Prompt: “What if I don’t see it?”
Rating / Warning: General / none
Inspired by this post. Even though Mahariel is my canon Warden, I also refuse to believe any of the other origins died, especially if they band together (and wind up meeting a random Warden in the Deep Roads along the way)
“What’s waiting for you back in Orzammar?” Vanessa asks.
She flips back the clasps on her chestpiece, stifling a sigh of relief as the metal unsticks from her damp tunic. Jethur sits in front of her, idly picking through his remaining arrows and tossing the broken ones into the fire. On the other side of the camp, Diran paces the small perimeter of their camp, his hatchet swinging to and fro as he stares down the darkened tunnel.
“Family. Well, sister, really.” Jethur’s face scrunches up as he tosses another arrow into the flames. “I could care less about my mom, and my pop’s long since been returned to the stone.”
“And you can’t see your sister again?” she asks, her head tilting to the side in confusion. The little she knows about dwarven politics gives no indication of restrictions dwarfs have in exile. Surely they weren’t cut off from their family forever?
“Warden, I’m supposed to be dead,” Jethur’s laugh holds no humor as he shakes his head. “If I showed back up at the front door, they’d make sure to finish the job. Then I really wouldn’t see my sister again.”
That answers that question. But there must be a way…
“Not if you were a Warden.”
Diran halts mid-stride, all pretense of ignoring their conversation dropping. Jethur’s mouth opens, lips moving silently as he tries to form a coherent thought. She watches them, setting aside her slightly less grimy armor and tossing the rag back into her bag.
Jethur finds his voice first.
“If you were a Warden, if both of you were Wardens, there would be no issue walking into Orzammar.”
Diran slowly wanders over to the group and sits down with the gentleness of one who was afraid Vanessa would burst out laughing a second later at their gullibleness.
“I don’t know how much you know about our order,” she continues, “As Wardens, we are allowed to travel without restrictions. Within reason, of course,” she quickly adds, remembering the warnings she received as a young recruit, “But the bottom line is you two would be able to return home. If you wished, that is.”
“By the Stone, you can’t be serious,” Diran whispers, his voice holding the smallest amount of hope.
“You would know if I wasn’t.”
Diran’s eyes light up with joy.
“It wouldn’t be an easy life,” she holds up a cautionary hand, “But if the two of you are willing, after this bloody Blight, I would be honored to--”
“Shut up, Warden,” Jethur interjects, halting Vanessa mid-sentence.
She freezes, ready to retract her statement. Did she say something wrong?
But instead of yelling at her, Jethur looks at Diran, who gives a short nod, before he turns back to Vanessa and offers his hand.
“You already know our answer.”
She shakes his hand, smiling.
For the rest of the night, the two dwarves entertain Vanessa with personal (and inaccurate, she supposes as she listens to a story of a ten-foot elf that was rumored to wander the Diamond Quarter) stories of their home, each dwarf punctuating their words with wild gestures.
She laughs through the story of Diran being caught defecating on Lord Harrowmont’s estate, offers sympathetic comments through Jethur’s story of how he wound up in the Deep Roads, and (reluctantly) tells a story of her own, recalling the time she was shoveling out the stables back at Montsimmard while distracted before she looked up to see her commander standing deathly still, manure slowly dripping down his greaves.
As the trio continues to swap stories, she watches as the two dwarves shift closer together until Diran’s head rests on Jethur’s shoulder, the former’s story coming out in a mixture of Common and incoherent Dwarvish as his eyes flutter with sleepiness.
And for the first time since she’s met the two dwarves, she sees Jethur smile.