This is Better: A Place to Stand
The horses made them more impressive, and they covered more ground in a day, but they definitely did not mean the group had less to do. Alistair exceeded even Teagan's particularity when it came to the care of the beasts. Loren remembered the scanty care her Clan's adopted horse had received and thought, privately, that all the grooming and cleaning was entirely unnecessary, but she toed Alistair's line, gratified to see him take charge, if nothing else.
Zevran was an experienced horseman, so he backed the tall racer and sat through all its skittishness. He also coached Loren, who learned to sit hard into all the mare's resistances. If she stayed consistent in the saddle, the mare moved consistently under it. A week out of Redcliffe Castle saw the elf driving her seatbones into the saddle to encourage the mare to use her back legs to step under herself with a bit more gusto. The flush of it ran into Loren's cold-pinched cheeks; the mare's barrel seemed to swell between her legs.
Teagan coached Alistair, who did have good balance and was improving. Sten and Morrigan flat out refused to mount anything and kept up on foot: Morrigan in wolf form, and Sten by demonstrating some impressive feats of endurance. Despite his refusal to ride, Sten proved a keen disciple of horsemanship and tended the two packhorses as well as Leliana's gelding, who was well-cooed and drastically underbrushed. Cabel seemed pleased to run alongside the horses; Shale did not.
There was also the matter of feed. The snow was still thin and the horses could forage through it, but Loren could feel the heaviness of the winter to come in the briskness of the air and the early flocks of geese. More snow would slow the refugees down, but not darkspawn. Her party would travel easier on the horses' long legs than they would without, but soon they'd have to stable each night. Most of her companions were thrilled, but Loren worried over the cost. She'd rather spend it on troops.
"In a way, you are," Teagan told her one night while they sliced root vegetables. "Fereldan's nobility is usually generous only in their spoken support, but the nobles will be more likely to support you like this, and more generous when they do. You can funnel that support to your other allies."
Loren nodded, unconvinced and glanced across camp at Morrigan pouring over her leather tome by her own fire. Morrigan raised her eyes under Loren's scrutiny and met the Warden's gaze. One eyebrow and a corner of her mouth was raised in what Loren recognized as a smile. Loren raised an eyebrow back and the mage turned back to her tome.
Alistair's gauntlet fell on her shoulder. "Can I help, my dear?"
"We're just done," Teagan answered for her. "Oghren's cooking tonight, but Wynne's been kind enough to offer to supervise. You two go do your thing and I'll grain the horses."
The two Wardens did a perimeter walk each night, feeling for the darkspawn. It wasn't fool-proof, but they'd caught the faint glimmer of approaching groups often enough to make it worthwhile. When they got back, the rogues rung the camp with traps.
Alistair looked at Loren for confirmation and she nodded, handing her tray of carrots to Teagan, who placed them by the potatoes he'd peeled. Alistair waited for her to precede him away from camp. "Do try and keep your eyes on the path," Morrigan told them as they passed her tent. Alistair blushed, but Loren just waved at the witch. Cabel barked from across camp and bounded to join them.
Loren still found it soothing to be being away from the general bustle and chatter. In their understanding, Alistair had grown less loquacious in general and much less so with her. They picked their way through the dense trees. They were ringing Lake Calenhad on its west bank, staying as close to the shore as they could in an effort to keep their altitude low. Higher on the Frostback's slopes, the trees grew sparse, but close to the lake, they grew thick and tall, blocking the last of the evening sun. The air was still and was reasonably warm. Light lingered on the water past the trees' shadow. A hawk cried, but Loren could not find it in the sky. There must be fish in the water, she thought, and wondered if any of their company knew how to net or cast for them. She'd have to ask tonight. Fish would be a nice change. Loren reached a hand out to brush the edges of the trees' branches. Each soft needle scraped separately on her skin.
"I wish Teagan wouldn't do that." Alistair's voice startled her back to herself.
"Do what?"
"Order you about."
Loren shrugged, "I don't mind." Alistair was silent, so Loren spoke again, "I like being in charge of big, important things. You know: who gets to be the next dwarven king. Whether the Circle stands or falls. Who should live or die." She turned her face to wink at him, "I'm super qualified for those sorts of decisions." He smiled back as she continued, "What I don't like being in charge of is boring things, like when we should make our patrol, or which sword should go to who." Thankfully, Sten and Oghren had made a game of who could assign weapons most efficiently. Last night, the two had caught Alistair in their argument about rune slots over inherent properties. "Or whether Leliana picked out her horse's feet. Thanks for that, by the way."
"I suppose those are different kinds of duties."
"No wonder you don't want to be King. Delegate, my friend." Pleased with herself, she grinned happily at Alistair, who was staring intently away from her, across the lake.
She stopped abruptly and felt out, beyond the edges of her vision. There was only Alistair's low thrum, and no taint of darkspawn. "Alistair?"
"Nothing."
She turned back to continue their patrol. This was the point in the conversation where her adoptive mother, Ashalle, would have continued to press, to find out what was wrong. She had had an earnestness about her than Loren could fake when she needed something, but after the conversation was over, Loren always felt far away from the person she'd been talking to. Pleased with herself, but profoundly distant. It had not gone well when she tried to use it on Alistair the one time their conversation had strayed near Loghain. The memory of it left her aching, like a tooth had been pulled from some inner mouth. Recently, he'd lightly made fun of her about it, and she'd ignored the missing-tooth sore spot and laughed along with him. When Ashalle had pressed her, Loren had always felt warmed by it. Loren was exceptionally good at getting people to do what she wanted, which had its uses, even if they often ended up resenting her for it.
Alistair reached out with his sword hand and plucked at the end of a branch. It broke at the edge of the summer's growth: the softer green that had thumbed itself out of the winter-weathered older growth. He started stripping the needles away, and they fell noiselessly into the soft snow. As far as Loren could reach, there was no buzz of the darkspawn, only Alistair's friendly hum behind her. The white wilds stretched silent around them. "Circle around now?"
Alistair nodded and she turned left, into the trees.
Their tent still smelt of sex. Alistair had indeed wanted Loren the day after their last night in Redcliffe, and they'd spent several eventful evenings working their tension off. Between that, and their much-noticed absences in Redcliffe, there had been no point in maintaining the facade of secrecy and Alistair hadn't even bothered to set up his own tent since. He had not spoken again for the remainder of the patrol, and Loren had felt the silence ripping between them.
She spent a blissfully silent watch with Sten. It was on watch together when Loren most deeply appreciated Sten's discipline as a warrior: his ability to stand still and silent through long hours. She'd told him so once, on their way to Orzammar. His response still came to her in a blush of self-congratulation: "Your observation confirms my appreciation of yours." He had not smiled when he said it, and she had not smiled back. It had been perfect. She had not told Sten that what she appreciated about his silence was the way it lay, like a blanket, over the restlessness of her own mind and soothed it to its own stillness. The fire flickered over his unchanging face, giving it the illusion of movement as he stared into the trees. She sunk slowly into the deep well of patience that she found every single time she remembered to look for it.
Alistair stirred when she pulled the tent flap back. Loren had woke Wynne, who had unbuckled Loren's breastplate. The elf had held it to her body as she crossed the camp back to her tent. Once inside, she let it fall off her body, and laid it carefully to the side. Gauntlets, greaves, and leggings followed, as silently as she could. Her whole body seemed attuned to Alistair's in the dark, and she resisted the urge to press herself against him.
Alistair had heard her come in, heard her undress carefully in the close quarters of their tent. The future was pressing on him and kept him from speaking to her. He listened to her maneuvering
herself into the bedroll beside his and waited for her silence before he turned to her. The fire was on his side, and it glowed through the tent's thin wall, illuminating the high cheekbones and long stretch of her forehead. Her eyes were open. He detangled an arm from his roll and reached out to touch the arc of her tattoo. His finger traced it from the center of her eyes over her left eyebrow and down to her cheek. She leaned her face into his hand. He pulled her to him and her arms wrapped around him. He kissed her forehead, then laid the flat of his check against it. Her skin was warm, despite her just having come in from the cold.
Loren felt an unhitching somewhere within her and she struggled against the pull of her bedroll to move closer to him. His arms – longer and stronger than any elf's – folded about her, and she rested, feeling safe, and not resenting it.
He remembered following her out into the forest on their way to Haven from Denerim: her bare feet in the moss and her barely contained regret that he'd found her. He remembered kissing her outside the temple in Haven, her flippant enthusiasm, and the current of desire that had drowned him. It hadn't been the physical impulse that had alarmed him – he was used to the roil of lust in his belly and had even been enjoying letting the constant proximity of the elf and the beautiful bard tease him, letting lust batter at his concentration while he walked, while he tried to slow his mind to the calm cool of templar training. It had been the impulse to cover her with his body, to shield her not only from the darkness spreading over Fereldan, but from the eyes of other men and the world that was likely to pull them apart that scared him.
"I admire your independence, you know."
She shook her head. "Vir Adahlen. It's a failing."
He felt the urge to smooth hair away from her face, to somehow make her see him better, or him her. But her face shone in the dim light, as bare and open as it always was. He ran a hand over her skin, palm on scalp. Goldana, Eamon, Isolde all flitted in front of his face, but with much less power now than they ever had before. More clearly, he remembered how he'd turned himself in knots for them, the constant anxiety of stepping wrong.
"Are we going to search out the Dalish soon?"
The time had long come, Loren knew. Wynne's suggestion that they go immediately after Redcliffe had been a good one, but as soon as they'd set out, they'd heard about darkspawn to the north. Then further north. Then it had simply made sense to keep travelling northward around Lake Calenhad, so they were still weeks from the Forest. Loren still didn't want to go, but she squashed the unease in her response, "Yes. Teagan says he can lead us through the Bannorn. It will be quicker, and cheaper, since he can claim lodging along the way. Also, it will let many of the Banns have a look at you. And me, he says, as the de-facto Warden Commander in Fereldan. He says it will help in the spring."
She tapped his chest impatiently with a forefinger. She knew she couldn't let her lover come with her to meet them. The only thing worse than a human leading Fereldan against a Blight would be a shemlan-lover doing so. More specifically, a female shemlan lover. There were not so many elves that women bearing human babies was kindly observed, despite, or especially because of, the better life it often offered the woman in question. And she had failed to produce any offspring so far, a comment that was likely to come up, even with the Blight at hand.
Alistair covered her tapping finger with his hand, "How sure of you of their help?"
"Because I ask: completely. I am elven," she raised her chin. "I am my father's daughter and they respect the Wardens."
"If we survive, will you go back to them?"
"No," the finality in her voice was certain.
"Why?"
Loren thought of deer falling in the snow, her and Tamlen slicing through the thick membrane of the belly, of tying intestines off and leaving them in the spreading red for the wolves. She thought of the food wrapped in the broad maple leaves: how after the rare freezes, it thawed spicier than it'd been before. She remembered Ilen reciting the story of Arlathan, the mindless nodding heads chanting the chorus in unison. She thought of her sickness as a girl in the lurching aravels. She thought of the meeting her friend Awarin had taken her to when her Clan had gathered with the others. It had consisted entirely of young elves, mostly men, who wanted land: all the land, Arlathan restored, immortality regained. She had only gone the once; their frothing anger seemed no less shortsighted and no more useful than the Keepers' patience. "I want to be in the world that's here in the time I'm here."
Flies swarmed. The black buzz of them loomed, but when Loren turned her head, she couldn't see them. Just hear them, the thin armour of their bodies and crisp transparency of the wings. Then she knew that Alistair was near and she opened his mouth to say his name. Flies swarmed out of her mouth and now she could feel the thousand moving bodies in her mouth and in her throat. She was on her knees, hands trying to cover the hole of her mouth, and still they came out of her. She heard Alistair calling her name in alarm, but she when opened her eyes, all she saw was Morrigan. The swarm took her shape, buzzing black and brittle. Her eyelashes were wings and her breasts were shining and writhing, and growing bigger and fuller with each breath that she took. Loren groped for Alistair, whose taint she could still feel nearby.
"Loren! Loren! Wake up!" His voice came from far away, alarmed and gruff. She rolled to him, but he was on his knees, pushing his head into his gambeson. "Darkspawn! Zevran's traps went off and I can feel more under the ground. They're coming!" Loren felt small and shaken, still in the terror of the dream. "Wynne's on watch, so she's armoured, thank Andraste. Hopefully she can keep the rest of us alive."
What was happening dawned on Loren with all the suddenness of cold water. She groped for her maul; it was outside the tent. She was naked. Gambeson. The tent flapped closed and Alistair was gone. She cast around for something to cover herself.
Her maul had been knocked aside and was laying in the muddy snow behind Sten and a hurlock. To her left, Loren heard the shrieks and Cabel's tight growl. She scanned the campsite in the fire's flicker. Alistair was bludgeoning a genlock who'd thrown himself on Zevran's prone form. Zevran was in nothing but his smalls and half-tangled in the canvas of his tent. The fingers of his one free arm were deep in the creature's neck – deeper than they'd sink into any other neck – trying to keep its rotting mouth from his face. Leliana's nightclothes glowed white as arrows flew from her bow. Morrigan was dressed and casting beside her. Shale kicked a genlock in the face, her face gleeful. She counted the rest of her companions. Where was Teagan? She glanced about and saw movement by the horses. She cursed and bolted for her weapon. A genlock caught sight of her and his split face broke further in a toothy grin. He rushed her. She tried to brace herself, but slipped in the wet snow and he crashed on top of her, his dagger sticking into her thigh. He stank of corpse. Loren smashed her elbow into this eye and he fell back. She tried to get to her feet, but he caught her and pulled. She slid, rolled over, and kicked her heel into the same eye. She felt it pop under her, but he didn't flinch.
"Loren!" She heard Alistair's frightened yell and saw him straighten over the still-tangled forms of the genlock and Zevran.
"Zevran!" She roared back at him, an order. He bent back to it.
The genlock sunk his other dagger into her leg, higher up, and hauled himself closer. She groped about her and her hands fell on a rock the size of two fists. Clutching it, she swung. His skull broke, but he kept pulling. She aimed for a different spot and it gave easily. He twitched and was dead. A warm, bready softness came over her and she moved her leg. It was sticky with blood, but whole. She stood.
A horse screamed. Alistair rushed past her in that direction. Zevran was swearing in Antivan, kicking at the remains of his tent with his skinny legs. He stopped, bent, and came up with two thin blades. He grinned at her, holding them up, but Loren saw blood down his face and neck. She grasped her own maul and turned grimly to the horses. Then she felt it – the stillness of an ogre settling to charge. She turned and saw its pupilless eyes fixed on her. She dropped down to try and keep her footing. It blinked at her, and Loren thought – for a moment – that it saw her, not as darkspawn see, but as living creatures see. It froze, and then with the smallest shake of its head, it charged her. She timed her first swing to catch him under his horns.
The smell was most like biryani: meaty and spicy. When Marethari served it at initiations, it was flavoured with a spicy-sweet red powder that grew only in the Korcari Wilds. Loren remembered sitting in the darkness of the aravel, hearing the celebrations run into the night and feeling all the imagined glamour of the forbidden. Except that she felt that she ought to be there, that it was her absence which was forbidden. Loren opened her eyes to Morrigan's yellow gaze.
"We won, then?"
"'Twas a close thing. What do you remember?"
"Getting charged by an ogre."
"Some level of concussion then. Lay still and I will do my best. Wynne is with Zevran." She spoke as she ran her hands above Loren. Blue light travelled from them to her, and Loren felt her body greedy for it. "We are all alive." Loren shifted to try and see past the mage to where the horses had been tethered. Morrigan made a noise of disgust. "Still," she ordered. Loren obeyed, surrounded by the uneasy combination of smells: her Clan's celebration and blood. "You don't ask after your bedmate?" Morrigan sounded pleased.
Loren did not respond to the tone, "You said we were all still alive."
"He is unconscious. The broken femur is not life threatening."
Loren remembered, suddenly. "I dreamt of you," the mage's gaze did not falter, "when I felt the darkspawn swarming under us."
"'Twas I that raised the alarm. The trap snapped and woke me."
"The darkspawn turned into you."
"Sit up. Tell me if it hurts, or if your vision blurs." Loren rolled slightly sideways, so she could use her arms to help push herself off the ground. She paused, then rose. Nothing felt amiss. "Now stay silent." Morrigan spread salve from a healing kit over Loren's skull. Her hands were hot and buzzed slightly with magic. Loren felt outward, but felt no echo of the taint in her. Just Alistair, weak and distant. Loren closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, though parted lips. To smite a mage, one must tense; to simply sense one, relax. Her belly dropped as she made the effort to be effortless. At first, she felt nothing, just the infinite black where her senses ended. Loren usually left this to Alistair, who was good at it. Drop into the dark, she heard him say. Drop into the dark, she told herself and she willed her own sinking. The dark rushed at her faster than she was moving to it. Dread rose around her: dread that underlay everything, that stretched from now to the unknown future, that dropped deep and endless beneath the earth and disappeared into the horde that seethed there. Her eyes snapped open and she moved from the human's hands. From the fear, anger rose as sharp and fast as snakes strike.
"I am done. Do nothing for the rest of the night."
Loren stood up immediately and stepped towards the horses. Morrigan caught her arm, "I said to do nothing." She glared at the other woman and twisted her arm to break the mage's grip. For the barest of beats, Morrigan looked surprised and hurt, then she shrugged. "Suit yourself." She strode back to her own fire, chin held high.
Loren shook her shoulders, trying to right herself, then went to check on the horses.
Only hers and Alistair's were still there – someone had cut the ropes that tied the others and they had fled into the forest. They'd be back. The blood Loren had smelled was the gelding's. He struggled to stand, but the ground was slick with blood, black in moonlight. The injured leg did not move as he struggled. Loren could see a slow heartbeat in the rhythmic wave that swelled noiselessly from the wound over his flank. The mare's neck was stretched as far to him as her rope allowed, ears forward and nostrils wide. Loren pulled the end of the rope and the mare was free to close the distance. She breathed hard into his face and he quieted. Loren squatted before him, laying her hands on his neck. He was slick with sweat, and the elf moved, slowly, to cover his body with her small one. He stayed still as she laid herself on him. The hot tang of him filled her nose. She could feel his exhausted panic, and in it, the echo of her own. Her body rose and fell with his breaths and she matched her breaths with his slow, deep ones.
She closed her eyes for the second time, and dropped into the dark dread that lay waiting for her. It rose with all the rush of a broken dam. She rolled in it, but stayed still for the sake of the animal. And as she let it move her unresisting, it thinned. Distant forms glowed through: one a pale yellow, hunched over some invisible form and surrounded by a distant summer sky blue – brilliant and bolstering. It pulsed once at her, as if in greeting. It glowed with wellness and Loren had to force herself to look away. Further away, Morrigan smouldered a smokey red, and thin mist siphoned off her into the fire Loren had always suspected was magically sustained. Loren felt the flow of Morrigan's magic, felt herself pulled along with it. She resisted, standing firm and strong – a trunk in the wind. She let her sense move closer and Morrigan enlarged. As she did, Loren's first sense, her Warden warning, tinged. It was yet another new feel: not the darkspawn screech of ripping metal, nor the low and steady thrum of another Warden which felt far distant, but always running closer. Nor was it the still, metallic tang of Avenus's vials. This tinge pushed back against the taint in her own blood, drew away from her like moisture sank from the sand around a footprint. Her awareness was sucked into the pull of Morrigan's smokey spice, even as it retreated from her. She was caught, stretched pleasantly between going and coming. Loren lingered there, pulled tight and longing for looseness.
Something shifted on the edge of her perception. Loren opened her eyes, back in the world, where Wynne was rushing to help and the horse was still breathing.