Lothering, Autumn.

"Marian, be careful, that dish is hot."

The warning came too late. She hissed through her teeth, feeling the scorched skin harden on the curve of her index finger and the fleshy mound between her wrist and thumb.

"Fuck!"

"Marian, please," Leandra frowned at her from across the table.

"Well it sodding hurts, Mother," she sucked on her finger reflexively, immediately regretting it.

"We are at a wedding, dear…"

Well, a wedding feast. The ceremony had been blessedly brief, the young bride and groom looking appropriately besotted with each other as their hands were bound together, voices catching as they recited vows. Marian, meanwhile, was starving and the wafting smells of the meal that awaited them had not helped quiet the loud rumblings in her belly, earning a friendly elbow in the ribs from her father who sat beside her, grinning all the while.

The warm colored paper lanterns were lit overhead, and the food spread out before them smelled delicious and rich… more rich than anything they had eaten in a long time… The crops this year had been meager, to say the least, and it had done nothing to ease the concerns that something was happening to the soil that couldn't be helped with any amount of rotation or fertilization. But in celebration of the wedding of Campbell and Lainie, the community had come together, piecing whatever they had to spare together. It was a happy night, the laughter and music and food and drink staving off the shadows, at least for one night.

Anders materialized at her side, dropping heavily onto the bench seat beside her.

Malcolm's face lit up, "Anders! There you are. I saved a seat for you. Where were you, son?"

Malcolm Hawke loved weddings, possibly more than the rest of his family combined. Marian knew that he had started to think about her wedding… which, at seventeen, she had only considered abstractly… and disdainfully. Once, talking with Anders as they sat up late beside the fire she had declared to him that she didn't want to wear a dress on the inevitable day. She knew her mother wanted her to wear the dress she had worn, a frilled monstrosity that lurked in the recesses of her wardrobe like a festooned spectre. Anders had then dared her to try it on… which she promptly did, owing to the fact that the rest of the family was away, staying near the lake for Carver and Bethany's nameday. He had laughed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks and he tumbled out of his chair. Not only was the dress completely un-Marianlike… Leandra was apparently considerably bustier than her daughter, and the dress floated around her in derisive mockery of this fact.

The memory of that night made her smile whenever she thought of it. It was so… perfect.

"Got in a bit late… I stood at the back. Lovely ceremony. I teared up and everything." He was dressed, like the rest of them, in his nicest clothes… which still showed a bit of wear and tear. His hair was cropped close to his head, and the short gold strands glinted in the warm light.

"This looks great!" he grinned, drinking freshly poured ale and looking over the spread appreciatively as he wiped foam from his lip. He reached for the handle of the large spoon jutting from the nearest dish.

"Careful, it's hot," Marian said glumly, watching the muscle in his forearm bunch as he reached past her.

"Well, of course it's hot. That is a very hot dish. I can see that from here," he looked at her then, and noticed her red hand, held pitifully out in front of her on the white table cloth in a claw. "Really?"

"It was too far away and I was too hungry."

Malcolm chuckled quietly across from them.

"Overeager, as always. Give it to me," he sighed with a longing glance at the mouth-watering roast that would just have to wait.

She turned then, facing him more to extend her hand to him. Held between his own, damp from the ale he'd been holding, he examined it.

"It's not bad, I can fix it."

"Not at the table, please," Leandra said softly.

They were, after all, in public.

Anders nodded, "Of course."

He stood, grabbing a dinner roll from the basket as he went, shoving it into his mouth, "Follow me then, yeah? We'll be quick about it…"

He had grown, and now he towered over the family, even Da. Anders blood, not Ferelden. Taller and leaner than most of those around him, he always stood out. Foreign and familiar… that was him. Even the way that he walked was different, but somehow indefinable. A longer gait, a languid rhythm… but all him.

Following behind him through the mingling crowd, she focused on the nape of his neck. The skin there was alluring, vulnerable and masculine… she blinked, imagining herself pressing a kiss to the freshly exposed skin, tasting him with the tip of her tongue.

Carver and Bethany sat together at a table with their friends, boys and girls all roughly the same age. Bethany waved eagerly at her as they walked by, her other hand clasped tightly by her best friend Jolie. Carver, his hair greased into an awkward assemblage he no doubt thought looked suave, ignored her entirely.

Anders lead her to a quiet spot behind the Murray family's stable. She breathed deeply the smell of the hay and the autumn dust.

"It won't take much," he said reaching for her hand again. She looked at her fingers, held carefully between his palms. The blue glow illuminated his face, reflected in the brass earring he wore in his right ear.

She sighed, unable to hold back the sound of pleasure in her throat. Cooling ripples of healing magic coursed through her skin, up her arm, skipping as light as a stone thrown across water. All over her skin she felt it, him. To her scalp and her toes. Him. She let out a long breath, shivering, feeling her nipples tighten beneath the soft lavender shift she wore. She shifted slightly, hoping that he couldn't see them in the moonlight.

"That feels all right?" his voice had dropped, and sounded impolitely thick to her now. As if he knew what it felt like, to feel him like this... inside. He traced the line of her finger with the tip of his own, still glowing faintly.

"Yes. Good," she looked up at him, but his eyes were focused on her hand.

These moments, frozen and random, were always somehow simultaneously calm and unstable between them. In the dark. In the secret spaces when they were alone, when he touched her. Innocent affectionate gestures, healing wounds, always… as a brother and a sister.

The skin of her finger was rosy, but not hot, and he turned his attention to the mound of her thumb.

"You… you cut your hair," she said. It had been long this morning, before he had vanished for most of the day, gone on one of his walks.

He smiled, "The wind kept blowing it in my eyes."

"I like it like this," he looked at her then, "You look good with ears."

There were no lanterns here, only moonlight. A fiddler began playing, likely standing beside the wedding table, and the song carried on the crisp air to them.

Her skin was healed but he still held her, cupped between his staff calloused hands. He continued to glow.

"This song's called The Kiss," she whispered, "they play it so that they kiss at the end."

"I am aware. This isn't the first wedding I've ever been to, you know."

"It's pretty…" she tilted her head, "but actually a really sad song if they sang the lyrics - they drown."

"Tragic," he smirked.

"Yeah. But they drown together, so that's romantic, right? Where do you go, Anders?" the question tumbled out of her throat.

The wry smile at the corner of his mouth faded, and he did not look up. He squeezed her hand, the glow dimming.

"I walk."

"Where?"

"It… I need to move, Marian. I just need to…" he shook his head, "staying still… I don't know… I'm not meant for it."

"I miss you. When you go. I worry sometimes that you won't come back."

It was an admission she not intended to make. And now it hung there, embarrassing. Childish. Of course he would come back. This was his home. Their home. Where else would he go?

"Sometimes I think that I won't either," he was quiet, honest, for a moment he was nothing but her Anders who told her everything, held back nothing, "but, I always do."

The song wound down, a long note held, wavering with all the love it bore. There was applause and cheering as the unseen blushing couple in a world apart from them on the other side of the stable kissed at their table to the delight of the party.

"I sink into a starry night,
buried by a rolling tide.
I float away without a fight,
with my true love at my side."

He recited the lyrics tunelessly, set to no music. He gently let go of her hand.

"Da'll want to dance with you," he said, starting to head back towards the party.

"Don't I know it… but not until after I eat. I'll faint otherwise. He can dance with Mother in the meantime. Or Bethany. Or you."

He laughed, looking at the table where Malcolm and Leandra sat, side by side, two empty seats across the table from them waiting for Marian and him to return.