"I really don't think that you should be traveling yet, Commander." Finn gave her his sternest brow as she stepped in a drift that nearly came up to her waist, cursed loudly, and trudged out of it. She had probably also just filled her boot with snow, and he knew from the experience of living with her for the last year that this was only going to make her more cranky.
She was not really that fun when she was cranky.
He offered her his hand for help, rolling his shoulders under the weight of the pack on his back. It was a lot heavier than just having Vera there all the time. He lifted the straps to readjust them, using care as not to disturb the fragile cargo inside.
"I'm fine," was her sharp reply. She took a deep and heavy breath, standing steadier on her legs and pulling her dark hair off of her neck in a vain attempt to get it off of her face.
"You're not fine. Not by a long shot. Look at you, you're sweating." He shuddered, then frowned, pulling out a water skin and offering it to her. "It's freezing out here, and you are dripping everywhere!"
"Look, Finn," she snapped, before looking up at him, her face softening as their eyes met. "I apologize, Finn. I don't think we should wait any longer. I'm strong enough for this. We don't have much further to go tonight." It was true.
They could see the city from where they were. It was a bold move to just walk straight into the market in any major city, but the venture was especially risky in a city like Denerim. The Chantry presence there was exceptionally visible, even with a sympathetic King on the throne. Finn had nearly choked the first time he'd stolen into town and discovered that despite his status as being in the service of the Wardens, he had been labeled an apostate and was described as a potential maleficar. Him. A blood mage.
That was just too messy.
Templars knew that you had to cut yourself open and spill blood to use blood magic, didn't they? That left far too much potential for infection, and he still hadn't finished his studies on the ways that certain illnesses seemed to linger in the body even after the best healing. Besides, how could you ever know where the knife or dagger had been before? Blood magic was far too unsanitary. Perhaps most importantly, Enlightenment didn't particularly wish him to deal with demons. She'd been good to him all of these years, and he was in no hurry for her to leave his side.
He pulled his ghastly hat tighter down over his ears – the last memento of home that he'd had – and in the cold now he was finally glad that he'd received a gift from the unfortunate knitting phase and not the fishing phase. The candy making phase had been nice enough, and he'd been able to sneak some of that into solitary one time. The templars always ignored him, for the most part. Harmless, awkward Flora, the only person more interested in reading everything in the Tower than kissing everyone. Honestly, with the way everyone else prioritized, was it any wonder that he had been the top of his year?
Finn broke from his reverie then, and gave Kahrin a concerned smile. No one called him Flora anymore, and it wasn't the time to dwell on the past. He had two people to thank for that. One, he didn't know where to find, and the other walked beside him now.
Placing a hand at the join of her neck and shoulder with a companionable smile on his face, he quietly released rejuvenating magic into her. "You're right. We're almost there."
"I don't like it when you do that. I can tell, you know." Finn cringed, feeling awkward already. Sometimes he forgot that for all her poisoned blood and kindness, the Commander was a templar herself. "It makes my tongue feel funny, and leaves a sweet after taste I don't like. I don't mind, but please do not try to be sneaky about it, love."
"Peaches," he said in a completely casual tone.
"What?" Her tattooed eye wrinkled up in slight confusion.
Finn nodded back as if this was the most normal thing in the world to say. "Carroll, back in the Tower. He used to tell me that my magic tasted like peaches."
"I hate peaches. I've never liked them. It sounds like the kind of name a girl with no self-respect would call herself." Kahrin made a face. She'd been iffy with fruit for a while, some of it agreeing with her and others making her sick beyond measure.
"I know. No more peaches ever." He shuddered, shaking his head. "Or bananas." That had been quite the mess.
She stumbled slightly then, and he caught her arm to steady her, fixing her with a sad frown that earned him an arch of her characteristic Cousland Eyebrow.
"I'm fine, Finn. I promise."
She'd been off for so long since they'd found the Eluvian, the four syllables that had been the basis for their cooperation. She was looking for a Morrigan, supposed Witch of the Wilds, and since they couldn't simply send the dog to fetch one, Finn had pieced together a plan. It was the first time anyone had taken his studies and theories seriously, and Kahrin had immediately insisted on him accompanying her on her quest. To his disappointment in the end, he'd not quite gotten what he had wanted out of it, being forbidden to touch or even go near the mirror. What he had received, however, was perhaps just as rare and priceless as any Elvhen artifact.
The Commander had given him a choice, and that had never happened to him before. He could return to the Tower, where he was safe, protected, educated, and, yes, almost killed in a rebellion just that one time. Overall, it had been a tolerable if unremarkable existence. From the moment his parents had brought him, willingly, Finn had just accepted that this was his place. But once the Hero of Ferelden – the woman who had nearly destroyed them all and then saved the precious few of them who had survived from the arm of the Chantry – asked what he wanted, that had become a different issue altogether. Freedom was now an option. Real freedom, not the kind granted to him because he was boring and innocuous, but the kind where he could use his talents and gifts and do something that meant something without being watched or not watched.
He'd stayed by her side then, a bit of a thrill of adventure in his stomach, not to mention a healthy dosage of relief at having the griffon-etched shield of the Grey Wardens between him and the inevitable return to his gilded cage.
Of course, he also knew by the time they had been in the Deep Roads and Kadash Thaig for a couple of weeks that her particular ailment was not, in fact, the high volume of deepstalker in their diet. Despite her insistence that such a condition was not possible, he could only reply that if she repeated it enough, her denials might become truth. They hadn't, however, and as Finn so often was in these matters, he turned out to be right.
That business all had the potential to get very messy, and as it turned out, it was. He'd used a good deal of rejuvenating magic on himself as he ushered her through months of denial, anger, and yes, a crushing depression that had forced him to separate the legends from the woman he'd come to care about for giving him a choice. It was a malaise that lasted until he had put his best healing skills to work, and she had curled up into a ball and cried herself to sleep. That moment had been the beginning of a journey that had led them here; the trek down from Soldier's Peak to a city mostly asleep ending where they stood outside the gates of the Palace, hoods and cloaks drawn tight against recognition and weather alike.
They were expected, it seemed, and brusquely shown to the dark main hall. There, a throne sat on an otherwise empty dais, occupied by a man who looked as though his face had done nothing but crease with misery for quite some time.
With a fairly regal wave of his hand he sent the guards from the room and stood, closing the distance to them.
"Kahrin," he said, his emotionless voice echoing against the stark stone walls.
Her greeting was just as plain. "Alistair."
He clasped her elbows lightly then, moving almost as if by muscle memory to bend to her mouth, before stopping himself as she winced her head away from him. Instead he laid a light kiss upon her tattooed brow, letting his lips rest there a moment longer than was probably proper, and obviously not long enough if his face was any marker.
The silence in the room was a heavy thing, and reflexively Finn chuckled nervously, immediately regretting it. The last thing he wanted was to upset the nice templar-King.
King Theirin, for his part, didn't appear to notice anything but the Commander. "You came."
"I sent to you. It would have been rude of me to not show." Her attempt at humor fell a bit flat, but the king chuckled anyhow.
This was a good sign. She'd told Finn that it would quite possibly end... awkwardly, at best. Yelling, snarky quips, and objects being thrown had all been mentioned in a list of potential ways this could be handled, and any sign of good humor on either side was a relief. He preferred theoretical conflict to the actual thing.
"You … had something you wanted to tell me," Alistair continued, making Finn wring his ghastly hat in his hands just the tiniest bit. That was a poor turn in conversation. "Honestly, Kahr, could you have been more ominous in your letter?"
She was silent for a while, refusing to meet his eyes at first, then looking at him with resolve that Finn knew she didn't have the strength for at the moment. Somehow, however, she managed to push on.
"I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" His eyebrow shot up and he narrowed his eyes at her. "You can't just leave your post."
"I don't belong here anymore," she said flatly, her attempt at keeping her voice emotionless obvious.
"So, you're leaving with the apostate?" Oh no. "Wonderful, Kahrin."
She shook her head. "No. Not that it's any of your business, but no. That's not why."
"You can't leave. I need you here. There's talk. That I'm not Maric's son, that there's no heir, that Orlais might-"
"I found Morrigan."
That seemed to have the desired effect of making him stop talking, and his eyes widened. "How? Where?"
Finn had no idea what the exchange between two of them meant, but it was clear that it was a well-guarded secret he wouldn't be privy to any time soon.
"It doesn't matter," Kahrin stated. "She was telling the truth. I trust her."
The King snorted. "Of course you do. Funny how when you trust her, it usually means something rather unpleasant for me."
"He was never yours." Kahrin motioned for Finn to step to her, and she undid straps from the burden on Finn's back, pulling the tightly wrapped bundle inside awkwardly into her arms. "But she is."
He paused, his hand tugging slightly on his ear, and his jaw fell open. "But that's not-"
Kahrin held the sleeping girl in her arms, looking as if she had no idea what she was doing, and truth be told, she didn't. Finn couldn't recall a time over the last several weeks that she had looked at the babe, let alone held her or touched her.
"I know, and if you repeat it enough, it doesn't change anything. She's yours, and she's clean of the taint. I don't know how. More importantly, she can't go where I'm going."
He shook his head as if still trying to collect all of the situation in his mind. "And that is where, exactly?"
"I would rather not say."
He glared at her. "That's not good enough."
"Well, it's going to have to be," Kahrin retorted, and she flinched after she'd said it.
She took a step closer and held the babe out to him, stiffly, almost shoving her into his arms. King Alistair folded her into the crook of his arm, astonished, heartbroken, and by all indication almost instantly in love.
"You're just going to leave her with me? Anora will never-"
She shrugged. "You will have to find a way to make it work. You are the king, after all."
"Right, yes. Thank you for reminding me."
Kahrin fixed him with a hard look. "She is your blood. You have to make a way for her because I … can't." She turned away from him now, refusing to meet his eyes, and Finn noticed her own looked shiny in the light of the single lantern, words trailing off into the overwhelming silence.
Finn felt like he was intruding on a very private moment when the king stepped toward her. "Kahrin, please. I … I can't do this alone."
Kahrin backed away a full step to match his. "That's not the first time you've said that and have been wrong."
"I could say the same for you."
She glared at him for a moment, then her face broke into a sad frown. "Don't. Please." She pulled a small book from her pocket and held it to him, and he took it with his free hand. "Not now. It's too late for that."
"It doesn't have to be." His words were quiet and almost inaudible, but it looked as though they had struck Kahrin across the face.
"No. I have to go. Read that, it's written by your father, and Morrigan found it here." Kahrin shrugged. "She took it because he mentioned Flemeth. There's a lot of … well, I've read it. I think you'll find it interesting."
Alistair blinked. "My father?"
She sighed, nodding as she crossed her arms. "Don't let anyone else lie to you."
He snorted at that again. "Right. Wouldn't want that."
"Right." The same struck look crossed Kahrin's face for an instant, before she buried it once more. "Well, then. I suppose it's time for me to go. For us to go."
"Where are you going?" He tried again, this time almost pleading.
Her tears started then, and she didn't fight them. Finn noticed that she was starting to shake, though she would fight it and keep her composure while they were here. "I can't tell you that."
"I will find you." His voice took a bit of a growl. He held the baby girl more comfortably now, protectively, against his shoulder, and she sighed softly into it.
She shook her head. "Don't look for me. Raise your daughter-"
"Our daughter."
"Raise your daughter, live your life. Let me go." She ran a hand through her hair, a tell of her frustration, and clenched and unclenched her hands, a sure sign that she was woozy on her feet. Finn had known her long enough to tell.
"Kahrin, don't go." King Alistair locked his eyes to her, the life he hated standing behind him, mortared in the stone of the palace, and the baby of his love in his arms in front of him. For a moment Finn felt close to him, understanding all too well the way blood had of betraying you and removing your choices.
"Alistair, I …" She seemed to choke on something she either couldn't or refused to say. "Live your life gloriously. Don't be the toy they want you to be. Be the King I know you are." She paused, considering him for a few moments. "Tell her, also … that her mother loved her. I am sure it is supposed to be true." She nodded with a choked sound and a shudder towards the babe she left in his arms, but didn't look at her.
She pulled her cloak over her head then, giving a nod to Finn as they turned to leave.
"Thank you, Kahrin. We uh … love you, and … well … you know. The offer still …" Alistair looked down at his daughter. "We're here. When you're ready."
She didn't turn around, nor did she answer, but instead headed for the exit, and Finn put a companionable arm around her shoulders as they made their way into the streets, heading north and out of the city.