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Chapter Text

They knew something had gone wrong when Adaia didn’t return before dark.  She was too consistent for the discrepancy not to garner Cyrion’s attention.  A neighbor finally brought the news to the remaining Tabris family some hours later; how Adaia had finally been caught by Denerim’s guards and dragged off. If the whispers the child had overheard between the adults were true, it hadn’t even been for any noteworthy offense.  It wouldn’t have been if a shem had committed it, anyway.  Adaia was a good thief, and surely the bravest and smartest woman in the Alienage- certainly in the eyes of her young daughter, but she had picked the wrong pocket at the wrong time.  Spotted by the usually careless eye of a city guardsman, this one stroke of bad luck ended up being her last-  The Arl’s representative had decided that it was best that they… make an example of her. All because there were virtually no law-abiding professions in the city for an elf that could actually feed a family.  Not that it mattered. No rebellion from the elves would be tolerated.  It was as it had always been for their people.  No act of heroism couldn’t be written off as a mistake- and even the smallest of offenses was ‘further proof of the natural inferiority and immorality of elves’- and justification for their continued oppression. 

There was only so much even a child could cry.  Cyrion, not in a much better state after his wife’s execution, had held their daughter as she wept for the first two days.  Though Amaris returned to her chores by the third day; harvesting elfroot wherever it grew along the sides of roads and in cracks in the older stone walls in the city to mash into poultices to trade with Alarith for supplies, she did so with no emotion or zeal, moving from task to task almost as if in dream. Half expecting every time she returned home to be swept up and hugged by her mother and spend the rest of the afternoon training, as had been their custom for almost as long as she could remember, every time she returned to the lonely little apartment, quiet and empty, she felt that much emptier in turn.  Taken up trying to get a grip on his own grief, Cyrion failed to see how the loss continued to eat away at their little girl long after the crying had stopped.

Curled up in a thin sheet in her little bed, Amaris stared blankly into the darkness of the room. Her father had put out the candles no more than an hour before, but his even breathing revealed that sleep had managed to find him at least.  How long had it been now..?  She had long since stopped counting.  It didn’t matter how many days it had been when no number of days passing would hasten her mother’s return.  Just being in their home without Adaia’s presence was a trial.  Every object in the small two-room apartment had some kind of memory of her mother attached to it, and she couldn’t stand it. 

Slipping quietly from the cot, the young girl pulled on the ill-kempt trousers and shirt she normally wore for her daily chores.  They made her look that much more like a boy with her short hair, but despite her mother’s urgings, she had never cared much for appearing ‘lady-like’.  Amaris reached up, fingering the messy dark gold locks sadly. Adaia had always said she had pretty hair, and wanted her to let it grow out like hers…  She would never see it long now.  It was the wrong thing to think on- and the girl felt her eyes grow hot as a hard lump rose in her throat.  With an angry hiccup, she fled, running into the night barefoot, periodically rubbing her forearm or a dirty palm over her eyes.

Stupid. Stupid- stupid! The girl admonished herself angrily even as she ran blindly through the dark, empty streets. She wasn’t going to start crying again- she wasn’t!  Crying didn’t accomplish anything.  If tears were worth anything, her mother would never have needed to die- the world would not have been so cruel as to demand it.  Why did the shems hate them so much?  Her father hadn’t had an answer to that, and though the Elder had sat down and talked with her for awhile, retelling the old stories she’d heard a hundred times before, none of them really answered her question either.  The adults’ silence was as damning as answering would have been though.  There was no good reason.  None.  There was no reason good enough to take her mother from her.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, alternating between angry sprints and more reflective walking but always sticking to the darkest shadows as her mother had taught her. Amaris came to the end of one of her longer periods of running and clung to the nearest wall as she caught her breath. Finally stopping to look around her, she took in her surroundings uncertainly.  She didn’t recognize this area, and she knew all of the neighborhoods around her home like the back of her hand.  Noting that the buildings around her were made of stone, not wood, the girl slowly came to the realization that she had left the Alienage entirely. She had wanted to get away from everything that reminded her of her mother and, well- she had done that- but at what cost? 

For the first time, the girl began to feel frightened for her own sake.  None of the elves she knew ever left the Alienage unless they had to- and children were not supposed to leave at all.  She had only been in Denerim proper a few times herself, but never without a few adults close at hand, and never at night.  They never told the worst stories around the young elves but… she had heard the whispers… Sneaking around to eavesdrop was good practice for the skills her mother had taught her, after all. Horrible things often happened to elves who were caught alone by even a handful of shems… even when doing nothing more wicked than going to work.  She’d seen the Elder taking care of bruised and broken elves returned to the Alienage, only half understanding what it meant.  She was hardly the most obedient child, but she’d seen enough to trust their words in this at least; she wouldn’t be treated any better just because she was a child.  Amaris pressed herself more firmly against the wall, willing herself to be as small and inconspicuous as possible.  She needed to find her way back home.

She navigated the streets more cautiously now, stopping and going as still as stone every time she heard a sound.  A handful of times the presence of a human, far too close for comfort, had her holding her breath in a desperate attempt to silence any possible sound that would give her away, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.  She was scared.  She was scared and lost and desperately… desperately wanted her brave, smart mother to sweep her into her arms and carry her home.  Seeing a building that somehow looked familiar, she slowly made her way towards it, rubbing at her eyes viciously with her hands as she felt the urge to cry come upon her again and fighting it for all she was worth.

Surrounded by a stone wall of its own, it took a few long moments of scrutiny through her blurred vision to recognize the building from the back.  The chantry.  It had to be. It was the only place in Denerim she had ever heard of to have its own walls besides the noble estates- and this wasn’t nearly that big, nor its walls so high or fortified. She could… she could knock on the doors and one of the sisters would take her back to the Alienage, maybe… Amaris hesitated, then shook her head at herself.  No. While there were one or two sisters who came through the Alienage for special ceremonies and the like, supposedly most of them weren’t any more sympathetic to elves than any other shem. Besides, there was the problem of explaining how she came to be out here in the middle of the night in the first place- and those big shining knights who liked hanging around the front doors. No- she… she could find her way back now that she had a point of reference.  The entrance of the Alienage was a good walk away, but it wouldn’t be particularly complicated getting there.

She needed a minute first though.  Swallowing another hiccup Amaris tried to calm down.  The last time she had started crying, she had barely stopped for two days. She couldn’t afford to start again now- she would curl up and it wouldn’t be long before she couldn’t stop herself from sobbing all over again.  She took a deep breath and let it out, then another- slow and shuddering though they were, it was an improvement.  Even as she resisted the urge to sniffle however, she heard one anyway. Stiffening in surprise and confusion, she managed to stay still but for the involuntarily twitch of her ears. Any further movement would draw the eye… Even as she held her breath to listen however, she heard another sniffle and loud swallow- like someone else was trying to stave off tears, though far less successfully.

After a minute of listening, curiosity superseded caution, and the young elf stealthily walked along the stone walls, seeking the source of the sound.  Finding some young trees growing within and without the wall near where the soft crying was the most obvious, Amaris carefully climbed up one, peering into one of the cloistered yards of the chantry. Crouched by the trunk of the tree closest to the joining of the stone walls was a boy, apparently trying to hide from anyone who might emerge from the chantry itself while he sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.  He seemed to be about her age, give or take a year, it was hard to tell with humans. He clearly hadn’t heard her with those little round ears of his, though that was hardly surprising with as noisy as he was being in the otherwise still night. 

Whatever he was crying or- trying not to cry about, it apparently distressed him quite a lot, because he didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.  Watching him, wondering what a shem boy with a full stomach and new, clean clothes had to cry so much about made it easier to push her own grief aside, at least for now.  She wanted to know.  Half hiding behind the trunk of her tree, she breathed deeply and tried to still her thoughts, willing herself into ‘stealth’, the strange state of mind Adaia had been teaching her that she hadn’t quite mastered yet.  At all, actually, but it made her feel safer trying to access it. Amaris all but closed her eyes as she regarded the boy below her, aware that any light that they caught would be reflected in them and give away her position and asked, so softly that it might almost have been merely a breath of air. “Boy- why are you crying?”

Chapter Text

“Boy- why are you crying?”

The whispered words, curious and quiet, finally got the young shem’s attention and he jerked up in his crouch.  Clearly startled at having been caught, he looked every which way for the source of the voice, quickly trying to wipe his face.  “I’m not crying.” Came the insolent response, though his voice was so congested from his sniffling that Amaris couldn’t imagine who he thought he was fooling.

“Yes you are.” She affirmed with the glorious lack of tact that few adults managed to retain once they had grown up. “You’re sniffing and huffing is so loud I could hear it down the way-“

“I am not!” Stubbornly trying to shield his childish pride, the boy’s voice rose, only to catch himself and speak more quietly once again.  “You’re a girl, you wouldn’t know.”  His head kept turning towards the chantry itself, as if expecting the other half of the conversation to be a Chantry Sister toying with him and he added even more quietly, as if to himself, “Boys don’t cry.”

Perfectly content in her hiding place amongst the tree’s branches, Amaris didn’t mind in the least feeling in the right about the situation over the human boy. “Yes they do.” She replied patiently, not quite so bluntly as before.  A child’s attempt at placating the other.  Her older cousin Soris cried all the time, particularly when she and Shianni teased him. Also, conversely he was often crying right before she came to save him from bullying by the other children. He was her cousin after all; she wasn’t going to let anyone else torment him.  “Boys can cry; same as girls.”  Had she not also seen her father cry after they had first received word of what had happened?  Even the Elder’s eyes had been somewhat misty when he came to check in on them. “Everyone cries sometimes…” Seeing how the shem boy’s jaw jutted forward stubbornly at her words, Amaris realized, with a silent sigh, that he wasn’t going to answer her like this.  Boys could be so pig-headed.  “Fine, you’re right.  You’re not crying.” Pausing just long enough to let silence return, she continued again, hoping the change of tactics might get her answers. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night, then?”

“You first.” Apparently the shem boy was determined to make this as difficult as possible.  “You’re not even supposed to be here.” For a moment Amaris tensed, anxious as she thought she had been found out.  Then she realized that he simply meant she wasn’t supposed to be here, at the chantry at this hour of the night- Not that she wasn’t supposed to be here, as an elf.  The boy continued on, heedless of her momentary worry and beginning to peer around again. “Where are you, anyway?”

Poor directional hearing, poor hearing in general and not so gifted as she at seeing clearly in the darkness- how was it that humans had become the dominant race of Thedas, again? “Other side of the wall.” She replied honestly, for though she was able to peer down into the yard from her vantage point in the branches, both her tree and her position in it were technically outside of the chantry’s boundaries.  “I was going home.” Though it was far from the whole truth of the matter, it wasn’t a lie.  That had definitely been her intention before she had heard him. Still was, once he answered her questions and her curiosity had been sated. 

That simple answer was not enough to satisfy him, however.  “Where else would you be going?”  He huffed as if it was as obvious as if she had said that it was nighttime. “Didn’t answer the question anyway. Little kids shouldn’t be out so late by themselves.”

“Oh because you’re so grown up, crying at a tree by yourself in the middle of the night.”  The elf girl bit back crossly.  She had hardly been in a good mood tonight to begin with, and she didn’t like his tone; like he was telling her off.  Like he knew so much more than her.  Pretending like he was an adult.  He was just a dumb kid. She had kindly conceded that he wasn’t crying, even though he obviously had been, to save his stupid pride and not bully him into answering so much, but her patience was not nearly long enough not to throw it out again if he was going to be difficult either way.

Whether he was oblivious to her frustration or perhaps too stubborn and angry at her entirely correct accusations to care, the boy plowed forward heedlessly. “Why don’t you go ahead and answer then, smarty-pants! …skirt!  S-smarty-skirt-!  Whatever!” He stumbled over his words in a rush, struggling to deflect his opponent’s jabs at his juvenile sense of pride and turn it back on her, but not yet experienced enough in verbal sparring to come up with much on the spot.  “You had to have been doing something bad; out in the dark by yourself.  That’s why you don’t want to say.  Bet the Guards will come and get you!”

Despite his effective flailing in their argument, the boy had unintentionally managed to strike squarely at the open wound that was her Mother’s memory and she instantly snapped harshly back at him.  “I was crying you stupid--” Before she could even finish her thought however, the childish fury drained from her and Amaris stiffened; her muscles going tense and hard as she realized that she’d admitted far more of the truth than she’d meant to.  It was none of the shem’s business what she had been doing- or why, even if it was to defend her honor, so far as it went.  And as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t anybody’s business when she cried.  It wasn’t as if she were a little kid anymore, crying at any old thing like a baby. This was real, and no one had any right to judge her for it…

The boy, who had been defiantly jerking his head around, futilely trying to find her in the dark even as he wiped at his eyes again, went still as well.  He must have been surprised, or else thinking very hard because it was a long moment before he ventured a much more quiet, almost hesitant, “Why?”

She didn’t feel angry anymore, just sad.  Tempted as she was to just slip away and leave the boy asking his questions to an empty tree, she just felt so tired; too drained from her emotions running high all night to argue any more.  So instead she only turned away, tucking her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her head against them, whispering, “My mother is gone.” 

“Gone? Gone whe-  Oh…”  Though it took him a second, he caught on quickly enough to her meaning and his words trailed off, falling into silence.  Finally moving again, he only shifted from his crouch to sit with his back against the tree he’d been facing.  Letting his head fall back, the boy looked blankly up into the sky from within the Chantry walls even as her gaze remained fixed on the ground outside of them. At home in the darkness, the stillness drew out for what felt like several minutes before he ventured to speak again. “Me neither.  I mean- me too.  I don’t- My mother isn’t… either…”

Slowly, Amaris turned her head, leaning around the trunk of her tree to cautiously look back down at the boy again.  Despite her anticipation, he hadn’t taken the opportunity of finding her weakness to press his advantage in further attack.  She would almost expect that he was laying some kind of trap except that he didn’t seem to be the type to think ahead for that sort of thing.  “Is that why..?”

His position on the ground had the boy facing slightly away from her, but she could still see him shake his head reflexively even as he answered.  “No.  Well, yes. Kind of?”  His head fell forward and he absentmindedly picked up a fallen twig and began scraping in the dirt with it, resting his chin in his other hand. “I mean I never knew her.” The boy’s face briefly darkened in a scowl that confused the girl as he muttered, “Father neither.” The twig snapped when he shoved it into the dirt with sudden force and he was quick to snatch up another one. “But it was… it was fine, I guess… until she showed up.” He didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in his voice as he started scratching in the dirt again, jabbing roughly as if to punctuate his thoughts.  “Stupid… Orlesian with her… stupid accent… and stupid ugly clothes- If it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have had to leave-“ The twig snapped again and he growled, violently throwing the pieces away from himself and just as quickly drawing his limbs in close to himself.  “I hate her…”

She was vaguely aware that there had been a war, and that Orlesians were bad, but other than that his explanation clarified very little, if anything at all. If anything it only raised more questions. But while the tone of his words certainly held no room for argument on the sentiment of his apparent hate for this mysterious Orlesian woman, his voice also carried with it an edge of anguish that even the headstrong young elf was not going to broach with deeper probing just for the sake of her own curiosity.  Slightly confused and unsure how to respond, Amaris nevertheless tried to show some sense of delicacy, barely used, and murmured, “Sorry.” Taking a few moments to try to piece his disjointed account together into something that made sense, she doubtfully offered, “At least you’re in the Chantry now.  She’s not a Sister, right?  So at least you don’t have to deal with her anymore..?”

An unamused snort was her reply.  “I never asked to be.” Though the response seemed to confirm her tenuous understanding of his situation, the boy was clearly less than thrilled at the turn of events his life had taken.  “Who wants to live in a Chantry anyway?  It’s all rules rules rules and studying and cleaning. No one wants to talk about anything but the Chant or the Maker anyway…” The huff he made, turning his head to plop his cheek onto his knees sounded remarkably like that of a stray dog. “Who cares..?”

Amaris didn’t really have any kind of answer to that; she had never known or cared much about Andrasteanism. It had always seemed pretty clear to her that the Chantry on the whole believed that the Maker and the Chant of Light was only truly for humans.  So she didn’t have a clue what it was like, not even enough to convincingly lie about it.  She had never so much as set foot within the walls she all but sat astride now.  Drawing a complete blank, she found herself repeating the kind of meaningless comments adults often made when they didn’t have an answer, though the words left a sour taste in her mouth.  “Things will get better, you’ll see.”

“Ugh.” The simple noise, laced with disgust, revealed concisely that he thought as little of that kind of hollow platitude as she did.  “Don’t say that. The Sisters are always saying stupid things like that.  ‘The Maker shows his hand in mysterious ways.’” He mocked in a nasal, higher pitch before falling back into his normal voice.  “Like they would know.  I was kicked out of my home for no reason and given to the Chantry like a copper on a holy day. S’not like anyone ever asked what I wanted. No one here even likes me, what am I supposed to be so grateful about?”  He grumbled unhappily. 

“Maybe you’d have a better shot of making friends if you didn’t spend every other breath snapping like an old dog at whoever tries to talk to you.”  Was the elf’s scathing reply.  She didn’t respond well to being called stupid at the best of times, and when she was both physically and emotionally exhausted and in an unfamiliar environment was far from ‘the best of times’.  “I’m just saying that you could have it a lot worse than being stuck somewhere where at least you’ll be fed and clothed and taught.”  She knew enough of the children in the Alienage’s orphanage to say it confidently.  And frankly, as an elf, she didn’t even have to be an orphan to envy those simple things that the shem boy clearly took for granted. 

“Sorry… You’re right.” He muttered quietly. Whether he actually understood and agreed with her statement or was simply responding to the resentment in her voice was unclear, but it was enough to placate the girl from simply leaving in her frustration now that she was reminded that she was spending a rather extended amount of time talking with a hated shem.  After a pause he spoke again as if suddenly remembering, apparently taking her words to heart.  “My name is Alistair.  What’s yours?”

“I’m A-ama-“ Beginning to respond automatically to the ordinary, day-to-day sort of question, the words stuck suddenly in the girl’s throat.  ‘Amaris’ was a decidedly ‘elfy’ name.  Not that there was anything wrong with that, she liked her elf name and being an elf just fine. It was everyone else that seemed to have a problem with it.  On the one hand, the thought caused a stubborn heat to rise in her chest, wanting to defiantly reveal herself and demand to be taken as she was; dare him to recoil at having spoken on the same level with an elf.  And give him a bloody nose if he did, as she might do with any boy from the Alienage who made her mad.  On the other hand however…  He hadn’t seen her up in the tree, and there was no way to know that she was an elf by her voice alone.  For all he knew, she was just a human girl from the town.  And there was something incredibly compelling about the secrecy of it, of being taken for and treated like a human.  That is- being treated as an equal when she otherwise could never expect to be.

While Amaris struggled with finding her voice again and trying to think of a suitably human-sounding name, the shem boy- Alistair- had apparently misinterpreted her stuttering reply. “Anna?  That’s a good name.”

“Mmmhmm, yours too…” Relieved at how his assumption had effectively solved her problem, Amaris trailed off lamely, unsure where to take the conversation from there. “I should go home…” She finally said softly, uncurling herself from her perch and beginning to climb down from her tree.  Once again feeling the weary ache in her limbs and eyes; the call of her far-off bed was as sweet as a lullaby. 

“Wait- you’re leaving?” Came the voice from the other side of the wall, sounding a little alarmed.  She could hear Alistair’s scuffling about, presumably getting to his feet and approaching the stone wall between them.  “I-  will you come back again?”

Amaris blinked, turning her head to face where his voice sounded the strongest.  “You want me to?” She asked incredulously after a moment.  While they had ended the conversation on the not unkindly note of sharing names, most of their interaction had been taken up with bickering.  She’d practically bullied him into telling her why he’d been crying, and he certainly hadn’t said or done anything to endanger Shianni’s position as her best friend either. 

“Yeah.” He said the word so matter-of-factly, so confidently that she actually believed him.  “You’re all right, Anna.”  The boy paused, then asked again, trying to restrain the note of hopefulness in his voice.  “So will you?”

So much for her much prided skill of thinking quick on her feet- she didn’t know how to reply. It was wildly stupid and dangerous for her to have come out here in the first place, but to come again deliberately? To risk herself just to talk to a shem boy? But a boy who thought she was human too, and liked talking to her enough to want her to come back. “Okay.”  She agreed before she had properly taken a moment to fully think it through.  Amaris didn’t have any real friends in the Alienage besides her cousins.  Sure, she ran with various packs of other elf children, playing and fighting and causing whatever mischief suited them, but no one who specifically wanted her company. “But- but only at night. Late, like now.”

“Why laaate?” He made a dissatisfied noise, but moved on to his next question anyway.  “Fine.  When, then?  Tomorrow?”

“I have chores to do in the day.”  She answered him in any case, already wondering at herself for agreeing to this.  Looking briefly at the moon, she shook her head at herself. “No, not tomorrow. I’ll come the day after next. Well, night after next, if I can get away.”  It would be a new moon then. Dark, and at least a little easier to sneak around in.

“The night after next, then. Okay.”  Hesitant as her agreement was, it seemed to satisfy him; it was the most pleased Alistair had sounded through their entire conversation. “Just, ah, I guess I’ll be waiting here, then.”

Nodding despite the fact that he couldn’t see the gesture, she agreed.  “Good. And don’t tell anyone.” She warned.

“I wasn’t gonna.” Alistair huffed. “Who would I tell anyway?”

“Just don’t.” She repeated, more firmly. Though she was sure he had only been bluffing when he’d brought up the city guard before, the idea of them actually showing up was a terrifying thought.  With a little shiver, Amaris peered cautiously around in the darkness, double-checking that she was in fact alone in the alley.  “I’ll be here.”  She confirmed again, almost more to herself.  “So don’t keep me waiting.”  Without staying for further answer or argument, she started off, keeping close to the buildings around her and avoiding standing in the open.

“Goodnight-!” If she hadn’t been an elf, and only had the little human ears which seemed to hear so little, she probably would not have caught the farewell, cautiously thrown out to her in the normal speaking tone that might as well have been a shout after all their whisperings.

Amaris paused, glancing back at the Chantry’s walls for just a moment, looking uncharacteristically uncertain in that instant, whispering back, “Goodnight.” When she returned to her path however, carefully making her way back towards the Alienage, the young elf could not fully contain the excited glimmer in her eyes.