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Faelyn watched as Leliana sharpened her blade on a whetstone. The sound was awful, of course, grating on her poor, sensitive ears, but the way Leliana was sitting made up for it. She was slumped forward a little, her back curved and her shoulders forward. Her hair was tied back in a low tail, but it was only about as long as a mabari’s. It was very cute. She was humming, too, a pretty sound that almost made up for the high scraping noise of a stone against a dagger.
Faelyn rested her head against her arm, half-draped over a fallen log. She could watch Leliana for hours. Her Birdie could read the most boring book in the world, and Faelyn would be enraptured the whole time, watching her pretty lips move and her hair sway, listening to her pretty Orlesian voice. It’s such a shame Orlais was so terrible to Ferelden, she thought. It would be so nice to hear voices like hers more often. She furrowed her brows at the thought. Or would it? It would be very hard to focus on buying things at the market if people sounded like Birdie. She giggled to herself. She was already so inclined to believe anything a merchant said. If they sounded Orlesian, she was sure she’d pay ten times the amount she already did for bread.
Faelyn’s ears twitched, alerting her to the person sitting down on the other side of the log from her. She looked over and smiled at Zevran. She hadn’t known him for very long, but she liked him. Even if he had tried to kill her. That wasn’t his fault. He was told to do it. He was probably a slave. Antiva is close to Tevinter, isn’t it? She hadn’t asked about that yet, of course. That would probably be rude—asking a person you’d only known for a week and a half if they were a slave. It was probably a sore subject.
“You have the most incredible eyes, dear Warden,” Zevran chuckled.
She giggled. “Do I?” She tilted her head at him a little. “That’s very nice of you to say.” She could feel her ears flickering with interest. “If you meant it in a nice way, of course.” She thought Zevran was very pretty, too, but Leliana had firmly taken a hold of her heart.
“Of course, of course,” Zevran replied. “Such large things, and such a wonderful shade of blue-green.” He smiled at her. “And ever so good at staring at bards.”
She nodded. “Mhmm,” she hummed. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Faelyn sighed, looking back at Leliana. Leliana had a soft smile on her pretty pink lips.
“I am inclined to agree.”
“Wait,” Faelyn said, looking back at Zevran with a curious expression. “How did you know Birdie was a bard? She hasn’t told you that yet.” Leliana liked to pretend she was just a very talented Sister. Apparently, bards weren’t looked upon very nicely outside of Orlais. Or even in Orlais.
“I have a talent for guessing such things,” he grinned. “It is not difficult for me to see such talents in her form.”
“And it is not difficult for me,” Leliana said, “to hear you two. Quite well.” She set her dagger and her whetstone in her lap and looked over at Faelyn and Zevran. Faelyn was grateful that she didn’t look annoyed at them. “Have you nothing better to do than gossip about my skills, Zevran?”
“You would be correct, my dear,” he responded.
Leliana rolled her pretty blue eyes. “Don’t listen to him, Bunny. I don’t know what he’s trying to do, but I wouldn’t trust an assassin’s judgement of my skills.”
“Judgement?” Faelyn’s brows knotted a little. “We weren’t judging. Not in a bad way.” She shook her head and looked over to Zevran. “You weren’t judging, were you?”
Zevran put a hand on his chest. “Under no circumstance,” he said, voice like he was swearing a vow. “Let it be known I respect your profession greatly. It is no easy thing to learn, that I know.”
Faelyn looked at him with wide eyes. “You know how to be a bard?”
“Myself? No. But I know of their methods. Not all too dissimilar from an assassin.”
Leliana chuckled. “I would like to see you try,” she said. “You, playing the lute and reciting an epic? I can’t imagine.”
Faelyn sat up a little straighter, her usual soft ears standing straight out. “Could you imagine me being a bard?” She asked. Please say yes, please say yes. She hadn’t thought of it before, but now the idea had captured her attention.
Leliana studied her, putting a knuckle to her lips. “Perhaps,” she said. “You’re certainly skilled enough with a blade.”
Faelyn’s cheeks warmed with an excited, flattered blush. “Am I?”
Leliana nodded. “And you can be a quick learner,” she said. “When you apply yourself, of course,” she added.
Faelyn sat up fully, smiling widely. “Could you teach me something, then? Something bard-y?” Birdie teaching me something bard-y. She giggled at the thought.
Leliana seemed to think about her answer for a moment. “If you take it seriously, of course.” Faelyn nodded as quickly as she could. “Come, then,” Leliana said, curling her finger toward her. “And bring your knives. Let me show you how to throw them.”
Faelyn drew a sharp, excited breath and stumbled to her feet. She patted her hips, making sure her two daggers were still in her sheaths. The dagger from Duncan, she thought, feeling the hilt below her right hand, and that one I stole from a dead assassin. She ran over to Leliana’s side, looking up at her with wide, excited eyes. “If I know how to throw daggers,” she said as she and Leliana walked a little further from camp, “I could hit things from far away. Before they could hit me!” She remembered the feeling of a big, shemlen hand around her throat, squeezing. She swallowed. She hated it when her memory did that, bringing up terrible things out of nowhere.
“Yes,” Leliana agreed. If she’d seen the sudden frown appear on Faelyn’s face, she didn’t say anything. That was kind of her. Faelyn didn’t want to tell her about that. Only Alistair knew, and she’d like to keep it that way. At least for a little while. “Here,” Leliana said, stopping. She pulled one of her freshly sharpened daggers from her side. It was one that she’d picked up off of a Darkspawn a few miles ago. “This-” She pulled her arm back and threw the dagger in a smooth, easy motion. “Will be your target.” It landed in the trunk of a tree a good fifteen feet away. She turned to Faelyn and smiled.
Wow, she’s pretty. Faelyn’s eyes wandered to Leliana’s freckled forearms, exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of her blouse. “Just… throw it?” She asked, peeling her eyes away from Leliana’s arm.
Leliana hummed out a little yes. “It will be good to know where to direct my teaching,” she said. “Get a sense of what you’re capable of.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Faelyn nodded. She pulled out the dagger from the dead assassin. Leliana stepped out of the way as Faelyn walked to where Leliana had been standing. “Like this?” She bit down on her lip as she tried to remember how Leliana had placed her feet, how she’d positioned her arm. Oh, you dumb little rabbit, she chided herself. Pay closer attention next time! It wasn’t fair that Leliana was so pretty and so distracting. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then threw the blade with all her strength.
It sailed perfectly straight, spinning rapidly. It flew past the tree and, a few seconds later, slammed into a boulder and let loose a small burst of sparks.
Faelyn’s eyes were wide. Oops. Without moving her head, she looked over to Leliana. Birdie wasn’t looking at her at all, but instead staring, open-mouthed, at the rock. Her human eyes probably only saw the sparks that, thankfully, fizzled out before they could set the brush on fire. “That wasn’t that bad, was it?” Faelyn asked, her voice a low, nervous whisper.
“Bunny.”
“Birdie…”
“Do you… do… archery, or…?”
Faelyn shook her head. “No,” she said, a little confused. “Why?”
“I- I didn’t know you had such strong arms.” Leliana’s face was a little pink beneath her freckles.
“I do?” Faelyn looked down at her hands. They were a little rough, but that wasn’t anything new. She spent a lot of time scrubbing down tables before she got married—before I became a Warden, she corrected herself. She’d usually been asked to retrieve things from high-climbable places. Usually by boys who were too scared to do it themselves. Shianni had always insisted it was because they wanted to look up her skirts and that she shouldn’t do such things. Shianni had probably been right.
“We just need to work on your aim,” Leliana said, still looking quite shocked. “That wasn’t a dagger you were particularly attached to, was it?”
Faelyn thought for a moment. “No,” she said, shaking her head. Oh, she realized. It’s definitely broken, isn’t it? She patted the dagger from Duncan on her hip and giggled to herself. Good thing I didn’t throw you, she thought. “I can go get some of the old Darkspawn-y daggers,” she said, smiling up at Leliana.
“That would probably be a good idea,” Leliana said, smiling back. Her face was still pretty pink.
“I’ll be back in a second,” Faelyn said. She firstly ran to go collect the remains of the assassin’s blade. It had left a chip in the boulder and the metal of the blade had come loose from the hilt. “Oopsies,” she smiled, picking up the pieces. “I’m very sorry,” she said to the blade. She set back out for the camp. “Maybe Zevran will know how to put you back together?” Her ears twitched happily as she walked with a bounce in her step. “I’m sure he knows those kinds of things.”
“Are you talking to your blade, Warden?”
She nodded at Zevran, who was still reclining against the log. He had probably been watching them, even if he hadn’t been able to see everything or hear what she and Leliana had been whispering about. As she got close to him, she squatted down. “Here,” she said, presenting the broken dagger to him. “It’s alright if you don’t know how to put it back together.”
His yellow-brown eyes were wide as he stared at the broken weapon.
“But I figured it was a good idea to ask.”
“How-” He blinked a few times as he stared at the weapon. With hesitant hands, he took the pieces. “How in the Maker’s name did this break?”
“Uh… a rock?” Faelyn tilted her head at him.
“This- this is a fine Antivan blade,” he said. He sounded genuinely shocked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Faelyn said, feeling a bit of guilt bubble in her gut. “I should have asked if you’d like it before I took it for myself.”
“No, no, that’s alright,” he said, shaking his head. “What I meant is that it should have been secured quite well.” He looked at where the hilt and the blade had been melted together. “This is not crude craftsmanship.”
“I guess I have a good arm,” she giggled, shrugging.
Zevran looked up at her, eyes wide. “Is that what that noise was?”
“Uh, probably,” she said back, nodding. “I’m gonna go grab a new knife now,” she said, pointing toward her tent. “I don’t want to leave Leliana waiting for too long.”
“Right, yes, of course,” Zevran nodded. He chuckled, almost nervously. She looked at him oddly. “Let it be said I lost to a truly incredible opponent,” he said.
“Awe, thank you!” She kissed him on the forehead and stood up. “Maybe we can practice together some time!” She grinned. “I’m sure Birdie wouldn’t mind.”
“I would be honored, Grey Warden.” He smiled at her. His ears were a little red. “So long as I am not standing in front of the target.”
She laughed as she started to jog toward her tent. “Maybe once I’m good enough to aim!”
“Preferably so!”
She kept smiling as she dug through her pack for all of the odd little daggers she’d picked up over the course of the last few months. She set Duncan’s dagger down on her bedroll for safekeeping. You stay safe, she thought, giving the metal a little kiss. She gathered a half dozen rusty Darkspawn knives into her arms. You, she thought, looking at the knives. Are coming with me. She stood up and left the tent. Maybe, once she was good enough at the dagger-throwing, Leliana would teach her to play the lute. She could already hear a dozen songs in her mind that she’d love to play for her Birdie.
She hummed them to herself as she started the walk back to Leliana’s side.
Oh, how lovely it would be to be like her.