DAO Origin relationships that would go crazy as hell if allowed to interact
Mahariel and Surana: Okay, follow me on this one. Surana looks at Mahariel with some unbelievable fear ad trepidation because Circle education of Dalish is probably "CRAZY BARBARIANS RULED BY EVIL MAGES" but slowly the little mage warms up to the strange, taciturn elf who they've fallen in with. Mahariel, who initially looks at Surana like one might look at a strange beetle, slowly grows to accept that this elf is not going to infect them with Andraste worship, and they slowly begins to bond.
Surana hears that if they'd been born to the Dalish they would have been adored, loved, even respected, with no Templars breathing down their neck and they cry. Mahariel is no story-teller, but he's more than eager to tell the little mage all he remembers of his people, and watch their eyes shine with fascination and genuine care for his people's stories. Not the cold entitlement tot heir knowledge of the human scholar, but something born of love.
Mahariel calls them "lethalin/lethallan" quietly after a battle, and Surana never comments on it, but it makes them feel warm inside. Surana flashes with indignant anger when someone calls Mahariel a barbarian and Mahariel bristles with cold fury when someone treats Surana as a monster for their magic.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, they're still two very different people with very different beliefs, but they see each other. They know each other. And more than any of that, they trust each other. And that's more than either could have expected when they left their homes for the big, wide world around them.
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Tabris and Cousland: Oh God. The hostility. The fear. The DISTRUST between these two, specifically from Tabris, as the City Elf watches this human noble like a hawk for the merest flash of similarity between them and the monster who hurt their loved ones. Tabris' hate sliding off Cousland who is more or less in complete shock from having their entire life be ripped to bloody shreds around them.
Things don't boil over until the story of the Cousland massacre comes out, and Tabris remarks that the Cousland servants ought to have taken the opportunity for their pound of flesh, and Cousland explodes in fury, yelling that the servants were slaughtered too, that their father treated those who worked for him like family, that they have no right to speak ill of their dead loved ones.
Things are cool and distant after that, Tabris angry to cover their shame and Cousland much the same. A quiet olive branch is offered. Maybe it's some share of food by campfire light, or the patching of wounds after battle, but it's... something. Something that lets air into the room. something that lets them actually TALK.
They'll never admit to being friends. They're not even sure if they are or not. But Cousland swears to do all they can to improve the lot of the elves under their family's rule when this is over. Tabris... trusts them. Maybe even likes them. It's a quiet thing, but one built of solid foundation.
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Brosca and Aeducan: Just like Tabris and Mahariel but thousands of times worse. The sheer levels of generational hostility there, could it ever be overcome? Literal royalty and the lowest of the low. Brosca taking every opportunity to mock Aeducan, to remind them that they're the same station now you royal cunt, and Aeducan torn between indignation that this casteless DARES to insult them and the cold certainty that they DESERVE this that Trian's death is THEIR fault and maybe they should have let the Darkspawn kill them.
Maybe Brosca gets bored, or maybe one of them saves the other in combat, and they start to cool down. They're not at each other's throats anymore, at least. Cordial, eating meals together. It's not friendship, not really, but it's something to stand on. they are the same rank now, after all. Maybe they should start acting like it, eh?
Orzammar brings it all back in the worst possible way. "He's a liar and a kinslayer!" "He's the father of my sister's child!" There might actually be blood until Oghren arrives and tells them a Paragon would be more useful than a King. And in the Deep Roads, knee deep in the dead and the Broodmother's blood they cry and hold each other because it's us. It's always been us..
They present Caradin's crown to Behlen, Aeducan's pleading gets Harrowmont to stand down. Aeducan will NEVER forgive Behlen but they can move on. And as they do, it's side by side with Brosca as equals, standing on equal footing at long last.
