"She's so peaceful like this."

"Hmm?" Morrigan looked up at Alistair from the book she'd had her nose buried in from the moment Gwyneth had given it to her.

"Look at her," Alistair gestured at Gwyn, paddling around in the pond they'd discovered near their campsite. Her hair spread out around her shoulders like fiery seaweed, and she giggled as she splashed at a frog that plopped into the water. "She's happy, and laughing."

"As she should be. 'Tis likely the most freedom she's had in her life. Your Circles are prisons, not protection." The witch rolled her eyes and went back to her book.

"You're right."

"What?" The book dropped into Morrigan's lap.

"You're right. Mark this date down, Morrigan, you may never hear me say that again. Gwyn didn't get to see the sky, splash in a pond, or play with frogs for thirteen years. She also had to dodge handsy Templars who were supposed to be protecting her." Alistair's let out an angry huff.

"She told me some of what happened. One grabbed her and bruised her so badly it hurt her to sit."

"That's not the worst of it." He pressed his lips together, and Morrigan saw the dangerous enemy that their foes had fallen to. Hard, angry eyes, clenched jaw, and she knew from experience he could cut a man down with one stroke, and take another out with his backswing. "Did she ever tell you what she had to do to keep them from taking it too far?"

"Does she know you're talking about her secrets like this?"

"Do you think I would say anything about what she's told me without her permission? I'm not a complete idiot, Morrigan."

"'Tis you who said it, not me."

Alistair rolled his eyes at her, then took a deep breath. "The Kinloch Templars were betting on who could corner her and...have a go at her first. She had to ask a friend of hers to get 'caught' in a closet with her to save her from it. Thank the Maker the ones after her were an archdemon short of a Blight; they both had their smalls on under their robes but the Templars didn't notice that."

"To think you could have been one of those paragons of virtue and holiness," Morrigan sneered.

"Just one of the many reasons I absolutely did not want to be one." He smiled softly at Gwyn, who now had the frog in a cupped hand and was lightly stroking its skin, fascinated by the texture. The tips of her pointed ears peeped through her wet hair, droplets of water clinging to them and sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight. "Maker's Breath, I don't deserve her."

"You really do love her, don't you?"

"More than I can say."

"That's really not saying much for you, Alistair."

"Leave off, Morrigan. I can't say because she… I can't think, or speak when I look at her sometimes. She takes my breath away. I want to give her everything, and protect her from everything. Maker, I've been leading to help take some of the strain off of her."

"And if you must give her up to stop the Blight?" A raven wing brow rose.

"I don't want to... I pray it doesn't come to that."

Running fingers over the branches of the leafless tree on the cover of her book, Morrigan murmured, "And if there was a way to keep her and end the Blight?"

Alistair raised an eyebrow at her. "I would consider it. I draw the line at putting on a dress and dancing the Remigold for the archdemon, unless Gwyn asks me. Of course, considering it's you, I don't doubt it would involve kicking mabari puppies or something equally despicable."

"I am being serious Alistair."

"Like I said, I would consider it. It would depend on what it was, and how many people were likely to be hurt."

"Everyone, if the Blight is not stopped."

"Ah, now you're being altruistic."

"I am being realistic, there's a difference. And I swear on everything I hold dear, Alistair, if you hurt Gwyneth in any way, I will turn you into a toad so hideous that even Gwyn will not find you fascinating."

"Ah, there's the Morrigan I know and loathe."

A hurt look crossed Morrigan's face so quickly Alistair wasn't sure it had ever been there. "Gwyneth is a good person. The best and most genuine I've ever met. Is it truly so shocking to you that after she laid her life and safety on the line to defend me from my mother, that I would be concerned for her safety and happiness?"

Gwyn was still blissfully unaware of the conversation, floating on her back in the water, eyes closed and a look of peace on her face. The halo of her hair spreading out from her wreathed her in fire. Alistair was sure that this was how stories of water goddesses had started, and he would gladly be a worshipper at the feet of the one he was standing watch for, clumsy and bumbling though he may be. "Gwyn has a way of doing that, doesn't she? Just gathers us up and somehow gets us all to work together, and we all care for her in our own way."

"Indeed. Even that besotted dwarf she insisted on dragging out of Orzammar with us."

"Oghren's not too bad. In small doses. If you're upwind of him."

"You do not have to deal with what he believes passes as charm."

"I am truly blessed in that regard." Alistair eyed the sun's angle. "We're going to have to drag her out soon, it's getting late and she'll need to dry and redress before we get back to camp."

As if responding to an unspoken cue, Hero came dashing out of the underbrush, barking and bounding past Alistair and Morrigan before taking a flying leap into the pond. Gwyneth went under in a tangle of mabari and flailing limbs. Surfacing, she shrieked at the dog that was now serenely paddling to the banks and shaking itself off.

"I think the flea-ridden beast is trying to tell you it's time to head back to camp," Morrigan called while Alistair braced himself against a tree and laughed.