Red String of Fate (Dragon Age FanFic)

The Blood Mage Den

Luca liked harellan better. He chewed on his lip and considered telling her so. But he was frustrated, and he wasn’t sure continuing this conversation was the best idea. He turned away from her and began heading out of the Collective base, muttering, “Festis bei umo canavarum,” under his breath.

Neria followed silently, catching the end of him muttering in a language she wasn't familiar with. It sounded way too exotic coming off his lips though.

"Cussing at me in another language, harellan?" She asked keeping her pace slow so she stayed behind him.

"If I wanted to curse at you, I would do it in Common Tongue," he said, glancing over his shoulder to frown at her. "I assure you, when that happens, I’ll want you to understand it."

And there he went again, letting his temper get the best of him. But Maker, she made it so difficult to keep his tongue in control. He hardly ever filtered his words, but when he was with Neria, it just seemed to get worse.

Maybe he could save himself. “We could have a competition,” he said, trying to make his voice lighter. “Not that I think you could beat me when it comes to cursing. But I bet you could get pretty vulgar, if you wanted to.”

"No thanks, the worse I could call you is len'alas lath'din or a shem," The words rolled off her tongue easily, the insult coming to her quickly. "There's not many curse words in Elvish, we tend to just say may the Dread Wolf take you and leave it at that."

She shrugged and looked at the back of his head. "I will just stick to calling you harellan, if you approve of that."

"Call me whatever you’d like," he said, turning to look at her. She was a lot closer to him than he had anticipated. Their faces were only inches apart. He tried to keep his face expressionless, tried to keep his breathing steady, but Maker, he could feel the warmth of her breath.

Luca turned suddenly and Neria walked directly into him. Instead of his usual step back, he stayed in place. She glanced up at his face, his expression was a mixture of confusion and an attempt to hide anything else. She should step back, she tried to step back but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.

He had expected her to back down first. To move away from him, to glare at him, to do something. But she just stood there, staring up at him. He bit down on his lip, tried to move himself. But he found it impossible. His feet would not move him back.

"Bese formosa." The words tumbled out of his mouth, left him breathless. Maker, where had that come from?

Neria blinked. The words he spoke were beautiful mostly because they came from his lips breathlessly.

"What does that mean?" She asked.

You are beautiful. The words were there, right on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say them, more than he had ever wanted to say anything. But when he opened his mouth, “We should go,” was what he said instead.

Neria stepped back immediately and nodded her head at his words, brushing passed him down the alley. She should have known better than that, that he would have said anything different.

Luca’s jaw tightened, followed not long after by the rest of his body. He followed her down the alley, mentally cursing himself for being so stupid. He should have said something different. Anything else but what he had said would have been preferable.

Stop it, Luca. What do you care what she thinks of you? Luca frowned. What did he care what she thought of him?  He didn’t even like her!

Did he?

Neria was cussing at herself for even thinking that, that moment was any different than the others. Luca couldn’t care less about her or what she thinks.