Prompt: Elves, from dao_challenge
Originally Written: 8/14/10
Notes: The second DA fanfic I ever wrote, the first being "he lets the past behind him lie."
in which I beat the game for the first time last night, and joined this comm about an hour ago; I've played through both the City Elf and Dalish openings, but that's as far as I've gone, so, uh, here you go:
Katrilin was sure she hated humans. She'd spent her life in the forest, hearing tales of the humans' cruelty over the crackling firelight with clear moonlight filtering through the trees overhead; and she loved this life, this freedom and fresh air, this sense of giving to her community as they gave back to her, each enriching the other as a dying halla enriched the soil so that its brethren might feed. To be torn from that endless cycle, brutally taken into another world by a taint from another's sin, cursed by another's god, was more than losing her bow or an arm; it was her skin, ripped off and bleeding, crying out when stabbed with the vallaslin needle, losing her purpose, her being. She did not believe that humans could understand what this meant; she looked at the structures of Ostagar and scoffed at their ruins, spending an hour contemplating the moss as it slowly crumbled the stone beneath it. She cared not for their king, and little for their battle; the human man with whom she fought was nothing more than a child, unmarked and untried, though fairly skilled with a blade. She did not share his grief after the battle, and only the thought that she would not survive the Wilds on her own kept her from leaving him at the witch's hut and seeking her clan. The death of the king and the teyrn's betrayal were human problems; she understood only that the darkspawn taint threatened her forests, and that she chose to fight.
Still, he was affable, her fellow Warden, and the curious Chantry girl was full of questions about the Dalish-not out of fear, or a desire to conquer; her desire for knowledge was genuine, and Katrilin hadn't believed it possible for a human to care so much about her people's lore. They were friendly, if a little cautious, and it startled her to realize that they were cautious because of her hostility, and not out of racial prejudice. The witch had a healthy respect for her people's survival skills; the enchanter watched her with stern eyes, but then she gazed upon the entire world as if she wanted to consume it and yet feared its chaos all at once. So she relented in her hatred, and tentatively treated her companions as if they were lethallin from her clan; they responded with smiles and laughter, and suddenly she thought perhaps she might find a new clan, a new family, forged not from blood but from loyalty, a willingness to die for each others' sakes and for the sake of the world-not just humans, but the elves and the dwarves too-as they wandered the world, sleeping under the open sky, breathing the fresh air, seeking freedom.