My Warden (COMPLETED)

Tunnels

9:44 Anderfels

At least the qunari didn't stab them in the back right away. Cullen felt her ice blue eyes drifting over him and then back across the king while those two squabbled over the nitty gritty of their arrangement.

"So, you're not under the Qun?" Alistair jabbed at the woman towering above him, his head craned back. The man had a blush rising up the back of his neck brighter than the fading sunburn. Cullen had a good idea he knew why judging by the noticeable lack of clothing on this tal-vashoth scholar. She kept her shoulders back and her chest shoved out as if at constant attention. Good for one's posture, less so for the king's attempt at staring up into her eyes.

"I am not. I left many years ago for personal reasons," Aqun said. She bore a staff across her back, not of the mage variety. This was thinner with a spear tip on the end for reaching long distances to impale someone's chest. Cullen could already picture it embedding between one of their ribs.

"It's just, most of the not-qunari qunari I meet tend to be more..." Alistair waved his hand around.

"Mercenaries?"

"Stab people in the gut because someone told them to," he answered with and Cullen groaned. He didn't trust this Aqun but the king didn't need to wave his bare ass around and dare her to spear it. Maker, don't give him that idea. Cullen's hand drifted down to try and scratch Honor's head, but he felt a tuft of hair rising up. A line running her entire back rose, her ears pinned back as she didn't growl but beamed a tight focus on the qunari.

"Many who abandon the Qun never leave it," Aqun said. "I have watched my fellows fall to the vices of the south led by any and all who would guide them with a foolish hand, unable to find balance. It is sad."

"Right, very sad," Alistair continued to blather, "just one tiny question I'm wondering. If you're not under the Qun, and not here at the whim of some noble's coin to give a free knife massage to his enemies, who do you work for?"

Aqun paused for the king to catch up, and her taut lips twisted in a smile, "A perceptive question. I am in fact here on leave of the grey wardens." That caught Cullen's attention, and he whipped a question back at maybe not the only warden there - but Alistair shook his head no. Either sensing the argument between them, or anticipating it, Aqun continued, "The wardens often employ those beyond their ranks to assist in delicate matters."

"Delicate matters like letting some outsider break into their secret ancient fortress and ferret out all their secrets? Those same wardens just love sharing information with anyone who wanders by and asks. Or..." Alistair stumbled, "or so I've heard."

"Have you now?" Aqun's icy eyes lingered over him. "The wardens are not as tight eyed as you've been led to believe."

"Tight eyed?" Alistair puzzled through her mixed up idiom, then shook his head, "I suppose it is possible for the wardens to look into a merce- not-mercenary, not-qunari to finish a few tasks for them. Maybe-ish." The king turned his head fully around at Cullen and shrugged, unable to verify the woman's story. Not that it much mattered, if the ben-hassrath needed her background to check out they'd move mountains for it to happen.

"How did you know one of us is a templar?" Cullen spoke up, his voice flat from lack of use. The trip back towards the fortress felt five times as long as the one into town, his feet dragging in the grass.

Aqun turned from her pace ahead of them both and placed a hand upon her hip. "Simple, your gait."

"My gait?" Cullen asked, his feet pausing.

"Templars move with a soft shuffle upon the balls of your feet for fear that a mage could plant ice under you at any moment. It is rather easy to spot when one knows what to look for."