faderift | I thought that I've been hurt before.

Entry tags:

I thought that I've been hurt before.

WHO: Taas + Open
WHAT: Catch-all for February
WHEN: After his return from the Crow event and the rest of the month.
WHERE: Mostly Skyhold, Herald's Rest
NOTES: CR for new and old characters alike!

Tavern

It was usually early in the evening when Taashath lumbered towards the tavern. He usually had an ale or two, maybe something to eat and chatting with friends and newcomers alike. After the rescue of Zevran in Antiva, however, he was drinking more, eating less and rarely talking to people.

He had lost control, forgotten his name, tried to kill a member of the Inquisition, no matter how loaded the issue of a Ben-Hassrath was. He wasn't safe when his rage took over like that... and the possibility of hurting someone he cared about was eating him up inside.

Was he squandering everything Yshae taught him by trying to be a hero?

It was easier to just drink and forget.

Courtyard

Taas was a common sight in the courtyard, talking with people, maintaining his weapons somewhere in the rare sunlight or even chopping a training dummy to pieces now and then. He had stopped offering to spar with people, however, just smiling and shaking his head each time someone asked for a hand or when he saw someone struggling with their guard.

Instead he spent a lot of time going over breathing techniques and different means of relaxing, loosening himself from all the madness etched into his bones. He was Taashath.

It became like a mantra to him. He could push through this.

Wildcard

Hit me!

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Lately, life has felt like a slap in Araceli's face. Seeing the true horrors of the Red Templars, learning what had happened to Sina causing her to fear her mark once again, and then finally Zevran? It's only a matter of time before she needs to slip away and try to forget it.

A few calls for games of cards and dice follow her, her smile tight when she waves them off. A bottle of cheap rum and a glass, she's set for the night.

"Do you mind company?" She asks carefully, all of what happened in Antiva so fresh in her mind that she doesn't sit right away, hovering before Taashath, bouncing on her toes. "I don't wish to be roped into cards, you might be big enough to put them off." A half-hearted smile is offered, an apology but close to a grimace, ready to disappear should he give the word.

Deaf as he is, Taas doesn't reply at first until she's bouncing on her toes like that. It makes him realize that she's actually trying to talk to him ratehr than standing close, and he gives her an apologetic look. "Sorry, did you want to sit?"

She was a familiar face, at least, and he's happy she was one of the people in their little rescue squad that didn't see him lose his head like that.

"Araceli, right?" Pardon the butchering of her name.

Nodding, she almost throws herself into a seat, scooting it round just enough to still have a good view. Just to be safe because a rift opened in Skyhold and Araceli doesn't actually know where any of them stand now, if she should be expecting a knife in the kidney soon.

"Yes, and you're Taas-- Taashath?" The shortened version is one she's heard from a couple of parties but it'd be rude to lead with that. "Rescuing Zevran was a bad time to try for introductions, I'd like to make up for it. And what a fighter! I've never seen anyone move like that."

Well actually she's just never seen anyone move with such a big weapon before, only catching snatches after sneaking in and then getting out but a girl has eyes and a girl is impressed.

"Yeah, that's right. Taas is fine. Easy to read on your lips, too." Taas makes a gesture to his ear - he wasn't sure how obvious his deafness had been during their mission to save Zevran, as his lip reading was great and most of what he did was stand around or fight.

Her praise of his fighting sets as a weird mix of pride and shame in his stomach, and the warrior takes a sip of his ale to loosen that up a bit. "It's common for big guys to have big weapons. I was trained with one since I was a boy," he starts, brushing some loose brown hair behind one horn. "Makes me feel like I can take more a of a beating and protect people that way."

"Please do not hesitate to tell me if I speak too fast, it's a bad habit." The worst incidents are when she’s angry or excited, but compared to some here she always sounds as if she’s rushing even when she’s not, the Orlesians in particular being much more measured in their speech.

"No one where I come from has such weapons. Bigger swords but still on one hip, a shield that fits on one arm." Being light is crucial but they’ve got firearms too however that one...that one can wait, once bitten twice shy isn't something she thought would apply to her but now it does and she just has to live with it for a while. "How young is 'a boy', I know how much that varies from place to place."

"It's been fine, so far. You enunciate well." Better than many Fereldans, who tended to drawl heavily if they were from the lower classes. Speed could be a problem, but he got the gist of most things.

"Really? I'm surprised, it's a good weapon. Takes down a horse if you wield it good enough." Then again, most people preferred the sword and shield combo, and he understood that. Attack and defense. "...and I was twelve. It's about the time my people under the Qun learn their place in society. I was a soldier, so they gave me a sword. Then I got really big for my age and they got me an axe instead."

“Is Orlesian a problem? I can’t get my head around how a word looks in a book when they just seem to stop at a point.” Only she’s going to have to suck that one up if she wants to be a bard but it gives her a headache already, and she can tell just how atrocious her accent is without anyone trying to point it out.

“Well for a start, we don’t have horses, not in the country I come from, and seeing as none of us grow so big and tall we’d sink if we happened to fall in the water with big things like that strapped to us!” Just the thought of people splashing around like that has her laughing, and she takes the time to compose herself before she tries to speak again. “Twelve! Who learns their place at twelve? I was learning how to climb up the sides of buildings, how to pick locks and pockets, I didn’t get a real weapon for another couple of years.”

"The accent? No, it's not too bad, just a bit too soft at times. I'm a good guesser in most circumstances, thankfully. As for the language?" He pauses and shrugs. "I don't know shit. All I know is Trade and Qunlat." Maybe some Antivan thanks to Zevran, but it was probably things he shouldn't say in public. "Names are just hard since they're not something I've heard before I became deaf."

He listens to her, smiling a little bit as she talks about her homeland... this place beyond the Rifts that made little sense to anyone. Sounded like a nice but apparently wet place.

Her laughing makes him chuckle a bit, and he shakes his head softly. "We're bred for our roles. Or tamassran raise us to fit it, and then we're evaluated at twelve and sent off to our new life." There's a small shrug from the big man. "I never really thought anything odd about it until I left."

“Trade’s more useful than Orlesian, just opening your mouth feels like you’re playing the Game.” That may be part of the intent but that doesn’t mean she has to like it when there are better ways of getting the job done. “I only think I’ve heard two or three words of Qunlat and Korrin only explained two.”

She still has no idea what the hell she actually drank that night but she basically had no legs so maybe it’s like legless juice or something weird like that and translating it ruins the whole thing.

"People don't just find someone and decide 'let's have a baby' or get drunk and forget where that sort of thing leads if you have all the right parts and don't take precautions?" There's something almost like it, but the bred bit has her rubbing the goosebumps from the back of her neck before she takes a drink. “You’re still just boys and girls then, do you really get no chance to do something else?”

"Already know about the Game, eh? You're fitting in quick in Thedas." Honestly he would never have guessed she was a rifter. Araceli really just seemed Antivan even without him hearing her accent. "Oh, what words were they?"

Maraas-lok was pretty much like drinking dragon fire. You felt strong and powerful and then you woke up without your pants.

Reading her lips, he shakes his head a bit at the ramble about babymaking. "No, The Qun is all about efficiency and regulates that shit really strictly. Sex is for relieving stress or making children, and you don't choose your mate. The tamassran do. A father's job ends at conception and a mother's at birth." He shrugs slightly. "It may sound weird to people outside the Qun, but the children were always wanted, always raised with other children and never ignored. they're brought up to be the best person they can be without the influence of parentage."

The other things? Well. "Our talents are nurtured since we were babies. A child bred from soldiers could still be a painter if that was their most obvious talent... but once in a slot, it's rare to change."

“Politics at home is quite similar, one country even wears masks all the time too!” From her smile, it’s clear she’s at least a little excited at the idea of belonging and fitting in because it’d be so much harder if she didn’t, but she’s made the effort and the fact that it’s paying off? Well it brightens her day and she could use that when she still keeps thinking about Zevran and Sina. “Kadan, vash-- vashedan, and maraas-lok.”

A good thing he can’t actually hear how she might have butchered the last two, the emphasis falling on the wrong place but to be fair, she’s heard them once and Thedas has too many languages and accents to keep up with all at once.

Almost choking on he drink, she sets it down and has to laugh for a good solid minute. “Efficiency! Oh that’s so boring and dull! It should be fun, and passion, and thinking about this incredible thing you’re doing - you’re making a whole new person! And true, fathers can leave more easily than the mother but I cannot imagine being me without my parents. They got me tutors, taught me how to stand up for the right things, gambling and whoring, reading the stars so I’ll never get lost.” Her parents instilled so much love in her; her father’s smile, her mother’s eyes, a whore’s charm and a pirate’s assured place in the world.

“But...how do you breed a soldier? Babies just flop. And cry. You can’t even tell why a baby is crying let alone what it’ll be when it grows up.” Okay you can tell that some babies will grow up to be shits but it’s not polite to tell a parent that. “The world was as open as the sea to me, all the possibilities just sat there waiting for me to pick the shiniest ones.”

She was a cute girl, and he can see what Korrin saw in her. Smart and funny. It makes him chuckle to read the words on her lips that the other qunari had taught Araceli, and he decides to teach her something good. "Next time you see her, you should give her a kiss and then say 'taarsidath-an halsaam'. It'll be a good surprise for Korrin."

Might get her a good night, too.

Her laughter and comments on Qunari life are a bit bittersweet. She was right in a lot of it, but at the same time, it was different for him. Children outside the Qun could be unwanted, starving, abused. If anything he would have liked to take with him from the Qun, it would have been their family units.

Floppy warrior babies has him going again, though, laughing softly. "Well, my linage is mostly warriors, so when they bred my parents, it would mean that I would have some background in that. Probably big and tough, which is a good start. Then they just raise us and test us over and over to see if that's what I would be most efficient as. I liked protecting the other kids, so here I am with my big axe."

"Taarsidath-an halsaam?" There are a few more attempts, softer, more quiet. Just to get the rhythm down so Korrin will be genuinely surprised when she says it instead of having to figure out if she's said it. Maybe it's some Tal-Vashoth thing Korrin hasn't told her yet but a surprise is a surprise.

Here's hoping she doesn't decide to say it at a party any time soon.

She's probably going to say it at the party. Better sleep with one eye open when she finds out what she's said, she will come creeping in during the night, a small terrible tiny thing.

But for now there's at least something she can nod at because well, she gets lineage. "Mine are all sailors on one side, lots of captains. Our connection to the sea is through the blood so I can understand. Oh but tests. Testing children. Unless they were the sort of tests you didn't know about but still, that's the time to play, to make mistakes, to try to experience as much as you can as fast as you can. Was there much to protect them from?" After all, what she knows of where the Qunari come from? It doesn't come from anyone that's ever lived there, and that's not the way to go about really finding out about places. If she's going to understand Thedas, she needs to put all the pieces together.

Hey, even if she did say it at a party, only people that spoke Qunlat would ever get it... and those were few and far between. Thankfully.

Hopefully Korrin would be amused to hear it... and that he'll survive a few smacks from tiny faux-Antivan rifter girls.

The talk about sailors makes him smile again, hoping she gets to see the seas around here in Thedas. He's been on a few ships himself, and it had been pretty nice to see the dark waters meet the horizon.

"It's the kind of tests you don't know about, found out during play and education. They don't really force you into anything... but it has flaws, I admit." He shrugs again and looks over at the bartender to ask for two more glasses. "Not more than there is to protect children from in other places. Difference is that they manage to."

Korrin's got a pretty loud laugh though, and the only reason Araceli knows what vashedan means is because she honestly thought it was maybe a term of endearment.

Luckily it got cleared up, how embarrassing it might have been.

"I dread to think what I would've been pegged as through that. I never sat still. I ran everywhere, I climbed, I re-enacted daring sword battles." Her mother wishes she had grey hairs she could blame on Araceli but she has no such luck as of yet, though not for lack of trying on Araceli's part if she's honest. "You might need to explain more; where I am from there were of course terrible people but the worst things were maybe a bad fall into the water, being caught stealing. Nowhere in my home is as dangerous as Thedas seems to be. It's hard to really think of dangers."

Hey, he's pretty sure he's said that a few times when things got hot. It could very well be an endearment if uttered enough times in bed.

Still, 'kadan' was more versatile than swearing in bed.

"I'm no Tamassran, so I don't know. Probably rogue, though." She just seemed the type, and he could imagine her as a kid. Wild and energetic. Wild-eyed and free.

As for dangers? "Starving, sicknesses, abuse, slavery... becoming orphans. None of that happens to kids under the Qun. Kids don't have to steal to survive, and we... they have the best medical care in Thedas that doesn't rely on magic." 'Balancing humors', for fucks sake. Barbaric.

"Kids are precious gifts and not the burdens they can be called in families outside the Qun."

“It’s more boring for us. No mages unless you count someone who can do sleight of hand so fast you’d swear it was magic. And not warriors. Not like you for instance. Everyone in Castileos? Rogue.” Maybe Zimevur would have warriors but that was so long ago she doesn’t really think it would count now. The last war was won on the ocean, not the land, a lesson everyone remembers well and so lightly armoured and free to move quickly from ship to ship is the motto of the day.

“I am aware of those things, we have some in my country, and no shortage of children fleeing one land in particular, stowing away on ships. Not the slavery, but the hunger and the illness that comes when there isn’t enough food.” Live in a building of artists without patrons and you realise how quickly sickness spreads if they’re not eating, if she could get at least one good meal in them a day it was a victory. “Stealing was a game for me, I’m very good at it, but what I got for my thefts fed far more than just myself.

“But you said you liked protecting the other children, or is that simply standing between them and the world so they won’t have to know the fear first?”

"A place with nothing but rogues sounds both interesting and dangerous," Taas admits with a smile. Kind of like Zevran, he supposed. He has a feeling they would get along.

Worlds were different, thought, even in small things, and worlds became even more different if you saw them from perspectives you've never lived. The Qun was foreign to her as her Rifter world was to him.

"Nah, I was mostly a big burly kid who broke up the fights and even let other kids hit me when they were angry. Or hide them if they had been bad and Tama was looking to punish them for it."

"Isn't everywhere worth going like that? Duels in the street drawing a crowd, thieves that take pride in opening every sort of lock, whores that can read a person with one look and a touch; life is never dull, each day is a lesson." Not that all duels get to the fighting, there's a long practice of posturing, of walking up and down to assess yourself and put on a show. A duel can easily be settled with words and simply affirming reputation but it all sounds more dangerous and romantic if she paints it this way. Zevran would know just how many get settled rather more privately too.

"I don't know why but I didn't think you would fight. I thought 'if there is one place where there are well-behaved little boys and girls, it will be this place, in this world'. So Tamas are like mothers in that, they must have loved having someone big to hide behind then, I would have given much for that." She had a fox and he was better at looking very sweet and sad with his big black shiny eyes and tail tucked between his legs compared to her.

"Sounds like it could be a good life in a place like that," Taas says with a thoughtful look. He was surrounding himself and his bed with rogues already, so why not a city full of them? Going after Zevran had left a bad taste in his mouth about Antiva, though.

One flesh beast was too many.

"...they sure did like having me to hide behind. Tama always chewed me out about it, but she smiled a lot, too. Maybe she was proud of me." Not as much now, he imagined.

"Beautiful women, handsome men, a place that never really sleeps and surrounded by the bluest waters you'll ever see. Like Antiva but we have no Crows, there isn't death around every corner unless you fancy having a duel in them and I wouldn't recommend, we have some promenades and bridges for that, or the docks and the sands." It's not quite the accurate picture, not when the love of the sea goes so deep in them but it's accurate enough, what she paints, and she loves her home, she misses it dearly.

Skyhold doesn't even have a brothel, which, when you look at it, is a very friendly and very fun sort of flesh beast.

"Well it means you're loyal, that you're brave. It's a mistake too but I used to know plenty of children who would tell the guard on you, fellow thieves just like me, some of them younger despite all of us having our own little crews. She must still be proud of you when you're here and doing good and selfless work - no one asked any of us to go to Antiva or to see even a half of what we've seen with the Inquisition, yet here we all are."

Her description is so vivid that he wishes her could hear waves. He had always enjoyed that soothing sound on Seheron before he lost his hearing, and she brought back the memories of those waters. So blue, with white sand underneath. Peaceful, even if they were far too often filled with blood and bodies.

"Loyal and brave," he repeats with a small smile on his lips. "Maybe I was as a child - but since I left the Qun, 'loyal' isn't what I'd see myself as any more. My Tama cannot be proud of me, now. She probably resents the fact that I was even made."

She might be in trouble because of him, and that hurts his heart sometimes.

"You can be loyal to more than one thing and different parts of you try to pull it one place or the other; the head shouts one thing, the heart whispers another. You are here, the Qun is not. You were there when we saved Zevran from the Crows and gave the younger ones a chance of having a life that's more than just death and being treated like a piece on a board." She sits up, brushing her hair back from her face as she tries to fight the sad twist of her lips, all the times her parents and teachers were there with a hand ready to catch her if she fell. "No one should resent that a person was born. We are what we are, no matter what other people want us to be, we answer back. People aren't like sculptures or stories. No one has to breathe life into us like that."

He reads her lips in silence, and something hurts deep inside his chest. Half what Araceli says is soothing and the other half just hurts more, digs a deep sore inside him that Taas doesn't quite understand.

Their world views might be different, but the more time he's spending in this place, the more he's preferring hers. It used to be so ease to distance himself from this when he was nothing but a bodyguard.

Now he had friends and people that were lovers and strange combinations of both.

Taas had been forced to reevaluate his stance on the Qun a lot in the last few months. Mostly because of Korrin.

"You're a good person, Araceli." The pronunciation is horrible (but he tries). "...thank you."

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I thought that I've been hurt before.

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