"I… I think we managed to outrun them." Alistair panted, doubling over in his plate armour to gasp for breath. Exhaustion, seeping through everyone's bones, tired eyes unable to stay open of their own volition any longer, instead needing concentrated effort to pry apart. Everyone nodded in agreement.
"I think so too." Mara gasped, falling to her knee as searing pain broke out through her chest, making it impossible to breathe. "I don't sense them anymore." She stood, closing her eyes and focusing, but there was nothing but them. "Where… where are we?"
"It looks to be some sort of abandoned camp site." Morrigan nodded, sitting on a tree stump. "There's three tents, they look to be in good enough condition." Something… didn't feel quite right, about this place. A heavy hole being drilled through her back by unseen eyes, but not... hostile ones. As if they had an audience, captive, watching with held breath as they waited to see what they would do next.
"It doesn't look like it's been abandoned very long." The woman spoke up, kicking at a campfire that still had dim embers in it. "This was only put out recently, and there's still some supplies here, like they left in a hurry. People fleeing from the Darkspawn, I would guess."
Mara sat down in the dirt, falling down onto her back. Dirty unclean, it felt as if she had been infected by some horrible disease, as if the filth in the air around here was rubbing off on her. Her breath was short and fast, a flaming pain in her lungs that made it damned near impossible to breathe.
A comfortable, almost healthy silence overtook the camp as they sat there. Mara nearly drifted off to sleep, tingling numbness in her fingers and toes, when Alistair spoke. "So… who are you, exactly?" He asked, and she lifted her head up a moment in confusion, until she realized who he was talking to.
"Me?" The woman spoke up, and Mara turned her head to her. "My name is Leliana, I am… was… a cloistered sister within the Chantry." There was a clearly resigned note to her voice, though Mara wasn't quite sure if it was real or only her imagination. It was as if every last word had been carefully analysed and weighed for it's purpose. "I… couldn't just stand by while you fought our battles for us."
"So I see." He nodded, Mara prying herself from the ground and propping herself up against another tree stump. "Where does a Chantry sister learn to fight like that?"
Leliana stayed silent a moment, thinking, then shook her head. "I had a life before I was a Sister, we all did. It was never the easiest life, and you learn a few things along the way."
"You walk differently in battle." Mara noted, looking over in Leliana's direction. "Softly, never laying your feet all the way down." It was odd to hear, as that just wasn't how people walked. Heavy, full, even at full running speed people used their whole foot. But, listening to her walk, it was as if she had come from a different world, almost.
"You… really notice things, don't you?" The statement had caught her off guard, but she quickly regained her grace. "Well... yes. It's an Orlesian way of walking, is all. I'm just… surprised you noticed."
"Blindness does things to you." Mara nodded. "But, in any case, I appreciate the help, sister. Just… please, do try to step a little further down, just so I don't hit you with a spell by accident."
Leliana chuckled a little, and nodded. "I will certainly try."
Cold… so terribly cold… Tired of being lost, of wasted breath… of being less than nothing…
"You will die alone." The voices call in the distance, making her feel weak in the knees. "This world is ours, and a blind child and a broken Warden cannot stop the darkness that is to come." Mara opened her mouth to shout out, to deny it and resist, but instead the world faded into another of her prophecies.
People are running, fleeing, frantic energy on the air. It's difficult to hear anything over the chaos, to make out any particular feeling when the world is consumed by all of them at once. Something… something is coming, like a thousand footsteps thundering into one voice. A calming hand comes up to touch my back, taking a deep breath as it begins…
Mara awoke with a gasp, laying in one of the tents and shouting out. She was unfathomably hot as the shock of the vision wore off, sweating through her smallclothes, as if she had a terrible fever. She fell onto her back, wiping away the sweat and breathing deeply.
"Just a dream." She whispered, rolling onto her side, and throwing the blankets back. "Just a dream." But it wasn't, was it? A dream was never truly just a dream, not for her. Either it entailed being in the Fade, and confronting with Faith and other spirits, or it was one of her prophetic truths. Or both, on the worst of nights. The flap to her tent opened, and Mara sat up, covering herself with the blanket. "Um… hello?"
"Oh." It was Leliana, sounding embarrassed, and Mara smiled a little at it, blushing that she had been caught like this. "I… didn't mean to intrude, but… I was standing guard, and heard you shout, talking in your sleep. I thought I would come make sure everything's okay."
"Yeah." She nodded, still blushing a little as she sat up further. "I… just a bad dream, is all." She shook it off, reaching up to ensure her blindfold still sat on her eyes. She never took it off, and it was a relief that Leliana hadn't seen her eyes. "Is it my turn to stand guard?"
"No." Leliana knelt in front of the mage, sympathy emanating off of her voice. "I was just worried, is all. Are you alright?" Mara nodded mutely, staying silent. "Do you… want to talk about it?" She shook her head, and Leliana stayed silent a moment before nodding, and standing up to leave.
"Leliana?" She called, and she stopped in her tracks, turning back around. "Do… do you ever wonder if you're doing the right thing? If what you've chosen to do in your life has… has been for the best?"
"All of the time." Leliana nodded, sitting once more. "The things I've seen and done in my life… I can't imagine that it's been the best road I could have walked…" She paused a moment, contemplating, and shook her head. "But I can't imagine that you have to deal with that. You're a Grey Warden, you protect the people from the darkness."
Mara shook her head slowly, lost in the deep, murky pools of memory. "I… left the Circle, after something that happened to me. But… I don't know. If I had stayed, I would have been miserable, but… what if Duncan had sent a better Warden with Alistair, instead of me? Someone who could have stopped more Darkspawn? Someone who's not as useless as me?"
"I don't think you're useless." Leliana shook her head.
"I do." Trembling, quaking under the blanket. Mara couldn't stop herself from shaking, unable to put on a brave face any longer. "Leliana, I was never that good of a mage at the Circle in the first place, and now I'm the Warden that survived Ostagar? Me, the blind teenager..." She shook her head, burying her face in the blankets. "The Maker has a sick sense of humour, doesn't he?"
Aching, shameful… old memories swelling up. Leliana closed her eyes a moment, flashes of an old life rising to the surface. That was the way of the world, that those who didn't deserve to survive outlasted those who did. "I don't think so." She said at last, casting off the demons that hung over her. "I think that all things happen for a reason. No matter how painful, how disgraceful… this life, the way that the world works, is the way it's supposed to be."
"You've been through the ringer too, huh?" Mara turned her head a little to speak. How stupid and foolish she must look, falling apart like this in front of a stranger… but she was no hero, no saviour. "Survived things you shouldn't have? Made decisions that couldn't have been worse?"
"More than you could know." Leliana nodded, closing her eyes to blink back whatever might come clawing it's way back through her mind. "I… only joined the Chantry as a sister after I lost everything, and everyone, I had before."
"And you're still here?" Mara rolled over on her back and sitting up a little. "With us, fighting a Blight?" Leliana nodded, making a soft affirming noise. "It's… selfish of me, isn't it? To assume that my pain is more important than anyone else's? That my battles are more important because I'm in them?"
"That's part of being a person."
"I see." Mara nodded, thinking in contemplative silence, reflecting on dead memories. She shook her head, looking up at Leliana and smiling. "Thank you, sister. I… feel much better."
"Please," Leliana laughed a little, shaking her head. "Call me Leliana."
"Okay… Leliana." Mara smiled a little wider, never seeing the sparkle that it brought to Leliana's eyes. "And… thanks." She shook her head, still smiling. "I should be getting back to sleep, I think. Come get me when it's my turn to stand watch."
"Did you hear that?" Alistair perked up, breaking Mara from her half-asleep state, moving her head upward. She listened intently, focusing intently with her magic to feel anything in the woods. There was… Alistair beside her, Leliana and Morrigan in the camp behind them… a few small things in the forest underbush, likely nothing more than a few rats. Nothing major. Even anything she couldn't feel, Darkspawn weren't quiet by any stretch of the imagination.
"No." She shook her head at last, releasing the magic focus. "I don't sense anything out there, except a few small animals."
"Oh." Alistair sat back down and sighed. "Sorry, just… on edge." That was an understatement. Everything about him, from his voice, to his way of walking, had been at the peak of readiness ever since Ostagar. Not that she could blame him, she had been on edge too, but his seemed… excessive, as if he wasn't to permit himself to relax.
"Alistair, relax." She tried, sitting up a little further and looking over to him. "There's nothing out there. Darkspawn are neither quiet, nor hygienic in any way. I could hear or smell them a mile off."
"Right, right." He slouched a bit, sighing and trying his best to loosen up. "Just… my imagination I guess. Can't stop thinking about them." He looked over to her and smiled. At the very least he had her with him, having proven herself a worthy ally throughout the last few days. Painful as it had been, if she hadn't convinced him to run from the tower, he would have died along with the rest of them. Surely Duncan wouldn't have wanted him to die from his stupid stubbornness. "T-thank you." he stumbled with the words, and flinched inwardly. Idiot.
"For what?" Mara asked, raising an eyebrow. Again, there was something in his voice, just a little different, from normal. A tremble, a shiver. Only a little thing, but something was… off.
Alistair sighed, and shook it off, recovering quickly. "Just… for everything. For helping me at the tower, for being there when I needed you. You have the skills of an elite soldier, and you've saved me a dozen times over." So far, so good, and he smiled a little at how it had gone. "You're a good fighter, kept your cool when I couldn't." Good, good. "I mean, the way you disembowelled those Darkspawn was just… wow." Idiot.
"Erm, thank you." Mara's smile trembled just a little. There was something… implacable, dancing at the edge of his voice, that she couldn't place, as if she had heard it once before, from someone else…
Alistair looked away, chuckling to himself. "I'm much better with swords than words." He derided himself. "It's just… I'm thankful you're here."
Mara was infinitely grateful for her blindfold, as her eyes snapped open. She realized where she had heard that tone once before, deep in the Circle's storerooms… icy, paralysing terror, memories swimming to the forefront, a myriad of forcefully forgotten sensations… her chest got tight, cutting through her lungs, unable to breathe.
"I-I-I… I think I left my staff in my tent." She stammered, and ran off as fast as she could, ignoring the stare she got as she did.
Little did she know that Morrigan was watching in the distance, boiling in jealousy at what she had just witnessed.