When he had eaten his fill, Mahariel returned him to bed. The emaciated man could hardly hold his head up. She didn't know how to help, but she knew more rest couldn't hurt. She drew her bedroom blinds and closed the door to give him the solitude he might need to sleep soundly, but he looked so tired she thought he might also sleep through the end of the world, a situation with which she was not unfamiliar. In her study, she lit candles against the evening and leaned near the window, one hand in her hair.

What was she to do with this man, this mage, this creature she once had loved? Her heart was hesitant. Before he had stumbled back into her life, thin and sickly and blighted, Maharial would have told anyone who asked that this was the man with whom she was in love. Even after Fenris had shared her bed - physical comfort was not the same as what Anders had given her, not just in Kirkwall, but even when they had first been acquainted at the Keep. It was unspoken between them, but it had been undeniable that what they had together.

So what was wrong? It wasn't his appearance, his illness, his Taint. She was a Grey Warden as much as he; it was something of which neither of them would ever be free. The tribulations of Anders' convictions were all that separated the progression of his disease from hers.

What was left? What was different? When she looked into his eyes, was it not the same man that she had seen for years?

Was it her?

Mahariel chewed thoughtless at the insides of her cheeks, her bare toes curling and uncurling on the smooth wooden floor beneath them. She felt uncomfortable: uncomfortable in the Keep, uncomfortable in her study, uncomfortable in her own skin. Two of those three things she could change. Mahariel snuffed out the candles in her room and padded softly out of the fortress.

Nighttime treated Amaranthine gently. In the distance, Mahariel could hear waves sloshing; the sea came almost to her doorstep, a small inlet from the bay, salty and full of whispers nevertheless. She could smell the water, feel a gentle breeze rustling leaves, rustling her loose hair. She stepped lightly between the trees, guided only by the light of a half-full moon. It didn't filter through the leaves like ambitious sunlight; it pooled on the ground instead, collected in open spaces and gave way to denser shadows that pushed it away.

The Keep was built on mountainous terrain but the original Avvar architects had worn paths into the mountainside and it was upon these Mahariel now trod. There were small rustlings in the trees; the sounds of these night creatures were entirely familiar to her. She often wondered if she might come across another stray feline, but none ever crossed her path. Sir Pounce-a-Lot seemed to have been an outlier, an opportunist who knew how and when to make his furry move. She wondered why Anders would have gotten rid of him (and pinned it on her). She had never thought to ask while she was in Kirkwall. Maybe she could ask him now.

Behind her, Mahariel heard a sound she didn't recognize as forest noise, but it was familiar to her nevertheless.

"Fenris?" she asked first, and then turned to face him.

"I thought I heard you leave the Keep."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to send you away like that. I just… didn't know what else to do."

He took a step forward and reached out to grasp her hand. It was not a presumptuous action; quite the opposite. He seemed to be asking her forgiveness with the tips of his fingers, the skin of his palm. He didn't meet her eyes when he offered, "I can't begin to know what you're going through."

"I don't know what I'm going through. It seems I almost never do. Life just keeps throwing strange occurrences at me. I would expect I'd be used to it by now, but…"

Fenris shrugged gently. "Perhaps that just life. Though to say your occurrences have been strange than most would be a dire understatement."

"And they just keep coming. It's like one thing feeds the next."

Fenris was silent for a moment, then asked, "Are you glad to see him?"

"I don't - Yes. I am. But I'm not sure what to do now."

"He's dying." It wasn't a question.

"We're both dying," she returned.

He was quiet, so she went on.

"You knew I was - I am - a Grey Warden?"

"Yes, of course, but I -"

"Fenris, I drank the blood of Darkspawn. I'm Tainted. I'm just as Blighted as he is. I'm just… shut up here in this fucking castle, waited on hand and foot. I'm well. I'm well-fed. He's starving. He's sick. He's being eaten alive. I'm just delaying the inevitable. But it's happening to us both, make no mistake."

"You feel responsible."

His words caught her cold.

She had felt responsible for what had happened after Kirkwall, for leaving him alone. But that wasn't the root of Anders' problem, not at all, no. He was dying this way because of her. She practically raise the cup to his lips.

Reaching up, Fenris touched her face, and she drew back from him.

"Lyna."

Steadying herself, Mahariel sucked in a deep breath.

"You don't always have to be strong, Lyna."

"Don't I?" she asked. Ever since she encountered the eluvian, she had had to be strong. "If not me, then who?"