TWELVE

"So," Anders said as they walked through the foothills of the Frostback mountains. "Which one are you?"

Fion looked puzzled. "Which one?"

"Which god? There are only three left you know. Are you Night? Or Beauty? Or are you Mystery?"

"Anders.." Leliana said.

Fion stopped and looked at the blond mage. They were of a height, the two of them, although Fion was more slender. Anders relied on magic only during combat, but he followed a strict physical exercise regime every morning that made him bulkier. Leliana had asked Oghren if it was a grey warden thing. Oghren had snorted into his tankard.

"Nah, the skirt wearing fancy man just wants to look good for the ladies."

"I am Fion," the younger man said then, as though he didn't understand the question.

"Well, obviously you're Fion," Anders said. "But you're also the incarnation of one of the old gods. Which one is it?"

"Anders I don't think..."

"It's all right, Leliana," Fion said. "It's a valid question. One I'd be quite happy to answer, if I happened to know what the answer was."

"You don't know?" Anders said.

"I don't even know that those stories are true," Fion replied. "The only person I truly remember being is... Fion. I have extra abilities, extra senses, but as far as I know I'm just... me."

"Well, how terribly disappointing for you."

Fion laughed. It was the first time Leliana had heard him laugh and she found the sound unsettling - it was deep and throaty and almost exactly like his fathers. "Yes I suppose it is," he said after he controlled himself. "Although I don't know that remembering being a dragon would be an advantage in every day life."

"No, I suppose not," Anders said. "Why, you'd have trouble sorting out which legs to use for a start. And not being able to fly any more - that would be a bit of a killjoy."

"Indeed," Fion said.

Yuri had been walking next to Anders when they had stopped to have their conversation, and his deep voice broke in. "Do you want to know?" he asked.

Morrigan's son looked at the Templar long and hard. "At the moment? No. I have no desire to know who I was. No desire at all."

"Sometimes knowing who you were helps you discover who you are," the Templar said then, looking away from them and down towards the lowlands.

Fion shuddered. "I'm not sure that's right in my case," he said.

"Perhaps not," Yuri conceded, and he turned back to the road and continued walking ahead of the rest of them. His voice floated back towards the party. "But it's part of you, nonetheless."

They continued on.

Yuri had spent an hour or so with Alistair before they'd left the cave discussing what needed to be done to shield Fion from his mother's eye and the Templar needed to renew his wards every evening before they slept. Fion and Yuri seemed to get on well, Leliana noticed. They were both taciturn and unwilling to enter into casual conversation, and neither wasted words when they did speak. Yet they sat together in the evenings in companiable silence until it was time for the Templar to sleep.

Fion didn't sleep. He had no bedroll and would keep company with whomever was on watch the entire night - or disappear altogether until daylight. Leliana asked him about it one night when he was standing with her on watch.

"I can't do it forever," he said. "It depletes me. But if I enter the fade I am vulnerable - she can find me there. So I need to stay awake."

"Surely it cannot be healthy," Leliana said. "How do you manage it?"

"I need some periods of rest," he said, "where I clear my mind of thoughts. And eventually I will have to sleep, yes."

"When?"

"Long before we reach Denerim," Fion said. "I'm hoping that Anders and Rowan will be able to offer me some protection when I do. From the fade."

"Is it that important that she not find you?" Leliana asked then, gently.

Fion's young face clouded. "Yes," he said.