ten hours, five coppers
Rated T, 2.3k - Written for @dragonageannual 2025 ✨ AO3 link
After a powerful storm strikes the alienage, Garahel finds his life altered in unforeseen ways. A story about the man who would become the Hero of the Fourth Blight.
Garahel’s body ached as he trudged into his home, and the silence that met him there was the first peace he’d felt in days.
A sliver of moonlight illuminated sights worn smooth by the years: the crate that served as a table, the cot in the corner, the antiquated wood stove. Tonight it all seemed new to him somehow.
Looking at his home, he was keenly aware of how fragile everything was; it was nothing but wood and stone, really, and the dreams of whatever elf, decades ago, had taken it upon himself to build. That every window pane was still whole was a blessing. Most in the alienage could not say the same.
It’d been a week since the storm had swept through the alienage, leaving behind a wake of destruction. Not a soul had slept through the howling winds and drumming rain that night—nor the deep, brassy crack that tore through the din, louder and more resonant than thunder.
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