Raspberry Fields Forever
Getting up early had never been Josslyn's strong suit; at least not while living the soft life in the tower. However, sleeping on the hard ground made it much easier for her to rise early. She rose before dawn and started the fire before filling the pot and hanging it over the mellow flames. She sat and watched the pot as it hung on the green branch over the fire, slowly heating her tea water. Everyone else appeared to still be asleep and she enjoyed the quiet arrival of dawn.
"Ah, my lovely Warden, I did not expect you to be a watcher," Zevran purred, coming to sit beside her.
"Hmmm, you would prefer I use a little magic to help things along?" she responded with a wicked smile.
"And why not? A bit of heat would be most welcome, no?" he replied, his own smile now a leer, his voice oozing innuendo. She really did enjoy talking with Zevran with his obvious charm and sexuality. There was a sweet subtlety to him as well.
"There is a greater satisfaction in watching it warm gradually, don't you think? That anticipation heightens the pleasure once it's done, I find."
"Yes, I see what you mean, definitely more pleasurable," Zevran murmured warmly.
"Stop! Stop talking about…about what you're talking about!" Alistair hissed loudly, struggling out of his tent still buckling into his cuirass. Scarlet suffused his face, his ears, and even his neck.
Hiding a grin, Joss turned to him to ask innocently, "We aren't allowed to discuss how slowly the pot is heating water for my tea? Honestly, Alistair, what did you think we were talking about?"
Alistair spluttered and, though Joss didn't think it possible, he turned an even darker shade of red. Muttering about evil mages and wicked assassins, he stalked down to the creek without looking at either of them.
"Chantry raised," she explained to a puzzled Zevran.
"More's the pity," he replied with a disappointed sigh.
"Hmmm, I expected you to be the kind who enjoys a challenge."
"There are some challenges worth the effort. Others add only complications."
That was certainly true, Joss thought with a glum smile. She missed Teagan. Which was foolish and impractical since she would be traipsing around the countryside for Maker knew how long. He was a complication. A gorgeous one. A sexy one. But a complication. Sighing, she made her way over to her tent and ducked in, wondering for a moment if she should pay a visit to Teagan in the Fade some night soon. He needed to know a few things about her if he was seriously serious about her. Rolling up her bedding, she tied it and tossed it outside and joined it, crawling out of her tent on her hands and knees, right into a pair of sturdy legs.
"Uh, hello?"
Sighing, Joss looked up to meet the eyes of a stranger. In their camp. With nobody raising an alarm of any kind. Even Styx was snoring with great relish. As a watchdog he failed miserably. As a pillow and blanket rolled into one he was amazing.
"Good morning. I'm Josslyn Amell. I trust you aren't a bounty hunter or tax collector?" she said, standing and brushing her robe off.
"I'm Levi Dryden. Did Duncan ever mention me? Levi the trader, Levi of the coin?"
"You're a traitor? And knew Duncan? That's surprising," Joss blurted out, folding her arms across her chest and staring at the tall ox of a man with the prominent chin and oddly bashful smile.
"No, no, not a traitor, a trader."
"Isn't that what I said?" Joss asked with a frown.
"I'm a merchant. Someone who trades with people."
"Right, I knew that. And I'm sure he probably did mention you but my mind's been kind of focused on survival and the Blight lately. What brings you to the middle of nowhere, Levi Dryden?"
Of course he needed a favor. It wasn't as if anyone ever stopped them to give them money, or a hot meal or even a how-dee-do. They always wanted something from her group, as if saving their worthless hides from the darkspawn weren't a big enough something.
The trouble with his request was that it might actually be beneficial to them. An old Warden keep, hopefully with a chest full of secrets on how to initiate new Wardens, and surprisingly not that far away. The opportunity was too good to pass up.
Starting off with a spry step an hour later, Joss let Alistair and Levi take the lead. Naturally Zevran fell into step beside her. Cathair and Randal took up the rear guard. Wynne, Jowan, Leliana and Morrigan walked along silently and Styx bounced between everyone, looking for love.
"So, how long is it?" Joss asked conversationally.
"Long enough that I do not receive complaints, my dear Warden."
"May I see it?"
"You wish to see it now? Here?" Zevran asked, surprise and delight mingling together.
"Unless you're shy about showing it off?" Joss asked, grinning.
"Never, my lovely woman," Zevran reassured with an answering grin.
"Oh my, it is long, isn't it? May I touch it?"
"You I will even allow to stroke it," he purred in reply.
"Stop! Maker's breath, just stop talking about it!" Alistair cried, stopping and turning to face them. His face was once again stained with a deep red blush. "Can't you two have a normal conversation?" he continued, glaring at them.
"We aren't allowed to discuss his weapon?" Joss asked with feigned innocence.
Alistair spluttered and shook his head. "His weapon? Is that what you call it?" he asked in a curiously high squeak of a voice.
"What would you call it? Here, look for yourself," Joss said kindly.
"Holy Maker, don't show me your weapon, Zevran!" Alistair blurted out, eyes wide in horror.
"Alistair, what is the matter with you? We're just talking about the length of his…" Joss broke in but Alistair cut her off. The entire entourage was now grouped around them.
"I don't care about his length. I don't want to stroke it or see it or…"
"His dagger, Alistair. We're discussing his dagger," Joss interrupted with a snicker. "What in Thedas did you think we were discussing?"
"I – I thought – I hate you, Josslyn Amell," he responded, rubbing the back of his neck, his face scarlet.
"I know. But you love me in equal measure so I'll survive," Joss said and started off down the road again, feeling not even a flicker of guilt.
They made it to the underground tunnels early in the afternoon. "You never mentioned tunnels. As in dark, with cobwebs and spiders and things that go slithering around your ankles in the dark, tunnels," Joss complained, her voice nearly as high and squeaky as Alistair's had been earlier in the day.
"Do not worry, Josslyn, the Maker will protect you," Sister One Apple Shy of a Pie reassured.
Unless the Maker traveled ahead of them killing spiders and creepy crawly things and clearing the tunnels of spider webs, Joss was not, in fact, reassured. At. All. Still, she needed to get into the old keep and try to find some Grey Warden records. Surely they kept such things?
They set up camp at the entrance to the tunnels and Joss decided that only the Grey Wardens and the Grey Warden recruits would go into the keep. Duncan had been a stickler about Grey Warden secrets and, since Joss was now the de facto Commander of the Grey, she thought she ought to adhere to at least some of the tenets of the Grey Wardens.
Dark passageways, wrapped in cobwebs and home to all manner of skittering creatures, greeted them. So much for Josslyn's hope that the Maker had gone ahead of them and cleared the path. Sure, the Maker will protect me; just not from the things I fear, Joss thought sourly as they wound through the labyrinth.
When they emerged into daylight again, at the bottom of a rather steep hill, Joss turned to Levi, who was brushing his clothes off with a self-satisfied smirk. "Just how did you figure out a way through that?" she asked, hands on hips.
"Years of exploring?" he asked with a hopeful smile. Joss shook her head.
"You won't believe me," he finally said, his eyes sliding away from hers. Never a good sign.
Cathair, gathering several gossamer strands of spider webs from her face, tried to wipe them on her armored leg before glaring at Levi with narrowed grey eyes. "Answer the Commander's question," she instructed, all spit and polish. Well except for all the dust and cobwebs clinging to her.
"It came to me in dreams," he admitted reluctantly, still looking at his feet, which were now shuffling slightly in the snow that covered the trail; an odd thing to find in the middle of spring, which did not bode well, Joss reflected.
In dreams? Was there a Fade Walker in the keep? She shivered, blaming it on the cold that permeated the air around them. Was there anything in Ferelden that wasn't haunted by demented spirits? She kicked at the snow and set off.
"The veil is as thin as a goat's whiskers. Expect ghouls and walking dead and the usual crazy demons and such," Joss warned in as nonchalant a voice as she could muster. No reason to scare the new recruits. She tossed a grin over her shoulder just before walking right into a waking dream.
"Oh yay. Lots of death here. A war of some kind. The king's army against the Grey Wardens? That couldn't have gone well," Joss muttered as she watched the dream play out.
Things just got worse from there. Sophia Dryden, Commander of the Grey, had decided to rebel against a tyrant and fight a bloody rebellion for control of Ferelden. Was it any wonder the Grey Wardens were tossed out of the country on their collective asses? Neutrality. Watchword of the Wardens. Bloody idiot had summoned demons to help with the fight. Whatever else her right hand man Avernus had been, he'd been a very powerful blood mage.
"Why do I have the urge to apologize for all blood mages?" Jowan asked, standing beside her as yet another scene of carnage played out around them in the form of a waking dream.
"Same reason I have the urge to apologize for the arrogance of all Warden Commanders?" Joss hazarded, stepping around a pile of dusty, broken old bones.
"Yeah, that's probably it," Jowan answered, sounding less than convinced. "But Joss, I never, ever, ever summoned demons to help me fight," he continued and she patted his hand.
"I know. And I also know that if you use your blood magic without my permission you will be picking up pieces of yourself all over Thedas," Joss said with a grim smile.
"Good to know," Jowan responded, laughing nervously. Poor man; he wasn't quite sure she was teasing. Neither was she, come to think of it. She tried to brighten her smile. He looked even less reassured. She shrugged and moved on. Obviously their relationship still needed some work.
They stopped to rest before climbing to the third floor. Joss sank down and leaned against the hard stone wall. Fighting undead and demons was hard work. Randal came to sit beside her, handing her a dusty, moldering old journal. He was every bit as chatty as his father, with the same drooping mustache and trim beard, though not flecked with bits of grey. She liked him, he was solid and dependable and required very little work.
Opening the fragile leather journal, she began to read the cramped, curlicue writing only to discover that it appeared to be the lot of Grey Warden Commanders to go crazy. Lucky her. Maybe she could give Alistair the title? He was, after all, the senior Warden of Ferelden.
Gaspar Asturian, Commander of the Grey of Ferelden and the man responsible for having Warden's Keep built, had gone stark raving bonkers before being forcibly taken to Orzammar for his Calling. The last few pages of his journal were filled with the rantings of a mad man. Maybe Sister Oooh Shiny could figure it out. They seemed to speak the same language. The last page was almost humorous, it was so odd.
…Ah, but the raspberries! That's where I had them! They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved to them that I…
That was the last entry and whatever Gaspar Asturian had proved to "them" would never be known. The rest of the brittle pages were filled with sketches of jars of what could only be raspberry jam. It was not reassuring. At. All.
"Levi, I need you to make your way back out through the tunnels and fetch Wynne and Morrigan. If I'm correct, we'll have to mend the Veil and I'll need all the mages I can get."
"Do you suppose it's the fate of all Warden Commanders to go crazy?" Joss asked conversationally while they waited for Levi's return.
"Duncan wasn't crazy!" Alistair began hotly.
Well, that was a matter of opinion. He'd recruited Josslyn, hadn't he? He'd allowed all of his Wardens to fight in the front lines, except for the two newest recruits. He hadn't told them anything about the Wardens before going off on his suicide mission. Perhaps he wasn't crazy, just mildly nuts? Sophia's choice to fight the entire Ferelden army had definitely been crazy. Asturian's obsession with raspberry jam seemed equally crazy, if not more so. She saw a trend even if Alistair refused to. It didn't bode well for her.
Naturally Wynne had an opinion about mending the gaping hole in the Veil. She stared at the other mages and then turned to Joss. In a condescending and crisp voice, she asked Joss if it was really wise to subject so many mages to the temptation of demons.
Joss, eyeing Morrigan, Wynne and Jowan in turn, eyebrow quirked, finally sighed. "You are of no concern, you're already housing one. Morrigan is too much of a snob to let a pesky old demon enter her and Jowan has already faced his demon when he consented to becoming a blood mage. Although," she added speculatively, turning to face Jowan. "It does beg the question of what exactly you promised to your demon in exchange for that knowledge."
Jowan turned a dull and unattractive shade of puce, lowering his eyes to stare at the floor, which was not really all that interesting. "I promised my first born," he mumbled.
Joss threw her head back and laughed. As a mage, the chances of him even fathering a child were pretty slim. There were at least three birth control methods known to all mages and practiced by any sane mage. As a man that many in the tower had found unappealing, his chances were even slimmer. And, as a Warden, his chances of having a child were negligible, if what Alistair had said was true.
Poor Jowan. He really was a decent fellow whose first impression left many with the wrong impression of him. He wasn't unattractive, wasn't really stupid either. He was shy, she'd discovered, and insecure. It's what had led him to blood magic in the first place. She supposed laughing at his answer wasn't exactly instilling confidence in him. With a great deal of effort she reined in her laughter like one would rein in a wild horse. Not easily.
"Sure, laugh it up," he muttered and she went to stand beside him, placing an arm around his shoulders.
"Sorry, Jowan. That was actually a brilliant promise. Poor demon will be waiting a long time for that to be fulfilled," Joss consoled and then snickered again. She did love when a demon fell for the ridiculous.
"And you?" Wynne asked coolly, bringing Joss back to the moment with a resounding thud.
"And me what? You think after hunting demons for eight years I'm suddenly going to fall prey to them? Neither a demon nor a spirit be, Wynne. Isn't that what they teach us?" Joss shot back, voice laced with sarcasm. Wynne's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared but she held her tongue. Again. It was unsettling how little Wynne was arguing with her. Joss was going to have to talk to the old crone sooner or later and find out why. Now was a bad time. There were demons to kill and Veils to mend.
The first room on the third floor housed a very ugly and ruined Sophia Dryden. Or rather, a demon housed in Sophia Dryden's rotting body. No wonder the demon was anxious to make a deal to get out of the keep and into a fresh body. With an apology to Levi, Joss led the attack on Sophia and within a few moments both Sophia and the demon were definitely dead.
"Let's finish clearing out this mess and then work on unraveling the damned summoning circles. Hopefully this Avernus fellow died horribly and painfully," Joss muttered, examining the swirling patterns on the floor that marked the summoning wards used to bring forth the demons.
They encountered, to Josslyn's great surprise, an altar and shrine that seemed dedicated to raspberry jam. Several jars, with nary a mote of dust on them, stood in a neat little row on the altar, candles in tall silver holders on either side of them. Above the altar was a painting of a field of raspberry bushes with a beautiful elven woman reaching out to touch the fruit. Joss didn't even have a smart comment about the scene before her but she realized that there were, indeed, people crazier than Sister Several Arrows Short of a Quiver.
"Anyone know of a god or goddess that requires raspberry sacrifices in his or her name?" Joss asked in a rattled whisper.
"Who do you suppose keeps the jars dusted?"
"Do you think the jam is still edible after several hundred years?"
"Why raspberry jam? Why not grape jelly?"
Good questions all but no answers were forthcoming. They were each too surprised to do more than gape, the tears in the Veil momentarily forgotten.
Alistair finally crept forward and picked up one of the jars. "It's," he began and gulped loudly. "It's warm."
"Ewww, put it down," Joss said, wrinkling her nose and stepping back.
The jar shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces, flinging red jam through the air, when it hit the stone floor. Blobs of jam landed on the floor, the wall, the hem of Josslyn's robe. They all fell silent, standing motionless, waiting with held breath, to see what would happen now that the sacrificial jam had been desecrated.
When nothing happened they collectively released their held breath and slowly made their way out across a parapet to a tower but each of them, Joss noticed with a grin, kept looking over their shoulder, waiting for raspberry retribution. She couldn't even imagine what such retribution might entail. Nor did she wish to know.
Of course, she hadn't expected to have help in closing the tear from Warden Avernus, who, by Josslyn's calculations, had to be at least two-hundred and twenty five years old and looking every bit his age. He was crabby and acerbic and, though thankful that the group had killed Sophia Dryden's demon, put out that his research had been interrupted .
He also proved the old wives' tale that a person's ears continued to grow their entire life. His ears were huge. She'd seen smaller handles on the big water jugs used in the tower; the ones that required two strapping men to carry in from the well. It was hard to listen to him, his voice was so raspy. Harder still to look at him. She found her eyes kept wandering to his ears. Sparing a glance at her companions, she found they were having a similar problem.
They had a long talk with the man, made even longer by the pauses he had to take to catch his breath and answer their questions. Yes, he had the formula for the Joining, made better by his own inhumane experiments on his fellow Wardens. Yes, he would fetch it and they could initiate the new Wardens. Yes, he would tell them everything he knew about being a Grey Warden. And he should know a great deal about it, Joss thought dryly, considering how long he'd been one.
"We'll seal the Veil first," he ordered and she raised a brow at his arrogant assumption that he was somehow in charge.
It made sense to mend the Veil first. The after-effects of the Drink of Death could be very intense and some might not wake up from it. That thought made Josslyn's stomach plunge right over a cliff and hit the ground. She glanced surreptitiously at the Warden recruits. Would they all survive? She didn't want to even think they wouldn't. But there was now a rather large hand squeezing her heart.
Closing the Veil turned out to involve a lot more fighting than it should have. The fool blood mage had summoned dozens of demons and naturally dozens more had come through without an invitation. Only an arrogant ass would assume he could tear the Veil open and not have a houseful of uninvited guests.
Levi Dryden cowered in a corner while the group killed demons and Avernus chanted in his raspy old voice. He was surprised, but not altogether displeased, when Joss joined in, the words tripping with easy familiarity from her tongue. Arcanum, ancient and lyrical, as the words flowed into the air around them, bolstering the power of the his spells.
When it was done and the last of the demons had died, when the intense, vibrating energy of the wards had winked out, Avernus sagged against the wall, spent. Joss sent a rejuvenating spell into him and she felt Wynne do the same. The old geezer would probably die very soon with the energy of the Veil no longer pulsing through the air, Joss was sure of it. As it turned out, he died much sooner than she expected. And it had nothing to do with the Veil.
They made their way out of the large hall towards the raspberry shrine and the bridge beyond it. Avernus scornfully waved away Josslyn's proffered hand. "Fine, but be careful walking through here, there's raspberry jam on the…" but Joss never finished the warning. Avernus slipped on a blob of jam and went sliding across the floor before landing with a bone crushing thud. His head made a sick wet sound as it struck the stone. Wynne and Joss knelt beside him and Joss, frustrated and angry, shook the old man.
"He's dead, Joss," Wynne proclaimed quietly, a hint of accusation in her voice.
"Come on, Wynne, he's just unconscious. Do something!" Joss growled at the old woman.
"I'm a healer, Joss, not a miracle worker," Wynne replied.
Joss sat back on her heels and began to laugh at the absurdity that was her life.