A/N: Hey, here's the next chapter; it's been rewritten. Minor changes, though!


With a heaving sigh, Lina leaned against a dead tree in the forest and attempted to catch her breath. She'd ignored the shouts of Alistair and Leliana as she'd initially stormed off, but they'd disappeared eventually the further into the forest she went. Her mind kept catapulting possible reasons as to why Tamlen would leave if she was injured badly, but in her annoyance it couldn't be justified. It only served to wind her up further. Throughout her life, she'd searched glades, trekked through the heart of the Hinterlands and ventured through Shemlen cities to find him, no matter what was wrong with her; it upset and annoyed her that, on one of the times that she needed him there, he wasn't.

The sun had already reached its peak, high above the treetops, and yet the forest was growing steadily darker the further she went into it. Suddenly, the surroundings changed drastically. Everything had been tainted or destroyed by the darkspawn. The bushes and shrubbery were dead and limp, the flowers were frail and dying and the grass was black. Was it Tamlen that was drawing her into the forest, this far, or was it the taint inside her, drawing her towards the darkspawn whilst she was alone?

She eventually reached a clearing, dark and dead, and the only living thing was sitting in the middle. One knee was brought up to his chest and his other leg was folded beneath it, and he was frowning into the trees.

Tamlen hadn't heard her arrive, and in her annoyance Lina decided to announce her presence by unsheathing her blade. The screech of the metal as it scraped against its casing made the elf look up, and the defensive look that dashed across his face changed once he realised that it was only her. He looked guilty, and quickly took his blade from the floor and sheathed it.

"What is wrong with you, Tamlen?" Lina asked quietly, blades held loosely in her hands as she regarded him. Tamlen stood up, wary, and raised his eyebrows at her. He still, however, did not look her in the eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about." His answer was quiet, prompting a scowl from Lina.

"You know full well what I'm talking about, Tamlen! I could have died and you wouldn't have known."

"You were strong enough to survive it, Lina." At those words, Lina had to refrain from stamping her foot like a child.

"You have no way of knowing that! Blood poisoning, fever, blood loss; all of those could have killed me, and it would take you to remove the stick from your backside to know it! You made your point in Redcliffe, Tamlen; there was no need to carry it on." Lina spun her Dar'Misu handle around in her hand, eyes stormy and set in a glare towards Tamlen. He raised his hands in defence.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Something, anything. I have stood by you through everything for eighteen years, and you simply throw me to the side after a tiny argument? I want you to tell what possessed you to leave the camp when you saw me being carried back by Alistair." Lina didn't notice him twitch at her last few words, but she watched as he looked away from her to the floor. He looked as though he were trying hard to think of something that would not wind her up further.

"Listen, I was being stubborn. I know that now. And I'm…sorry." The word was ground out –it was always hard for him to apologise- and he gave her look of honest guilt. Lina shook her head.

"Don't look at me like that! For year's I've gone weak at the knees, but not this time. You're hiding something, and I'll be damned if I don't find out what it is." Lina locked eyes with him, and the two were stood in the clearing glaring at each other, daring the other to look away. Lina wanted an answer, and Tamlen wanted her to give up. After a minute of silence, Lina gave an annoyed groan. She pulled her Dar'Misu up in a curve to strike him, and only just in time did he move back to dodge it. He took his shield from its place on his back and used it to block another hit from her Dar'Misu.

Lina recoiled when the weapon hit solid wood and sent a shudder through her arm. Her arm jerked back, and she instead swung with her Dar'Missan in an attempt to make him use his weapon. She only succeeded in grazing his arm. He smirked at her, unintentionally, and at the expression Lina attacked again with her left arm. She aimed her Dar'Misu at his knees, and became more frustrated as it bounced off his kneepads. Lina threw away all ideas of tactics, and instead simply hit his shield repeatedly in frustration. The shield did not waver, and Tamlen made no move to go for his weapon.

Lina did not stop for nearly ten minutes, and eventually Tamlen unsheathed his sword. He swung it lazily in the direction or her Dar'Missan, and once it connected with the curve he flicked his wrist. The sword went flying out of her hand and skidded along the floor of the clearing. Lina, stunned by the sudden movement, was distracted long enough for him to grab the hand that held her other weapon. He pressed down hard on the pressure point just below her thumb, and pushed her hand towards her forearm. She dropped the blade automatically, and twisted away from him in pain as he kept applying the pressure.

Before she could pick her weapon up off the floor with her free hand, Tamlen gripped her upper arms and pinned her to the nearest tree. She wriggled in his grasp as he held her at arms length, and it took a slam against the tree for her to look up at him.

"Listen to me, no, look at me. I understand that you're angry; I guessed that when you swung your dagger the first time. But you need to calm down." He shook her lightly, and her struggles stopped completely as she averted her eyes to stare at the floor. After a beat, she burst out laughing.

"Isn't it ironic? We used to spend all day, every day, with each other in the clan, and now we're amongst humans, we can't stand each other!" Her laughing turned hysterical, and she clutched at his arms with considerable pressure. Her hair was plastered to her face, and some of the bands that held bits of hair together had snapped. It had turned frizzy and messy, and seemed to reflect only how she felt.

"Shh, calm down." His words were awkward; attempting to be comforting was not his best ability, especially not when he was partially the reason she was so wound up.

"I simply want to know why you left me alone in that camp when I was injured, with shems that we barely know." Lina, still giggling, hung her head. She was tired, angry and ashamed all at once, and the conflicting emotions weren't doing much good for her morale. She felt unhinged. Tamlen shook his head with a sigh.

"I was annoyed that you had sent me back to camp. It only irritated me further when I saw the shem carrying you back. I knew then that I should have stayed in Redcliffe, and then perhaps I could have protected you. At the very least, it should have been me who carried you back. You could have died in that battle, and I'd just left you to it." Tamlen explained, waiting for Lina's cackles and giggles to recede.

"Oh you idiot." Lina started, pausing to catch her breath and force down another bout of hysterical laughter. "You thought I'd hold a grudge, didn't you? Tamlen, you've pushed me into a ravine and I didn't care." Lina shook her head, and the giggles came back. She chuckled, leaning forwards to rest her forehead on his chest to wait for them to subside. Tamlen stood awkwardly for a moment, listening to her quieter giggles, before he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her. To hold her steady, he told himself, and attempted to listen carefully for anything moving in the surrounding area.

Lina had stopped laughing long before he realised it.


"This is your fault. I'm not sugar-coating it. You are to blame." Lina spoke harshly and folded her arms, tapping one foot on the floor as she watched Isolde. She looked, to Tamlen's horror and surprise, exactly like Ashalle whenever the woman caught them misbehaving or starting trouble. Isolde whipped around at those words, eye's flicking from the fireplace to Lina. Her orbs were ablaze with anger.

"How dare you? Everything I did, it was to protect-" Teagan stepped forward and cut the woman off, a slight limp in his gait from a leg wound he had received from Alistair. He held a hand up to silence the blonde woman.

"Wasn't that what started this, Isolde? You trying to protect Connor? Take responsibility." Teagan spoke, leaning against Alistair for support. Morrigan seemed to be content with not letting Teagan know she had the abilities necessary to heal his leg. Lina smirked at the witch, and it was returned with gold, cat-like eyes glimmering in the light.

"But I was only trying to-"

"Enough, please. We need to figure out what we're going to do with the demon upstairs. Oh, get a hold of yourself." Lina snapped towards Isolde after the woman twitched at Lina's reference to Connor. "Whether you like it or not, shem, that room upstairs no longer holds a child, but a demon. Stop weeping, it won't help. Your Maker is not going to appear out of the blue to get rid of the demon; we have to do it ourselves." Lina uncrossed her arms, ignoring Isolde and rummaging through her pack for one of the freshly-brewed poultices. She handed it to Teagan, who nodded in thanks.

"Thank you. Isolde, this woman is right. I feel at the moment that killing Connor would be…a mercy."

"So that is it? My son will die?" Isolde spoke up, and her words were directed at Teagan in hope he would say otherwise. Alistair commented on how it would be the kindest thing to do, and Tamlen and Morrigan simply stayed silent. Lina disagreed completely. Two people were for it, two people were against it.

"Killing him seems to be the only option." Teagan looked horrified even as he agreed, and his gaze was sorrowful as he looked at Lina. She shook her head.

"No. There is another way, I'm sure of it. I've read it somewhere, but I can't think of where." Lina wracked her mind for the information she knew she had stored. Flashes of memories of long nights staying up reading a battered, worn journal that was smudged with ink flitted through her mind, and yellow pages that smelt like herbs and magic.

"If there is another way, please let me know! I will not allow my son to simply die." Lina strongly resisted the urge to shush the woman, and suddenly felt very tense when everyone –knights included- turned their eyes in her direction.

"We need lyrium. Lots of it. I can't remember the specifics, but there were mages needed, and the victim themselves. A mage needs to go inside his mind, and kill the demon from within, I think." Lina nodded more to herself than any of the others, and Alistair stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder.

"We can find Lyrium and Mages at the Circle of Magi. One of our treaties is for the mages, so we can head on there."

"The Tower is a day's journey across the lake. I implore that you make haste; Isolde and I shall keep watch over Connor for the next few days." Any look of terror on Isolde's face disappeared after Lina had agreed to the idea. Lina didn't listen to her thanks, but left the room quickly with a need to get outside and away from a place with a roof.

"How did you know that?" Alistair asked as they descended the stone steps to the castle.

"My father was a mage, and Keeper of our clan for a very long time. He kept journals, a lot of them." Lina glanced over to Tamlen. "All those times you yelled at me for leaving the lantern on so I could read 'fairytales', you never realised I was just reading the journals."

"Did one of those journals have a method for reversing possession?"

"Clearly. He didn't invent the method, but he did write it down for the clan to refer to in the future. We rarely fall to a demon's influence, but for those odd cases, we need a way to get rid of it." Lina shrugged, all but running away from Redcliffe in order to reach her campsite.

When she arrived and moved into her tent to find the single journal she had brought with her, she realised with a sad pang that they would not be going directly to the Dalish after all.