a complexity of elves

[do_not_falter]

WHO: Huguette Bonnay (OC), Elera Lavellan
WHERE: Haven
WHEN: Post-The Threat Remains, pre-In Hushed Whispers
WARNINGS: TBA as needed
NOTES: N/A

Her armour is a disgrace. Which, now she thinks about it, there are two ways of understanding that statement. The more metaphorical is the sword down the front of her chest-piece, the heraldry of the Templar Order, is covered in druffalo shit after the past year. The more practical is that she'd had to be practical on her journey to Haven. Armour isn't cheap even if you are of a size where you can by pre-made pieces, and Huguette is too tall, too much the wrong shape for that. Armour isn't cheap, but it's needed for travelling safely. So she'd had no choice but to dirty it; only care enough for it so that it was still usable, let the sword down her chestpiece get covered.

To be a templar, alone, is dangerous in ways more stupid than noble.

Once Huguette had reached Haven, shaking and stumbling in the grips of lyrium withdrawal, some kind soul had given her armour an initial clean as she raved and whimpered in bed. If she ever found out who, she'd thank them. Now she's on her feet, if not quite up to full practice or full use yet, she needs to devote some serious time and elbow grease into cleaning it all herself. Which is how the knight comes to be sitting outside her tent, scrubbing rust and grime off metal.

She's dismantled her plate armour, undone all of the buckles and straps, because she's safe enough here to do so. If need be, if anyone attacks Haven, she's wearing a gambeson (cleaner than her own, if a little big) and she has her greataxe propped next to her. She's already finished with the front half of her chestpiece, and that is leaning against the log she's calling a bench. Currently, it's the back which has her scrubbing and scrubbing and trying not to swear. Or, indeed, breathe in too deeply, because the cleaning spirits she'd looted from some templars-turned-bandits (bastards, bastards all of them, how dare they, she'd killed them for it but how fucking dare they-) is strong, it does the job, and it stinks. It'd made her head spin, if she was without air.

"Um, Huguette, you wanted..."

She looks up and smiles at Emma. The little girl smiles back, braver than she'd been a few days ago.

"Bless you," Huguette says, taking rags from her. "This will help a lot. Here," she flicks a coin (one of the last she has) at her, and Emma catches it. It reminds Huguette of herself, back in the alienage, which might be a reason why she's looking out for the girl. Beyond just basic decency, anyway. "No one's been giving you any trouble, have they?"

Emma shakes her head, eyes huge and sincere and possibly full of lies. That, too, Huguette remembers. "Nope."

"All right. They call you knife-ear again, come to me. I'll set them straight. Now, off you go, da'len. You've got chores, I know."

Emma grins and then darts off. Huguette shakes her head and then bends back over her armour. Damn rust. If she could smite it, that'd be so useful.

Comments

[dirthena]

If there was one thing Elera was still getting used to about Haven, it was the feeling of being surrounded by shemlen and the occasional city elf. Her journey to the Conclave had been taken mostly alone until she'd run into the groups she was was tasked with hiding amongst, and the Conclave had someone of every race on Thedas present. From the Qunari mercenaries to the Carta dwarves she thought she saw in the shadows -- spies, like her? -- to the shemlen who dominated the proceedings; blending into the assembled masses had been easy.

But Haven and the story of the Herald of Andraste attracts humans first and then city elves; beyond those that she's personally recruited to the cause, that doesn't change. It's a strange kind of loneliness. One that Solas, as much as she is coming to enjoy her time spent with him, and Sera cannot change.

The armor that she wears is strange in its newness -- freshly forged for Inquisition forces -- and came with shoes of all damned things. It's deeply uncomfortable, and Elera has had enough. It's on her way to talk to Haggart about doing something about that, she doesn't care what Josephine says about offending nobles, that she hears it -- da'len and nearly splits her face in two with the sheer force of a smile. Finally.

"Andaran atish'an--" she begins, once she finds the source of the elven. Only-- only that is not an elf. And furthermore, once Elera catches sight of the sword and flames on the woman's armor, not someone an apostate mage should encounter. Surely her position -- however unwanted -- as Herald would protect her from any Templar attempt to corral her? She swore she would fight them all off to protect Solas, if she had to, but that was different than just wandering up to one with a staff strapped to her back, talking in elvish. Fenedhis lasa.

So she stops, partway to Huguette, mouth still open in a very undignified manner, eyes wide and cautious. It's Haven, she thinks, no one would attack her in Haven.

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The elven words, so soon after talking with Emma, make Huguette look up. There is nothing in her, physically, to suggest her mother's blood, she knows. Maker, she's tall for a human, let alone... Well. She doesn't normally look up at the sound of her mother's tongue spoken around her, not unless she's in an alienage.

She looks up and she sees the Herald.

She doesn't see a Dalish mage staring at her in shock, oh no. She sees the Herald of Andraste, she who walked into Val Royeaux full of conviction, she who walked out of the Fade with Andraste behind her. She sees the Dalish Herald greet her - her, elf-blooded and half-caste and flat-ear - in elven, as if Huguette is worth such a greeting.

It'd been so long to get here, pushing herself and running against the lyrium gnawing at her mind, and maybe she's still not entirely recovered. No, she knows she's not, but logic has momentarily fled.

Instead, Huguette stares, swallows, and gets up to bow with her backpiece still in her hands.

"Andaran atish'an, my Lady Herald," she says, the sound of an Orlesian alienage coming from her human mouth.

[dirthena]

Whoever the Templar is, Elera has to give her credit where credit is deserved -- the elvish isn't accented as if the woman had come new to the language at the whispers that the Herald was an elf. No, someone taught her; like someone taught Elera and all the rest of her clan the snatches and phrases they clung to. And yet -- not an elf. The tallness alone would not be a point against her, considering Solas, but she can't see the points of ears sticking out from her hair.

But she doesn't make any movement towards her -- and Elera has been called 'knife ear' far less than she would have thought. So instead of a full step backwards, it's a half-step to ground her. Lady Herald, though --

"Please, just Lavellan." She doesn't need anyone else to believe she's sent by a religious figure she doesn't believe in. Especially not someone who clearly has some grasp of Elvish. "Ir abelas. I didn't mean to interrupt." No, it was just blind hope and pure curiosity that got her into this. The unease clears from her eyes slightly as she attempts to solve the riddle. Not a city elf, no, but-- an alienage? As far as Elera is aware, humans tend to steer clear of them out of obvious distaste.

[do_not_falter]

"Lavellan," Huguette repeats with a nod. "Yes, messire. I'm Ser Huguette Bonnay, Knight-Templar-" she pauses, glances down at her armour, her axe, and sighs. "Formerly a Knight-Templar, if I'm being accurate." She supposes, anyway. She left. She disobeyed direct orders, her vows now twisty, complicated things made up of betrayal and confusion.

Some of it is personified by this woman standing in front of her, a Dalish mage, but not all. Events have been moving for a long time before Elera Lavellan even received her vallaslin. Huguette has been witness to it.

"And you don't need to apologise, not at all. It... It's a job that'll take a while to fix." Unspoken is another protest: you are the Herald, it is your right to interrupt if you want.

[dirthena]

What job does a Templar have if the Circles are broken? Some had found their answer in the Hinterlands, and Elera isn't going to kid herself about her chances against a host of them. She's a mage, their so-called Herald of Andraste, and that will only offer her protection for however long they decide it does. But Ser Huguette Bonnay hasn't attempted to throw her in chains personally, so Elera doesn't take another step back but holds her ground, eyes flicking to the armor.

The unspoken protest doesn't set her at ease, either. It's not a title she wants, it's not one she asked for. She is Elera of Clan Lavellan, First to the Keeper. No Herald of the shemlen. "You spoke Elvish, and there's no one else here who does." No Dalish, except for her. It's a loneliness she doesn't know how to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Former Templar-- "Why did you leave?" Perhaps a bit too straightforward, so Elera attempts to readjust her question. "I know why Cassandra and Cullen left their orders, but I haven't had the chance to talk to anyone else about why they joined." Just Varric and Solas, and then Vivienne and Sera. They weren't the rank and file of the Inquisition, though, and she's curious.

[do_not_falter]

"I was born in Ville Montevelan's alienage," she explains simply. "My mother gave me to the Chantry when I was very young, but I remember where I come from. I wouldn't know as much Elvish as you, Lavellan, but I know a decent amount." She'd taught herself more, after all. From books, sometimes, but mostly from talking to elves. She'd had to be patient and grow a thick skin for the insults, but it was the tongue that her mother sang her to sleep in and it's important.

A moment's reflection makes her realise that maybe, she's still left it all too ambiguous, so she adds, "I'm elf-blooded." Some can look a little elven, something about the nose and the eyes and the stature, but most don't and Huguette is well aware that her height and build means she is very much on the human side of the spectrum.

As to why she left...

Huguette hesitates, biting the inside of her bottom lip. "It's a bit complicated? I mean." She clears her throat. "You gave me the courage to finally leave, when you arrived in Val Val Royeaux. You were brave to do that. The rest is a bit hard to explain. I can, if you want?"

MY BAD

[dirthena]

Elera's opinions on the alienage and the city elves are much the same as any other Dalish elf's -- they abandoned their culture to appease the shemlen after the Dales fell. Assimilation she understood, but why pick it when there was another way? One didn't have to live amongst them, give up everything just so the shemlen wouldn't turn up their noses. And they still did anyway, so who was the true victor there?

Elf-blooded. She frowns, nose wrinkling. "Your mother slept with a shemlen?" It's out of her mouth before she can help it, distaste clear on her face. Well not every flat-ear had a choice, Elera reminds herself, and shakes her head to clear the comment from the air. Clan Lavellan enjoyed a decent relationship with the humans around them, and anything that would result in an elf-blooded child would have been... complicated. They wouldn't have stood for it, but they could not have struck back out of fear for bringing down the wrath of the shemlen down upon them. Who couldn't, because another city state would take it as an attack. "I hope whoever he was got what was coming to him." Probably not, but Elera could hope.

Is it bravery, though? She frowns, shrugging a shoulder. "I wasn't given much of a choice." If it helps, it helps, but Lavellan is Herald not by her own wishes. "Apparently my talents as Herald don't extend to magically forcing people to get along. Go ahead, though."