Apologies for not posting this here last weekend, but FF was being uncooperative and I didn't have the time to sit around and wait for the problem to resolve itself. Regardless, here it is, and for those of you who are also reading and *impatiently* waiting for the update to Revolution of Life, I promise it's coming this weekend. I simply haven't had the time or inclination to work on that fic recently but I wrote a thousand words last night and already know how I want to leave the chapter off so, yeah, that's easy.
Read on!
"Ahm, yes, as I was saying…I am well familiar with missing one's home. I have not been back to Nevarra in…too long."
She shook her head as she finished her meal and set the bowl aside. Sidestepping Brynn's outstretched legs, she strode toward the shadows that encroached on the fire blazing in the middle of camp and idle palmed her sword still hanging at her hip. "Sometimes, I still think I can feel the sand shifting under my feet and hear the water lapping at the riverbank in the springtime, before it runs over into the fields and fertilizes the land."
Eyes far away, Cassandra jolted when a small hand touched her elbow. Brynn squeezed gently and smiled up at her. "I didn't know you were such a wordsmith, lethallan." Her smile widened impishly as Cassandra flushed and her other hand lifted, calloused thumb ghosting over a heated cheek. "I like seeing you flustered, Seeker. It is a treasured sight." Eyes glinting, cat like, in the flickering firelight, Brynn smiled enigmatically and slipped out of the circle of light into the shadows of the trees.
Cassandra stared stupidly after her long after her outline disappeared, until Blackwall tapped her on the shoulder hesitantly. "Uh, Seeker, aren't you going to sleep? We have to move early tomorrow to get any distance in the Fallow Mire, and we all need the sleep." Cassandra nodded mutely and turned to go to their tent with a last look at the reaching shadows of tree limbs before pushing aside the flap and disappearing within.
Cassandra awoke with the greasy, grey dawn; the lack of sunlight she had grown used to in Haven disorienting her as she peeled her eyes open. Blinking repeatedly to urge the cross-eyed bleariness away, she peered muzzily across the small expanse of the tent at the untouched cot at her side.
"Brynn?"
She sat up, suddenly alert as she realized the elf had never come in after her, and scrambled into her tabard and breeches, nearly taking tearing the tent flap off in her haste to get outside. She stumbled into the dreary light with her sword half drawn and shield left abandoned by her cot, making her way to the edge of camp under the confused gazes of the men on watch. They said nothing as she disappeared into the heavy underbrush and she ignored the heat of their gazes on her back in favor of searching the thick brush for signs of Brynn's passing.
"Herald," she hissed quietly, muttering crossly in Nevarran as her tabard snagged on a broken branch. "Lavellan, where are you?" The further from camp she wandered, the louder her voice became and, several minutes later, she was growling irately as she tramped through the woods. "Brynn, I swear, if you got yourself injured somehow, I will hurt you-"
"I didn't know you cared, Seeker."
The gently teasing voice from above caught Cassandra off guard and she flailed wildly for a moment before looking up. Perched comfortably in the vee of a dying tree, Brynn studied her with amusement plain on her features, bow unstrung and laid across her lap and cowl of her cloak tugged up to ward off the morning chill. "Careful, one could be led to believe you felt some amount of affection for me with all the muttering you've been doing these past minutes, and we wouldn't want that."
Her eyes danced merrily and Cassandra scowled as she stomped over, sheathing her weapon as she went. She stopped at the base of the tree, hands on hips and head tilted back, hair mussed with her rattail loose down her back as she frowned heavily. "Where have you been?"
"Here, trying to shoot a deer before we leave, but I think your irate yelling has scared off any game in the area. I don't think the critters heard you in the Mire though, you may want to be a little louder."
Brynn slung her bow over her shoulder and nimbly climbed down as Cassandra worked her jaw and her frown deepened. "I have not yelled, I did not want to arouse any suspicion with the men we brought. You did not come in to the tent last night; where did you go," she grit out tersely, biting off her last words so they were more a demand for answers than an actual question. Brynn lowered her cowl and Cassandra jerked in surprise at the sight of matching, shallow cuts on the arches of her cheeks.
"What did you do?"
In lieu of an answer, Brynn held out her hand and waited with patient eyes for Cassandra to take it, leading her deeper into the trees once the Seeker had hesitantly laid her palm over the hunter's. They walked silently through the forest and Cassandra felt her ire slowly bleed away as the normal morning sounds filtered in around them. Several minutes after her shoulders had dropped completely, Brynn paused beside a massive tree and released her hand. Cassandra flexed her fingers, missing the connection and warmth given but unwilling to say so, and crossed her arms.
"What are we doing out here?"
"I'm going to show you what I was doing."
The elf gestured to the side and drew the Seeker's gaze downward, toward a crude shrine built of twigs that was laden with fruits and several small animals that had been expertly slain with arrows through their eyes. Carved with painstaking care into a piece of bark was a symbol Cassandra recognized from before they left Haven; an eye with wide pupil, shadowed beneath and half obscured by a bloody streak that originated in the corner like a macabre tear and had dripped onto a cluster of berries laid beneath the etching. Brynn's hunting knife, edge unusually tarnished with crusted blood, rested at the base of the shrine, blade glinting in the weak light.
"It is a ritual the elhven have long observed; meant to protect warriors in battle or during a hunt, we offer our blood up in exchange for guidance and pray for quick thoughts and faster steps. I have fasted since the noon meal at Redcliffe Castle and planned to break it this morning as we entered the Mire, but I don't know how well that will go now that you've disturbed the creatures, lethallan," Brynn jibed gently.
Cassandra stood with furrowed brow and studied the shrine quietly for a long moment until she felt gentle fingers at her elbow slowly guiding her to sit on a massive root that butted out of the ground. "Dirthera mala taren, mir falon."
"Why do you do this to yourself? What purpose does it serve? These are only superstitions, nothing based in truth," Cassandra said quietly, meeting Brynn's eyes with insistence burning through hers. The elf shook her head and took Cassandra's hand, tracing the calloused whorls of the pads of her fingers idly as she spoke.
"Is it so unlike your own faith?" She glanced up through her lashes to find Cassandra's wide eyed look of disbelief and smiled a little. "Can you prove your Maker exists any more than I can prove our gods do? Do you not pray for guidance and have your own rituals to safeguard yourself before battle? How is this any different?"
"I do not harm myself, Lavellan, to try and gain some mystical being's favor," Cassandra insisted, jerking her hand away only for it to be caught and dragged back again for Brynn to continue playing with. "What are you doing?"
"You have such lovely hands," Brynn murmured, almost to herself. "Calloused and firm and strong, but soft and gentle, too. Differences exist everywhere, Cassandra Pentaghast, Princess of Nevarra, Seeker of Truth, warrior, poet…beautiful, scarred, strong, romantic. Do you understand?" Her thumb stroked along Cassandra's knuckles and blue-grey eyes met hers again. "Is different such a bad thing? Does not believing the same way you do make mine any less than yours?"
"No," the Seeker breathed on a whisper, mind whirling madly. She searched Brynn's eyes silently until she found the edge of worry hiding behind the woman's faint smile and roused herself from her thoughts completely. "No," she repeated more strongly, "it does not affect it at all, I think. But, I would ask you to have these healed by Solas once we return to camp, lest the soldiers think I accosted you out here and took out my frustrations on your skin." She tapped the scabbed over cuts lightly and stood, offering her hand for Brynn. "Come, the morning is already half over, and we have yet to reach the Mire. Let us return and break our fast on the trail."
Cassandra smiled beneath her cloak as she half walked, half slid down the trail on the rim of the Fallow Mire. Behind her, she could just hear Brynn muttering to herself crossly over the steady thrum of rain seeping through her oiled cloak and rumble of thunder overhead. "Stinking, bloody bog. What good is this to anyone; what in Mythal's name would possess anyone to live here?!" She turned around just in time to see Brynn flail as a boot stuck in a particularly thick patch of muck, apparently unwilling to surrender the sturdy leather easily.
Cassandra chuckled under her breath as she walked back and took Brynn's arm, smirking as her irate gaze turned upon her. "Come, Your Grace, we have yet to truly traverse the Mire; surely you have not given up because of a little rain?"
"I can stand rain, Seeker, it's the thrice forsaken mud that is going to do me in! I can't…bloody, urgh…walk, you accursed legs! move in this cursed stuff!"
"Now you know how we humans feel," Cassandra teased, keeping a steadying arm around Brynn's shoulder as they navigated the treacherous path toward a run-down barn nearby. "Always wading through mud and snow, while you tiny creatures prance atop it like it is nothing."
She yanked on the rusted ring to pull the door open and followed Brynn inside, staring out the broken window as the rest of their bedraggled group filed in thankfully and their horses chewed morosely on the hay that wasn't moldy. "It is quite a dismal sight though, is it not?"
Beside her, Brynn's head bobbed in agreement and beads of water rolled down her cowl which was still over her head. "It isn't natural; it smells of decay and death and metal, I don't like it."
"There have been reports filtering in recently of…disturbing behavior. Dead warriors rising from the murky water and attacking any who pass, unexplained lights in the darkness at night…" A loud clap of thunder made everyone jump and Brynn unexpectedly tucked herself into Cassandra's side, stiff as a board and wide eyed as she stared out at the deluge now raining on the landscape. "Scared, Lavellan?" Cassandra ribbed quietly, unsuccessfully fighting back a smirk. She slowly sobered as the elf didn't answer and watched her head swivel urgently, ears flicking minutely as her eyes narrowed.
"Something isn't right."
"What do you mean?" The Seeker felt her hair stand on end and she impulsively reached for her sword, gazing out over the rain soaked earth uselessly as her nerves lit up. "Brynn?"
"I think we've got company, Cassandra. It looks like the reports were true." Pointing silently, Cassandra followed the extended finger and squinted through the rain.
Appearing out of the rising mist was a small hoard of shuffling, rotting corpses, each gripping a rusted weapon with a dark, malevolent gleam in their empty eye sockets. The lead creature apparently caught sight of them, as it raised its broken sword and screeched inhumanly and, as one, the group lurched into a jerky sprint. Their collective cry for blood was chilling and the Seeker cursed as their mounts began to panic, eyes rolling and legs shifting nervously.
"You three, stay with the horses! Everyone else, to arms! Herald, stay with me; we will destroy these foul creatures!" Cassandra led everyone out into the rain, lifting her shield in time to feel a skeleton break against the strong iron and shouted her war cry, a snarl on her lips as the battle commenced with a fury rivaled by the pounding rain.
Translations:
Dirthera mala taren, mir falon-Speak your mind, my friend.