"Right. So I answered a bunch of questions about me, yeah? What about you? Where does the Herald hail from?" The tiny blonde elf giggled.
"Promise not to laugh?" Sera nodded. "I was raised by dwarves in the wilder bits of the Free Marshes."
"What? Get out!" Seeing the look on her new friend's face she ceased her humor "I thought Qunari were raised in those group school things?"
"Maybe under the Qun? I don't know any more then you actually. They found me when I was a few days old, abandoned on the mountainside where they had their mine. They took me in without alerting the nearby Tal-Vashoth through."
"Right because who wants to wander up to a bunch of giants and ask is this your baby?" Sera played the scenario out with her hands as she talked.
"Right." Asaaranda laughed and then was quiet a moment. "It was a good childhood. Mom read me a story every night. Dad taught me how to read. When my magic appeared they went to the local Dalish who taught me the basics of not killing myself or becoming possessed instead of handing me over to a circle."
" Are they still in the Marshes? Being happy old dwarves with a giantess daughter?" Sera's face was wistful and her mind thinking so she missed the pained expression on Asa's face.
"Dead." Asa put her head in her hands. "We were attacked in the road by a group of Templars looking for escaped mages from Kirkwall. They saw my staff and attacked. They killed them both. They were unarmed. But I was not."
Sera reached tentatively across the table to brush a finger along Asa's hand. She dropped them from her face and Sera took them into her own.
"You got their love, yeah? It'll never leave you."
"Thanks, Sera. I didn't mean to get weepy on you."
"Nah. Just means I need to get more arrows for them helm polishing arseholes."
Asa chuckled with her. It was nice to be making a friend, no matter how odd she may be. Sera was normal, blessedly normal compared to some of the other people she had met so far. Solas, Cassandra, and Blackwall were nice but two of them were obsessed with duty and other spent a lot of time talking about old things she didn't even understand. Varric seemed sad and distracted a lot of the time. But she listened to all of them, they were fascinating. Varric told the best stories though.
"Your name? It's not dwarfy."
"Asaaranda means thunderstorm in Qunlat. They could speak it well enough actually. Not many outside the Qun learn it apparently." Sera's fingers were calloused from years of work and archery but still soft and so tiny compared to her own. Glancing at Sera's puzzled face, she continued with a smile. "They found me in a thunderstorm. They claimed its because I would shake the world."
Sera was quiet another moment. "They hit that right yeah?"