The feeling of disquiet lingered after they had returned to the dwarven city, after she had chosen a king. She forgot, sometimes, to stop walking in the Fade and the dwarves would flinch away and whisper about her, for she looked like a spirit. Zevran had never seen such a thing. She did not seem mortal anymore, but like something perhaps from the ancient cities of the elves.
So that night when she came to his room he took out his ropes and taught her some things that she had not learned yet from her lovers in her Circle Tower. What she had learned in that Tower of hers was to make love in absolute silence, but in that night in Orzammar he broke the leash on her tongue. By the time that he finally covered her body with his he was quite satisfied that she was only a woman, smaller than him, and mortal as can be.
Alistair dropped an armful of logs and tossed two on the campfire, which spat up sparks into the darkness. He looked again at Morrigan's camp. "I don't like it," he said. "And they're always drinking over there. What are they drinking?"
"I actually did ask Neria that once," answered Zevran, who moved closer to the warm fire while mending his leathers. Alistair shot him a brief, baleful glare just for the principle of the thing. "Morrigan makes really good tea, she said."
"I think it's sweet that they're such good friends," Leliana said.
The two distant women laughed together and it had a bit of a wicked tone to it. Alistair glanced to see Neria bent over her cup in mirth. "They sound like a pair of witches."
"Neria is a Circle Mage." This was Wynne's calm but firm contribution.
"Tell me, which is worse?" Zevran asked with a smirk, kicking a stick into the flames. "Her association with the apostate or the assassin?"
"The apostate," answered Wynne, at the exact same time that Alistair said, "The assassin." Zevran laughed.
"What's in a witch's brew anyway?" Alistair asked when Neria finally joined them.
"I don't know. You know me and plants. Nothing matches the illuminations in books. Maker, but it's cold." Neria seated herself near the fire and put her hands out to it. She screwed up her nose a little. "There were… round things…? Tonight? Berries?" Suddenly her eyes lit up. "Maybe they were frog's eyes! Wouldn't that be interesting!"
"You're horrifying," Alistair replied. "Also you're joking with me. You're joking. Aren't you?"
Neria threw him a coy look that made his heart twist in his chest and he shook his head, looking down.
All of his careful tying was for nothing because something was opening the flaps of his tent and snow was blowing in but he wasn't even going to look because he had finally gotten warm under his blankets and also he hated Ferelden winters more than he had ever hated anything in his entire life.
"Zev? Can I sleep with you?" It was Neria. This cheered him a bit.
"But you never sleep with anyone, my dear Warden!" His voice was muffled but the humor in it was clear. "You have said this many times. Boot me out of your tent and leave me weeping my lonely tears for the rest of the night. You are a cruel woman."
"Please, Zev, please, I am so cold! Please please—"
"Fine, fine, come in!" He sounded both exasperated and triumphant at once and she darted in, kneeling over his covered knees as she tied the flaps shut again. Off went her boots and she slipped under his blankets like an eel. A frozen eel. Made of ice.
And the crazy thing was, even though he had finally just managed to warm up, he threw his arm and leg over her and pulled her close to his body. She put the frozen tip of her nose against the hollow of his throat and he liked that. He kissed her hair and he liked that, too.
"I never should have left the Tower. When this Blight business is over I am going to Antiva—It is very warm in Antiva?"
"Yes, it is very warm there." He felt sleepy again already.
"I am going to Antiva and turning brown in the sun and living as a dancing girl."
"You always have the cleverest plans, amora."
She fell asleep as soon as she was warm but Zevran stayed awake a little while yet, holding her quite close to him, thinking about the word that he had not meant to use.