Author's note: This chapter was going to be way too long for my liking (roughly 3000 words is my limit), so I've cut it in half and this half's a tad short.
Ayale followed Alistair away from the main camp site, where they could talk without being overheard. She walked slowly, as her legs were still aching terribly, and Alistair quickly noticed her pace and waited for her to catch up before continuing at a more manageable speed.
They stopped by a couple of tree stumps, and Ayale happily claimed one for herself. Alistair sat down on the other, facing his fellow Grey Warden. They sat together for a moment, the silence between them not awkward but not entirely comfortable.
"Your friend looks better," Alistair commented conversationally.
"He was covered in a lot of grime," Ayale noted. "He wasn't nearly as bad as I first thought. He looks much better now that I've clean him up a bit. And hahren Wynne's magic has done a lot for him, too. The redness in his skin's practically gone."
"That's good," Alistair smiled. "That's really good. I'm glad to hear it."
"So...What's on your mind, Alistair?" Ayale queried, starting the inevitable conversation off.
"Well..." Alistair squirmed uncomfortably. "About what I said... last night..."
Ayale smiled understandingly. She'd seen his apology face before and could easily recognise the signs. The shemlen would look at his feet, frown slightly and chew his lip, which would subsequently make the tip of his nose twitch and wiggle around on his face, or perhaps he did it on purpose. Overall, it was a very cute expression and one that Ayale couldn't help but smile at.
"We were both out of line last night, me more than you," she assured him. "Let's agree that we're both sorry, and move past it, yeah?"
Alistair smiled in relief and nodded in agreement. He cleared his throat and continued to chew his lip. He focused on the camp, rather than look at Ayale, and tapped his feet to some unknown rhythm.
Ayale knew that she couldn't push him into talking, and that her constantly watching him wasn't going to encourage him to speak. So, she looked away and observed their surroundings.
It was then that she realised that they were near the spot where Tamlen had appeared. She wondered if Alistair had brought her to the location on purpose, but she seriously doubted that he would do something so obvious. Memories of that night flashed past her eyes and she closed them in shame.
"Abelas Alistair," she finally whispered, opening her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Alistair asked confusedly, turning to look at her.
"For the nosebleed?" she offered. "For holding my weapon against you, for shooting at you... for a lot of things."
"Well, you didn't actually shoot at me," he shrugged. "Just the ground by my feet."
"So... you're not mad at me? At all?" she frowned in astonishment.
"Mad? No, I'm not mad," he promised. "A bit wary of you... maybe, but not mad."
Ayale exhaled through her nose in a way that sounded like half-sneeze-half-laugh. She smiled humourlessly as she shook her head slowly. She never looked away from the tree line, even when Alistair leaned back to appear in her peripheral vision.
"Tamlen's my clanmate and lethallin. All I could think of last night was that I had to protect him, since he wasn't in any state to protect himself," she muttered bitterly. "That's the way of the Dalish, through and through."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Alistair noted.
"By protecting one clanmate, I endangered three others... you, Leliana, Wynne," she explained angrily. "I shouldn't have had to raise my weapon against any of my clan, whether that was Tamlen or you three."
"You– you're calling us a clan?" he sputtered in amazement.
Ayale turned to look at him with an expression of surprise. She had believed that her attitude on this subject had been obvious. Perhaps it only seemed obvious to her...
"Sure, why not?" Ayale asked calmly, shrugging her shoulders. "I doubt I'll ever return to the Dalish even if we do survive this Blight, whether by chance or some divine intervention by my hahra or your Maker. I'm too different now to return to them."
"But... a clan?" Alistair iterated.
"What else could I call this group of ours? A band of complete and utter strangers who are all out to stop the Blight and just so happen to place their lives in each other hands on a regular basis?" she offered light-heartedly. "It's a bit long winded."
"I guess it is," Alistair conceded, chuckling slightly. "But still, 'clan' isn't a name that the Dalish throw about on whim. I know that much."
"No... it's not," Ayale confirmed.
Alistair didn't speak for a moment. A look of astonishment was on his face, as if he was having difficulty comprehending what she'd just said. His eyebrows kept jumping up and down as he tried to mull over the small snippet of their conversation.
Ayale was silent as she waited for him to catch up with her. Shemlen could be very slow at understating things sometimes. It was almost endearing.
"I... can't believe you'd consider us as important as Tamlen," Alistair mentioned after the best part of a minute.
"I have been lethallan to Tamlen for many years, it's true," she admitted. "We grew up together and we know pretty much everything about each other. I'd trust him with my life, and I have done so in the past. I don't know all that much about everyone in camp, but I trust each and every one of you as much as I trust him."
"Wow..." Alistair murmured in awe.
Ayale smiled happily. She was glad that she had surprised the templar as she had, and she prayed that she had done at least a little in the ways of repairing the damage that her careless actions had caused.
She felt her momentary bout of happiness break when she saw Alistair's face fall into a suspicious frown.
"So... how long have you know Tamlen, exactly?" he asked curiously.
"Since I was five," Ayale replied instantly, frowning slightly in confusion to his question.
"And, how long is that in years?" he pushed.
"Alistair!" Ayale cried, laughing in disbelief as his two questions suddenly made sense. "Vel'sry nir hahra! Are you asking me how old I am?"
The young man frowned for a moment, thinking her question through and continuing the path that his questions would have led him to. He then blushed red, proving her right, before hiding his face in his hands.
She could feel heat rushing to her own cheeks as she unsuccessfully fought down the urge to laugh in embarrassment.
"So... how old are you?" Alistair asked timidly as he looked up, almost shrinking into himself as he asked.
For the Dalish, it was very much like a death sentence for a man to ask a woman that particular question. By the way Alistair was trying to disappear into his armour, it seemed that the same unspoken threat was present in the shemlen world, too.
However, the look on his face was proof that he really was as naive as she thought he was. He clearly hadn't realised that the end result of his questions would reveal her age. So, she decided to forgive him for this almost grievous offense.
"How about we just leave it as 'more than a few years', hmm?" she offered, her sweet smile not hiding the potentially murderous glint in her eyes.
"Uh... yeah, sure," Alistair agreed numbly.
"Ma serannas," she thanked.
"But... you are in your twenties, right?" he queried.
"Alistair," she called as if in song. "Don't go there."
"Right, sorry," the templar mumbled.
"It's one of the bonuses of being Dalish," Ayale explained. "We're slowly regaining the immortality of our ancestors. We live far longer than shemlen do and our city-bound, flat-eared brethren, and we also slow down as we age. While we're less than ten years old, we age as shemlen do. But, after that, we don't age as quickly. But still, even hahren that are over seventy start showing signs that they're getting old. There are two hahren in... the clan that raised me who have lived for over five generation. That's almost one hundred and thirty years."
"Wow," the shemlen muttered enviously. "But, of course, you're not a hundred."
"Of course not!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I've haven't even got lines on my face yet, and my hair's blonde, not white. By our standards, I'm still a da'len."
"Right right! Sorry," Alistair apologised.
"Well, now that we have gotten over how old I could be," she noted, trying to wave her hand in the air nonchalantly. "What did you want to talk to me about, seriously, no evasions?"
Alistair instantly sobered up and started chewing his lip again. She was slightly surprised that he hadn't bitten through the soft flesh and drawn blood. But, if he'd had enough practise, he probably knew how hard to bite without causing any physical damage.
"I don't have a problem with you doing what you did to save Tamlen, I never did," he started nervously. "But, I can't help but worry about what the consequences are going to be."
"You mean, because of his connection to the darkspawn?" she queried.
She could understand where he was coming from. Tamlen was, despite all of her protests to the contrary, a ghoul. He was also further down the process than she was, and the confrontation the night before had been proof enough that he was susceptible to the archdemon's call, despite his best efforts to resist it. That could prove to be a fatal distraction, especially in a fight against the darkspawn.
"Not his connection..." Alistair shook his head. "I'm worried about yours."
"Mine?" Ayale blinked in surprise and confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know what you did, or how you did it, but you made your voice echo through the taint. I know. I heard you," he explained. "And if I heard you..."
"There's a good chance that the darkspawn did too," she summed up.
"And, the archdemon," Alistair added reluctantly.
Ayale groaned as she buried her face in her hands. She cringed at the thought of what she'd unwittingly done, unable to stop the tears that were swelling up behind her eyes. She had never imagined that what Alistair was suggesting as a possible consequence. But now that he'd mentioned it, she could believe that she hadn't thought of it herself.
However, there was something in the shemlen's tone that told her that he wasn't finished. Grudgingly, she raised her head to look at her fellow Grey Warden.
"What else?" she asked apprehensively.
"When you sang that song to Tamlen in the grove, you spoke out through the taint," Alistair noted. "And... since then... you've haven't stopped."
"I– What?" she almost shrieked in alarm.
"Not all the time," he quickly assured her. "But, when you're under stress, like when you get really angry or when you got hurt this morning... you cry out through the taint. I guess you didn't know."
"No. No, I didn't know," Ayale swore, her voice increasing in pitch as she struggled to fight down her panic.
A muffled cry from camp made Ayale turn around. It was coming from Tamlen, she knew that, and she felt her insides freeze as concern for him overrode her panic for herself.
"I think he's picking up on your calls," Alistair muttered quietly.
"You make me sound like the archdemon," Ayale observed worriedly.
"That's not my intention," Alistair promised. "But... when you spoke through the taint in the grove, I think he latched onto your voice, your presence. He knows who you are, so he might be focusing on you, maybe as some kind of lifeline... I don't know. But, I do know that he's aware of everything you send through the taint, intentionally or not."
Ayale struggled to swallow the lump that was sticking uncomfortably in her throat. When she finally got it to shift, she gasped as she panted for breath. By the hahra, when did the air get so thin?
She noticed that Alistair was kindly, patiently waiting for her to calm down and speak. She sent silent thoughts of gratitude towards him, and then wondered if he'd actually heard her, or Tamlen for that matter. Not that she was going to find out much from Tamlen any time soon.
But of course, if either of the two men heard her, then the darkspawn would have heard her, and the archdemon. She suddenly had to fight down a second wave of panic.
"What should I do?" she whispered fearfully.
"I don't know," Alistair replied honestly. "I've never heard of a Grey Warden ever being able to speak through the taint before. I never would have thought it possible until I heard you."
Ayale didn't reply instantly. Instead, she mulled over what her fellow Grey Warden had said. She thought through everything that Alistair had ever told her about the Order, trying to identify the one difference that would explain how this phenomenon could have occurred.
She instantly dismissed the idea that it could be that she was an elf, as he had mentioned that there had been one elf in the Order. She never did ask what had happened to him, but had a feeling that Alistair wouldn't know, or at the very least, wouldn't want to talk about it.
The thought that she was a woman crept into her head, but she crossed that off her list of possibilities. Alistair had mentioned that there weren't many women in the Order, and she was certain that if it was a gender specific ability he would have mentioned it.
So, putting aside race and gender, she found herself struggling to think of any difference between the two of them. Those were the only two points that she could see. They'd both become Grey Wardens in the exact same way...
And then, realisation hit her, and she groaned in displeasure.
"I think I know what's going on," she stated when Alistair frowned at her in confusion.
"You do?" he asked curiously.
"Apart from race and sex, there's only one difference between you and me," she noted, ignoring the shemlen's slight, immature smirk. "I was already tainted when I Joined the Grey Wardens."
"I don't see how that matters..." Alistair shook his head, frowning as he struggled to connect the dots.
"I was becoming a ghoul. The call is stronger, rawer, than when you're a Grey Warden," she explained, knowing that he wouldn't understand otherwise. "And, you said it yourself: ghouls are more closely connected to the darkspawn."
"You think you took the connection one step further," he assessed.
"It's possible, isn't it?" she shrugged. "But... I guess how I did it doesn't matter all that much. What really matters is what we're going to do about it."
"Huh?" Alistair frowned in bewilderment. "What do you mean?"
"The darkspawn being able to sense us is one thing, but if they can seek me out like a beacon... That's attention that the clan– this group... doesn't need," she noted.
"So, what can we do about it? You're... You're not thinking of leaving, are you?" he questioned worriedly.
"I don't know... maybe," she admitted quietly. "But, if I'm not, then everyone needs to know about this... development."
"You don't want to keep it quiet?" Alistair raised an eyebrow.
"This isn't something we can keep to ourselves," she shook her head. "That's a sure recipe for a fatal disaster."
Alistair chewed his lip. The concerned frown on his face was doing nothing to ease Ayale's unease. Obviously he was thinking about the same worry that she was: if they did tell everyone, how many would stay?
Ayale could think of a couple in the group who may not take the news well. And, as much as she didn't want anyone to leave, she knew that she'd rather they left than come to harm later because of this new ability that she had no idea on how to control.
"My legs still hurt," she stated suddenly. "Would you help me back, lethallin?"
Alistair didn't reply, but only looked at her. His expression was unusually guarded, and she couldn't guess as to what he was thinking. However, he didn't say anything, but merely nodded to her.
He stood up and offered her his hand, which she willing took. He helped her to her feet and laid a hand on her back, just encase she needed him for balance or support. In kind, she rested her hand on his nearest shoulder.
In that position, they made their way back to camp.
Elvish translations (my words in italics):
Abelas –Sorrow (also used for apologies)
Da'len –child(ren)
Hahra –God(s)
Hahren –Elder
Lethallin/Lethallan –Friend (male/female)
Ma serannas –Thank you
Shemlen –human(s)
Vel'sry nir hahra –Mercy of the Gods!
