Chapter Text
There's something stirring the water's surface. It's been happening more and more in frequency- something that can touch the Storm Coast's surface down to your chambers. It tickles your spine, hums in the faintest boundaries of your hearing.
It's unsettling, to be honest.
You glance up once again to the surface from your private quarters, though you see nothing but the stone laden with corals. A small room, devoid of personality. A functional bed of seaweed, a small limestone tablet to write upon, a few bright jellyfish serving as lights. As if drawn to your trepidation, a young merchild knocks softly on the wall next to the entrance. Red, short hair billows around the young one like a halo. Meredi.
You smile warmly, beckon her over with a lazy flick our your wrist. She beams, swimming over and snuggling under your arm to observe the map you've been restoring. A mess of enchanted pens and hydrophobic inks litter the floor, tightly sealed up. One of the surfacer cities- Denerim. Your clan is more attentive to the rest of the world than the others, partly due to the heavy shipping traffic of the Waking Sea and a cultural voracity for knowledge. A Blight- the Fifth one, if you're not grossly mistaken. Nearly a decade ago.
Notes scrawled in the margins of the map mention continuing rebuilding of the fortifications, an increase in the- what did they call it?- alienage population? The little one on your right cautiously touches the parchment enchanted to repel water. The finest of spaces between the diagram and the ocean, one magic specific to your clan's interests. It takes an extreme concentration to restore maps such as these, when a fingernails’ thickness of air separates parchment from pressurized saltwater.
"Dia, what's an alienage?" Meredi asks softly, but without fear of being reprimanded. Your quill doesn’t shake from the thin line it’s making, painstakingly recreating the market for the merchants’ square. The youngest one for now of the clan- but the proudest and hungriest for knowledge. It was no wonder you'd 'adopted' her when you did, taking her out that miserable excuse for an orphanage. You ruffle her floating hair with your free hand, setting the quill down and pointing to the city.
"It's a term the humans have made. The elvhen who live in the city are segregated into undesirable parts of the city by the humans who govern it." You know she'll ask for more and in preparation, grab a chunk of lean swordfish. It's certainly not your favorite snack, but between this map and one you've yet to even glance at there's no time to hunt down some fish. Or clams. Lord and-well, you- how long have you been here exactly? You blearily remember going to sleep once, when the outline of the market was only a faded gray. Another searching glance at the sparse coral above. Where did you put the sand-clock?
"Why the elvhen? Are they bad people? Is it a prison?" Ah, dear Meredi. If only that.
"No," you start slowly, unsure of how much the youngling could properly understand. You pull her close enough to have your hip touch her forehead. It’s always nice to have her against you, cool flesh and tiny palms. "The human and elvhen don't get along- not since their Andraste fell. Or before that, arguably. There's been tensions between the two species. Cultural differences. Moral differences. Political, economic, an Exalted March …" You trail off, trying to not go off on a lecture. Arlathan was the pinnacle of elvhen culture, but when exactly did humans come into play? After Fen'harel, at the very end? A memory of the man flashes past you, shared to you by...someone dear. Someone dead.
Meredi can obviously tell when you're about to start remiscising, she tickles the soft flesh on your side under your gills. It snaps you out of your musings well enough, you gently take her hand off the pale flesh and hold it. Such small hands. You don’t even remember being that small. Back when the world was more-just more. More magical. More beautiful. More safe.
"So the humans are mean and the elvhen are being bullied for wanting to live in a human city?" She wonders, calm as her grubby little fingers poke your gills. You finally snort, shoving her aside playfully.
"It's a good summing up for a pipsqueak who spends her time stealing frogs from the kitchen." You pretend to grumble, rolling up the map and sliding it back into its tube, touching the time of the side of it to create a bubble of air. It takes a decent jolt of magic, briefly sucking the oxygen out of nearby water. The short lived breathlessness is nonsequential. Briefly coughing, Meredi giggles, pulling away with youthful glee on her face. She tugs your wrist once, pulling you out of the room, then the home itself, into the village. You both continue to play, sweeping past the guards who've fallen half asleep and past the clan gates. A few half-hearted apologies when she weaves expertly through the masses, making you swim in-between groups.
You escape the clan gates with barely a concern after you. The water takes a noticeable drop in temperature as you chase her- either means she's not old enough to properly avoid the currents or she's sneaky and wants some proper air. You note Meredi's swiftness among the sharper turns, the dull red of her tail flashing as she calls magic to her, lighting up her dorsal fin to a brilliant garnet.
Can your kid really be in her forties now? Old enough for magic- magic under the sea where the Veil lies almost nonexistent? Pride warms your heart but worry dances on your eyebrows, flying between thoughts of tutoring her in this rare branch of magic and utmost terror because she's so damn young to be manifesting. Both go into disgust when a swarm of tuna buffet you, wiggling happily at the pets you reluctantly have to give them. It's not a weird coincidence. Your darling heart, sweet child-
"You shit!" You yell after her, having to slow down to discourage the school from swimming around you. If you would have continued they would've chased you as fast as their little hearts could handle, either hitting the environment hard enough to injure or worse, you. Fish guts under scales? A light shudder raises your back fin. For your patience Meredi waits in the coral forest a half mile away, trying not to laugh too loudly. Her eyes are twinkling from over here- the little pest
"You looked- so- so concerned!" She guffaws, bending to prop her palms on her tail, laughter morphing into snorting. You grumble something vaguely insulting, crossing your arms in front of you when the fish finally leave.
"So we've gathered the ability to annoy people with tuna now?" Your grin turns playful, you tap a finger on your chin "Or should I start looking over my shoulder for the mackerel?" Your dearest one gasps in mock horror and swoons onto the a nearby stone.
"No, I can't fathom the reasons to terrorize the poor mackerel!" Meredi slides to the ground, gills flapping in mock gasping. If your eyes could, they'd be rolling back into your head. How you got stuck with this one will be the mystery of the Age. "Get it? Fathom? 'cause we're underwater!" You groan and press the heels of your hands into your eyes.
"Come on, I saw you tear apart that school of them the other day. Fish guts! In your gills and scales!" Said scales twitch in remembrance at her words, shudders climbing up your spine. Days- it had taken days to clean them properly. With lock picks. You glide over and snatch the squirming child up, throw her over a shoulder and head towards the surface.
***
Meredi and you break the surface with bouts of laughter. She's absolutely thrilled with the mainland and drags you over to the shore, whining about how long it's been. You take a moment to inhale the air, the sheer amount of it that comes easy makes your chest feel lighter than ever. She's a smart one if she'd known you needed this. Without her intervention the Court would have kept sending you missives upon missives until you went into a hunger spike and slept for literally a week.
From where you both are right now on the shore, you can spot the island a good distance from the mainland- home to the resident dragon. A frown settles on your face. Didn't you get a report about her range expending? Briefly you contemplate the multitude of theories about that until Meredi tugs your arm in impatience.
"Come on come on!" She pushes you further along the shore to the end of seaweed lining the ground, leaving you both completely out of water next to a rubble of shipwreck. Her hair sticks to her face, in amusement you watch her shove it out of her face. She continues like that for a while until you watch the idea cross her. In her palms fire flickers, like she'd just pulled magic from her scales for the resemblance in color and combs her fingers through the mess. Something you've done a hundred times for her when she was small enough to hold to your chest. Pride swells within you again as you now copy her. Of course, her hair is so short it takes only a few minutes to finish hers, but yours will take hours. Unless -tiny fingers tug on your scalp, warmth blooms carefully on your hair- she helps out.
The silence is light, lighter than the storming skies of the Coast. In the distance you observe lightning and revel in the thunder. Meredi at one point coos at the water and crabs pour out of it, unsurprisingly not fleeing when you pick them up and crack them open for the sweet meat, eagerly digging in with nothing but your fingers. You both make messes of yourselves, crab meat littering your laps, in your newly dry locks, dotting the seaweed floor.
It would be paradise to remain like this forever- the saltwater in the air, the seaweed underneath keeping scales from rubbing against stone- even the annoying random bursts of freshwater rain. It's only annoying because it slides into Meredi's eyelids when she upturns her face to it, irritating the skin. You get a nose full of it when you wrestle for the last crab and spend a moment sneezing it all out.
"I can't believe humans drink this!" She marvels during a particularly heavy bout of rain, flinging her arms out. "It's got nothing in it! No minerals or anything!" You laugh heartily at that, the circlet adorning you head almost falls off in the merriment and you explain the water cycle for the rest of the early morning.
But like all peaceful days, someone's got to fuck it up. The first indication is the sounds of skirmishing the background growing closer, pulling Meredi out of her food-induced coma. You watch her black eyes blink once, twice, three times and widen in realization.
Her reaction is really your own fault, talking about the grandest of battle you'd fought in over the ages.
"We have to stay and see if they come over here!" She's bouncing on your lap, her borrowed bracelet jingling on her wrist and tail twitching in utter excitement. It's too late to leave, anyways. You groan, caving in mentally as you bang your skull against the ground. It's midday and the Court patrol sweeps the shallow waters of the coast. Dive back in and not only will you be politely reminded of your status, Meredi will get in serious trouble from the Head Mother, who really hold no affection for you despite of how much power you hold.
You decide to hide behind the rubble of a shipwreck, Meredi climbs onto your shoulder to get a better view. From her conspicuous hair color to the shiny jewelry you wear, you're both piss at hiding on the surface. Thankfully, it doesn't take long for the noise to make its way over. A robed man flies to the ground screaming, curling onto his side and clutching an arm. You get a glimpse of white bone jutting out from the skin and muscle, pulsing blood to trickle on the ground. He stands back up only to stagger again, tripping in the coarse gravel and falling over. You wince, remembering the pain of such breaks. If the man didn't get away now he'd have the arm either cauterized off to save the rest of him.
"- the Vint go?" Someone- deep and amused, a male?- calls out.
"I think he actually flew, Chief!" A younger voice sounds almost amazed, the crunch of gravel grows louder until to surfacers come out. Is that a blasted Qunari? That's a full grown Qunari. The only saving mercy about this is that it's not five Ages ago and he's not more Kossith then Qunari. Maybe? He's huge. Dragon blood get somewhere in that mix?
Oh, shit. Piss. Thrice-blighted, stone licking-
"Language." Trills Meredi, one of her small hands patting your cheek. So you're not the biggest fan of the people- religion- whatever, and? From all the stories and tales you've heard they aren't exactly the friendliest.
"It might be time to go." You murmur, eying the massive body of the man warily, even over Meredi's automatic disdain over the idea. Magic glows gold across your knuckles, readying for something by the cue of your heartbeat picking up.
"Can't leave any of the Vints alive. No offense, Krem-de-la-"
"None taken, Boss." The younger man cuts off, shrugging off a greataxe and steadily walking toward the prone body. The grey man walks back, confident in whomever this is. You both lift a bit over the side of the wreckage in morbid curiosity. The 'vint' crawls backward with one hand, the other lifting like you do yourself for a spell. A spellcaster? Your heart races now for a different reason. Could the human realize he's about to get blown into tiny bits of flesh or is there any speed in that small, bulky body?
Meredi yanks on your hair as she calls her magic out clumsily, tensing. You both watch raptly as the space between the two human closes. The human on the ground backs up frantically, palm glowing a poisonous purple. The human swings his axe over his shoulder, the spellcaster's magic flashes.
You slam the quickest fucking barrier around the warrior as the axe falls- a split second choice. Gold bursts from the ground, sphering around the man entirely. It sparkles like yellow diamonds, the slightest tint of sunshine. Meredi's weak barrier flickers over the human a moment after, her breathing harsh above you when the sunlight goes into a brilliant sunset. The man on the ground dies. Red pools out of his chest, seeping into the earth below. You know Meredi can see the beleaguered pumping of the dead man's heart, the shine of bodily fluids on the stones. The smell wafts towards you a second later.
"Shit." Meredi wheezes none-too-quietly out and almost falls off your shoulders. Her barrier vanishes from around the man. The smell is truly atrocious when all you're used to smelling is blood in water. She turns to the side and covers her mouth, other hand using your neck to wrap her arm around. She retches over the side of you. "Oh, that's disgusting." You hum a yes back. The human looks- you can't tell what he looks like right now. Damn it! You pull up a little more, craning to get a look at what you've done.
Meredi grabs the wooden frame with desperation as she almost falls off you again.
The loud slap it creates gives you both away.