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Now that the kid has a name, it’d be rude to not call her by it. But it’s hard. He called her “kid” for two weeks before she looked at him with that far-away look on her face and said in the quietest voice, “I think my name’s Turaz.” But he keeps accidentally calling her kid. And they don’t actually know how old she is, kid doesn’t have a birthday, doesn’t have anything except the clothes on her back and those big confused eyes.But she’s so young compared to him that he could, possibly, be her father. And it sits with him really, really fucking weirdly that he might be. Not realistically, but… plausibly. Did his duty for the Qun, kid turned out a bit too much like him, fucked off into the wilderness and hit her head on a rock. Wouldn’t that be a turn of fate, finding his kid with neither of them knowing.But it’s not realistic, she doesn’t look even a bit like him, so Meraad tries not to dwell on it. Far as he’s concerned, it doesn’t matter much either. The kid’s here, she’s been through some shit and she needs help. And he can’t trust humans to look after her. They don’t treat him good in the first place, and he’s seven foot of walking wall with a giant fuckoff sword, so he’s definitely not going to approve of her wandering around on her own.Not that he’d keep her against her will. The thought makes him shudder. But he really doesn’t want her hurt, and the Hinterlands of Ferelden crawl with bandits, bears and packs of wolves. So he’s sharing his food with her, lets her sleep in his bedroll. She mumbles in her sleep, but it’s not words enough for him to make sense of it; could be Ancient Tevene for all he knows. The little cave they’re camped out in for the night is blessedly dry. Outside, the rain falls in sheets. It would drench him to the bone in seconds. If Meraad was a religious man, he’d offer thanks to his deity of choice for the shelter, but he is not, so he contains himself to appreciating how dry he is. There’s not enough space in here for a fire, but it’s okay: the cave shelters them from the worst of the wind, winter isn’t even close.Turaz is busy reading. He picked up a novel three towns ago for situations like this, when he can’t go to sleep or keep travelling, and she seems like she needs the distraction more than him. And he even offered one of his candles so she could read after sunset. Usually he tries to be as frugal as he can while travelling, but making sure this kid is safe for a month now has him developing a soft spot for her. And reading seems to make her happy. Maybe she was a scholar, before whatever happened to her happened.Meraad’s hand moves without needing to think, grinding the whetstone along the blade of his sword. Two and a half decades of taking care of his weapons have the motion embedded in his muscles. The rhythmic scrape of stone on metal calms him down like nothing else.Idly he thinks that he probably takes better care of his taam-kas and his valo-kas than of himself. The kid doesn’t look that cared-for, but that’s probably nothing to do with her past and more with the fact he’s been camping with her for the last month on the dwindling funds from his last job, waiting in case her memory returns. She should cut her hair. It falls down her shoulders, too easy to grab in a fight.Turaz turns a page of the book, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. A sharp shock of air bursts into the cave, Meraad feels the rain against his arm, and the candle near the kid flickers and sputters out. Should get a lantern, Meraad thinks, and reaches for where he keeps the flintstone, and Turaz flicks her wrist at the candle.And the candle fucking illuminates.Meraad freezes. Turaz is still reading, not even aware of what just happened, just a flick of her hand. Probably as ingrained as the motion of his whetstone over the blade. He can hear his pulse in his ears, feel it in his chest while the adrenaline kicks it higher. The hand on his blade’s hilt tightens until his knuckles scream, his other hand still outstretched to reach for the flint. She made a fire, with her fucking hand, she’s a mage. Saarebas, his head screams, saar-bas, dangerous thing, dangerous thing.The dangerous thing finally seems to realise what just happened, turns her head to look at her hand, then at the candle. He can’t get a swing in here, his blade is too large to move it in this tiny cavern. Every moment that he’s touched her flashes through his memory, searing like fire. Every time he went to sleep and had her watch out for wolves or bandits. He feels chilled to the bone. Any day in the last four weeks, Turaz could’ve turned into a screaming abomination and torn him in half. Dangerous thing.“Meraad,” Turaz says, turning to him, and sees him already risen to his feet. The careless scrape of his blade against stone makes her flinch. “I think I’m--”“Saarebas,” Meraad whispers, his mouth too dry to manage any voice behind it, and he backs away, his sword in just one hand. It’s not a combat stance, but there’s tension in his entire body. Maybe he’s shaking. Rain hits his head, runs down his neck, starts creeping under his leathers, and he goes, turns to the side and walks into the forest and expects a blast of fire to the back.It doesn’t come.
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Once the adrenaline works its way out of his system, Meraad notices he’s shaking. He’s not sure if it’s the emotion or the cold. Well. Probably mostly the cold. The rain has soaked him through to the bone, his leathers are sopping, his shoes are filled with water. It’s not pleasant, but it’s grounding, brings him back into his body. Better the cold of the rain than the hot flash of rage that followed the panic. He’s had close to forty years of keeping himself in check, so he knows escaping that situation as fast as possible was probably the best course of action.He rubs his cold hands over his cold face and sighs. Of course the kid’s a fucking mage. That’s just the way life likes to fuck him over. At least that tells him she’s probably Vashoth. Imagine that, just running into a mage with no memory in the woods. His skin crawls when he remembers how at any given point in time she could’ve been cavorting with demons. Too easy to trust, Meraad. Watch your back, Meraad. There’s no one doing it for you any more.Except there is. Turaz did watch his back. Did help in a fight when they got ambushed by bandits, and did help patch up his wounds afterwards. And he was comfortable with it, it was good and easy and he wanted that companionship.Her face springs into his mind unbidden, how she looked for the first few days, dazed and confused and scared, and how she started to relax and joke and smile. How he’d called her imekari before she remembered her name, and how she’d laughed and called him an old ass. And the fear in her eyes when she turned and saw him with his blade in his hand.And that was it, wasn’t it? He had scared her. She was a dangerous thing, a powder keg of arcane power, and she had looked so small and lost at all seven foot of him, standing over her with his murder weapon. Shame sears down his gut. She trusted him, and he had given her no reason not to, and then this. Meraad briefly reflects on the fact that he is, all accounts considered, not a good man.He stands up, takes his sword. Left without so much as the strap that keeps it on his back, like an idiot. Like a fool. Like a scared rabbit. Whatever he does, he needs to go back, at least to get his stuff.The unbidden thought comes to mind of just taking all his things and heading off, in any direction, and not coming back, and he makes a small noise at the back of his throat. No. He can’t. He can’t leave Turaz on her own. He’s not a good man, but he doesn’t want to be a cruel man. And letting her trust him and then going would be cruel.So he heads back. Maybe Turaz won’t even be there. He’s fairly sure he wasn’t imagining her shouting his name out in the woods. Maybe she got lost and is wandering around out here in the rain. If she does, he can’t find her, not in this weather at night. The thought hurts, that she might be out there somewhere and get into trouble, get seriously hurt. But he can’t do a thing about it right now, so he heads back to the cave.When it comes into sight, there’s no light inside. But if Turaz is back and he startles her, he might get set on fire. So he lets his feet fall on the ground heavily to announce his presence. He stops just short of the mouth of the cave, rain still cascading down on him, and peers inside. There is, in fact, a vague Turaz-shaped shadow in the cavern. He can hear ragged breathing, she’s probably been crying. Because of him. Fuck.“Hey,” he says, voice cracked. “Turaz.”Her breath stops for a second, then she looks up. Meraad considers what he looks like, standing in the mouth of the cave, barely visible in the dark, with his fucking sword out. He leans the blade against the rock, hunches his shoulders, makes himself small.“I won’t hurt you,” he offers awkwardly. “Just… Not good with magic.” Here he goes. Words are hard. Especially words that concern what he’s feeling.Turaz keeps staring when he takes two steps, just enough to get him out of the rain.“Are you okay?”She shakes her head slowly, and yeah, he wouldn’t trust his voice either if he was in her situation.“Yeah, I figured. This isn’t exactly a regular situation.” And that’s it, he’s run out of things to say. He doesn’t meet her eyes, just kind of squats down, keeps his hands to himself. He’s freezing, but he can’t build a fire in here. An uncomfortable silence stretches between them while Meraad drips with water. Turaz is probably soaked as well, if she went after him in the rain.“Hey,” he says again. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’m… bad at dealing with magic. So… I kinda freaked out. But I won’t hurt you, and I don’t want you alone out there. So. Yeah. If you don’t do weird magic shit around me, and promise to not burst into an abomination. I think we can be okay.” And by the void, he hopes they can. Things don’t go back to normal fast. In fact, things don’t go back to the way they were before at all. He makes an effort, though. The first days are painfully awkward. The tension between them is thick enough to be cut with a knife. Meraad doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing at all, and something in him flinches every time Turaz gets too close, like she’s contagious. And every flinch of his pulls that expression on her face, that hurt look, because what fault is it of hers that she’s magic? And Meraad tries, he really does, because it’s not the kid’s fault, but the instinct is hard as hell to overcome.He shoots a ram about two days after, strips and roasts it, sits next to the campfire and offers her a cut of meat. Their fingers touch when he hands her the food and he doesn’t twitch away. When he wakes her the next day so they can keep moving, he shakes her shoulder lightly. It’s clear still that he avoids startling her, like she might lash out and set his horns on fire if frightened enough, but he tries to settle the roiling fear in his gut. Because if she wanted him dead, he’d probably be dead. She’s dangerous thing, but she’s Turaz, and the danger has not been to him in all the time he’s known her.Their banter being gone is a palpable absence, like a phantom limb that pains him with how it just isn’t there, but he still can’t think of what to say. They trek northwards slowly, hunt larger game for food. And then, because of course they do, they get ambushed by bandits.Getting waylaid is not a new thing to Meraad. But it’s a large group and the two of them struggle, and Meraad sees one of them go for the kid, and she has her back turned trying to keep someone else off her neck. And in the space of a split second, Meraad yells and flings all seven foot two of him between the kid and the blade. It digs into his chest and he grunts in pain, swipes at the assailant, bellows with rage, roars like the nigh-feral Tal-Vashoth in the North, and the sight of the massive qunari taking the hit and still going after him seems to be enough. The bandit flees. His companions flee. Meraad does not give chase, he grabs Turaz by the arm and they go, make haste to get out of range, and then they sit by a river and catch their breath.Turaz eyes the gash in Meraad’s skin, then meets his eyes. He’s looking at her steadily, mostly unbothered by the blood running into his shirt.“Glad you’re safe,” he states, the sentence like an olive branch.There’s a beat of silence.“Did you take that hit for me?” She looks unsure of the implication, like she needs it confirmed, and so he does.“Yeah. Would’ve done you grievous damage. I’ve had worse.” He looks down at her hands, at his chest, at her face again. “Help me patch this up, would you?”And that means he’s inviting her hands on her, after his brain screamed to avoid all touch. She does, carefully, helps him dress the wound. They don’t talk while she does, Meraad just watches her hands, but he catches her eye when she’s done.“Hey,” he says, and with some effort, decides to spit it out. “Thanks, imekari. I appreciate it.”The kid gives him a slow smile, a tentative thing, like reaching across a precarious gap.“Don’t go getting stabbed for me, old man.”They’re going to be okay.