In Lothering there were elves, and in Kirkwall there were elves, and in all of Thedas humans saw them as just another part of the scenery. Heard them without listening, so much background noise the nameless yes ser's no ser's whatever-you-say ser's.
Miriam Hawke could not claim to be so different.
Not at first, anyway. There was no malice involved. No hate. She knew enough to be skeptical of the belief that all elves were filthy and ignorant and needlessly violent. People were people. It just happened that most people she knew with pointy ears kept their heads down and avoided attracting attention when possible. Before the city, Hawke could count the number of Dalish words she'd heard on one hand.
It wasn't something she'd afforded much thought. Life was busy, she had an apostate sister to worry about and a mother to reassure. Making ends meet filled her day to day concerns.
Taking a hand was easier than extending one, anyway.
She supposed part of her had always considered elves more fragile than humans. In general they didn't get as tall, their were features sharper, their eyes wider-irises flashing against darkness like animals. Elves were fast because they had to be fast, cunning because to be direct meant death.
But then she met Fenris, and Hawke found she could afford far more thought than she'd allowed.
The night was clear and the air was hot and she was caked in somebody else's blood.
A few somebodies, to be more precise.
It was a state Hawke had grown comfortable with if she was honest with herself. Maybe there was something wrong with that. She'd spent enough time piling up corpses as a mercenary to know it was your life or theirs at the end of the day. Not about who deserved death so much as who was stubborn enough to survive. Still, she imagined there was a refreshing kind of simplicity in killing slavers. No matter how ordinary they appeared.
The worst evils tended to be mundane, in her experience. People made such ugly exceptions when it came to hurting each other. It was cruelty born of indifference. Tevinters would not weep for slaves any more than she would over breaking a chair. It shouldn't have been made weak.
She did her best to remember these things when she felt herself becoming inhuman. Her nightmares came less from the destruction in her wake than being its cause, and that frightened her.
And yet when the captain fell, it was not by her hand.
Hawke had been blessed with impressive height for a woman. As a reaver it made for daunting impressions as blood spilled from her eyes and dribbled down her chin. She wasn't much one for elegance.
Fenris matched her. If he'd been human he still wouldn't have been small. Tension lined the muscles of his shoulders, his arms, his spine. While the elf's hand plunged through flesh and bone the rest of him stood ready to change at an moment's notice. Not fluid, but sharp-deliberate as electricity.
He looked like a wraith, illuminated by lyrium guided like tattoos down his throat along his limbs, his stomach, all the rest. Blue-white against skin like driftwood, hair a premature shock of gray. Full lips, angular jaw, thick eyebrows.
Green eyes, but for all his anger he couldn't meet her gaze for long. He was forever searching the alleys and rooftops or studying the ground beneath him.
Fenris commanded attention, but didn't seem to know how to use it.
More than anything (and despite his efforts) he struck Hawke as one of the more honest people she'd met. His body was an open book and the story was intriguing.
That alone was worth her time.