The only person to survive the most recent Joining was the one everyone bet against, because she (they? it?) looks like a corpse already. Tall and dangerously skinny with a sunken face and empty eyes, ratty black hair in a tail down her back, this person has to be at least a hundred years old and possibly actually a Darkspawn. That's the jeering rumor, anyway, after the Joining. The others laugh so they don't lie awake in fear of the newest recruit's spikey fingers and dead stare.
Really the only thing that distinguished Warden von Skraedder from a Darkspawn is that she spoke the vows, though even that doesn't totally preclude the possibility that she's a hurlock with a comparatively good complexion. When not demonstrating her brand of eerily unfeeling savagery in training, she's by herself, sitting in her tent apart from the others, staring off into nothing and scowling. She does this for hours, and never seems to sleep, not until everyone else has already turned in and the morning's grey sky has begun to sift in through the stars.
On one particular evening, a distressed Warden exclaims that he nearly just took a knife to the gut after mistaking her tent for his... friend's. He has the torn shirt to prove it. Someone ought to deal with this.
But that someone isn't Alistair. Not intentionally, anyway. He's barely twenty-three, frequently a bit drunk, occasionally a lot drunk, only nominally in charge of anyone, and doesn't really think of himself as someone who deals with things.
But he is a person who's been asked to go look into a possible darkspawn sighting at the closest settlement, and a person who's been told to take one of the new recruits along, and a person with a heart big enough to pick out the most scraggly puppy in the litter to love the most.
So he's outside her tent now, giving the upper point of canvas a quick and friendly rattle, like a knock. "Von Skadder," he says. "Skater? Skrate—Warden." That will have to do for now. "How do you feel about horses?"
Another stupid joke no doubt, another question being asked to poke fun by one of these young cocksure cretins. Teren doesn't answer, operating under the assumption that ignoring a problem long enough will make it go away (and then attacking it if it doesn't ensures it won't come back).
After a pause long enough for him to realize she isn’t going to answer, Alistair continues as if he hadn’t been waiting for an answer at all. “If you know how to ride we can do this a lot faster,” he says, “but either way we need to go. Come on, out your boots on. If we’re lucky you’ll get to stab something you won’t get into trouble for.”
Grr. The fact that it isn't a prank, and is actually something she has to do, only fouls the new Warden's mood further. There's little to be enthusiastic about these days, and though part of her wishes she'd just been executed as planned, the small survival instinct that still kicks and screams in the back of her mind forces her to get up and leave her tent. Already armed to the teeth even in repose, she's quite ready. Her gaze burns through Alistair as she looks at him, awaiting whatever bullshit thing he wants from her now.
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TEN YEARS AGO
Really the only thing that distinguished Warden von Skraedder from a Darkspawn is that she spoke the vows, though even that doesn't totally preclude the possibility that she's a hurlock with a comparatively good complexion. When not demonstrating her brand of eerily unfeeling savagery in training, she's by herself, sitting in her tent apart from the others, staring off into nothing and scowling. She does this for hours, and never seems to sleep, not until everyone else has already turned in and the morning's grey sky has begun to sift in through the stars.
On one particular evening, a distressed Warden exclaims that he nearly just took a knife to the gut after mistaking her tent for his... friend's. He has the torn shirt to prove it. Someone ought to deal with this.
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But that someone isn't Alistair. Not intentionally, anyway. He's barely twenty-three, frequently a bit drunk, occasionally a lot drunk, only nominally in charge of anyone, and doesn't really think of himself as someone who deals with things.
But he is a person who's been asked to go look into a possible darkspawn sighting at the closest settlement, and a person who's been told to take one of the new recruits along, and a person with a heart big enough to pick out the most scraggly puppy in the litter to love the most.
So he's outside her tent now, giving the upper point of canvas a quick and friendly rattle, like a knock. "Von Skadder," he says. "Skater? Skrate—Warden." That will have to do for now. "How do you feel about horses?"
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The fact that it isn't a prank, and is actually something she has to do, only fouls the new Warden's mood further. There's little to be enthusiastic about these days, and though part of her wishes she'd just been executed as planned, the small survival instinct that still kicks and screams in the back of her mind forces her to get up and leave her tent.
Already armed to the teeth even in repose, she's quite ready. Her gaze burns through Alistair as she looks at him, awaiting whatever bullshit thing he wants from her now.