Chapter Text
In the middle of the camp, young children play drawing in the ground with sticks, they all have a thin body and long ears. All of them, except a little girl with long red curls and big hazel eyes, slightly more stocky, who protrudes them by half a head and whose ears are rounded. In the distance an incongruous noise near a dalish camp can be heard: the steps of a horse. For the little girl this sound is the sweetest of all, because it only means one thing:
« Daddy! Daddy is back! ».
Forsaking her friends, she run to meet the rider who quickly dismount to open his arms. She jumps around his neck and feels lifted up from the ground.
"How is my little ray of sunshine?".
"I’m fine..."
The child is interrupted by the cheerful yapping of a big mabari who jumps around them, it makes her laugh. «Falon is happy to see you».
"Are you happy to see me, too?".
The child giggles: "Of course! I missed you."
"How much did you miss me? ‘Wanna show me?". The little girl hugs her father as hard as she can.
“Wow! That much!” The child nods. “I missed you too, sweetie…”.
The man kisses on the cheek the little girl who exclaims: « Your beard scratches me daddy! You should shave it off, I prefer when you’re soft. The other dads don’t have beards, why do you have one?”.
“For the same reason I don’t have sharp ears: because I am human, and humans have round ears and are beardy.”
An elderly elf whose face is covered with volutes and arabesques approach them:
“Andaran atishan Vhenallin. What news do you bring Alistair ? »
Resting the little girl on the ground, he whispers in her ear: "You go tell Mom?". The child nods and goes to one of the aravels of the camp while the man brings his attention to the elf:
« They are rather good, Keeper. The local lord welcomes you to his lands and has assured me he will ensure that his soldiers or his subjects do not disturb you. However, he asks you to avoid showing yourself in public places as much as possible. He is afraid that your presence too close to the villages would cause concern and that some residents would take advantage of it to commit crimes in the hope of blaming the dalish. He will send traders and craftsmen to trade with you. It is not an ideal situation, but I couldn't get any better”
“That’s a lot more than we’ve always had. But I hear you keep talking about “you” and not “we”. You still don’t feel like one of us, do you? »
“I’m not sure everyone here recognizes me as one of yours either, Keeper.” Answered the warrior by unsaddling his horse before entrusting it to the good care of the halla keeper.
« That’s true. It will take time before the barriers between humans and elves fall. But our relationship with humans has improved considerably since you’ve been acting as an ambassador for us to their lords. And I’m grateful for that. »
« You welcomed me and my family, Keeper, like one of yours. It’s the least I can do. Speaking of my family, I see the mother of my children and… I’m dying to go and greet her if you don’t mind.” »
"Of course." The keeper replied with a smile: "Go Lethallen, we’ll talk later.».
In the distance, an elf with long wavy red hair and big blue-grey eyes carries in a wrap tied across her bust a sleeping baby. Despite her tired features, her face is radiant. Alistair’s smile extends as he joins her. Looking tenderly at the infant whose mouth still opens on his mother’s breast, he asks: "How is my son? »
“Good. He just fell asleep.”
"And how is my wife?" asked Alistair, approaching his face to the elf’s.
« I feel suddenly great. I wonder why…”. She answers by kissing him lightly on the lips while he gently hold her face in his hands.
Suddenly a clamor in the forest can be heard. A war cry, followed by the noise of the metal rubbing and squeaking. The hunters of the clan rush on their weapons, ready to fight.
Ymlaïs looks in the direction of the noise with concern: "The lord’s men?"
One of the watchers shouts out: "Darkspawns !”.
A black line is drawn through the trees, like a cloud made of moving metal that falls on the clan. Alistair draws his sword and turns to Ymlaïs, yelling to her to take shelter with the children. The horde of darkspawns pours like a wave of violence and death on the dalish. The bodies fall under the blows of axes and swords, the aravels ignite under the balls of fire thrown by the emissaries, the cries of the shriekers resound in the clearing and paralyze the hunters, terrorize the mothers and make the children cry. Soon it’s chaos and the Elves get overwhelmed.
Alistair joins his wife who, still holding the baby on one side, hold a short sword in her other hand. "The camp is lost, we must leave!".
A woman in tears leaning over the corpse of her husband points at them, screaming and her voice echoes in the midst of the clashes: “It is because of them! It’s all their fault!”. Another elf adds: “They are Grey Wardens, their blood is cursed. ». Then another: “They are the ones who lured these creatures here. Their blood is tainted, their blood attracts them. We have collected misfortune within our clan." An old elf comes up with crazy eyes: "They are the ones they come looking for! Let them take them! Let us give them!" He grabs the little girl by the arm, and his father rushes to stop him but the mabari runs over the elf and grabs him by the throat. The old man collapses at the foot of the child who starts screaming. Getting up to her, Alistair grabs her by the shoulders and tries to reassure her but the child screams unabated looking at her hands: “Daddy! Daddy, what’s happening to me?”. The hands turn black, the skin cracks. When the child looks up at her father, they are injected with blood. «Daddy! Mama! Do something! Mama! MAMA!». Ymlaïs helplessly attends the monstrous metamorphosis of her child while shouts can be heard: “Their blood is cursed! Cursed! Their offspring are cursed ! We are cursed!” The child is unrecognizable now, her skin is blackened, decrepit, her hair is scattered on her skull and her gaze has become vicious. She throws herself on her father and bites him in the neck, ripping off a whole piece of flesh from her fangs, the blood squirts, the warrior howls and collapses. Ymlaïs tries to intervene but a dazzling pain in the chest stops her.
Looking down, she sees her baby biting her breast to the blood. It is no longer a baby, it is a monster like his sister who looks at his mother with a bloody look. Falling to her knees, in a desperate reflex, the young mother tears her child from her breast and throws him to the ground before reaching out to him, crying: “Oh, my baby. What did I do? ». But the infant grabs her mother’s hand to bite her again and she screams with pain. Forcibly opening the child’s lower jaw with her other hand, Ymlaïs wriggles out and retreats, sword stretched out. She looks up to see the camp in flames and the darkspawns slaughter her clan. The voices continued to shout “Cursed!”, “Defiled!”, “Woe!”. The baby’s wails are hideous while the little girl who devoured her father’s corpse raises a monstrous face on her mother, her mouth is covered with blood.