Wandering Memories

Fergus dreamed first of the Korcari Wilds. He and Travers and the small contingent of men they'd taken on a scouting mission had been cut off from the rest of the King's army by a roving band of darkspawn. They lost two of their number fighting the creatures and both he had Travers had taken light wounds. The mages at Ostagar told them to wash any wounds promptly with water and they did so before resuming their patrol, determined to find the source of the band of darkspawn so they could report back to King Cailan.

A second group of the foul creatures had fallen upon them and they were so lucky in the second battle. Fergus had been wounded badly enough that Travers feared to move him. His armour was sundered, several ribs were fractured, one puncturing his lung. The bone of his shield arm was broken in three places and a blow to his helm knocked him unconscious for the better part of two days. Travers had also been injured; a gash through his armour and into his shoulder that looked so horrific, both men had feared he would lose his arm. Of their original band of six men, only three of them survived that battle. The third, Ser Maitland, made it out of the wilds with them only to die when they retook Highever.

The Chasind saved them in the wilds. A healer tended their wounds, a swamp witch, Maitland called her. But despite magic being used, it still took weeks for the men to regain their strength. The old woman did not have a large pool of mana, or the discipline of a circle mage. It took her several days to deal with their injuries one by one and she did not use magic at all in some instances. Fergus had heard tales of Wilder mages whose power equaled tower trained mages, but apparently this clan was not possessed of one of these more powerful healers. He never doubted that they might have died without the care they did receive though, and he thanked the clan then and afterwards the Maker, often.

Eventually they were well enough to travel and returned to Ostagar. Of course, they found nothing but destruction. And then began the long journey back to Highever, dodging darkspawn and Loghain's men, only to find his childhood home in the clutches of Rendon Howe and his family slain. It wasn't until a Landsmeet was called that he found out that not only was Aedan still alive, but led the King's army in the name of Alistair Theirin, the royal bastard. He'd had his hands full ridding Highever of Howe's men and hadn't made the journey to Denerim until the coronation, as Teyrn, a title he'd not been ready to hold.

In his dream, Fergus found himself in the hut that had been his home for the weeks it had taken for his bones to set properly. Sitting beside him was the witch, an old woman who had yet to take an apprentice.

"Why do you have no apprentice?" he asked her.

He cringed at his own impertinence, stunned that the words had passed his lips.

"I do have one."

"He is not here with you, how is he learning?" How had he known it was a 'he'?

"He is out there," she said, gesturing the wilds. "Learning."

"But shouldn't you be teaching him?"

"I have taught him a little."

"Then how will he learn the rest?" Fergus asked.

"By doing."

"But what if he does it wrong?"

"Then he will do it another way." She sounded confident in the way only an elder can.

The interior of the hut changed and Fergus found himself in the library at Highever. His father sat across the table from him.

Fergus asked, "Why won't you let Aedan come with me?"

"He is not ready."

"I am not ready, yet you are sending me at the head of your men."

"You have learned all I can teach, Fergus. Now you have to do the rest on your own."

He felt that combination of pride and fear, the same as he'd felt that day, the last day he'd seen his father alive.

"This is your time, Fergus. I have every confidence in you."

"Father…"

Fergus opened his eyes. At first he thought he'd returned to the hut in the wilds. The cool, dry atmosphere tickled his nose in a familiar way and he lay on the floor, something bundled within his arms. Glancing upwards, he the ragged patch of sky above the rough chimney and memory returned him to the cave with a thud. He had his coat tangled about his arms and he lay on the dirt floor of a cavern. But where was Lucy? For an absurd moment he thought she might have been a part of his dream, but then he saw her satchel just behind the patch of light on the ground and soon after he heard her footsteps as she returned.

"Morning, my lord," she said brightly.

Sitting up, Fergus bowed his head and said in return, "Morning, my lady."

Lucy chuckled. "Well aren't we formal. Doesn't make up for the cold, bare accommodations though, does it."

Fergus laughed and Lucy blushed then laughed, covering her mouth with both hands. "Fergus," she said finally, her voice a strangled squeak. "Oh, pardon me; I do not know what possessed me."

Grinning, he stood up and brushed off his clothes before waving off her apology. "No, you are right! I will have to find another way to make it up to you."

"No, Fergus, no. I didn't mean…"

"It would be the least I could do, after failing to rescue you properly. I will treat you to dinner, my lady," he bowed and chuckled, feeling silly, but continuing anyway, "We'll sit in real chairs and eat whatever you like, except mushrooms."

Lucy chuckled and gave her satchel a pointed look. "Speaking of which, fancy some breakfast?"

Fergus groaned.

After their meal of mushrooms, Fergus hoisted Lucy up through the fissure again to see if she could see anything – castle walls, dogs, people…

"If you see a rabbit, see if you can lure it closer," he suggested.

She shook with laughter, one of her boots slipping against his shoulder.

"You'll not catch one making all that noise," he called up.

When he let her back down, she grinned up at him and asked, "Are you always this cheerful in the mornings?"

"No. Usually I've had too much ale and have a sore head."

Lucy tsked and laughed again.

"You think I'm kidding?" He chuckled. "Well, I am a bit," he admitted. "Now that Aedan is gone I've no one to drink with every night, so I suppose better mornings are on my horizon!"

"Oh, I've heard stories about you and Travers…"

"Who keeps telling you all these stories?"

"Travers…"

Fergus grumbled. "He's supposed to be a knight, discreet, you know."

"Oh, he is. He won't tell me what happened that night the four of you got locked in the larder, with one of the kitchen maids, who happened to have a lovely little daughter eight months later…"

He blinked at her. People thought…?

"She rescued us, she wasn't actually in the larder with us…" for very long, or long enough… "and babies usually take nine months, you know."

"I heard she was very small."

"Well it's not mine." The baby didn't belong to any of them, so far as he knew, or at least, it hadn't been conceived that night. But obviously that hadn't stopped the rumours flying.

"No, she doesn't look much like your or Aedan."

"This is a highly inappropriate topic of conversation, you know…" He tried to look stern.

Lucy threw back her head and laughed. "Inappropriate to… dirt floors and rocky walls? You have no shoes on."

Fergus looked down and felt his mouth twitch. "Well, when I take you to dinner, my lady, I will wear shoes, and we'll have no such talk of pantries and kitchen maids."

"And no mushrooms."

"And no mushrooms," he readily agreed.

In a gentlemanly gesture, he offered her his arm. Lucy smiled at him and he looked at her face in the filtered light that slanted down through the chimney. She had hazel eyes, he noticed, just like her brother, and they were bright with humour and well being despite the smudges across her cheeks and the state of her hair. She had a heart shaped face with a narrow chin, full cheeks and a high forehead. He'd seen her in better repair and knew that beneath the dirt she had freckles across her nose and that when tamed, her brown curls framed her face in an attractive way. He had a feeling, however, that he would long remember her as she looked now – disheveled, wild, and yet somehow happy.

"You do realise," he said quietly, "that dinner is not until we find a way out of these caves."

She slipped her arm through his. "Then we had better get a move on, hadn't we?"

The headed again towards the dark passage of the day before and as they slowly navigated the inky blackness, Fergus let his mind wander back to the time the four of them – he, Aedan, Roland and Travers – had got locked in the larder.

The castle had been quiet. The elder Couslands had left to visit Denerim, leaving him in charge. That late in the season there'd been little other to do than break into his father's brandy collection and keep Aedan and Roland from burning the castle down. He'd been twenty five and both Aedan and Roland had been seventeen.

Travers joined him for an after dinner drink (another excuse to try a different bottle of brandy) and they saw Aedan and Roland saunter past the dining room door looking altogether too nonchalant. They had to follow, of course. The younger pair paused before the kitchen and tried to shoo them away.

"We're just getting something to eat," Aedan said, eyeing the kitchen nervously.

"Right, and maybe a drink," Rory had added, looking horribly guilty. Aedan had been a better liar as a youth, oddly. Rory had never been adept.

"You just had dinner," Fergus pointed out.

Travers lifted his glass, which he'd thoughtfully brought with him. Ever pragmatic, Travers was. "Come have a drink with us."

Aedan made a face. "I don't like brandy."

"So what's in the kitchen then?"

"Food?" Aedan quipped, his expression turning rather cheeky.

Travers got right to the point. "Boys, you either tell us what you're up to or you come drink brandy with us. It's not so terrible a choice…"

It also hadn't really made sense? But then again, they were on to their third glass.

Rory crumbled, earning a glare from Aedan. "There's a book, in the pantry. We just wanted to get it."

"A book?" Fergus asked.

"Not the sort a gentleman would want to keep in his room, perhaps?" Travers guessed.

The blush on both faces suggested he'd hit his mark.

Of course all of them went in to look at the book. Why hadn't they taken it back to the dining room or the library? No one was going to catch them with it that late at night. Probably because Aedan started eating, he'd always had an appetite even before becoming a Warden. Travers saw the cheese and suggested that it would go well with the brandy and left to get the bottle. Rory collapsed onto the flour sacks with the book and Fergus found a cask of ale. In retrospect, not a lot of what they did when they were young made sense…

Travers, being the careful sort, closed the door after himself when he returned, the lock clicking into place to joint yells from both Aedan and Rory.

"Don't close the door!"

"Why?"

"The lock is broken!"

How did they know this? Copious visits to the book, no doubt. In between jiggling the useless handle and having it fall off in one of their hands, brandy was poured, ale drunk and cheese eaten. The book provided all the entertainment the impromptu party needed. It wasn't until one of them expressed a need to relieve themselves that they'd really become concerned about the door. It took an hour of banging and yelling to rouse the maid that came to their rescue and by that time three of them had used a mixing bowl set into the corner as a privy. That had been… embarrassing.

Nan had screamed over that more than the fact they'd eaten half a wheel of cheese, two loaves of bread, a jar of pickled vegetables (he could always remember her mentioning them, but not actually having eaten them) and managed to puncture two flour sacks.

Fergus chuckled.

Lucy brought him back to the present. "Copper for your thoughts? A silver if they're that amusing."

"I was thinking about the larder, and Aedan. He was such a contrast, even as a boy. Serious one minute and completely disarming the next."

"I'd say he's not changed much then."

"In many ways, not at all…" But he had. Fergus knew his younger brother was still there, still essentially the same man, but, Maker… he'd never seen anyone so broken. Yet underneath it all he was still so …Aedan. A fierce wave of love for his little brother washed through him then, and he sent a fervent prayer to the Maker for the well being of his little brother, Leliana and their children. They were all he had.

Lucy squeezed his hand, which she'd been holding in the dark. "He's a good man, like you. He'll make a good Teyrn."

Once again he smiled into the darkness. "Like me?"

He heard her chuckle. "Do you doubt it?"

"All the time, Lucy."

She remained silent for a moment and he feared he had overstepped, admitted something he should not have. Finally she replied. "It may have come upon you unexpectedly, but you rose to the challenge. Highever holds you in great esteem, Fergus."

He remembered his dream, his father's words: This is your time, Fergus. I have every confidence in you.

"Thank you," he answered quietly.

After another bout of silence, the companionable sort, Fergus noted the passage looked less dark ahead and he pointed it out to Lucy. They quickened their pace as best as they could given the dark, the uneven floor and the fact that he wore no shoes. He stubbed his toe for about the thirtieth time and hissed.

"Your ankle?"

"My toes."

The now familiar scent of elfroot wafted through the air.

"I don't need it."

"Are you sure?"

"Lucy, if we're stuck down here for much longer, we might have to save it for dinner." A soft grunt greeted his comment and he followed up with, "Not funny, I know."

The passage brightened as they turned a corner and Fergus glanced up to see yet another fissure above their heads. The light shining through was a dispirited grey and Fergus smelled the rain before they saw it. They paused beneath the crack in the rock and let the water trickle over their faces.

It felt wonderful. Fergus stepped back to let Lucy wash her face and then he did the same. They grinned at each other in the vague light, unreasonably happy to be standing under a small trickle of water and a crack of grey sky. Lucy had wet her hair a little and strands stuck to her cheeks and Fergus reached out to smooth one back, the gesture totally unconscious. Her skin felt cool and damp beneath his fingers and she dropped her eyes and moved to smooth the rest of her hair away from her cheek in a nervous gesture. Fergus dropped his fingers in embarrassment.

He cleared his throat to apologise and then he heard… barking.

His heart leapt in his chest, he knew the sound immediately and so did Lucy. The hounds.

"They are looking for you."

"Maybe they are looking for you," he quipped and she chuckled. Assuming a more serious mien, he said, "Lucy, I don't think they will hear us down here, or be able to find us from this fissure. We either need to move forward or go back to that wider hole."

"How long do you think we've been walking?"

"About two hours."

"Let's go forward a bit."

He agreed with her – if they went back to the other cavern, they'd never make the original hole in the ground by nightfall and without the cracks and occasional chimney to light their way, they might wander in circles all night.

Half an hour later they stumbled into another cavern, one not lit by a fissure, but they could feel the space opening about them. They walked around the wall and Fergus kicked something that was not a rock. It felt light, wooden. He bent down to retrieve it and discovered a cluster of objects – a sack, some straw, a stack of wood that felt so dry some of it seemed to crumble beneath his fingers, and a dagger, rusted by the feel. Fergus knew where he was.

"Lucy, I know where we are."

"You do?"

"Yes, I've found one of our stashes, Aedan's and mine. We used to bring stuff to the caves with us. This stuff might have been here for… fifteen or twenty years."

"What did you find?" She sounded excited.

Fergus felt through the sack and found what he'd been looking for, the flint and steel. Handing her one of the old pieces of wood he wrapped straw about the end and then struck a spark. It caught immediately, the desiccated straw flaring brightly and burning quickly. Using the small amount of light, he surveyed the rest of the objects on the floor and found a stack of proper torches, their pitch ends still black. He lit one and set it into a niche carved into the wall for it and they both blinked in the flickering light.

Her face had become familiar to him over the past two days and he noted immediately the differences lent by the warmer light of the torch. But rather than study her too long, still feeling discomfited by his earlier gesture, he looked down instead, towards the stack of wood and torches.

"Do you remember the way out from here?" Lucy asked.

"Not offhand, I think we're about half a day's walk in though."

She nodded. "What about the nearest chimney or crack?" So they could alert the searchers.

Fergus twisted his mouth a moment and rubbed at his forehead. He turned on his heel and scanned the far side of the cavern. A dark opening indicated the continuation of the system of tunnels beneath the rock that connected these caverns. "It's been too long. There are many though, we'll find one. It's what always drew us to these caves; we could walk so far in without carrying torches."

"But you brought some anyway?"

Fergus chuckled at the memory. "We were planning a deeper expedition." Nodding at the sack he said, "There is probably a decade old wheel of cheese and a petrified loaf of bread in that sack.

Lucy almost looked interested and he laughed.

They found a fissure wide enough to yell through about half an hour later and Fergus climbed the wall, digging his raw and scraped toes into the rock and grasping at crevices with his fingers until his he got as high as he could. Then he listened. He could hear the dogs, somewhat distantly. Had they been able to follow his scent to the original hole or had the rain already obscured it? He yelled.

"Ho!"

He had no idea if anyone heard him and he felt somewhat ridiculous yelling up into the rock, but he kept it up for about half an hour. The barking began to veer towards them, but he couldn't hold onto the wall any longer, his toes had gone numb and his fingers had cramped. He dropped to the floor and then took off his coat and climbed again and started stuffing it up through the crack in the rock, using the end of an unlit torch to push it beyond the reach of his arm until it emerged into the forest, a beacon of blue cloth and hopefully, smell. The dogs would catch it.

They did.

He heard them approach and he climbed again.

"Hello!"

"My lord?"

He could hear the confusion as they apparently spoke to a coat that stuck in crack in the ground. The coat moved and then slipped from the hole and three whiskered muzzles replaced it. Fergus grinned at the sight and called down to Lucy.

"It's them, they've found us."

Back through the hole he called. "Yes, it's Fergus. I fell down one of the sink holes near the mouth of the river. I'm here with Lucinda Ryan and we are both well." He'd save the explanation – his failed rescue – for later. "Do you know the large cave entrance behind the hill, the one near the orchards? We will emerge from there in approximately four hours." Less if he could help it.

"Yes, my lord. We'll send someone in from that way to find you."

Fergus dropped down to the ground and Lucy's arms swept about him in a quick hug. He hugged her back and felt her bounce lightly in the circle of his arms.

"We are saved!" she said before letting him go, stepping back, her cheeks lightly flushed.

He grinned widely at her and said, "Don't thank me yet, we've still a few hours to go."

They stood smiling at each other, both seeming to fairly vibrate with happiness and relief.

"I suppose we should stop grinning like idiots and start walking," Lucy said.

"Did you just call the Teyrn an idiot?"

Lucy chuckled beneath her blush. "I think I just did."

Fergus laughed quietly. "Come on, let's go. My stomach is cramping thinking about what's in Nan's pantry."

"Hopefully something other than a filthy book." Lucy murmured.

"He told you about the book too?"

Lucy's chuckles lifted his spirits further and buoyed his step and with the torch they made good time; he didn't have to shuffle along with his bruised toes and they could walk at a near normal pace. After an hour they came to an intersection and Fergus hesitated. He chose left, letting instinct guide him and after they walked for an hour without interruption, he knew he'd made the right choice. The other direction, he seemed to remember, led to another cavern and probably another stash of moldy cheese and hard bread.

Another hour and Fergus found it hard to keep his pace even as his excitement built. He began leaning forward as he walked and craning his head about every rock as if he expected to see light or the mouth of the cave. The passage hadn't widened quite enough yet. He recalled that the first part of the system of caves was quite airy and properly cavernous.

They didn't talk a lot as they walked, except to pass the occasional comment on a feature they passed. An unusual rock formation, a small pool where they stopped again to drink and grudgingly eat more mushrooms, and the odd crack and fissure that allowed in the grey mist that had obviously settled over the forest as a result of the rain above.

Men waited over the chimneys and fissures here and there and called down encouragement.

The passage began to widen at last and Fergus said, "We're nearly there!"

Then he turned a corner and stopped, dumbfounded. Rock piled in front of him, tumbled from the ceiling and he could see the sky where the ground had opened into what had obviously started as a sink hole and had finally ended as a wall of rock that sealed the caves. But maybe the hole above was wide enough…

"Fergus?"

Handing her the torch he said, "There has been a cave in, but maybe we can climb up there." He pointed to the distant circle of grey light.

He climbed, his hands and feet protesting every inch, but he knew even before he reached the top that he'd not fit. Lucy might. He called out. "Hello!"

"My lord?" A voice answered almost right away. "There's been a cave in. We're going to dig you out, sit tight, please. We've sent to the castle for some food and blankets."

"Right," Fergus answered weakly. It would take them all night to dig them out, and perhaps a good part of the next day. But the thought of walking back to the other side of the hill, where they'd first fallen into the caves, exhausted him, left him feeling flatter than a rug.

Lucy seemed to share his dispirited mood and they sat side by side in the dim grey light after the torch finally guttered and burned out.

After a while, Fergus said, "Lucy… I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Fergus."

"We could have gone back the other way."

She didn't answer for a moment and then she shuffled across the floor a bit so that she sat right next to him. She felt warm and comfortable against his side and he could smell the woodsy scent of her hair. He looked over at her and she tentatively leaned her head against his shoulder. Quietly she said, "But we didn't and that's alright." Her lips quirked up in a small smile. "Who's to say there isn't a serpent at the bottom of that pool and that more of our splashing might have disturbed it enough to finally wake it? Might have swallowed us whole!"

"You… have quite the imagination…"

"What I'm trying to say…" she chuckled softly, "is that we made a choice. It was a bit more important than if I should wear the brown boots or the black boots, but ultimately, I was still going to walk in them, wasn't I? We're still here, Fergus. We're well, and healthy, and sick of mushrooms and your feet are a mess," she dug into her pack and pulled out more of the bitter root, "and I'm tired and dirty, and I can't seem to stop talking…"

Fergus leaned forward and then stopped, realising he'd been about to kiss her. Her words dropped away and they blinked at one another for a moment before Fergus lifted a finger to brush something from her cheek. Dropping his hand, he leaned away from her and pretended to study his hands.

Clearing his throat, he said quietly, "Lucy, I didn't mean to be so familiar."

She bit her lip, a mannerism he'd not seen her use before. Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she returned his gaze. Finally she said, "It's alright…" One side of her mouth crooked up in a half smile. "I am in the company of the gentlemanly Cousland, aren't I?" Her voice was soft, amused, but he detected something else, a tone he could not quite discern.

"That you are." He reached down and took her hand. Her fingers curled warmly about his.

She gazed over into the darkness for a while and when she looked back, it seemed a veil had slipped away her features. He saw another side of Lucy, not the confident and amiable woman he'd spent the last two days with, but a more vulnerable one. "It will be different when we return," she said softly. "It's like we've been in our own world here, with no one else to tell us who we are and where we stand. I nearly forgot you were the Teyrn." She paused. "What I'm trying to say is… I'm not sure if this," she looked down at their hands, "is such a good idea."

He supposed she was right; they didn't really know one another that well, circumstances had thrown them together. Or perhaps his nobility intimidated her, though it hadn't seemed to up until that point. But he was well aware of what village gossip would do to her reputation if…

"I understand." Unclasping her hand, he patted it softly and stood and moved back to the tumbled rock to await their supplies. He'd been caught up in the moment, he told himself. Once they made it out of the cave, things would return to normal. They would go their separate ways. She would return to the town and her son and he would go back to the castle by himself. He glanced over at her and saw she was looking at him. He smiled and she smiled back, a warm smile, a friendly smile. One he had become used to over the past two days.

"You will come to dinner, won't you?" he asked, wondering if she would hear the hope in his tone. "You can bring your son, or we could wait for Travers to return." A proper chaperone.

"I wouldn't miss it, Fergus."

And then she gave him a gift, a quick glimpse of an expression somewhat like his own, that same hopefulness. He wondered if he'd imagined it, the look had been so fleeting, but decided to believe he had not. Leliana would tell him he had not… His smile widened as he thought of his sister. The minstrel would love this story and she would encourage him to continue into the next chapter.