Zevran set staring numbly at his breakfast. He knew he should eat, but the very thought of food nauseated him. He forced himself to break off and nibble on a bit of hard biscuit, then stole a glance across the clearing to where Owen was sitting with Mara and Wynne. The mage was looking rumpled this morning, not his usual well-manicured self, dressed in one of his old robes – crumpled from long storage in his pack – with his hair still mussed from sleep. Just then the mage looked up as well, and their eyes met briefly before Zevran flicked his away, looking elsewhere.

He started to lift a stick of jerky, to gnaw off a bit of that, then stopped as the smell of it reached his nose, sending his stomach churning. He dropped the remains of his breakfast to the group and walked off some distance into the trees, just wanting to be alone for a while. He sat down at the foot of a tree, arms wrapped around bent knees and head resting on them, and waited for his stomach to settle.

Mouse showed up a few minutes later. The hound walked over and nosed at him, forcing its head in under his arm until he gave up, snorted in exasperated amusement, and lowered his legs enough that the mabari could put its head in his lap. He scratched the hound's ears for a while, until he heard Arren calling for everyone to get underway for the day, then finally rose and returned to camp to retrieve his share of their gear, the dog running ahead.

He walked over to Arren after gathering his things, ignoring all the eyes he could feel watching him. "I'm going to scout around a little while we walk," he said, carefully casual. "If that's all right."

Arren frowned thoughtfully at him, lips pursing slightly, then slowly nodded. "Take Mouse with you," he said. The mabari gave a woof of acknowledgement, and moved back over to stand beside him, looking up and wagging its tail happily.

"All right," he agreed, and walked off into the surrounding trees again.

His tension eased somewhat as he moved out of sight and hearing of the rest of the party. As he and the hound worked their way silently through the forest, eventually turning to parallel the road, he began to feel more himself.

He considered re-joining the others for lunch, but elected to remain out in the forest instead. Having been this route with Arren several times already, he had a good idea of where the elf was planning to camp that evening, and decided he might as well just head there himself. A day on his own would hopefully put him back to rights.

Mouse chased off after and caught some unfortunate small animal for his own lunch, and Zevran ate part of a hard biscuit, giving the rest to the hound before they moved on again. He found himself thinking in amusement about how much time he'd spent in forests and grasslands and halfway up steep mountains since falling in with Arren; him, a city-boy! Perhaps that was part of why he was feeling so unsettled lately; not enough time with cobblestones underfoot and crowds of people around him. Their time in Orzammar he didn't count as time spent in a city; the place was not cosmopolitan enough.

Perhaps things would be better once they reached Denerim.

Owen trudged along the road, head down, lost in thought. Over and over he replayed the events of the last few weeks in his head, from when he and Mara had joined Arren's party up through their recent departure from Redcliffe. He still couldn't figure out why things had gone so suddenly, unexpectedly wrong with Zevran.

He remembered his first sight of the elf, keeping a wary eye on his surroundings as Arren's party walked toward the archway leading out from the Redcliffe Castle courtyard. The two elves – Arren and Zevran – had been the first to notice Mara and himself and their templar escort approaching the castle, and it was their coming to a stop that had alerted the others. He'd been distracted after that, first in talking to Arren, then by the unexpected transformation of one of the hounds with the group into Jowan, and in getting the mage safely away from the castle. It wasn't until later, when they'd stopped for a break while waiting for Jowan to recover from exhaustion due to his prolonged magic use that morning, that he'd really gotten a close look at the elf.

And he'd liked what he'd seen, very much. Handsome, strong, graceful, self-confident, gentle toward his friends yet still abundantly dangerous – the man was everything he liked in a partner. Seeing the elf's fascination with Mara he'd at first assumed he have no chance with him, until a chance comment of Jowan's a day or two later revealed that the assassin was just as happy to pursue men as women. By the time they'd found the Dalish clan that Arren was seeking, he knew he was infatuated.

Mara, well aware of his tastes, and having no interest in the elf herself – truthfully, she gave the entire subject of sex a miss, being far more interested in thinking about and learning further magic than in crude things like bodily pleasures – had gleefully machinated from the sidelines, helping to deflect the assassin's attention from herself to Owen.

And eventually it had worked. He remembered Zevran's confrontation of him in the forest, their fight, the feel of being pinned down by the elf, daggers pricking at his neck and stomach, before he'd turned the tables and pinned him down instead, trusting that the elf would not actually follow through on the threat the daggers represented. That first kiss, so hot and sweet, Zevran responding so enthusiastically to it, turning in moments from wary to wanton. He could have taken him right then and there, but even then he knew he wanted more from the elf than just sex. And so he'd stood up, issued his challenge, and walked away, hoping he'd judged the assassin correctly.

The next few days had been slow torture, as Zevran puzzled his way through to the correct conclusion. He'd been ecstatic when the elf showed up, as finely polished in appearance as a rare gem, and dragged him off to offer his surrender to Owen, putting himself in Owen's hands.

And then had come their time together in Redcliffe, both of them testing each other in their own ways. He'd worried a little when he began to realize just how widely experienced the elf was; far more than he himself was. He'd begun to doubt himself a little then, he knew, though he'd done his best to hide it – worried that the elf might prove to be more than he could handle. And yet apart from that first little rebelliousness, Zevran had responded beautifully to everything he's asked; the assassin was wonderfully responsive, highly skilled, and utterly fearless. Owen had begun to let himself believe that things would continue, that as trust built between the two of them he'd be able to indulge in some of the more adventurous acts he'd heard or read of and longed to perform.

What had gone wrong? Had it been some failure on his part, a signal he'd missed catching? Something he'd done that he shouldn't have? Something he should have done and hadn't? Or perhaps Zevran's whole surrender had been an act, the elf only out for a one-time thing after all, and more than willing to dump him once he'd had it. He'd encountered that type a time or two back in the tower; all willing and tenderness and loving until they got what they wanted from you, and then cold and uncaring and uninterested afterwards. No, he couldn't believe that of Zevran, not when he remembered how content the elf had seemed as they cuddled together afterwards, how soundly he'd slept.

He remembered Zevran's hurried words the next morning, as he blithely excused his sudden tension and desire to withdraw. "This is just one of the hazards of sleeping with an assassin. We do not always wake well. Dangerous reflexes tend to come into play when we realize there is another person in the bed with us."

They hadn't rung quite true to him even then, but he'd let it pass. If it was a lie, it had certainly been a believable one. Maker knew during his child-thief days he'd seen clear examples of that very phenomena. He remembered the time one of his fellow thieves had almost lost an eye once, waking their master up too suddenly one morning. One moment Sid had been leaning down to excitedly shake the woman awake and pass her some bit of news he'd picked up, the next he'd been pinned on the floor, her dagger pressed into the skin under his eye, and her only half-awake yet. Sid had sported a bruised cheek for days afterwards, from the clout she'd given him over his stupidity.

As lost in thought as he was, it took Mara tugging on his arm to realize they'd reached their camp spot for the night. He performed his share of the camp chores poorly, unable to keep his thoughts on even simple tasks like gathering wood for the cook fire. He frowned when he was handed a bowl of stew and realized Zevran still wasn't back. "Where's the elf?" he asked concernedly, looking around.

Arren and Alistair exchanged a look. "Near. Or at least Mouse is, and he should be sticking close to Zevran," Arren replied.

"You can tell where your mabari is?" Mara asked, sounding surprised.

Arren smiled at her. "Yes. I can sense him, at least when he's not too far away."

"Wonderful! How does that work?" Mara asked, now sounding fascinated.

Alistair and Arren exchanged another look. "Grey Warden secrets, I'm afraid," Alistair told her.

That drew a disdainful sniff. Owen almost smiled, until he thought of Zevran being somewhere nearby, but avoiding approaching the camp. Because of him. He appetite for supper vanished. He put aside the bowl of stew. "I'm turning in early," he said, and went to his tent.

He curled up in his bedding, feeling utterly worthless. If only he knew what he had done wrong!