Biotics & Headshots

"I've never seen anything crawling around in the Deep Roads that looks even a little bit edible," says another Warden. Ronald? Randall? One of the clean-shaven ones. She has got to get their names down. From where she's standing the humans may as well all be "the very tall guy" and "that other also very tall guy," which isn't even a little bit helpful for keeping them straight.

"Doesn't matter how edible it looks, you're hungry enough," she says. "Vermin, you know? Rats, nugs, deepstalkers..."

"Bet those taste foul."

"I'll eat a deepstalker. I'm not a coward," says another Warden (the extra big one nearly swallowed up by his own bushy beard), like it's a competition. For all she knows, maybe it is.

"You'll eat anything, Gregor." A few wardens chuckle at that. A shared joke she's not privy to.

"When the nobles go out on their expeditions, you know, they'll only be graced by the presence of the great warrior caste. But when it's just the warriors—not the miners, they don't want you to know where the good stuff is hiding—sometimes they'll hire on dusters as extra bodies. The pay's not awful, if you don't mind the maybe not coming home part." Micah kicks at a rock, and it skitters between their feet and out ahead of them. It aches, she thinks. Her face, for sure, as well as every other part of her body—but mostly her heart. She puts that thought away again.

"I tried to hire on one, once. I can swing a pick and shift rocks around or whatever they want done, right? And I'm mean with a knife. But they were real weird about it. Like they thought I was gonna hike up my skirts—skirts which, I don't think I have to tell you, I wasn't wearing, by the way—and proposition them to put a baby in me while we were down there."

She lets out a short, sharp humorless laugh. "Can you imagine? 'Course, I was younger then but, believe me, just as ugly. But they got weird ideas about brands, you know. Some of 'em they look at you and all they see is a cunt."

No smart response to that, she notes. One of the Wardens—the young one, she thinks, bringing up the rear—clears his throat awkwardly, and she can hear him wince as the sound echoes around the tunnel.

"Even after your exceptional showing in the proving?" Duncan asks, and she looks up from her feet to find him watching her with that same steady gaze, unperturbed. "What do you think it was that they saw in you then?"

Micah coughs, reaches up to rub at her nose—still busted all to fuck and hurts like it too—better to rub at the back of her neck instead. "Dunno," she says, looking away. "Been busy with, you know. Haven't had time to think yet." She wonders if he saw the swell of pride she felt when their eyes had met. Exceptional, he'd said—damn right she was.

"You're, uh..." That's young Warden again. "You—yes, you're a very impressive fighter. We were all impressed... obviously. But also you're. Not ugly."

Surprised, she laughs again, a much nicer sounding sound than before. "You're real sweet, kid, but I know what I look like. Well, actually—" She feels the swollen lump of her nose again, more gingerly this time. "I haven't had a chance to check out the new damage yet, but I know I look like I've been kicked in the face repeatedly, 'cause that's exactly what happened."

Micah aims a grin over her shoulder at him, and hopes whatever that does to her busted up face looks more friendly than frightful. The kids—she can't help but think of them as kids, the young Warden and the other new recruit, the elven mage—have been trailing behind at the rear of the group since they left Orzammar. She hasn't seen enough humans and elves to feel confident guessing the age of any of the others but these two don't look like they could possibly be much older than the girls—and thinking about her nieces twists painfully in her chest in a way that makes it hard to breathe and almost impossible to keep walking forward. Away. So she's been taking one step at a time and trying not to think about. Well.

"Nothin' wrong with being ugly, anyway. Some people just are. And I'd hate to be pretty." She runs a hand through her short shorn hair, then down to feel the at this point probably week-old bristle growing on her jaw. Never was fond of dealing with a headful of hair. "Those girls got their own problems to worry about."

"How do you cook a deepstalker, anyway?" asks the Warden from earlier. "They've gotta be nothing but skin and bones. And, you know, the teeth."

"Still hung up on that, Rondall?" chides another.

"I'm just curious."

"Dunno," Micah says. "Rica—my niece—won't let me do the cooking anymore." One foot in front of the other. "So consider that your warning, if you're expecting to get a hot meal outta me."

"We'll find out if you're as bad as Alistair when it's your turn in the rotation, then." ("Hey!" the young one—must be Alistair—interjects at that.)

"Hey, new kid, can you cook?" asks the big bushy one. Greg? Greg something.

Micah glances back at the new kid, his bright eyes wide with alarm at having been abruptly singled out. They glitter like gems in the dark. "Uh," he says. "I've never tried?"

"Oh boy," says one.

"We're really in for it," says another.

"Do you think they just magic it up out of thin air or what?" muses a third.

"Would you all remember that we presently have a job to do?" Duncan reproves, but he sounds amused.

"What job? Tarimel's on point. Hey, Tarimel, any darkspawn up there?"

"No darkspawn," the elven Warden confirms. Not the recruit, mage kid, but the scout with the bow. Easier to keep track of when there's only two of them. Neither all that chatty, either. Unlike the humans.

"See? No darkspawn yet. Job covered."

"That's strange though, yeah? Should have met resistance by now."

"What, this close to Orzammar?"

"Exactly this close to Orzammar. They're always trying to raid it. Isn't that right, Duncan?"

Micah lets the Wardens talk—Duncan saying something about the Legion of the Dead, now—and lags behind to walk with the youngsters.

"—any darkspawn, just stick close with me," the kid (Alasdair?) is saying quietly to the young mage, who nods glumly. He winces in pain with every step, Micah can see now that she's looking, leaning on that staff of his for support.

The young Warden (oh, that's right, it's Alistair) perks up when he notices her approach. "Sorry I called you pretty back there," he says with a cheeky grin, clearly having found his footing. "Won't happen again." Oh, she does like him.

"You know, I don't think that you did call me pretty."

"Oh, I guess I didn't. Well you look like you got trampled by a rabid bronto, so there's that."

"Stone," she groans, "feels like it too."

"I could do something for that," the mage says, "uh, when we rest."

You should look to yourself first, she wants to say. Instead she says, "Uh, thanks, maybe. Like... magic stuff, right?" She's not sure about the magic stuff.

"I was training as a healer, in the Circle," the kid says. "Before..." He trails off.

Yeah. Before.

"Those... aren't new boots you've got there?" she asks, to change the subject. They're thoroughly worn, but he's grimacing with every step.

"Well, they're Tarimel's boots, is the problem," Alistair tells her.

"Got it," she says. "Do mages uh." She's vastly out of her depth here. "Do they... not wear shoes?" She heard something like that once, she thinks. Or was it... elves? Probably not.

"We're not allowed to go anywhere," the kid says, which isn't exactly an answer.

"And now you're in the Deep Roads," Alistair chips in, sardonically. "Yay."

"Yay," the mage sighs, with even less feeling. "I liked Orzammar better."

"Yeah, kid, me too," Micah says quietly.

"Sorry."

She sighs. "Don't be. Not your fault."

"Micaaaaah," Alistair drawls. "Do you keep calling us kid because you don't remember our names?"

Stone, Micah thinks. It was Alistair, right? "I remember one of your names," she says. Probably.

"Ooh, which one? Prove it. Say one of our names right now."

"My name's Rafael," says Rafael.

"Dammit, Raf," says Alistair.