By Blood & Lyrium {Dragon Age: Inquisition}

Chapter Three: Found Wanting

"Enough!"

    The sudden shout caused Dorian to jump, his quill sliding across the parchment and leaving an ink trail across half his words. He sighed, eyes turned towards the ceiling in a silent plea to the Maker, and he put his quill down. His letter to Maevaris would have to wait. There was no way he could write coherently with all this noise. He rolled up the parchment, stuffing it into one of the folds of his robes, and ignored the worried look Ser Morris shot him as he left. Weaselly little fellow was scared of everything, but would never say aloud that it was due to Dorian being a Tevinter mage. He was very nearly the only one.

    Dorian stepped out into the sunshine of the courtyard. It was warming, but not nearly warming enough. He took a deep breath and searched for the direction of the noise. As he drew closer, he was able to discern the nostalgic sounds of laughing children hard at play. He turned the corner to find three scrawny elven children weaving about the sparring dummies Cassandra liked to take her frustrations out on. Minding them was an exasperated elven warrior he slowly began to recognize. He tried to put name to face. Rosal, wasn't it? 

    The children ran about the training ground, wooden swords raised high and swinging madly. They seemed to be in the middle of reenacting a grand adventure. At Rosal's sudden approach, the taller of the boys brandished a wooden buckler and stabbed his sword towards her. His dark hair was pulled back from his eyes in a simple knot. He stared at her unflinchingly, despite the warrior's intimidating gaze.

    "You cannot best us, giant!" he bellowed. "We've fought too long to let you get in our way!"

    The smaller boy, who had taken refuge behind his headstrong friend at the impending danger, peered nervously over the shield at Rosal, "Yeah! We're not afraid of you."

    Rosal approached them with short, concise steps. The shorter boy caught sight of the steely look in her eyes and let out a frightened squeak as he returned to the relative safety of his friend's shield. 

A tiny blur lept from the base of one of the training dummies with a loud screech. All Dorian could see of the little girl was a huge mass of frizzy curls that threatened to engulf her diminutive frame. A pair of wooden daggers jutted out from too-long sleeves, and the child mimicked slicing them across Rosal's ankles.

The young girl leapt away, attempting to escape, and promptly caught her foot on the leg of her trousers. Her face was overcome with surprised panic. She fumbled and fell sideways. A blur of movement was all Dorian could see as Rosal darted forward, quick as a serpent.

    Rosal lifted the little girl up, hand grasped firmly around the child's ankle, until their eyes were at the same level, "How are you to learn the basics of combat if you insist on not listening?"

    Dorian snorted, "You'll never teach them anything like that."

    He approached them quickly, a slight tilt to his face as he tried to determine whether or not the girl was in danger of slipping from Rosal's grasp and plummeting down to the cold dirt. His fingers twitched as he reigned in the need to reach out to right the poor child.

    The girl in Rosal's grip looked towards him, red creeping across her cheeks and ears. He suddenly recognized the ashen hair and blue eyes. Her blush deepened when she saw him, but faded as she seemed to recognize him. She wriggled furiously in Rosal's grasp and, when she couldn't seem to break loose, she allowed herself to ragdoll. Directing an annoyed pout at Rosal, she then returned her attention to Dorian and waved furiously.

"Darien!!"

Dorian didn't bother to correct her mispronunciation, as he was likely going to do the same thing to her name.