Dragon Age: Origins #9 - Lions and Wolves and Elves, Oh My!

[andraste]

Wulfric was not enthusiastic about tracking down the Dalish elves, and not only because they live in the forest like weirdos. (Instead of underground like normal people, or in houses, which are an acceptable substitute I guess if you don't have a proper underground city.) He didn't really understand the beef between elves and humans at all, but he'd heard enough about the Dalish to know that they might just shoot him on sight. He brought Zevran with him just in case having an elf along might help. (Definitely not for any other reason. Nope.)

As it turned out, their greeting wasn't quite as bad as he'd expected, but he still didn't trust Zathrian's explanation of what was going on. Partly because his dog clearly disliked the elf, and partly because it seemed odd that there werewolves would suddenly become a problem when the clan had been visiting the area for centuries. Still, he knew if he wanted archers he would have to resolve this somehow so he set off to do just that.

After slogging his way through far too many bears and werewolves and TREES THAT FIGHT WTF HOW IS THIS ALLOWED WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SURFACE??? he wasn't surprised to find out that Zathian hadn't told him the whole story. Just very, very angry. Wulfric was not about to be betrayed again, and he actually brought up the idea of killing the Dalish clan. Fortunately, Zevran talked him out of it. (Even without whatever personal feelings he was developing for his wayward assassin, the mere fact that Zevran wanted to not kill some people did give him pause.)

However, after that there was certainly no way that he was going to kill the werewolves. Not that he didn't understand why Zathrian did what he did originally, but much and all as Wulfric respects the need for revenge he thought it it at Zathrian's actual enemies, not people who were just unlucky enough to be their descendants. (It would be nice if this experience gave him a more enlightened perspective on the Casteless, but nope.) So he forced Zathrian to cure the werewolves and got his Dalish army.

At that point he went back to camp and one of those beautiful pieces of serendipity occured: he went and talked to Wynne, whose 'you're quite taken with each other, aren't you?' dialogue triggered, got in a huge fight with her, and marched straight over to Zevran to finally admit he wanted to bang him like a screen door in a hurricane, only for me to find that Zevran's 'I know what would make you feel better!' dialogue was HIS next conversation. So that worked out nicely.

Wulfric was still doubtful that he should really be trusting Zevran. Not so much because he didn't as because he had trouble explaining to himself why he did. Still, he was willing to see where this would go. (I mean, other than his tent, repeatedly.)