Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.
In their blood the Maker's will is written
Benedictions 4:11

When dawn broke over Ferelden it was to herald a wet and rather miserably rainy day. The fog was low and thick on the ground, aided by the steady misting rain that fell from the sky until between the two, it was hard to see for more than a few feet in any direction. Derik woke dry under the canopy of pines, listening to the steady patter of rain and the shallow even breaths of the woman curled against the warmth of his chest.

Neve had nestled against him, her arms clutched to her chest against the chill that pervaded the air in the early morning. She had fallen asleep without putting any of her clothes on, but she had wrapped herself so thoroughly in his weather-treated cloak that it hardly mattered. Her hair had dried in waves, a lock feathering across her cheek. Almost as if under compulsion he reached up and brushed the errant strand behind her ear.

It took a few seconds for him to realize what he was doing and pulled back his hand abruptly as if shocked. A small voice in his head warned him to be cautious. It was the same little voice that had steered him away from dangerous paths before, and he fully intended on taking his own advice.

Derik managed to get himself disentangled from Neve without waking her and silently slipped his hand inside his pack, fishing out a small bag and stepped outside into the misting rain. Neve woke a few moments later, startled awake by a lack of warmth and the sound of violent coughing.

She was on her feet in an instant, clutching the cloak tightly to herself and ducked her head outside to try and find the source of the noise and wherever in the Void that Derik had gotten off to. She found him right away despite the cloaking mist, doubled over and holding onto a tree for support, apparently in great pain. Her heart leapt in her throat and she closed the distance between them without a second thought, placing her hands on his arm to steady him. "Derik, what's-?"

He turned a startled look on her, jerking his arm out of her hands before another bought of coughing took him. Her eyes were drawn to a small bag on the ground at his feet, recognizing the subtle glow of lyrium dust. Instantly her demeanor shifted to outrage, the first accusation dripping from her lips with contempt. "I thought you said you weren't an addict anymore."

Derik caught his breath before trying for a response, looking several shades paler with his face twisted into a grimace. He had been clutching his ribs before, but wiped at his mouth with a trembling hand and looked as if he were about to be sick. "This… is a necessary evil." He replied in a voice so gruff that Neve's own throat itched with sympathy pain.

"Explain." She demanded, lifting her chin as if to dare Derik to defy her.

He looked at her for a lingering moment, searching her face before finally closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath for strength. "I am not a mage. I cannot do magic on my own. While the abilities of a Templar are not magic in the most strict sense of the definition, they still require lyrium." His knuckles were clenched so hard that they were white, but he appeared to have collected himself enough that he no longer looked on the verge of being violently ill as he had before. "A Templar can go a long stretch of time without needing lyrium, but the more we use our abilities, the more often we need to replenish what we've lost. Does that make sense?"

Neve was silent for a bit, the sound of the rain the only sound in the stretch of quiet. "You take it even though it makes you sick?"

He offered Neve a rueful smile. "It didn't used to. I wasn't completely honest when I told you that I'd overcome my addiction. I stopped wanting lyrium because I nearly died from it, not through a conscious choice to quit."

"You overdosed." Neve supplied in a small voice and Derik nodded.

"I had just been promoted to Knight-Corporal, and to celebrate my success I was given an extremely difficult assignment to test my skills. At the time I was just as addicted as any proper Templar… I knew that I was going to need everything I had to get through my mission. I hadn't considered that I might overdose on the smuggled lyrium I bought, thinking my standard ration would never be enough." He recited his own personal history with clinical objectivity, as if he were speaking of someone else entirely. Like it was a page he was reading from. "I was on my deathbed for nearly a week. When I woke up, the lyrium excess had me practically throwing up my liver and spleen for another two weeks." He gave the bag at his feet a brief glance, a look of disgust briefly crossing his features. "Ever since, lyrium has never sat right with me. I can barely look at it without feeling a little ill, never mind actually having to take it."

Neve frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, settling a petulant look on him. "Then why? Are you really just that stubborn?"

"Because without the lyrium, I can't be a proper Templar." Derik replied in a soft voice, meeting her gaze. "My abilities will eventually fade away. If I'm not a Templar, then I become just another man with a sword. I can do more good for the world by being what I am now. If I have to suffer a little illness every few months in order to be of use, then it is a small price to pay."

Neve shook her head and sighed a little sadly. "You're dead set and determined to be a damned hero, aren't you?" She asked, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth. "But I suppose you wouldn't be Derik if it were any other way. Come on, let's get you back inside before we both catch the chills out here." She extended her hand palm up and waited a beat while Derik hesitated. When he reached out to take her hand she slipped her fingers through his and smiled, tugging his hand gently to get him to come along back to the pine shelter.

Once inside, she slipped off the cloak without any regard for the fact that Derik was literally standing right there. Now wearing nothing at all, she casually bent down while Derik hastily averted his eyes, a furious blush stealing across his cheeks. "Maker's breath, woman!" He hissed and stole a look at her face to see the hedge mage grinning cattily back at him as she picked up her folded clothes. "I thought we were past this."

"Oh calm down Templar." She laughed and started pulling on her clothes a little awkwardly, having to stoop in order not to hit her head on the roof of their little shelter. "It's nothing you haven't seen before. Honestly, I'm beginning to doubt your prowess as a man if you get flustered every time you see a naked woman."

"Pardon me for having a little common decency." He replied in a sardonic tone and crossed his arms over his chest, keeping his eyes firmly on the wall of pine needles to his right. "Would you rather I stare luridly at you?"

"Not at all." She replied with a grin and finished wiggling into her pants. "It's much more cute for you to be shy. Like a puppy."

"Like a puppy." Derik repeated in a deadpan, his mouth drawing into a thin disapproving line.

Neve chuckled to herself and finished pulling her shirt over her head, adjusting it slightly to let the wrinkles fall out. "So, what are we going to do next?" She asked in a perfectly reasonable tone, plopping down next to the tree's base and folded her legs. "The assassin's dead, but they'll probably not be deterred for long."

Derik cautiously looked over to make sure she was clothed again before sitting down as well and heaved a small sigh. Even sitting as far away as he could, their knees were almost touching in the small space of the shelter. "As much as I hate to be belayed from my task… it would probably be best to stay put for now. I'd rather not risk the horse turning a hoof or breaking a leg in this miserable weather. If we were close to the Imperial Highway I'd risk it anyway, but…" The paving stones of the Highway would make this weather better than impossible to deal with, if still unadvisable.

Neve nodded in understanding, following his train of thought. "Probably for the best. We're sort of out in the middle of nowhere." Neve arched an eyebrow curiously, folding her hands over her knees. "Are you going to be alright just sitting here and waiting out the weather? I don't think I've ever seen you sit still for more than five minutes without having to resolve some crisis or another."

"I'll be fine." Derik replied with a grin and a little laugh at himself. They had only been traveling together for a couple months, but it seemed as if she had figured him out. He had a tendency to need to keep himself occupied whenever he was conscious. "I need some down time after having to take my ration of lyrium. It's hard to concentrate with a fresh dose in my system I find, and I need a day to get rid of the jitters."

"That bad, huh?" Neve asked and bit her lip, threading her hands through her hair. She drew it over her shoulder and started combing out the tangles with her fingers. "What was it like growing up a Templar?"

Derik inhaled and sat back a little, trying to think of how best to respond. "Lots of rules, lots of studying. They give you an option at first: Serve the Chantry as a brother or as a Templar. But, any boy able enough is almost always pushed toward indoctrination into the Order. When I was old enough to hold a sword I spent my days with either with my nose in a book or out in the yard training."

"So in essence, you had no fun at all." Neve said dryly. "That answers a lot of my other questions."

Derik smiled at her expression, finding it amusing that she viewed his childhood in such a dim light. "It wasn't all bad you know. I had friends and we got into all sorts of trouble together. Playing pranks on the sisters, dodging the resulting punishment, sneaking notes and throwing paper during lectures… The Chantry gave me a place to belong and a family. Quinn wasn't just my mentor, he was the closest thing I had to a father growing up."

Neve bit her lip and shook her head gently. "I'm sorry Derik. I just can't imagine what it would be like… growing up without ever knowing your real parents." There was something in her tone that scraped a bit of the dirt off the very same long-buried regret he had pushed down for years, and Derik found that revisiting the old scar stung a little more than he thought it would. "My family was everything to me. When my mother and father died… when I found out my sister had been kidnapped and killed… I was lost. I would have told them anything when they were still alive; I trusted them. But you have to keep secrets from your family. You have to hide who you are from them, or they would kill you. That's not family."

Derik sat back, folding his hands together in his lap. "Maybe it isn't what you think family should be, but it's all I have." Neve couldn't meet his eyes after that statement, instead concentrating her gaze on a knot in a nearby branch. "And I would have it no other way." He said gently, ducking his head slightly to catch Neve's eye. "A lone man acting outside the bounds of the law, even with good intentions, is a dangerous thing. Without a check to balance me, it is entirely possible that I could stray from the Maker's path as it has been set out for me. Perhaps you can never come to see the Chantry as an institution of greatness, but they are rather proficient at bringing criminals to justice."

Neve shook her head. "But you're not a criminal. Not really. Maybe because of all those laws and foolishness of the Chant, but not in your heart." She looked up at him finally, fully meeting his gaze and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "I don't know how you can stand it. I would go crazy and do something stupid… blow some things up maybe just to prove a point."

He chuckled despite the tense atmosphere. "I've considered doing that a few times. Mostly I just take out my frustrations on deserving murderers. But ultimately, the one who will judge if my actions were righteous or not is the Maker. Not Quinn, not the Grand Cleric, or even the Divine Herself."

She heaved a small sigh, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "There's that Templar soul I know you have. How you manage to sound so righteous while speaking blasphemy, I'll never know."

He laughed rather loudly at that, a genuine grin showing through. "It's a talent." Derik finally managed with a bit of a chuckle to his tone. "Right up there with saving damsels in distress and getting into situations way over my head."

She joined him in the brief burst of mirth, showing a smile in return. They were silent for a moment, her smile slowly disappearing and she folded her hands in her lap. "Derik? I want to try something."

Derik simply looked at her, threading his fingers together and patiently waited for the proposal. Neve took a deep breath, seeming to steady her courage before continuing. "I want to find out where my limit is. I don't… want to give you any more reason to not trust me. We're in this together so…"

His gaze switched from neutral to curious, one eyebrow arching high. "What do you mean?"

"I want to try and manipulate you again." She replied, fisting her hands and straightened slightly. "I don't know when I might slip up and try and use that power. It just happens, like instinct. But once I'm there, I can control the pressure that I use. I want to know how far I can go before you're in danger. If we're in the middle of a fight and you get decapitated because of me, then I couldn't bear to live with myself."

Neve was unable to read Derik, his face slipping into an unreadable mask as he thought about the proposal. He was silent long enough that she started fidgeting, thinking for sure that he would be angry with her for prosing the idea and opened her mouth to apologize when he finally spoke.

"Okay."

She blinked, snapping her mouth shut and shot him a confused look. "Okay?"

"I think it's a good idea." He finally conceded, leaning back slightly. "It's a good idea to know my limits, and yours. It will put me at ease to finally know. Right now I'm not at full strength, but in the middle of a battle, I won't be able to concentrate on warding off a compulsion. So go ahead and try."

Neve blinked at him again, surprised by how calm he was about the whole thing and shook herself to snap out of it. "Well, then here goes…" She took a deep breath, steadying herself. It was a little late to be backing out now anyway…

Reaching for the power to possess the minds of others was different than trying to just instinctively do it, as she had been before. It always seemed like a necessity, a means to an end, but now she was trying this for the sake of knowing rather than an actual want to try and control Derik. If he noticed her struggles, Derik said nothing, instead remaining quiet and patiently waited for her to begin.

Frowning at her lack of control, Neve rose up on her knees and touched either side of Derik's face, resolutely meeting his gaze. "Show me what you're thinking." She whispered, more to herself than to Derik. The power leapt to her control then, though without the flood of desire that normally followed in the wake of her trying to control someone else. Neve quickly met a wall and had the most curious sensation like she was trying to press against something that was so smooth she simply slipped by the face of it. Surprised, it took her a few seconds to realize that this was what his will felt like.

She gave another tentative push, trying to collapse the barriers he had set, but only seemed to slide off again. That couldn't be right. She had been successful before in overtaking him, but it seemed that no matter what angle she tried to knock the wall down from, her efforts simply slipped aside. Infuriatingly, Derik looked completely calm and unruffled, as if her best efforts meant absolutely nothing to him.

Frustrated, Neve decided to try the only way that ever seemed to sway a stubborn man; by seducing him. The musky scent of pine seemed to become more potent as she leaned forward slightly, the runes on the undersides of her arms glowing faintly with magic. Her fingers skimmed the surface of his jaw, tipping up his face so that their lips hovered dangerously close together. "Why deny yourself?" She asked in a breathy whisper, touching her lips to the corner of his mouth. "This is what you want, isn't it?" In the small confines of their shelter, it took only a shift of Neve's hips and she had planted herself in his lap, her hands trailing over the defined planes of his chest.

Her lips formed a coy grin when she heard the slight hitch in his breathing, the smooth surface of his mental resistance briefly flexing into a rough craggy texture that she could get a grip on. Pressing her advantage, Neve slipped her hands under the front of his untucked shirt, pressing her palms against the warmth of his stomach. The thrill of knowing she was making progress was potent. Even if she knew that he was holding back for the sake of the exercise, the heady thought that she could overcome that iron will was enough to draw forth the sleeping depths of her power. Closing that minimal distance between them, Neve pressed her lips against his in a gentle kiss, and it was enough to create a small hole in his impenetrable barrier.

Seizing the opportunity, she slipped inside, seamlessly flowing into that tiny crack and found herself suddenly caught up in a world that only Derik could see. The air was cold and crisp, like the first bite of winter. The scent of wood smoke filled her lungs and a gentle brightness cascaded all around her consciousness. From the sudden riot of color that streamed down from stained glass windows, voices rose in bittersweet harmony and she became aware that she was not the only one here. Hundreds stood in rows along the sides of an aisle carpeted with fabric red as blood. The sweet harmony rising from a thousand throats echoed off of high stone walls, the words indistinct but beautiful and shimmering as if they were alive.

Neve's breath caught at the sad beauty of it, her entire mission forgotten. Glancing around, she met a familiar pair of warm brown eyes, and in that moment she knew that there would be no taking him this way. All it took was a gentle push, and Neve felt herself falling out of Derik's consciousness like a stone dropped in water.

Reality slammed back into her head in a whirl of color and sensation, and the next thing she knew, she was sitting back on the ground. Dazed, Neve couldn't do much more than put her hands to her head to try and stop the sensation of spinning, and a breathy chuckle left Derik.

"You got a lot farther than I thought you were going to." He said in an amused tone, reaching out and putting a firm hand on her shoulder. The touch seemed to anchor Neve, and she dared to look up and meet his gaze. "Seems like you got caught, all the same."

"What was that?" She whispered, still able to feel the serenity of being inside that space with Derik. "It was so beautiful…"

"The Grand Cathedral." He replied, withdrawing his hand and sitting back once more now that Neve seemed to have gotten herself under control. "When I was young, Quinn's brother, also a Templar, was killed in battle. He was high-ranking, and so before he was cremated there was a ceremony dedicated to his passing."

"That was nice… for a funeral." She mumbled, the echoes of the haunting song that had been sung fading the more that she came back to herself. "Is that always what you think about when blood mages try and get in your head?"

"Not always, no." Derik said with a simple shrug. "I've found that the key to keeping mages out is to steadfastly think about one thing, and one thing only. If you can hold your resolve to that task, they have a difficult time getting in. When I'm fighting, I think about my training and the flow of battle. There isn't time in a fight to think about other things in a real scrap."

"You make it all sound so simple." Neve mumbled, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "And here I thought I was doing a good job, too."

"You were." Derik replied with a grin. "But now we know."

"Now we know." She conceded with a small smile that wasn't entirely forced.

Originally, this chapter was part of the next one, but it just started getting longer and larger, and the next thing I knew, I had a 20 page document on my hands. That's a little long I think for a single chapter, so I cut it effectively in half. I wanted to do a little interpersonal character development between them, and also clarify that in that last little scuffle, Derik could feasibly have overcome Neve at any time, but at the risk of making the assassin clam up. Even though Neve has some demon-spawned powers, Derik's training is still superior to hers. Also, some background for Derik, because we haven't had enough of that yet :3

Also, staring in November I'm going to be taking the NANOWRIMO challenge, so I'm going to try and push these chapters out quickly to get everything wrapped up before the axe falls. I'm just taking it has practice for when the real stress begins haha.