Dragon Age One Shots

Isabela the Duelist

In the bustling theaters and bordellos of Paris, ruled a fist far finer than usual. While francs often tumbled free, it was just as likely to deliver a fatal blow as a waft of delicate perfume. For the moment, it was locked around the shapely hip of one of the dancers, a woman named Giselle. Sadly, Giselle bore a suitor of her own -- whether she wished for his attentions or no.

Claude Renoir was not so easily shaken from his prize.

"Do not bother," his friends cajoled, complaining as he ventured from the smoking room, glasses of brandy barely disturbed and abandoned upon the table. "Come back to watch the show. From our seats you can look straight up their skirts."

He would not listen. No, Claude assumed he was in the right -- as he often does in whatever matter the young man thinks was his divine right. At the tender age of twenty-three, with a rich father and a business to whet his beak upon once he exits university, he was nearly right. Men of his cloth were offered the whole world upon a satin pillow.

Such a shame he chose to butt up against the one sword to slice his future to ribbons.

Rounding up the stairs, Claude spotted Giselle laughing, her pert form reclining upon a fine divan. Her delicate fingers splayed out against a stranger's chest, her perfect face dipping under the stranger's wide brimmed hat to press a whisper in an ear. Another woman sat astride this usurper, dressed in even less than his dear Giselle.

How dare he! To take not one but two women for himself? It was unheard of!

"Sir!" Claude stomped his foot on the rug before this lecher. Both of the girls looked up into his scarlet face, his anger and passion transforming into purpose. "I say, you have no right to abscond with my Giselle!"

"Your Giselle?" a voice rolled from under the bent hat, its brim obscuring a face. But the sound was odd, far more tenor than he would have expected within this house of debauchery. "I see no ring, no brand to her succulent rump," a hand slid off Giselle's shoulder to slap into her buttocks.

Claude roared at the slight while Giselle, dear Giselle giggled. "You dare!"

"I dare do what I wish, Sir...whatever you call yourself. No point in telling me, it will slip from my ear before you go."

The anger turned to rage, Claude's eyes glaring death upon this usurper. Still, the man wouldn't move, refused to take his hands off what was rightfully Claude's. So be it! Claude reached forward, about to grab his beloved Giselle off of this stranger's lap, when fingers latched onto his arm.

Brown as the peasants that burned in the fields, they dug in tight and refused to let go. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," the man laughed, his voice raising into an alto.

"Do you have any idea who I am?!" Claude howled.

A glint of a smile appeared below the shadows of the hat, "You speak as if I should care."

"I am the eldest son to Monsieur Renoir, heir to the..."

That brown hand released him in order to wave through the air, cutting off his credentials. "That's who your father is. Who are you, boy?"

Boy? This puerile farmer trucked in from the provinces dared to call him such! "You have greatly offended me, Sir. I demand satisfaction!"

The two women astride the stranger gasped, Giselle covering her mouth in shock. Good. May the man quiver, fall to his knees in subjugation begging to be forgiven, and let Claude have what he deserved. He was about to reach out for his love, when Giselle turned to the hat and cried.