A/N: Originally inspired by a ficlet written by Maybethings (on tumblr and Ao3), A Cell Five Steps Wide.

Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.
-Richard von Weizsaecker

Chapter 1

The Grey Wardens.

If they had a marching tune, and if he had a way to know it, it would have been beating time in his head as he slipped inside the keep proper. Curtain walls hadn't stopped him, not when he knew all the best place to scale it from years spent playing in the yards. The old memories rankled; they had been thick and weighty at best in the years before, but now they had a rougher edge that cut deep. His brother, dead. His sister, dead. His father-

Murdered.

Death called for repayment in kind. That much he had learned and learned well in the Free Marches, and it was that he held close as he slid through shadows and through doorways. His father's murderer wasn't here yet, but she would be in time. In another place, with another mark, he might have tried to pass himself off as a servant, play the Warden's waiting game. But the keep held too many familiar faces.

And too many familiar things. A glance up at the hanging tapestries made his teeth set on edge. His mother's room- empty, but still well-appointed. Was this where they would put the murderer, then? Was this where he should lay his traps? It was all that he could do, but he could do it well, and he could come back to check day after day. One day, it would work. One night, he would leave triumphant.

He had his pack down to pull thin wire from it when a passing light from one of the walls beyond the room's one window caught, glinting, on something tossed across the top of a dresser. Fereldan-made dresser, he thought as he crept forward, tugged by curiosity as much as by a need for home. His mother had complained, had demanded imported Antivan wood, at the very least.

His lips twisted bitterly as he drew close enough to make out the chain, the beaten metal, the stones. His mother's necklace. It was the one she wore in that blighted painting that had once hung downstairs when relatives came to call. He remembered it. He still hated it.

But he reached out for it all the same, fingers curling around the fine work. It was just cast across the wood, not the way she would have left it. Somebody had picked it up and then discarded it.

He wouldn't do that. Not something that had belonged to his family. Not him.

And what else was here? Delilah's old dolls, her old practice weapons from when she had wanted to be a knight? Thomas's fine boots, or maybe even his empty bottles? There were so many things that should have been in those halls, but how many had been taken? Sold? Thrown in the gutter or in the midden?

Traps could wait. A murderer who kept her rightful distance could wait.

He pulled up his pack again. There was nothing else of his mother's that he would ever choose to keep; a single necklace was more than enough. But his father's room was just down the hall, and it was that he made for, crouched low. It was late enough that the torches had been extinguished except for those at crossroads, and he knew the stones well enough by feel, even after eight years' absence, to follow them by touch and sound. His father's door loomed.

The scuff of a boot on the floor made him still, the flare of a torch coming around the far corner made his heart leap. He swore and broke into a run as the first shout reached his ears. Bad timing, bad luck, and the men chasing him - for there was more than one, he heard at least two steps, and possibly a third running in time with the second - were fast.

One was faster than he was, and his hand tightened around the necklace as the man's closed around his wrist, jerking him back. Nathaniel turned his stumble into a kick, sweeping the man - Grey Warden - off his feet. He had less than the span of ten breaths before the others were on him, but he managed to slam his first assailant's head against the floor and get up again.

His bow was outside. He had two knives with him, and he fumbled for them, ducking another swing. None of them seemed to be armed, and if he could time this right-

An elbow connected with his back and he went down gasping, catching himself an inch from the stone and rolling. One knife went skittering and he had his hand half-outstretched to catch it again when a boot came down on it.

Up again, then, and he caught one of them, the shortest of the three, beneath the jaw with his elbow.

For Grey Wardens, they went down easily.

The third he had on the ground with a sharp kick to the gut, and he took off down the hallway, catching up his knife and the necklace as he went. The fastest way out was out through the front door, down the yard, as long as the gates were up - and they'd been up on the way in. But that way also might take him close to other Wardens.

"Oy!"

Right. Did take him close to other Wardens.

He kept his head down and sprinted, and didn't stop until something small and hard connected with his back. He stumbled and snarled, dropping to one knee as he turned. Two more. He could take two more.

He pushed himself forward and leapt for the first. He couldn't outrun them, not with a sling or whatever had hit him, but he could take them down, take a slower but safer route. He could stop messing up.

He tackled the first Warden - a woman, this time - at the knees, but she kept her feet long enough for her companion to kick at his stomach and drive the wind from his lungs. He jerked his arms and dragged her down, but the motion had him down too far. He couldn't get up in time to block or dodge another blow, and though he got his knee against the woman's throat, the other hauled him back. He snapped and snarled, shouting curses as his heels dragged over the woman and the floor. His hands fisted tight, but he had dropped the necklace and the knife. He had nothing, and was too low to jerk back.

The Warden holding him kicked the necklace away. "Damn thieves-"

"I am not-"

The fist to his gut silenced him, and the woman Warden grabbed his other arm.

He had made it a point to drag his feet as the two Grey Wardens pulled him down through the halls of home, out through the courtyard, and into the prison, dusty and fetid and old. Now he regretted it, his ankles swollen from where his boots had caught on corners and on stones. It kept him seated when he would have rather paced, and his awkward attempt to rise up and check the lock left him hissing and swearing.

He listened for some smart-ass response, or some resigned response, or some response at all. He'd seen a figure sitting up in one of the other barred cages, a glimpse of a shadow before the Wardens had shut the door and left him in darkness. But no utterance, snide or otherwise, came- and if he strained, he wasn't even sure he heard whoever it was breathing.

Great. He was locked in a room with a decaying corpse.

Nathaniel yanked hard at the laces of one boot. When he twinged his ankle, his scowl turned to a snarl, his movements turning harsher out of spite. He finally tugged the leather free, and threw it to the other side of his cage, the noise ringing out far louder than he'd expected.

And now to top everything off, he had a headache. It was a perfect addition to a perfect day, to go with all the bruises and scratches the Wardens had left him with.

He was gentler with his other boot, though he still tossed it half-heartedly. Feet freed, he stretched his legs out and tried to settle where he could keep his feet still. His head fell back against the bars, and he stared up at where the ceiling would be. What did the room look like in the light? He had played here once, with Delilah and Thomas, a game of hide-and-seek that ended with Thomas locked in one of the cages - had it been this one? - all the way through dinner.

When he laughed at the memory, it was hoarse and weak, bitter and barely a laugh at all. What a way to come home. First as a would-be assassin, and then as a thief, and now- now as a prisoner. In a room with a dead body. His father would have been-

His father-

"Are you done then?"

He started and shot forward at the voice. It was a woman's voice, and it came from the direction of the dead body. He turned towards it, staring into the dark and trying to make out anything at all.

"Well?" she said.

There was something about that voice that was familiar, but it might only have been the clipped martial note to it, or the fact that it was Fereldan and not at all docks-accented.

"Yes, I'm done," he said, a little sharply and yet not as sharply as he would have liked.

He was either dealing with a rather no-nonsense ghost or he was talking to a live woman. Though talking was a rather generous description, given that no more sound came from across the way. He soon fell to hoping that he hadn't imagined the voice, and took comfort in the idea that if he had, it would have been his mother's voice picking him apart, not some unknown but slightly recognizable woman.

Nathaniel let his head rest back against the bars again.

He supposed he should sleep. He had been awake for nearly a full day, and there was little else to be done. But his ankles hurt and his mind still raced (albeit in circles from lack of direction), and so instead, he turned his head and looked back towards the other cage.

"And what do the Wardens have you here for?" he asked.

There was no response.

He sighed and let his head roll against the bars again, until he was staring in front of him. "Are you the quiet type or are you dead?"

There was a snort of laughter from the other cell.

"The former," she said. "No, you're stuck with a neighbor."

"At least it's not the rotting sort."

"At least." The way she said it made him imagine her smiling. What she looked like when she smiled, he had no idea, but it was a comforting sort of image. His own lips tugged at the corners.

"You didn't answer my question," he pointed out, reaching to trail his fingers over the bars by his side, emboldened by that little bit of contact. "I'd like it if you did."

Silence again. He was considering pushing when there was a scrape of fabric on stone from across the way, and he craned forward, as if he had a hope of seeing anything beyond the faintest shift in shadows.

"I suppose," she said, "it's because the Hero of Ferelden wants to see me."

"Something in common then," he said, and when the echo drew another unsteady breath of laughter from her, he counted it as a triumph. He couldn't get many these days. "Do you know why?"

"I know why. It's more the where of it... I would have thought she'd leave me in Denerim."

"You're from Denerim, then?"

"I might as well be." There wasn't any emotion attached to the words besides maybe faint amusement. Just a few minutes earlier, he might have questioned how anybody could be amused down here. But it was a lot easier to be amused than to weighed down by it all.

"How long have you been here?" he asked. He could have asked her name, but something held him back. Maybe it was because if she answered, he'd have to offer his in turn. Maybe it was just the novelty of knowing somebody without a face or an identity beyond might as well be from Denerim and that smooth voice of hers.

"Mm. Hard to tell." That smooth voice of hers lost its traces of amusement. "What month is it?"

"Cloudreach. Sixteen Cloudreach." His mouth went dry around the lingering taste of blood.

"Three months, then."

He couldn't find words for that. He could only frown, scowl, look questioningly towards her and then frustratedly down at himself. Three months. Three months ago, he'd still been in the Marches, head filled with rumors and horror stories and plans of setting sail still taking form. Three months ago had been only three months after the Blight ended. Three months... was a long time to be alone in a dark dungeon.

He wondered what she looked like, and then banished the thought. Half-dead, and nothing else. It didn't matter.

She shifted, weight on stone and straw. "Don't want to know more than that?" she asked, and her humor had turned bitter.

"It's a long time, three months."

"Yes," she said. "It is. But the three months before that in Drakon seemed a bit longer, I'll admit."

He shook his head. "You must have committed some great crime to have been put through that much."

"I suppose so." Was she leaning towards him, searching for him in the dark? Or was she barely able to lift her head, speaking towards the ceiling, twitching her fingers or feet to make noise? He could imagine both, with her faceless, nameless self attached to it. "And what about you?" she asked.

She was looking at him, definitely.

"Would petty thievery convince you?" he asked. They made a good pair, equal parts defensive, bitter, and reaching out for some pathetic amount of contact.

"Not with this lot, I don't think. What were you trying to steal?"

He frowned. "... Things that are important to me. Beyond any monetary value. Flames, I don't know if they have monetary value." Aside from his mother's necklace, that was. That, he was certain, would have been worth something if he'd cared.

He didn't, of course, and so it hardly mattered.

"So you're down here because-"

"It took four of them to take me down. Apparently that's cause for imprisonment these days. Maybe I should have killed them, instead - it would have at least let me get away." He shrugged. "And how many did you kill to get you down here?"

"One. Ten. A hundred. Probably more. It depends on how you define it, I suppose."

Another shift, another rustle of straw, and he gave up on trying to see her. He sank down further against the bars. A hundred dead - what was she, a darkspawn who spoke? A bandit?

"Army life," she said with a dry chuckle.

A soldier.

At some point, he fell asleep. When he woke, it was to the pounding of rain, the creak of the door and a sliver of light, and the thud of a plate being put down on the other side of the cell bars. His eyes didn't adjust in time to see the guard, or the woman across the way, but he was awake enough to hear her quiet grunt.

"Pease porridge. Again," she muttered.

He dragged himself over to where the thud had been, hand slipping through the bars to feel along the ground for the bowl. His ankles didn't hurt so much, but his head had taken their place, throbbing dully. "Don't like pease porridge?" he asked, arching a brow as his hand found the side of the wooden dish. There was a cup beside it, and he picked that up first. It came in through the bars and he drained it.

Water. He'd barely noticed how thirsty he was.

"I have nothing against it. My mother made a great one, when I was younger. But this one's shit, and it's all I've had for six or seven meals now."

She was more talkative than the night before, he noted. Maybe it was because of the food, or the glimpse of light, or the fact that somebody was there to talk to and had been too asleep to do so for hours (he hoped). Despite his headache he found himself chuckling. He sat up and brought the bowl as close as he could to the bars. There was a spoon, thank the Maker, and he stirred.

Thick and lumpy. Lovely.

"It is better than what they gave me at Drakon, though," she said, and then there was the sound of a spoon in a bowl, then a swallow. "... Still shit."

He chuckled again and raised the spoon to his lips. She was right, of course, but he managed to get it down. Ship food was worse, after all, and he'd lived on charred squirrel before. Still, a few days of this... he tried not to think about it. He'd be out as soon as his ankles had healed up enough to carry him.

"You're right," he said, and she laughed.

"It's good to hear that, sometimes," she said, and he found himself bowing his head.

"Don't I know it."

That seemed to be the woman's eager allotment of words; she said nothing after that, and even her eating was quiet. The bowls were shallow and the porridge not even approaching filling, except for how his stomach made it quite clear that it didn't want another bite of the stuff. He wondered if she was thin from food like this for days, weeks, months on end. He wondered if she was pale. Was it always so dark?

He wondered if he should ask, or if he'd prefer learning the answer on his own.

He wondered, too, if now that the initial surge of mystery had passed he should ask her name, or offer his. He still came back to a feeling of dread from it all. He said nothing, letting the bowl and spoon thunk dully against the ground and instead reaching for his ankles, lightly testing at the swollen flesh.

Nathaniel hissed as he flexed his foot forward experimentally. No good.

That left only sleep, he supposed. Sleep, or counting every bar within reach. There weren't many. He counted twelve before he finally gave in and stretched out again on the hard floor.

He wondered if his neighbor was doing the same.

It was pease porridge again the next day.

This time he was awake when the door opened. It was late afternoon from the looks of things, and he watched the guard approach. The man closed the door almost entirely shut before he came close, sending only one bright line of light across the floor, and Nathaniel squinted against it, watching as his food and water was set down. He listened as the woman's was as well, and followed the faint shadow of the man as he retreated.

"Pease porridge," Nathaniel said when the door closed.

"Pease porridge," his companion agreed, and he listened to her drag herself close to the bars.

They ate in silence. She hadn't spoken much in the past day, when he had known he was awake by the coarseness of the stone and the crinkle of the straw. His observations on the unchanging, musty weather of the dungeon were met only by sharp exhales that he hoped were on the path to becoming laughs, laughs like the one he had heard a hint of the last time they ate.

"Do you think," he said, after another soul-curdling bite, "that they've just run out of everything aside from peas? Is that it?"

"No." Her spoon tapped against her bowl. It sounded empty. "They do go so far as to put a ham bone in it for a while."

"That's... nice of them." He let his bowl fall back to the floor and leaned back, pulling his hands back through the bars. Two meals in the dark, now. He wasn't sure how many days that made. At least one- maybe two. He went with two. It better matched how long it felt. "Are they just going to leave us to rot down here?"

"Something like that."

"You're so encouraging," he muttered, and that, at last, drew a chuckle from her.

He settled back against the metal. Across the way, she set down her bowl as well. Was that the sound of her stretching out against the floor? Was she staring up towards the ceiling?

It was an idle game, and it took his mind off of the bland food, the unending darkness, and the remaining throb in his ankles and head.

They couldn't leave him down there forever. It just wasn't economical. All of that feeding-

Crack! The door slammed hard against its hinges and lock, the sound sharp and angry. He was on his feet in an instant, swearing in pain. He leaned hard on the bars. The door to the prison banged in again, harsh and over-loud, and he could hear the fast shifting sound of the woman standing up as well, and careful footsteps.

"That didn't sound good," she said.

"No. Not really," he hissed through gritted teeth.

There was another bang of wood in stone, and then the shouting started. Orders bellowed across the courtyard, cries for mercy, screams of pain. Nathaniel bit down another curse and hobbled along the wall of the cage, feeling for the lock.

"We're under attack," the woman said, and he nodded, throat closed to words as he concentrated past the lancing pain. She couldn't see him, but she was stating the obvious. She could live without a little validation.

The door shuddered and then suddenly the sounds were louder, nearer, and firelight streamed in, a blinding rush. Nathaniel flinched against it, but his hands had found the latch. He froze there, looking-

There was a roar, something inhuman, and then the crackle and flare of greater fire. He made out a figure in the doorway, wreathed in flame. It threw back its head and howled, then rushed forward-

And fell dead.

The door shut again.

In the flickering, fetid firelight, Nathaniel fumbled in his trouser pocket for one of his lockpicks. Nothing. They must have fallen out, or been taken in the scuffle. He panted for breath, blood thudding in his ears. He was well and truly trapped. And if another of those things came through... he took a better look at the creature as the fire began to die out. It had glassy eyes and a rictus grin, patchwork armor and a crude weapon. It stank all the way to the Black City, even through the scorched smell of burned flesh.

"Darkspawn," the woman said, low and distinctly unamused, and he looked up.

He'd almost forgotten her. But now, as the light drew down to nearly nothing, he caught a glimpse of dark hair and a thin face. She was tall.

And then darkness enveloped them again, and he struck the bars with his forearm. "Dammit!"

"Let us hope," the woman said, "that our visitor was the group idiot, and that none of the others think to open that door."

"Yes," he sneered at the inky blackness, at the sounds of battle still filtering through the wood door. "Let's hope."

"It is all we have."

And Maker take her, she was right. They didn't even have porridge left to throw at the things.

His ankles didn't hold for long, and soon he was sitting on his arse again, staring towards the door in the dark and wondering if there was really any point. The sounds of battle were beginning to die away, leaving a leaden weight in his gut. And if anything opened that door- he wasn't sure if he'd rather see it or not. Either way he'd likely panic.

Perhaps it was better that he'd never become a knight. Cornered and desperate, he imagined panic, not valor.

There were fewer screams coming from the courtyard, but the howling hadn't stopped, not entirely, not enough. There was banging, metal on metal, but it didn't sound like a warrior's taunt. It was harsher, and he could almost imagine the 'spawn laughing.

Once, there was an earth-trembling crash- and then nothing more, just the continuing patter of rain on the roof and the far off sounds of movement.

"Have you fought them before?" he asked. His voice trembled, and he blamed it on the strain of not being able to do anything.

"Yes."

At least her voice trembled too, beneath its clipped efficiency.

"So what do we do? If they come in here?"

"We die, probably."

Did she have to be so incredibly honest? He swallowed down the spike of fear. He'd known that was their likely fate already, but to hear it from her, in her voice-

He banged his head back against the bars behind him.

"Oh, for the love of- shut up," she hissed, and he scowled at the darkness. "If it's your thick skull that brings them for us-"

"Thick skull, is it?" Lovely, in the dark devolving to insults. Still, she had a point. Of course she had a point. The half-dead, half-starved, dark-haired, tall murderer across the way had a point. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. This wasn't what he'd imagined his homecoming would be like.

She grunted in response, and he was left again with nothing but his hammering pulse and the sounds from beyond the door.

"So if I die-"

"I will be dead along with you, so whatever you're about to say is probably going to be useless."

Nathaniel's scowl returned from where it had fled to. "If I die," he said, as if he hadn't heard her at all, "I feel like I should at least know who I've spent this lovely time with."

"I very much doubt you'll find me by the Maker's side to mark me," she said, and from the sound from across the room, she was sitting, too.

"Still."

"And if I'd rather not say? If I'd rather keep my anonymity for a few last minutes? It's nice, not being known."

The sentiment hit him somewhere below the ribs, and he closed his eyes against it. It was overly familiar. Once, he had been proud of his name - and in truth, he still was. But it was refreshing not to be known by it, or by his blasted nose, for at least a little while.

And yet he still wanted to know the woman across from him, wanted to know why her voice seemed familiar, wanted to know why the Wardens had her if Drakon had held her before.

"So you won't tell me, then?"

A dry chuckle pierced the dark. "No," she said. "I don't think I will."

He glanced to where he thought the door was. The noise had died down, but nobody had come to check on them. He could only imagine darkspawn crawling over the keep, searching for any last bodies to feast on. His nose wrinkled at the thought (and he may have pulled his knees closer to his chest, even if it made his ankles throb), and he looked instead to where her voice had come from.

"Then something else. Favorite food?"

"Pease porridge," she said, voice wholly flat. His answering laugh was sharp and loud and surprised even him. He covered his mouth with his fist and bowed his head, grinning.

"Maker," he muttered when he could breathe, and then he heard her answering soft chuckle.

He tried to imagine her. She was a far better sight than the darkspawn for sure, though he had few details to work from. And her brow was creased with humor, her eyes shining, and she was leaning towards him, as if actually interested.

It was a nice thought, anyway, even if she was a murderer and piss-poor company.

When she spoke again, her voice was soft and low. "Quince jam, actually," she said. "Followed shortly by braised ox tail. Good Amaranthine whiskey."

"A good Fereldan girl," he said, grin refusing to fade entirely.

"I like to think so." Was she smiling? He hoped she was smiling. "And you?" she asked.

He stretched his legs back out, gingerly setting his heels against the ground. "There's an Antivan dish I rather like. Fish stewed in a wine and pepper broth."

"Antivan," she said, and he imagined her shaking her head.

"I lived in the Marches for a time," he said. "Nevarran wine is also very good. Better than most Orlesian wine, I'd say."

"Well, at least you say that." She was silent for a moment, and he wondered if he had somehow managed to offend his mystery soldier with foreign food when death prowled outside the door. But then she hummed low in her throat. "The Marches? I thought you had an accent."

"Do I? I expect it's very light."

It was all inane, and in another time he might have objected to it on principle. But it was far preferable to simply waiting quietly for a horrific death, and it stilled some of his nerves. It made the darkspawn outside seem further away, certainly.

"Light, but there," she said. "And beneath that- you're from this part of the country, aren't you?"

"I am." He smirked. He tried to think of her voice. She had said she might as well have been from Denerim, but there had been something else, something familiar beyond the odd way he felt like he had heard her speak before. "... And you are, too, aren't you?"

"A little south and west. But yes, I suppose I am."

"You suppose?"

She hesitated. "It's been a... long time. Since I've come home."

His smile turned tight and grim, and he was thankful she couldn't see it. "I know the feeling," he said, and the bars were all too easily Vigil's Keep bars in that moment, a pointed reminder of where he was and how much things had changed.