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Lourdes was irritated. Again. The constant assault of darkspawn always made her irritable, especially when they always left empty threats of leaving her to the Children. The grub-like monsters weren't anything terrifying to the warrior – they could be slain and killed and even though they slowed down their journey to the Blackmarsh, they didn't halt it altogether. They merely acted as a momentary inconvenience that could be rectified with some swords shoving into their flesh.

Despite not being terrified by the Children and the darkspawn that were attempting to slow her band of companions down, she was still cautious. Darkspawn were still dangerous, no matter what form they came in. The blood that was leaking out of her swollen nose was a reminder of that fact.

"Why does every talking darkspawn insist on threatening us and then 'leaving us' to the Children?" Lourdes asked in an exasperated voice to no one in particular. "Next time, take your damn Children with you! We're not babysitters!"

Anders snorted as he put his staff on his back, glancing over at Sigrun. The dwarven rogue had received a dislocated shoulder when a strong darkspawn had wrenched it out of its socket. Nathaniel was helping her pop it back into place, scowling as he forced it back into place. "Clever, Lourdes." His tone of voice made it very clear he didn't think it was clever, but corny and childish.

"Thanks. I think you're rubbing off on me," she said, sniffing slightly as she checked to see if her nose was still bleeding. It was. She beckoned Anders over, pointing to her nose. "Hey, do you think you could…?"

Her eyes closed as Anders took her face in his hands, tilting her head up so he could see her possibly-broken nose. "You think I'm clever?" he said, bending it to one side and then to the other. She winced, but it didn't hurt too badly – she had only been hit hard and it thankfully had not broken her nose.

"Of course," she said, surprised enough to open her eyes. He was digging around in his robe pocket for something; in a few seconds, he produced a clean rag that he pressed to her nose to stem the bleeding. "You've escaped from the Circle seven times, Anders. You're clever. Most mages don't even try it because they think it's impossible."

"Oh," he said, looking pleased. "Well, thank you. For what it's worth, I think you're clever, too. You wouldn't have been able to save Ferelden otherwise."

"Okay, you're both clever," Nathaniel's impatient voice interrupted their conversation. "Do you think we should wrap her shoulder so it doesn't come out of the socket again, Anders? Or do you want to try and head back towards the Keep? I'm running low on arrows, anyway. Perhaps we should rest and restock and then return to the Blackmarsh tomorrow."

Lourdes considered this. The marsh was mostly cleared out of darkspawn (for now, anyway) except for the ruins of a village they had yet to examine. It would be better to patch their injuries and restock so they could be ready for anything they had to face. "Yes, we should do that," she agreed, tilting her head back in a way that would hopefully stop her bleeding. "Is everyone else okay?"

"I'm fine now," Sigrun said with a nod, rolling her shoulder slightly. She made an uncomfortable face. "It would probably be best if I didn't dual wield my weapons when we return to this place, though."

"Absolutely," Lourdes said absently, her attention captured by movement out of the corner of her eye. Anders was lifting his robe up to his knee, frowning at whatever he saw there. "Anders? Are you alright?"

"What?" he questioned, the robe dropping and his posture straightening. "Oh. Yes, I'm alright. One of those darkspawn tore my robe. I'm upset." He pointed to the hem near the bottom of his robe; a jagged but fixable six-inch tear ran up the material.

Lourdes snorted, shaking her head. "I'll put that on the top of my list of things to fix. Let's go."

The Commander had estimated their journey to the Keep to take a day or so, probably a little less if the weather held up. But, of course, the weather didn't stay nice and lovely. (Well, as lovely as it could get in the Blackmarsh.) By the time the afternoon rolled around, the morning's light drizzle of mist had transformed into sheets of rain. Eventually, they could go no further. The ground had turned into a soggy mess and their vision was impaired – not to mention the fact that Lourdes could practically feel her armor rusting.

"Alright," she called over the rain, pointing to a nearby jagged cliff. It stretched over a small patch of rough stone, creating a sort of roof that would hopefully shelter them from the rains. "Head to the cliff! We'll stop there until the rain stops!"

The rain did not stop. Night rolled around and they were forced to make a small fire to keep their fingers and toes from freezing. Each of her companions excused themselves to go bear the rain to go to the restroom once, before returning to huddle close to the fire. When Anders returned from his bathroom break, he had changed out of his torn robes and was wearing the plainer, replacement ones he wore when the others were being washed.

He approached her with a hopeful expression and something dangling from between his fingertips. "Hello, my favorite Grey Warden commander ever," he said, sitting down on the flat rock next to her. "I was wondering if I might ask for a favor."

"Of course you were," she said, rolling her eyes as she took the object that was offered to her. It was a needle. "What's this? You want me to craft a beautiful ball gown for you?"

"No. I want you to fix my robe," he said with a nod, unfolding his Tevinter robes and showing her the rip that had occurred earlier in the day "It'd be nice if I could walk without feeling a draft."

"You don't know how to sew? Why are you asking me to do this?" She hadn't ever really been good at fixing her own clothing. Again, it had to do with the fact that she had been raised in a castle with her own servants to mend whatever tears and rips happened during training.

"Because you're the only girl here and I figured if there was ever a time to be sexist, it's definitely now."

"What do you mean, I'm the only girl? Sigrun's right there. You could have asked her," Lourdes pointed out, but began to line up the edges of the tear anyway. Anders watched carefully as she repaired his robes, stitching up the tear in the tiniest stitches she could manage.

"Uhh. Sigrun looks like she'd cleave me in half if I ever asked her to do my sewing for me."

"Vigil's Keep has a seamstress," Lourdes said after a moment, pulling out a dagger from her boot to cut the thread with. The thread was tied into a knot to prevent the stitches from coming undone when he wore his robes. "You could have just waited a day and asked her to do it for you."

"Are you joking?" Anders asked incredulously, taking his robes from her lap. His fingers ran over the barely-noticeable stitches. From the look on his face, he was pleased with how she had fixed the tear. "I don't trust that woman as far as I can throw her. And I'm a mage, so my upper body strength is pretty lacking…"

Lourdes glanced over at his upper body. He was built in a similar way to Alistair – perhaps not quite as bulky since he didn't have to wield a sword and shield, but he definitely wasn't the stereotypical skinny mage with his broad chest. "Well, don't tear your robe again… I'm only doing this once. Really, I shouldn't even be doing it in the first place… I'm your commander. I'm supposed to try to appear regal and mighty at least some of the time."

"And what a lovely commander you are," he assured her, leaning back on his palms as she began to carefully stitch up the tear. "I love you for doing this."

Sigrun glanced over at the mage and her commander. "There are only a few hours until morning. If it's all right with you, Lourdes, I can take watch until morning. I don't think I'd get much sleep anyway."

The dwarven rogue was right about that. Their rocky shelter wasn't built for comfort. It wasn't even sufficiently long enough to allow them all to lie down; two, at most, could stretch out on the flat and cold sheet of rock. Lourdes frowned for a moment, sighing as she dug a wad of clothing out from her pack to serve as a pillow. She placed it between the rock wall and her head, not looking forward to sleeping upright.

"I'll sit up. You can lie down," Anders said after a moment, motioning to the rain-free space of rock he had saved for her. As she opened her mouth to argue, he waved her words away with his hand. "No. No arguing. We can't have our leader lacking sleep otherwise the rest of us will be no use."

Lourdes stubbornly stayed vertical, pointing to the free space. "No. You lie down. I'm not taking that spot. I might be your leader, but you're our healer. If Nate gets stabbed in the face tomorrow on our way back to the Keep and you're too tired to heal him, he'll die."

"He wouldn't die from being stabbed in the face. He might bleed a little bit, but-"

She snapped her fingers at him, scowling. "Anders. Lie down. That's an order." Lourdes didn't like to play the commander card, but he was being stubborn. She was going to use every ounce of leverage she had to get the mage to lie down. "Now."

Anders grumbled a bit, muttering under his breath about how he hated the Grey Wardens and women and next time he'd just take whatever he could find for himself because Maker knew when he tried to be nice it backfired on him. But he was moving, though, however slow and reluctant his movements were as he stretched out on the rock. "I'm not happy."

Lourdes smiled as she closed her eyes in the near dark. "I know. But I am."

Funnily enough, though, when she awoke she was no longer vertical. Her back and legs and neck were pressed against a rock just as they had been when she had initially gone to sleep, but now they were pressed flat against a rock. Lourdes sat up immediately, her dark brown hair whipping around her face.

"Where-" she had been about to yell at Anders for moving her during the night, but Nathaniel's fingers wrapped onto her shoulder. He put a finger to his lips, motioning towards her old spot against the cliff.

Anders was resting where she had been the night before, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open. Cradled in his lap between his palms was Ser Pounce-a-Lot, looking sleepy and warm as its chest slowly rose and fell.

"Don't wake him yet," Nathaniel said quietly, pushing a bowl of eggs into her lap. Where he had gotten the eggs, Lourdes didn't ask. She was too busy shoveling the soft eggs into her mouth. They were a nice change from the usual hard jerky they ate in the mornings. "I never saw him move as quietly as he did last night. I was sure you were going to wake up and dig your dagger into his side."

Lourdes paused, glancing back at the sleeping Anders. "You watched him? I thought you were asleep."

"Oh, I was. But then Sigrun woke me up because she was too tired to continue watch. A while after I took watch, Anders moved you. His stealth is credible enough when he's actually attempting to be quiet," Nathaniel said, shrugging. "You learn something new about that mage every day."

"Yes," Lourdes agreed, the back of her neck prickling oddly. "You sure do."