A/N: Apologies for the delay - I think MaryJade might have been abducted by aliens!

In other news - I really want to thank all the new subscribers and reviewers. I love hearing what you think.

Chapter 10: The Broken Seal

The chill creeping into his bones as he recognized his surroundings was painfully familiar. He was leaning up against the wall in the corner, looking at the room from the spot where it seemed biggest, cramped and dark as it was.

"Do you know what this place is, oh guide of mine?" he asked, trying to mask the strangling fear with humour.

She wasn't looking at him, sitting opposite him on the bed in the far corner. "It's a dungeon," she said quietly.

He stretched himself, pushing the scream back down within him. "But it's a very particular dungeon, Bethany," he said, mockingly, putting his hands back behind his head. "It's a Circle dungeon, the kind of place you and your big sister used to cry yourselves to sleep in fear of."

The girl looked up, seeing the cruel smirk twisting his features as he tried to displace his fear onto her. "I'm not Bethany, Anders," she said, her soft voice trembling slightly. "I didn't..."

"But Bethany did," he interrupted, dismissing her protests easily as he stepped towards her. "Bethany used to cry and cry, and Ariadne would hold her."

He sat down beside her, that teasing tone in his voice. "They'd pretend that it wasn't possible, that their father was too powerful, that he would protect them. Even when he told them he could not," he said, putting his arm around her in an overly tight embrace. "Ariadne would tell stories to her sister, softly whispered words of comfort, about the spirit who would protect them. He was little more than another version of the father they revered as a god, a champion of truth, a saviour of virtue. A spirit from the Fade who would save them from the brand."

The guide shivered despite herself at his words. "The White Knight," she whispered.

"Indeed," he said sharply, getting to his feet and crossing the room in two brisk strides. "Such an elaborate fantasy: those stories, the pictures hidden beneath your beds, little fragments of pebbles, feathers and small bones." He turned, looking down at her. "Talismans against the ever-stalking evil."

"The evil of a place like this," she replied bleakly, nodding her head.

The sight of her, so small and so vulnerable, softened his malice, stirred up by lingering fear. He sat down next to her again.

"I spent a year in here once," he said, one knee up on the pallet so that he was facing her. "Solitary confinement. Not a word, or a kind glance from anyone. Food and buckets passed in through the flap in the door, empty plates and shit passed out."

He could hear her moving, readying herself to speak, to tell him how sorry she was at what he'd been through, but his eye was caught by something just over her shoulder. "This wall is wrong," he said, interrupting.

She frowned, following his gaze to the hazy, bare wall. "What?"

He stood up, reaching out to touch the incoherent stone. He felt nothing beneath his fingers. "There were burn marks on this wall," he said softly. "Many, many small burns." He looked down at her, saw the confusion on her pretty features. "I made them," he insisted, running fingertips over the places they should be and feeling nothing. "I remember them as clear as day. Why aren't they here?"

Bethany shook her head. "Everything is indistinct," she said.

He looked around him, seeing again the fuzziness of the confined, murky space, realizing that it was only his familiarity that was giving it any sense of order at all. "But it shouldn't be, should it?" he asked, looking back into her face. "Memories are crisp in the Fade. In the visions I can see everything, even things I never saw myself. From the scents and tastes to the very textures of the walls. I remember this place, why can't I see it properly now?"

She hesitated, her expression almost alarmed in its confusion. "I... I don't know."

He frowned at her. "You don't know?" he said, disbelievingly. "You mean you're not about to say: 'You will understand, given time.'"

But she didn't even laugh at his mockery. "No," she said fearfully, looking around her with wide eyes as the walls shifted slightly. "No, I mean I don't know. I didn't even realise until you said it."

The world was falling down again, the dim room moving to be replaced by a vision of startling clarity. "That's an interesting development," he said.

The sob that escaped her lips as she closed the door behind her was near enough to a howl that a distinction seemed unnecessary. The shack was empty, and she was glad of it as she threw herself down in a chair at the desk. Brushing the tears from her eyes she reached for her quill, trying to hold herself together as she wrote.

Dear Anders,

Inadequate, but what good was a letter that didn't address its recipient?

Dear Anders,

I was too late.

A blot blossomed from the full stop, drawing a ragged breath through her lips. She pressed her fingertips to them, seeking to remember the comfort of his kiss.

The quarantine has sealed all the entrances to Darktown. Even the exits the Guard doesn't know about are blocked.

Her eyes stung as she recalled the smug look on Athenril's face: 'A small price to pay to keep the paths secure. We can't afford to jeopardise our whole system of operations.' Never mind that she had gold, and still less that she was desperate (a fact which, if anything, seemed to make the spiteful bitch even more smug).

I can't find a way past.

Again, it was all that she could do to stifle a sob.

I was able to pay a friend to bring you the potions I bought in the market. Whether they made it to you in one piece is another matter. I will begin work on more immediately, and attempt to secure them safe passage to the clinic.

A 'friend' with a heart of ice and a smirk that made you want to punch her in the face until she bled. Ariadne had taken every potion Elegant had in her possession, and the ingredients she'd ordered would keep her busy for a week at least. The thought of the blonde apothecary made her heart sink, and her quill trembled as she continued.

Elegant tells me that the last time such an outbreak struck the Undercity the passages were closed up for a year. I can only pray that this won't be the case now.

She shuddered, her nib hovering over the page, the tip of the feather brushing lightly against her nose. She could still feel it, that white hot tingle on the edges of her sense, the first brush of his rawest magic, his aura, against hers. The first spark of his arousal, a connection begging to be forged. It had been beautiful, far more so than anything she had ever known.

But she couldn't tell him. She couldn't tell him any of it, and the knowledge twisted inside her like a knife.

Athenril would read this letter, that much was inevitable. That any hint of a stronger connection between her and the man she had called her friend would only make things more difficult for the both of them was an absolute. She could not say it. She could only hope that he already knew.

All that I have is at your disposal.

She wrote slowly, praying that he would see, that he would know that she meant 'All that I am'.

Whatever it is that you need, I will get to you.

'I will get to you, Anders. I swear it on everything that I hold dear.'

No matter what it takes.

'No matter what it takes.'

May the Maker watch over you,

'May he bring you back to me.'

Ariadne

She blew a flame from her fingertip to melt the wax onto the paper, sealing it there with a breath of ice that shaped the red surface into a star. Drying her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt, she gathered the gold that she owed to Elegant, and headed back out of the door.

She had work to do.

"Are you alright?" Carver asked, squeezing her shoulder slightly.

She drew a ragged breath, feeling the stone press deep against her back. "Yes," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand, "I'm fine. It's just amazing how much this still hurts. It's exhausting."

He smiled kindly, pulling her closer into his embrace. "Take your time," he said gently.

The potions at his feet were evidence enough. She hadn't made it through.

In the chaos of the first few hours of the quarantine, it was easy enough to ignore: to just use the vials and bottles without considering the crates, without thinking of where her hands hand been, of that moment when she'd been parted from them, and forced to send them on alone. He used the potions and poultices as if they were water, and by the time night fell in the Undercity, two of the seven crates were already gone.

Twenty-five beds. A further fourteen sufferers in their homes. Seven corpses already in the mining tunnels. Seven lives already lost.

This would only be the beginning.

With barely four months worth of experience under their belts, his helpers were exhausted by the time they got all of their patients to sleep. He sent most of them home, promising to send word for them if anything changed, but Perrin, as always, lingered.

With her tangle of dirty red hair and her wrists that looked like they'd snap in a stiff breeze, Perrin was an unlikely candidate for a nurse. Despite all expectations, however, the fifteen-year-old girl had proven to be a bit of a natural, with the patience of a saint and a truly uncanny ability to get her patients to admit the causes of their troubles. Anders couldn't count the number of times that those wide, earth brown eyes had pried confessions of extraordinary stupidity, or Isabela-esque behaviour from even the most unwilling of their visitors. Today she'd taken it upon herself to tell the relatives of the dying of the most likely outcome, giving the healer the time he needed to press on and save the lives of those that he could.

"You should get some sleep too, Perrin," he said, as she closed the door behind the others. "I'll need you back here in the morning."

"I have to wait for Teller, ser," she said quietly, leaning back against the frame of the door.

She didn't have to wait for her brother at all, but the nine-year-old boy was better known in the Undercity because of his work as a messenger. Tonight of all nights, it didn't do to be walking through the tunnels alone. Especially when you were a skinny girl who might have snapped like a twig.

He nodded, trying to get a note of comfort into his tired smile. "Of course," he said. "I'm sure he won't be long."

He headed over to the corner of the clinic he kept reserved for himself, drawing screens around the bed, table and washstand that he called his own. She helped him, moving around the patients' beds with an ease that spoke of her familiarity, her sense of belonging in the space. "Are you still living in the Ferelden camp?" he asked, indicating a chair for her to sit in as he shrugged off his coat.

"We were trying to move before you went away, ser," she replied, sitting awkwardly, and keeping one eye on the door, "but there's just no room about what with all these refugees.

He spread the coat out carefully over his pallet - the clinic was definitely going to need some more blankets. Rummaging through his pack, which he'd barely had a moment to open, he drew out a bottle with some slender, dried leaves.

Spotting her curious look, he smiled. "Don't worry," he said, "I'm not planning on sleeping. These leaves contain a restorative."

The pot on the rim of the brazier was already simmering as he moved it into the heart of the coals, taking a leaf from his bottle and placing it into the cup. This particular variety of tea leaf had one of the highest concentrations of the invigorating agent that he'd encountered, and the Warden Commander had recommended it to him herself. He watched as the water began to stir into its frenzy, the hiss of the fire mingling with twenty-five sleeping breaths.

"I've been meaning to thank you," he said quietly, glancing back at her over his shoulder, "If you hadn't told your brother I'd gone to Hightown I might never have made it here before the quarantine."

She nodded slightly, her gaze still trained firmly on the door. "I doubt many people would have been thanking me for that, ser," she replied, a slight smile lighting her eyes.

When the water came to the boil he poured some into his mug and a second, and took the pot off the heat, moving to sit opposite to Perrin, on the edge of his pallet.

"Now," he said, placing their cups between them on the ground, indicating the steaming water, "do you remember what I told you?"

Her eyes shifted from the door onto his face, a look of concentration flittering across her wan features. "Unless I've seen it being boiled," she said, repeating the refrain by heart, "we only drink the water you give us here."

He smiled, loosening the lace in his hair so that he could re-tie it. "That's right," he replied warmly. "Especially now." He yawned slightly, fumbling with the worn leather tie. "Cholera attacks your intestines," he continued, tracing a weaving path over his belly with the tip of his finger, "the tubes that your food and water go through..."

"The sausagey-looking bits?" she asked, clearly curious.

Repressing the shiver which came from wondering just how a girl that young knew what intestines looked like, he nodded. "Yes," he said seriously, "the sausage-looking bits. If that's where these infections attack, it makes sense that the seeds of that infection pass in with your food or water."

"But people cook their food," she replied quickly, understanding his point.

"Exactly," he said, "and half the time people don't think to cook their water. Even when they're getting it out of the dirt." He bent down, picking up the earthenware cups by their cooling rims. "You drink the water here," he said, holding out her mug of water, "or you see it boiling before you do."

"I understand, ser," she said, taking her cup gingerly and cooling the surface of the liquid with her breath. "I don't want us to get sick."

He mimicked her action, pursing his lips and blowing the head of steam from his tea. "You're a good girl," he said kindly, thinking of the five gold pieces in his pocket. "I'm sorry I didn't have any coppers for you all today."

She shrugged, tucking a scrap of hair back behind her ear. "In all fairness, ser," she replied, eyes darting to a patient who turned in his fitful sleep, "those folks brought more bread here with them than all of us could eat together. I've stuck some in my bag for Teller already." She pointed at a rough woollen sack by the door.

"Do you have a cloth in there?" he asked, getting to his feet and picking up one of the empty bottles from the crates. "I'll give you some more water for the night."

"Thank you, ser," she said, nodding as she got quickly to her feet. As he bent over the bottle he heard the distinctive creak of the door, and couldn't help the tiny jolt of hope that lifted his eyes. The crop of rusty hair that appeared in the frame was more of a wrench that he expected. He dropped his gaze as the girl sprinted between the beds. "Teller!"

But the boy, both to his sister's and Anders' surprise, pushed past her into the enclosed space, arm outstretched. "Message for you, ser," he breathed, dropping into the empty chair as Anders closed his fingers around the folded parchment, his face disbelieving.

"Thank you Teller," he murmured, unable to bring himself to look at the paper in his hand.

"You were gone for ages," Perrin hissed angrily as she stood over him. "What were you thinking?"

"It was busy out," he retorted, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back a grubby hand. "Loads of people needed messages."

"There are other messengers," she snapped back, rubbing her bare arms. "You should have come back here hours ago." Her irritable tone was belied by her obvious agitation, and the worry framing her young face.

"Come off it Perrin," he grumbled, glaring up her with his own brown eyes. "We need the coin."

Sensing an angry and potentially loud reply from his young assistant, Anders moved to hand the girl the bottle he'd been filling. "You're both safe," he said peaceably. "That's what matters."

She grabbed a fistful of her skirts to take the bottle by the neck as he ushered them towards the doors. "Come in a bit later than usual tomorrow, Perrin," he said quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder as they weaved their way between the beds. "I'll need to start working out some shifts."

"Alright, ser," she replied, as he opened the door for them. "You know where we are if you need us."

"Of course," he said, flashing a warm smile. "Goodnight, both of you."

"Goodnight, ser."

As they headed for the staircase he turned the paper over, thumb slipping automatically between the folds.

The seal was already broken.

His eyes widened. The quarantine had barely been in place for twelve hours and their messages were already being intercepted? Could Meredith have moved that quickly?

"Teller?" he called out, unable to mask his alarm.

Wide, sallow eyes looked at him in confusion. "Yes, ser?"

He held the paper up. "Who gave you this letter?" he asked, as calmly as he could, even as his heart pounded a tattoo in his chest.

"Some bloke up at the Slums Stair, ser," Teller replied swiftly. "One of the smugglers."

Relief swept through him. "One of Athenril's men?"

The boy nodded. "I think so, ser."

He smiled, turning to close the door. "Thank you Teller."

He pushed the door closed behind him, lowering the latch carefully to avoid disturbing anyone.

'Athenril.' The relief was fleeting even as it was sweet.

He moved slowly between the beds, scanning the faces of his sleeping patients as the room thrummed with the sounds of crackling braziers and irregular breathing.

If Athenril was barricading the Slums Stair, then there was little doubt that she was in charge of keeping the black side of the quarantine. She wasn't the Knight-Commander, but she was a close second in terms of potential problems.

With a last glance around the room he retreated behind the screens, shrugging his shirt over his head as he approached the washstand. Forcing his eyes away from the paper on the table beside him he washed his face, neck and arms in the cooling water. The cloth was rough against his skin, the slight rasp enough to distract him as he soaped himself thoroughly in the purified water.

The job complete, he towelled himself down slowly, draping the worn material over his shoulders as he took the paper again, sitting himself on the edge of his bed. He thumbed the broken seal.

'She would have known that this would be read.'

'I know.'

'She will be unable to say anything that you have not already surmised.'

'I know.'

Drawing a steadying breath, he slipped his thumb under the flap, and opened the paper out.

Dear Anders,

I was too late.

He'd never seen her handwriting before, but he could see that she'd been trembling as she wrote: the careful loops and elegant flourishes finished with slipping tails and scrappy dots. Her words were almost meaningless, every one of them little more than a marker for the words she couldn't dare say.

All that I have is at your disposal.

The slight darkening of 'have' told him that she had hesitated, that her ink had dried on her nib as she paused, wanting to write something else. All that I want? All that I need?

Whatever it is that you need, I will get to you.

Those last five words, etched into the paper with a heavy hand. A sign of intent.

No matter what it takes.

As his eyes scanned to the last line he saw the watermark, a smudge over the name of the Maker. He brushed it with his thumbtip.

It was wet.

He frowned, looking down at the inky water streaking its way down his upturned thumb.

Pat.

He looked down at the paper, saw the curled letters of her name bleeding out over the creamy paper. Dumbfounded, he brushed his eyelid with the tips of his fingers. The dampness they discovered was all the explanation that he needed.

He folded the paper, resting his elbow against his thigh as he leaned forward. The hand that covered his mouth and chin was no comfort, and the tightness building in his chest was rising steadily, threatening to consume.

A quarantine, a ban placed in haste and repented at leisure. A necessary evil that would take months, if not years, to be lifted. A barrier held in place by both law and lawless, to protect the rest of the city from its infection. A wall separating him the woman whose kiss had barely left his lips.

He had felt it, felt that brush as she had slipped her tongue over his lip, the spark. The fleeting caress of her magic against his, her aura shimmering at the very limits of his mind, teetering on the brink. He had been with other mages before, recognized the tingle of an impending embrace, but this was new, extraordinary and wonderful, and he could only think of one reason why.

More than anything he had wanted to tell her, and now he could only curse himself that he hadn't. The words on the tip of his tongue were denied by her assurance, her absolute belief that she would be here with him. Now he might never have another chance.

The sob rose from his mouth and was stifled by his hand. Hopelessness overwhelmed him and he covered his face desperately, the letter fluttering to the floor as he wept in silence.

"So what does it say, Hawke?" Varric asked, looking up at her over his reading glasses.

She stood in the doorway, rubbing the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. He hadn't even asked what the cause of her arrival was. The answer was written plain in her panting breath, in the brightness of her eyes, in the fact that she hadn't changed out of her potion stained robes.

"He's alive," she gasped, reaching into her robe and drawing out the batter paper. "He isn't infected."

Varric shook his head as he pushed his chair back from the table. "Even you can't believe Athenril would lie to you about something like that, Hawke," he said, moving around the table towards her. "What does he have to say?"

She handed him the paper, dropping herself into a chair as he stood there. Reading the words she had already committed to memory.

Ariadne,

I apologise for not writing sooner. Finding a moment when I am neither resting nor working is proving extremely difficult, but all the same, I took too long.

I can't thank you enough for the latest batch of potions. Why you ever used Elegant at all is beyond me, although I suppose you didn't exactly have the time to be brewing all day before our little excursion. I can only marvel at your ability, and I must assume, as ever, that you had a good teacher.

If I could ask for anything else at the moment it would be soap, and perhaps additional blankets. I'm sorry to be a burden on your purse like this, but if you could deduct anything you can find out of my share, I would be grateful.

She could sense Varric frowning above her, the formality of Anders' tone troubling him even though he knew about the problems with Athenril. She smiled, knowing as she did what came next.

Have you heard from your dear brother at all?

She could almost see the dwarf's eyebrow raising, even as he stood with his back to her.

You must be so proud of him, standing up for the things he believes in. Please let him know how often I think of him, and how fondly.

There was no mistaking that chuckle.

Pass my regards onto our companions. Let those who care know that I am well.

Your friend,

Anders

"Nice to see he's retained his sense of humour," Varric said, placing the paper down beside her on the table as she poured herself a cup of wine from the earthenware jug. She reclaimed it carefully, fingers enfolding it softly as she tucked it into the top of her spattered workrobe. He sat opposite her, eyes glinting mischievously as he watched her sip her drink. "I never realised he was so fond of Junior," he said, unable to suppress his smirk.

It was a significantly more relaxed Ariadne Hawke who sat down to write her next letter, propped up on a bar stool, quill tickling the tip of her nose as she pondered, hours later.

"She thought I was dead?" he asked sharply, sitting up. The unfocused landscaped hazed itself into view around him. The door, as ever since its first appearance, was slightly to the left of centre in his line of sight. He recognised the vista from Sundermount, the mountain fog mingling with the disorientating vagueness of the vision.

Sitting quietly at his side, Bethany shrugged. "You didn't write back to her for nearly a month," she replied, more than a note of scolding in her tone.

He glanced at her, noting for the first time how much clearer she seemed. Now that he had identified her, he saw plainly those little glances and mannerisms that would have told him in an instant who she was. Even her face was clearer. There were flecks of amber in her warm brown eyes, and he could see that tiny scar on her left cheek that Ariadne had given her in some scrap over a toy horse when they were barely out of pinafores.

And of course there was no disguising that look, the distinct look of a protective sister. He was being judged.

"I'm a healer," he said quickly, his cheeks colouring as he tried to brush her off. "It would take a lot more than a bout of cholera to put me under, as well she knew."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw her gaze shift to train itself on the ghostly door. "I'd have thought you, of all people," she said quietly, her mouth twisting with amusement, "would understand the power of paranoia."

"A good point," he chuckled, shifting his knees up towards his chest.

"And in fairness," she teased, leaning sideways to nudge him slightly with her shoulder, "she wasn't the only one who worried unduly."

He snorted, humour mingling with a deepening unhappiness. "When was she ever?" he said, sadly.

In his corner of the clinic all was quiet, save for the footsteps of his assistants keeping the night-time watch on the other side of the screens. Whether it was the generous stock of blankets still at his feet, or the mouthful of Varric's whisky warming the back of his throat (purely for medicinal purposes), he felt distinctly cheerful as he perused her second letter from the comfort of his chair.

Her point about knotweed infusion was straightforward enough, there was an ample supply to be found on the walls down at the docks. If she was as skilled with the brewing of that solution as she had proven with her elfroot potions, he'd been purifying the wells in the camps in a matter of days.

He glanced back at the page again, admiring the graceful ease of her hand.

I noticed in the last brewing that mother was taking the boil too far. My father was the true expert in these things, as I imagine you suspected.

He tried to imagine her as a young girl, sitting wide eyed at her father's knee as he brewed the potions, the poultices that had kept their family afloat. He'd seen that look in her eyes himself as he'd taught her to heal, the patience and thoroughness with which she applied herself, those little notes she made in the pages of her journal. The thought warmed him as much as the whisky in his cup.

Mother is much distracted at the moment, as the Viscount has accepted her petition. It would seem that I am safe, at least for now.

He smiled at that. Perhaps the most ironic thing about this whole situation was that, trapped as he was, he was the safest he had ever been in this city. He permitted himself a chuckle of satisfaction as he read on.

I am so proud of Carver. It takes a truly selfishless individual to pit himself against such a storm, but I believe that he is brave enough, that he has the strength to forge his path. I am glad to hear that he is often in your thoughts, it seems that he is always in mine.

His eyes lingered over the word. Such a little thing, less than two syllables, and yet...

'Mine. Is it too much to hope that she is mine as much as I am hers?'

He could almost picture her, sitting in the Hanged Man, as he read on.

Regards returned by all, in more or less warm terms. Varric has promised to drink one on your behalf every night until your return.

Please endeavour to take care of yourself, and write to me if there anything more I can do.

Yours, friend,

Ariadne

He couldn't help it. The hope was all that he had to sustain him. Opening the drawer in the edge of his table, he withdrew the quill and his inkbottle.

My dearest Mischief,

You realise, I suppose, that I was lying through my teeth when I told you I haven't had time to write? I have time. I seem to have more time right now than I know what to do with. Even with so many patients here in the clinic, most of the time they're just sleeping. I can heal their organs, cool their fevers, but really a wet flannel is as good for that as a spell, and there are relatives enough who need to feel they can do something. I seem to spend half my time just sitting around and waiting for the next person to wake up... or not.

"So what do you do?" you ask, with your wide blue eyes and your head tilted just so.

Well, love, I sit here and I write to you.

"But I never get any letters!" you cry, your soft lips all pouty and flushed like they get when you've been crying, or when I kissed you,

'Maker's breath that kiss.'

"Whatever do you do with them all?" you ask, that unending curiosity taking over you.

I put them in a box, Mischief, and I keep them under my bed. It gives me peace at night to be near them, to picture your face as you read them, when at last you finally do.

Every time the door opens loudly I find myself hoping, however briefly, that it's you. I see your bright smile and your vivid eyes, that futile ponytail fraying out, all ruby strands cascading down onto your face. Then someone's coughing and the image is gone.

He paused momentarily, closing his eyes and his ears against the din of struggling breath, listening to the crackle of the brazier as the smoke lingered in his nostrils.

Sometimes when it's quiet enough, sitting by the fire reminds me of those nights in the Deep Roads after the ogre. I hear your voice humming quietly as you go about getting ready for sleep, your little feet pattering over the stones as you move about in that old shirt you slept in, your soft laughter at my bad jokes.

Did you know that you can't sing? Not even a little. It's charming.

He took a sip of the whisky in his cup, before knocking the rest of it back. The stinging in his eyes was not caused by the alcohol alone as he bent over the page again.

How can it be so easy and so impossible to be around you? What is it about you that makes me forget myself, my troubles and my task and just want to lie with my head in your lap while you murder your favourite tunes?

He sighed, resting his cheek against his hand as he dipped his quill again.

Justice doesn't like it when I write to you like this. He feels that it is wasted effort.

'That is because it is,' the spirit interjected.

He's right.

He could sense Justice's relief. 'I'm glad you still have the wit to realise that.'

He changed his full stop to a comma.

if only in a very technical sense,

It was a strange sensation, the bitter grumbling of a spirit inside your own mind.

but even he understands that there's not a lot else I can do right now.

'Are you attempting to convince her, me or yourself?'

Now it was his turn to grumble.

He didn't sign it, didn't even attempt to finish it. The scratching of his quill had, as ever, done nothing to quench the fire, the flame of need, of anger and of hopelessness that roared within him.

She could have been here, trapped in the darkness beside him. Were it not for that stone-hearted elven bitch she would have been, and he wouldn't have been stuck here with no-one for company but the spirit in his head. His eyes lingered on his pallet, the desire for her presence willing his eyes to see, even for a moment, her sleeping form under the shapeless blankets.

Beyond the worn fabric of his makeshift wall, someone cried out in his sleep. A small child, no more than ten years old. The boy would be dead by morning, a fact no gift of his could alter. He put his head in his hands.

He was selfish, unspeakably selfish.

'What kind of monster would wish this on anyone? This heat and this dark and this constant stream of death?'

She was safe. Above ground in the clean air, away from the perpetual stench of corpses seeping up from the old mining tunnels, his only point of contact with the outside world.

And yet that knowledge did nothing to ease the ache in his chest, the endless hollowness that seemed ever to grow, consuming him from the inside out. The letter was a comfort, but the fact that it had taken it a near fortnight after the appearance of the supplies to arrive at his doors was infuriating.

If he replied too soon, no doubt the elf would keep his letter to Ariadne just as long as she'd kept the last one from him. Then again, the longer he took in replying, the longer Ariadne would be kept waiting, worrying herself ragged over his wellbeing.

He took up his quill again, beginning the letter that he would send the next afternoon.

Dear Ariadne,

Varric is by far the most generous dwarf ever to grace the surface of Thedas. I assure you, I'm returning the gesture.

The paper in Carver's hands was worn and faded, and the frown on his face seemed to match it perfectly.

"You kept it?" he asked, holding the letter in his hands as he looked at her over the fire.

Sitting beside her sleeping patient on the ledge she nodded. "I kept all of them. Even when..." she trailed off, brushing a strand of dirty blond hair from Anders' face. "Some of them got destroyed, some lost, but yes. I kept every one."

She rose, walking around the fire to where the kettle was coming to the boil.

"How romantic," Carver snorted dryly. "Did you go weak at the knees reading about rotting corpses?"

She frowned at his words, even as she kept her back to him, attempted to shrug it off with humour. "You'd be surprised," she said. "I always did have a minor obsession with penmanship. I'd assumed that all Circle Mages wrote in the neat little script of the scholar, like father did, but he didn't."

Scalding water met brittle leaf in a flush of steam. She inhaled the aroma deeply, and sighed. "The way his words trailed over the pages, all loops and rounded shapes and sweeping curves. For one thing, it was a total mess. No wonder he was always in trouble with the First Enchanter." She paused momentarily. "Of course it showed how busy he was, writing everything in such a hurry, and at the time I couldn't help thinking it makes everything more... passionate somehow."

Her brother laughed weakly at that, and at the smile which told him that she knew how foolish she sounded. "Passionate?" he said, gasping for breath."There are holes in the parchment! He must have held the quill like a bloody dagger."

She stirred the pot carefully, listening the wheezing of her brother's lungs with a sinking heart. Even a rudimentary healer such as herself recognised the beginnings of the second stage of withdrawal. With the tea to ease his pain, and a suitable distraction, she had maybe three or four hours before things turned sour. When they did, when they so inevitably did she would have to take more drastic action. The thought of it chilled her, but she had no choice.

Carver was chuckling again, and she knew without looking which lines he must be reading.

Your brother is an example to us all, and I must say that his standing around in Hightown in his new outfit armour was one of the most attractive things I have ever seen.

"You know," he commented, smiling wearily up at her as she brought him his tea, "I'm really rather glad that he wasn't actually talking about me."