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The first thing Crane Tabris feels when she opens her eyes is pure, unadulterated terror. There's a fleeting moment, she remains in that room, surrounded by the musty scent of stale bags of wheat, sweat, and tears. She can almost hear the hushed, fearful whispers of her bridesmaids before she bolts upright from the tattered bedroll beneath her, sweating and panting, clutching her fist to her chest as if it might calm her racing heart.
She takes a moment to breathe in and out, slowly catching her breath and blinking away the sleepy disorientation of waking up in an unfamiliar place before she surveys her surroundings. She finds herself in a forest; it's dark, but she can see a blue hue on the horizon, indicating that the sun will rise soon. A campfire nearby is slowly fading into nothing but faint embers. There's also a man. Crane's fingers twitch toward the dagger she knows lies beside her, but a closer look at the man half-slumped against the trunk of a tree and she realizes that it's just Duncan, and he is mostly asleep.
She takes another deep breath, attempting to relax and dispel the nightmare from her mind. Although she is not entirely comfortable with Duncan, she can’t avoid sleep indefinitely. She figures that if he had any lecherous intentions, he would have acted on them by now. Additionally, he has explicitly aided her by arming Soris and her would-be husband, and he chose to conscript her rather than allow her to be executed after she accepted full responsibility for the rage-fueled slaughter that occurred at the arl's estate.
Even if she has mixed feelings about surviving the ordeal—especially considering that Nelaros sacrificed his life for a woman he barely knew, and Shianni…she finds herself somewhat thankful she's still alive because of him.
She stands on her feet, her muscles aching slightly from the past few days of walking. There had never been so much distance to cover within the walls of Denerim. She slips on her mother's old boots, tucking the slightly oversized ends of her leather leggings into them and stretching a bit. She tends to the fire and watches Duncan, hawk-eyed and cautious, as she has been doing while the sun rises.
He sleeps for two more hours, grumbling and twitching occasionally. She realizes that during the week she has traveled with him, he hasn't slept soundly even once. She wonders what kind of life he has led as a Grey Warden to give him such dreams and nightmares.
In the books she had read after being sneaked into the chantry library by a very forgiving sister, who was charmed by the fact that an alienage elf could read at all, the Grey Wardens always led precarious lifestyles, often dying young in glory. However, this was within the context of an ongoing Blight, and when she considered what Wardens might do without one, she found herself at a loss. Briefly, she wished she had been more interested in the books.
Duncan wakes with a startled gasp, much like Crane had. He looks very tired and older because of it, she thinks. He rubs at his face, unaware that she is watching until he looks up across the fire at her.
“I must have fallen asleep… my apologies,” he sighs, his voice rough with sleep. She instinctively feels her hackles rise at any acknowledgment from the human man and takes a moment to relax before responding.
“It’s good luck I woke up before any wild animals decided I would make a good breakfast,” she says, her tone sarcastic and sharp. He huffs something that might be a laugh.
“If anything in these woods were to challenge you, I have little doubt you would emerge victorious.”
Crane frowns at that and does not respond. There are a few seconds of uncomfortable silence before Duncan speaks again.
“I knew your mother well, you know,” he says carefully, fully aware of her vague hostility towards him. He had been doing a good job of staying on his side of the line she had drawn between them up to this point, she thinks.
“I met her out here in the wilderness. She was hunting—poaching, actually. It wasn’t my business, and she was so small that I didn’t think she was doing it for any reason other than necessity.” He smiles as he speaks, remembering her fondly.
Crane furrows her brows, unsure of what he’s trying to convey. She is halfway convinced that it’s some manipulation tactic to gain her trust or a strange attempt to express his physical attraction to her mother, followed by a comment on how much she resembles her mother. This kind of remark happened often enough in the alienage and always left her feeling oddly uncomfortable.
“I assumed she was Dalish. I was going to offer my help in bringing the boar she had killed to her clan, but she knocked me out before I could get more than a greeting out.” He lets out a genuine chuckle at that, looking amused. Crane can’t help the smirk that twitches at the corners of her mouth; her mother often told her stories like this before she passed away.
“I woke up hanging upside down from a tree; she nearly left me there. Serves me right for underestimating her.” Duncan pauses and observes Crane, who does not shy away from his gaze. “That look in your eyes reminds me of her. You were trained by her, and I won’t underestimate her abilities again.”
Crane feels her perspective on him shift. Her mother was never particularly fond of humans, but she wasn’t as suspicious as Crane currently is. Adaia had told Crane countless stories of kind, patient, and friendly human men and women. Crane had no reason to doubt these stories until her mother died during one of those hunting trips at the hands of human men, and Crane was kidnapped from her own wedding.
Crane looks away, torn between anger, fear, and the desire to please her long-gone mother by trusting this man she knows nothing about. She grits her teeth and picks a wet leaf from the mud, tearing it into little pieces as she speaks.
“My mother never mentioned knowing a Grey Warden. You said you wanted to recruit her,” Crane says, still reluctant to open up. Duncan nods in agreement.
“After I convinced her that I meant no harm, she let me down just in time for us to be attacked by a group of darkspawn that had been spotted in the area, which is why I was out there in the first place. She hardly blinked, taking out half of them on her own. Adaia wished me well and left afterward, saying she had a child back in Denerim to return to. I still had business trying to find the source of the darkspawn, so I stayed. However, once I was finished, I traveled to Denerim to try and recruit her.” Duncan explains, but Crane interrupts him.
“You wanted to recruit her knowing she had a family?” she asks, looking at him, seemingly offended by the idea. As far as she knew, becoming a Grey Warden meant leaving behind any previous life in exchange for dedicating oneself to fighting the darkspawn, especially during a blight. Perhaps the situation was different in the absence of a blight.
“I…” Duncan falters slightly, appearing somewhat ashamed. “I had never witnessed anyone fight the way she did, especially against darkspawn, before or since. They didn’t intimidate her at all; it was as if she viewed them merely as obstacles. It was a marvel to watch her in action.”
Crane nodded, recalling how her mother had trained her to be efficient and disciplined. She had never witnessed her mother fight outside of training; she was too young to accompany her on trips and too young to understand where her mother had acquired those skills in the first place. However, she knew enough to grasp what he was talking about.
“I didn’t end up recruiting her anyway; Valendrian convinced me she was better off staying in the alienage to raise you. She did catch wind that I was inquiring about her and invited me to dinner,” he says, and Crane scoffs at the idea.
“Did my really mother invite you to dinner?” she asks, smirking slightly.
“She did. You were… small.” Duncan pauses to reflect. “It was about 15 years ago; you must have only been 2 or 3 at the time. She made stew and persuaded me to buy some leather from her. We exchanged letters occasionally after I left, giving updates on her life and whether she encountered darkspawn in the area during her excursions."
“She died on… on one of her ‘excursions,’” she mumbles.
“Outnumbered by a group of men just outside Denerim. The city guard found her, had her body dragged back into the alienage, and left her beside the Vhenadahl. They didn’t allow us to burn her for days, as some sort of sick message from the guard, who were tired of her sneaking past them all the time.” Crane grimaces, looking down at the fire and ignoring the sorrowful expression on Duncan's face. They sit in silence for a moment.
“I’m sorry. It was difficult to learn of her passing; it’s hard to believe that such a fierce woman could be…” Duncan trails off, unsure of how to continue the conversation.
“She was proud of you. I may not know you well, but she often spoke of you in her letters.”
Crane aches at the thought. She had never doubted it when her mother was alive to remind her, but with everything that happened after her death, Crane feels as if she has been losing sight of the lessons her mother taught her: to be compassionate and thoughtful, not just ruthless, but deliberate in everything she does.
Killing those men didn’t feel deliberate; it felt reactionary. She was furious, and with reckless abandon, she ripped open the throats or stomachs of each guard she encountered with the sword Soris had given her. She could have sneaked past them, undoubtedly avoiding most of the confrontation, but she didn’t. She didn’t even want to; she didn’t even consider it. Would her mother have been proud of her, knowing what her daughter had done? Crane isn’t sure.
Duncan must recognize the inner turmoil within Crane, as he speaks again into the silence that envelops them.
“She would be proud of you now, too. She was a wise woman. She understood that something like this could happen and that she wouldn't be able to protect you from it forever,” he says, earnestness in his voice and a convincing hint of grief on his face.
They may not have been close, but his respect for Adaia is evident now. Crane feels her shoulders relax, comforted by the knowledge that there is someone in the world who saw her mother the way she did.
“Thank you… I… I don’t get to hear about her very often,” Crane says softly, her heart still aching faintly. She stands and turns away from him, suddenly uncomfortable with the vulnerability of the conversation.
“I have a few more stories, but not many. She was a secretive woman,” Duncan offers, while Crane stands there, carefully considering his words.
“I’d like that,” she relents, nodding slightly.
Duncan smiles at that, and she attempts to do the same.
The remainder of the morning is spent with Crane hunting rabbits for breakfast while Duncan sharpens their swords and daggers. By late morning, they are only a few hours away from the camp at Ostagar. During this time, Duncan reminisces about the stories he had read from Adaia regarding her hunts and answers the few questions he can about her. Crane fills him in on things he didn't get to know about her. For the first time since leaving home, she feels at ease around the unfamiliar man.