The Three Stooges Meet Our Lady Andraste

"Welcome, pilgrims, to the shrine of the Most Holy Andraste."

Loghain sized up the creature - he could not think of it as a man - that stood before them. It looked like a man, except for being somewhere in the neighborhood of eight feet tall and, as Alistair had said, not entirely…solid, but despite the vague sense of translucence of the image the overall impression he received was of immense formidability. That warhammer on its back looked like it could do real damage. The other impression he got from the creature, an equally immense calm spanning a thousand patient years, suggested he didn't have to worry about it unless he did something sacrilegious. He prepared himself for a fight regardless - impressions were, after all, only impressions.

The Warden bowed her head to the spirit. "Guardian. We have come to honor Andraste, and seek her aid to heal our comrade Loghain, who suffers a terrible illness for which there is no cure."

The spirit nodded back. "I remember you, and your companion as well. Two unrecognized pilgrims do I see, and all of you have traveled a long and arduous road. You have faced many trials to get here, and more await before you may come to the resting place of the Revered. Before you enter the Gauntlet, allow me a moment to ask of you each a question."

The Warden was now looking to him to take the lead, as were the others, and the Guardian clearly expected answer of some kind, so Loghain stepped forward and gave his own nod. "Ask."

"Loghain, son of Gareth, father of Anora, protector of one King and betrayer of another. You despise the Chantry, revile the Divine, submit yourself to the will of few and are apologetic to none, and resign yourself to suffer the fate of the unworthy, doomed to wander the depthless dark of the Void denied the Maker's favor and the love and forgiveness of those gone before you. For which of your crimes do you believe yourself damned?"

Loghain drew himself up tall and squared his shoulders. "For all of them, Spirit."

The Guardian shook his head sadly. "That is not the answer in your heart."

"I thought you said he didn't require an answer," Loghain muttered to Elilia.

"Evidently he wants you to come to some realization that you haven't had yet."

He looked back at the spirit, defiant for a moment, and then sighed. "You want to know for which, Spirit? The truth is that I don't know which sin tolled the death knell for my soul. Was it for failing to protect my mother as the Chevaliers held her down and raped her before my very eyes and then slit her throat? Was it for running away and leaving my father to die without even a fare-thee-well to let him know that I loved him and would spend the rest of my days begrudging his willing sacrifice? For loving the woman to whom my best friend was betrothed, whether or not she was the woman he wanted? For leaving Cailan, a son to me, to die for a promise I made long ago to a King who was already dead and a conspiracy that may well have existed only in my own mind, even if I am still not assured of it? Or perhaps for selling innocent Fereldan citizens into slavery - some of the elder of which were good men I once served with, men who helped me free our country from its own slavery? I don't know which of my crimes is more heinous than the others, Spirit, but I know that I am damned, and so I say again: for all of them. I carry my mistakes with me."

The spirit nodded. "That is the answer in your heart."

Alistair put a tentative hand on Loghain's shoulder. "You can't hold the blame for everything - " he began, but Loghain brushed him aside impatiently.

"Don't spout worthless platitudes at me, pup. Whether I can or I can't makes no nevermind, as the fact of the matter is I do."

The Spirit turned its attention to Anora. "Anora, daughter of Loghain, wife of Alistair, Queen of Ferelden."

"Ask your question, Spirit. I am not afraid to face my own demons."

"You failed to produce an heir for your husband Cailan, and many in the Kingdom claimed that you must be barren, even attributing this infertility to a curse of the Maker because of your parents' common origins. Cailan was unfaithful to you, having dalliances with many other women, and you were fully aware of the machinations of certain nobles to have you replaced as Queen. You even feared that this infidelity and conspiracy may have been what caused your father to leave Cailan to die at the hands of the Darkspawn, though the truth is that he did not know of it."

"He bloody well does now," Loghain growled. The spirit ignored him.

"Do you fear that you drove Cailan to move against you?"

Anora hung her head for a moment, then raised her face to meet the Guardian's gaze and laughed bitterly. "Of course I do. I am what I am, by nature or by training, and I am not…warm, by any means. I have often wondered if I had been more patient, more…loving…perhaps Cailan would not have sought his pleasures elsewhere, and perhaps he would not have striven in so foolhardy a manner to assert his own unique space in the history books if I had been able to set my own pride and ambition aside a bit in order to make him feel his were of value to me. If I am expected to feel bad about not giving him an heir, however, I can only point out that I have given Alistair two and none of Cailan's other women begot him any bastards, so I have set my guilt about that aside."

Alistair did not attempt to placate his wife as he had her father - her response would have been identical - but he did put an arm around her shoulders. "Cailan wanted out from under his father's shadow, and mine as the extension of it, not yours," Loghain said.

"Elilia, daughter of Eleanor - once before you passed through the cleansing flame, but the path you have trod since then has been no easier than the path that led you here before. For the whole of a decade you have faithfully executed your duty as a Grey Warden, yet lately there grows in you a sense of dissatisfaction. The First Warden is a posturing, hypocritical fool, you think, and you feel a certain disgust at the rules you chafe against and cannot fully understand. The demands for secrecy and isolation gnaw at you, you feel that much could have transpired differently for Ferelden had the Wardens only been straightforward about their purpose from the beginning, and questions about why some things were allowed to happen - and why no aid was ever sent aside from one elderly Orlesian Warden - have begun to eat away at your insides. You long to cast aside your calling and live the remainder of your days as your own master. Can you justify the abandonment of your duty, or is it true that your primary reason for wanting to leave the Wardens is that you have grown bored of it?"

The Warden seemed momentarily shocked, then embarrassed. "I am bored, and bothered, and frustrated and angry and dissatisfied, in equal measures. I would like nothing more than to cast aside the mantle of Warden-Commander and make a break for freedom, whatever that means. But I can't run from myself, can I? And I cannot abandon my honor." She looked deeply depressed at the thought.

"Alistair, son of Maric, husband of Anora, King of Ferelden," the Guardian said, at last turning to the final member of their party. "You, too, have passed through Andraste's holy fire, but another fire has since scorched your soul. This man betrayed your comrades to their deaths. You called for his execution, but your desires were not fulfilled. Moreover, the man was made to stand among those very Wardens he betrayed, and you abandoned them because of it. Now you stand at his side, and you have even entrusted much of the fate of your beloved Ferelden to his care. So tell me, who was the greater traitor? The man who quit the field to save a portion of the army he commanded rather than risk all to save a foolhardy King and Wardens who did not trust him with most vital information, or the man who abandoned his friends to face a dreaded foe without him because of a fit of childish and murderous pique when his desire for vengeance upon a submissive foe was unfulfilled?"

Red to his ears, Alistair stammered over his answer for a moment before his head dropped and he said, "My betrayal was the greater, Spirit. It took me many years to realize it, but now I understand how wrong I was to call for base revenge, and I am grateful to Elilia for denying it to me."

"Ha! Not as grateful as I am," Loghain said. Then he put a hand on Alistair's shoulder and said, as kindly as he could manage, "Don't fret, lad - I would have killed me, too."

"The way is open to you, pilgrims," the Guardian said, and vanished.

"I don't think any of us is doomed to damnation," Elilia said when he was gone, with a severe glare for Loghain. "Nor do I think that Anora is in any way to blame for Cailan's stupidity - he struck me as pretty much born that way - and as for you, Alistair, you betrayed no one. You were to be King, and you could not be both King and Warden. That's for prickish hypocrites like the First Warden in the Anderfels."

"Nice try, Eli," Alistair said quietly, "but I know better than that."

"No one is going to talk any of us out of the way we feel about ourselves," Anora said. "It's just part of what makes us who we are."

"The riddling spirits are up ahead," Alistair said. "At least if the Gauntlet is the same."

"Answer their stupid questions correctly, Loghain, and their spirits will unlock the door to the next area. The riddles were of the self-evident sort last time," the Warden said, with a long-suffering sigh.

Indeed they were, and Loghain, who'd never had much patience for riddling, was hard-pressed to give a straight answer rather than deliberately replying with absurdities. If it could justly be said that he had an underdeveloped sense of humor, he was fairly certain these creatures had not even the concept of such. Finally he was through the double-line of shades and the door stood open. Elilia touched him gently on the shoulder. "Just be prepared: the next part is harder than anything else in the Gauntlet, even though it doesn't really test you on anything."

A figure stood in the open doorway, another shade of some sort, and he approached cautiously. It was a woman, small and slender, with fair hair gathered into a soft bun at the nape of her neck. He recognized the outline…

She turned to face him, and he looked down in shock and sadness into the face of his mother.

She smiled, though her eyes were sorrowful. "My son, for too long you have carried this grief and guilt my death has caused you. You were only a child, and there was no way for you to protect me from my fate. Indeed, it was my duty to protect you, as your father and I tried so hard to do. Even as I lay dying my only fear was for you, my son, my only regret that you had to suffer the pain of witnessing my demise. Release these feelings you have harbored for too many years, and free yourself at last from the pain they have caused."

Though she herself was ethereal, she pressed something very solid and real into the palm of his hand - an amulet, shaped like a tiny mirror. "Take this, and let it be a reminder to you that you can no more be the remedy for all the world's ills than you can be the cause."

She vanished then, without another word. Loghain stood for a moment, turning the pendant over and over in his big hand, and then a strangled moan escaped his throat and he staggered and would perhaps have fallen had his companions not rushed to support him.

"I told you so," the Warden said, sadly.

"Let's move on," Loghain said hoarsely. The next area pitted them against their doubles, and while it was a hard-fought battle it was hardly impossible as the shades had skill but seemingly no tactics. They tore down the battlefield-controlling Shadow Loghain, then focused on the heavy-damaging Shadow Warden, and Shadow Anora with the bow she'd used in battle rather than the wicked blades she wielded now was easy pickings after knocking out the defenses of Shadow Alistair. Building the ghost bridge was a piece of cake since two of the party already knew the trick of it and the mechanism involved was self-evident to Loghain and Anora as well. He crossed over the solidified structure and the others followed after. They entered the chamber where Andraste awaited and approached the altar that stood before the line of protective flames.

Loghain read the inscription, did a double-take, and read again. He turned to glare accusingly at the Warden. "Am I interpreting this damned thing correctly?"

She snickered wickedly. "More than likely, given that thunderous disapproval I see in your eyes."

"I will not strip naked and walk through fire."

She shrugged. "Then you will not come to the ashes, and you will die with blood in your throat, a miserable, defiant old bugger to the last gasp, and I will take great delight in the fact that the last words you hear upon this earth will be mine as I tell you what a thrice-damned fool you are."

"Come on, Loghain - it's not that bad. We had to do it before, and what's worse, we had Oghren with us," Alistair said, pulling a face. "And Wynne!"

Loghain gestured wildly at Anora. "And I've got my daughter."

"Look, you just touch the altar and the clothes disappear. Walk through the flames, the Guardian says 'Congratulations, blah-de-blah,' and hey, presto! The clothes are back on. No muss, no bother, and no particular need to look at anyone else in their radiant glory," Elilia said. "It's probably just an illusion in the first place, nakedness and fire, to see whether you really have enough blind, stupid faith to do it. Religions are always insistent upon utter stupidity in their followers."

"Eli," Alistair said despairingly.

Loghain regarded the altar for a moment in evident disgust, then shook his head, reached out, and touched it. The Warden might have been right in claiming the nakedness he experienced upon that simple action was merely illusion, but the cold draft in his nether regions felt real enough. Deliberately not looking anywhere but straight ahead, he forged through the flames.

The Guardian appeared. "You have passed through the Gauntlet. You have trod the footsteps of Our Lady Andraste and walked through the flames, and like her you have been cleansed."

When the spirit vanished their clothing reappeared. Glad to have it over and done with, Loghain stalked up the tall stairs to the small urn set before the grand statue of the lady Herself, his companions close behind. "All right, Warden, we're here. What happens now?"

She removed the lid of the urn. "Now I take a pinch of the ashes, and - " she flicked them directly into his face. He recoiled, almost losing his balance on the top step, and glowered at her fiercely.

"I don't think that was entirely necessary, do you?" he snarled.

"How do you feel?" she asked anxiously.

"Livid."

"That's not what I meant, bone-brain," she said. "Do you still feel sick?"

"Don't we have to pray over him, or something?" Alistair asked nervously. "The mage who used them on Arl Eamon did."

"Yes, but I never heard or read once that it was necessary," Elilia said. "Cough, Loghain."

"What?"

"Cough, damn you -= so we can see if you've still got the Bloody Lung."

He made the effort, but found he could not. He took a deep breath and discovered he could fill his mighty lungs clear to the top without pain or hindrance. He let it out gustily. "I think it's gone," he said, surprised.

Elilia's smile was enormous. "I knew it would work!" She hugged him, then pulled back so that he was at arms' length and looked at him. "I can't sense you. Loghain - you are un-Tainted."

"What?" he said.

"Feel yourself. You'll see what I'm saying is true."

He pulled away altogether and pondered. "I… it seems impossible, but… you may be right. I feel very different."

"This is wonderful! Andraste cures the Blight! It's not what I was out looking for, but it's actually better still, for all who aren't wardens!" As if in celebration Elilia plunged her gauntleted hand back into the urn and "accidentally" flicked another pinch of ashes in Alistair's face. Anora groaned to see the Prophetess flung about in so casual a fashion.

Alistair sputtered indignantly. "What was that for?" he demanded. "I'm not sick!"

"Yes you are," Elilia said. "You have the Blight. And that is not a good thing for a King to have, is it?"

"Eli, if Andraste's ashes could cure you of being a Warden you would not be one now," Alistair said. "You've had your hand in that urn three times now."

"I've never actually touched the ashes, Alistair - I've always had friggin' armor-plated gloves on when I handled them. Thought it might break the enchantment if I made direct contact."

She put her hands on his shoulders and held him at arm's length, studying him intently but actually sensing him rather than seeing him. Finally she grinned and clapped him on the arm heartily. "Not a tickle! The old girl came through for me again!" Her prancing, in heavy armor, caused the pedestal to wobble alarmingly, and Anora shrieked slightly as the urn came close to toppling.

Loghain looked at the urn contemplatively. "So Andraste's ashes cure the Blight, eh?" he said thoughtfully. "That's something to ponder, isn't it?"

He turned back to the others. "Warden?" he inquired. She turned to him. "Yes, my friend?" He plunged his fist into the urn with nearly blinding speed and flicked a pinch that was more like a scoop of ashes in the woman's face. She screamed bloody murder as the cremains of the Maker's Chosen stung her eyes.

"Why did you bloody do that?" she shouted, incensed.

"Oops," Loghain said calmly and unrepentantly.

She raved, she swiped at her face, she sputtered and blustered incoherently. "I'm not - I'm not - I'm not a Warden anymore!" she wailed.

Loghain shrugged. "That's what you wanted."

"It is - it is not!"

"It is according to what you said to the Guardian," he pointed out. "The only thing holding you, you said, was duty and honor and the bloody taint. Now you don't have to worry about it anymore, you can no longer perform your duty and your honor remains intact."

"This isn't what I wanted!" she repeated, shrieking.

"Too late now. And too late to worry about it, as well. If the First Warden complains, just tell him it's all the fault of that dreadful Loghain."

She reared back, hands doubled into fists, and flew at him. She knocked him back into the pedestal which toppled, upsetting the sacred urn. With a strangled cry, Anora flew for the falling container and managed to catch it midair and right the topless vessel before the precious contents could spill. Alistair grabbed the lid and slammed it down onto the container and together King and Queen held onto it, panting with the fright of the near disaster.

The ex-Warden's first assault seemed to have drained the fight out of her, and she flagged against Loghain's chest, sobbing like a child. "Dear Maker, Loghain, I hate you for this…but thank you."

Loghain, who understood both her anger and her fervent gratitude better than anyone else present except, perhaps, Elilia herself, held her close and stroked the long tail of her hair. "You're welcome."

"Yes. Well. We're all very happy that everything has worked out so well for all parties involved, but perhaps we could adjourn to elsewhere before we destroy a treasure of the ages?" Anora said, still sitting awkwardly on the steps with the urn in her lap.

"I agree. We have more than what we came for. Now let us leave, please," Alistair seconded.

"Fine, but let us set the Holy Lady to rights, first," Loghain said, uprighting the fallen pedestal and taking the urn from its protectors. "Like dusting off her skirts after knocking her down in the street."

Alistair arose and helped Anora to her feet. "All right, let's go," he said. To their mutual horror, however, Loghain removed the lid of the urn again, produced an empty coin purse from his belt, and scooped a large handful of the ashes into it. And went back for more.

"What are you doing?" Anora asked, mortified.

"Andraste cures the Blight," Loghain said simply. "She was a Fereldan girl, they say, so I can't imagine she'd begrudge her homeland the salvation she offers."

"You can't…Loghain, this is utterly blasphemous," Alistair said, too bewildered to object more strenuously.

"The people who were corrupted during the Blight have all perished long ago, or gone to the Deep Roads as ghouls," Elilia said, looking more interested than objecting. "What is it you plan?"

"Let's leave this place before the Boss has a chance to object," Loghain said, looking around for the Guardian, "and I'll tell you."

They did not immediately speak of the pilfered ashes Loghain carried tied to his belt loops as they headed down the mountain, possibly because none of them thought it entirely prudent to do so while wending their way back down, for all they knew watched every step of the way by Andraste's immortal guardian spirit, or perhaps because all of them were feeling rather husked out by the experience and thinking somber thoughts. For her part the now ex-Warden vacillated between burning rage and manic joy, and the others allowed her to draw ahead of them for safety's sake.

Alistair and Anora dropped behind Loghain as well, letting him travel on ahead until they felt they had a safe distance between them for private words, though Anora cautioned her husband that her father's ears were keen. They walked together in silence for a little while, and then Anora said, with a mixture of wonder and bitterness in her voice, "I never knew a thing about my grandparents before today. Father's parents, I mean, of course - I grew up with my maternal grandfather, though my grandmother died when mother was a child. I knew my grandfather's name, and had been told by King Maric that he had been a Knight who died in his service, but father never spoke of them at all. Now I suppose I know why. Evidently Maric left out some pertinent details regarding my grandfather's death, if father feels he 'ran off and left him to die,' and still begrudges his 'sacrifice,' and I can't even begin to imagine the horror of witnessing my mother raped and murdered before my eyes - nor do I want to. It's all very disturbing to take in at once, to say the least. And to top it all off, I'm not sure quite how to feel about the fact that the image of grandmother the spirit presented looked so very much like mother."

"Don't read too much into it," Alistair said. "The image is a reflection of what the spirit sees in your soul, not the departed themselves. Frankly I thought she looked a lot like Wynne, and I'm sure the Ward - that Elilia saw someone who looked like Eleanor Cousland. When we were here before the shade was reflecting Eli's father, but to me he looked like Duncan, even though I'd seen portraits of the Teyrn and knew they were nothing alike."

Anora seemed relieved. "That is comforting to hear. I find something a bit disturbing in the idea that father would marry a woman who closely resembled his mother…all the more so because of what happened to her."

"What did you make of what he said in his answer to the Guardian about 'loving the woman betrothed to his best friend?'" Alistair said. Then he blanched as he realized that was rather a tactless question to pose to the man's daughter, of all people.

Anora sighed. "Queen Rowan. Do not look so, Alistair - there was nothing to it after she married the King and father married mother. He told mother when he met her that he'd been in love with Rowan, and she told me about it after the queen's death, when father went to Denerim to help King Maric. I don't think he ever really stopped loving her, either, but he loved my mother more, which is all I care about. I'm sure it made him feel terribly guilty, though, since his idea of fidelity is not unlike a mabari's and he doesn't understand that humans are not driven to bond solely to one master for life. He expended a great deal of energy making continual restitution to mother for what he considered his unfaithfulness, though I've never heard so much as a peep from even the most vicious of quarters that father was ever a bounder or kept a mistress." She laughed, suddenly, surprising Alistair. "Someday I shall tell you about the rosebush he brought back from Denerim for my mother's garden. If that wasn't self-imposed penance, I don't know what is."

Quizzical, wondering exactly how roses and penance worked together in such a way to make such a dry and occasionally acerbic lady as the Queen laugh aloud, Alistair made a mental note to remind her of her promise to tell that story as soon as they had leisure for it.

Anora was watching her father now with a thoughtful expression. "He hasn't been the same man since mother died. I know you find it hard to believe that he was ever anything approaching domesticated, but he certainly does better under the civilizing influence of a wife." Then her gaze rose to Elilia, far ahead in the distance, and her lips drew into a slight pout. "Of course, it could also be good for him to have a companion whose life experiences and outlooks are not so much different from his own."

Alistair caught her gaze before her meaning, and when at last he divined it he burst into a hearty laugh. "So you don't think Eli would be a civilizing influence, but you think they could have a lot in common, eh? Please tell me you're not contemplating becoming a matchmaker for your own father."

She sighed. "I fear that is entirely unnecessary. I'd prefer he chose a more…gentle…woman but at least I cannot find fault with her lineage. Lady Elilia is wild but she has a stout heart and usually honorable intentions. Not to mention she's excellent at producing valuable allies, which must mean she has more charm than she likes to let on."

"Maker's breath, Eli is a Lady again, isn't she?" Alistair said, surprised. "Or is she? I mean, does her title automatically return to her just because she's no longer a Warden?"

"I think we would have to satisfy convention by hosting a ceremony to reinstate her to noble rank, and I'm sure Teyrn Fergus would like to see his sister officially honored so, but as far as I'm concerned she is as she was born. We never took her title away from her, after all - the Wardens did that."

"And you think that Loghain is…that they would…" Alistair blushed and wiped his sweaty brow with his bandana. "You believe that rumor, don't you, about…what went on…last night?"

"Lady Elilia essentially confirmed it for me."

The look on Alistair's face said that he was considering something he did not like to be forced to consider. "…Ew."

"What are you 'ew'ing about?" Anora demanded indignantly.

"Well, it's just that…oh bugger, I'm just going to say it - she's a lot younger than he is, and beyond all that she was like a sister to me during our travels together, and he's my father-in-law, so that's just…ew."

"Well I'll leave you here to ponder that," Anora said primly. "I need to have a private word with my father."

Too dignified to trot, Anora walked away at a rapid pace and with a certain tilt to her head that said she was likely to be miffed with her husband for some time. He, however, was too distracted by the sight of her still-shapely backside swaying away with the golden mail clinging as seductively as such armor could ever, and scarcely noticed her displeasure.

Anora caught up to Loghain, though she did not catch him unawares. "Hello, dear," he said absently as she approached. "Not too upset by what that fool spirit said, are you?"

"About…?" Anora ventured, uncertain which part he was referring to.

"About you and Cailan. And that bloody conspiracy he mentioned you seemed to know all about. I want names, by the way, and I'll have a reckoning, by the Maker."

"Let it lie, father. It is water that passed under a bridge long burned. No, I'm not upset about any of that. I made my peace with those particular demons long ago, and if the memories still have the power to put a little sting in my heart they're still no more than memories. I've even learned to forgive Cailan. And the nobles involved. And here I am, still Queen, so I feel I've made good my revenge."

He chuckled a little at that and subsided, though Anora knew him well enough to believe that he would not content himself with docility and would likely attempt to ferret out the names some other time. He needed to be distracted, and distraction was a fine side-effect of courting.

She gestured at the Warden, who was at that moment lashing out with violence at a half-crumbled pillar that shook and crumbled still more beneath the force of her assault. "Go to her," she said.

"If I were wearing plate I might consider it, but in nothing but leathers I feel that would be suicidal at present," he said.

"She needs you," Anora insisted. "You took away the taint, and that is a good thing because she wanted to be free of it. But you also took away her purpose. You need to make her see that there is still good and noble work for a woman of her skill and courage, and that she need not feel bereft. The Wardens may have no further use for her, but you must make her see that Ferelden still needs her."

He sighed. "I just hope she thinks that's enough."

She watched him trot to catch up to the lady. She had very deliberately not told him to 'go forth and conquer yon damsel,' for such a command, even couched in terms of a request, was very apt to strike upon his perverse side, resulting in him assiduously ignoring Elilia until the end of days. Either relations between them would progress naturally…or they would not. Uncharacteristically optimistic about it all, Anora thought they probably would. Elilia Cousland had never struck her as the sort to seduce and abandon, and her father had not in all his years shown himself inclined to same, so something must exist between them, whether it be a burgeoning love or merely a strong attraction that could develop into something stronger with time and attention. She would content herself to wait and see.

Alistair caught up with her in time to watch with her as Lady Elilia raised a fist to Loghain, seemed to tremble upon the precipice of some intense urge, and then socked him on the arm. "For Eli, that's a friendly gesture," Alistair said, but he winced as Loghain rubbed the spot she'd struck. "Maybe a little harder than she usually hits, though. What did you say to him?"

"I told him that she needs him to help her come to terms with her new life. I'm hoping he can make her see how important she is to Ferelden, Warden or not. Not only is she one of our greatest Champions, but on the more practical day-to-day side of things she's a Cousland. If her brother continues to refuse to remarry, it may be up to her to supply a proper heir for the Teyrnir."

"With your father as the begetter," Alistair said, a little sourly.

"That's for the two of them to decide."

He sighed. "I suppose it is at that. Still hard for me to wrap my head around, though. I mean, the man hired the Antivan Crows to kill her."

"I suspect she's forgiven him for that. Mainly, perhaps, because its something she very well may have done herself if she felt the need."

"Elilia, hire assassins? Never. She'd much rather kill her enemies herself, face to face."

"So would my father. Sometimes you're just too busy to get around to it, however. Lady Cousland and my father are…a lot alike. In many ways."

Alistair looked at the two warriors now walking peacefully side-by-side, hands not quite touching, and could not believe it. "Loghain is serious and always stern. Elilia is merry and jocular - even when she's in a blood-induced battle frenzy. I don't see it."

Anora's mouth curved in a slight smile. "Those are the masks they wear, painted a certain way just like an Orlesian's. Or if the analogy is too odious, like the way Elilia uses cosmetics to make herself more fierce rather than more attractive. Underneath the war paint, the machinery clicks along in very similar fashion."

Alistair pondered for a time, unconvinced, and eventually they reached the foothills and Loghain brought them to a halt at a nice clearing in a wooded area.

"We should camp here tonight," he said. "It's quite late and we don't want to be on the roads after dark. We can catch up with the army early enough tomorrow."

"We don't have provisions," Alistair said, and gave his wife a sidelong glance, "or tents and bedrolls."

She seemed amused. "Do you think I've never slept rough before, husband? I assure you I am quite capable of making do with packed earth and a campfire." She unslung her bow. "I can even provide us with the evening meal, I dare say."

"I'll find wood for the fire," Loghain said, and moved off into the forest in search of limbs and tinder.

"Well. I feel…superfluous," Alistair said whimsically as he and Elilia were abandoned to their own devices and the Mac Tir contingent set about making preparations for the camp. "Granted, that's a common feeling, for me."

Elilia began scratching together stones for the firepit. After a long period of silence, she finally spoke.

"When I was sixteen, my parents took me to Denerim for a grand salon Arl Eamon threw at his estate to celebrate Satinalia. Father said I was old enough to have my own adventures in town so he gave me some silver and let me have free run for the day as long as I promised to be back in time to get ready for the party. I was late, of course, and got back just in time to slide into my seat between mother and father at the banquet table for the feast - sporting my brand-new face tattoo. I thought mother would die of shock and shame. I think that was when the noble lords and ladies of Ferelden first started calling me 'The Cousland Barbarian' and even father wasn't particularly happy with me about it. Said it made me look like a vulgar sellsword. Seems appropriate now, since that's all I've left to do."

"Elilia, you do not need to turn mercenary," Alistair protested. "Anora and I discussed it, and she's of a mind that you should be restored to your birthright as Fereldan nobility. I fully agree with her on that. We need you, there's nobody I trust so much as I trust you, and with all that's going wrong with the world these days Ferelden needs her defenders."

She sighed. "I don't feel I deserve any such thing. Loghain may have intended for me to be guilt-free about this, but I'm not. I wished this upon myself, and I feel bereft of honor."

"You'll get over it," Loghain said gruffly, coming back into the clearing with an armload of twigs and brush. He began laying out a careful chimney of branches over dry tinder in Elilia's firepit and lit the stack with a spark from the flint he carried always. "And personally I like your ink, though I can imagine the fuss your folks made."

The blaze was going to his satisfaction so he stood up and crossed to where she sat and pushed her hanging head up to meet his eyes with a finger beneath her jaw line. "Chin up and plod on."

A fire seemed to spark in her eyes, a moment of anger perhaps, but then a different look settled onto her restless features and she nodded firmly.

"Are you going to tell us your plans for Lady Andraste?" Alistair asked, to change the subject.

"While dinner is cooking, if we're fortunate enough to have any."

"You shan't, if you don't come help me with it," Anora called out from some distance. She sounded slightly out of breath. Loghain headed in that direction and returned with his daughter by his side and a good-sized buck slung over his shoulder. "Hoped for a brace of rabbits at the least," Anora said, sounding rather self-satisfied. "I expect this is much better after a hard day's work on short commons."

"Maker's breath, but we have had a day, haven't we?" Alistair said, awed. "The battle feels like it happened a lifetime ago, but its been less than a dozen hours."

Loghain took his belt knife and dressed out the deer with speed and efficiency born of long practice. "This blade isn't as good as the one I gave Duncan," he said, grinning, "but it's serviceable enough, I suppose." He built a stand out of branches and spitted one of the back haunches and set it to roast.

"So what are your plans?" Alistair said, drawing the subject back to Andraste's ashes.

Instead of answering directly, Loghain reached into the map pocket on his belt and took out a well-worn parchment. He spread it on the ground so that they could all gather around it to see. It was a map of Ferelden but the borders were not quite correct, pushing far into the holdings of Orlais and even encompassing part of the Free Marches. It was either the work of a power-hungry tyrant with a lunatic streak, or the whimsical doodle of a fanciful imagination. His dark glare dared them to say something about it. No one did.

"Here's where the Darkspawn first attacked," he said, pointing to Ostagar with a stick of charcoal he also took from his map pocket. "Of course they eventually spread across the entire face of Ferelden but as you know there are certain areas of the bannorn that still bear witness to their passage."

He swiftly sketched a line straight north from the ruined fortress through the village of Lothering, now only a Blighted memory, almost to the middle of the bannorn. Fast strokes of charcoal roughed out a dark black stain on the map that covered all the land now laying useless and abandoned, unable to produce much-needed crops or sustain livestock, an area of about a hundred square miles of vital farmland and more still of forest and marsh. The region he marked out was quite accurate, by Alistair's accounting, but something about it…

"Andraste's sweet flaming skirts!" he swore colorfully. "That looks just like a - "

He stopped himself, embarrassed, but Loghain nodded grimly.

"A cock and balls? Yes, it does at that. Very appropriate, considering that what the Darkspawn did, essentially, was to rape us up the backside."

Elilia groaned and covered her face with both hands. "Loghain, if you had ever encountered what happens to the female captives the Darkspawn take when they raid, and if fate had chosen to bless you with a womb instead of testicles, you would not be so keen to make such a metaphor."

He waved that aside. "What the Blighted lands look like on a map is of no consequence. What they mean to the hundreds of poor Fereldans who scrape and scrabble and can just barely manage to feed themselves is more important. If those lands were fertile again, it would be that much easier to feed our people - and put a lot of our unemployed back to gainful work."

"So you want to…spread the ashes…on the land?" Alistair asked.

Loghain nodded. "Or sow them into the ground."

"A fine idea, if it works," Anora said, somewhat doubtfully. "But would we have enough ashes to cure it all?"

Loghain shrugged. "If we manage to take back only a little land, 'tis better than none at all. Hard to say how many acres per pinch could be restored."

"With the size of your pinches we'd run out of Andraste within half a mile," Elilia said, eyes still irritated and apparently smarting from the dusting she'd received. "Better let me measure out the doses."

"All right, my Lady Cousland, by all means, do. Seems fitting enough to me that you should save Ferelden's ass from the flames again, assuming that it works."

Though she'd clearly been jesting, at Loghain's words her face grew reluctantly contemplative. "I could organize a bit of an expedition, I suppose," she said slowly, "make something of an adventure out of it. After all, there are always plenty of places to go and people to kill in the wild spaces of Ferelden. And if it works, 'twould be a worthwhile endeavor."

While Anora was glad to hear the former Warden take even a half-hearted interest in something, she pursed her lips and felt disgruntled. If she was off on what could potentially be a months-long trip to the south reaches then she wouldn't be around for any romance to bloom, and Anora found that a trifle disheartening. She was beginning to like the mental story she was spinning of her father's courtship to this wild woman, and their eventual marriage. Then Elilia looked at Loghain almost shyly and said, "You could come with me, if you want. It was your idea, after all."

Loghain regarded her steadily for a moment, then nodded slowly. "An adventure in the wilds with the Cousland Barbarian? That sounds grand indeed."

LINE BREAK HERE

As Loghain had promised they arrived back at the army encampment bright and early the next morning. Healing and other such duties had proceeded apace without them under Teyrn Fergus's guidance, but there was such a lot of things to do that it was likely they would not be ready for the triumphant march back to Denerim for another day at the least. Loghain had not had a chance to properly absorb the fact of the victory, and the battle seemed to have taken place so very long ago that he was surprised to still see dead on the field. Great pyres stood ready to receive the bodies of the fallen Fereldan soldiers as well as the one Circle mage who perished, but there was apparently some confusion over what to do with the six dead dwarves and the dead werewolf, not to mention the scores of slaughtered Chevaliers. With a deep sigh and an expressive roll of the eyes, Loghain cut through the chaos by simply asking the dwarves and werewolves what they'd like done for their dead. The dwarves, of course, wanted to take their fallen back to Orzammar and "return them to the stone," which they were quite welcome to do, and the werewolves seemed puzzled at the thought that anything should be done for their late brother-at-arms. "If the humans have some problem with leaving him to be properly eaten, then they are welcome to burn him with their own dead."

"What about the Orlesians?" Fergus said, when Loghain told him these things. "There are so many."

"They'd stand as one hell of a warning, for some months at least," Loghain said. Alistair heard and was, predictably, shocked.

"We're not just leaving them there, are we?" he said, appalled. "We have to burn them, if not for propriety's sake, then for the smell and the illness dead bodies spread."

"Smell and illness? There is no village nearby," Loghain said blandly.

"But this is an important trade route regardless!"

"With Orlais," Loghain said patiently. "And even if you're really fool enough to continue to treat with them after this, they might not be willing."

Anora stepped smoothly into the breach, olive branch at the ready. "Very true, father, but there is value in being perceived as merciful. If we were to properly burn the Orlesian dead and return the ashes to their homeland, that would send the message that Ferelden is prepared to be magnanimous, which might net us nothing from Orlais herself but which could be looked upon with great favor by other nations. We could gain allies from such a move. Then, too, sending Orlais such a very large container of ashes as would doubtless be necessary would send another message…"

"That message being, 'Don't fuck with Ferelden,'" Loghain said, concisely if crudely. "All right, then, waste wood if you're going to, but if you're going to burn 'em, burn 'em separately. No Fereldan who died for their country ought to suffer the indignity of being mixed up in the ashes of a bunch of painted ponces. Nor the werewolf, neither, though evidently they don't care about such things. He - or maybe 'twas a she - may not have bent knee to any human lord but it fought alongside us bravely and should be accorded all appropriate honors as a soldier of this nation. The mage, too, though I know the Chantry will moan about that. We should honor the dwarves for their sacrifice as well, though they're making their own arrangements for the disposition of their dead."

"I'll talk to the Lady of the Forest and find out the werewolf's name…and gender," Elilia interjected, with a lopsided grin. "I'll make sure it's entered properly in the record of the fallen. I suppose I can do the same with the dwarves and the mage. I talked them all into fighting for us, after all. You've got most of the regular army sorted already, don't you, Fergus?"

He nodded. He was looking at his sister rather strangely, Loghain noticed, and he thought he knew why - even though ordinary people couldn't exactly sense the Taint they could always tell that something was slightly "off" about Wardens, and Elilia had lost that wrongness. "There are still soldiers unaccounted for, partly because some of the dead have been…difficult to identify. The unfortunate results of friendly-fire, both from the mages and the golems. We hope still to find the rest lost among the scores of Orlesian dead and wounded."

"What are we doing for the Orlesian wounded, by the way?" Alistair asked.

Kill 'em, and add 'em to the burn pile, Loghain wanted to say, but kept his peace.

Teyrn Fergus looked embarrassed. "Nothing as yet, Your Majesty. Our Healers are stretched to their limits as it is, and I did not wish to commit valuable resources without your express approval."

"Well, we certainly don't want to take care from our own men, but we should definitely treat as many of the Orlesians as we can save."

Fergus looked pained. "And do what with them, Your Majesty? They number in the hundreds, possibly even more than a thousand. I fear we have not the manpower to take so many prisoners, and then there would of course be the logistics of holding them, and presumably feeding them."

"We cannot take them prisoner," Anora said firmly. "They are too numerous. Slay them."

"What? No!" Alistair protested. Anora cut him off aggressively before he could say more.

"And what are our options if we do not, Alistair? Waste our few healers' talents and our limited medical supplies on men so badly wounded that many shall doubtless perish regardless, only to stuff them into every dungeon we can find from here to Denerim to rot and starve because we can barely feed our own citizens? Or perhaps you would prefer that we heal those who can be healed and then send them home to Orlais, there to rejoin new regiments and march against us anew? That does not strike me as sound planning, either."

Though her words were harsh her expression, for a wonder, was not. She looked, if anything, rather haggard at that moment. Maybe even sad. "This is the part of ruling you've yet to master. Sometimes being King means you must be cruel."

He hung his head, abashed. Most un-Kingly, but that was Alistair. "You're right, of course," he said glumly.

Elilia put a hand on his shoulder. "Think of it this way, Al. Any Chevalier who couldn't run from the battle was most likely hurt very badly, and most likely the best thing we could ever offer them at this point is a swift and merciful death. For the ones who would have made it…well, at least it's quick, and an honorable death for a soldier. More so than dying in prison, at any rate."

Alistair called over his shoulder to Loghain. "Did my father ever master this part of the job?"

Loghain shook his head. "He did it, when it was necessary. Can't say that he ever got particularly good at it, though. But that's what I was for."

"Doing His Majesty's dirty work."

"Sometimes it was dirty. Most of the time just dreadfully disagreeable. All of it an unfortunate necessity of ruling a nation, perhaps particularly one so wild and little united as this."

"Little united."

"That may be exaggeration. Might be closer to the mark to say 'not united at all.'" The King turned to look at him, questions in his guileless eyes, and so he condescended to expound. "We fielded five thousand regular army. How many more could we have fielded had more of the bannorn been able to rally their troops for us? Twice that? My guess is closer to three times that. How much easier this battle would have been if we'd had fifteen thousand men on the field. I'm sure they didn't refuse their aid, that would be stupid of them, but they would have prevaricated, sending back word that there were complications with their equipment, or delays in troop movement, anything and everything to avoid having to make a definite promise as to exactly when they could send their men. And all because they're too small-minded to see past their own little demesne to the welfare of the whole. Do you think that little prick Kendalls would have bothered sending out his troops if he didn't live practically at the feet of the royal palace?"

The little prick in question was standing not too far off, and was predictably offended, but when he made to make some protest Loghain shot him a thunderous glare and he subsided. "I see the shields of Highever, Dragon's Peak, West Hills, Redcliffe, South Reach, and Gwaren, and I see the shields of the Amaranthine regulars, as well - and most of them sent far fewer men than I'm sure they had, but at least they sent them. But where are Oswin? Whitewater Falls? Dunlan? Rainsfere? Where are two score of banns? They come out of the woodwork at the Landsmeet, to squabble like mongrels over pig knuckles, eager to wrest some concession or other from the Crown and the rest of the nation for their own little rat-spit pickings, which are all they care about. Its always been a bloody wonder to me that anything is ever resolved in this damned country, and most of the time it just gets argued over continually forever. Don't believe me? Just try getting the fucking hemorrhoids to stand and fight for their country when there's no King on the throne. Maker's breath, I don't miss politics."

Bann Teagan bridled at those last few sentences and put himself quite in the former Teyrn's path. "You demanded that we - " he began, furious.

"I demanded only that you defend your homeland," Loghain said, as he pushed the nominal Arl of Redcliffe onto his backside in the mud rather gently, all things considered. "I don't count you among the vultures who opposed me just to make a play for the Crown, Teagan, but your little outburst on the floor that day fed the flames of dissention nicely. I was wrong about the Darkspawn threat, and maybe not altogether correct about the immediacy, at least, of the threat from Orlais, but the civil war that erupted after that did much to ensure the devastation of our nation. Perhaps I could have stood to be more diplomatic when I addressed the Landsmeet, but by the Maker, I never realized before that day that I would have to kiss ass to get the lords of this nation to stand and defend it. Blame me for naiveté, I suppose."

Evidently King Alistair had recently tasted some of the bitter flavor of trying to pull his rag-tag country together, because he smiled sickly and made no attempt to defend the man who he considered an uncle. "Hard words for the bannorn, Loghain," he said. "And yet you claim to love this nation?"

Loghain tossed his head like an impatient horse. "A man may love his homeland and despise its government quite easily. But I've proven that I can do nothing to change it, so I suppose I have no right to bitch. And it could always be worse. The sodding Free Marches can't even solidify into a genuine nation."

"You'd rather we ruled in the manner of Orlais, with the Crown seizing all power and granting the privileged few only the right to lick the King's boots and trample the peasantry?" Teagan said, more subdued but still smarting and fuming.

"If the Maker Himself came and told me that was the proper way to run the country I would spit in His eye and tell Him to piss off," Loghain said. "We need solidarity and organization, not tyranny. As it is we have a King and Queen attempting to rule over a grand mess of smaller Kings- and Queens-in-their-own-minds, and we should not be surprised at the resulting chaos."

Nobody seemed to have anything more to say to that, or more likely nobody wanted Loghain to say anything further since he looked, at that moment, close to murder, so orders were given and the various nobles drifted back to their own little regiments, not a few of them thinking mutinous thoughts. Fergus Cousland, loyal defender of the throne that he was, did not exactly feel that what he'd heard was incorrect, but Loghain had stood by the man who slaughtered his family, whether or not he'd had prior knowledge of the actual sacking of Highever, and so he went about his duties much disturbed in mind. His sister seemed to trust the man, perhaps even to like him, and Fergus trusted Elilia. Perhaps Loghain was a man of honor despite it all, though he did not think that honor was spotless…

After a time Elilia sought Fergus out, bearing with her a scroll of parchment upon which she had noted not only the names of the allied deceased but the living as well. "Thought it would be good to get them on official record now," she said as she loped up in her rangy way. "The werewolves won't want to stand in the city square for official thanks, after all; the Chantry would probably brand our poor mages if they took their proper bows, and the dwarves want to head straight back to Orzammar 'before they lose their stone-sense,' which is too bad, because the golems would look marvelous in a royal procession." She noticed her brother's discomfiture, and correctly divined the cause. "Long dark thoughts about Howe, right?"

"Why did you spare his life?" Fergus asked. She didn't need to ask whose life he was referring to. She shrugged expressively.

"He surrendered."

"There had to be more to it than that."

"There's a lot more to it than that, but it boils down to that in the end. Perhaps you'll understand better if I put it this way instead: I spared him because I get him."

"You…'get' him…" Fergus said doubtfully.

"I get him. I understand where he's coming from. Maker help me, I could see his side of things. He was wrong, but I would have been equally wrong had I been the one in his position."

Fergus scoffed, "Elilia, you would never do - "

"Oh, but I would, Fergus, and I have. Maker willing, you'll never have to know just how far I've gone in the pursuit of what I saw as my duty. Some of the things I've done may be worse than anything Loghain had a hand in. And because I understand him, I understood exactly why someone like that would ever take a knee rather than fight to the last bloody breath, as that slimy bastard Howe did. By that time he knew he couldn't stand alone before the wolves and protect Ferelden, but he needed to see whether I could before he'd step aside and let me. And he yielded, knowing I was virtually honor-bound to slay him regardless, to show not just me but every slack-jawed ninny in that Landsmeet that he knew I was. And if I could bring him to his knees, who among them would have had the stones to defy me further?"

Teyrn Fergus smiled wanly. "And you saw all that, did you, in the heat of the moment, with his neck turned to your blade and your future King calling for his blood?"

"In the heat of the moment I saw a proud foe proudly girding himself to accept whatever punishment I saw fit to mete out. No, I had set myself to win an ally that day, if at all possible, though I confess I never thought he'd actually submit. He doesn't exactly have a precedent for it, does he? I wanted Anora for Queen, and she wanted her father alive. She'd still have married Alistair if I'd killed him, I'm sure. She's her father's daughter and she does her duty, regardless of how distasteful or outright dishonorable she finds it, but she wouldn't exactly have been my biggest fan thenceforward. Then, too, its better to have a man like Loghain at your back than at your throat. I think yesterday proved the wisdom of that."

"Sister, I think it would be wise for you not to show Loghain too much favor," Fergus ventured, a little timidly. "The men have been delighted to bandy about the most unfortunate and unsupportable rumor - "

"That Loghain spent the night before the battle in my tent, Big Brother?" Elilia interjected. "And what if he did?"

"Please do not bait me, Sister," Fergus pleaded. "I seek only to protect your reputation."

She laughed harshly. "My reputation requires no such protection, Brother, I assure you. And unfortunately I am not baiting you, either. Loghain and I spent the night together. Is that truly so very terrible to think of?"

Fergus shook his head, his eyes closed. "You were always rather…unpredictable, Sister, but this…this…"

"Loghain is a great warrior, Brother, and he has known what hell it is to be a Warden, which few can understand. I find him quite…attractive, even though he looks as if the Maker were in something of a hurry when He made him."

Fergus barked laughter, though probably not at his sister's mild humor. "I…cannot speak of this now with you, Sister. A later day, when I have had time to wrap my mind around this fresh horror, we will talk more on it. I beg you only, as one who loves you dearly, not to act further upon this so-called attraction until we have had a chance to discuss this thoroughly."

"Until you have had time to marshal your most compelling objections and persuasive threats, you mean," Elilia said, somewhat haughtily. "I shall do as I have always done, Brother, and follow my own heart and mind. It seems to have served me well so far. 'Hero of Ferelden,' and all that. But if we must, we may speak later. Right now I'm going to go track down that cute little mage that healed Loghain. I have a job offer for her."

She left Fergus then, and went to find her mage, but she found Loghain first - or rather the other way around. He pulled her behind one of the supply wagons to speak privately.

"Did you tell your brother about what I did to you?" he asked, and with that conversation still fresh in her mind she misinterpreted the question.

"He left me no choice. And of course now he feels that you have utterly besmirched my heretofore impeccable reputation," she said, with an eloquent roll of the eyes.

"In what way?" Loghain asked indignantly.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because of what happened during the civil war, or more likely because you don't have a title anymore."

Loghain looked at her for a moment in utter bemusement, then shook his head slowly. "I feel morally certain that we could not be speaking of the same thing."

"Wait - what were you speaking of?"

"You remember. The little accident I had on purpose with the ashes?"

"Oh!" She blushed momentarily bright red, the first time he'd ever seen her evince humiliation. "No, no, I didn't say anything about that. I don't think it's a good idea to spread that information around very far, if possible, at least for now. It's going to be bloody hard to explain and I'm sure there'll be a reckoning with the Wardens, which I don't care to think about now."

"Good, because neither do I. Time enough to deal with it all later, when there's a bit of time to think first. Wait - what did you think I was speaking of?"

"Well, rumor has it…"

He frowned. "Rumor…?"

She sighed and laughed. "You're not the only early riser in an army camp, you know."

"People have been…talking."

"They tend to do that, not that you'd know anything about it, God of the Silent."

He ignored the jibe. "Who else knows?"

"Everybody," Elilia said lightly.

"My Lady…"

"Everybody that matters, at any rate. Fergus. The King and Queen - well, the Queen at least, though I expect she'll have told Alistair by now. Probably the other nobles have heard, and by now the tale has circulated quite thoroughly among the soldiers and has most likely grown most sordid indeed. Are you worried about your reputation, perhaps? Or that I would use this in some way to ensnare you? You needn't. I am capable of taking the hint."

"What hint?"

"Not that I've much experience in such matters, but when a man leaves a woman's bed - or bedroll, in this case - before dawn and without waking her, he's saying, 'Thank you, but no more please.' And that suits me well enough."

"You think that I - " His face worked for a moment as he tried to find the right words or actions. The one he settled upon was risky. He took her face in his hands and brought his mouth down onto hers with almost bruising force. She resisted momentarily, but then her own hands plunged into his hair and she kissed back. When he pulled back a bit after a long moment she looked disappointed. "Sometimes a man is just saying that he'd like to let the lady sleep."

"You made not the slightest sign…I thought you just wanted to forget."

"You made no sign either, leastwise to me," Loghain pointed out, his amusement faintly evident in his voice. "Given that we had not a private moment to speak of it, it seemed to me wise to wait for a better moment for frank discussion of what passed between us…and what might come of it."

"What…might come of it?" Elilia asked hesitantly.

"Depends on what you want out of it, I suppose. I can't imagine its something you'd actually want to repeat, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong about something."

She drew back with a sly look. "Well, I guess I'll have to think about that. And soon, if we're truly going to travel together, sleeping rough beneath the stars in the wild places with no one at all to tell us what to do and what not to…"

"Something to look forward to, at any rate. You do realize, of course, that the Crown is going to have plenty of work for both of us, most like, before we can ever see if my foolish little fancy has any foothold in reality? Anora would love to swap you out for one of her more troublesome Banns, I'm sure."

"Probably so, but we're going just the same, as soon as we can break away. Which reminds me, I was looking for that mousey little healer girl. I'd like her to come along. You seem to have been looking for a place to die lately, and it's not happening on my watch."