The following week - she thought it a Monday but in hindsight, did it matter? - as Teneira was minding her stall, a new sergeant came to see her. She had never seen him before and did not know who he was. This was an odd and alarming feeling for her. Being neither strong nor particularly swift, she based her power on knowledge alone. And so, when a very young guard, even younger than Eddin Rasphander, came to her stall, it made her very nervous indeed. Of course, showing this would be a mistake of the highest order. She sized him up while trying to keep her eyes on the ground. Humans didn't like eye contact from elves, thought it a sign of disrespect, so she had made a habit of averting her eyes whenever one was around.

"Can I interest you in a poultice, sir?" she asked, talking to the counter in front of her. Right now, she was just Ten the Alchemist, who signed her bottles with the numeral "10" and always had what you were looking for, no matter how unsavory its purpose, "Life of a guard must be dangerous, I'm sure you could use one."

"I'll have none of your poultices, love," he said, "I'd take a kiss from that sweet mouth, though." She looked him in the face when he said this. He grinned boldly, his teeth very white against his tanned skin. Had he been just a bit uglier, he probably would have gotten a fist across the face every time he tried that line on a human woman. Elfin women, of course, knew better than to strike a human in public, though Ten imagined a dozen ways that she could make life very, very hard for him if she so chose.

She looked up, meeting his gaze. He had high cheekbones, a narrow chin and a high-bridged, straight, nose. None of these were completely out of place, and his eyes were light, a pale marble green. Again, not unheard-of in a human face, but they would have made much more sense had he been… She squinted into his face, conscious of something a little odd about him, not off exactly, but he certainly wasn't like the others… could it be…?

He smirked at her, mistaking her fascination with his face for something else entirely. "I'm Sergeant Anton Villais. The lieutenant sends his regards," he said, winking, "Peace in the alienage is, after all, of such importance to Denerim." He pronounced his name, which was certainly foreign, in the Fereldan way. Anton Villaiss.

"Have you been passing long?" she asked. This was, of course, entirely a guess, one which he could certainly clap her in irons for, but she sensed that he would not, even if it were not true.

"Passing!" Villais scoffed, the smile dropping from his face. He didn't deny it, though.

She tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, probing more, "The shemlen might not see it, but you're not going to fool anybody here."

"Now," he said, the grin returning to his face, "Where would you get such a ridiculous idea as that?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicious of where his sympathies lay. Halfbreeds born of elfin women were welcomed, if begrudgingly, into the fold of the alienage. But when a halfbreed was born of a human woman - on the rare occasion it didn't find its way to the bottom of a well before it was an hour old - too often she was hasty to blame the parentage of the child on rape, resulting in the hasty execution of whatever elfin manservant had had access to her bedchamber, without regard for whether the encounter had been nonconsensual or if the man with his head on the block was actually the culprit. Those children were sent off to the Chantry, where they were never told of their parentage and left always feeling a bit confused, and then, when they grew up and the good sisters could figure out which side they more resembled, they were slotted into that part of society.

"Perhaps you'd best come inside for some tea, Master Villais," Teneira said, "I'll call Shianni to tend the shop."

"Inviting me to your chamber so soon, Miss Tabris!" he exclaimed, putting a hand to his cheek in mock amazement, "I'm simply not that kind of lad!"

"Call me Ten," she said, "I think we ought to get acquainted somewhere where the whole city won't hear your screams."

Interpreting this statement in the only way his ego would allow, Villais grinned from ear to ear and followed her into her living room. He had evidently heard a few too many of the rumors of the sexual appetites of the alienage women, no doubt spread after a few too many drinks in the guards' barracks.

Inside, she boiled a pot of water over the fire and set a handful of herbs to steep in the clay teapot while Villais unbuckled his sword belt, laid it on the ground, and sat at the rickety kitchen table. The tea wouldn't do anything to her except taste slightly sweet and mellow, but once he drank it he would be rendered impotent for a day or more, until it ran through his system. You never could be too careful when dealing with humans alone behind closed doors, after all. Teneira, plying her trade and living all within the walls of the alienage, had fortunately never been in a position to have to fend off an attack of that nature. She did, however, do a brisk business with the maids whose masters had access to them, selling them powdered and liquid concentrates of the herbs she was using now. Slip it into his breakfast in the morning, he would leave you alone until nightfall. That was her guarantee, and it was effective enough to keep them coming back. She poured the concoction into two mugs, handed one to Villais, and sat across the kitchen table from him. The look on his face had changed, and she realized that as much as she had been making a show of being a meek little herbalist, he had been making one of a demons-may-care rake. The easy smile was gone, and a line cut between his eyebrows.

"So you've clocked me," he said, his voice quieter and lower, confirming her suspicions, "And it took all of a minute. Kennit wasn't lying about you, you're quite perceptive."

"Has Kennit figured it out?" asked Ten.

"Of course not, man's half blind."

"And the others?"

"Which others?"

"Oh I don't know, the thousands upon thousands of humans that pollute this dump of a city?" she asked, waving her hand in the air.

"They don't look at you the way you look at them," he said, "No ears, no elf, as far as most of them are concerned."

"Of course they don't," sighed Ten, "We have to know everything about them just to live another day, and they don't even see us. But more importantly, tell me, Anton Villais," she pronounced it with the Orlesian accent it certainly called for. Antonh Veelay, "What are you doing here and why didn't I know about it?"

"Well I'm here because I'm a guardsman, and I'm the only one who would take the post. I'm in Denerim because my ridiculous Orlesian mother didn't figure out how to get when the getting's good, and has decided the best thing to do is settle down for a middle class life in this… two-horse shithole with her passel of bastards," Villais said, blowing on the tea and then putting it down, "She didn't sic a lynch mob on my father. I know that's what you were thinking."

"What happened, then?" she asked.

"When she told him she was with child, he took off into the wilds to find the Dalish, rather than stick by her side and see her through it," Villais said, "She didn't accuse him or anything, if that's the reason you'd give for him skipping town on her. And she raised me, her and my brothers and a stepfather or two over the years."

"I see," Teneira said, "But now that you're grown, rather than come here among your people, you chose to pass as one of them?"

"Well that's not entirely fair, is it," he said, "My mother is human, all my brothers are human, everyone I grew up with is human. My family are the only ones who know… anything. I didn't even know for years." He looked down at his tea.

"But now that you're a lawman, you chose this post," Ten scoffed, "For what, to connect with your roots? Learn about your people while clapping us in irons and threatening us with dogs and fire?"

He didn't respond right away, and instead picked up his mug of tea then, and drank it down. A show of faith. They then sat there a long moment in silence, each sizing the other up. After he was satisfied that nothing nefarious was in his drink, he continued, "I'm not a fool, I know the trade of the Arlessa of the Alienage. If you were truly afraid I would come out with the irons and the dogs, you would have poisoned me. But I don't think you are, and I don't think you have."

"So why did you tell me all that? If even a rumor about your parentage were to spread among the guard, you might lose everything."

"I might," he said, "But the worst that happens to me is that I skip town. But you? You're stuck here. There's going to be a sergeant posted to the alienage no matter what. And you might find yourself with someone worse even than Rasphander. You and I both know that the current arl does not look kindly on his elfin neighbors. What's bad for me, is worse for you."

"Perhaps," she said, "Perhaps not. You have not shown me what kind of man you are yet, after all."

"I may not know what it is to live as an elf in this city, but surely you can imagine how a family of Orlesian bastards were treated. Sure, we weren't walled in, but that just gave the neighborhood lads better access to us. I learned to fight early. And I would appreciate it if you and I can have a civil working relationship. I mean, I respect what it is you do. You don't trade in drugs or women, like some of the other neighborhood bosses, and you don't extort merchants or passers-through."

The other neighborhood bosses, of course, wielded perhaps more clout in polite society than Ten, but, as far as she knew, none were quite as well-connected to the lifeblood of the city. Of course, they all had them. The Market Quarter had Boss Guilder, the Docks had the Captain, the Antivan and Orlesian quarters had Don Cangrejo and Madame Hirondelle respectively. She didn't remember how the slums on the hill's boss styled him or herself, but nobody really cared, they were only good for riots and the occasional citywide prank. The last time, a couple of years before, it had been collecting frogs' eggs from all over the region and dumping them in the canal which ran the length of the north end of the city and behind the estates of most of the peers of the realm. It had resulted in several weeks of chaos as millions of the slimy bastards spawned and spread. Though, Ten had to admit, it was a summer blessedly free of mosquitoes.

She looked at Anton critically over her mug. His face was honest and open, or he was doing a good job of pretending to be those things. She hadn't had the time to research properly as she had with Rasphander, mostly because, unlike Rasphander, he didn't live in a house with servants who resided in the alienage, who would then tell her all of his business. She had, in fact, never heard of Villais before this very day. The list she had compiled given all the intelligence she had on the guard was that the next sergeant in line should have been one Enerys Welfeth, the mistress of one of the higher-ups in the command. She was actually looking forward to dealing with a woman for a change. But this Anton Villais, this halfbreed, he might be of some use to her yet. But only if he learned fear. None of the regular ploys had worked yet, it was time for the heavy artillery.

"My aim is the safety and dignity of the people within these walls," she said finally, "I'd suggest you take the same goal to heart. Do you know what happened to the last Sergeant?"

"Old Kitheril?" he asked, referring to the guard that Rasphander had been brought in to replace, "Kitheril died in his bed of apoplexy."

"Yes, he did," she said, "And I'd take care, lest you meet the same fate."

Anton looked at her sideways, and then down at the mug that he'd emptied.

"Did you kill him?" he asked her flat out.

"You said it yourself," she said, shrugging, "The old man died of apoplexy. Such things happen, after all, to old men. Men who have outlived their usefulness, so to speak."

Villais blanched visibly.

"Well it seems," she said, "That the way to avoid such a fate would be to keep oneself useful."

"And what can I do to be of use to you?" he asked.

"I need an eye kept on Rasphander," she said, "There's nothing more dangerous than a humiliated man. I have eyes on his household, but I doubt if he were planning some sort of retribution for his post, he would plan it there."

"And what will you do with any information I do give you?" he asked, uncomfortable with the prospect of spying on one of his brothers.

"That's of no concern to you, love," she said, "It's not him I'd be worried about right now. After all, it's not him in my kitchen."

She went into the cupboard. There, the Reverend Mother sat coiled in her cage. Ten reached in carefully and caught her around her neck. The Mother hissed her displeasure.

"Sorry, darlin'," she said, grasping the black snake, "I need something from you and you'll have a fat and tasty rat for your troubles."

Holding the snake by the back of the head and supporting the rest of her body in her arms, she returned to the kitchen.

"What in Andraste's name is that?" Villais demanded, leaping up from the table, shoving his chair to the floor with a clatter, "Are you going to poison me?"

"Maker, no," she replied, "You've not outlived your usefulness yet, have you. This is part of my business, I thought you'd be interested in watching. Big man like yourself, wouldn't be afraid of a little creature like her."

"That's a black cattle adder," he said, identifying the species correctly, which was rather impressive, "A bite from that will bring down a grown bull. Forgive me if I'm not too thrilled to see you cradling one like a baby."

Ten took a vial over which she'd stretched a thin bit of leather. Easing up on the Reverend Mother's neck, she let the snake strike out and bite it. She grabbed the snake's head again, not too hard, just enough pressure to hold it there while the venom, clear and viscous, oozed into the vial. "The venom of a cattle adder is potent, you are right, but used correctly it can cure paralysis."

"Is that what you use it for?" he asked, still eying her nervously.

"Not me personally," she said, "I can stitch you up where you're broken or put an antiseptic on a wound. I'm not a physician. But, my true talents do not lie there." She stroked the snake's head with her finger, coaxing more venom out of her, "A drop diluted in water will add sting to an arrow, coat your blade with it, it will make your enemy's muscles seize and spasm even with the smallest nick. I'm one of two or three people in Denerim with the stones to pick up a full grown cattle adder by the neck, let alone keep one in my cupboard."

The flow of venom slowed as the Reverend Mother emptied her sac.

"Thanks, dearheart," she said to the snake, disengaged her fangs from the leather, and put her gently back in her cage. She then went to the rat trap in the corner, where a freshly dead one was lying with its neck broken. She picked it up by the tail and put it in the snake's cage. She didn't watch her eat, something about the way a snake could unhinge her jaw to swallow a rat twice the size of her head didn't sit quite right with her.

"And you have gotten five or six doses of that in that vial alone," Villais observed.

"Oh, I assure you, my sales are strictly on the up and up. I know a bandit when I see one and I'm quite happy to refuse their coin," she said, "I just wanted to show you how it's done."

"For the purpose of?"

"Scaring the everliving shit of you," she replied, smiling coolly, "And showing you what will happen if you try to cross me. I don't know your dad, never did, and I don't know who his people are. As far as I'm concerned, you're just another shem who thinks he can waltz into the alienage and do whatever the fuck he wants."

"Maker's breath, is this about the whole asking for a kiss thing? Most women think it's charming," he said, "I didn't mean anything by it. Look, I'll let you punch me, right in the face, if it'll mean peace in the alienage on my watch!"

She smiled then. The poor boy was quite frightened of her, just the way she preferred it.

"Then I see we have come to an understanding, Anton Villais," she said. He put out his hand, which she shook once, twice, and then pulled him to her and gave him the kiss he had requested. When she looked back on this moment, this decision, it was, in her mind, one of the most daring and romantic moments of her life. When Ten the Alchemist, the Arlessa of the Alienage, had seduced the very man charged with keeping her people caged, and used it to her advantage. At the time, though, it was just a kiss with a young man who tasted not unpleasantly of woodsmoke and who had inherited a smooth, hairless face from his elfin father, and so the kiss didn't feel alien as it had the two times she had allowed a human man to kiss her, all stubble and such. All in all, she assessed, quite a pleasant experience.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"My father is in the process of arranging a marriage for me," she said, smirking, "And so I'm going around kissing all the pretty lads I meet. I need to get it out of my system so I can be a faithful wife."

"I'm not sure if I feel sorry for the man that will be sharing your bed, or if I'm ragingly jealous of him," Villais said, looking troubled, "Well, I suppose I ought to be off. If I stay any longer in your house, I'm sure the townsfolk will talk."

"Farewell, Sergeant Villais," she said, grinning, "I'm sure we'll see each other with some frequency."

"Yes," he said, "I suppose we shall."

He returned to his beat, and she to her stall, and she spoke of it with nobody, not Shianni, not Soris. The whole affair was rather embarrassing, she thought, but for a long while after that, when she daydreamed, it was Anton Villais that she daydreamed about. Even after the whole debacle that would ensue, that kiss with a stranger in her kitchen would bring her comfort and a little thrill in her heart. That much, she was grateful for on the long, lonely nights that were to come.