For The DADWC And Chant Of Light Prompts... "What Hath Mans Sin Wrought?" For Rhiannon & Velanna??? Pls???

For the DADWC and Chant of Light prompts... "What hath man’s sin wrought?" for Rhiannon & Velanna??? Pls???

This prompt has languished for FAR TOO LONG here have some yellin for @dadrunkwriting

Rating: Gen Relationship: Mahariel & Velanna, rivals

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“That awful dwarf told me about him, you know.”

Rhiannon glanced up from where she shredded bits of kindling with her knife against her leather-guarded knee. She knew who she would face — Velanna, probably staring her down with a twisted scowl — but she wasn’t prepared for her thoughtful expression instead. 

“Oghren talks about a lot,” Rhiannon scoffed, turning back to her work. She could hear him now, pestering Nathaniel down by the river, too far away to make out more than the sound of their voices. “Did he tell you we single-handedly killed every guard and templar in Denerim, then robbed all the shops and brothels blind? It isn’t true.” She paused, then shrugged. “Mostly.”

“No, don’t be stupid.” She saw Velanna fold her arms out of the corner of her eye, then begin tapping her toe. “Loghain. What you did with him.”

“Spare him, you mean?”

“I would have scorched him to ash. Ripped him limb from limb. Knitted vines into the spaces between his ribs.”

Rhiannon snorted. “Oh, very frightening. I’m shivering in my boots.”

Velanna huffed, even stomped one foot. “Don’t patronise me, lethallen. I should have known better than to accept your mercy. How am I supposed to enact justice when you don’t even see fit to?”

She began pacing, plucking at her hands and casting them up into the air. Rhiannon ignored her. She chose instead to focus on arranging her kindling in the divot she’d dug into the ground, then kneel in the crunching leaves to build larger and larger bits of firewood up around it. 

“These humans,” Velanna was growling, “and their stupid Chant, their silly stories. Nathaniel spat some of it at me yesterday, but even their scripture condemns them. ‘What hath man’s sin wrought?’ Everything!”

Velanna stormed up closer to her, as if remembering the source of her ire. “And you, passively accepting it all. One of the People! What are you even doing?”

Rhiannon closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could almost hear Alistair’s voice in her ear saying, “Easy, easy, no need to go all stabby.” Not that she would. But Velanna’s accusations scraped hard against her guilt, leaving her bleeding and raw in a way that no cruel words from anyone else ever could. 

For Velanna was Dalish, and Rhiannon had betrayed her as deeply as only another Dalish could.

“I’m accepting what I can change,” she finally said, “and letting go of what I can’t. And if I hadn’t conscripted you, Velanna, then those humans would have killed you.”

“I could have taken them,” Velanna spat, so close that her breath moved the hair near Rhiannon’s twitching ear. “Just as I killed all the others.”

“More would come,” Rhiannon said. “You know it. Maybe you were hoping for it.”

Velanna hissed with the strength of her anger at that. The kindling at Rhiannon’s knees began to smoulder. “Don’t speak to me that way. It’s not true.”

“Oh, it is, lethallen.” 

Rhiannon looked up at the woman who loomed over her, then moved to stand. It was satisfying to rise and find herself taller than her newest recruit — Velanna did not cower, did not flinch. She jutted her chin and set her jaw and glared. 

“I intimately know that all-consuming anger at the injustice of all that had happened to me,” Rhiannon said, calmly, coolly. “I know exactly how it feels to wish I had died or been taken in the place of someone else. But I should not have to tell you my sob stories about my childhood friend, my brother, for you to respect me.”

The kindling at her feet smouldered further, then smoked. When Rhiannon took a step closer, into Velanna’s physical space, the wood suddenly burst into flame. 

“I will help you find Seranni, Velanna,” Rhiannon whispered, with all the cold promise she could muster from the blood in her blighted heart. “I’m not leaving another of the People to their fate. Mythal save me if I have to use the Order of Grey Wardens to do it, but I will. But I need you to trust me.”

Velanna’s nose wrinkled, like that of a panther about to yowl. “Just as the boy king who once called you a friend trusted you? What did your mercy cost, Commander of the Grey?”

“Everything.” Rhiannon took a deep breath, as if winded from running. She consciously unclenched her fists. “I make those sacrifices so you don’t have to. I sully my own conscience so your rage can remain righteous, lethallen.”

She stepped away, still breathing hard, then glanced down at the now merrily crackling fire spawned from Velanna’s anger. She smiled suddenly, feeling it flash across her face like a grimace. 

“And thank you for the flames,” she said wryly, then turned away to rummage for her mess kit in her pack. “You saved me the trouble of embarrassing myself with flint and steel.”

I always thought this too! Although I figured it was less of a "he let them in" scenario and more of a "he found that big hole in the floor and just set guards and didn't tell anyone" situation

If it hadn't been our two main grey wardens fighting their way up the tower the battle would have ended up being fought on two fronts too! It would have been even more impossible for the king's forces to win trapped between two forces of darkspawn like that. And it would have added credibility to Loghain's claim that the grey wardens betrayed Fereldan, since shouldn't they have been able to sense the darkspawn coming from the tower?

In order to believe Loghain doesn't know about Ishal, I have to believe 1 of 3 things:

1) Loghain was guarding the tower, but for some unknown reason in a camp where they're sleeping in tents nobody ever thought to go inside

2) Loghain's people did go inside, but just didn't notice??? the giant hole in the floor leading all the way to the deep roads?????

Or 3) the darkspawn built this giant tunnel literally overnight

Given every interaction we have with Loghain prior to this point, ESPECIALLY the council meeting? I absolutely think he knew.

people's different interpretations of loghain are so interesting. i, for example, always thought he let the darkspawn into the tower of ishal and sabotaged the wardens/ostagar armies from the start. i think that the beacon was never supposed to have been lit in the first place, to give him plausible deniability for why he didn't join the battlefield.

morrigan and leliana were so exes at the winter palace it’s insane

grey warden lowenhe is having :) a great :) time :)

All side quests done, so its time to retrieve that Reaper IFF 👍

It's Always Sunny In Ferelden