Late update, sorry - had to do a study course for work all week.

Fishmonger, blacksmith… that building smells like another fishmonger. Are all these little bannorn villages so boring? I guess we're really in the middle of nowhere, now. I haven't seen any Fussy Women, either, so this place might not even have a Chant Tree.

There's nothing to find in this town, so I decide to go to Mistress. I can hear her across the market square, asking a merchant something. Horse armour?! Did we buy one? I run over for a look, but there's nothing here. The Dwarf merchant walks away and starts talking to Chirpy instead, as she's looking at his stock. Lovely service you have… we'll go buy horse armour at the blacksmith! You can keep your… whatever you sell. Chirpy hands him some coin, so I finally see what he has.

Dumb looking shoes, covered with ribbon and things hanging off them. Are the ribbons… meant to be how you tighten the fit? They'd just break pretty fast! Chirpy, you got ripped off… should have saved your money for the horse armour.

I gave this town a try, but it seems like Morrie was right when she chose to walk ahead and wait for us. The road may stink as we get closer to the lake again, but this place is just tedious. Qunatic looks bored out of his crazy little mind as well, as he approaches. "Will we be tarrying in this dismal village much longer?"

"Hopefully not" Mistress answers. "I think we have everything we need." She takes a bag off her shoulder, and holds it out. "Take these to wherever Morrigan chose to stop, while I round up the others and we'll meet you there."

"He was babbling about cheese. I would begin looking there" Qunatic suggests, taking her load. I'm not really interested in watching Crybaby stuff his gullet, so I follow Qunatic. We approach the path out of town, when he stops and stares back at the nearest house.

Looks like a normal shack to me… unless he's looking at that fat kid. Qunatic frowns, as the kid wipes a hand over his pants and leaves a dirty smear mark. He's jamming something in his mouth, when Qunatic begins marching toward him. … I guess Qunnie's a stickler for neatness, if he's that annoyed about Fatstuff here ruining his trousers. The kid finally looks up, as Qunatic steps over their fence and grabs a plate off the table. He tips everything into one of the bags, and comes back towards me.

"That imekari has clearly had his fill..." he mumbles to himself.

I've no idea what immy-carrie means in that insane head of yours, but you've got a point… to be honest, I'd say Fatty has eaten three people's fill.

The little creep starts crying as we continue on, and I look back as someone comes out of the house. Fatstuff is pointing at the table and bawling, but I see the woman just shake her head. "I told you not to eat them all at once, Eric… you'll just have to wait for supper, now." He starts screeching about how it wasn't him… and makes the mistake of saying "a Giant climbed the fence and stole them."

She shakes her head, and gathers up the plate. "Oh, a Giant did it? I'll bake some more, when he and the singing Fairies come back to thank us." He screeches some more, and points at us… but Qunatic has already slipped away. The woman looks over at me for a moment, as I innocently tilt my head in response, before she takes a breath and whacks him on the ear. "That's enough out of you for one day... get inside and wash up."

Definitely enough into him, as well… just look at Fatty try to waddle and scream at the same time. I guess people who live out here don't have tutors to rein their kids in?

I catch up to Qunatic on the road; he's got a cookie in one hand and gives it a careful sniff. Biting down, his eyes flicker as he chews slowly. He promptly tries another, and almost reaches for a third before he realises I'm watching. Mine?

"The child left me no choice but to take these. For his own health..."

No argument there… but anyway – mine? I ask again, taking a half-step forward.

"… Just one" he says, tossing a cookie to me. I crunch it up, as he hesitantly ties the pouch shut. "We must remember our pride, and not become indulgent like that child."

More importantly – if the others see we have a stash, they'll all want one… I guess we could share with Mistress… okay, and Morrie… maybe Little Dwarf too, but the others can go wanting. Especially Crybaby, he'll have filled up on stinky cheese by now.

I guess his ears are burning, because he appears from around the bend… yep, I can smell it on his breath from here. Chirpy and Mistress appear behind him. No sign of the Dwarves, they must be staying back to sell things. They're all talking about what they bought… Chirpy has those ridiculous shoes, Mistress finally found a merchant who had maps, so she's showing the others how far we are from the Morrie Tower. "What were you talking to Tegrin about?" Chirpy asks her. "He was still grumbling about you not buying anything when I left him."

"He said he was in the Frostbacks not long ago… apparently Orzammar's shut their gates. We might have trouble getting in there" Mistress sighs. "I suppose that's the advantage of being stuck on an island… the Circle won't be having any drama."

Orzammar… I think I remember Aldous telling one of the boys that's the Dwarf city. Ohhh… they weren't saying 'horse armour'. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Stupid noisy market, making it hard to hear!

Thankfully, we get to where Morrie set up camp before it's too dark. I wait for everyone to gather around the campfire for food, before I skulk away to Morrie's tent. Now… did she find more of those herbs? She had all afternoon to forage around. No, no, no… that smells interesting, no, no.

"Did we not speak about this last time, mongrel?"

Shit! Where'd she come from?! … Hey, Morrie. I was just looking for… socks. Mistress lost some socks, and I thought they might be in here?

"Those herbs are out of season, now. You ate the last I had, you foolish beast." She starts jabbing at me with her stick, but she's trying not to sound amused. "I could let you have the purple ones… I doubt they'd poison you. But you would be hallucinating for a day or so… perhaps that would be entertaining, to let you stagger about."

Hallucinating – that's when you see weird things, isn't it? I think I ate those once, that would explain how I found a weird fairy ring down in the tunnels once. It was all glowy, and I went through, and the sky was full of weird things. Fast birds and things… but big. One had wings like a dragonfly, but huge and noisy, and it landed… that's when people crawled out of its eye, and walked away calmly like they weren't just in the skull of a giant bug! I don't remember eating weird herbs that day, but maybe my food was off. I stop as I realise she's shoving me away with her foot.

"Go bother the others, already… the Qunari is trying to be secretive about his pouch; perhaps you can stick your snout in there instead."

Time to leave, then? Fine, fine… hopefully he shares again. Cookies only make you see weird things if the cook's mixed in his 'personal herbs'… Maybe that's what happened back then, I was given meat from a fresh-killed animal, which had been into bad grain or something. I never did find the fairy ring or the weird things again… so I must have dreamt it. Damn shame, that would have been interesting to go back… She kicks me this time, so I huff with annoyance and walk away.

Qunatic's watching the others… he must be waiting for everyone to sleep before he brings out the bag again. Chirpy's got a weird look on her face, as she watches Crybaby and Mistress talk, away from the camp. Did they shut her out of a planning talk? She's definitely… not mad, but annoyed about something. Well, my ears are much better, so I think I'll rub it in and sneak a bit closer to listen.

… Damn it Chirpy, you made me think this would be interesting! It's just Crybaby asking about boring noble stuff. Did Mistress ever meet King Maric, and so on. Wait… did we?

"… Years ago, at Fergus' wedding. Most of the nobility came for it." No, don't remember that. Maybe I wasn't whelped yet. "So I'm afraid I don't have any stories. I snuck away pretty early, with… well, I wasn't at the banquet afterwards for very long; so we didn't have any further interaction. I didn't see him drunk, or anything either."

"You weren't at your brother's wedding?"

"I didn't stay around for the drinking… I was already going out of my mind. The service was exactly the same as the various rehearsals we had to do, so I just wanted some air… especially with the corset and dress Mother had me wear. It's just a bonus I got away before she would have made me endure all the unmarried sons."

… Maybe I do remember this. The castle was teeming with people, and I was locked in the kennels so I wouldn't disturb anything. Pfft! As if you can have a party without a puppy! Especially one like me! Was this the night Mistress and Whoever She Was were interrupted? They snuck down, and she showed me off as her new Mabari – then I think they went into an empty stall for a snog. Somebody else showed up, looking for the girl. It's hard to remember, this far back...

Mistress looks like she can, though. Crybaby notices the look on her face. "… Did you sneak out for a reason, then? You and one of the sons wanted to skip all that?" Wipe that dumb grin off your face, Crybaby!

"Not one of the sons, no… that was the first time I met Loghain, actually."

That stopped his smile… "Him… and you?!"

Mistress bursts out laughing. "… Maker, no! I'm pretty sure he's older than my father! … And he looks like a badly-carved gargoyle!" While she's getting her breath back, I glance back at Chirpy. Looks like she heard the laughter, at least… and she doesn't like it. Crybaby just looks confused… but then, he usually does. "He especially looks like one, when he's annoyed… like when he found us in the kennels… uptight bastard must have realised two people were missing."

"Why would he even care?" he asks. "It's not like he even had a son you could sneak out with, and the only noble son he would have even cared about was… you don't mean Cailan?"

This time she just shakes her head. "Please, he's not my type…"

"… Well, I hope it wasn't Maric. No, you said you barely met him…" Put it together, genius… "I don't get it, then… it's not like you were his daughter, after all; that's who he should have been worr-" Mistress glances back when he trails off, and rolls her eyes as he finally puts two and two together. "The Queen?" … Okay, he put two and two together and came back with twenty-two. Try again…

"She wasn't the Queen back then… but no, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have been interested. One of his guardswomen, if you want to know. We'd met at a tourney in Denerim, about a year earlier."

"Ah… I hadn't realised you…" he stammers.

"Only my brother did… I never heard anything from my parents about it, so Loghain must have stayed silent… so to speak. She did manage to get a letter to me, later – full of shit all about her duty and honour, and how she owed them to him… and I'd have to marry some idiot to pop out an heir, my own level of duty and honour to the family, so on and so on... all stuff he must have pounded into her head after he dragged her out of there. And that was it…"

"… The fish who broke the line?"

"She broke more than that… I suppose it did teach me not to get attached... and now here I am. No need to worry about marriage or heirs… just duty, honour, service. Last brick of a fallen House…" She slaps his shoulder, before she walks back to camp. "Sorry, Houses… lucky us, right?"

"Lucky us" he mutters, fingering a shoddy-looking amulet he has around his neck.

Back to Max and Co. Huge thanks to everyone reading, fav/following; and Pervinca and Melysande (hopefully I didn't make a mess, playing in the proverbial sandpit) for the reviews.