#Raina asked her if she wants to be the fourth member of the polycule right after.

[greypetrel]

22 for aisling for au prompts :3

At first I thought about her as a rogue. Then I thought that she would have been funny as a Warrior with a two-handed giant sword, Fenris style. Only, she’s SMOL. If you look at her from behind, she’s a huge sword with legs.

I died from my own laughter and ascended to the next world at the idea, so of course I went with that.

Jokes aside, I think so many things would change for her. She'd be much elfier, and much surer of herself and... Let's say she won't stop yelling left and right that oh no the Herald thing? It's a lie, I'm not, please stop. So, something very very VERY early on!

Tis the prompt list

Discombobulate

22. The MC as a different class (mage/warrior/rogue)

The crowd cheered around them when the proposition got expressed aloud, and Aisling could observe how the Commander frowned hard at the dwarf.

“What? It would be good for morale, Curly, you heard them!”

“It’s highly unproper, and we don’t have time to lose with-”

She was in Haven since a week, alone and suspected of having murdered the Divine through a magical explosion she had no idea how could she have casted, since she wasn’t a mage… And with some magical scar on her hand that glowed in the dark and itched like crazy. Not enough time to fully adapt to her new environment, but plenty to understand that shemlen were a little too fussy with the concept of propriety and personal space… and now, apparently, something that she wasn’t exactly eager to discover whether it was concern over her gender, her race or her stature. Because when she had gone to the smith, Harrit, to discuss about her equipment for the upcoming mission in the Hinterlands, she had seen her request for her weapon of choice refused. After insisting that she knew what she was asking, she was useless with a bow and arrows thank you very much, and slightly less so with daggers as they somehow all assumed she would have been, and still it hadn’t been enough to have the sword she wanted, she had marched straight to the Commander to perorate her request and know what weird thing she had to do to have a goddamn sword in this place. Sadly for her, the Commander had taken a good look at her, up and down, and asked if she was sure about what she was asking.

It had been excuse enough, apparently, for the dwarf -Varric- to barge right in and propose that Cullen proved her in the training ground.

After three councils she was -somehow- asked to participate in, it had been pretty clear that the Commander didn’t exactly like her. Everything she tried to say, he was there to counter it, point out how unorthodox her method were, how little knowledge she had over the real situation of the Inquisition. He was right on how little of the Inquisition and the shemlen world she knew, of course, she listened to her mother enough to had a vague idea of what it meant leading a group of people, but this Inquisition was hardly comparable to their clan. Still, it tasted a little like he was competing… And Aisling was all for bringing a competition in a field that was more favourable. She was there against her will, and she wasn’t staying just to be the emotional punching ball of the first Templar around. If he wanted to compete, that was fine with her: he wasn’t the first human to underestimate her just because she was short, he wouldn’t have been the last.

If this was a way to have less humans to underestimate her for her physical appearance, and at the same time scratch an itch and maybe peg the Commander down a little, who was she to refuse?

“Afraid of losing, Commander?” She chirped amiably, with a smile in the man’s direction.

He turned, and this time he frowned at her as well, as someone in the crowd ooh-ed at her provocation. Good.

“Hardly so. But it’s past my duties to provide you with some physical exercise. I have recruits to train, and we can’t waste any more resources for you.”

Another ooh from the crowd.

“Oh, it’s hardly a waste of time and resources. A trained Templar, the Knight-Commander of Kirkwall and now Commander of the forces of the mighty Inquisition against a lonely wood female elf that barely reaches your collarbone? If you want to flatter me, you could invite me to dinner, first.”

“I have much better things to do.” He squinted at her, irritated, in the same expression he had for the greenest recruits that spoke back to his instructions.

“I am a big girl, I can take it.” She smiled wider, keeping her voice kind and stepping forward, steps light and airy. “Come on, Commander, it will only take five minutes. It would do some good for all the recruits to see a duel between two warriors, don’t you think?”

“She’s right, Curly.” The dwarf -Varric- insisted, as he turned to the elf and winked mischievously at her. “It will be a good example, or are you too old to take a pretty elf?”

Aisling smiled at her newly found ally for the afternoon, and turned back to Cullen, nodding to her side invitingly and waiting for his answer. He was still there, arms crossed and glaring. From what she saw of him in the former days, when she had been training alone against a dummy, that was the expression that either preceded him admitting defeat, or him sending the unfortunate recruit to clean the latrines.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” She kept on smiling at him. “Unless you want me to.” She hoped she wasn’t destined to clean the latrines, after all.

After a full, tense minute, and a side glance to someone in the crowd Aisling couldn’t distinguish, the Commander exhaled loudly, grunting a “Fine.” That sent the crowd cheering around them.

“One match alone, no rebounds, and I don’t want to hear a complaint on the weapons you’re assigned for training ever again.” He grumbled, gesturing to his field assistant -a stout woman in a Templar armour Aisling didn’t remember the name of- to get inside the tend he usually stood in front of.

“Fine for me. And if I win?” She asked, innocently enough as she observed the crowd making more space for them, opening up in a wide circle around them.

“What?”

“If you win, I will accept any weapon you and the lovely Seeker deem me reliable enough to wield without emitting a syllable. I’ll be quiet as a mouse, Mythal be my witness, cross my heart.” She crossed her heart with her right index, left palm up in the air most solemnly as she stepped back a couple of steps in the snow. “What if I win?”

Cullen rolled his eyes at her. “Name your wish.”

“If I win, you’ll have to say in Council, in front of Sister Woodpecker-”

“Sister Nightingale.”

“Whatever. In front of Leliana, Seeker Pentaghast and Ambassador Montilyet, that I am right and the wisest, prettiest elf in the compound.”

“Are we really-”

“We are. And you will tell everyone you hear calling me so, that I am not the Herald of Andraste.”

The crowd fell silent at that. Cullen finally stopped glaring at her like she was giving him a headache, and stared at her not understanding where this came from. She didn’t explain herself any further, just contracted her eyebrows up and waited. Miss Templar -Elyse? Elizabeth? Lizzy?- returned back with two training poles, which she gave to her first.

“Thank you.” She nodded to her, with a smile. “So?” She prodded the Commander, slipping one foot behind her and getting in position, the stick held loosely in one hand and the other bent behind her back. She contracted her toes, feeling the terrain under them. Beaten earth, compact from being stepped upon so many times and soaked with snow and humidity. Not the best terrain ever, but it would hopefully offer something to grip upon for her bare feet. A small advantage that her adversary, if he took the bet, wouldn’t have.

He took some more time to answer, clearly studying her with half-lidded eyes. In the end, tho, he sighed and shifted in position as well, nodding to her without taking his eyes away from her.

“Fine.” He finally said, bending his knees twice and swinging the pole in front of him a couple of time, to get used to its weight.

Before he could start, Varric spoke again, announcing loudly the epic duel between Commander Rutherford and the gem of Clan Lavellan -Aisling was grateful that he caught on the Herald of Andraste thing. Camaraderie between prisoners, she guessed. Not real friendship, but it wasn’t a bad starting point if they needed to fight together. He was still speaking, but she didn’t listen to what he had to say: studying her adversary was more important, right now. Way more important, if she wanted to win this thing. And she wanted to.

Being kept there was bad enough, but if the mark on her hand really was the key to repair the big jagged vortex that opened up the sky, she needed to stay. Her mother taught her as such. She may not have inherited her talent with magic and her capability as a somniari, but she was her mother’s daughter: proud and capable and not turning her back to her duty. She had been taught well. And she had been taught well enough as to not blindly accept a bunch of humans to use her as their religious figurehead to convince the Chantry to approve of their organization. She could agree with what they were doing, but she was a Dalish warrior, she bore the Vallaslin of Mythal, she was the firstborn of the Keeper, sister of her First, and she would not bend her knee to a foreign faith. Absolutely no, and she needed at least one other voice to perorate aloud she wasn’t sent by their Maker.

She needed a victory, and she needed this victory.

So, she stood in position, careful to hold her staff in a way she saw the other soldiers around using and was unfamiliar to her, and studied her adversary. Bigger than her, taller with a full head and heavy with muscle. Armoured, but since she never once saw him without it, he was used to its weight, and he would have not been sensible to direct hits. He was a little taller than the average, she noticed, meaning he was used to enemies smaller than him. She needed all the advantage she could get.

“Ladies first.” He nodded to her, a sharp look in his eyes that hinted that he was studying her as well.

“What a gentleman.” She smiled again.

She lounged forward, swinging the bottom of the staff in an upward circle. He parried easily enough, with a clack of wood. She stepped back and tried again, aiming at his shin with the bottom of the pole, and as soon as he parried, at his opposite shoulder with the up.

Parry, parry, movements fluid and easy, automatic.

She circled around him, retreating a couple of steps, and he circled back to keep facing her. Some murmuring around the crowd, but she paid them no mind. She had to learn about her adversary to win this, and she needed to learn it quick.

She snapped forward again, keeping her movement basic enough not to pose a real challenge and not to be too “foreign” to put him on guard. Not really. He was a Templar, he shouldn’t be used to fight against Dalish, and that was, hopefully, the path to her victory. She just needed to have an educated guess on how much similar in fighting he was to the Templars she fought back home, in the Marches. None of them had known what to do with her, but she had been at her full advantage, in the woods she trained in, with her sword in her hands, not a light training stick that weighted nothing at all and the battlefield severely limited by a cheering crowd of soldiers.

They kept it on, she attacking by the book, probing him, and Cullen answering hit for hit, lightly and effortlessly, as he was playing. He was, in a sense, not engaging if she didn’t, not lunging forward. Trying to study her or tire her out, most likely. Too much at ease, she decided, to be holding back. He wasn’t attacking on purpose, and she could play with it.

She frowned and pouted at him, too visible not to be noticed, and saw him raise one eyebrow at her. She said nothing and sped up the rhythm, quickening her steps and her attacks, but never straining away from basics. Left and right, up and down step back and swing in a wide circle, let him duck down and- ah.

His knees were a little stiff, he ducked at the very last minute. She could work with it.

But before… She kept it on, huffing more and more often as they swung around each other, the clacks of wood becoming a syncopated rhythm that filled the open circle. She didn’t hold back too much, not really, and hit him with strength. He could be left thinking she couldn’t endure this too much. After all, she was small and lithe for human standards, and most of them didn’t know how to distinguish a buff elf from a thin one, if her asking for a greatsword caused so much fuss. Different muscular structure, maybe, or simple ignorance. In any case, it played in her favour.

After ten minutes, then, she grunted aloud and did a too wide movement, getting it wrong mostly on purpose. She wasn’t used to such a wide grip, after all: it mattered little. Cullen took the opening -the bait- and slipped his staff between hers and her body, quickly inclining it so he positively hooked her. To his advantage, he was quicker than her reflexes could let go of the staff: he levered her and used her own weapon to unbalance her, making her roll and fall back in the ground on her back.

He was a little slower to come and point his pole to her throat: she expected to be unbalanced, the mistake was done on purpose. She batted the stick away with her own weapon, with one hand, and swung the other end to hit his shin with the other hand.

The crowd cheered, as Cullen stepped back quickly, hissing something through his breath, and she quickly rolled on her side and on her feet, crouching down low and wielding the staff on her back, close to her arm.

A more familiar grip, and the low position could give her some advantage more. Namely, that it was something not doable if you wear heavy, metal armour.

“Get up.” He invited her, breath a little ragged.

“I’m right where I want to be, thank you.” She quipped back, with a polite nod. “Your old joints can’t reach down here, perhaps?”

He huffed in annoyance, but weirdly enough, the next hit was stronger and less precise than before. As if-

She swung around, ducking under his hit and his arm with a quick cartwheel. Wielding her weapon -considerably lighter than what she was used to- with just one hand, let the other free to assist in the maneuver, and as she rolled back to position, she could turn on herself and swing the pole right at his back with both hands, hardly.

It clanged against the metal of his cuirass, but he stepped forward and turned back quickly enough, coming back to face her. He was good, she had to admit. Better than she thought at first and better than she faced before leaving the clan. And yet, there was something stiff in his movement, his reactions came all some seconds behind, as if he was tired. An opening. She just needed to-

The duel became more serious, with both of them, now, putting more effort into it, surer about how their adversary moved. Aisling kept ducking and running around him, taking advantage of being smaller, lighter and more agile, as Cullen put more strength into his hits. She wasn’t in any armour, and he indeed just needed one good hit, and knew which points to aim at. He just had to catch her, first, which she put all her efforts to prevent.

The crowd cheered aloud when the Commander stepped sideways, anticipating the elf’s next movement, and lounged at her. A good hit, but still a little slower, and not taking advantage of the bare feet. Aisling snapped her staff behind her, planting the bottom in the soft ground. It didn’t go much deeper, the dirt was too cold and half-frozen for it, but it was enough to allow her to bend her back backward and slip right under the lunge, holding up with her toes gripping the terrain and sustaining her weight on the training pole.

She smiled, looking at the hit that would have caught her, 10 cm up her nose: it started as a tease, but she was indeed having fun with it. It had been a while since she last sparred with such a capable adversary, and she relied in it. Alas, she had something she really wanted at stake, and he was right in saying the recruits needed their Commander to train them more than she needed a good sparring partner.

As he retreated the stick, with a grunt of annoyance, she rolled back up and quickly engaged him back again. She moved her pole up and then down, with strength enough that he was forced to step back as he parried.

She put some more strength into her hits, and he was taken aback, at first. It lasted little, but it put them in a rhythm enough, with him now stepping backward and her attacking and going forward.

As she parried one hit, she moved her weight on her left foot and kicked his knee in the side, hard, with the right. She grunted in pain – the boot was studded with metal, she hadn’t thought about it, but it was enough to have him stagger minutely.

Enough for her to, ignoring the dull pain on the bridge of her foot, try the same move he did at the start: hook her pole with his and move it sideway, to lever herself up and-

“You’re not heavy enough to flip me over.” He remarked, annoyed.

“I’m not trying to flip you over.”

She informed him, as she pushed on the centre of his weapon, sent him stepping back and put enough distance between them to jump right on the cross of their weapons, her full weight and the force of the jump leaning heavily on him.

He was left surprised, and with two choices: let go of his weapon and make her fall, but with now both weapons at her disposal, or grab on and try to counter. He staggered back and didn’t let go, and the force of her jump and her weight was, apparently, enough to sent him fall back.

The crowd cheered aloud, as Aisling fell right on the Commander’s chest, sitting down heavily to pin him to the ground, slipping her pole free and lean it on his throat. She ignored the dull pain on her knees and shins, where she landed.

“Dead.” She announced, with a satisfied grin.

The crowd kept cheering around them, and she caught her breath, not moving from where she was

“You’re dead as well.” He rebuked, looking up at her.

“What?”

Something pressed in her back, right where her kidney was, and when she turned around, she could see he was pointing a dagger right there. A fatal wound, if it was a real fight: she would have sliced his throat, but he would have stabbed her in her back, in a point that would have had her bleeding to her death if no healer was around.

She blinked twice, surprised.

“You never said anything about second weapons.” He pointed out when she turned to look at him, some glint in his eyes that on a person with less of a stick up their ass could also have been mistaken for amusement.

“I didn’t peg you for one who fights dirty, Commander.” She admitted, still smiling at him.

“Your bad, 10 years in Kirkwall have that effect.”

“Heard it’s a bit of a shithole, indeed.”

He snorted, not fully laughing. They both lowered their weapons, and when Aisling finally got back to her feet, she offered him a hand to haul him up. They smiled and nodded at each other, begrudgingly recognizing some mutual respect as Varric called it a draw and the crowd kept congratulating.

“So.” Cullen told her, after some minutes of batting dirt away from their clothes. “No Herald of Andraste for you, I see?”

“Thank you.” She blinked twice, surprised he got the hint. “And I’ll stop complaining about training weapons.”

It wasn’t that big of a concession, and she could step forward to him. Her mother would have frowned at her, and at her giving anything to a human. Surely her mother would have marched right off that village, and she will not be happy of her being kept there. Her mother wasn’t there, tho, and she’s never been the fondest elf towards human.

Her mother wasn’t there, tho. Her mother was never shown respect as Aisling was, with loud pats on her shoulders by recruits and soldiers she didn’t know the name of, congratulating on her. Her mother wasn’t there, when the Commander bid the smith to provide Lady Lavellan -not the Herald!- of whatever weapon she requested.

“Let her fall under the weight of a greatsword, if she so chooses.” He commented, begrudgingly still but holding a hint more of respect than he had before.

She smiled at him and nodded. “Ready for a rebound whenever you’d like.”

Maybe her time amongst humans wouldn’t have been so bad as she had thought at first.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #cullen x lavellan #dragon age fic #fanfiction #ficlet #writing petrel #warrior aisling #cullen rutherford #it's been a while since I last wrote some action I hope it's fine #for your knowledge: this Aisling listened to Erimond's plan and answered him by belching aloud. #“What? That was the only suitable answer to such bullshit why are you all looking at me like that °-° ” #Raina asked her if she wants to be the fourth member of the polycule right after.