#harpalyce

The first time they come for her, she is eight years old. The grey-iron giants waste no time with niceties- the door is bodily removed from its hinges, and she is dragged screaming into the dust, crying and screaming and falling and screaming and burning-

The summer had been long, and dry. She runs like all the demons of the Fade are at her heels. Behind her, the alienage burns.

–

She is fourteen, whip-slender and wild, when they find her again. Her fault- she had learned to hide, after a fashion, but three swaggering thugs in plate pass her in the street, and instantly she is aware of their eyes on her.

She leads them into an alley. They were ready for fire. They were not expecting the long knives.

Three bodies later, and she learns no mask will ever be good enough.

So she learns not to hide.

–

She is grown, and they have come for her more times than she can count. She has long since learned not to fear the sign of the sword- they never learn, and never change.

–

The first time she meets him, she doesn't even recognise him for what he is. She has taken to banditry- the Chantry dogs have not had her scent for months, and one has to earn a wage somehow- and she spies a lone horseman riding gently down the road. Dressed in brown leathers, a sword at his hip. Her concerns lie more with the contents of his purse than the strength of his arm.

Grinning, wide and theatrical, she steps out onto the road. Her own foolish ego blinds her to the way he pulls to a halt, his face a picture of calm curiosity.

She declares something- she can't remember the specifics, something about money and a threat on his person, the usual sort of thing. He shrugs, which she remembers simply because it seemed odd, and easily tosses her his purse. He appears to be treating the whole thing like some sort of novel sideshow, and that's almost infuriating enough to tempt her to slit his throat then and there, but his purse is fat enough to put her in a better mood, and she simply turns and leaves him on the road, feeling quite satisfied.

–

She is less pleased when she wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone opening the door to her hideout. She flits down the rickety stairs as silent as death and her knives are up but the moonlight cuts across his face and it's him and he just looks up at her and smiles.

“Good morning,” he nods, the very picture of politeness except he has broken into her house. “Just retrieving something of mine.”

Oh, he doesn't even deserve the knives. He is going to burn for this.

She gathers herself for half a second, breathing in as she feels the fire welling up within her-

a sudden jerk of his hand and her power fades away and the bottom drops out of her stomach and it's so cold-

Templar.

In a panic she throws herself at him, fists swinging wildly and more through fortune than skill she catches him on the side of the head as she tackles him to the floor, springing up and running for the door.

He got his purse back, but she takes a certain satisfaction in stealing his horse.

–

It doesn't take long for her to learn his face, to watch for it- neatly-trimmed beard framing a face she can't read at all. He carries a veneer of age about him, etched around his eyes.

It surprises her, later, to learn that he is barely older than her.

–

After the fifth time he finds her, she learns not to be surprised.

“We really must stop meeting like this,” he grins, around a mouthful of blood. “People are beginning to talk.”

Her knife is at his throat but his hovers lightly at her gut. All he has to do is fall, and she is skewered.

Her hand is shaking, through rage or fear or adrenaline she can't really tell. The blade wobbles, scraping lightly up and down across his skin, and even now he doesn't look afraid or angry or anything other than faintly amused.

“If you're trying to tell me I should shave-”

More than anything else, she is suddenly consumed by the pressing need to punch him in the face again.

–

She is beginning to notice a pattern.

She attacks a caravan, and he is there to stop her. She holds a noble's son to ransom, he is there to wrest the brat from her. She takes a job from the Chanter's board (pride is well and good, but hard to eat) and he is suspiciously absent.

The thought crosses her mind that he is trying to teach her something, and the idea enrages her beyond reason.

–

It is not until he is gone for a whole month that she begins to worry. Out of what she tells herself is academic curiosity, she holds up a caravan, expecting every shadow to hold the man with an easy smile and eyes like slate.

He never appears. Disgusted, she lets them go, finding her taste for it gone.

It is only later that she hears about Kirkwall.

–

It's finally her turn to hunt him. He doesn't make it easy.

He's sitting at a small table, warming his hands by the fire, when she finally runs him to ground. She sits across from him, and is only slightly surprised when he smiles at her.

It's a smaller smile than she remembers.

“Well. Here to finally kill me?” he asks, slipping into his glib banter, but she can hear him straining for it now.

She doesn't have an answer, so she doesn't give one.

“I suppose, of all the people in thedas, you've probably earned it the most.”

“I'm not here to kill you,” she hears herself saying. Up until that moment she hadn't been sure.

That gets his attention, fully. For the first time perhaps ever, he turns to look at her in honest surprise. She's surprised she doesn't buckle under the weight of his stare. “Oh? Then what are you here for?”

She laughs, a little at him, but more at herself. “Well, O proud Templar-”

He raises a finger, cutting her off. “Not any more. Just a man.”

“-I want you to answer a question.” He doesn't interrupt her, for once, and she flounders for a second. “Why did you never try to kill me?”

He doesn't even try to deny it. For a moment, he stares at the inside of his own head. “If you've come all the way just to ask me that, then I'm sorry. I- I don't know.”

After a moment, she sighs, and wonders what answer could have satisfied her. “So.” She folds her arms. “What happens now?”

He looks up, and there, there's the spark in his eye, the tug of his mouth that she hadn't even realised she had missed.