but the question doesn't make sense, at first. from someone else, someone not dalish or former dalish or however it works - then she would understand. but merrick's question frames him and them in a way that margaux can't instinctively grasp, not raised on stories of the heroic, true elves. saviors of their ways. we will all be dalish one day, her mama said, kissing her ears. she wipes gold paint off her face some nights and thinks: we won't. every day that they don't come, every whisper of what happens when you look for them -
and then dalish. real dalish, here, big as life! maybe they do care, maybe they are coming, oh, no one knows how many elves live in the woods, what a difference it could make, when the nobles push back - and they will - against what celene and briala have done, maybe they are everything her mama promised -
but they aren't. she listens to them talk to her and her heart sinks and she's angry with it for sinking; for thinking differently. they still don't care about anyone else. they still aren't coming. these aren't even proper dalish, just the cast-offs, and that they have cast-offs is awful, every story of a city elf's mistaken hope that hardened her heart never let her imagine they'd even turn on their own.
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but the question doesn't make sense, at first. from someone else, someone not dalish or former dalish or however it works - then she would understand. but merrick's question frames him and them in a way that margaux can't instinctively grasp, not raised on stories of the heroic, true elves. saviors of their ways. we will all be dalish one day, her mama said, kissing her ears. she wipes gold paint off her face some nights and thinks: we won't. every day that they don't come, every whisper of what happens when you look for them -
and then dalish. real dalish, here, big as life! maybe they do care, maybe they are coming, oh, no one knows how many elves live in the woods, what a difference it could make, when the nobles push back - and they will - against what celene and briala have done, maybe they are everything her mama promised -
but they aren't. she listens to them talk to her and her heart sinks and she's angry with it for sinking; for thinking differently. they still don't care about anyone else. they still aren't coming. these aren't even proper dalish, just the cast-offs, and that they have cast-offs is awful, every story of a city elf's mistaken hope that hardened her heart never let her imagine they'd even turn on their own.
eventually; )
I was surprised, only.
( but she isn't, any more. )