"Is everything alright, Warden?" The red headed woman stood with a towel draped carefully over one arm, her bloodied sleeve pushed up above her elbow, a bag of scented soap held loosely in her fingers as she pushed the thin branches of the bush aside. The elf was sitting on a rock cropping beside the river, her legs pulled to her chest, her back to the woman - and the camp. Leliana had been wondering for a time where the nimble young woman had wandered off to. None of their companions had thought of looking for her yet; Alistair had said that wandering about on her own was something she seemed to enjoy. Leliana was not so certain.

"I'm f-fine."

The tremble in her voice proved that she was not. Leliana set the towel on the bushes and walked over slowly. She had found the elf to be jumpy on occasion. "Warden," she said quietly, her sing-song voice soothing and light. "Are you alright?"

She did not move as the woman stepped into the river nor when she knelt before her in the flow of it. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her knees, her chin resting atop them; her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks tear-stained. Leliana even thought the tips of her ears drooped a little.

"Warden?"

"I didn't think I'd ever encounter it again," the elf whispered. Her russet hair had fallen loose from its braid and spilled around her face, covering the vallaslin that she so proudly displayed. "Walking corpses and skeletons. It's just like in the cave, only Tam-" She cut herself off with a shuddering breath that, perhaps, was a sob.

"If you'd like to talk, I will listen," the Orlesian accent offered. "Or if you would like me to talk I would be more than willing."

Emma's red-brown eyes flickered up. Leliana caught her breath - she had never seen such a curiously dazzling color, though the Grey Warden seemed to be tinted red all over. She smiled.

"They were rather terrifying, weren't they? I nearly froze from fear myself. I wanted to run away and hide until the fighting was finished. I didn't know what to do besides; but then I saw you. Arrow after arrow, without pause or thought or even so much as hesitation. And, one by one, they fell. You are so much younger than I, and I thought that if you could face such a threat with so much determination and fire in your eyes I could too."

The forest around them was still and calm. Birds fluttered between branches at a distance; the water washed the blood from Leliana's robes, turning pink as it continued downstream; a light breeze moved through the leaves overhead. The Dalish elf sighed.

"There was a cave," she began slowly. She turned her head and pressed her cheek against her knees. "I went in with one other from my clan and we found the same dark magic - the kind that could summon the dead from their graves. They were all skeletons inside the cave and my arrows were useless. It was Tam ... T-Tamlen who defeated them. But I never saw him after that.

"That's why, when I saw those corpses, I ... I was so scared! I didn't want to be there anymore; I wanted to be with my clan and listen to Ashalle and Hahren and Master Ilen and the Keeper berate me for wandering off again. I still want that, but I can't have it!"

She was shaking her head, tears flowing freely again as they must have been before Leliana stumbled onto her. She ran her hands through her hair, drawing more strands out than what she smoothed back.

"I can't go back to the way things were because Tamlen is dead. I can't go back to my clan because I don't know where they are. I can't leave because you're all depending on me. Alistair put me in charge and he follows me without question. And it seems like no matter what I say or what I do, I just keep finding more who want to come along. It doesn't matter that I try to convince you all away from the danger; you're still here! And I can't leave you alone!"

"Warden ..." Leliana's easy smile had vanished, her blue eyes misty.

"I am a Grey Warden; the Blight is my duty to end. I am Dalish; the Banalhan threatens my people as much as any other people. I cannot show fear, though I am terrified of failure. I cannot pause at anything. Suledin nadas!"

She stood, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, her whole body shaking - out of fear or anger or determination, Leliana could not say. Perhaps it was a combination of everything.

The Warden towered over Leliana as she knelt in the cool water. The leather strap that tied the end of her braid came loose and the wind played through her hair, setting strands to flutter around her thin shoulders and frame her face in a red halo as the sun filtered through the leaves. The Orlesian-born Fereldan was awe struck. Never had she seen such a change of character - not even in herself - and she could understand why Alistair, though the senior Grey Warden and senior in age as well as experience, had let the young woman lead. There was a fire within her that, once lit, burned brighter than the sun; Leliana had no doubt it would be as impossible to extinguish.

Emma turned and walked away, hair flowing like a hooded cape, steps even and unfaltering, shoulders drawn back proudly.

She was gone for some time before Leliana moved, slipping her Chantry robes over her head and soaking them, then dunking her head beneath the flow of river water. She sighed. "That girl," she said quietly to herself. A smile touched her lips, turning up one corner and then the other.

"She will pretend she is unafraid of everything so that we can be."

Author's Note: The Warden's name here is a bit of a play on words. In the Elven language emma means 'I am', so by calling herself Emma Mahariel she's saying 'I am Mahariel'. I thought it was a neat idea after hearing the story of her parents. (No one ever said that her mother named her, after all.)