#khalno

Our muses are teaching their first child how to walk.

Most couples probably would have chattered animatedly, glowing with vocal praise or comfort for their child depending on how long it lasted before falling. 

Keita and Sten didn’t waste words, but their pride was evident as their little boy managed his first few steps. He fell, and both parents worked to not immediately help him back up. They were there for him, of course, but it was a lesson every child had to learn. Strength had to be taught— both of his parents had a strong appreciation for it and wanted, needed to pass the lesson along. 

So when the little boy, with his soft brown hair, reached his papa, both parents were all smiles and quiet praise. It was not so classically idyllic, perhaps, but it was their home, their family. Something that was theirs, something that none of them had really expected to have. And it was loved for that. 

My muse has amnesia about only your muse’s existence — yours must find a way to remind them.

"You… do not remember me? At all?" Keita raised an eyebrow incredulously, unnerved despite herself. 

The Qunari shifted, clearly uncomfortable and slightly annoyed. “No.”

"Huh." Keita tilted her head at him, trying to think how to jog the big man’s memory. "Come with me." She grabbed his hand and dragged him back to her apartment, suddenly far more grateful that he’d given her the recipe for those apple tarts. 

 "You are a politician in a city where politicians would have me publicly executed for daring to set foot outside the filthy, over-crowded compound they have confined my kind to." 

Sten's tone was stern, an edge to it Elissa hadn't heard before, but she wouldn't back down. "I am a politician in-as-much as you are a horned demon who plans to rape and skin me in my bed." She watched as he continued to pace the length of the small holding cell, a muscle in his jaw flicking with a frantic energy he could not seem to contain. "I am the same woman you met that night in the alley, the same that you have shared drinks and conversation with beyond then; I simply have a title now and--"

"You always had the title. You are not the same." There was no venom in his tone, but the qunari's eyes flashed, silencing her for a moment and forcing her to reconsider her words. "The Qun teaches there is only one path. You attempted to diverge but that divergence was a lie. You fool no one."

Elissa nodded, calmly folding her hands atop the ledge in front of the glass panel that separated her from the interior of his cell. "Perhaps you are right. I tried to run from this path, but clearly I am meant to be on it. However, what I am does not change who I am. I am an ally to you, Sten. I am your friend."

"Friend." He snorted at the term. "Your kind uses that term frivolously. It is meaningless."

"Why are you so void bent on believing I don't care what happens to you?" Elissa couldn't keep the emotion from lacing into her words. The time she'd been given was winding down and she doubted even she could have it extended. "There are strings I can pull. Let me pull them. I can do it without asking you but I know you wouldn't approve so I am begging you, please let me help."

He stopped, glancing sideways at her through the bars. 

"If you have faith in nothing else, have faith in me. You know me. You do." She placed her hand, palm flat against the glass. His eyes flicked down briefly to where her elegant script relayed a pointed message in a language few outside of his culture would understand, but his expression did not otherwise change.

12 - Fighting with someone she hates (or in this case, really just finds very annoying  >.>)

“Has anyone ever told you that you are really creepy when you get pissed off?” Morrigan’s insufferably annoying de facto ally mumbled from beside her as he brained one of their assailants against a wall. 

“Has anyone told you that you talk far too much?” the witch grated out without turning to look at Alistair, instead heaving an exasperated sigh as she loosed a rather violent sleep spell on another small knot of Carta thugs.  Dwarves were harder to take down that way, but if one did not care how much one scrambled their minds in the process… it was no great difficulty. 

“Usually only when I’m drinking, and then I get to pretend I don’t remember,” came the affably sarcastic rejoinder as another thug hit the pavement nearby.  “You tell me every time you see me, though, I think.  You really should stop repeating yourself.” 

Morrigan merely snarled, and vented her irritation on the human lackey who had just tried to sneak up and flank her.  

16 - Combat soundtrack

What weapon does your muse prefer?

Keita’s nose wrinkled at the weapons master- or whatever title the shemlens referred to him as- and crossed her arms petulantly. Duncan had forced her to see him, as all incoming fighters needed to. To his credit, her irritation did not seem to register. 

"Dalish, huh? Didn’t think to see one of you here."

She sneered, “I would not be, if I had any other options to me.” 

He laughed, taking it as a joke or sarcasm, like as not. “No one would be. What do you use, little elf? A bow? A gun?” 

"I use the bow. I know how to use a gun, at least a little. It is too loud for my taste. As are crossbows." Keita’s face twisted into a more comical look of disgust. "I like daggers. If I kill something, I should be part of its death. A bow is… necessary, but is less preferable. Daggers are my indulgence." 

A drabble about a beloved one lost in a fight.

Ashalle twisted her hands and Keita put her head on her knees, curled into a little ball. Any other night, this would be a common thing, Tamlen or Merrill or both there with her. The three excited for whatever story Ashalle might tell them. She wasn’t the storyteller Paivel was, but she knew her audience and was more willing to embellish for dramatic effect for the children. 

But tonight was different. Tonight, tension was evident in Keita’s form as she sat, more protecting herself and yet still attentive to the Ashalle. Her caretaker, her mamae in spirit if not in blood, tried to smile for her young hunter. 

"You were barely there. Only a spirit within your mother, still growing in her belly. But where your father went, she did as well. And the Keeper went to help those within the shemlen city, taking hunters with him. Sometimes Paivel or a Ilen went with him, but not that time. Lucky for the clan consid- but that is later in the story. He wanted to help them, to educate them. To tell them of what could be, if they left the city. Sometimes it worked just a little, but sometimes… sometimes someone new would come back with him. But that time was different."

"I don’t know exactly what happened- I wasn’t there. But something happened. Maybe it was a shemlen. Maybe it was a flat ear. Maybe your father cast a spell and it went wrong- no one is entirely certain. Your mamae might have known, but she refused to speak of it. Whatever it was, it prompted the shemlen guards to show themselves. They burst into the area, with their guns and their anger, their numbers. Your mamae fired bullet after bullet to protect our people, your father called nature itself to defend them in a storm of roots and the earth itself shaking beneath him. But it was a knife thrust into your father’s back, our Keeper’s back, that ended him."

A song I associate with my muse while fighting.

9. Who taught me how to fight?

My father is the short answer, but I believe he taught most of us to fight just using different methods.  For instance, Malcolm used his magic to animate daggers, wooden harmless ones to combat against me whilst he would throw the occasional spell my way to act as if I were fighting against multiple targets with use of magic and/or ranged capabilities.  It was always tiring for me at least, but very fun when he recanted the fight and told me all my weaknesses and how to cover them.

Of all the spars that we had, my favorite, however, was when he pitted me against my brother.  Except, what he didn’t say was that in the end we would both be fighting him instead of each other.  So, a few moments into the fight while we were sizing each other up trying to figure out the best method to catch the other off guard, animated weapons came up and started bombarding us both along with harmless projectiles and spells.

The lesson was to always be on your guard.  Though you may be fighting an enemy now, there may be a greater enemy that you are willing to join forces against.  And, no matter how many fights there are, there is always the potential for more enemies to join the battle.  I will always remember those sessions, and those times.

13. I am on the battlefield and have to make a terrible decision.

This happened to my family, and I am still uncertain that I made the right decision.  When the blight came to Lothering, we initially attempted to stave off the darkspawn.  It worked for a long while until Ostagar had fallen completely, and then, the town was getting overrun, or at least that was the rumor.  Malcolm told us one day on the field of battle that we were to leave. 

“Go.  The tide of darkspawn is turning against us.  You must take the family and leave Lothering.  I will stay to buy you all the time that I can.”

There were many words exchanged that day.  Many denials to leave and requests to stay, but none of them were met with favorable answers.  Finally, with Leandra begging all of us to come away to a safer place, Garret and I finally caved.  It was not easy getting out of Lothering.  We were still attacked several times, and if all of us had not pitched in, Bethany and Carver included, things may not have turned out in our favor.

In the end, we waited for as long as we could on Father.  But, we all knew the truth.  He had given his life for us so that we might live.  I still have doubts about leaving.  Would Malcolm and I have managed to get him out safely too?  What if we had never left at all?  Would Lothering still be standing?  Many questions that shouldn’t be thought on for that road is a downward spiral into insanity.

16. A song I associate with my muse while fighting

She stumbled and almost fell, the acrid smell of burning choking off her air. She'd waited too long.  Lothering was already overrun.  The chances of any of them making it out alive were beyond slim.  Coughing, one arm wrapped around her aching ribs, Leliana leaned against the rough hewn wood of the Chantry's outer wall and tried to catch her breath. In the  distance she could hear the beginning of the panic.  Wails and confusion giving way to screams and the sound of Darkspawn feet. 

It took all the will she possessed not to turn and run back into the village, surely she could do more good here with a blade or a bow than she could carrying some vague message halfway across the world? Why had Mother Ana sent her on this foolish task?  She had almost made up her mind to turn around, holy messages be damned, when a sudden vision of Mother Ana's face flooded her memory.

"I am sending you away from here.  There is a task can entrust to no one but you."

"No." Leliana shook her head, trying to grasp what the Reverend Mother was telling her to do. "I can't just leave.  What if the Darkspawn chose to march on Lothering?  With Ostagar gone there is nothing to keep them from wiping out the village and everyone in it."  She reached out and grasped the older woman's hands. "You're going to need me here.  I can help with the wounded, I have...training..." The words came haltingly, dredged up from somewhere she would rather not remember.  With a gentle tug Mother Ana pulled her hands free of Leliana's grasp and crossed the small office to her desk.

"I know you do child." Pulling out a small key and moving to a locked cabinet behind the desk the Mother unlocked the door and pulled out a deadly compound bow, a sheath of arrows and two slender curved blades.  Leliana took an involuntary step back, her hands rising in a gesture of defense.

"No." She pleaded, hot tears squeezing themselves free despite her struggle to keep them at bay. "Please. Mother, when I gave those to you I wanted you to destroy them.  I cannot take them up again."  Ana's eyes were full of compassion, but there was a hard spark behind the tender smile she offered the trembling young woman before her. 

"I know what I must ask you, it is a burden I would not willing give you to bear.  But Leliana, you have been given great gifts.  To deny them is to deny part of yourself.  The Maker wouldn't not have it so.  He brought you here for a reason, I believe that this is it."  With surprising strength she held the bow out before her. "Take it child."

"I can't."

"You must."

With shaking hands Leliana reached forward, her fingers closing around the weapon with practiced surety.  It was like shaking hands with an old friend.  Without intending to she found herself running her fingers along the joints of the bow, checking the soundness of the string, the alignment of the arms.  By the time she looked up to meet the Mother's gaze her tears had dried and her hands were steady.

"What must I do?"

The Reverend Mother's eyes were bright as she rounded the desk and held out a slender palm sized computer drive encased in a protective sleeve.

"This is our entire history, the records and library of the Lothering Chantry since its formation.  It also holds a letter for the Divine herself.  Maker willing she will hear the plea it speaks of. You must deliver it into her hands.  Do you understand?"

"I promise Mother."

A quick movement at the door drew the two women's attention and they looked up as Ser Bryant entered.  His armor was streaked with soot and he had a gash above one eye. 

"They are here."  He said, and the look he and Ana exchanged was grim.  Leliana suddenly found herself fighting tears again.

"Come with me."  She pleaded, turning back to Ana in anguish. "Ser Bryant and I can keep you safe.  You can deliver your message to the Divine in person."

"My dear."  Her words were soft and full of sorrow. "You know I cannot.  I will not leave the people of this town alone in their hour of need." 

"You'll die." Leliana said, grief rising up to choke her. 

"If that is the Maker's will."  Ana embraced the young woman briefly then pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Go now child. Maker watch over you."  Then the Mother turned toward her senior Templar and smiled.

"Well Ser, let us see what the Maker has for us."  Bryant's answering smile was warm as he drew his sword.

"With pleasure Mother." Turning to meet Leliana's eyes he nodded respectfully, "Sister, head for the back gate, I think we can keep them occupied long enough for you to get clear of the town."  Without another word he ushered Ana out the door and Leliana was left alone. 

Is this how it always ends?  She wondered numbly.  At the end of it all are you going to end up alone?  Giving herself a shake she slipped the disk into a pouch at her belt and crossed to the desk and collected the rest of her old weapons. In moments she was making her way through the darkened halls of the basement floor of the Chantry and moving for the exit.

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