TITLE: Your New Weapon of Choice
CHALLENGE: Loud
FANDOM: Dragon Age
RATING: PG
WORDS: 1, 741
PAIRING: Alistair Theirin/Female Warden (Brosca)
CHARACTERS: Alistair Theirin, f!Brosca
NOTES: Most of (but not all) the actual dialogue, including referenced incidents in Orzammar, come from Dragon Age: Origins. For the canon unfamiliar, the casteless in dwarf society have facial tattoos known as brands to announce their status.
CONTENT WARNING: Classism, of the caste vs. casteless variety.
SUMMARY: “I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this... darkness.”

Set soon after the party arrive in Orzammar.

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Your New Weapon of Choice

Not long after Alistair had been sent to the Templars, there'd been an incident. A particularly annoying recruit – a year older in seniority and a year younger in age – had decided to entertain himself by flicking tiny rocks at Alistair during lunch. It hadn't hurt, not physically anyway, but the constant sharp taps into his back had, well. It'd driven him mad. All those little taps, each slicing another strand at the rope of his temper.

Orzammar is increasingly reminding him of that. Only he's not thirteen any more, he can't explode and punch his tormentor because the tormentor is most of the people he's meeting down here and he can't actually punch an entire society. Maker's breath, though, he wants to.

It hadn't been the guards. Guards are guards everywhere. No, it'd been that hoity-toity scholar. 'Step back, brand. Call yourself Warden, but the Paragons in this hall should not have to suffer the sight of you.'

Natia had just smirked and sauntered past, because she's Natia, except... Except it'd been like when he first met her at Ostagar. A cheerful, defensive cockiness and a smirk full of edges, her beautiful brown eyes hard. Alistair can recognise a shield when he sees one, or he can now because he's seen her without it.

And it continues, is the blighted thing. She's a brand, or that brand depending on who has heard what. She's to be sneered at, looked down upon, threatened with imprisonment, and that one silly noble girl who started off trying to recruit them for Lord Harrowmont had actually ran away when she realised who Natia was.

Alistair had had to physically restrain himself at that point. Had to stop himself from running after her and telling her why, exactly, she should know of Natia, because Natia stops to help people no matter who they are or what their background is or, or how she herself has been treated; because she faces down hordes of undead with a laugh and a whoop and a swing of her maul; because Natia is braver and more noble than she, with her silks and ambers, could ever dream to be.

Brave enough that maybe, maybe, he's just reading too much into it, except there's a moment. It's after Natia's sister pulls some oh-hey-I-gave-birth-to-the-heir-apparent strings and gets them all into the official Grey Warden quarters (which are, apparently, a thing: probably just to keep all the surfacers in one place, but he's not complaining). They'd all marched in and Natia shut the door behind them, and for a moment she'd just looked... Alistair isn't sure how to describe it. The hurt that suddenly comes to life when the battle's over and you need to take off your armour.

He can't punch the whole of Orzammar, but maybe he can do something. Something beyond sneaking into the snobby Diamond Quarter and teaching that man who'd called Natia a 'that' like she stank of pig muck a thing or two. He's sure Leliana would have some good ideas, but no, this is him being an adult. See him being an adult? He's being an adult. Adults, and Grey Wardens, do not do such things. Well. Not without a more Warden-y reason than defending his girl's pride. No, he has to do something else, something that will hopefully ring louder for Natia than those insults. Something to hold onto.

Alistair waits until after dinner. Tomorrow they are off to the Deep Roads for a political errand, which he really doesn't want to think about on a number of levels. The rest of the party are either talking amongst themselves or repacking or cleaning armour and weapons. He should be scrubbing his plate himself, but he can do it later.

This is important.

“Natia!” he calls out as she passes in the hallway. Then he wonders if maybe he should have hidden the rose behind him. Would that have been silly? It would have been, except Natia's smiling at him with warm eyes.

“Here, look at this,” he says, holding up the rose. “Do you know what this is?”

Natia studies the rose then his face. She seems... he doesn't know. He can't read that expression. Pleased? Maker, let her be pleased.

“Your new weapon of choice?” she offers, her mouth dimpling at one side.

“Yes, that's right. Watch as I thrash our enemies with the mighty power of floral arrangements! Feel my thorns, darkspawn! I will overpower you with my rosy scent!” She's grinning at him, a little, even as he switches back to a more normal tone of voice. “Or, you know, it could just be a rose. I know that's pretty dull in comparison.”

“Sentiment can be a pretty potent weapon.”

“Is it that easy to see right through me? I guess I shouldn't be surprised.” No, Alistair, stop, you're trying to be serious here. “I picked it in Lothering. I remember thinking, 'How could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?' I probably should have left it alone, but I couldn't. The darkspawn would come and their taint would just destroy it. So I've had it ever since.”

The rose has dried out since then, colours softening even as the soft petals turned brittle. But it's kept together and he still has the container on his bed, maybe he should go and get it, but Natia's staring at him and he can't move. Not when she looks at him like that, like she wants something but isn't sure if she's allowed to have it.

“And what do you intend to do with it?” Her voice is quiet and wonderfully, scarily hopeful.

“I thought I might... give it to you, actually. In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you.”

“You think of me as a gentle flower?”

“A gentle flower? No, I... don't know if I'd put it that way. I guess it's a bit silly, isn't it? I just thought... here I am doing all this complaining, and you haven't exactly been having a good time of it yourself. You've had none of the good experiences of being a Grey Warden since your Joining, not a word of thanks or congratulations. It's been all death and fighting and tragedy.” Alistair swallows. “I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this... darkness.”

Her smile falters and he thinks maybe he's done something wrong, that he's messed it all up, of course he has, this is such a silly gesture-

But then Natia reaches and takes the rose. She cradles it in her strong hands, her fingers holding it as carefully and reverently as another woman might hold jewels. She lifts it to her nose, although the scent has all but faded now, and there's nothing else right now except for her. Dimly, Alistair's aware that he's staring at her, but only dimly. He can't do anything until she responds.

Except, except, she looks up, and she's happy. She's happy at him, and her smile is a shining, wondrous thing. He'd told her she was beautiful, before, and it's true, it's so true it almost hurts.

“I... “ Natia begins, almost hesitantly. “I feel the same way about you.”

Oh. Oh, oh, okay. That's... that's good. It hadn't been part of his plan, this response. Her feeling that way, that is. He'd hoped she'd like the rose and whatever speech he'd managed to put together, but he'd never imagined that she'd actually feel the same way. How could she? She's incredible and he is, well, he is not.

Maybe he just won't address it, even as the whole idea of I feel the same way is making him grin and probably like a lunatic, at that.

“I'm glad you like it. Now... if we could move right on past this awkward, embarrassing stage and get right to the steamy bits, I'd appreciate it.” There. That's something smooth and confident to say.

“Sounds good,” Natia says promptly. “Off with the rest of your armour, then.”

He laughs. He laughs because he wants to just that and because the idea is terrifying, he'd do everything wrong. “Bluff called! Damn! She saw right through me!”

“Aw, you're so cute when you're bashful.” She's giving him that look again. The sexy smirk look this time, which really should be banned as an unfair weapon.

“I'll be...” Alistair laughs, again, and he can hear how nervous he sounds. Then again, he can also feel how red his cheeks are. “I'll be standing over here. Until the blushing stops. Just to be, uh, safe. You know how it is.”

“Alistair, wait-”

He stops, but only because he can feel her hand on his arm. Gently, she tugs him back to face her. She's still holding the rose as carefully as before but instead of against her chest she's holding it away from her. It looks odd until her other hand moves from his arm to the collar of his brigandine jacket and she stands on tip-toe. The flower would have been crushed if she hadn't moved it away.

“I think,” Natia says, carefully, “on the surface, flowers are paid for in kisses, right?”

“It's a gift!” he protests. “You don't have to pay me.”

There's a moment where her eyebrows pinch together, where her mouth purses. In annoyance, probably, but this close and after all of that talk, it's just distracting. “Alistair, can you just kiss me?”

He can. He never saw the point in kissing until her, and she might have called his bluff about anything involving the removal of clothing, but he can kiss her. He can kiss her until the protests of his neck start to drown out the feel of her mouth under his, the softness of her skin against his hand, the taste of her breath. He can kiss her until she lowers herself out of reach and rubs at her own neck with a rueful laugh.

“Thank you,” Natia says, and instead of moving away she just slides her arm down so she can hug him. “Thank you.”

She doesn't mean the kiss, he knows that. So he hugs her back, and for the first time, he doesn't feel like an awkward giant doing so. It just feels right.

“Always,” Alistair says, and the word is a promise.