Ch. 10: In Which Bizarre Twists of Fate Can Happen to You, Too

Olivia was silent the entire trip back through the temple. When they reached the antechamber where a very bored Morrigan and Zevran were playing a game of Wicked Grace while Brother Genitivi took rubbings of various carvings on the walls, Alistair, Leliana, Wynne, and Bethany ran forward excitedly. Morrigan and Zevran packed the cards away, looking relieved.

"You're finally back," commented Morrigan, sounding exasperated. "It's been incredibly dull out here."

"In retrospect, we should probably have gone with you," added Zevran. "Nothing happened out here the entire time."

Morrigan nodded at Genitivi. "After listening to him for a couple hours, we would have welcomed a few cultists to fight."

Brother Genitivi didn't seem to mind that Morrigan and Zevran were completely tired of having him around. He bounded up to Olivia and the others. "Did you really see it? The Urn?" He was practically jumping up and down in excitement.

Olivia nodded silently, realizing that she should probably answer.

"What was it like?" Genitivi sounded like he was choking up.

Olivia really didn't want to talk about this. At all. In fact, at the moment, all she wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and think. Or brood. "We got what we came for," she said shortly. "We have a chance to heal Arl Eamon now."

"Surely there must have been something more to the Ashes than that," said Genitivi. "Did you really feel nothing standing before the Ashes?"

Olivia was not in the mood for this. She glared at him. Zevran looked concerned. Alistair, Leliana, Wynne, and Bethany, who had all heard Olivia earlier, looked like they were feeling varying degrees of discomfort.

Brother Genitivi looked awkward for a few moments, before returning to his earlier enthusiasm. "We need to organize an expedition! Everyone needs to have the chance to see the Urn!"

Morrigan snorted. "And exploit it, too, I suppose."

Olivia felt too tired to care. She began to walk towards the doors. "You know what?" she said to Genitivi, waving her hand vaguely over her shoulder at him. "You do that."

Genitivi squealed in excitement, clutching his papers to his chest.

Genitivi stayed behind in Haven to continue studying the temple. Everyone else left, getting a little ways down the mountain before it began to get dark and they had to stop. Later, in camp, Zevran came over to Olivia while she was sitting on a log next to the fire and sat down next to her. "Someone as beautiful as you should not have such a frown on her face." Olivia said nothing and he didn't speak for a moment. "In all seriousness, though. Something that happened with those Ashes has got you all upset. Want to talk about it?"

Olivia sighed, gazing into the flames. "When we started getting closer to Haven, I began to think about things that I hadn't let myself really ponder before because it would just drive me crazy wondering and I didn't want to turn into one of those people who broods all the time." She picked up a stick from the pile of firewood next to the log and threw in on the fire, watching the flames crackle and snap at it. "For a while there, I hoped that maybe I might get some answers, but…" She sighed again. "Maybe there's power in the Ashes, but there are no answers there. Or maybe it's just that there just aren't any there for me."

"So, the Great Quest for the Urn of Sacred Ashes didn't do anything for you, is that it?"

"Actually," said Olivia pensively, throwing another stick onto the fire. "I think it did, just not because of some magical power they have. I didn't get the answers I wanted, but you know what? So what if practically everyone thinks being born a mage makes me a monster? Templars would lock me up for the rest of my life if I weren't a Grey Warden, people, maybe even Andraste, hate me for having the guts to exist… They can all go jump in a lake. They don't know me, and I'm going to prove them all wrong- if only to myself," she added quietly.

"That's deep," said Zevran, after a while. "You sure the Ashes didn't do some weird magic thing to you?" he added jokingly.

Olivia smiled. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I'm more disillusioned than buoyed up by faith and awe or whatever. My whole deep personal realization thing comes from me, not some outside force, same as everything else I'm going to do."

Zevran smiled. "What did I say? Real deep."

Olivia continued to sit on the log next to Zevran, feeling much better after their conversation. Across the camp, Alistair, Wynne, Leliana, and Bethany were animatedly discussing the Urn standing around an extremely uninterested Morrigan, who looked completely fed up with the entire thing.

"You know what you need after all this running around, killing cultists, and having major life realizations?" Asked Zevran after a while.

"No, but I think I'm about to find out," Olivia answered with a quiet laugh.

Zevran smirked. "My thought is this- we go to your tent and I show you the sort of massage skills you can only pick up in an Antivan whorehouse."

Olivia raised her eyebrows and smirked back at him. "Why Zevran, are you propositioning me?"

"Oh? Do you want to be propositioned?" he asked, voice full of innuendo.

"Oh?" said Olivia. "This is sounding more and more interesting." Her day was suddenly getting much better than it had been that morning in the temple filled with cultists.

Zevran smirked back. "And if I might ask, if the opportunity to proceed past the massage might present itself…?" Oh yes, this day was getting much, much better.

"Oh, hell yes," said Olivia.

Zevran smiled. "Then why are we still talking?"

Early the next morning, Olivia woke up to find Zevran lying beside her. "Morning," he said, propping himself on his side with one arm.

Olivia sighed happily and moved closer, closing her eyes. "Let's not get up this morning. Let's just forget about the Blight for a few hours and stay right here."

He laughed. "As nice as that sounds, we probably should get up. Before everyone assumes that I've gone and assassinated you after all."

Olivia groaned, sitting up and reaching for her shirt. "Ugh. Good point. They'd probably come barging in here and that would be such a fun conversation. For a definition of 'fun' meaning 'annoying and awkward'."

"Really, though," said Zevran as they left the tent and Olivia began poking up the fire that had mostly died down in the night before her sleepy brain remembered that she was a mage and she simply added more wood and shot a fire spell at it, "this was all inevitable. Right from the moment you refused to kill me."

Olivia smiled. "Yes, you're a real public menace," she said laughingly.

"It's true. There used to be a sign at the Antivan border." He sighed in over-exaggerated nostalgia. "Ah, the good old days."

"Maybe they should have just stuck the sign on your forehead."

"Possibly. So. What now?"

Olivia laughed quietly. "That is the very question I was just about to ask you."

Zevran shrugged slightly. "Throughout my life I learned to grab onto happiness when I could because it was neither long-lasting nor common. "So, I suppose it's up to you."

"One day at a time then, I guess," said Olivia.

"I must admit," commented Zevran, "we have come a long way from those early days when I tried to kill you and you decided not to kill me."

"Well, these things happen," said Olivia. "Usually to other people, but I got used to being one of those 'other people that these things happen to' somewhere around Ostegar."

Everyone was, for various reasons, in pretty good spirits throughout the journey from Haven to Redcliffe. Leliana, Alistair, Bethany, and Wynne were still thrilled about having gotten to see the Urn, Olivia and Zevran were happy for obvious reasons relating to their relationship, and Morrigan was just glad to be away from the cold, cultist-filled mountains.

Alistair was especially cheerful once they'd arrived and brought the Ashes straight to Irving and the other mages who had helped save Connor, who were still hanging around the castle. Olivia was at least partially certain that they were using the need to be there to heal Arl Eamon immediately when the party got back as an excuse to not go back to the tower. She didn't blame them. The result of that was that within a couple hours of their return, Arl Eamon standing up and walking around again. Olivia had to admit, even if there was nothing else special about the Ashes, their healing powers were certainly not exaggerated.

Alistair's good mood took a nosedive, however, when Arl Eamon announced his plan for getting rid of Loghain. "I'm going to go to Denerim to call for a Landsmeet of all Ferelden's nobility," explained the Arl, "and try to convince them that Loghain shouldn't be the one leading the country. I could put forward a claim to the throne myself, but that would just make me look like a power-grabber- we need someone who has an obvious claim to the throne stronger than Loghain's." Oh, Olivia could see where this was going. Arl Eamon gestured dramatically. "King Maric's other son, Alistair."

"What? No!" wailed Alistair. This was obviously a complete shock to him.

"Is anyone here actually surprised by this?" Olivia asked the others in an undertone, while Eamon and Alistair were arguing.

"I am," said Zevran. "But no one ever bothered to tell me that he's related to this King Maric fellow."

Olivia felt a bit guilty over that. "It never came up. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone mostly just forgot that you weren't there the only time it did."

"Well, these things have to happen to someone, I suppose," said Bethany. "Otherwise they wouldn't be a thing that happened. If that makes sense." It sort of did.