Vir Lath Sa'vunin: Chapters Sixty-Seven and Sixty-Eight

[lenna_nightrunner]

A Dalish-centric AU gen fic featuring two Mahariel Wardens, one bastard prince, and lingering ghosts.

Title: Vir Lath Sa'vunin (We Love One More Day)
Rating: T
Authors: twist_shimmy and lenna_nightrunner
Summary: When their parents died, Tesni Mahariel was left to raise her brother Caerwyn with the help of the rest of their clan. True to their penchant for getting into trouble, Caerwyn and Tamlen went hunting one day and ran afoul of amirror, of all things. The next thing Tesni knew, Caerwyn had been recruited by the Grey Wardens. As if she’d let some shemlen just take her brother away! Determined to keep Caerwyn safe, Tesni goes after them, and antics ensue. She’ll stop the Blight to protect her family, Caerwyn will help--grumbling all the while--and Alistair will do his best to bond with his tattooed and bristly new brethren. When all is said and done, the blurred lines between friendship and blood bonds will draw them down a path that will change all three of them forever.

In which the chapter art pretty much says it all.

Okay so we know we swore to update every Tuesday, and we, uh, didn't last week. But there were extenuating circumstances, we swear! When you have a buffer and you still don't have enough time to post? That's a Bad Week.

Special thanks to cave_fatuam for her incredible art. Neither of us can properly convey how much we love it and to what extreme extent we are certain that we can never repay her. Infinite <3s, Bef!

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Chapter Sixty-Seven: Now Cinderella, Don’t You Go to Sleep; It’s Such a Bitter Form of Refuge. Don’t You Know the Kingdom’s Under Siege and Everybody Needs You? (The Killers)

TESNI

I was so hungry that the smell of the rabbit cooking over the campfire was making me
salivate. The rest of the brace was hung in a nearby tree, safe from bears, waiting to be taken home to my brother and the rest of the clan.

You’ll fall into the fire if you get any closer, lethallan.

I rolled my eyes and tossed a stick at him. “You built a slow fire. I should have done it.”

He laughed and sat down beside me, poking at me with the stick I’d just thrown his way. Yours always burn too strong. It chars the outside of the rabbit and leaves the inside raw. Be patient.

“That was never my strong suit.”

Tamlen’s smile faded. It wasn’t mine, either. And it still isn’t. His fingers found their way into my hair, and my eyes closed heavily.

“Don’t.”

He pulled me into a kiss, and I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my arms around his shoulders and dragging him closer. For a few moments, the only sounds were our breathing and the crackling of the fire.

Come home, lethallan. You’re too tired. His voice was gentle, which made his suggestion seem even more chilling.

I dropped my arms from his shoulders. “That’s not the point. My brothers need me.”

His eyes went cold. Who, the shem you tattooed? That doesn’t make him Dalish, Tesni.

“No, it doesn’t.” I agreed. “We weren’t trying to make him Dalish. We were trying to show him he was important.”

He’s not.

“He is to me, and to Caerwyn.”

So you’ll leave me again for a human and your little brother who should have grown up by now?

“...He still needs me.”

You’ve made that clear. I died twice for him, after all.

“Don’t.” My voice cracked, and for one sickening moment I felt the breaking of his spine as my hands twisted his neck.

Tamlen’s eyes softened. Abelas. I just don’t understand, lethallan. You don’t want to do this. Why are you punishing yourself when you could be with me instead?

“You can’t honestly be asking me to--”

Ir abelas. He paused and stared back at the fire. I miss you. A lot. And it’s making me.... Tamlen sighed heavily and pushed a braid behind my ear. You don’t deserve this. You deserve peace and support.

“I--” A hand on my shoulder jolted me awake.

“Tesni.” Zevran was sitting beside me in the tent, jaw tight. “You have overslept, and your brothers are taking Leliana and me into the forest to seek the cursed wolf.”

“...Okay.” My eyes drifted closed again.

“I will tell them you are ill, and they will worry.”

I was going to reply, but the tent flap had already slid closed. I fell back asleep as quickly as I could, but Tamlen was gone, and I woke feeling more tired than I had when I’d gone to bed the night before.

“You are sleeping too much, tesora,” Zevran had said the night before. My muscles agreed, but there was something addictive about the dreams. Rediscovering mannerisms I had forgotten Tamlen had made the way my spine ached from not moving worth it. It made the way the hardness in Zevran’s eyes tightened something in the center of my chest worth it, too.

But it didn’t keep me from feeling guilty.

I gave up on sleeping once the sounds of the camp’s normal midday activities drifted in through the canvas and rose to find a way to make myself useful.

“Da’len,” came a low voice almost as soon as I’d exited the tent. “Why are you not with the others in the forest?”

I bowed my head in greeting to Zathrian, who was giving me a calculating stare. “I’m not feeling well, Keeper.”

“Are you feeling poorly enough to allow my hunters to continue to sicken and die while you convalesce?”

I forced my voice to remain even. “I’ll help them in camp today while my friends are out looking for your cursed wolf. I may not be a mage, but I know how to change dressings and feed the sick.” Then I walked off before he could reply, trusting that my “illness,” or my time around shems, or--no, I didn’t care if he thought I was rude or not.

The elves working in the sick tents were overjoyed to have a fresh set of hands, and I was put to work cleaning and bandaging wounds that weren’t healing. Something about the repetitiveness, and the focus required, and Mythal help me, even the gore was soothing, and soon I was humming like I used to when I was crafting with Master Ilen. Thankfully, this seemed to soothe rather than agitate the injured, and made the process easier.

I was out of practice singing; my throat grew sore sooner than I was happy with, but at least I was still hitting all the notes.

A young voice startled me out of my reverie while I was seeing to the arm of an unconscious huntress. “The last thing I remember is a werewolf knocking me down a ravine and howling in my ears. Waking up to a voice like yours is slightly more than unexpected.”

I looked up and met eyes so hazel that they were almost yellow. The elf we’d found in the woods was sitting on the next cot over, clutching at the bandages around his middle and appearing hearteningly alert. “My brother and I pulled you out of that ravine and brought you back to your camp.”

He groaned and slumped back over on the cot. “Then I owe you my life. I think I’ll lie here and wonder how I’m going to repay that debt when I can’t manage sitting for more than a few seconds together.”

I laughed, which startled me. “Don’t move. I’ll come look at your wounds in a moment, and then we’ll see about getting you some food so your body has the energy it needs to do what you want it to.”

He turned his head and grinned. “I’d like that. Lethallan.”

…Oh, Creators’ sakes. I finished with the huntress, washed my hands off, gathered fresh bandaging, and returned to his cot.

He was still grinning. “What’s your name?”

I helped pull him into a sitting position, sat down, and faced him with a small smile. “Tesni.”

“Tesni. My na--”

“Deygan.” I began unwinding the bandages around his waist and encountered smooth, though bruised skin. “The keeper told me when he healed your wounds.” I pressed my hand lightly to his chest, and he hissed. “Cracked your ribs when you fell, did you?”

“Feels like it.” He tried to smile and succeeded in looking faintly ill.

“Hold this.” I put his hand on one end of the fresh bandage and re-wrapped his ribs in cloth that wasn’t sweat-soaked, then tried to tie it off as carefully as possible.

Deygan sniffed the air. “I smell food. I don’t care what it is. It smells like the best thing that has ever been cooked in this camp.”

I chuckled and rose. “Let me bring you food. You lost a lot of blood and need to heal.”

“Bring two. Take your meal with me, lethallan.”

“...All right.” Better than sitting alone in my tent.

Deygan’s perfect meal turned out to be rabbit stew, so I brought us two bowls back. He had so many questions for me that it had cooled before I’d made it halfway through my bowl. Which clan was I from? When did I get here? What did Wardens do? What were darkspawn like? While he ate, I tried to answer as generally as possible.

Then he asked me what my favorite song was.

“Arladahlen.”

“I’m not familiar with that one. Sing it for me?”

He wouldn’t be. My father wrote it. “Ma nuvenin.”

Arladahlen was my favorite because it always used to make my brother smile when we were growing up. It was about a flat-ear who came to live with a Dalish clan and the rash of misadventures he got into while learning how to adjust to life in the forest. I was on the third verse and beginning to think this was a poor choice because Deygan was giggling and looked like he was in pain because of his ribs when the others returns from the woods, splattered in blood and gore. Caerwyn’s eyes brightened as he recognized the tune, but Zevran’s jaw clenched.

“You seem better, my Warden.”

I halted the song and stared down at my bowl of stew. “...Yes. Sleep and a meal has done wonders.”

“Good. Perhaps tomorrow you will be able to accompany us. Unless you have decided entertaining sick Dalish is more important than keeping your clan alive?”

I stared up at him in shock, and Alistair cleared his throat. “There were, uh. Some skeletons. Mean ones. With swords.”

But Zevran was already stalking off toward our tent, and he remained there for the rest of the day. When I joined him after dinner, his voice stopped me at the entrance to the tent.

“Sleep elsewhere tonight, my Warden. Perhaps one of your brothers will have better luck rousing you in the morning than I.”

I let the tent flap slide closed between us and walked toward Alistair’s without another word. “Can I come in?”

“What? Yes, it’s messy, hold on.” I heard sounds of clothing being frantically stuffed into his pack. “Okay.”

His tent smelled like him, which was oddly soothing, so I just slumped over and closed my eyes after letting myself in, intent on falling back asleep. Alistair settled in next to me and pulled his blanket over us both, but broke the silence with a question.

“So, I take it Zevran’s not okay.”

“...I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I do, and since you’re in my tent, you’re going to. Unless you’d rather sleep outside.”

I rolled over and glared at him. “Who taught you to stand up for yourself? I need to go have words with them.”

“You did. This moment should fill you with pride.” He grinned at me crookedly, becoming mostly teeth in the gloom. “But really. What’s wrong? You’ve been off for days. Did the two of you fight?”

I shook my head. “I’m dreaming about Tamlen again.”

Alistair inhaled sharply. “Maker’s breath. Is Zev... upset?” He sounded incredulous, which would normally have made me happy. His opinion of Zevran had improved a great deal since the beginning.

“I haven’t told him.”

“...Tesni, you need to.”

“Yes,” I hissed. “That will go over well. ‘I’m having nightmares. My dead lover hates that I’m with you.’ What are the chances of him taking that any other way than me being ashamed of him?”

There was a long pause before he spoke again. “You don’t actually think it’s Tamlen, do you?”

I didn’t say anything. Eventually, Alistair pulled me into a hug and ran a hand over my hair.

“Sister, Zev’s good for you. Don’t ruin that over someone who’s... gone.”

Gone. You killed me twice, remember? First by leaving me to go after your brother, and second with the knife I gave you.

I told Alistair that I’d talk to Zevran, but my mind was occupied with a single thought: when Tamlen was courting me, what had made me fall for him in the end was the fact that he never took ‘no’ for an answer. I’d respected him because he fought until he got the things he wanted, and fought to keep them.

Elves like that didn’t stay gone.

---

Chapter Sixty-Eight: I Will Not Apologize for Being Me. I Cannot Rationalize My True Feelings. Spare Me Your Useless Speeches. Save Me Another Day. (Dynamite Boy)

CAERWYN

“Alistair,” I snapped at my brother when half a dozen skeletons turned toward us thanks to him tripping on a tree root and nearly falling on his face. The sound of the metal plates of his armor scraping against each other was more irritating than ever in the quiet of the forest.

“Oops.” He gave me a sheepish grin, and I saw Leliana flash him a warning look before I turned away.

Alistair, Zevran, and I drew our blades and Leliana nocked an arrow while Chat’len charged ahead. Two minutes later we all stood in a clearing with bones scattered around us on the ground. I gave everyone another two minutes to catch their breaths and drink some water before we got moving again. The sooner we found the werewolves, the sooner we could leave. I never wanted to see that forest again.

I hated leading even when I felt well, and I always seemed to have to do it when I felt sick. My skin crawled with the feeling of Setheneran and my eyes itched from not sleeping enough. I felt slow to myself, but fighting next to Zevran made it clear to everyone else. No one said anything, though. They just pretended I knew where I was going and killed everything in our way while they followed.

“Um... I think we’ve been here before,” said Alistair.

The rest of us looked around the hill we were standing on.

“I agree,” said Zevran. “That boulder has a rather pleasing shape.”

Alistair followed his gaze and his cheeks pinked, but Leliana nodded her agreement.

“And the creek there, with the stump on its bank.”

“Great,” I muttered. Chat’len gave a bored yawn and I told everyone to sit down for a few minutes while I tried to figure out what to do next. We were getting nowhere and wasting time, energy, and arrows doing it.

Arrows...

“I have an idea.”

I stood back up and went over to Leliana. I picked up her bow from where she’d lain it on the ground and took an arrow from her quiver. The bow felt strange in my hand and the string was less taut than I was used to, so my arrow didn’t hit the center of the tree trunk I was aiming for perfectly, but it was good enough.

There. Now we’d know where we’d been.

When I saw that arrow again an hour later and realized the flaw in my brilliant idea I muttered a stream of Elvish, Orlesian, and common curse words under my breath before yanking the arrow out of the tree, breaking it in half, and throwing the pieces into the nearby stream. Knowing for sure we were going in circles didn’t stop us doing it.

Predictably, finding the camp again was no problem at all.



Don’t you miss this, da’fen’len?

The sky was clear and blue.

Don’t you miss this?

Blond hair. Vallaslin.

“You’re dead.”

Tamlen smiled at me. And here. Always here.

“I... I don’t want you here. You’re not supposed to be.”

Someone needs to be. He held his hand out to me. Let me help you, lethallin. It’s not too late to save yourself from their world.

“I don’t need help. I need my clan.”

Your clan, Tamlen said with a sneer. A group of shemlen, flat-ears, durgen’len, and Creators know what else is not your clan. Your clan--our clan--is waiting for you to come home. That’s where you belong.

“Go away.” I turned, but he was in front of me again.

You’re being ridiculous. Your precious ‘brother’ and ‘mate’ aren’t fit to touch you. They’re beneath you. You’ve only convinced yourself you care about them because you’ve had no one else.

"I do care about them," I said defiantly. "I love them. Emma dorf'lethallin arlath. Emma er'asha arlath. I won’t leave them."

They can’t return your love, brother. He sighed. Even if they deserved it. A shem can’t live long enough to feel love.

Something hard and hot formed in my chest.

“Then neither can I,” I growled. “Tesni and I won’t grow old, lethallin. We’ll never become hahren. If we aren’t killed before the Blight ends we’ll slowly go mad until we can’t take it anymore.”

Tamlen watched me in calm silence, which only made me angrier.

“And it’s your fault. You did this to us.” I was yelling now, into the empty space of the Beyond. “You touched that Creators-cursed mirror, and I’m sick of feeling guilty. We’re trying to protect our people from being slaughtered by demons, and you’re telling me I’m not a Dalish anymore?”

He shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder, gripping it until I met his eyes.

You are a Dalish. That's why you're strong enough to protect your people without abandoning our ways. You don't need a shem for a brother or a lover. You don't need a mockery of a family. You can go home and protect our clan from the darkspawn. Let the shems kill the archdemon. Then you can have a Dalish sa’lath to comfort you, and forget the children you're trying to replace us with.

I wrenched my shoulder away. "They're not--"

They were born after you earned your vallaslin. That doesn’t seem so long ago, does it?

No. It didn’t. Were they really that young?

“It... It doesn’t matter.”

Do you really believe that? Your lover is a child compared with you, brother. She can never understand who you are or where you come from. How can she love you if she doesn’t know you?

"She knows me," I said, squaring my shoulders and tilting my chin up in defiance.

You think that because you don’t know yourself anymore. Think about who we were before all of this. His voice calmed. Weren't you happy?

I stood in silence for a moment, thinking about all of my life before I’d lost Tamlen. Before the Wardens. Before Alistair and Leliana. Everything’d been simple, and safe, and sure. Decades’d passed and I’d always had my sister and my brother to look after me. I’d had the clan to teach and train me. I’d known what to love and hate. We’d hunted and played and sung and danced like we’d live forever. And then it’d all been ripped away from me.

“Yes.”

You can have that again.

“No.”

Go home, lethallin. Our clan is waiting for you.

“I have a home.” I shook my head. “I have a clan. I have a mate.”

You have a lie.

“I have what you left me,” I said more coldly than I’d meant to, and bared my teeth at him. But if I’d hurt Tamlen, he didn’t show it.

You have a lie, lethallin. It’s time to face the truth.

I woke and sat up right away so I wouldn’t fall back asleep. My body felt heavy and I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I had to stay awake. It was a demon, like the one in the mage tower. It had to be. It’d found my memories and was using them to trick me, the same as before. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t him.

But that didn’t make it hurt any less.



A tree. A talking tree. That was what stood between us and finding the werewolves.

We were slightly less lost now that Tesni was leading again, but the fact that she used my arrow idea made it clear that we still weren’t going to get to Witherfang unless we had some kind of help.

It came down to two choices: kill the creepy little shem who had the tree’s acorn, or kill the tree. Both Tesni and I liked trees a lot better than creepy little shems, so the decision was easy.The feel of his blood pouring over my hand as I twisted my knife in his gut was strangely satisfying. At least we were making progress.

Tesni took the acorn and led us back to the tree. It gave us a staff that was supposed to make the forest stop getting us lost. Fine. I didn’t care how it worked, as long as it meant we could go home soon. I’d listen to the tree’s stupid rhyming for days if it’d get us out of there.

Thank the Creators I didn’t have to.

“Have you had any success today, da’len?” the other clan’s keeper asked Tesni when we returned, covered in blood and exhausted as usual.

“Yes,” she said, and held up the staff. The rest of his clan looked confused, but he bowed his head very slightly to Tesni like he was commending her. High praise. I had to try very hard to keep from rolling my eyes.

Tesni was a lot better at that than I was. Without waiting to talk about it further, she turned to the rest of us and nodded toward our camp.

“Eat well and get some sleep. Tomorrow we’re going after Witherfang.”

Come home, lethallan.