(:o Wow, BlazingIce... just... wow. Thank you. I got a little misty-eyed myself reading that review.
Poison1234: Personally, I prefer someone entertaining. So yeah, the Zevrans and Isabelas of the world, big time.
codellmarie: Good deduction. And isn't that a scary thought? :) )
140. Caught Between a Rock and a Hard City Wall
"Aneth ara, Warden. What news do you bring?" Lanaya was growing into the role of Keeper nicely, greeting Meila with dignity and grace.
"The Wardens need the help of the Dales, Keeper. It is time to move."
The other elf nodded. "We will pack up the aravels immediately. Will you be traveling with us, lethallan?"
"If you would permit it."
"Of course." At that, the young Keeper's face flickered with a smile. "We will be ready within the hour, then." She turned to give the order for the camp to move, and, her task done, Meila sighed with relief.
A gentle hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned to see Leliana's bright smile. "This is very exciting," the bard said, "I never thought I would ever see a real Dalish camp. Thank you for allowing me to tag along."
Meila allowed a smile of her own. "Truth be told, I did not want to make the journey alone."
"You would have been more than capable of it, I'm sure."
"That would not have made it pleasant."
Leliana looked about to say something else, but someone approached, interrupting them. It was Athras, the man who had recently lost his bonded, Danyla, to the werewolf curse. He greeted Meila with an uncertain nod, his eyes lingering on Leliana. Meila felt her spine stiffen at that.
"Yes?" she said coolly.
"My apologies, Warden, but I must ask another favor of you."
She was not about to do anything for someone who looked at Leliana like that, and was just about to tell him so when the human gently drew her aside.
"Look at him," the bard said softly. "He looks tired, and distressed."
Meila gave Athras another look... there were dark lines under his eyes, and his hair certainly did have quite a bit more grey in it than last time she had been in this camp. With a sigh, she let go of her instinctive anger. Such anger was foolish, anyway. If she started snapping at Dalish, what did she have left? "What do you need, lethallin?"
He nodded gratefully, still eying Leliana. "It's my daughter. She took a number of our younger hunters and headed north, to chase the humans you cured of the curse."
That, Meila had not considered, but she could not say she was surprised. Before... everything... she might have done the same thing to a group of people who she felt had wronged her. "When was this?"
"Weeks ago. I take it you've seen nothing, then?"
"No signs of any Dalish passing through, no. I'll keep an eye out."
He nodded gravely. "I'd thank you. Her path is her own... but after what happened to her mother..."
"I understand. I would worry as well, if my kin wandered off like that." Effectively, she had done just that, chasing after Kazar when he went rogue. In hopes of easing Athras' concern, she added, "My own clan went north. Perhaps she will encounter them."
He sighed. "I can hope she is willing to accept their help."
"At least someone's being proactive," said the voice of Sarel, the clan storyteller. The loremaster stopped before them, a sack slung over one shoulder. "After what those shemlen did to our hunters, I had half a mind to join her." Sarel's gaze was narrow and suspicious, and fixed squarely on Leliana.
Meila went cold. "Watch who you speak such things in front of, storyteller."
"I have every right to speak my mind. This is our clan, and our home. Why would you bring a shem in here? You know what happened to us!"
"Leliana has been nothing but loyal to the Wardens."
"She's one of them."
Meila drew her knife and stepped forward, and he and Athras both stepped back in alarm. "You had best go pack," she said coldly. Both men scurried off, but not without one last narrow-eyed look on the part of the loremaster.
Once, Meila had been like that. She, too, had been so caught up in the rhetoric of the Dales, in blaming an entire race of people for the actions of a few long dead, that she had been instantly suspicious of every human she came across. Duncan, and Alistair, and Felicity, and Leliana. Leliana, who was proof that the sins of the past need not blacken the present. When she had first met Leliana, she had seen only an ignorant shemlen, just as these elves did now.
It was an uncomfortable mirror, but it was one she could not deny.
Leliana laid a soft hand to her shoulder and gently turned her around. Gravely, the human regarded her. "It's all right."
"It is not."
"You cannot wipe out centuries of distrust in a few words, no?"
The Dalish shook her head helplessly. It wasn't fair to the human. Their entire communal history wasn't fair.
"Meila." Leliana's gentle smile settled her discomfort somewhat. "It is enough that you trust me. I do not need the other Dalish to as well. To be honest, I doubt you would get a much better reception if I were to bring you to Val Royeaux."
Meila stepped back, out of the bard's reach. "And that does not bother you? That we're both entirely unwelcome in the other's society?"
Leliana hesitated, enough for Meila to notice, and that fact alone was how the elf knew she had hit upon something important.
Meila paced, not liking where this line of logic was leading. "This is no mere matter of ignoring naysayers. If neither of us would be accepted in the other's world, how can we hope to have any sort of future together?"
"We can figure it out," the human said uncertainly.
"I cannot bow to your Maker, vhenan, nor could I abide city walls for long. And you could never live out here, where there are no soft blankets, and warm baths, and pretty, purely decorative shoes. It would be cruel of me to ask such a thing of you. And I would certainly never want to risk you in Warden matters."
Her eyes crinkled up, and Meila felt horrible for bringing this up. She turned and paced away, suddenly searingly angry with herself for upsetting the bard.
Then, those soft hands turned her around again, and Leliana took Meila's hands in her own. The human's face broke into a small, sad smile. "We need not think of such things now. Let us just enjoy what we have in the moment, no?"
Slowly, Meila nodded, swallowing back all those doubts and anxieties. She was Dalish, and so she had been taught all her life to look to the future. But in that, too, Leliana was vastly different from herself. And that, too, was a thing that Meila could learn from her, and keep close to her heart like all the rest of it, guarded safe in that warm, musical place the human had taken up inside her core.
Meila leaned in and rested her head on the bard's shoulder, listening to her heartbeat.
If the moment was what she would have, then that was what she would take.