You Sang Me of Some Distant Past

by Dreamer In Silico

Catrin Hawke and Morrigan were friends and lovers as young women before the Blight, their relationship spanning years of Morrigan's occasional visits to Lothering. After eleven years' separation, they unexpectedly meet again in Skyhold. (F!Hawke/Morrigan)

A/N: Written for the Dragon Age Big Bang 2015 - see my profile for the link to thereinafter's fantastic accompanying artwork!

Content warning: Mild D/s interaction.

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You Sang Me of Some Distant Past

by Dreamer In Silico

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"You sang me of some distant past;

It made my heart beat strong and fast

Now I know I'm home at last..." - "Samain Night," Loreena McKennitt

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Skyhold felt quiet with Inquisitor Lavellan and all of her advisors off at Halamshiral, hobnobbing with the Orlesian Court. It wasn't a matter of actual sound - the place was still a busy fortress, after all - but of attitude, and it was making Catrin Hawke antsy. She didn't like holding patterns, and Skyhold was stuck in one until Orlais was dealt with.

As soon as the Inquisitor returned, Catrin would depart for Crestwood to rendezvous with Stroud. She'd held off from that too long for comfort, but at least she knew that the Inquisitor would follow soon after.

Hawke's brief time at Skyhold had been an experience, certainly - nights spent drinking with Varric again, and at times the enigmatic but delightful Sister Nightingale or the Fereldan elf Sera, who reminded her so much of both Isabela and Fenris it made her ache for simpler days in Kirkwall. (Or simpler ones, still, in Lothering, but Catrin seldom thought of those, any more.) That experience ultimately was more of a reminder of what she had lost and what she had yet to do than it was comforting, however, and the idea of tarrying unsettled her more than it pleased her. Fortresses were not homes in her experience, but prisons, and not even the Inquisition's open alliance with the mage rebellion could entirely shake that feeling from her bones.

Horns sounded from the gate as Catrin went over her short supply list a final time. Lavellan's return. Good. Perhaps Catrin would be able to leave before nightfall of that very day. In an almost idle curiosity, she slipped out of the small tower quarters that had been given to her, onto the battlements to gaze down and watch the Inquisitor's party ride through the gates of Skyhold.

Ilya Lavellan rode at the fore, her shock of short, white hair announcing her identity even more surely than did the presence of the bald elf mage at her side. Cassandra Pentaghast rode at Lavellan's right flank as well, and behind them, Knight-Captain Cullen - or rather, Commander Cullen, now - and the Tevene mage, Dorian. Sister Nightingale and Ambassador Montilyet followed, along with no few of Cullen's soldiers, and…

Catrin blinked, her brow furrowing as her eyes caught upon a cloaked, feminine figure.

It seemed patently ridiculous that she should recognize a nameless member of the Inquisitor's retinue, but the woman who had caught Catrin's interest was no guard, had not been with the party upon its initial egress from Skyhold… and possessed a very particular, aloof air that even with the distance between them, screamed familiarity.

With very little further thought, Catrin made her way down the narrow, spiral stairs of the tower, to the courtyard below, just in time to intercept the party as it made its way to the stables.

And to catch the unmistakable yellow gaze of a woman she had never thought to see again on the living side of the Veil.

"...Morrigan," she said quietly, wonderstruck, and saw recognition from those eyes in kind.

The Inquisitor had opened her mouth to greet Hawke, but she paused, snowy brows raised in curiosity, looking between the two human women as Morrigan slid from her horse. "Well, this is a surprise."

"Indeed it is," Morrigan murmured as she took a few measured steps closer to Catrin, watching her all the while. Her voice was as low and her accent as marked as they had ever been, but the sound was richer, somehow. Older. Even more knowing, but less sharp at the edges. "But perhaps it should not be. I have heard enough tales of the Champion of Kirkwall's exploits that it seems... fitting to find her here."

She had paused two paces away from Catrin, face tilted ever so slightly upward to account for the few fingers' difference in height between them. Catrin hesitated, uncertain…

Sod it.

With a sudden, fierce grin, Catrin closed the gap, clasping Morrigan's arm - which had been offered at the last second - with one hand while pulling her into a hug with the other. Somehow, she even smelled familiar - herbs and woodsmoke and leather - though there was a hint of something different, a spicy scent that seemed to cling to her hair. Well, she had just come from Orlais. The thought made Catrin's grin stretch wider. That the witch did not quite return the embrace was no great surprise, but her hand squeezed Catrin's forearm, and the smirk that tugged at her lips as the two women parted was amused and… (dare she think?) affectionate, rather than annoyed.

"It's good to see you," Catrin murmured sincerely.

"And you. I was pleased to hear that you had heeded sense and fled Lothering."

"You, worried about me!" she gasped, teasingly. "I knew it."

Morrigan did snort and roll her eyes at that. "Pointless fretting is no more my habit now than it was then, or before that, I assure you."

"A girl can dream."

From the group of riders still paused in the courtyard, Ambassador Montilyet spoke up. "Lady Morrigan, the stewards will see your packs to quarters that have been arranged for you. We will leave the two of you to catch up."

Morrigan inclined her head. "My thanks, Ambassador."

Catrin glanced up to the Inquisitor and her advisors, giving them an apologetic yet unrepentant nod, grin still on her face. She was amused to note that the spymaster was watching the two of them with an expression like Satinalia had come early. (That was right - Leliana had joined the Hero of Ferelden's entourage on that same day in Lothering. She would know Morrigan.)

"Send a runner when you're settled," the Inquisitor added as she turned her horse to head for the stables, "and we'll talk more."

As the riders dispersed, one more small figure dismounted, handing the reins of their roan pony over to a waiting groom and silently padding up to Morrigan's shoulder. Catrin's eyes flicked to the newcomer with curiosity, and a glance became a stare as she took in the dark hair and features already sharp despite clear youth beneath the hood of his cloak. The child's eyes were dark rather than yellow, but somehow just as unsettling as those of the woman who must be…

"Catrin, this is my son, Kieran," Morrigan confirmed quietly, clearly having read the recognition on Catrin's face.

"Hello," he said, looking up at Catrin with just as much curiosity she had shown him. "You're the Champion? Mother has told me about you."

"Has she, now?" Catrin murmured with a wry glance back to Morrigan.

He nodded, gravely answering the rhetorical. "Quite a lot." A pause, then he glanced to the groom leading his pony away. "May I go and see the stables, Mother?"

"You may. Have a care not to get underfoot, of the stablehands or the beasts." She smiled a little as he hurried off, and turned back to Catrin, who raised her brows, grinning once more.

"Now that is a bigger surprise. You seem proud of him." A surprise both that Morrigan had a child, and that it seemed to agree with her. Then again, Catrin had nearly been able physically hear the magic in him, and any offspring of Morrigan's would be intelligent enough to master it quickly.

"He is worthy of it," Morrigan agreed simply, inclining her head.

There was a twinge of something, an unsettled feeling that had no rightful place. Not after more than a decade with no contact. But it was there, and the question with it, all the same. "May I ask...?"

Morrigan saw the direction of her thoughts as immediately as she had been able to do, years before. Or perhaps it was simply that it was a logical query. "Of his father?" A dark eyebrow arched with amusement. "A good man, and an ally - one I believe you have met - but I have raised Kieran alone."

"One I've met. That's juicy; now I'm dying of curiosity." Catrin smirked, raking fingers back through half-shaven hair to push the long side of it behind her shoulder, where it belonged. The movement was casual, meant to cover her nearly-as-unsettling sense of vague relief.

"You will endure, I am certain," she replied, voice taking on a familiar, acerbic note. "The single greatest theme of all the tales I have heard is that you are profoundly difficult to kill."

Catrin affected a pout. "Does that mean you're not going to tell me?"

"It means we may speak of it more later, and in greater privacy, perhaps," the witch countered, smirking.

"Of course." She sobered, sky-blue eyes contrite. "I'm sorry; you just got off the road and here I am trying to cram… what is it, eleven years? Eleven years of questions into a 'hello' in the courtyard." And here I am about to run off to Crestwood, too. Andraste's tits. "How long will you be at Skyhold?"

Morrigan gestured away the apology with a long-fingered, elegantly manicured hand. "Indefinitely. Empress Celene has assigned me to be her liaison to the Inquisition. And so I remain, to offer my experience and skills in whatever capacity they may be used."

There was another surprise. Obviously Morrigan had come from Val Royeux, but 'had come from Val Royeux' and 'personal liaison for the Empress' were rather different in magnitude.

"...Wow." Catrin shook her head, bemused. "Well, I'm glad to hear you'll be here for a while. I… was planning on leaving for Crestwood as soon as Inquisitor Lavellan returned from Halamshiral, but…" She hesitated only a heartbeat, before her lips turned up at the corners into a rueful grin. As ready as she had been just twenty minutes ago to get out of Skyhold, the intent of haste seemed a cruel one. "The real fun's not supposed to start until she meets me up there, so I'll stay another night" if you want me to "if it means getting to catch up with you before I leave."

Morrigan simply nodded, eyes nearly unreadable, but Catrin thought she saw a hint of appreciation there. "Then allow me to collect my son and find our quarters, and I shall speak with you later this evening."

Catrin's grin stretched ever so slightly wider. "Alright. Later, then. Welcome to Skyhold… Queen of Ravens." The old, teasing nickname felt good to have on her tongue again.

…

Later that night, Catrin procured a jug of wine and a pair of clay cups from the fortress kitchens before making her way to the inner courtyard that she had been told abutted Morrigan's quarters.

She found the enigmatic woman sitting on a bench with a book, dappled in shadow from the leaves of a tree overhead. A blue-white mote of magical light floated near her shoulder to light the pages, and cast her sharp features in stark relief when she looked up to note Catrin's presence.

"You're all settled in, then?" Catrin asked with an automatic smile as she approached, though she refrained from sitting down on the bench until Morrigan gestured an invitation. It took a moment for the surprise to register, that that invitation was so freely given. The Morrigan that Catrin remembered would have kept distance until pressed, or at the least until a lengthy interval had passed.

"I am," the witch answered, her voice low as she closed the book. "'Tis a pleasant place, this. And it seems most who dwell here have found living arrangements to their likings, diverse as those preferences may be."

"They have," she agreed, settling down onto the bench next to Morrigan and pouring wine for each of them. "I've got a little room in one of the towers. Window looks out over… what seems like the edge of the sodding world."

Morrigan accepted the cup of wine with a thoughtful look down into it before taking a careful sip. "Your accommodations in Kirkwall could not have been so unpleasant, I would think, yes?"

Catrin chuckled quietly, knocking back half her wine in one go, as if it were Fereldan whiskey of questionable quality. "They weren't, for a while. But Kirkwall was a shambles after the rebellion began; I haven't been actually in the city for months, except to sneak back into Darktown to find stragglers who needed to get out."

"Stragglers?" she asked, eyebrows rising.

"Mages, mostly, who got lost in the chaos after the Chantry went up," Catrin clarified. "Anders couldn't stay - he'd run a clinic down there, before the war - but a couple of his volunteers stayed and kept the place going, at least for a while." She paused, bright eyes taking on a mischievous glint. "Wait. He… he got conscripted under Warden-Commander Surana, didn't he? Is he Kieran's father, then?"

Morrigan chuckled, shaking her head and taking another sip of wine. "No. I have not had occasion to meet the man, though I believe I would enjoy doing so, from what... brief communications I have had with Mei - the Warden-Commander - since the Blight."

Catrin's expression sobered, growing thoughtful. "You… yes, I could see that. He was apparently a bit flighty before I met him, but with…" She paused, uncertain, but Morrigan filled in what she had left unspoken.

"...Justice, yes, I know of the spirit. 'Tis a fascinating tale."

"That's… one way of putting it," she murmured, eyebrows rising and falling as she took another long swallow of wine. "He'd like you. And envy you, I think. But definitely like you. But! If not Anders, then…." She gave her friend a quicksilver grin. "Who? You still haven't answered."

The other woman snorted. "Oh, come. If I am correct, 'tis someone you know of, and you know the timing. 'Tis not so difficult to deduce, surely."

It actually was a bit difficult. Catrin took a moment to piece together acquaintances, generate a list… And then the answer jumped out at her, marked by a sharp laugh. "The King of Ferelden, then, is it?"

"Indeed," Morrigan allowed, simply.

"Now that… I can't even see, and I've only spoken to the man once. How did…?"

"'Twas not a matter of desire, but of necessity." Morrigan's voice was quiet, and she promptly drained the wine in the cup.

Catrin poured a refill for each of them. "...Necessity? How… did that work?" she asked, brow furrowed in thought.

There was a long silence, as Morrigan's bright eyes lifted from her cup, searching Catrin's own for several seconds as she made the decision of how much to explain. Catrin bore it patiently, grateful even to be given that much consideration, given what she knew of Morrigan.

At last, Morrigan let out a breath that was almost a sigh, answering bluntly, "Kieran was conceived as a vessel to catch the soul of the dying archdemon, and prevent it from killing the Warden who slew it."

Silence. Catrin paused with her wine halfway to her lips.

"Wait. So he…"

"Bears the soul of Urthemiel, Dragon of Beauty," Morrigan completed, voice still bland, and matter-of-fact. "Though he is his own creature, beyond whatever influence that confers." An intensity entered her expression that made Catrin blink, as she noted a depth of emotion Morrigan had never revealed in her memories of the past. "He is an innocent, and my son, and I shall not be to him what Flemeth was to me."

Catrin's shock at the revelation that an Old God's soul lived on in the boy did not matter. All that mattered in that moment was the passion in that last statement, that made her breath catch in her throat and her free hand shoot out automatically to take hold of Morrigan's.

She regretted the motion as soon as she made it - Morrigan froze into a stillness even deeper than the one she normally maintained, but she did not pull away, to Catrin's amazement. After a moment, Morrigan let out a quiet breath and wrapped long fingers around Catrin's more compact, strong hand and simply held her gaze. "I… trust you understand that this information is not widely known."

"Of course," Catrin breathed, squeezing Morrigan's hand.

Wait, 'of course?' This is a blighted big deal! ...But he's a boy. A strange one, and probably powerful, but… how many other strange and powerful beings have I known? And whatever he is, he has a mother who… loves him.

The rush of thoughts must have danced across her face, because Morrigan smirked faintly and shrugged before releasing her hand and leaning back. "You are uncertain you should say that."

"...I'm amazed that you'd notice that," she countered, blinking a few times Morrigan commenting on social cues was… new. She liked it.

"I have learned a great many things, since leaving the Wilds," Morrigan sighed, eyes rolling skyward.

"Now that, I definitely believe." Catrin chuckled lightly. "There are a lot of very powerful, very scary things in this world. One of them is one of my best friends from my years in Kirkwall. Another is the Inquisitor. Another is… well, you. Ultimately, I can't really take issue with Kieran - anything about him. I'm just glad you can… give him what you didn't have."

Morrigan swallowed, nodding silently, eyes flicking downward toward the cup in her lap.

"It must have been hard," Catrin murmured, very quietly, a few moments later.

"Very," her friend breathed, a little shiver chasing its way across her form. "I… did not want it, when I left the Wilds. Resented Mei, and Alistair, and… everything, for a time, truly. I was… afraid, and eventually, determined to utterly defy Flemeth's intentions for me."

There was a pang, as Catrin remembered the favor she had done the old woman - or whatever Flemeth truly was - in exchange for passage away from the darkspawn, but Morrigan didn't seem to notice.

"What changed?" Catrin asked quietly, eyes roving over the sharp angles of Morrigan's face.

"I… could not let Mei die," she replied at length, shrugging slightly and tilting her wine to her lips. "Alistair might have, perhaps, or even the elder Grey Warden they pulled from Rendon Howe's dungeons. But I do not think so. Neither of them was half so bold as she. 'Twas the only way to guarantee her safety, at least in slaying the archdemon, and thus, I did so."

"You left after that, though?"

"Yes." Morrigan's eyes were distant, gaze cast off into the gloom of the courtyard. "'Twas necessary. She was… as a sister to me, but she had her work to do, and I, my own. Our paths crossed, briefly, before I relocated to Orlais."

A smirk tilted Catrin's lips at that last allusion. "I meant to ask about that. What sent you there? I admit Val Royeaux is just about the last place I'd have expected you to go."

"I had heard enough of Empress Celene's fascination with the arcane… and better-hidden details of the Eluvians' re-awakening to be curious. As I was studying the artifacts myself, it seemed a prudent choice, both for the sake of the research, and for the protection that allying myself to such a power would bring."

She nodded, black hair falling into her face on the side where it hung to her shoulder. Morrigan huffed an almost-laugh through her nose at that, and released her hand to barely touch the errant lock with a fingertip. "This suits you, though 'tis surprising… much like hearing of me in ballgowns, I suppose."

Catrin chuckled warmly, her eyes flicking automatically to the motion of Morrigan's hand. She had kept her hair short in Lothering, and in the first year or so in Kirkwall. "It got long enough to tie back when I was stuck in the Deep Roads for months, and Mother liked it so much, I kept it." She snorted, adding, "Mind you, she didn't like it at all when I shaved the side, after we got settled into the old Amell estate. But it made my point."

"Which was?" Morrigan asked, still looking amused.

"She could play noble all she wanted, but I wasn't going to. And no amount of wheedling me out of armor and throwing people's rich, boring sons at me was ever going to change that." Though she had intended to keep her voice light, it sharpened on the last few words, along with her eyes. She had been devastated when Leandra was killed, and would always miss her. But the mother she preferred to remember was the one she had known in Lothering - before her father had died, before Bethany had died and Carver had joined the blighted Templars and before Leandra had blamed Catrin for everything that had ever gone wrong in their lives.

Morrigan's nose wrinkled faintly. "I believe it. I would not have thought her so… set upon the idea of such things, from you."

Catrin shrugged. Snorted. "She wasn't… not when Beth was still alive." The words came out with more of a sigh to them than she would have liked. "But Bethany died as we were trying to get away from Lothering, and, well." It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice, even now. Both for the loss of her little sister, and for how her mother had reacted to it. "Then she only had me to pin her blighted mother-daughter hopes on, and I'm sure you can guess how that played out."

"All too well, I believe," Morrigan replied, a wry note in her voice, which earned a faint smirk and a nod from Catrin.

"Worst part was… she'd always known I preferred women," Catrin sighed, leaning back against the bench and draining her wine cup with a grimace. "But as soon as we got the Amell estate back, it was like she thought I would just… 'grow up,' was how she put it." That specific barb had had as much to do with disliking the fact that her daughter was seeing a pirate as wanting grandchildren, she suspected, but it didn't much matter.

The outrage that flashed in Morrigan's eyes at that was gratifying, at least. "You were somewhat occupied with repeatedly saving the city, if the tales are to be believed. 'Tis ludicrous, as well as insulting."

"Depends on whose tales you're listening to." Catrin let out a dry laugh and poured more wine for both of them, before settling the jug carefully onto the mossy ground beside the bench. "But more or less, anyway, yes. Things were… tense."

"Did she remain in Kirkwall, then, after the uprising?" Morrigan arched an eyebrow in inquiry.

"Didn't live long enough to see it. She was killed by the one actual crazy bloodmage in the city, in fact, and I had to track the blighter down, while Meredith was busy jumping at shadows. That place…" She shook her head, trying to shake away the maudlin mood with it, continuing more lightly, "Well. The whole 'Champion' business must have done something with my head, because I still feel like Kirkwall's somehow mine. Not home, though."

The other mage nodded simply, watching her. Her gaze was no less intense than Catrin remembered from their youth, but it was the fact that it seemed to contain at least a whisper of sympathy, now, that ironically made it far more unnerving.

The silence stretched slowly, almost lazily taut between them, and all Catrin's normal instincts - to keep conversation flowing, to shoo away any hint of awkwardness with volleys of easy humor - were strangely silent, as well. She wondered just how long they could sit like this until something happened to break that thread. Part of her was direly curious as to what that something might be, even though that curiosity seemed reckless; the other, more taciturn woman could very well just decide the conversation was over and leave.

Morrigan was the one to finally speak again, and not to excuse herself, to Catrin's relief.

"What brought you to the Inquisition, then?" she asked, voice low and eyes quietly curious.

Catrin's smirk returned, and her fingers toyed with the cup they held, rotating it slowly as the barest brush of her magic cooled it down a few degrees. "Good to know there's at least one bit of my misadventures in Kirkwall that didn't make it into the stories, or it would be obvious, I think."

Morrigan merely tilted her head and waited for Catrin to elaborate.

"Corypheus. The Wardens had him in an arcane prison, and my father was apparently the last mage to renew the wards. They had been starting to fail, and we… Varric, Isabela, Anders and I went in there. Ended up thinking we'd killed the bugger, but from what I've heard he managed to possess one of the other Wardens who were there. Varric asked me up here when the bastard showed up again."

The other mage frowned as she listened. "...Curious. How certain is it that he succeeded in possessing a Grey Warden?"

"I think it was pretty clear-cut, though the Inquisitor probably knows more; why?" Catrin blinked at her for a moment, before her clear blue eyes shot wide with understanding. "The bit you said about archdemons and Wardens' souls and mutual destruction."

"Indeed. 'Tis a contrast worth further examination, I would think, though I do not know how one would go about such an examination at present." Morrigan turned her frown onto her cup of wine before lifting it and drinking deeply, gaze rising back to Catrin's. "You make for Crestwood tomorrow, you said?"

"At first light, yes. There's something strange going on with the Wardens in Orlais, and I'd bet my best pair of gloves it's to do with Corypheus; I'm meeting a friend of mine to see what we can figure out about it," Catrin sighed. She was glad she had stayed, glad they'd gotten to talk… And now the prospect of riding out was a wearying one, where before she had been chafing to leave. Had she been asked that morning if she missed Morrigan, the answer would have been 'yes,' but the retrospective keenness of that feeling, upon seeing her again, had caught Catrin entirely by surprise. "I should probably… go sleep, or something," she added with regret.

Morrigan was watching her intently again, and something fluttered in Catrin's chest in response. "That would likely be prudent."

...But?

The other woman didn't contradict herself, despite Catrin's sudden wish that she might, but the force behind what she did say warmed Catrin, all the same. "See that you return in one piece."

There was a heartbeat of time where Catrin considered kissing her, but that was a dangerous impulse for far too many reasons. She took Morrigan's hand instead, squeezed lightly, and rose. "I'm hard to kill," she replied with a smirk. "And you can bet I'll be back as soon as I can. It's… really wonderful to get to talk to you again."

She didn't think Morrigan would say anything else, but the words were easy, unhesitating. "And you."

---

Skyhold did not smell like a city, and for that, Morrigan was grateful. The courtyard smelled of mud and crushed grass and horseflesh… but the battlements smelled only of the fortress's namesake, and the occasional whiff of woodsmoke drifting from one of the hearths.

There had been things to appreciate about life in the Orlesian Court - access to nearly anything she could ask for to aid in her research, the ear of an Empress, and (Leliana's amusement be damned) the available variety of fashion - but more often than not, she had found it as stifling as it was useful. The day-to-day twists and turns of the Game had been amusing enough for the first month, give or take; by the first turning of the seasons, however she had identified key threats, allies, and tools to keep watch on and make use of as expedient, and become thoroughly bored with the whole frivolous mess. Rustling silks, clicking heels of jewel-encrusted slippers, tittering laughter hidden behind intricate masks and gloved hands - those who had thought such things could dazzle and cow a provincial apostate had been sorely mistaken. Morrigan had donned her own, edged version of their frippery and met their veiled scorn squarely, barefaced and defiant.

Celene, at least, had known true power when she saw it.

The cold Frostback wind seemed to wash away the lingering touch of Val Royeaux the first time she had climbed atop the fortress wall to look out over the peaks beyond, bringing a hint of a smile to her lips as it did so. When Kieran asked her why, she told him that she was fond of the clean air, and that she could feel the magic that rooted the fortress into the very bones of the world. She did not tell him of the almost fondly frustrated memories of her travels with Mei Surana, and their foray into the Frostbacks, or of even older memories, fonder and more frustrated still, that had been stirred by the unexpected reunion upon their arrival.

Catrin had been her first true recurring point of contact with the world beyond the Wilds. Her first lover of any note, and her first friend, though Morrigan had never used that word in those days. Back then, all she had known was that Catrin Hawke was a fellow mage, intelligent enough not to bore her, and was not Flemeth - and that had been enough.

Friendship and trust were things learned later, at the side of another fellow apostate whose passion and incandescent fury with the world had demanded those concepts be acknowledged by all who stood with her. But memories of all sorts were only that, and she did not allow them to distract her overly long after the Inquisitor left for Crestwood.

It was no great surprise that Leliana cornered her in the library immediately upon her second visit to the place.

"Lady Morrigan," the spymaster greeted her as she stepped from around a bookshelf, blue eyes impishly humorous in something like the way Morrigan remembered, though carrying a hardness that had seldom shown itself during the Blight.

The witch rolled her eyes toward the rafters and Leliana's domain on the floor above them. "As I am no longer at court, I would prefer to dispense with the false respectability, if you please."

Leliana laughed lightly. "Good luck getting Josephine to do that. But very well. It's been a long time."

"It has, indeed," she snorted, voice edged but without the venom it would have once held, perhaps. "And you have come here to remind me of this fact?"

"No, I've come here to pick your mind for information about court that I don't have yet." A sly smirk tugged at her lips. "And to ask you how you know the Champion of Kirkwall," she added, before her expression softened fractionally. "And to say hello. I am glad to have you here, after all."

"Are you?" Morrigan raised her eyebrows in amused incredulity, crossing her arms over her chest. "I heard tell you were suggesting that I might be the Venatori agent, before Florianne revealed her hand."

"It's my job to be suspicious, Morrigan." It was Leliana's turn to snort. "Don't tell me you took that personally."

"I did not." She shrugged, letting a moment's pause pass before accepting the earlier peace offering. "Your welcome is… appreciated. In truth I do not know if I have anything other than trivialities of life at court that would be new to you, as I am told you are uncannily well-informed, but if you have questions, I will… answer as I can."

The other woman chuckled softly, tucking a strand of red hair back into her hood as she watched Morrigan. "I was mostly joking about that, to be quite honest. Though I will take advantage of that offer if I run across any questions my agents can't answer, themselves. I wasn't joking about Hawke, though." She quirked an eyebrow of her own.

"'Tis no complicated tale; Lothering was the nearest permanent settlement to where my mother and I made our home. I visited the town to trade, from time to time, and we were acquainted," she offered blandly.

"You each knew one another was an apostate?" Leliana asked, head tilting with curiosity.

Morrigan breathed a near-inaudible sigh and nodded. "We did, yes. When I was an adolescent, I was… less adept at mimicking the natural behavior of the animals whose shapes I borrowed. 'Twas my good fortune that she was the one who took note of it."

"But you haven't seen each other since before the Blight." The blue eyes were shining, then, amusement and… who knew what else, given that it was Leliana, awhirl within them.

"At the beginning of it," the witch corrected with another sigh. "The day we stopped in Lothering, before you joined our party. Catrin diverted distrust from Mei and me in the marketplace." If Leliana was going to be nosy, Morrigan would do the same. "But you also have an unexpected acquaintance, I have seen."

Leliana's expression was knowing as she acknowledged without hesitation, "The Commander."

"Indeed." She fixed the other woman with an unwaveringly interrogative stare. They had encountered the then-Ser Cullen in Kinloch Hold, and Morrigan had had her first taste of the desire to kill in the name of another. She and Mei had been… pleasant acquaintances, then, at the most, but the furious pain that had radiated from the former Circle mage in that moment had been enough to affect even the cool-headed witch.

"He has learned much since the folly and trauma of his first assignment," the spymaster replied evenly. "At the last, he opposed Knight-Commander Meredith when she sought to purge Kirkwall of its mages, and he now serves the Inquisition with the wisdom of hard experience. Whether she wishes to forgive him is her own choice, should they meet again, but he has been invaluable to our efforts here."

Morrigan nodded once, briskly. "As you say, then." If he was useful, then that was all that mattered, where she was concerned.

After a beat, Leliana spoke again. "There was quite the discussion about what, precisely, to do with the situation at Halamshiral," she said, tone lightly conversational, though the information even such a vague statement conveyed was anything but.

"Among yourself, Montilyet, Cullen, and the Inquisitor?" Morrigan prodded, eyebrows rising.

"And Cassandra," Leliana added. Morrigan had been in the Orlesian court long enough to know that it was a gift: the structure of the top level of power within the Inquisition. A very slight smile curved at her lips as she nodded.

"Whom to back in the proceedings, I can only assume."

"Of course." Leliana's head dipped in acknowledgment, and her eyes sparkled. "I admit I'm curious what you made of the outcome."

Celene, Briala, Gaspard. The former two bound together once again, the latter executed. Morrigan had been more pleased at the outcome than she had shown… and than would be harmonious with her upbringing. "The weakest branch was pruned; the other two will bear fruit for many years to come, barring extraordinary mishap, and the Inquisitor's presumed… auxiliary goals will also be well served. The burning of Halamshiral aside, the Empress's intentions toward her elven subjects were more benevolent than most, and her paramour's elevation will prevent future manipulation of the sort that provided the opening for Gaspard in the first place," she summarized, tone precise, but satisfied.

"You like Celene," the spymaster accused, lowly, a laugh in her voice if not on her lips.

"I do." Morrigan saw little reason to prevaricate on that account. "She is both wise enough to know her own limits and canny enough to find ways to reach beyond them." The empress's sponsorship of Morrigan had been ample proof of that.

Leliana nodded. "To take the throne as young as she did, and hold it as firmly - through most of her reign, anyway - … there are few with as much mastery of the Game. I'm impressed, I must admit, that you tolerated it enough to make your place there." Full lips tilted in a teasing smirk.

The witch sighed. "I tolerate what I must to serve my purposes. You know that better than most, after traipsing around much of Ferelden with me for a year."

"I suppose I do," the other woman allowed.

"What of your own place here?" Morrigan asked quietly, eyes moving away to sweep over another shelf of books. "'Tis the sort of thing I would have thought quite obvious in my youth - you have power and influence in your present position, certainly - but now… less so."

Leliana's laughter was soft and… subtly sad. "We have all quite grown up, haven't we?" she asked, rather than immediately answer the question, though a moment later, she shook her head and added, "Divine Justinia was… a dear friend, and of course I served her with everything I had, when I was called Left Hand. It was her intent that the Inquisition be reconvened, should the peace talks fail. Cassandra and I carried out those orders in the wake of her death, and I have been grateful for that wisdom even as - " She paused, clear-sky eyes darkening with clouds beneath the shadow of her hood. "Even as everything has been so difficult."

"So 'tis for her, then?" She raised an eyebrow, assuming the presence of more connections she was not yet seeing.

"It… was… for her," Leliana sighed. "But it is for Thedas. For the need that exists for an authoritative force to stop the conflict. And Corypheus. And if the Inquisition can do that… then we can instigate more change. Needed change. We can reshape Andrastian society to guide without subjugating."

Both Morrigan's eyebrows rose, then. "You would not see a return to the former system, of prisons and lyrium-addicted guards."

"I would not," Leliana agreed firmly, her gaze resolute. "I would see education of mages without isolation. And I would see those of other races welcomed in our leadership as a matter of course, rather than such an anomaly as the Inquisitor's rise."

"You have grown bold." Morrigan smirked faintly. "I am… pleased to see as much." She had never liked the former bard when they had traveled together during the Blight. But Mei had come to trust her, and so Morrigan had kept her distrust more reined-in than it otherwise might have been. Now… it seemed that Leliana was perhaps worthy of respect in her own right. It made her curious as to what other factors had shaped that path, but not so much that she would ask, then and there.

"Now there is an approval I never thought to gain." The spymaster laughed lightly, eyes twinkling again. "I must return to my work, I think, and I will leave you to your search. You might speak to Dorian, though, if you have trouble finding what you're looking for here. He spends more time in the library than anyone else at Skyhold."

"As you say," she acknowledged with a nod as Leliana smiled and departed once more for the rookery.

Morrigan's eyes wandered the shelves once again, still unsatisfied, for the most part, with what they found there. But they snagged upon the shelf full of progressive editions of Lives of the Divines, and noted that the set included the most recent volume, which, while printed before Divine Justinia V's death, was recent enough to have something about her in it. Lacking any more worthy material, Morrigan tugged that volume free and settled down to read.

---

You have never been able to protect anyone who cared for you. It is only a matter of time before your enemies find Isabela. They will kill her, as well as the mages she shelters. No precaution any of you have taken will matter. They are doomed.

Varric had looked to her sharply when Nightmare had said its piece, sudden understanding in his eyes. Catrin had clenched her jaw and willed him to forget it. He hadn't wanted to know where Anders was, and he still did not. The mages the demon had mentioned could be any mages.

They weren't, of course, just any mages. But it would be perfectly reasonable for a listener to believe they were.

Throughout the rest of their trek through the Fade, Catrin had tried to force the words from her mind. It should have been simple - they were nothing she had not, in the quiet spaces of sleepless nights, already told herself, many times over. Perhaps it was the way the demon's voice had resonated; perhaps it was because they were in the Fade; perhaps it was because fears aired by a creature named 'Nightmare' automatically carried more weight, but whatever the reason, those words ran through her head like a doleful chant, even through her weary curiosity regarding the more benevolent spirit they followed.

She took a certain degree of comfort in the guess that she had not been the only one to have critical information revealed by the demon's taunts. When it had addressed Solas, the words had been in the elven tongue, but the Inquisitor had apparently understood them, by the look she'd given him. The two of them had then channeled whatever the event had brought up into even more aggressive interest in the oddities of their surroundings.

Catrin almost laughed, a few times, from the way they reminded her of another mage she knew, when confronted by something truly disconcerting. Another mage who awaited her, if they made it back to Skyhold alive.

Oh, fuck.

She had had some time to think about that reunion, in the traveling she'd done over the past few weeks. Her eagerness to return had only increased - despite the violence with which she rejected the notion of fate, it seemed too perfect to finally meet Morrigan again, like something out of one of Varric's serials rather than a thing that could happen in the fractured rhythm of the real world. It was difficult to resist the idea of that pattern, that it meant something, that there was more for her there than an awkward meeting and a stiff hug in a courtyard.

Perhaps she should not resist it - perhaps that would pull her out of her current predicament in one piece. But at the same time, there was fear, in light of what the demon had said. She had thought herself well away from everyone she needed to protect from the danger that always followed in her footsteps. Yet on the far side of Thedas, she had nonetheless run into…

...What, exactly? It had been eleven years. Practically a lifetime, in terms of experience for both of them. Catrin had lost her sister, her mother, and practically her brother, as well. She'd become Champion of Kirkwall, defied a Grand Cleric and a Knight-Commander, helped start a revolution, lived on the run. Morrigan had been a hero of the Fifth Blight, borne and raised a child, become a trusted advisor to the Empress of Orlais, and who even knew what else.

And yet, Catrin had recognized her immediately. When they had spoken, it had felt…

Catrin's reverie was abruptly broken by the appearance of Nightmare, itself, and the seeming eternity of chaos and blood that followed.

---

Morrigan had told herself that her interest in the news that came from Leliana's birds was mere curiosity, and perhaps a bit of concern for the efforts of the Inquisition to which the more intelligent powers of Thedas had pinned their hopes. But the spymaster's smug half-smile when she had asked the third time said she wasn't fooled, and so as the days wore into well over a fortnight that Catrin and the Inquisitor's party had been gone, Morrigan had taken to asking Dorian, whom she knew was similarly hounding the spymaster, instead. He, at least, was more circumspect about his amusement, if he had any - by the time they were sending troops to Adamant Fortress, he seemed even more anxious and preoccupied than Morrigan felt.

"It's over, finally," he said without preamble, half a day after they'd received word that the battle had begun, resting an arm high on the side of a bookshelf as he looked at her.

Absently, she took note of the signs of worry upon him - immaculate hair mussed, his robes the same ones he had worn the evening before, the khol about his eyes slightly smudged.

"And?" she asked, looking up from the book she hadn't really been reading.

"It was all quite absurd. There was a dragon; the castle got all smashed up, and the Inquisitor and her immediate party nearly fell to their deaths. She apparently opened a rift into the Fade at the last moment, that sent them all bodily there instead of spattering against the ground." The lightness of his voice was belied by the weariness in his stance as he recounted the news he'd heard from Leliana.

Morrigan swallowed, her back straight in the chair, face perfectly neutral.

If you do not return, I shall...

"Who was in the party?" she asked, ruthlessly cutting off the thought.

"Aside from the Inquisitor herself, it was Solas, Cassandra, Varric, Catrin Hawke, and her Warden friend," he replied, adding hastily, "They all made it back out, except the Warden, one Stroud, I believe was his name. The Wardens have been summarily banished from Orlais by the Inquisitor, and our forces ride to return now."

The witch let out a silent breath, shoulders relaxing only the tiniest bit, though the upward quirk of Dorian's lips said he had noticed it. "You have my thanks for the tidings, then."

"A pleasure, my lady," he said, summoning a bit of a grin and a half-bow for her, before turning toward a shelf nearby, though his gaze traveled through the volumes it held, rather than actively scanning them.

"You should consider sleeping," Morrigan offered, with a faint smirk of her own.

The Tevene exile huffed something like a laugh, head bowing from where he still leaned against a shelf. "I will if you do, then. I'd wager you need it nearly as much as I, right now."

"I shall… also consider it," she sighed, eyes closing ever so briefly, as the other mage chuckled and walked off.

---

Catrin sat in on the debrief meeting that the Inquisitor had with her advisors, at Lavellan's insistence, though she had little enough to add, and everyone save perhaps Josephine was clearly impatient to be elsewhere. She spared a slight smile as they departed from the war room for the way the still-bedraggled Commander squared his shoulders and strode off to where she was fairly sure a particular mage was lurking.

Another mage lurked, presumably for her - as she could not imagine other circumstances that would have Morrigan sitting in the great hall to read rather than in the library or somewhere still more remote - but with a guilty twinge, Catrin veered off for the stairs, avoiding Morrigan's eyes.

She wanted… she didn't know what she wanted. But the idea of talking to the other woman just seemed… too much, then. Instead, she made her way across the courtyard to the tavern.

Varric was already there, and he and Sera and the Iron Bull welcomed her readily enough, and didn't ask questions. She lost count of how many times her tankard was refilled before the crowd at the tavern began to simmer down. When she finally left, her treacherous feet carried her past that little inner courtyard where she and Morrigan had spent such a pleasant fragment of an evening before she had left - but she did manage to keep going past rather than into it, feeling opposing impulses, equally imperative, both tugging her toward and pushing her away.

She ended up on the battlements rather than in her chambers, the buzz of ale still distinctly between her ears. The night wind was cold - even icy - but it felt appropriate to the numbness and aimless fear that gripped her.

Why had she returned to Skyhold? She had thought, briefly, to travel to Weisshaupt, instead, to try to help the remaining Wardens as much as she could. That option would have been safe, neutral. Disconnected, through Stroud's presumed death and Anders's absence, from anyone for whom she'd ever cared.

But instead, she'd followed the Inquisitor back, ignoring Varric's searching glances and telling herself to cease her cowardice. When she'd arrived, however, the resolve that had driven her there had betrayed her, evaporating like water spilled on the dunes in the Western Approach. Why had it mattered so much to return? And why couldn't she confront the only possible answer to that question?

A single, quiet sob echoed from her chest as she leaned back into the chilly stone of the crenellated wall and sank down against it, her face in her hand.

Wingbeats roused her some time later.

A feathered shadow fluttered down onto the wall just around a bend from her, and an unbidden, ridiculous hope arose at the sight.

Morrigan surely would not...

And yet, a new shadow prowled toward her after a handful of seconds, this one with a powerfully feline shape, midnight fur, and eyes like glowing citrine. Catrin's laugh caught in her throat, but it was there, all the same.

Any other time, she would have been nearly consumed by questions regarding the other mage's motivations. How she had even known Catrin was there. Why she had bothered to come, if not to talk.

How she could have known that what she had done was exactly the right thing to do.

But as it was, Catrin was too tired and too sad and too intoxicated to do anything other than accept the way the great panther settled down beside her, offering warm, muscular bulk to lean against, and the low, rumbling purr that expressed approval when the human mage finally did.

…

Two days later, Catrin sought Morrigan out. It was harder to find her than she had anticipated; word had been that the Inquisition's newest advisor had haunted the library while Catrin had been away with Lavellan, but that had evidently ended at some point, and Dorian hadn't seen her in days, except for a brief few minutes when Morrigan had come up to collect a historical atlas.

She eventually found Kieran in the inner courtyard, quietly watching a raven pick at scraps of jerked meat he had set out for it. He cheerfully - in his grave, too-wise way that Catrin couldn't help finding somewhat unsettling - directed her to the small chamber off the war room where the Eluvian Morrigan had brought with her from Val Royeaux was kept. After Catrin's limited experience with such a thing, she'd been avoiding that room, despite a large dose of curiosity.

The heavy door creaked open reluctantly at her touch, its hinges offering complaint despite the faint scent that said they had been recently oiled.

The woman she sought was sitting at a small worktable in the near corner of the room, tomes piled around her, save the one upon which she had apparently fallen asleep while reading. The sight filled Catrin with a guilty delight; Morrigan had never been the sort of person one imagined in any such disarray.

Catrin hesitated in the doorway, uncertain if she should wake Morrigan, or perhaps just fetch her a blanket, but the decision was rendered moot a moment later as Morrigan stirred and blinked peevishly up at her. "What hour is it?"

"Seventeenth." She tried and did not quite succeed in suppressing the tiny smile that pulled at her lips.

"Damnation," Morrigan swore, though there was little heat to it.

Catrin raised her eyebrows. "Shall I… bring you some tea? Or leave you to rest?" she offered.

The other woman grimaced, necklaces clinking as she stretched like a cat, though she remained at the desk. "Tea would be… most appreciated," she assented with a somewhat resigned sigh.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, then."

Catrin supposed she could simply flag down a servant, but half the reason she'd made the offer in the first place was to give Morrigan a bit of time to regather herself - however more comfortable dealing with people the woman might have become in the years since Lothering, Catrin could not imagine her appreciating the need to make conversation immediately upon waking from an apparently unplanned nap.

The trip to the kitchens was a brief one, and she returned with a steaming stoneware pot and a mug, finding Morrigan with loosened hair put back in place and book stacks tidied. The witch accepted the fragrant brew with a grateful nod, and Catrin… found herself feeling that strange, almost-awkward sense from the first night. After a few moments' quiet, she had convinced herself she needed to simply depart, but when she turned to do so, Morrigan's voice stopped her.

"Stay. You were looking for me, were you not?" she asked, voice low, but still faintly edged.

Well, then.

"I… yes, I was." Catrin let the door creak closed and turned back fully to face the other woman, shifting her weight a bit and mentally rolling her eyes at herself. "I wanted to thank you for… the other night. If someone had asked, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to say that was exactly what I needed, but… it was exactly what I needed."

"Then you are most welcome," Morrigan replied simply, eyes sharp and serious on Catrin's face over the rim of the mug, where she carefully sipped. "I gather 'twas… a difficult excursion."

"Hnn." Catrin snorted a dry laugh and paced back and forth a few steps. "You… could definitely call it that, though more colorful language would be more appropriate for the scale of 'difficult' in this case."

"Tell me."

Catrin balked.

The Morrigan she had known might have cared, but never would have said so. Might have been curious, but never asked. The Morrigan of a decade ago would have made a noncommittal noise and let the conversation go wherever else it would. And Catrin would have smiled and said to herself that it was only to be expected.

But this Morrigan... cared, and didn't seem to mind showing it - even if only in an academic sense. It was disconcerting.

"Do you wish to speak of it?"

Different words. Careful words. She glanced up at the other woman's face. The yellow eyes were calm and intent upon her own.

No. "Yes," she whispered.

"Then tell me," Morrigan replied, inexorable.

Catrin sighed, trying to suppress the shiver that passed across her shoulders, through her core. She covered the reaction in part by moving to the corner of the desk where Morrigan sat, perching on the corner of it, though her eyes remained trained on the wall.

"There was a demon, allied with Corypheus. Nightmare," she whispered after a long moment of silence. "It really… should be easier to resist references to the things you're most afraid of." Her voice took on the scantest note of dry humor at that observation, lips twisting upward into a smirk. "After all, if you know something's trying to mess with you, you can just dismiss it outright. Or that's the way it should be."

"But 'twas not," the other woman prompted when she fell silent.

"No," Catrin sighed. "It wasn't. I feel terrible about it, but sometimes I tried to focus on what it said to other people, instead of to me. Didn't work, though."

A slender hand rested lightly against the curve of her hip where she sat upon the desk. "What did it say to you?"

Catrin didn't want to… she knew it was stupid. Knew what Morrigan would say. Why even bother?

"Catrin. What did it say?" Morrigan asked, voice quiet but demanding.

"It reminded me that I endanger the people I care about. Who care for me," she whispered, eyes closing.

"Reminded you? When have you done so?"

It seemed so obvious, but at the same time, it was hard for Catrin to explain, and she frowned, eyes opening to look down at Morrigan where she sat. "My mother. My sister. All my friends from Kirkwall."

Dark eyebrows rose, and Morrigan leaned back in her seat, though her hand remained where it was. "Your mother, killed by a blood mage? Did this person have issue with you? Did the darkspawn kill Bethany because you were present? How many of your friends in Kirkwall have died?" she demanded.

Catrin blinked dumbly down at her. It all made sense, put that way, and yet she felt ashamed of the answers to Morrigan's direct questions. Those were simple. And they contradicted what Catrin felt. She could only shake her head.

"The demon called itself 'Nightmare' for a reason," Morrigan murmured, gaze locked to hers. "It does not reflect what is, but your deepest fear. You… need not be ashamed of that. Fear is not a sensible thing. Preparation is. But that which lingers, disturbs us… it is not. Do not forget what is real."

Those words made Catrin feel the expected degree of ridiculous… but also, strangely absolved. Morrigan wasn't condemning her fear, but rather carrying her through it. Reminding her of reality in that sharp, undeniable way, yet without the derision Catrin would have expected from her friend, once.

"...When did you become so wise?" she asked, tired and rueful.

There was a hardness in Morrigan's eyes when she answered, though Catrin had the sense that it was not for her. "In the Deep Roads, I believe, if anywhere."

Catrin's breath caught. That Morrigan had been in that awful place, as well… hurt. It engendered an absurd instinct to turn the conversation around, offer comfort where at present she was accepting it. Instead, she only muttered, "Strange place to learn about jumping at shadows. In my experience most of the horrors you fear down there are real."

"Indeed," the other woman replied, the word heavy and dark. "But they linger, do they not? Past the boundaries of where they should. After you are well away from their reach."

Yes. Yes, they did. Catrin had been shamefully afraid of the dark for months after they'd finally emerged, and the smell of sulfur still made her gag.

She nodded. "Then what… what do you do with it? How do you get rid of it?" she asked, voice hoarse, all of a sudden. She dropped her eyes, but not quite in time to miss the ghost of a smirk cross Morrigan's features.

"The fact that we began speaking of a demon called Nightmare offers a convenient analogy to all such troubles, does it not?"

Humor, but still no derision, though the stark logic of it - that was something she recognized, a hallmark of the woman before her. Catrin found herself chuckling before she could even consciously formulate a reaction, eyes closing and two tears squeezing from them before she surreptitiously brushed them away. "I guess it does, at that." She knew how to deal with demons. This one should be no different. "... I've missed you," she admitted then, quietly.

"Have you," Morrigan murmured in response, more acknowledgment than question.

Another pair of tears gathered in Catrin's eyes, and she blinked them back, unwilling to let them fall. All that time in Kirkwall, she had had friends, support. Useful perspectives all around her, different as they sometimes were from her own. But never this searingly clean sensibility that did not whisper of duty, of strength that she should have for the sake of others, of how her difficulties impacted those around her.

Morrigan was a silverite blade, impossibly keen, cutting directly to the root of an issue rather than wrapping more ropes about her limbs to tug her in one direction or another. Catrin took a breath, and it seemed to come more easily despite the tightness in her throat.

"Very much." She risked a look up, as Morrigan stood in front of her chair, hands braced on the desk before her. She was near eye-level with Catrin, only perhaps two feet away.

Catrin Hawke could be accused of many things, but poor timing was not one of them. There was really only one thing to do, in that moment, and she knew with a sudden, piercing certainty that - lingering fears aside - she would never forgive herself if she did not take that opportunity to complete the chord that begged to resolve between them.

On the edge of a held-breath pause, she leaned in, reaching gloved fingers around Morrigan's neck to pull her the short distance necessary to bring their lips together.

Morrigan stiffened slightly at the first touch, but before Catrin could even react to reconsider, the witch was moving too, leaning down and forward and catching Catrin's kiss with full, unhesitant intent. It was an awkward clash of teeth and tongue at first, born more of mutual determination to relieve the tension than something more natural.

But Morrigan had always been a profoundly deliberate person, and Catrin only pretended not to be. It was fitting. It was glorious.

They both found the proper angle in the same heartbeat, and awkwardness dissolved into synchronicity so suddenly it left Catrin gasping. Morrigan's tongue tasted of tea and something Catrin would not have thought to recognize until she was kissing her, a decade-old memory of the experience of this woman's mouth on hers.

But there was one thing new. As Morrigan's fingers reached up to twine in the half-braided mass of Catrin's hair, so too did her magic reach out. Catrin could feel it somehow pressing into her, could taste the Fade on the back of her tongue as her own connection to the shadow of their world rose up to answer in kind. It was exhilarating… startling… terrifying.

"Morrigan - !"

The witch leaned back a few inches, enough to catch Catrin's eyes, her yellow ones seeming to blaze even more brightly than they normally did. "You… are not familiar with this?" she asked in a husky murmur, brow tugging into a slight wrinkle with her concern.

No, Catrin was not. The last mage she had been with…

Had been Morrigan, herself, when she was twenty-two.

"...No," she whispered, cheeks warming errantly at the admission. "This is… definitely new. Guess we were missing out when we were younger, huh?"

To her amazement, Morrigan laughed, the sound low and rich, and it left something hot and hungry curling within Catrin's belly.

"We were, indeed. "Tis a shame we never retreated far from the town and its attendant dangers, then," she replied.

"I'll say." Catrin gave her a sudden grin and yanked her back toward herself, lips crushing against Morrigan's in renewed passion as the magic surged within both of them to mingle. With someone else, she might have hesitated, might have been cautious in how she reached out in turn. But Morrigan had always had a sense of momentum to her, and more - she was a known quantity. If anyone could handle whatever Catrin offered up to her, she could.

This is how it should be, between mages. No fear that the ripples they inadvertently made in the Fade would bring the templars running. Open and free and exulting in what they both were, what they could do. The power they shared.

That thought - and its contrast to another one whom Catrin held dear - made her pause, however. She drew back with difficulty, her eyes closing as she pulled a few inches away after a natural break in their kiss. She knew where this was going, and she had no idea how much or little what she needed to say would matter to Morrigan, but she needed to say it, all the same.

"There's something you should know," she made herself whisper, eyes opening to hold Morrigan's soberly.

The witch simply gazed back at her, waiting, curious but otherwise neutral.

"I have a lover. She is… our relationship is without bonds, but it is one that continues when it can," Catrin explained quietly, forcing herself to hold Morrigan's eyes even though they showed nothing save desire, just then. "I figure it's better you know now than… later… if that would bother you."

There was a moment's total pause, with no movement from either of them, Morrigan's gaze locked to hers. Then a soft breath huffed from the other woman's nose, and that yellow gaze turned faintly wry. "A pirate, perhaps?"

"...You read Varric's book." Catrin's lips tugged up at the corners.

"Of course," Morrigan sniffed. "And it does not. You know as well as I that you and I will not be here forever. So long as you do not expect me to… participate in that relationship, should all our paths someday cross, I take no issue."

It was as much humor at the mental image of Morrigan and Isabela in bed together as general relief at her first lover's answer that made Catrin grin in response to that. "I don't expect you to do anything - or anyone - you don't want to do."

It only hit home after that, the realization that they could part ways after Corypheus was dealt with the way they had in Lothering - with no expectation for any future whatsoever. That hurt… but it didn't have to be that way. Nothing had to be that way.

Regardless, this was not that time.

"You thereby continue your tradition of being less foolhardy than most," Morrigan murmured in response, smirking sharply at Catrin as her fingers tightened in her hair and tugged her back into kissing range. Catrin in turn upped the ante by hooking an arm around Morrigan's waist and half-pulling, half-lifting her up and into her lap on the desk, force magic subtly added to the gesture to lend her strength. The sense of it sparked against the other mage's imprint on the Fade, and Catrin could have sworn she smelled lyrium in the air in that moment. "And of learning quickly." Morrigan's voice had gone quieter, huskier, as she leaned into Catrin's touch and the leather- and fur-clad firmness of her body.

"Last thing I want to do is disappoint you," Catrin replied half-breathlessly, biting Morrigan's lower lip in emphasis. "I used to think about that sometimes in Kirkwall, believe it or not. You're very influential."

There was a surge of mana that seared its way through Catrin's senses, leaving lyrium all the more strongly in her nose and every nerve pleasantly ablaze. "Any way in which I can influence others to be more sensible is a victory, to me."

Catrin laughed softly against the skin of Morrigan's throat, nipping at it before laving the mark with her tongue. "Would it be sensible to take your clothes off right now? Because I'd really like to."

"No," she replied simply. The word itself was jarring, but the tone in which it was uttered said that it was half-facetious, and that guess was shown to be correct a moment later. "But it might be, were we to remove ourselves to a more secure location."

"Come to my room, then," she breathed, already standing up with Morrigan still in her arms. Mage she might be, but Catrin had always had a strong frame, made stronger still by a decade of frequent fighting. Her staff had never been simply a focus. The lift was near-effortless, and she felt rather than heard the other woman gasp as her knees gripped Catrin's hips.

"I shall, but I shall do so on my own feet," Morrigan hissed, though the sharpness of her words was utterly unconvincing. Catrin grinned as she complied, letting the other woman slide down to a standing position.

"Lead the way, Queen of Ravens."

---

However little it was that Morrigan slept over the next handful of days, she continued to do it in Catrin's tower room. Carrying on like they were, even though Morrigan felt as if she could very nearly taste some important understanding about the struggle against Corypheus, seemed… almost egregiously frivolous to a part of her mind, and yet, for once she found herself unwilling to set personal preference aside.

She had found enjoyment in a great deal of what she had done with her life, but it had always felt like moving from one inevitability to another. This crisis, or that one. This necessary project, opening up into another. This sacrifice, because the alternative was unthinkable. Even Kieran, whom she loved with a fierceness that had felt completely alien to her when he had been an infant, had not been her own choice.

Oh, she could have walked away, theoretically. She could have kept Flemeth's knowledge to herself and allowed a woman she regarded as a sister to go to her very likely death. Theoretically. She had not wished for a child, had feared the bearing of him. But she suspected that Flemeth had known, when she had cast Morrigan out to assist the Wardens, that it would not be any loyalty to her or her designs that ultimately caused her errant daughter to complete the task given to her, but something else.

This, however, with Catrin, for however long their paths coincided… this could be hers. The symmetry was not lost on her, either, that Catrin Hawke had also been the first part of her life that had been fully Morrigan's own.

More pragmatically speaking, she admitted, if begrudgingly, that Catrin had been correct when she had pointed out with gentle acerbity that not even Morrigan could sustain nonstop focus on a problem for an extended period of time. Mostly, Morrigan hated it when other people were actually correct in telling her to slow down. But she had found it disturbingly difficult to summon the appropriate level of irritation, then.

When the answer to the question of Corypheus's next move at last came to her, it was as so many such things were for Morrigan - a lightning strike out of a barely-clouded sky.

Weeks of poring over atlases and histories and legends and field notes from a dozen sources of varying credibility (and proficiency in handwriting) had circled about, showing no clear line of logic… until all at once, they did. And she knew - knew - without doubt or hesitation, where he would go.

"I must speak with the Inquisitor," she said, still staring at the map in front of her, quiet words seeming large in the silence of the room.

Catrin, who had been reading through yet another field journal at her request, looked up from her own chair, eyebrows raised. "You have something?"

"I know where he will go, and we must precede him in reaching his goal."

…

Though Inquisitor Lavellan had certainly earned Morrigan's respect at Halamshiral, that afternoon she cemented it many times over. There was almost no debate in the war room. The Commander had some reservations, as did Montilyet, but the Inquisitor simply listened in quiet consideration to Morrigan's presentation of the case, let her advisors argue for a few minutes among themselves, then looked up from where she had been jotting notes and said, "There is far too much at stake for us to ignore this. At worst, Morrigan's wrong, and we send our forces there unnecessarily. Perhaps it then delays us from responding to Corypheus's actual next move… but unless any of you have any other ideas you haven't already shared about what that might be, this is what we've got to work with. We ride for the Arbor Wilds." The assembly had then been dismissed - Cullen and Cassandra to set in motion preparations to march, Leliana and Josephine to contact the Inquisition's allies and rally support from farther afield. Morrigan had spent the evening with Kieran, speaking with him about a text of Dorian's he had borrowed, and preparing various lessons to keep him well-occupied while she was to be away.

At dawn the next day, the Inquisition rode.

"Special tactics" teams had been set in another meeting before departure. Morrigan would accompany the Inquisitor, Cassandra, the spirit-boy Cole, and the Inquisitor's paramour (whom Morrigan could still not quite decide whether she liked or detested) in a central thrust to the Temple ruins. Catrin, Dorian, and the Court Enchanter would provide magical support to various auxiliary units, with the remaining physical combatants among the Inquisitor's inner circle split along with them.

Morrigan rode alongside Catrin by day, and slept beside her in the short nights. Fatigue hounded them both closely enough that their time in their shared tent was little more than a weary 'goodnight' and the knowledge of touch pervading through the lapping waves of the Fade. They were hurtling toward… something Morrigan couldn't name, but her sense of a half-solved riddle yet had persisted after the revelation of Corypheus's interest in the Temple of Mythal. It disturbed her, lent a sense of urgency to every glance, every second. But there was little she could do save appreciate them, and so they traveled on.

Their arrival at the nascent Arbor Wilds war camp was both a relief and a doom, the gentle, warm green of the near-canopy overhead and the bobbing shadows the leaves cast seemed to foretell a far more violent horizon. Morrigan was uncertain as to whether it was more a matter of being concerned at what might occur in the Temple, or simply that she and Catrin were to be separated for the battle. Ten years ago, she would have scoffed at the latter concept, but her protective instinct toward Kieran had been too strong to be denied, and thus opened the door for variations upon that theme, rare though they may have been.

There, in the calm that precedes the storm, she found Celene, and a few moments' surcease in fond amusement.

"You seem far more at home here than last I saw you, Lady Morrigan," the Empress observed, a tiny smile playing about her lips as she looked her former advisor over.

"And you, far less, Your Radiance," the witch countered wryly, taking in Celene's simple (by Orlesian court standards) gown and mask. Stiff amethyst brocade skated over her form like armor; deep slashes in the overskirt revealed champagne satin beneath. Her mask, rather than the moonstone inlay Morrigan had become familiar with at Court, was gleaming silverite embellished only with filigree and a few tiny sapphires near the eyes. "But I know that the Inquisition is grateful for your support."

Celene inclined her white-gold head, almost imperceptibly. "We would not see our allies - nor our friends - fall for want of the Empire's aid, particularly after the great service they have done us."

Morrigan smirked. She could be herself, here and now, as liaison to the Inquisition, in ways she never could have at court, though she had stretched protocol until the fine stitches holding it together were straining as it was. "And how do the results of that service continue to play out?"

The Empress's features, for the most part, were unreadable as ever behind the mask, but the quirk of her lips bore humor. She would know what Morrigan had asked - how did she fare with her nobles, and most particularly the newest of their number - as well as that the vagueness in the question was a quite deliberate courtesy. (Celene fancied that she herself had taught Morrigan the Game, which conceit the witch allowed her to keep - the truth was that she had known most of its twists and turns all too well, long before, from her upbringing with Flemeth.)

"Most satisfactorily, for all involved," Celene allowed with a small smile, waving Morrigan over to her command tent nearby. The witch smirked to herself as she followed the Empress in - as soon as she passed the threshold of the silken-walled structure, the green smell of the Arbor Wilds and the smoke and leather of camp were immediately replaced by a spicy and very faintly floral bouquet that Morrigan recalled as being a particular blend Celene favored. Save for the fact that the tent walls did nothing to isolate them from the ever-present sounds of a war camp, one could almost think one's self in a festival tent, perhaps, in the heart of the Empire.

A girl inside - a page, rather than a handmaid, by her garb - silently poured steaming tea into porcelain cups and offered them to the Empress and then Morrigan, who accepted hers gratefully.

"There have been no few tales of your… welfare, that have reached my ears in Val Royeaux," Celene observed after taking a delicate sip of her tea, royal plural dropped now that they were relatively out of public. Morrigan could not see the amused quirk of a blonde eyebrow over the obscuring border of the mask, but she could certainly hear it.

Of course.

"And which tales would those be, I wonder?" Chances were high that whatever Celene had been hearing was more accurate than not - Briala had had spies in the Inquisition even before Morrigan had been sent to join it.

Celene chuckled lightly. "Tales of the company you have preferred, following a courtyard reunion that may well spawn a ballad or two of its own, once Corypheus is vanquished. The Champion of Kirkwall seems to be a woman who trails them around behind her like unlaced stays, even if you have thus far demonstrated a corresponding knack for keeping yours tied."

"'Tis an accurate assessment," Morrigan agreed on the heels of a sigh, her reply encompassing both Catrin's penchant for inspiring stories and the veracity of Celene's direct information. She set her tea down on the map table nearby, using the moment to quell the ridiculous laughter that was suddenly trying to crawl up her chest and out of her throat. "You may recall a reference I made in passing to a friend made before my travels during the Blight."

"I do," Celene confirmed, eyes delighted and sly even in the shadows of the mask. "That was she, then? I might even write the ballad myself, that's so ripe for it. Anonymously, of course."

Bards. Morrigan gave her friend and erstwhile employer a sour look, though wry humor gleamed at the edges. "Better you than the Nightingale, I suppose; she has already announced intent to challenge Varric Tethras to an archery competition over the matter. Perhaps you would like to join their contest?" However much more agreeable Morrigan found Leliana ten years removed from the Blight, the witch could not possibly conceive of the woman writing anything on that subject matter that would not make her wish to vomit.

If for no other reason than because Leliana would, of course, set out specifically to achieve such an effect.

Celene laughed, the sound rich and full and wicked. "Were it throwing knives, I might consider it."

"'Twas indeed she that I spoke of," Morrigan continued, her tone resigned, but her own unmasked face conveying the truth - she shared the information with Celene far more willingly than she would with most. "Catrin and I parted ways scant days before her village fell to the darkspawn, and did not encounter one another again until I arrived at Skyhold. I have been… pleased… to have her companionship once again, for as long as it may last."

"You aren't inclined to make plans, then." Celene regarded her evenly, thoughtfully over the alabaster rim of the tea cup.

Morrigan met that assertion with a sharp laugh of her own, head tilting in the way that - as the Warden had once been quite fond of pointing out - almost exactly recalled the body language of her avian form. "I am inclined to make a great many plans, Your Radiance, but of that sort… no. 'Twould be folly, particularly as we have a war to win at present."

"Of course," the Empress replied, the suggestion of a sigh in her voice at slight odds with the continued speculation in her gaze. "Know, then, that you continue to have a place in my Court, when or if ever you should seek it once more." A smile quirked her lips as she finished her tea and set down the cup. "Though seeing you here, I find myself suspecting you enjoyed Val Royeux even less than you showed."

Morrigan smiled subtly, appreciatively. Celene had the right of it. She doubted that she ever would seek to return, and knew Celene did as well, but the security of safe harbor with a powerful ally was a valuable card to have in-hand, all the same. That it was an offer which included a healthy dose of self-interest only made it more pleasant to Morrigan, rather than less. "You have my thanks, for that. Whatever my opinion of your various courtiers, I found the time in your service most well-spent."

"So it was, my friend."

Minutes later, Morrigan made her bow (as the leather skirts she favored were not amenable to curtseys) and left the Empress's tent, breathing in the sudden, rushing return of the Wilds air as a raven gathers itself for flight.

….

Frantic exhaustion. It was a paradox Morrigan had not experienced since the darkest days of the Blight, but after the Well of Sorrows, she had relearned it tenfold.

Power. Oh, the Well had given her that in plenty, but the thought was a bitter one. Morrigan would master the voices - whatever it took - eventually, because she had to, but she could never master the truth of the price she had thought herself ready to pay. It made an almost disgusting amount of sense, in hindsight, that Flemeth carried the essence of Mythal - looking back, Morrigan could see that the puzzle pieces had always been there, and she had simply failed to put them together correctly in time. It was a single sorrow among the thousands recently bequeathed to her, but a significant one.

There had been very little sense of time's passage since she had returned to Skyhold with the Inquisitor's small party, aside from the punctuating point where Flemeth had lured Kieran into the Fade and revealed her nature. Morrigan had slept, eaten, occasionally conversed with her son or the Inquisitor, and she had written. The first two, she was only truly aware of because she knew they were necessary for her to continue to function - she didn't remember doing much of either. Her world had both direly expanded when she had drunk from the Well, and contracted down to a tiny, desperate string of focus: the need to record as much of the knowledge she had gained as possible before she forgot it (I will never forget any of it), before it drove her mad (I will not, cannot allow it)... so that other people could access it through other means than her (that, yes).

Rather than work in the nest of texts and maps she had created in the Eluvian room prior to the Arbor Wilds expedition, she had instead sequestered herself in a tiny room off the courtyard, bare of all furnishings other than a desk, chair, and an abundance of paper. Too many details snagged her vision, carried her away from her current train of thought and into another fragment of a memory. She had learned very quickly that it was better to isolate herself as much as possible, if her records were to be anything approaching comprehensible.

...The ones born here do not understand the keenness of what we have lost, or why so many of their elders weep as they enter…

Words came intrusively even without external stimuli; it was a struggle at every moment to remember what she was writing, and not shift thoughts, speakers, Ages mid-sentence.

...She came upon us, Void-cloaked…

...Lead the way, Queen of Ravens...

Sometimes, recognizing her own thoughts and fears among those of long-dead Servants of Mythal was a relief, and sometimes it sickened her. How long since the Temple? Should the rest of the Inquisition's forces have returned, or would they still be traveling?

Would someone have told her if Catrin had been killed?

And then, the darker whisper, would I have noticed if they had?

...he took on a form reserved for the gods and their chosen…

...arrows raining corruption upon followers and foes alike…

Her pen scratched out another line, another mid-sentence shift, and she closed her eyes in attempt to concentrate enough to pick up the dropped thread.

...Mythal does not show him favor, and will let Morrigan judge him…

She frowned harder. Elgar'nan. She will let Elgar'nan judge him.

Morrigan.

Yes, that was her own name. She mentally waved it away, irritated. It did not matter at the moment.

"Morrigan!"

The edged note of fear in the voice as it spoke her name finally pulled her from her reverie, and she blinked as a dreamer returning from the depths of sleep, or as a swimmer blinks the water from her eyes as she breaks the surface.

Catrin Hawke stood next to her, a gloved hand on her shoulder and stark concern in the bright cerulean eyes.

Morrigan gasped, then, as if she truly had been swimming beneath the waves and had only just realized she could breathe. Gracelessly, she pushed to her feet, her arms going around the taller mage with a rare lack of concern for dignity.

Hands warm even through their leather covering ran in soothing circles across her back; words breathed into her ear. "Hey. Hey, it's alright. I'm so glad to see you."

"When…?" Morrigan whispered, forcing the word to drown out the broken litany that droned on within her mind.

"About three hours ago. I'd have found you sooner, but the Inquisitor was impatient about the report from those of us who had to travel back the boring way." Catrin's voice was still concerned, but calm. It lacked the alarm Morrigan would have expected if…

"...What did they tell you about the Temple?" she asked into her lover's shoulder.

The hands tightened on her back, holding her closer. "Enough, I think. Lavellan herself was sparing on the details, but I ran into Kieran and Cole on the way to find you."

Kieran sitting with the spirit-boy in the courtyard, colored stones on a board scratched in the dust between them. No game ever known to Thedas, but one they had invented, where all players could win. Her own memory; Morrigan smiled, ever so faintly.

"I asked where you were, and Cole said something about… 'Wilds-well whispers, too many to tell, but she must try.'"

The witch's smile faded into a scowl, and she shakily drew back enough to actually look at Catrin, though she did not remove herself from that anchoring touch. "If he is intent upon reading my thoughts, perhaps Dirthamen's servants know, but they - " She cut herself off abruptly, eyes squeezing shut as she forced herself to finish her own thought and resummon the peevishness she had intended with it. "Perhaps he should put the skill to more productive use."

"I'm not sure he's literate, but that's actually probably worth a try," Catrin murmured, a frown in her voice. "Seems like it's been pretty bad."

...The quick ones come; we must seal the final temple…

"Morrigan?"

Even the stone seems to crumble at their... "I am adjusting."

"...Right. I hope so." It should not have been a victory to identify the skepticism in Catrin's tone at her reply, but it was, nonetheless.

As do I. She did not know if she had spoken the words aloud.

...without the wise to lead them, they will lose what they should have been...

"Morrigan."

Catrin. She had been talking to Catrin. She wanted to follow the voice, but couldn't quite tell where it was coming from.

"Morrigan, open your eyes." There was a sharpness, a command in those words that hooked something in Morrigan's chest and drew a response without entirely conscious decision. Her lids rose slowly, to reveal Catrin just in front of her (of course; that is where she was only moments ago)... and suddenly it was too damnably much, and the person standing before her was likely the only one alive to whom she could willingly admit that.

"Yes," she replied to an earlier question in a strained whisper. "Yes, 'tis… very difficult. I cannot…" ...find the one who betrayed our Lady… "...stay…"

...And she was betrayed, as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! A reflexive nausea at those words marked them as Flemeth's.

"Cannot stay long in one... please. Place. Pl - " Her halting words were cut off abruptly as Catrin threaded a hand into her hair and jerked her forward into a sudden, hard kiss. Blood roared in Morrigan's ears, momentarily drowning out the whispers, and for that fleeting instant, she was all there. She gasped as the kiss broke, eyes seeking Catrin's with a silent continuation of a plea she hadn't truly meant to make.

Her own complex mix of shock, determination, and desire was reflected back to her in the other woman's gaze, tenfold. And as she watched, that desire crystallized into something far more complex and… intense.

"Here is what is going to happen, unless you tell me you don't want it," Catrin said slowly, and Morrigan clung to the (real) sound of those words, the motion of familiar lips like a lifeline. "You are going to cap your inkwell, and we are going to go to my rooms."

I do not know if I can recall the way - !

"I'll take you to my rooms," Catrin amended, as if she had heard the fear, words still slow and deliberate and utterly implacable. "And I'll make sure you focus on the present." There was a sharp and almost playful curve to those lips at the last phrase, one that stirred Morrigan's blood as if reminding her of senses she had not used in decades rather than the mere days or weeks it surely must have been. "Is that agreeable to you?"

They come on every path; there is no safe harbor for us now…

"Yes. 'Tis… profoundly agreeable," she whispered, forcing the Sorrows back again.

The inkwell was duly capped, and they exited the makeshift office together, Catrin's hand on the small of her back a welcome tether to the present as they moved. Morrigan was vaguely aware - and less vaguely relieved - that the path to Catrin's tower chambers was, in fact a familiar one. How long that path took, or whether they had encountered other people on the way up or not, she could not have said; she was simply grateful when they had arrived, and Catrin shut the door behind them without ever removing her hand from its anchoring place on Morrigan's back.

"Now." The word was warm against Morrigan's ear, as was the breath that accompanied it. Catrin had stepped in behind her, sliding arms around her waist. "You're here, with me, and you're going to stay here for a while." Morrigan relaxed, ever so slightly, leaning back against the firm solidity of Catrin's frame, and she felt Catrin's lips smile against the skin of her neck. An almost alien rush of pleasure accompanied that silent approval, though this time Morrigan was certain it was indeed her own. "It's not going to change everything…" But you do change everything. "...but you're at least going to get some damn rest, and you're going to remember that you can still do that, alright?"

"As you say," Morrigan replied in a whisper.

"You can - you will - tell me if you want me to stop." A pause; the sense of a frown. "You've been getting bits of other things caught up in your words when you talk. But I bet the Well never mentions Lothering, does it?"

No, that was a shemlen town, Ages after the last memory - I commit my knowledge to the service of Mythal and her chosen…

A sharp tug on her hair brought her crashing back into the present. "Does it, Morrigan?"

She was expected to answer. "No, it does not," she breathed, shivering in the wake of that feeling. The hand gentled, stroking through her hair (which had, at some point, completely fallen from its habitual knot) rather than pulling, and she almost wished it hadn't.

"Good. Then you can stop anything I'm doing by saying 'Lothering.' Do you understand? Can you do that?"

In the pause that followed, Morrigan genuinely did weigh the question that had been asked, though admittedly her thoughts followed countless other trails, as well.

"Answer me." Another jerk at her hair. Morrigan's eyes closed, then opened again, and she lifted a careful, grateful hand to Catrin's face where it had hissed the order into her ear.

"Yes. I understand. And I shall." She retraced the words in her mind as if patiently burning an inscription into stone, that it might remain available for her use, should she need it… though she severely doubted that she would. A question arose, with a hint of humor, and she forced herself to give it voice. "Is this a thing you learned from your pirate?"

It was the wrong thing to say. She felt it in the stiffness of Catrin's body behind her, and terror washed through Morrigan's mind at the realization - no, no, I cannot lose this, not now. It should not be my time! But I commit my memories to the service -

"Does it matter?" The words were soft, but she could hear the incredulous strain as a dissonance within them.

Ahh. It was not as bad as she had thought. She answered truthfully, as ever she had with Catrin. "Somewhat. The thought of you having access to external wisdom when you are deprived of my own is a pleasing thing."

The tension dissipated abruptly, and Catrin chuckled, the arm around Morrigan's waist squeezing tighter. "Yes and no. I learned it from a book, first." The words were warm, and the swift bite to the ridge of her ear flashed hot with pleasant pain.

"As did I," Morrigan admitted, summoning a hint of her normal dryness.

"Morrigan…" Catrin spun her around abruptly in her arms, and Morrigan caught sight of the fierce grin on the other woman's face a split second before she kissed her, hard and invasively. "I love you."

…

…?

She froze, a humming in her ears like the barest touch on an over-tightened lute string.

"Now take your blighted clothes off."

It took another two heartbeats for the order to register, hung as her mind was on those first three words… as they seemed to block everything else out. But even as she internally flailed to find an appropriate response, Catrin had already issued an order, as if… as if she knew Morrigan would need it.

Just as she needed the startlement of the sharp clap of a hand against her hip that dragged her back into the present immediately thereafter. "I said now." Catrin's voice in that moment could have cut diamond. "Before I get impatient and start burning them off."

A sound caught in the witch's throat, neither laugh nor sob, but something utterly between the two, and she complied, undoing buckles and lifting soft, half-threadbare fabric over her head. Catrin assisted in those motions, hands gentle and efficient. Her fingers did not shake, and so they were able to undo the clasps on Morrigan's heavy necklaces with ease, lifting the gold and bone and pearl away from her throat almost reverently before setting them aside.

And then suddenly Morrigan stood truly naked before her, felt the weight of that piercing blue gaze traveling from head to toe and back again.

I stood before the Lady, and I felt as though she saw every part of me that I longed to hold secret, yet it was a comfort that I could not…

"Look at me." The words were sharp, once more, and accompanied by an imperative grip on her chin, tilting her face upward to meet blue eyes she wanted to dive into and sink under.

But that look demanded presence, so it was presence that Morrigan gave.

"Good," Catrin breathed, leaning in to brush her lips against Morrigan's, and the witch would have done nearly anything, just then, for that kiss to continue. But the pale lips spoke words, instead. "What are you feeling? What do you want?"

She did not know. There were too many personalities, too many timelines all vying for her attention…

She cried out as searingly hot fingers accompanied by the sharp, metallic scent of elemental magic stroked flares of pain from her exposed breasts.

"Heat," she panted, for lack of other words at first. "Pain. Here. You. I want to stay with you." And Catrin rewarded that compliance not with gentleness, but with more of the same, a searing brush of fingers on bare skin that forced Morrigan's mind to remain where they were. As she had asked.

"Good." The word came again, and it felt like a blessing. "I want you to stay here. With me. I want you writhing under my fingers, and not thinking of anything else but what I'm doing to you."

...I offer myself without fear to the blood writing that marks me a servant of -

"Do you hear me?" The harshness of those words both hurt and aroused, much as did the hand that had suddenly tightened in her hair and pulled her head back to bare her throat for Catrin's teeth to bite down firmly at the base of it.

"Ahh! Yes!" Morrigan gasped, back arching and eyes closing, though for once the darkness stayed where it was meant to, in the present. "I am here."

"And what will you say if you want me to stop?" came the question, hissed against the skin that had just been bitten, would surely bear a bruise the next day.

"I do not want you to stop," Morrigan breathed, words ragged, her own hands sliding up Catrin's sides. (The skin was bare - when had she disrobed? I walk naked into the embrace of the Protector...)

A hand slapped hard against her upper thigh; the voice carried a dangerous thread of disapproval. "That's not what I asked."

She felt real fear, then, not for Catrin's treatment, but for how distractible she still seemed to be. Her eyes flew open wide, seeking out the reassurance of that blue gaze and the anchor that came with the other woman's presence.

"Answer me, Morrigan." Gentler, but still insistent. She shivered, caught in both the need to respond and the lack of memory that would allow her to do so properly.

"Please," she gasped, finally, hands coming up to frame the other woman's face in desperation.

"Please what?" Catrin's face turned, teeth clamping down in the inside of Morrigan's wrist, and she let out a moan from deep in her chest.

"... What did you ask?" she whispered, eyes squeezing tightly shut.

There was a silence, then a condition set. "I'll answer if you look at me."

Why did that seem so difficult? There had been so many harder things than giving up his experience to the Well, why was this…?

"Morrigan!"

Her eyes flew open, and in that same moment, she felt the shooting thrust of a finger - or was it two? - between her legs.

"Better. I asked what you would say if you wanted me to stop," Catrin repeated, tone infinitely patient, once more. When Morrigan hesitated, the fingers abruptly withdrew, as did the other hand, leaving her bereft of support or sensation as Catrin backed away a few paces.

"Catrin!" she gasped, the words a plea and a prayer.

But it was no good. Not all on its own. "I need to know that you remember."

Remember what?

Remember everything… this is your task, as the Keeper of the Sorrows…

No.

"Lothering," she whispered, clawing instinctively for the word at least a part of her knew the other woman was looking for. "That is what I will say. But not now. Not now. I….."

Catrin's eyes locked on hers, mercilessly as she prowled back toward her. "You what?"

She paused, and lines of fire were traced down her flank as Catrin's flame-kissed fingertips dragged from the side of her breast to her hip. "I need you, now. I will do as you ask, should it be necessary. But I do not think 'twill be so. Please…. please…"

"Please, what, Morrigan?"

"Do not stop," she rasped, grabbing at the back of Catrin's head and pulling her into an artlessly desperate kiss, every nerve flaring in response to the contact.

Fingers intruded into her body once again, and she felt familiar magic reach out to entwine with her own, even as Catrin's tongue laid claim to her mouth, a pointed reminder of who was there, who was in control. Eventually that adored presence bore her backward, until she was lying on the bed. And she wanted to thread the fingers of both hands into her lover's hair and drag Catrin's face back to hers, but stronger hands pinned hers down at the wrists as Catrin flashed a sharp grin down at her. Then the pressure on her wrists abated somewhat, though the hold remained, and she felt a brush of dangled hair against her hip just before a new, redoubled assault began upon her senses. Mind and body sang in response, welcoming every touch, every flicker of tongue and light scrape of teeth as they sent her spiraling toward ecstasy.

Even within all that sensation, she eventually started to drift away into the whispers, almost lulled by the comforting waves of pleasure and companionship…

...And then pain flared, bright and blaring, from what must have been the tip of Catrin's tongue to her overloaded nerves, and she cried out in wrenching ecstasy as that bodily shoved her over the edge of maybe into the chasm of now, however brief the moment.

She was still writhing, resonating with Catrin's touch when the other woman slid up her body and took her into her arms in full again at last. There were only two appropriate responses to all of what had just occurred, and Morrigan did both of them without hesitation.

Her own long fingers slipped between Catrin's thighs while her other arm held the woman close to her body, and she whispered words into the other mage's ear that she had never thought she would speak to anyone at all, as Catrin shuddered around the reciprocal invasion of her hand. "You hold my heart, as well."

---

Skyhold celebrated.

Though no few of the residents were nursing wounds of varying severity, spirits were buoyant and the food and wine unending. Catrin's progress through the Great Hall was slow, as she got stopped what felt like every three steps by someone else wanting her to join in a toast, or banter, or in Varric's case, a very welcome hug. By the time she had gotten close to the exit she sought, she was almost exasperated by it all - which felt strange, as she was hardly the sort to balk at boisterous parties, usually.

The sole true exception to the prevailing festive mood was the Inquisitor herself, whom Catrin glimpsed slipping off toward her quarters alone as Catrin finally reached the corridor that would lead her to the garden courtyard. She bit her lip in sympathy at that sight, but didn't call out to her. No doubt the woman had heard more than enough attempts at encouraging words that night already, in the wake of Solas's abrupt departure.

A moment's sharp anxiety shot through her as she ducked out of the hall, remembering what Morrigan had said about how she had left in the immediate aftermath of the battle for Denerim at the end of the Blight, but a hurried glance across the courtyard revealed Catrin's own elusive apostate was ultimately far less-so, thankfully… at least that night.

"I feel like I've barely seen you since the battle," she murmured ruefully as she approached the shadowed bench where Morrigan sat. They had, of course, shared a tent during the journey back to Skyhold, though both of them had been so exhausted each night that they had spent nearly the entirety of that time actually sleeping.

Morrigan smirked up at her, head tilting slightly in a nod. "It has been quite the frenzied denouement, yes."

"I think you really did spend too much time in Orlais for a proper Fereldan," Catrin observed, laughing as she settled next to the other woman on the bench.

"Catrin, have you ever known me to be anything like - "

" - a proper Fereldan?" She grinned sharply, eyes dancing. "No, definitely not. You can't even hold your liquor like one."

That earned her a huffed snort and an eyeroll. "Because I also lack the apparent regional penchant for foolish bravado, I shall not take your bait and offer to challenge that statement."

"Well, I've always known you were a damned sight smarter than most of us, too," Catrin allowed, swooping in to catch Morrigan's lips decisively with her own. Morrigan sighed into the gesture, tongue dancing warmly between Catrin's lips, fingers reaching up to dig into her hair for the few moments before the kiss broke. "And now you can turn into a dragon and I still can't," she added, mock-morosely. She didn't draw back completely, instead letting her lips drift along Morrigan's sharp jawline, hand curling against her hip.

"I cannot in truth say that the experience is one I care to repeat any time soon," Morrigan muttered.

"Dragon."

"Imbecile."

Catrin chuckled softly, accepting the word as an endearment. "Sometimes." Her laugh became a sigh, the sound growing fractionally heavier. "Got to get it out of my system now, you know. I'll need all my wits in Tevinter."

"The matter is - na revas - decided, then?" Morrigan asked, pulling back enough to look Catrin in the face, expression sobering.

She didn't acknowledge the lapse into elven speech - they were coming less and less often, which had been a relief for both of them. "It is. I don't think Feynriel necessarily wouldn't come if I didn't go as part of the escort, but it'll make it easier in more than one way. He's a bit skittish." From what Catrin had been able to tell from the scant handful of letters she'd received from him since he had moved to Tevinter to study, he'd grown up no small amount, as well, but that assessment still amply held.

Morrigan nodded, the briskness of that motion opposed by the way she took Catrin's hand and toyed almost carefully with her fingers. "As you say. His talents will be invaluable, and I am of course quite curious to meet him, if I am afforded the opportunity."

"You'll still be here?" Catrin had tried not to hope too hard for that.

"I do not intend to depart from the Inquisition... Though I may accompany the Inquisitor on an excursion to search for her errant lover, if more information may be found in advance. Fen'Harel en- ... Primarily, however, I shall be assisting in research, and continuing to transcribe the knowledge of the Well to the extent that I am able."

"Good," Catrin sighed, something loosening in her chest at this news, though her eyes sharpened at the intrusion of words she recognized from Merrill's frequent exclamations. "That's… I'm glad. I honestly am not sure I could stand to just… walk away and not see you again for maybe another ten years."

Morrigan's fingers stilled against hers, and the air between them took on that charged feeling that Catrin was beginning to find familiar. "I would not have it be so, myself," she said quietly. There was another brief pause, and her free hand moved to a belt pouch. "To that end… I've something for you, in fact."

"Oh?" Catrin's eyebrows rose, and she watched Morrigan's face, fascinated by the mixture of intensity and care and discomfort that she saw there.

The witch's long fingers withdrew from the pouch, and she turned her hand palm-up to reveal… a ring. It was carved from some tawny, iridescent stone, and Catrin's magic-tuned senses could feel the way it tugged at the Fade. "This was given to me by Flemeth, when I was an adolescent, so that she might track me at need. I… altered it, after I left the Wilds, reattuned it to my own control. It would allow me to find you, wherever you are. And, as I cannot imagine the spell would be any difficulty to you, you would be able to find me in the same manner." Those fierce, yellow eyes had been cast down at their hands as she'd spoken; now they rose to catch Catrin's gaze. "You… need not wear it, merely keep it on your person. If this would be… a desirable arrangement."

"Morrigan," she breathed, chest clenching at all the careful implications in that offer. "Thank you… yes." Her fingers folded over Morrigan's hand, feeling the cool circle of the ring against the top of her palm, where it lay trapped for the moment between their two hands. "I'll treasure it." And wear it. Deliberately, unhesitatingly, she slid the ring onto her finger. "And don't think I'll hesitate to use it if we go too damn long without meeting again."

Wine-dark lips tilted up into a hesitant, almost vulnerable smile, and the expression both warmed and terrified her.

Anyone who has cared for you…

No.

She cut that thought off at the knees, pulling warmth from the other woman's gaze into herself to melt those shards of ice and ardently deny their reforming.

"See that you do, then," Morrigan replied gravely.

Catrin only grinned, and pulled her into another hard, exultant kiss.

---

"And so our love's not a simple thing,

Nor our truths, unwavering,

But like the moon's pull on the tide,

Our fingers touch; our hearts collide -

I'll be a moon's breath from your side."