Campfire Confessions

Author's Note - Hi everyone! I haven't posted in a while and I wanted to give you all something for the holidays. This was a chapter that I really wanted to write and it wouldn't leave me alone till I did. This will likely be integrated into the Complexity of Magic later on, when we get to this part of the story.

Instead of being a normal human being, I haven't written my fanfic in chronological order so I apologise for any confusion. I write what I feel like and sometimes that means I have the ending written before the beginning.

I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think. If you celebrate Christmas I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow and if you don't I hope you have a good ending to what has been a pretty shitty year.

Read, Enjoy and Comment!

Madame Sera

x

P.S There is a pretty big reference in this chapter and I'm curious as to whether any of you will get it? ;)

Disclaimer - I don't own anything that you might recognise. The only thing that belongs to me is Isolde and her confused emotions. The rest belongs to Bioware and EA respectfully.

"We'll camp here for the night!" Isolde called over her shoulder as her mabari nudged her hand and leant against her left calf, herding her towards what she assumed was a clearing along the side of the road.

Her companions readily agreed and without prompting, Leliana and Zevran headed off into the surrounding area, checking for any traps or bandits that may linger behind the trees. Isolde heard the soft sounds of their footsteps as they headed in opposite directions of each other. The rest of the party readily set up camp with Morrigan and Wynne already preparing to cast protection wards and Sten heading off to collect some firewood for later. It had been a cold day and they needed that fire to be set up quickly, if for nothing else to shut up Zevran who had complained all day about his 'gorgeous and flawless skin' being 'assaulted' by the tumultuous weather. Their new addition was certainly going to provide them with some new entertainment, if the last few days were any indication to go by.

Alistair heaved his equipment from his back and Isolde heard the loud 'THUD' as it hit the muddy ground. It had rained heavily for most of the morning and everyone knew that they were going to wake up damp tomorrow, no matter how thick their bedrolls were and how study their tents.

Her furry guide escorted her to a 'dry' and free spot where she relieved herself of her supplies and started preparing her bed area. The tent and bedroll were soon up and ready as was the rest of the camp. The fire was crackling away, already roasting some of the game Leliana had caught from her patrol. It was some rabbits, if her nose served her correctly. Not the most filling but decent enough with the last of the bread they had left from their excursion to the Tower.

Isolde sat down heavily and rubbed her useless eyes wearily. Her shoulders sagged and she could feel the weight on her hand where Wynne had given her the ring. It was like a lead weight dragging her down and a constant presence she had felt on her mind all day.

Wynne meant well – she understood that. She knew the Shem mage would never intentionally try to cause her harm. A Shem she may be, but Isolde knew that Wynne was simply acting out of concern and expressing her support for her in this little gesture. However, this gesture, this 'gift' did not comfort her as it was intended to do. Wynne had handed it to her to remind her of her origins – her past. To remind her that she belonged to a Circle and as Wynne had put it 'You can take the mage out of the Circle, but you can't take the Circle out of the mage.' Wynne had no actual understanding of what the ring actually represented to her though. She knew that Wynne, who had established herself as the caregiver of the group, would never have given her this gift if she did. Or who knows? Maybe she would have done it anyway. Shems were never known for being the most thoughtful or considerate race to walk Thedas, especially not to elves.

She ran her thumb along the smooth metal and felt the sharp cut of the insignia cut into its surface. On her ring finger of her right hand, only two fingers down, she felt her mother's ring. The twisted metal, reminiscent of vines or trees branches and the beautiful shade of the blue gemstone that was nestled at the top. The last safekeep she had of her old life and of her lost family.

Two rings for what felt like two lives. Two Isolde's.

One that was carefree, studious, and comfortable in her place in her Clan and her duties. The other, an elf that was cut off from everyone and everything. Cold, distant and untrusting. The absolute antithesis of each other.

Arla pressed her snout against her hand and licked it softly with her tongue. Isolde smiled slightly, the corner of her mouth lifted and she ran her long fingers through the mabari's short hair behind her ears.

Camp was silent and settled when Isolde heard the soft sounds of footsteps heading towards her. The fragrance of Andraste's Grace and lavender announced that it was Leliana.

The archer sat beside her on her log and handed her a steaming bowl of the delicious smelling soup. She thanked the Creators that it was Morrigan who was on cooking duty that night and not Alistair. She was not sure if she could have handled his 'signature Ferelden sludge' one more time that week.

"Merci." She thanked quietly and together they sat beside each other and ate their hard earned meal.

They both sat there for several minutes. Leliana watched the rest of her companions as they bedded down for the night. Morrigan was separated, as was her desire, hunched over and devouring the Grimoire that Isolde had found in the First Enchanter's office in the Tower. Leliana could see her mutter to herself as she read, the predatory golden eyes narrowed in concentration. Alistair was polishing his sword and shield as usual but Leliana was surprised to see that it was Zevran who kept him company. The elf was sat beside the fire with his daggers twirling in his hands masterfully, the sheen of silver kept in impeccable condition. She smiled slightly when she saw Alistair's face flush an astonishing shade of red and Leliana knew that Zevran was being his 'charming' and playful self. He was determined to get in and under Alistair's armour, she had to give it to him. Sten was meditating on his knees, eyes closed and repeating the words he said every night. The bard was desperately curious but she could not speak the Qunari's language and had not had a time to ask the huge warrior herself. She would have to ask him soon. Wynne was sitting outside her tent knitting away. The elderly mage would be reprieved from her usual duty of healing for the wounded as they remarkable had very little injuries from their travels these last few days. Despite herself, Leliana knew that that would change soon. It always did. Their party never seemed able to avoid going a few days without some form of bloodshed. Whether it be bandits who were foolish enough not to run away and pry gold from fleeing and helpless refugees or wolves and other predators who had been driven mad by the blight and were desperate for something to eat, their usual pray having fled from the chaos brewing in the south.

Things had been quiet since their harrowing venture into the Ferelden Tower and it had not escaped the bard's notice when Isolde had retreated into herself even more soon after. The elf had never been forth right with her thoughts and feelings but this retreat concerned her and tonight she had decided to seek her out.

"You've been quiet today. More so than usual." Leliana's voice was quiet in the night.

"Vin" the elvhen word slipped off the elf's tongue easily.

A pause. "Is it about the Tower?"

"Yes… and no." The mage felt the archer shift beside her and she didn't need her sight to know that Leliana was studying her face. She finished her small portion of the stew and sighed, handing the rest of it to Arla who had been nudging and snuffling at her hands, looking for scraps. The mabari barked happily and started devouring the leftovers.

"It's not the Tower itself that troubles me. Not exactly," she struggled to find the words, "more of what it represents that weighs on my mind." She twisted the ring around her finger again.

Isolde fell silent. How could she make someone who had never had to endure a Circle, understand? The Circle was a complicated issue and one that would need some explanation given to most people to help them grasp the situation even slightly.

"The Circle will always mean something different to every single mage. To some it is a salvation from an alienage or a life of poverty and an early grave. To others it is a powerhouse, a way to make grandstanding gestures in a ploy to gain power and influence." Unwillingly, her mind flashed to Montsimmard and the mages who would do anything, all in an effort to gain a grain of power.

"What is it to you?" Leliana was tentative, she knew the risks with glimpsing into people's pasts.

"A cage." Isolde's eyebrows furrowed and hands clenched and unclenched rapidly. "A prison that stopped me from returning to the People. A pretty cage but a cage will always be a cage."

Leliana studied her companion's face and ventured to ask further, feeling her heart start to beat a little bit faster. She had not expected Isolde to reciprocate to her concerns and now she had a chance to ask some of the burning questions that had plagued her even since she met their illustrious leader, all those weeks ago, in Lothering. She needed to be careful with this she knew.

She dared to ask, "How old were you when they took you?"

"I was 15 when the Templars attacked my Clan's camp. It was lain waist with fire and many of my people perished in the flames. I was captured and taken from my people and the forests and was placed into the heart of the Shem world. Orlais." Isolde's voice was dulled and detached, recounting the memories as if they were somebody else's.

In a way, they were.

Leliana knew that that was not the full story. She couldn't imagine Isolde being complacent and easy to capture. Even if it was experienced Templar Knights who detained her. She watched the flames from the fire flicker and dance across the elf's sharp features, the scarred tissue around her eyes looking darker and scarier than before in the dark shadows created by the flames. It made Isolde seem older, Leliana thought.

Isolde looked ageless. She had no visible wrinkles or creases in the area around her eyes or mouth. Her skin was still firm and smooth. Elves were notoriously difficult to place ages upon. Leliana knew that that was one of the many reasons many lords and ladies in Orlais preferred to have elven servants. They were prettier to look at. But Isolde had always seemed aged, Leliana thought, thinking back to the confrontation with Loghain's men in the inn and when she had first met Isolde. Touched by events that caused her soul to become fragile and withered.

A pause. "The Chantry teaches that the Circle is to protect the mages whilst also keeping the rest of the population safe." Isolde turned her head and the bard swore that Isolde was looking straight into her soul. "How often does reality live up to the ideal?"

The bard noticed she rubbed at her wrists when she spoke but didn't comment on it. She catalogued it to analyse later – like many things she had noticed about their Party's leader.

Before she could stop herself, she asked "Did you try to escape?" She nearly slapped herself for her stupidity and insensitivity. To her surprise, Isolde let out a bark of laughter and smirked.

"I was a Dalish elf surrounded by mostly Orlesian nobility and gentry." Her smirk disappeared and an almost ugly look swept over her face. "I was…exotic. A pet, to be studied and watched constantly. I was lucky to have a moment to myself most days. If it was not the mages watching me, it was the Templars. I had not been…easy to acquire and they watched me, looking for the first hint of misdoings. Escaping was a dream that I could only think of carrying out. A daydream to have when stuck in a classroom. I simply could not separate myself from anyone long enough to scoop out the Tower and find an escape route. Then, when I was sent to Ferelden, not long after I arrived I was caught in the incident. With no sight, I had no chance of finding a way to escape."

It was evident that Isolde was a creature of bad luck and knowing that she never even had the chance to try to escape, made her imprisonment that much worse in her mind. It was imprisonment. Isolde was a free creature. An elf of the People. Roamers of lands long forgotten and speakers of a language they struggled to preserve along with their rich culture. To be caged and kept in a Tower and denied those rights, her birth right, was unforgivable.

However, Leliana could certainly understand the fascination the young apprentices had had of their party's leader. Isolde was certainly an unusual beauty, one that went against every Orlesian standard of what would be considered beautiful, but she was beautiful none the less. Orlais, with their outlandish frills and silks. Of bright colours and faces covered in masks made of jewels and other accessories, all looking to outdo each other. Isolde seemed almost plain next to them. Leliana had a weakness for pretty things and elves were usually very fair and delicate. With Isolde's high and prominent cheekbones and the artfully inked tattoos that highlighted her eyes, she was a striking creature.

"How did you end up here, in Ferelden? It's a far cry from Orlais."

Here, Isolde hesitated and seemed to choose her words carefully. "I was transferred after an… incident with a Templar. My mentor, Joselyn, knew the First Enchanter of Ferelden's Tower and hoped that I could find a better life here. She was a good mentor. A Shem, but…a good mentor. The irony of my situation is not lost on me." Isolde looked down and her eyebrows furrowed.

Leliana smiled sadly. A Grey Warden's life was not what she would ever consider to be 'better' and after overhearing Isolde and Alistair argue for hours about their situation and their Order, she knew exactly where Isolde stood.

They both sat there in silence and stared into nothing. Leliana was swirling all the information in her mind. To have to have endured so much at such a young age, her heart ached.

15. What had she been doing at 15? Attending parties with Lady Cecilie and dancing under the strict and critical eye of her tutors. She had been learning Ferelden and Orlesian legends and begging to hear elven ones from Cecilie's servants, even though it had been strictly forbidden. She was being educated in etiquette and language and starting to be introduced to the Great Game and beginning to learn the dangers of it.

Leliana remembered that she had started to become bored with her comfortable and pampered life. It would be the next year, on her sixteenth birthday that she would visit Val Royeaux for the first time and her life changed more than she could have possibly imagined.

She shook herself from her memories, like a person arising from a cold bath.

"Would," She corrected herself, "will you ever go back to your Clan?" the question hung in the air between them and Leliana felt like she had asked something too personal. She felt like she had invaded a space where she was not welcome and would probably never be welcome. A place she had no hope of ever understanding.

Isolde didn't say anything for such a long time that Leliana figured she would not answer at all and was about to apologise when the elf spoke.

"I don't know." Isolde bit her lip and the Orlesian's eyes were drawn there unwittingly.

"My Clan…they could be anywhere in southern Orlais. So many people perished in the attack. Would there have been enough of them to have managed to endure the next few winters? Did they merge together with a sister-clan?" Isolde heaved a sigh through her nose. "It has been so many years. So much has passed. Would they even accept me back even if I did find them – scarred and reduced to uselessness as I am from when I left them."

"Vous n'etes pas inutile. (You're not useless)" Leliana leant forward and clasped Isolde's smaller hands within her own. The mage immediately stiffened and the bard's heart sunk. She removed her hands but her eyes blazed none the less, the blue turning to a dark stormy azure. "You are scarred – yes. But you have proven that you do not need your sight to have worth and value. You lead our party into battle and you have never hesitated whilst doing so. You plan and make the decisions that the rest of us would shy away from, even if the decision does not benefit you. You think of everyone else, even humans, before yourself. I know we are just 'shems' to you, but that has never clouded your judgement when dealing with humans. You admit your faults and accept everyone for theirs. I know you could do so much for your clan if you returned to them. You may think yourself to have little worth, but you – Isolde of the Dalish – are not useless."

The small elf paused in surprise at the outcry but shook her head in refusal.

"If I returned to my Clan, Leliana, how would I read the scriptures that I would need to in order to carry out my duties as the First to my Keeper? How would I traverse the forest safely and without assistance? How could I help when an aravel was stuck on a rock or had been damaged by the rivers? When I would take over as Keeper, how would I study the maps to plan the next journey the Clan would make? How would I set the wards around the camp when I can't even see the perimeter of the camp itself? How could I bless people with the vallaslin when I can't see what I'm doing? How would I…" Her chest rose and fell rapidly, a sheen of cold sweat covering her body. The reality hurting so much more than she ever thought it would. "No, Leliana. I would cause more harm than good for my Clan. I would be a liability."

Leliana felt tears cling to her eyes and refused to let them fall. She watched as the small being beside her seemed to crumble into herself, eyes dry as the scars caused her to be incapable of forming the tears to even let them fall. Shoulders shook and the elf's breast fell rapidly, breaths coming at shorter intervals between each one.

If hopelessness was ever to be made into an image, it would be this elf. This beautiful, heart-breaking elf who was without a home and would be denied hers and her family for the rest of her life.

'La vie est injuste' (Life isn't fair) a very familiar voice whispered at the back of her mind, like a snake winding around a branch. She shook it off.

"What about your family, your friends?" She didn't know why she continued to push this. Why she cared so much. Why she was determined to give this elf some form of hope, some form of salvation from the hopelessness of her dire situation and provide relief.

Isolde sighed and stood up from her perch on the log. She paced back and forth before it, until she stopped and faced the heat of the camps fire.

"My family…I do not know if my mother survived. The chaos of the attack…I lost sight of her." Images flashed through Isolde's mind with startling clarity.

The aravels, already fragile from a harsh winter, turned to mere timber. They burned quickly and released thick, suffocating black smoke into the air that made it nearly impossible to breath. The surrounding forests caught alight quickly and joined the inferno. The echoing screams as her clan ran for their lives and were slaughtered in the process. The booming shouts of the Templar Commander who rallied his forces and the Templars falling into formation, carrying out his orders with brutal efficacy. "And Myssa…" She snapped back to reality.

The camps fire felt like scorch marks against her flesh. She stumbled back and clenched her hands into fists. Her nails dug into the delicate skin of her palms and left crescent moon indentations that would not disappear for a long while.

Leliana stood from her position on the log quickly and her concern rose when she saw the pale, sickly complexion of Isolde's face. Her black vallaslin standing out against her worryingly pale pallor. Her skin was a dull grey and the sheen of sweat made her look like she would drop in exhaustion and was coming down with a fever.

"Mon ami…" (My friend) Leliana reached to clap Isolde's shoulders.

"They're gone Leliana. They are gone and I'm never going to see them again. I doubt the Wardens would let me go, even if I wanted to. They don't strike me as the type to let they're people do as they please." Her expression relaxed and the walls were already beginning to form again. The harsh and impenetrable shield being reinforced and used to barricade herself and her emotions inside once more.

Leliana wanted to scream in sadness and defeat. She wanted to tear those walls down and trample on them. She saw the emotions that Isolde was denying herself, had denied herself. The emotions that were there but were so used to being oppressed and hidden, that Isolde didn't know what to do when they surfaced and became too much to bear. The grief, the uncertainty of an unknown future and her place in it. The pain of having being separated from her Clan and then being subjected to humans for years, knowing that she could never contact her clan. Being ridiculed for being what she is every day by her peers and made to feel like a pariah for being proud of what she was born as.

"Mon ami, it is acceptable to mourn. To wonder about what could have been. I know that one day you will return to your clan. I have faith that you will find the answers that you seek and that you will see your family again. I know it. The Maker will guide you down that path, I just know it."

Arla, who had been watching her mistress become more and more distressed, stood, and trotted her way to the small elf's side. She burrowed her head under her hand and Isolde clenched the fur between her fingers to ground herself.

Silence stood between them. Like two soldiers on a battlefield, waiting to see who would admit defeat first and lay down their arms.

Isolde heaved a final sigh and raised her head, two small pieces of hair fell from her intricate braids in front of her eyes and Leliana restrained herself from reaching forward and pushing them back behind her pointed ears.

The elf spoke with finality. "It doesn't matter anymore. We have more important things to worry about and I apologise for even letting you see me like this. It won't happen again, I can assure you. I don't even know why I told you any of this. It was unprofessional. We have a mission to accomplish and my feelings have no importance or play in that."

Leliana felt a tear traitorously fall.

"Isolde…"

"Les morts sont partis Leliana," Isolde turned away, "et les vivants ont faim."

With those harsh and scathing last words, the elf and beast walked away from the Orlesian bard who could do nothing but stare at the hunched back regretfully and feel the flood of tears begin to fall. The words echoing in her head like fists banging on the wall in cell. The dead are gone and the living are hungry.