A/N: Neri and Arietta for this one, hope its clear when it switches :P Thank you ElyssaCousland for the fabulous beta work, and sorting out my mess of a story.

United.

The night was cold, but at least the rain had stopped now. Alistair was desperately trying to light a fire; they were all hungry, and wanted something warm in their bellies.

"Let me try, fool," Morrigan said, as she crouched down next to the pile of wood. Within seconds, flames flickered to life, lapping at the wood. "There, see. That's how you light a fire."

"You have magic; it's cheating. I could have done that. These sticks are just damp, soaking even," Alistair moaned back.

"Or you just lack the skill to start a simple fire; would not be surprising," Morrigan mocked.

They were camped in a clearing very familiar to Arietta. It was one Duncan had used on their way south; there was a cool lake deep enough to soak in on the far side, and the clearing was surrounded by beautiful willow trees. Their branches danced in the wind, swaying gently. She smiled at the memory of her and Duncan clashing blades through the branches, testing one another's mettle while Neria cheered them on. He had won that fight, his experience beating her youth and agility. Her chest ached; they had lost a great man at Ostagar. They had lost many great men the last month or so. She started sharpening her daggers, not wanting to dwell on the sadness of it all.

Alistair began throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot, leaving them to boil over the fire.

Leliana peered into the pot. "What is that you're making?"

"Oh this?" Alistair beamed, "It's my speciality. It's a sort of stewy, brothy, soupy thing," he said with a chuckle.

Arietta laughed at that; if he couldn't identify what it was, they were probably all going to die of food poisoning. Alistair noticed her laughing and smiled at her, and her heart skipped a beat.

"Ohh, sounds lovely," Leliana lied.

Alistair pouted. "Ouch, you'll hurt my feelings; I'm very sensitive about my cooking!"

Arietta's stomach rumbled. "I'm sure it'll be great; I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

"That's the Grey Warden appetite talking," he mused.

She looked up at him. "The what?"

"All new recruits go through it." He shrugged a shoulder as he stirred his soupy, brothy, stewy thing. "I would always sneak down into the pantry, and steal food in the middle of the night. I thought I was starving!" He laughed.

She let out a small snort. "There's nothing new there. I did it all the time at Highever; my mother would catch me and shout at me, telling me I'd get fat." She chuckled.

"Well you certainly can't tell from your figure," Alistair said, and she could feel her cheeks heating slightly.

"Well I wish I could get away with that; I just have to look at a cake and it goes straight to my hips," commented Leliana.

"What is cake?" Sten queried.

"Wait, you don't have cake where you're from?" Arietta asked.

"No," the Qunari said bluntly.

"We'll have to remedy that. They're delicious. Especially the little cupcakes with butter icing." Leliana said blissfully.

"Well for now we're stuck with this," Alistair said, pouring his 'food' into bowls for them all.

"Thank you for cooking, Alistair." She shovelled the broth into her mouth. The meat was stringy and there wasn't a lot of flavour, but it was warm and filled her belly so she wolfed it down.

"More?" He smirked.

She was still hungry. "Yes please," she said shyly, her cheeks blushing slightly.

A dog barked from behind them, she turned to see a mabari running into their camp. She stood up, her brow knitting together in confusion. Blossom growled at the intruder, lowering her head. The other hound skipped over to them happily and sniffed Arietta's hand.

"Another dog?" Morrigan groaned.

"I've never seen him before." Arietta shrugged. The hound ran back to the clearing entrance and barked a few more times, his little tail wagging frantically from side to side. They all gasped as a familiar looking elf stepped out from under the trees.

Neria.

Arietta's face broke into a grin and she ran forward hugging her. "You're alive."

"What happened? Are you alone? How did you find us?" Alistair said quickly.

"I'm alone, sorry." She stared at them with her big brown eyes. "I couldn't— they didn't..."

"It's okay. We heard what happened." Arietta rubbed Neria's arm. "What happened to you?"

"Let's see, it involves Barkspawn here," Neria scratched the hound behind the ears, "two very muscled soldiers," she said with a smirk, "a comfy bed, eggs and bacon, and a dragon!"

"You named your mabari warhound Barkspawn?" Sten questioned first.

Neria glanced at their giant friend "Yup." She looked at Arietta. "Quite the group you've gathered..."

"Oh!" She smacked herself. "Sorry, this is Sten, this is Leliana, and you know Morrigan." Neria nodded at them all in turn.

"Who were these very muscled soldiers then?" Leliana said with a playful smile.

Neri's face broke into a grin. "Hawke and his brother Carver. They had a sister, Bethany, and lived with their mother, Leandra. They healed me after the battle. They're heading to Kirkwall now. But yes, they were very... nice." She winked at Leliana.

"I'm surprised you didn't go with them," Arietta said.

She shrugged. "You'd miss me too much."

They all laughed.

"And the eggs and bacon?" Alistair asked.

Neri grinned. "I haven't had a fry up for twelve years; it was a damn good fry up too."

"And a dragon?" Arietta folded her arms, there was no way...

"Flemeth. Morrigan's mother. She flew over us, scorched a few darkspawn, and then promised us all safe passage."

"Seriously!?" They all looked to Morrigan and she just shrugged.

"She gave me these to give to you, Morrigan." Neria handed the witch a bag.

Morrigan took it and peered inside, letting out an audible groan. "More socks! I swear I will drown in the damn things."

"You can never have too many socks; I'm always losing mine!" Alistair chuckled.

"We even have dwarves?" Neria pointed toward Bodahn and Sandal.

Arietta smiled. "We need all the help we can get." She shrugged.

Neria grinned. "You won't hear any complaints from me."

"Want some food?" Arietta asked. Neria nodded, and they sat down around the fire together.

Neria explained the battle as they ate. "He died bravely; a whirlwind of metal, slicing through countless darkspawn," she said wistfully, staring down at her food.

Cailan had been killed by an ogre, and Neri and Duncan had battled the horde, trying to buy the soldiers time to escape. It sounded incredible; Neria was extremely lucky to be alive.

"I take back what I said before. I can't do the no complaints thing," Neria said as she lifted up some food with her spoon then dropped it back into the bowl. "This food is awful, Alistair. It's the same shit the Circle fed us every fucking day," she moaned.

"Sorry it's not crispy bacon and gooey eggs; we're rather short of pigs and chickens at the moment!" Alistair said dramatically. "I did see some in Lothering but thought, no, we should probably buy the bandages instead. My mistake; next time I'll make sure we buy lots of live meat. We can all carry around a rabbit or two in our packs..." He looked at her pointedly.

"Alright!" Neri said raising her hands. "You've made your bloody point, man. The stew's lovely; thanks for cooking." She folded her arms and frowned down at her bowl.

"That's better. You're very welcome," he said smiling smugly; a little too chuffed with himself. He was such a goof-ball.

"So we're going to Redcliffe first?" Neria asked, as she played with her food, slyly handing some to Barkspawn.

"Yeah, it would do us good to get a strong political figure backing us. Others will listen to the Arl. He's sick so we need to figure out what's going on there first." Arietta explained.

They had set out early, after waking up from yet more darkspawn nightmares. The Archdemon was really trying to make his presence known. They were approaching Redcliffe, when Alistair asked them to stop for a moment.

"I'm a bastard; my mother was a serving girl at Redcliffe castle," he blurted, "and she died when I was born. Arl Eamon took me in, and raised me before I was sent to the Chantry." Alistair rubbed his neck nervously. "The reason he did that was because, well..." He cleared his throat. "My father was King Maric." Arietta's jaw hit the floor. "Which made King Cailan my half-brother, I suppose."

Maker. She was getting whiplash from all these twists and turns.

"So you're not just a bastard, you're a royal bastard? Doesn't that make you heir to the throne?" Neria asked from her side.

"Maker's Breath, I hope not. I don't think so; you don't think so do you? I'm a bastard and nobody even knows about me...," he said, panicking.

Arietta finally found her voice. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"I would have told you, but it never really meant anything to me. I was inconvenient. A possible threat to Cailan's rule, and so they kept me secret." He ran a hand through his sandy hair. "Everyone who knew either resented me or coddled me. Even Duncan kept me out of the fighting because of it." He looked at Arietta with his hazel eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

She knew what that was like, her own father had kept her out of the thick of it; she was his baby girl. "It's okay. I just wasn't expecting that," she reassured him.

"Can we just pretend like I'm still some nobody who was too lucky to die with the rest of the Grey Wardens?"

"And what does that make me?" Arietta asked.

"The reason why I say I was lucky," he said with a weak smile.

Arietta's cheeks blushed.

"Lead on, my Prince," Neria japed.

"Oh, I can already tell I am going to regret this." He turned and walked down the hill.

Neri was sitting cross-legged in the Chantry, finally able to just sit down and relax. She was exhausted from fleeing the darkspawn and heading north to search for the Grey Wardens. She hadn't been sleeping much either, thanks to the darkspawn whispering in her mind. It was strange to be sitting in a Chantry again, and for once she was the one telling the story to the children instead of the other way around. She should hate the Chantry; they chained mages and were responsible for so much pain and suffering in her life. But she grew up in one and it was strangely comforting to be in one again. Lothering's Chantry was gone, destroyed by the darkspawn, which made her feel a little sad. But it hadn't been her home for a long time. Staring in that mirror in Hawke's house, she realised something. She was a new person now. Her old life of the Chantry and Circle was over. She didn't have a collar around her neck anymore; she was free. Despite the colossal task ahead of them, she didn't feel scared. Not now that she was with the others.

She was sitting with a group of children. They were scared of the monsters that came down from the castle every night. Neri wasn't sure what these monsters were, but Arietta had agreed to defend the village tonight. They had spent all day preparing and persuading others to join the fight. It was an hour or so until sunset now. Neri always liked the children in the Circle, so she was happy to sit with them all now.

"The little girl was all alone, lost in the woods." She said, continuing her story. "She felt like she was wandering around in circles, no idea where she had been or where she needed to go. She sat down on a rock and began to cry." The children looked up at her with sad eyes. So many of them were orphans now or just plain scared about the attacks. "That's when the wolves had started circling her. She cowered in fear; there were so many of them and they had her surrounded." The children gasped. "Just when she thought they were going to eat her, a group of Knights charged into the clearing, swords drawn. They chased away all the wolves, and the little girl rejoiced, for now she was safe." She said, smiling at them all.

"Are you like the Knights in the story?" one of the little boys asked.

Neri smiled. "We are. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore," she comforted them.

When Neri got up to get a drink, Leliana ambushed her. "You're very good with them." She said, smiling brightly, her big blue eyes glistening in the late afternoon sun filtering in through the stained glass.

Neri's ears flicked up at that. "Thanks."

She didn't know much about this Leliana; she was a Chantry sister who knew how to fight. Seemed a bit odd to Neri, but if she wanted to help them with the Blight, who were they to turn her aside?

"Have you done this sort of thing before?" she asked, as she pushed her red hair away from her face.

Neri gave her a shrug. "I used to read to the children in the Circle. I always found reading helped to distract me; figured a good story would help the children here."

She smiled slowly, a wistful look in her eyes. "Books are wonderful things. Sometimes the oldest, strangest looking book has the best story to tell."

Neri smiled at her. "Would you like to tell them the next one?"

"Oh, I would love to," she squealed with excitement.

…

The sky was dark, the night still. Neria stood in front of the Chantry, ready for battle. She gripped her staff tighter.

"There!" a man shouted.

Sure enough, a walking corpse approached them, dripping wet from the lake. More emerged through the houses. The traps they had laid down seemed to be working; they were only coming out of one alley.

"Archers!" Neri yelled.

They fired arrows into the undead, but most kept walking. They felt no pain.

"Kill them all!" she ordered.

She flung a few of the undead into the sky before smashing them down onto the roof of a house.

"Barkspawn, go get them boy."

He charged in happily, tearing limbs off of the corpses. The undead had weapons of their own: swords, hammers, shields, tools, and kitchenware too. The soldiers were parrying their blows, metal ringing out across the area. She had glyphs down around the Chantry doors. She would not let them past her.

One of the undead charged at her with a frying pan in its hand. She couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. She ducked under its swing and then smacked it over the head with her staff before stabbing it with the bladed end. If she was any good with fire or lightning magic, she would have killed it with that and made some sort of pun about it frying to death, but alas she did not.

She swept her eyes across the whole area. A lot of the soldiers were hurt; some were dead on the ground now and still the undead poured out through the houses. She could count at least thirty. She sent another group flying backwards, and others she crushed with her mind. Despite this, they were being overwhelmed.

"Get the Wardens," she urged a soldier; he sprinted up the hill.

Men were falling around her; most of them were so inexperienced. She couldn't decide if it was bravery or foolishness that had led them to fight at her side tonight. There was such a thin line between the two. It was like Ostagar all over again, death everywhere. The undead were almost as horrifying as the darkspawn, but were less brutal with their attacks. The darkspawn seemed to enjoy savaging their victims, playing with them before finishing them off.

One of the walking corpses took her by surprise, slamming into her. The breath was knocked out of her as she hit the ground and the undead started to claw at her face. She grabbed hold of its arms and struggled against it. She was so little and weak compared to it.

Aren't I compared to everything though?

She tried again to throw it off, but it was no use. She stared up at its face; there was a stubby piece of bone sticking out where its nose used to be, replaced by two bloody holes, and the right side of its face had been bashed in, turning its eye socket into a black hole. Its skin was flaking off, turning a disgusting green colour. She shuddered every time it snapped its mouth shut just inches from her face. She could feel her heart in her chest, pounding away, and her breathing became ragged. All she could feel was this thing pressing down on her, pinning her to the ground. She tried to think and move, but couldn't. Barkspawn appeared and tore into the corpse's neck, causing congealed blood to splatter down onto her chest in a thick cold mess. She gagged and rolled to the side, throwing up on the Chantry steps as Barkspawn finished off the corpse. Her breathing started to return to normal.

"Good boy." She stroked the Mabari as she looked up, and saw the Wardens fighting the corpses.

Morrigan blasted several with ice, freezing them; Sten smashed his sword into them causing them to shatter spectacularly. Leliana was crippling a lot of the corpses with arrows, slowing their movements down. Alistair and Arietta were fighting back to back. They moved gracefully together; Arietta flipped over Alistair's back and planted her daggers into the skull of a corpse as he smashed his shield into another. If Neri didn't know any better, she would have said they'd been fighting together for years. She forced herself back to her feet, wiping as much of the blood off as she could. She took a few deep breaths, checking the battlefield; one of the undead was pounding on the Chantry doors. She walked up to it, grabbed it and threw it to the floor before smashing her boot down on its skull. Less and less undead were appearing, their numbers finally dwindling. Arietta headed through the houses to check for stragglers while Alistair went back up the hill to check on the situation up there. For now, it looked like they had won.

…

The Arl's wife had come down from the castle in the morning and begged Bann Teagan to return with her. Neri didn't trust her, and had said as much to her face. But in the end, they had agreed to send Teagan with her while they entered via the secret passage. They came out in the castle's dungeon. More corpses were ahead of them clawing at a cell door. Neri hit them with a blast of kinetic energy. Blossom and Barkspawn ran them down and killed them.

"Hello- Is someone there?"

The hair's on the back of her neck stood up. She knew that voice. She walked toward his cell.

"Jowan," she said icily.

It had been less than a month since his betrayal and since she had tried to kill him.

So much for my new life and new start.

He gasped. "Ne-Neri?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Bet you never thought you'd see me again," she scoffed.

He looked down at his feet. "No, I didn't."

She cocked an eyebrow. "So you're the mage who poisoned Arl Eamon?"

That seemed odd. He might be a backstabbing idiot, but he wasn't a murderer.

"I am. I can explain though..." he said as his eyes darted around the rest of her group.

"This should be good." She smiled.

He walked toward the cell door. "Neri, please, I'll answer all of your questions, I swear. But I need to ask you something first..." He put his hands on the bars of the cell.

"You want to know about Lily." She sighed. "I have no answers for you. She was taken away."

He rubbed at his face. "Oh my poor Lily, she must hate me now. If she even lives. What have I done?" He buried his face in his hands.

He brought this on himself; he never should have turned to blood magic. "You betrayed us Jowan."

"I know. I am so sorry; I never meant to hurt anybody!"

As furious as she had been with him, she knew he was telling the truth. Jowan wasn't a monster. He had been her friend once.

"It's stuff like this that makes the Templars crack down harder on mages." She narrowed her eyes at him. "After everything... How could you turn to such magic?"

He closed his eyes, and shook his head. "I know; I was a fool. I don't expect you to ever forgive me."

She decided to change the subject; they needed answers. "So what, you got bored in your cell and decided to raise a few corpses?"

"No— no, that wasn't me, I swear."

He explained how Loghain had hired him to poison the Arl. He was already imprisoned when the corpses started wandering around. He believed that Connor might be responsible; the boy was a mage and Jowan had only recently taught him the basics of magic theory. Jowan could give Jory a run for his money when it came to moaning about things. I wonder who'd win the moan-off? She shook her head. That just sounds dirty. Jowan started whining about wanting to help, to do the right thing for once. She actually almost felt sorry for him. Almost. It was still his fault he was in this stupid situation.

"I'm sick of running; let me try to fix it any way I can," Jowan begged.

Arietta moved closer to the cell, with her hands on her hips. "You mean let you out?"

"You can't seriously be considering letting a blood mage go free?" Alistair said.

"Why not? He wants to help, let him. There is no point leaving him caged in there like an animal." Morrigan said.

Arietta turned to look at Neri; she tilted her head to the side. "Neria he's your friend..."

Neri sighed. "We already have demons and corpses running around, why not a blood mage too?" She laughed. "He's telling the truth. Let him help," she said more seriously.

They made their way through the castle. Corpses attacked first, and then the demons had started appearing. They were horrifying creatures, and powerful too. Arietta could see why mages were feared so much; being able to summon these monsters at will could easily wipe out an entire village in a matter of hours.

Once inside the main hall, a very peculiar sight greeted them. Bann Teagan was backflipping in front of Isolde and a child, who Arietta presumed to be Connor. It quickly became clear that the terrible presence Isolde had mentioned was Connor. He was possessed by a demon, and he was controlling Teagan. The demon made Teagan fight their group while Connor ran away, apparently scared of the fighting. He wasn't always possessed, it seemed.

"He's just a little boy! Please, you can't kill him! There must be another way," Isolde pleaded.

They were discussing what to do with Connor. They couldn't let the demon carry on terrorising the castle and village but the alternative would mean killing Connor. Arietta didn't want to do that unless it was necessary. She was hoping Neria or Morrigan would offer some insight but they were both very quiet on the matter. That's when Jowan entered and offered another solution.

Jowan tugged at his robes nervously. "It would take a lot of life energy, all of it in fact. Like I said, it's not much of an option."

Arietta folded her arms. "It's not option at all. Blood magic solves nothing and I'm not sacrificing anyone to save Connor," she said stubbornly.

She started to feel nauseous; if she had to kill Connor... she wasn't sure she could do it. The death of a child always hit her harder than anything else; they were so young and innocent, and it seemed cruel for the Maker to take them from this world so early.

"There must be another way?" She ran a hand through her hair. "Anyone?"

Neria was chewing on her lip. "We just need more mages and lyrium to send someone into the fade." She let out a small sigh. "The Circle tower isn't far. We could ask them to help us, maybe." She shrugged.

"The Circle is a couple of days away though...," Alistair said, his voice barely masking his worry.

Neria glanced at him. "It is. But I think it's worth the risk. Leave Morrigan and Sten here with Jowan. If something happens while we are gone, Teagan and Isolde can decide what to do. Hopefully it won't come to that though."

She trusted the mages judgement. If they hurried, they might get lucky, and make it back before anything else happened. "Alright; to the tower we go."