"Do you remember what you told me the last time we were in the Brecilian? That night before we found Zathrian's clan." Istan handed Zevran his share of the rabbit, just off the flame, as he settled next to his lover near the fire.

Returned to Ferelden after a dozen years in Antiva, they took their time traveling south from Amaranthine to the forest east of South Reach. Still healthy despite his advanced age, Istan's scarred, scrappy mabari Perro accompanied them, seeming pleased to have returned to the land and smells of his youth.

Zevran glanced at his Warden as he started in on the rabbit. There was a sprinkling of silver in Istan's dark brown hair and a few fine lines at the corners of his green eyes, but he was still the most arresting man that Zevran had ever met. Gathering his wandering thoughts, he applied himself to dinner and the question put to him.

"You may need to narrow the scope, carino; I believe that I told you a great many things in the weeks we spent with your cousins." Zevran shook his head and sighed. "As I recall, you were pursuing me to the exclusion of all else, to the point that I needed to deliver many a stern lecture on minding your duties."

Istan nodded. "Wynne kept asking me when I was going to just carry you off and have my way with you, but you were steadfast."

"Do not get me started on that one—the 'Temptress of the Tower', was that not what Greagoir called her when he warned against taking her into our company? Always brushing up against me by 'accident' and commenting on my physical attributes. Shameful."

"Shocking," Istan agreed. "But I was referring to what you told me about running away to the Dalish as a boy, and how clan life did not live up to your expectations."

"As I was all of fourteen at the time, I might have anticipated more nudity and frolicking and less actual labor than may have been realistic. I believe my expectations to be better adjusted now that I have one or two more years under my belt."

Istan laughed. "You aren't the one with more grey than brown in his hair." He leaned in to examine one of the assassin's long braids. "Though there are a few."

"Tch. Only platinum amongst the gold, my friend. Speaking of Wardens in their dotage, I could not help but notice that our handsome templar has filled out a shade."

"Sigrun's a fine cook, and hilariously susceptible to Alistair's puppy eyes. I suggested that they may need to chase each other around the bedroom more often to work off the good food; she seemed quite agreeable to the suggestion." Istan leaned back and moved his feet closer to their small campfire. "I've enjoyed this, ma vhenan. Well, once the new blisters from all the walking healed, at any rate." He chuckled briefly, then sobered. "This time together, just the two of us; it's been a long time since I've had you all to myself."

"It is a change, certainly," Zevran allowed. "No servants to present us with the finest foods and wines to tempt the palate and tease the senses, no cell masters plotting against each other and vying for my patronage, no royal princesses whispering their wicked desires in my ear while their brothers cast longing glances from across the table. No perfumed baths, no decadent, deliciously soft feather beds, no silk sheets. Can you guess how I miss it, my Warden?"

"I ..."

Zevran smiled warmly and ran a fingertip lightly up the familiar sweep of Istan's elegantly-pointed ear, leaning in to retrace the path with lips and tongue. "Not at all."

Istan shuddered and buried his face in Zevran's silky hair, breathing in the heady, spicy scent of his lover. "You don't miss home? You're sure?"

"You, my Warden, are all the home I require."

~oOo~

According to the scouts, Istan's clan had wintered in the valley to the south of the werewolf ruins, near the permanent settlement of mixed Dalish and city elves. With the clearing of the passes, they now journeyed to their usual summer range in the hills to the south of Redcliffe.

"We should overtake the clan today. Shall we press on?" Zevran asked, after they had struck the tent and packed up the cooking utensils and blankets.

Istan sat cross-legged near the fire with a short length of basswood and a tiny knife, a small fisherman taking shape as he worked. During the Blight, the Warden had taken to keeping several of these little carved people in his pack, to give to the frightened refugee children that they met in their travels. Several of the figures had somehow ended up in the possession of his brother Warden, who now commanded a small army of the miniature wooden Fereldans on his desk at the Vigil.

"Actually, the clan seems to have found us." Istan smiled and put away the knife and wood, kicking dirt over the fire.

"¡Mierda!" Zevran swore as a pair of Dalish hunters dropped lightly out of the trees. He returned his daggers to their sheaths. "Bendita Andraste. I nunca se acostumbrará a que."

"Junar, Fenarel." Istan clasped forearms with the grinning hunters. "It's been many years."

"With what the clan has gone through since you left, lethallin, it feels like a hundred," Junar said.

"And that Keeper you sent to us." Fenarel shook his head. "She has more energy than a herd of halla, and expects all of us to keep up with her. I always thought that Keepers were born serene, but not this one. Elani is as different from Marethari as the sun from the moon, and precisely whom the clan needed. Ma serannas, Mahariel."

"I believe that you met my mate, Zevran, when we encountered the clan moving north?" Istan nodded at the assassin.

"Ah yes—the 'One Who Watches', we called him, such was his absorption with a certain Dalish Grey Warden." Junar smirked.

"And once more I am falsely accused of whatever it is that I am accused of. Falsely." Zevran sighed. "No one understands me."

"Oh, I think they do, amante." Istan laughed and hoisted his pack. "Lead on, brothers."

Despite fleeing Ferelden during the Blight, Istan's clan had endured painful losses in the years since Duncan took him for the Wardens. Suffering heavy casualties from the horde of darkspawn, they fled Ferelden entirely, crossing the Waking Sea to the Free Marches. Shortly after their arrival, they suffered more loss, as pestilence took the entire herd of halla. Devastated by the violent death of their beloved Keeper Marethari at the hands of their exiled First seven years after fleeing Ferelden, the clan later returned, leaderless and broken.

When Istan heard of the events at Sundermount, he sent messengers across the northern countries until he found a potential new First in Cumberland, and arranged for her travel to meet the clan. Now Keeper, the strong-willed, vocal woman had sent Istan several tart notes each winter since, updating him on the clan's rebuilding and threatening some nebulous retaliation for tricking her into relocating to such a frigid clime.

"From the stories, I expected you to wear a necklace of hurlock skulls and wield a flaming sword taller than you, Mahariel." Elani tilted her head to look first Istan then Zevran up and down.

"And from the report from your birth clan, Elani, I looked for you to be seven feet tall with a gaze that melts stone," Istan retorted.

"We Keepers have our secrets." She smirked. "I must say that I was surprised to hear that you wished to summer with the clan, lethallin, after your time with the Wardens and the Crows. You may find the peace and pace disquieting after such adventures."

"That may be, Keeper, but I need to find out," he linked his hand with Zevran's, "we need to find out if there is a future for us here."

~oOo~

Several weeks of winding through the northernmost edges of the Korcari Wilds, and Zevran found himself adjusting to the routines of camp life. A dozen years spent keeping his lover alive and safe from their enemies without and overly-ambitious Crows within had left him in close to the same shape he was at the height of the coup. Initially skeptical, it had not taken long for his fellow hunters to reevaluate the foreign elf.

At first seeming to revel in the peace and once-familiar rhythms of life in the clan, Istan had grown reflective over the last week, since their emergence into the scrubby hills south of Lothering. A quiet conversation with Istan's adoptive mother, Ashalle, made the reason plain.

"Did Perro fetch you here for me?" Istan stood faced away from Zevran, on a stone dais in the center of a large circular room. The vault and the ruins of the ancient temple around it were choked with tree roots and broken stone blocks, and smelled of old blood, dust, and a dark, bestial scent that Zevran had last smelled much farther below ground.

Zevran picked his way through the rubble to the base of the steps. "When you were not at my side when I awoke, the mangy one led me to the path. From the remains in the other rooms, it seems that the ghosts of this place have yet to find their peace." A trace of anger colored his voice. "We have an agreement, you and I, about entering into potentially dangerous situations alone."

Istan flinched and half-turned towards Zevran. "I know," he said finally. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking clearly. I just … I had to come."

"As you were driven to return to Ferelden, to the Dalish lands," Zevran said. "And have you found what you sought?"

"I don't know why I thought there might have been some trace of him left here, something not tainted and twisted into—" Istan crossed his arms over his chest, his shoulders hunched. "Why do I still see him at odd moments, all these years later? We had that time, what there was of it; why can I not seem to let him rest?" Suddenly stricken, he turned and met Zevran's gaze. "It isn't that I wish …"

Zevran moved quickly to Istan's side. "Carino. Who but I could better understand? As Tamlen holds that place in your thoughts, so Rinna does in mine—you know this. They were young and wrongly taken, and may never rest easy. But I will not be jealous of something … someone who is part of you, part of what makes you the person you are."

Istan choked and pulled him into his arms. "I could live to be a hundred and never be as wise."

Zevran chuckled softly. "Ah, but you were not raised in a whorehouse, my Warden. Books can only take one so far."

~oOo~

Four months took them to the foothills of the Frostbacks, and the clan was preparing to return to the Brecilian and their winter lands. Zevran woke alone once more, to the sounds of industry and good-natured bickering. Not finding his Warden, he made for the Keeper's aravel, the center of a whirlwind of activity and a small crowd of hunters.

"Buenos dias, Keeper, and might I say what a …"

"Stuff the smarm, Zev, I have a thousand things to do today."

Zevran watched in fascination as tiny bolts of electricity chased one another over the arch of Elani's raised eyebrow. "Ah, understood. How may I be of assistance?"

"If you've free hands, Maren tells me that one of the does has gone into labor."

Remembering his earlier introduction to halla parturition, Zevran asked, "Might Istan be about? I am sure that his experienced hands will be of more use than my fumbling ones."

"Off again—to think more deep thoughts, presumably. Find the mutt, find the master." She nodded in dismissal and turned back to the hunters.

True to the Keeper's prediction, Perro found Zevran at the edge of camp and led him to the tree-lined south shore of Lake Calenhad.

"You strike a dramatic figure against the lake, with the fog rising off the blue of the water." Zevran smiled as he joined Istan on a downed log.

"I didn't want to wake you, as late as you were awake on watch." Istan shrugged. "And I needed to be away from the bustle for a little while."

"You need not explain your need for solitude, carino. It is as much a part of you as your exemplary taste in companions."

"I do have good taste, it is true." Istan smiled and brushed a stray blond lock back from Zevran's temple. "A few more platinum strands, I see."

"Perhaps there is something that the Keeper can do to help your eyesight? Until then I will indulge you your fantasy." Zevran looked out over the water, at towering Redcliffe castle, just visible in the distance. "Is it still your intention to follow the clan and make for the winter lands?"

Istan flinched, and turned to stare at Zevran. "How did you know that I was having second thoughts? I've been wanting to speak with you about it for weeks, I only …"

"You only what, my Warden?"

"We left our life in Antiva—your guild, my school, our home; left everything to pursue this … compulsion to rejoin my people."

"Only after spending more than a decade pursuing mine. But if I were to guess, you have not found the clan quite as you left it? Or perhaps that you are not the man who left, so many years ago?"

Istan glowered at him. "You might have suggested the possibility of this outcome when we were warm and being fussed over in Antiva, you know."

"Ah, but that is what the stories demand, is it not? The hero returns to his home in triumph after a long and storied career, to find there is no longer a place in that life for him."

"But where does he go?" Istan smirked. "He and his dog and trusty sidekick, that is."

"Sidekick? Y el caballo que montaba en el, amigo."

"We left all the horses in Antiva."

"It is but an expression." Zevran chuckled. "Still … were you not saying on our journey south how you enjoyed it, as you never had during the Blight?"

"I did—very much so." Istan tangled his fingers with Zevran's, bringing the scarred bronze hand to his lips. "Are you suggesting that we simply … journey? With no destination? No … purpose?"

"What need do the two of us have for more purpose? I for one had enough of it several years back. There are mountains to see, rivers to cross, moonlit glades to dance naked in."

"I knew nudity would come into it sooner or later."

"I am what I am, amado."

"And I thank the Creators every day that you are, beloved."

A small gift for Ventisquear, a wonderfully talented writer and artist, and fellow Cheeky Monkey. Special thanks to mille libri for her keen beta eye and great suggestions.