red cloth, examining it carefully before enclosing his fist around it.
"Good luck." She offered a respectful nod of her head, then simply left without another word.
He could hear her as she made her way unskillfully through the forest -far worse than any fledgeling Dalish- and watched blankly where she'd disappeared through the bushes. Theron glanced down to the cloth in his hand and opened his fist, looking at it again. His hound whined, tugging on Theron's belt strap and licking his hand once. "You're right, forgive me. It does no good to stand here and wonder at the strangeness of the city-born elves." He smiled and gave the big hound a pat on the side of his thick neck, tucking the cloth into a loop on his belt for the time being.
With bow in hand once more, elf and hound continued their night patrol, wandering through the forest and checking every shadow for danger.
AN: Originally, this chapter wasn't planned, which is why it's a bit on the skimpy side. I was going to make a passing reference to the events that happened in this chapter in the next one, but DeadlyHaven gave me a suggestion and I took it. I wanted to get Theron's personality hammered out a bit since he's still kind of an unknown to me, and of course who better to bring out his rageful side than Kallian? Unfortunately, the more I wrote, the more I realized that the two needed to have it out with each other before they were happy. Plus, I got to use the "You wouldn't understand" BS line as the PC in the process! 8D You've no idea how badly I've been itching to do that.
Aedan Disapproves -20