Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Tainted Dreams	By : wyldehart Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 3478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: All characters and Dragon Age are property of Bioware/EA. I made no money, sadly.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Alistair and Elissa both held their breaths as Ambrose dropped the wax stick to the ground. It broke in half on contact. He swallowed hard and watched the thin elvish archer creep near him. Another seized him from behind and together they shoved him to the ground while a third, a woman, searched his clothes. She found an amulet with strange runes on the front and a symbol of entwining trees on the back. Ambrose thrust out his hand to grab for it and accidently punched the woman in her face. Her delicate nose erupted blood and she kicked him in the head as retaliation. "No! It's mine! My Grandmother gave it to-" he shouted.
"Lies!" the first male shouted with a spray of spittle. "You are a lying, thieving Shemlen! You cost us this city and no matter what we do to protect her treasures, your kind still returns to rape her. Well, Shemlen, pray to your Maker because your seconds are numbered. Have you anything you wish to say?"
Ambrose locked sad eyes on Elissa and wept. "Elissa, before they kill me, you must know that I l-"
"Stop! All of you! Lower your weapons at once and allow the human to rise. You are acting like the barbarians the humans accuse us of being," a wizened voice interrupted. It was just in time too, Alistair noted. He let out his breath in a sigh.
The red-haired elf-woman, a cloth held to her broken nose, came forward and stabbed a finger at Ambrose. "Keeper, please! He was defacing our ruins!"
The tallest elf Elissa and Alistair had ever seen stepped out from the shadows. She must have been a full head taller than any of the males. She wore a simple silk gown that flowed behind her though there was no breeze. She was exotically beautiful with long, ground-length pale hair the color of moon-spun-sunlight. All through it were colorful flowers and autumn leaves. Her face was narrow with high cheeks and a small nose. She was pale of skin with flush, pink cheeks and a fine, porcelain completion. The Keeper's lips were full and a lush, sparkling warm dark-pink. Eyes the color of a pale winter brook looked out from behind long, black lashes. They were heavy-lidded, large and almond-shaped beneath arched pale-brown eyebrows. In her long, delicate arms she held a silver fox whose blue eyes blinked out from its black mask. Its ink-tipped tail curled around her arm.
She knelt and picked up the broken stick of wax and noted the rubbing on the parchment. "Hmm. Defacing indeed! The horrors! Gaining knowledge from wax and parchment being amongst the most wicked forms of graffiti! The gods forbid the man be accused of plagiarizing some ancient poet! For it was graffiti he appears to have copied. 'There was an old lady who lived in a shoe. She was a whore and a bit of a shrew. She forced me to my studies as that's what she'… ah… 'do'… Oh dear. Poor boy was angry at his teacher." She sighed and crossed her arms as she looked at the elfin woman. "Have you stronger charges against the human or shall I let him go now?"
"Why will you not see? There is more. This Shem stole from us! Here! See? He claims it's his but it belongs to us!"
She stepped carefully up to elf-maid and took the amulet from her and studied it carefully. "Hmm… Ayeron Meriszanelan… 'Le Vasuer une la Saguin.' Where did you get this, human? Surely it was not from here? Sadly, this place had been picked over many decades before you came along. This is a very valuable item." She placed it in the hand cradling the fox and laid her fingers against the elf's cheek. Magic glowed at her finger-tips and healed the woman's splintered nose in seconds.
Ambrose fought his way to a standing position as the elves reluctantly loosened their grip. Alistair and Elissa joined him on either side to show solidarity with their friend. An elf tried to grab Elissa's arm but a dagger appeared at the tip of his nose before he could do anything. She narrowed her eyes at him. He slowly backed away. "The amulet was my Grandmother's. She says I was descended from an elf named 'Meriszan…" Ambrose began.
Shouts shattered the peace of the ruins and the Keeper all but threw her disappointed gaze at them, shushing them instantly. "Have you no respect? Shemlen or no, the man is speaking and we should give him that at least."
"What has his kind ever given us, Keeper? Poverty? Despair? Unwanted half-human children?" someone shouted rudely from beyond a crumbling home.
Their leader sighed and closed her eyes briefly, sadly before walking serenely to where Ambrose stood. She offered him her delicate hand and murmured, "Repeat after me, Mon ve'erte. 'Vale'sal entemirii. Tol sothis kemilin. Ovris mali.'" Though he took it warily, he repeated her words much to the anger and shock of the elves surrounding them. "You have just sworn Forest Brother to me until you leave us. You and your friends are protected as long as none break the oath. That makes you my guests. Come. We have much to discuss, you and I. It seems you may be directly descended from a great hero of ours. She is similar to your Andraste in many ways."
The tall Grey Warden took the slender arm not occupied by the curious fox who watched him closely, not trusting him in the least. Even as tall as she was, the top of her head barely grazed the tip of his crooked nose. She must have born the weight of centuries but she looked no older than a well-preserved forty-year old human. Laugh-lines surrounded her eyes and mouth when she smiled, something she did often. "So you believe me, Keeper?" he asked.
She nodded and pulled her arm back to her body so that she could lift the hem of her dress as they descended a flight of worn stairs. The silk gown was a color of white-gold so pure and delicate that it was hard to see where the glittering ribbons of her hair ended and the dress continued. They floated out behind her as one. "The amulet says much but I think you say even more. Meriszanelan was known as 'the First and the Last' for a number of reasons. I am sure you recognized that bit of Orlesian I recited?"
Ambrose nodded and politely accepted her hand as she carefully stepped over a fallen log. "It is archaic but not unfamiliar," he replied. They had entered a forested area near the ruins and stood in a kind of "tent city", a mobile Dalish camp that could be moved if something wrong were to occur. They followed her to a modest tent near the camp center. She leaned in to speak to an attendant outside the tent and requested tea, wine and food for her guests. That those "guests" were shemlen startled to man but he ran off to do as his lady requested.
"Please forgive my people's reactions. To this day we bear the scars of hundreds, nay, thousands of years of abuse, slavery and racism at the hands of humans. I, as keeper, have the memories of those keepers before me and some lived in more pleasant times when humans and elves were kinder to one another. Perhaps it is naïve of me to me to say it but I yearn for a return to that time. Your Majesty, King Alistair, I have heard rumors that your own people are well on their way to that end. Is this not true?" She carefully placed the fox on the carpeted floor of her tent and he scurried over to where his own plush bed lay. He then began gnawing on a bit of leg-bone though he kept his blue eyes on the intruders to his den and watched them warily.
The subject of her query blanched. She serenely gestured for him to sit and he about fell into the plush couch. "How did you know who I am?" he gasped.
She laughed and picked up his huge shield. On it was a carefully designed emblem bearing Ferelden's blue and gold colors, Denerim's golden lion and a snowy white gryphon in an amalgamation of symbology that all but screamed what he was. "Alistair is the only Grey Warden to be king. Anywhere. Ever. These symbols, apart from one another, mean little. Together, to those educated enough to know, they can mean but one thing.
"And you can only be Queen Elissa. Though your shield is the same as his, I derive my assumption from the descriptions of you I have heard from others. We elves revere you. Even in this remote land in southern Orlais. You ended the slave trade which sent so many of us to the Imperium and elsewhere. You killed those who ran it and made peace with the Dalish within your own country. You spearheaded this peace and though you had help, it was you, Hero of Ferelden, who succeeded this and earned our trust. You are a friend among us and no Shemlen, Your Majesty. It is to you that I humbly bow." She bent slowly at the waist and smiled. Elissa blushed and nodded her head in return.
She set aside the shield so that she could kneel before Elissa and placed her hands upon Elissa's growing belly. "That you too have managed the seemingly impossible by being both a Grey Warden and mother of a Grey Warden's child is yet another reason to honor you. Both you and your husband have encountered near impossible odds and yet you have triumphed. You are indeed heroes." Then she slowly cast her gaze upon Ambrose again. He had remained standing. She rose to her feet, facing him.
"Then there is you, Ambrose. An enigma to be sure but you are a fine example of goodness for the most part. Within you, however, I sense darkness, a thing that threatens all you know, all you hold dear. You cannot speak of it lest it destroy you. I understand. But how did you come to this place? How did you become a Grey Warden? I can figure this out on my own should I wish to, simply by skimming the surface of your mind, but your companions deserve an answer. I believe they would be impressed."
He paled and tears streamed down his cheeks. He looked so much older in that moment, so vulnerable that Elissa couldn't stand it. She rose and wrapped her arms around him. "You don't have to, Ambrose."
"She-she can read your thoughts!" he stammered at her. Elissa nodded and pulled him down to sit between her and Alistair. He gained courage from the pair, sat up and glared reproachfully up at their host. "I will tell my tale, Mon ellei, as you ask but only if you swear you will tell me all you know of my ancestor and show us the ruins, such as the places she walked and lived."
The keeper laughed and stood tall, her long fingers across her lips and her eyes dancing above them. "Had you ever any doubt that I would? It was my intent all along! But I would hear your version of things, not merely the things that happened. That is all I can glean from the surface. I can only see the events but not the emotion. To gather more would mean prying deep into the recesses of all that you are and that is impossible at this… time. Besides, it would be invasive and rude and I am neither."
Ambrose nodded and sat up. He had avoided this for far too long and actually being forced to do it was a surprising relief to him. He doubted it would have any bearing on his friendship with Alistair and Elissa but, being a deeply private man, getting him to speak of his past was akin to pulling a healthy tooth: eventually, it would come out but it would be bloody painful.
"I was born to the north of Valy Royeax in a small, poor village near Ghislain, in the Fields of Ghislain. My mother and father suffered from a plague that ripped through the region at the time and a bitter, cold winter made their recovery impossible. My somewhat wealthier Grandmother felt pity for me and took me in when I was five. By the age of nine, I had grown to be too much for her to care for so she sat me down and told me of my past.
"The moment she said that I was descended from Elves, I was suspicious and doubtful. But I listened to this tale she told, a story about a woman who tried to save her people but died in the process leaving behind a daughter who would carry on her legacy. As proof, my Grandmother gave me this amulet. Then, a few days later, she sent me away to Val Royeax to be chosen as a squire. I was accepted and she died a year later. She left me her land, her house, her gold and her books but all I could carry with me was her honor. For even though I had been chosen to someday join the ranks of the Chevalier, their ruthlessness would not be mine. I had been raised better, or so I'd hoped. I was only eighteen when I completed training and gained my full rank.
"Then one day, some three years after becoming a full Chevalier, working for the emperor himself, I was witness to a rape, a brutal attack on a woman only fifteen or sixteen years of age. That the rapist was my own commanding officer could only make it worse for me. Part of me cried that it could not continue. The other part screamed that it was his right. He was Chevalier and to go against him was certain death. Even for one of his own, reasons be damned.
"What was I to do? The only thing I could do…
"I killed him."
To be continued
- 17
- 18
- 19
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Tainted Dreams