Darkness fell quickly. Romulus was reminded how late it was in the year when the chill set in for the night. He had no desire to stay inside, or really within the bounds of the camp, while Khari was gone, dealing with her parents. The children were sent to bed, and perhaps pathetically they were the only ones he actually felt comfortable around. The rest of the clan was being kind to him, he knew that, but every now and then it seemed just a little too forced. Like they were talking to the Inquisitor, or a human outsider, or anything other than a Dalish elf. The children were honest, simple... good. They didn't know any better, or just didn't care.
The cold did prompt him to get his cloak, though, and a warmer tunic now that he wasn't playing Dalish tag anymore. He'd enjoyed that, almost to the point where it was painful to stop. For so long the work he'd been doing, first by necessity and now by some kind of choice, was so grim. And any thought of that kind of life only came in fleeting little moments, like playing with younger Qunari and passing around a ball, or being swarmed by Dalish children with Khari.
Somewhere, buried underneath the rest of what he'd been forced to become, was that person. Still just a dumb kid wanting to make trouble for the Chantry brothers at the orphanage. He didn't enjoy thinking about the years he'd lost, the childhood he'd lost, the parents he'd lost, and the slim, slim odds he would ever have anything like that again. But it was nice, once in a while, to allow himself a taste.
He picked a spot near the edge of the camp at the base of a massive tree, which he put his back to once he sat down. There were one or two silent scouts about. They kept their distance, save for one that offered to help him start a little fire. Romulus was grateful for the help, and the scout didn't try to force his company any further once the work was done, and the little fire was crackling over a well-arranged group of sticks and tinder.
Letting his head fall back against the tree, Romulus closed his eyes, feeling the effects of the day catching up to him. The ride, the fight, his potion having worn off hours ago, and the emotional strain that came with all of this, something he tried so hard to hide. He wasn't very good at that yet. But it was enough in the moment to listen to the sounds of the woods and the crackle of the fire in front of him.
In time, he heard someone else approach. The tread was familiar enough to recognize as Khari's. She snapped twigs underfoot without any care for the sound, as direct as usual. She could be quieter when the occasion called for it; the events after Haven had shown him that much. But it wasn't natural to her, unobtrusiveness, quietness. Quite the opposite. “Hey."
When he opened his eyes, it was to find that she had several blankets in her arms. Her face didn't give too much away, but she didn't look crushed or particularly upset, so perhaps things with her parents hadn't turned out too badly. “If you don't mind walking a little, there's someplace I want to show you." The firelight flickered off her face, deepening the hue of her vallaslin almost to black.
"Sure." He didn't mind. In fact, he felt he might fall asleep if he stayed put. He'd definitely fallen asleep in less comfy spots before. He pushed himself up and smothered the fire, embers wafting up around him and into the night air. "Lead the way."
She nodded, leading him past the treeline. Wherever she was going was a little bit of a hike, actually, over uneven terrain and more than one hill. But the air was chill enough to be bracing, even, and it tasted fresh, scented with dark soil and autumn leaves.
When eventually she stopped them, it was in a clearing, the ground covered with moss and short, springy wild grasses. There was something slightly off about the arrangement of debris, something that suggested a hint of deliberateness. A log lay to one side, all its protruding branches lopped off, in an advanced state of decay now, from what he could see of it. Most of the more entangling brush had been beaten back out of the clearing, as if someone had removed it by hand. A pile of sticks, all similarly-sized, rested near their entrance.
Khari scoffed softly. “Figured it'd gone to shit." Shifting the blankets into one arm, she bent and picked up one of the sticks, spinning it in her hand and pointing it at his chest with no aggression. “I used to figure I was teaching myself swordplay with these. I wasn't." She grinned at him, an expression he could see well enough in the generous light from overhead. The clearing lacked much of a canopy, allowing the moon and stars to illuminate it softly, but well enough to make out some details at least.
Still holding the stick, Khari made for the middle of the clearing, dropping it slightly to one side of center and spreading the blankets in a pile on a soft-looking spot of grass. Underneath them, she was apparently carrying a small sack. “Bear jerky. We usually do this kind of thing with food. I think it works for us." Letting her knees buckle, she flopped down onto all but the last blanket, which she wrapped around herself, shifting it around until the larger half was loose at her side. She flapped it in his general direction with her hand, the implied invitation clear as daylight.
He offered her a little smile in return. The most he could usually get. He pulled off his cloak and sank down beside her, taking his share of the blanket. He could see it, if he looked hard enough. A younger Khari, playing with sticks under daylight or moonlight, twig-thin herself compared to how she was now, a warrior in every sense of the word. The look on her face was probably still the same. That same enthusiasm, that same unbreakable drive that would push her to throw down the stick and take up a sword, forge herself into iron instead of withering wood.
He wanted to know what had happened with her parents, but he didn't want to ask. If she didn't want to tell him, he didn't mind. It was something she had to do alone, after all. But he got the sense it hadn't gone horribly, which made him curious. Still... there was jerky. "You ever wrangle anyone into fighting you out here?" he asked, chewing through the first piece. It was... certainly something. There was probably a reason most people preferred venison, but it wasn't the worst, and food was food. "Or'd you just have to fight the air?"
“Vareth found me out here once. I made him fight me. Didn't go so well, actually. He was pretty good with a staff, even then. Then I figured out that he was going easy on me, and kicked him out." She shrugged. “This used to be my little sanctuary. I'd come here after fights with my parents, or just to think." She chewed over a piece of the jerky, seemingly quite used to the flavor. It didn't take long for the blanket to trap in a comfortable bubble of body heat; Khari freely let her shoulder lean into his arm, though not heavily enough that he had to exert any effort to stay upright.
She turned her face up towards the sky. “You see that constellation up there? Looks kind of like a bird?" She stared at it for a few moments more. “They call it Corvus, I think, where you're from. The crow. To the People, it's a raven, the symbol of Dirthamen. His other symbol is bears. They say one time he told all the animals a secret, and the bears were the only ones that kept theirs, so they were his favorites after that. They also say he was the conqueror of Fear and Deceit." He felt her shrug.
“Even I thought really hard about whose vallaslin I wanted. Dirthamen's the keeper of secrets, and I figured I had a really big one to keep. The rest of it sounded pretty great, too."
He'd sometimes looked at the stars in Minrathous, but never like this. His memory had to be clouding it, but somehow the sky was different here. He could see the stars more clearly, and didn't even have much trouble finding the constellations she was referring to. He'd never had any cause to study the heavens before, and didn't even know what those in Tevinter called it. The crow... he liked Khari's explanation better. Romulus imagined he also would've thought quite hard about such a decision. One did not mark their own face lightly, after all. But he was happy with the marks he had. They were pleasing enough to look at and... he'd meant what he said about them to Senna. The one piece he truly had of his parents was the one he'd been carrying on his body all along. In that small way, they never left him. The person he was supposed to be never left.
"It suits you," he said, the words coming easily enough. "And they do too, the marks. They're... you're... uh." Say it, idiot. But it refused to leave him, and he found himself tensing against his will. His eyes left the stars, fell back down to the blanket over them. "I wish I knew what these stood for," he gestured halfway to his own face, "besides the meaning I gave them. Somehow I doubt my mother had Sylaise in mind."
Khari huffed softly, but she didn't laugh outright, either having correctly interpreted the significance of the conversation or misinterpreted his tension. Perhaps both. The arm closer to him shifted, looping companionably with his. “I'm sorry." She exhaled it, almost sighed it. “I've done nothing but complain about my family, it feels like, and you... I wasn't really thinking, when I asked you to come here. I just felt like... I needed someone here for this. Maybe I needed you here for this, I don't know."
Her eyes fell to the blankets in front of them. “My parents have always known that I wanted to be a chevalier. Since I knew, anyway. But I think that maybe when I tried to explain it to them, back then, it got all jumbled up. I barely understood all the reasons myself; I just knew that it was something I had to do, and that the secret was... I felt like I couldn't tell them. Like they'd just tell me all the reasons it couldn't be done. All the reasons I was wrong. And the dream was so fragile it was like... I was afraid it would disappear if anyone else got ahold of it."
She swallowed. “I'm still afraid to tell people. It's easier if everyone just thinks I'm an idiot who wants something she'll never get. But I think... I think I finally managed to explain it so they understand... and I want to tell you, too, if you'll promise to keep it for me."
"Okay, yeah." The words came out more breathy than Rom had intended them, but for better or worse, he felt the tension leaving him ever so slowly. As quickly as the desire to tell her had come, it disappeared. Elusive, impossible to catch if he hesitated, like he did every single time. Again she failed to catch on to what he was trying to say, and he didn't have it in him to force it. Not here and not now. He still thought about what he'd said earlier, to Zee. That it was selfish, irresponsible even. He couldn't change his mind on that yet.
And for once, he wanted Khari to be the selfish one. Here she was apologizing to him for asking him to help her, when she had done so much for him. Since the day they met she'd been giving, and it felt to Rom sometimes like all he did was take. Never give anything in return. Because what good was his help? All he'd done was nearly kill her mentor, question her and make her doubt, fail to offer any kind of useful advice, because he never knew what was right or what was best. That was what she was for. All he'd been able to do was be there, as often and as strongly as he could. It never seemed like enough, or even much of anything at all.
But if he could be here now, and help her just by listening, then he would. Even if it cost him this chance to say other things he so desperately wanted to get out.
"I'm pretty good at keeping things to myself." He tugged a bit on the arm looped through his, a hint of a grin appearing. "I promise."
She grinned, bright even in the dim illumination. “I'll hold you to it, then." Khari's expression sobered quickly; she expelled a gust of breath.
“Okay, so... this is actually kind of hard to figure out how to say. I guess—" She hummed, a discontented little sound. “Well, maybe you've noticed. The Dalish, we're... stuck. We stick to our clans, with whatever exchange we need for mages and outside blood and stuff, but we don't—we don't engage with the rest of the world. Any more than we have to. Not with humans, or dwarves or Qunari or even the elves who aren't Dalish. We have condescending names for all the kinds of people who aren't us. And then we call ourselves the People, with a the and a capital letter and everything. Like we're the only people that matter." She'd used that term a few times, even. The People. Mostly with other Dalish.
She shifted, using her free arm to draw the blanket a littler tighter around her shoulder. “And then we just... wander. We hunt to eat to live, and sometimes clans like mine who live in the right places try to do a little digging into history or the magic of our ancestors or whatever. But the highest thing most any of us can ever aspire to is to be the clan's most respected warrior or craftsperson or hunter. And that's... fine. Fine for some people. But it's not exactly the kind of dream that keeps you up at night thinking about it, you know?"
He could see how it could be a difficult way to live, certainly. He could also see how it might even be appealing to some. Those who lived in fear, probably. The elves had to know that what little life they had could be taken away. They had no lands of their own, they just... kept to places where the human nations didn't bother dealing with them. The forests, the old places, the faraway lands that would be more trouble than it was worth to attack. But if the elves stepped too far, got too bold, desired too much... what little they had could come crashing down upon all of them, violently.
"I don't think I would've understood that before I met you," he admitted. He could understand the fear of the Dalish, and sympathize with it. He'd lived that way for most of his life, accepting of what he had, thankful for it even, and only feeling sorrow for what was lost. "But yeah, I think I get it." That way of life just wasn't acceptable for someone like Khari. Someone who refused to live in fear, no matter how hard it was. It was something Romulus was slowly, ever so slowly, making himself adopt.
She dipped her chin, slow, ponderous. Thoughtful, perhaps. “Every Dalish story is about something sad. All the ones that really matter, anyway. It's always about how our ancestors were tricked, or one of the dozens of times humans killed us when we clashed, or whatever. I learned to hate hearing them, because they were always about that: things happening to us. Stories where we were victims. Stories that were supposed to make us feel sorrow and anger, but mostly just end up making us feel hopeless and small instead." Khari shook her head faintly.
“So I figured... if I couldn't hear the kinds of stories I wanted, the ones about courage and joy and the Dalish really changing their world, then I had to make one." She paused, brows furrowing, gathering her thoughts together.
When she started again, her tone was more reflective than usual. “We're stuck in the past, and that makes us so fragile. We barely have any kind of foothold in the present. The minute some lord decides a clan is too inconvenient, it's gone. Off the map, lost forever. That's not the kind of problem anyone solves by wandering around in ruins. Keepers, warriors, hunters... they all want to protect the clan, protect the People. But they don't see that the only way to really do that is to change the control other people have over whether we live or die." Her expression was grim.
“If we want to survive in a humans' world, we need them to see us. To respect us. To understand that we're capable of just as much as they are. Not savages in the forests or the poor oppressed under their feet. They need to see us like they see each other, if we're going to have a chance in the long run. Of surviving. Uprising never ends well—the Emerald Knights were slaughtered, and Alienages or clans can just get purged if that's what someone with power wants." She snorted. “It makes sense now, right? Why I'm so fucking afraid of obscurity? No one cares if some tiny little clan in Dirthavaren disappears. But if that tiny little clan is the family of someone they respect, someone they have to respect, who made a real difference in the world, then that's a different story."
"So... you're doing it for them, then. Not just for them, obviously, but to help your people. To really help." Or at least try. Larger than life though she often was, Khari was still small in the grand scheme of things. They all were. Being with the Inquisition, being central to an organization that was rapidly gaining a place in the world, gave them power, but that power was tenuous at best, and could be crushed or collapsed with a single misstep. And just like that, Khari would be swept to the winds again, an insignificant curiosity of an elf rather than someone who had the daring to change the way the world worked.
"Did they see it that way?" he asked. Carefully, quietly. There was nothing to speak over out here, and they were right next to each other. He hardly needed to whisper for her to hear. "Your parents?"
She pursed her lips. “I'm not sure. I tried to explain, you know. That chevaliers are part of a big institution with power. That if I made an inroad there, a place for myself, then even when I was gone, history would remember and it would be easier for the next elf. That something like that could be the first step towards a place at the table when countries decide what to do with old elven lands, that kind of thing. But I'm not sure they..." Khari sighed gustily.
“To be honest, I'm not sure they believe I can. That... hurts, but I guess I kind of expected it. Dad seemed to understand the idea, at least. I think it makes sense to him in principle, though he'd probably just prefer it if the secret to taking back a place in the world was just that—taking it back, somehow reverting to the way things used to be." She grimaced, her vallaslin pulling.
“I think my mom still thinks I'm an idiot, but at least she kind of understands the reasons, now. The right ones. It's kind of weird that this was the secret part. That I wanted to protect us as much as anyone else. I just... have a different understanding of what that means. I want to do this for all the elves, no matter where they're from, and for everyone else, too. Because we have things to offer the world. And it's not fair to anyone not to share them."
She swallowed, leaning a bit more heavily into him and letting her eyes close for a moment. “It feels... better. To know that they know. That they understand as well as they can. And to know that they still—they still care, in their way." She blinked rapidly a few times, releasing a slow, shaky breath and tilting her head up to meet his eyes. “I wouldn't have even come here if it wasn't for you, you know. Wouldn't have done any of this. I just—this weight's just gone, and..." She hesitated, scoffing softly and offering a wry half-smile.
“Thanks, Rom. For letting me lean on you." It was clear she wasn't talking about the fact that she was indeed physically doing so at the moment, either. Though it was hard to put the bad joke past her, especially given the expression she wore.
He pulled his arm out from hers, and wrapped it around her back instead, letting his hand rest on her shoulder. "It was nice for me, too, being the one leaned on." There wasn't really any joke in that. He meant it. As much as coming here had meant to Khari, it had also meant something to him. Even with the grim reason they came, the death surrounding everything in these lands, there was a bit of happiness too. It might've been painful for the both of them to pull it out, but it was free now, and it was sorely needed. He hadn't expected it to be simple for her to come to any kind of terms with her clan, but that she had done so at all was a victory. It made all of this worth it and more.
"I'm glad I could help you do it. Tomorrow... we'll head back home."
The cold did prompt him to get his cloak, though, and a warmer tunic now that he wasn't playing Dalish tag anymore. He'd enjoyed that, almost to the point where it was painful to stop. For so long the work he'd been doing, first by necessity and now by some kind of choice, was so grim. And any thought of that kind of life only came in fleeting little moments, like playing with younger Qunari and passing around a ball, or being swarmed by Dalish children with Khari.
Somewhere, buried underneath the rest of what he'd been forced to become, was that person. Still just a dumb kid wanting to make trouble for the Chantry brothers at the orphanage. He didn't enjoy thinking about the years he'd lost, the childhood he'd lost, the parents he'd lost, and the slim, slim odds he would ever have anything like that again. But it was nice, once in a while, to allow himself a taste.
He picked a spot near the edge of the camp at the base of a massive tree, which he put his back to once he sat down. There were one or two silent scouts about. They kept their distance, save for one that offered to help him start a little fire. Romulus was grateful for the help, and the scout didn't try to force his company any further once the work was done, and the little fire was crackling over a well-arranged group of sticks and tinder.
Letting his head fall back against the tree, Romulus closed his eyes, feeling the effects of the day catching up to him. The ride, the fight, his potion having worn off hours ago, and the emotional strain that came with all of this, something he tried so hard to hide. He wasn't very good at that yet. But it was enough in the moment to listen to the sounds of the woods and the crackle of the fire in front of him.
In time, he heard someone else approach. The tread was familiar enough to recognize as Khari's. She snapped twigs underfoot without any care for the sound, as direct as usual. She could be quieter when the occasion called for it; the events after Haven had shown him that much. But it wasn't natural to her, unobtrusiveness, quietness. Quite the opposite. “Hey."
When he opened his eyes, it was to find that she had several blankets in her arms. Her face didn't give too much away, but she didn't look crushed or particularly upset, so perhaps things with her parents hadn't turned out too badly. “If you don't mind walking a little, there's someplace I want to show you." The firelight flickered off her face, deepening the hue of her vallaslin almost to black.
"Sure." He didn't mind. In fact, he felt he might fall asleep if he stayed put. He'd definitely fallen asleep in less comfy spots before. He pushed himself up and smothered the fire, embers wafting up around him and into the night air. "Lead the way."
She nodded, leading him past the treeline. Wherever she was going was a little bit of a hike, actually, over uneven terrain and more than one hill. But the air was chill enough to be bracing, even, and it tasted fresh, scented with dark soil and autumn leaves.
When eventually she stopped them, it was in a clearing, the ground covered with moss and short, springy wild grasses. There was something slightly off about the arrangement of debris, something that suggested a hint of deliberateness. A log lay to one side, all its protruding branches lopped off, in an advanced state of decay now, from what he could see of it. Most of the more entangling brush had been beaten back out of the clearing, as if someone had removed it by hand. A pile of sticks, all similarly-sized, rested near their entrance.
Khari scoffed softly. “Figured it'd gone to shit." Shifting the blankets into one arm, she bent and picked up one of the sticks, spinning it in her hand and pointing it at his chest with no aggression. “I used to figure I was teaching myself swordplay with these. I wasn't." She grinned at him, an expression he could see well enough in the generous light from overhead. The clearing lacked much of a canopy, allowing the moon and stars to illuminate it softly, but well enough to make out some details at least.
Still holding the stick, Khari made for the middle of the clearing, dropping it slightly to one side of center and spreading the blankets in a pile on a soft-looking spot of grass. Underneath them, she was apparently carrying a small sack. “Bear jerky. We usually do this kind of thing with food. I think it works for us." Letting her knees buckle, she flopped down onto all but the last blanket, which she wrapped around herself, shifting it around until the larger half was loose at her side. She flapped it in his general direction with her hand, the implied invitation clear as daylight.
He offered her a little smile in return. The most he could usually get. He pulled off his cloak and sank down beside her, taking his share of the blanket. He could see it, if he looked hard enough. A younger Khari, playing with sticks under daylight or moonlight, twig-thin herself compared to how she was now, a warrior in every sense of the word. The look on her face was probably still the same. That same enthusiasm, that same unbreakable drive that would push her to throw down the stick and take up a sword, forge herself into iron instead of withering wood.
He wanted to know what had happened with her parents, but he didn't want to ask. If she didn't want to tell him, he didn't mind. It was something she had to do alone, after all. But he got the sense it hadn't gone horribly, which made him curious. Still... there was jerky. "You ever wrangle anyone into fighting you out here?" he asked, chewing through the first piece. It was... certainly something. There was probably a reason most people preferred venison, but it wasn't the worst, and food was food. "Or'd you just have to fight the air?"
“Vareth found me out here once. I made him fight me. Didn't go so well, actually. He was pretty good with a staff, even then. Then I figured out that he was going easy on me, and kicked him out." She shrugged. “This used to be my little sanctuary. I'd come here after fights with my parents, or just to think." She chewed over a piece of the jerky, seemingly quite used to the flavor. It didn't take long for the blanket to trap in a comfortable bubble of body heat; Khari freely let her shoulder lean into his arm, though not heavily enough that he had to exert any effort to stay upright.
She turned her face up towards the sky. “You see that constellation up there? Looks kind of like a bird?" She stared at it for a few moments more. “They call it Corvus, I think, where you're from. The crow. To the People, it's a raven, the symbol of Dirthamen. His other symbol is bears. They say one time he told all the animals a secret, and the bears were the only ones that kept theirs, so they were his favorites after that. They also say he was the conqueror of Fear and Deceit." He felt her shrug.
“Even I thought really hard about whose vallaslin I wanted. Dirthamen's the keeper of secrets, and I figured I had a really big one to keep. The rest of it sounded pretty great, too."
He'd sometimes looked at the stars in Minrathous, but never like this. His memory had to be clouding it, but somehow the sky was different here. He could see the stars more clearly, and didn't even have much trouble finding the constellations she was referring to. He'd never had any cause to study the heavens before, and didn't even know what those in Tevinter called it. The crow... he liked Khari's explanation better. Romulus imagined he also would've thought quite hard about such a decision. One did not mark their own face lightly, after all. But he was happy with the marks he had. They were pleasing enough to look at and... he'd meant what he said about them to Senna. The one piece he truly had of his parents was the one he'd been carrying on his body all along. In that small way, they never left him. The person he was supposed to be never left.
"It suits you," he said, the words coming easily enough. "And they do too, the marks. They're... you're... uh." Say it, idiot. But it refused to leave him, and he found himself tensing against his will. His eyes left the stars, fell back down to the blanket over them. "I wish I knew what these stood for," he gestured halfway to his own face, "besides the meaning I gave them. Somehow I doubt my mother had Sylaise in mind."
Khari huffed softly, but she didn't laugh outright, either having correctly interpreted the significance of the conversation or misinterpreted his tension. Perhaps both. The arm closer to him shifted, looping companionably with his. “I'm sorry." She exhaled it, almost sighed it. “I've done nothing but complain about my family, it feels like, and you... I wasn't really thinking, when I asked you to come here. I just felt like... I needed someone here for this. Maybe I needed you here for this, I don't know."
Her eyes fell to the blankets in front of them. “My parents have always known that I wanted to be a chevalier. Since I knew, anyway. But I think that maybe when I tried to explain it to them, back then, it got all jumbled up. I barely understood all the reasons myself; I just knew that it was something I had to do, and that the secret was... I felt like I couldn't tell them. Like they'd just tell me all the reasons it couldn't be done. All the reasons I was wrong. And the dream was so fragile it was like... I was afraid it would disappear if anyone else got ahold of it."
She swallowed. “I'm still afraid to tell people. It's easier if everyone just thinks I'm an idiot who wants something she'll never get. But I think... I think I finally managed to explain it so they understand... and I want to tell you, too, if you'll promise to keep it for me."
"Okay, yeah." The words came out more breathy than Rom had intended them, but for better or worse, he felt the tension leaving him ever so slowly. As quickly as the desire to tell her had come, it disappeared. Elusive, impossible to catch if he hesitated, like he did every single time. Again she failed to catch on to what he was trying to say, and he didn't have it in him to force it. Not here and not now. He still thought about what he'd said earlier, to Zee. That it was selfish, irresponsible even. He couldn't change his mind on that yet.
And for once, he wanted Khari to be the selfish one. Here she was apologizing to him for asking him to help her, when she had done so much for him. Since the day they met she'd been giving, and it felt to Rom sometimes like all he did was take. Never give anything in return. Because what good was his help? All he'd done was nearly kill her mentor, question her and make her doubt, fail to offer any kind of useful advice, because he never knew what was right or what was best. That was what she was for. All he'd been able to do was be there, as often and as strongly as he could. It never seemed like enough, or even much of anything at all.
But if he could be here now, and help her just by listening, then he would. Even if it cost him this chance to say other things he so desperately wanted to get out.
"I'm pretty good at keeping things to myself." He tugged a bit on the arm looped through his, a hint of a grin appearing. "I promise."
She grinned, bright even in the dim illumination. “I'll hold you to it, then." Khari's expression sobered quickly; she expelled a gust of breath.
“Okay, so... this is actually kind of hard to figure out how to say. I guess—" She hummed, a discontented little sound. “Well, maybe you've noticed. The Dalish, we're... stuck. We stick to our clans, with whatever exchange we need for mages and outside blood and stuff, but we don't—we don't engage with the rest of the world. Any more than we have to. Not with humans, or dwarves or Qunari or even the elves who aren't Dalish. We have condescending names for all the kinds of people who aren't us. And then we call ourselves the People, with a the and a capital letter and everything. Like we're the only people that matter." She'd used that term a few times, even. The People. Mostly with other Dalish.
She shifted, using her free arm to draw the blanket a littler tighter around her shoulder. “And then we just... wander. We hunt to eat to live, and sometimes clans like mine who live in the right places try to do a little digging into history or the magic of our ancestors or whatever. But the highest thing most any of us can ever aspire to is to be the clan's most respected warrior or craftsperson or hunter. And that's... fine. Fine for some people. But it's not exactly the kind of dream that keeps you up at night thinking about it, you know?"
He could see how it could be a difficult way to live, certainly. He could also see how it might even be appealing to some. Those who lived in fear, probably. The elves had to know that what little life they had could be taken away. They had no lands of their own, they just... kept to places where the human nations didn't bother dealing with them. The forests, the old places, the faraway lands that would be more trouble than it was worth to attack. But if the elves stepped too far, got too bold, desired too much... what little they had could come crashing down upon all of them, violently.
"I don't think I would've understood that before I met you," he admitted. He could understand the fear of the Dalish, and sympathize with it. He'd lived that way for most of his life, accepting of what he had, thankful for it even, and only feeling sorrow for what was lost. "But yeah, I think I get it." That way of life just wasn't acceptable for someone like Khari. Someone who refused to live in fear, no matter how hard it was. It was something Romulus was slowly, ever so slowly, making himself adopt.
She dipped her chin, slow, ponderous. Thoughtful, perhaps. “Every Dalish story is about something sad. All the ones that really matter, anyway. It's always about how our ancestors were tricked, or one of the dozens of times humans killed us when we clashed, or whatever. I learned to hate hearing them, because they were always about that: things happening to us. Stories where we were victims. Stories that were supposed to make us feel sorrow and anger, but mostly just end up making us feel hopeless and small instead." Khari shook her head faintly.
“So I figured... if I couldn't hear the kinds of stories I wanted, the ones about courage and joy and the Dalish really changing their world, then I had to make one." She paused, brows furrowing, gathering her thoughts together.
When she started again, her tone was more reflective than usual. “We're stuck in the past, and that makes us so fragile. We barely have any kind of foothold in the present. The minute some lord decides a clan is too inconvenient, it's gone. Off the map, lost forever. That's not the kind of problem anyone solves by wandering around in ruins. Keepers, warriors, hunters... they all want to protect the clan, protect the People. But they don't see that the only way to really do that is to change the control other people have over whether we live or die." Her expression was grim.
“If we want to survive in a humans' world, we need them to see us. To respect us. To understand that we're capable of just as much as they are. Not savages in the forests or the poor oppressed under their feet. They need to see us like they see each other, if we're going to have a chance in the long run. Of surviving. Uprising never ends well—the Emerald Knights were slaughtered, and Alienages or clans can just get purged if that's what someone with power wants." She snorted. “It makes sense now, right? Why I'm so fucking afraid of obscurity? No one cares if some tiny little clan in Dirthavaren disappears. But if that tiny little clan is the family of someone they respect, someone they have to respect, who made a real difference in the world, then that's a different story."
"So... you're doing it for them, then. Not just for them, obviously, but to help your people. To really help." Or at least try. Larger than life though she often was, Khari was still small in the grand scheme of things. They all were. Being with the Inquisition, being central to an organization that was rapidly gaining a place in the world, gave them power, but that power was tenuous at best, and could be crushed or collapsed with a single misstep. And just like that, Khari would be swept to the winds again, an insignificant curiosity of an elf rather than someone who had the daring to change the way the world worked.
"Did they see it that way?" he asked. Carefully, quietly. There was nothing to speak over out here, and they were right next to each other. He hardly needed to whisper for her to hear. "Your parents?"
She pursed her lips. “I'm not sure. I tried to explain, you know. That chevaliers are part of a big institution with power. That if I made an inroad there, a place for myself, then even when I was gone, history would remember and it would be easier for the next elf. That something like that could be the first step towards a place at the table when countries decide what to do with old elven lands, that kind of thing. But I'm not sure they..." Khari sighed gustily.
“To be honest, I'm not sure they believe I can. That... hurts, but I guess I kind of expected it. Dad seemed to understand the idea, at least. I think it makes sense to him in principle, though he'd probably just prefer it if the secret to taking back a place in the world was just that—taking it back, somehow reverting to the way things used to be." She grimaced, her vallaslin pulling.
“I think my mom still thinks I'm an idiot, but at least she kind of understands the reasons, now. The right ones. It's kind of weird that this was the secret part. That I wanted to protect us as much as anyone else. I just... have a different understanding of what that means. I want to do this for all the elves, no matter where they're from, and for everyone else, too. Because we have things to offer the world. And it's not fair to anyone not to share them."
She swallowed, leaning a bit more heavily into him and letting her eyes close for a moment. “It feels... better. To know that they know. That they understand as well as they can. And to know that they still—they still care, in their way." She blinked rapidly a few times, releasing a slow, shaky breath and tilting her head up to meet his eyes. “I wouldn't have even come here if it wasn't for you, you know. Wouldn't have done any of this. I just—this weight's just gone, and..." She hesitated, scoffing softly and offering a wry half-smile.
“Thanks, Rom. For letting me lean on you." It was clear she wasn't talking about the fact that she was indeed physically doing so at the moment, either. Though it was hard to put the bad joke past her, especially given the expression she wore.
He pulled his arm out from hers, and wrapped it around her back instead, letting his hand rest on her shoulder. "It was nice for me, too, being the one leaned on." There wasn't really any joke in that. He meant it. As much as coming here had meant to Khari, it had also meant something to him. Even with the grim reason they came, the death surrounding everything in these lands, there was a bit of happiness too. It might've been painful for the both of them to pull it out, but it was free now, and it was sorely needed. He hadn't expected it to be simple for her to come to any kind of terms with her clan, but that she had done so at all was a victory. It made all of this worth it and more.
"I'm glad I could help you do it. Tomorrow... we'll head back home."