Author's Note: I decided 'click' as a way to activate the places of power would not make much sense in written word, so made up a ritual of sorts for the purpose. According to my source, 'vis vires' is Latin for 'force', which made sense to me in a way. Life force, force as in power or physical might…that sort of thing. I do dwindle into a bit of silliness in this chapter, incorporating a childhood memory Easter egg, if you will. It came to me as I was writing and I couldn't not indulge myself. Please feel free to comment/review, as I do enjoy hearing from readers!

An Interlude

Kallian awoke to odd sounds and voices, with confusing images crowding her brain, all accompanied by the faint smell of an Antivan dish Zevran often cooked at camp, and none of it made any sense to her. The thing she latched onto first was Zevran's cooking. He cooks at camp, but we aren't at camp are we? That doesn't seem right…She tried to concentrate, to make sense of it all, and the noise began to come into focus. She could hear Zevran giving someone a…cooking lesson? Alistair was bartering with someone, selling armour and weapons. Alarith? A familiar voice was saying "I knew the things they were saying about her weren't true." That sounds like Feryn, my father's apprentice. Suddenly everything came back to her with a jolt and before she had even opened her eyes, she was sitting upright, yelling. "Papae!" Her forehead connected with something hard and she collapsed back onto something only slightly less so, groaning. The chatter around her had stopped.

"Ow, ow, ow.."

"There now, child, you're all right." Wynne's calm voice was soothing. Kallian felt a cold hand press to her forehead and the pain there receded quickly. Someone was holding her hand, squeezing her fingers.

"Zev?"

"I am here, my Warden, but I am a little bit busy at the moment." His response came from further away than the end of her arm and he sounded distracted. Right, he's cooking, so who…She opened her eyes to find her father staring back at her.

"Father." Tears welled up in her eyes and she brought his hand to her lips, kissing it.

Cyrion's eyes were glistening. "My little girl. I didn't think I would see you again. When they said all the Grey Wardens died at Ostagar, I prayed they were wrong. I-I can't believe you're here. Why are you here?"

"Queen Anora asked us to look into rumours she'd heard about unrest here within the alienage, so…" she shrugged. "I couldn't let them hurt my family." There was so much more she wanted to say to him, she didn't know where to begin.

He was smiling down at her. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You're so much like your mother."

She was struck again by how tired he looked. "Are you all right?"

"Could be worse; I could be on an auction block in Minrathous right now."

Kallian looked around her. She was in her old bed in her father's home. It was the same sparsely furnished, poor little hut it always had been, but it was neat and tidy. Things had changed a bit, but it was still home. She could see Feryn, Soris, Shianni, Alarith and Alistair standing nearby and smiled weakly. A thought came to her then and she gasped.

"Where's Valendrian?"

Cyrion's smile faded. "Gone. They took him to the ships a few days ago…"

Kallian sobbed, her fists beating the bed at her sides. "No, no, no…"

Her father reached for her hands and sat beside her. "Da'len, do not do this to yourself. You have done so much good, saved so many, we cannot dwell on the ones you couldn't save."

He pulled her into his arms and held her, rocking her and stroking her hair as he had when she was a child and he was reminded of the last time they had been together this way, the day her mother was murdered. This made him remember something else and as he felt Kallian trying to pull herself together, he knew it was time for him to dig into their past. A smile tugged at his lips; this would literally mean pulling up the floor boards.

Kallian was drying her face and staring at the window in the other room. The sky was dark. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Just a couple of hours, da'len. Wynne thought it best to bring you back here where you could sleep for a while." He helped her stand.

"Let me get a look at you." She looked down to see that she was wearing one of her old dresses and it was hanging off her frame where it had once fit quite well. "Maker, don't they feed you Wardens? You're all skin and bones!"

Kallian and her companions laughed at that. "Father, you have no idea how much Alistair and I eat, when there's food to be had. It's a Warden thing, ravenous appetite. Mind you, we have walked back and forth across Ferelden too many times to count since I left, and we have had to travel as fugitives so a good meal wasn't always available."

She embraced her father. "It is so good to see you, Father. I am sorry I didn't send a message after Ostagar…" He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Your companions have been telling us a great deal of what happened during the battle and what you have been up to since, da'len. It is understandable. I thought you were dead until earlier today. This is a time for celebration! Your friend Zevran has been cooking a stew and we have bread and ale. Come, eat."

xXx

When the meal was finished and the dishes cleaned, Alarith excused himself, taking a large sack of armour and weapons with him. Feryn followed shortly thereafter, thanking the group once again for rescuing him. Kallian realized she had been in such bad shape after facing Caladrius that she hadn't noticed who any of the other imprisoned elves were. Cyrion offered room for the night to Kallian and her friends, and while this meant sleeping on the floor, they accepted. It was late and not the best time to be wandering around the city, regardless of who they were or even more so because of it, and their return to the estate could wait until morning. Bedrolls were laid out, blankets fetched, and the fire in the wood stove was stoked. Kallian hugged her father and cousins and settled in her assigned spot on the floor. Candles were blown out and the room plunged into darkness barely penetrated by the moonlight from outside.

"Kallian?" Alistair whispered.

"What?"

"I sold our surplus supplies to Alarith. Zev has the coin."

"Okay."

"I also ran into that Templar Knight Shianni mentioned and I think we should help him."

"Alistair?"

"Yes?"

"We can do that, but can we talk about it in the morning?"

"Oh, sure. Sorry."

"That's okay."

"Cousin?"

Kallian sighed. "What is it, Shianni?"

"What's going on with you and Zev?"

Zevran, who had snuggled up to spoon himself against Kallian's back, chuckled into her hair and moved a hand down toward her groin. Kallian, meanwhile, was trying not to moan with pleasure as he pressed his hand against her. Her father had given her the occasional rather inquisitive look over the course of the evening – Zevran brushed close to her several times, his hand lingering at her back, and he used more than one of his pet names for her – but Cyrion hadn't said anything to either of them. He deserved an explanation, she thought, but now was hardly the time.

"Wha…I…Damn it, Shianni. You are such an ass. You couldn't have asked me this earlier when we were outside?" She sputtered, pulling Zevran's hand back up to her waist.

"Shianni, stop teasing your cousin. Go to sleep, girls."

"Yes, Papae."

"Sorry, Uncle."

"Good night, Kallian."

"Good night, Alistair."

"Good night, Soris."

"Good night, Shianni."

"Good night, Wynne."

The mage sighed. "Good night, Kallian."

Someone farted and everyone burst into laughter. Kallian put her hand on Zevran's and listened as the others fell asleep. She eventually drifted off as well, some of the disquiet she had been feeling lately easing away.

xXx

Kallian's dreams were not haunted by visions of darkspawn and the arch demon, or even whisperings of its thoughts. Instead, the faces of Valora and Valendrian and all the others she now knew to be gone to the Tevinter Imperium floated before her, her imagination conjuring up various fates for them and she awoke just as dawn was breaking, staring at the ceiling, tears rolling down into her ears. Zevran had rolled away from her in the night, making it easy for her to slip away from him and out of the house, rubbing her face dry. She needed a distraction and found herself following a familiar path to the vhenadahl.

Standing at the base, Kallian put her hand on the tree's massive trunk and looked up into its branches, the leaves gently waving back and forth in the breeze. She walked around its trunk, pausing as a familiar feeling came over her. Something about the air right here. This is it…She crouched down and put her hand out tentatively, feeling a surge of energy running along the ground at the base of the tree. Using her finger to draw in the dirt there, she etched the rune she'd been taught by the Mage's Collective, whispering vis vires as she drew. There was a barely perceptible shift in the atmosphere around her and the air grew smoky for a moment before a breeze blew it away. The final place of power was now active and she could inform their contact on the way back to the estate. More money.

Kallian leapt up, grabbing a branch, and began climbing the vhenadahl until she found a good branch upon which to perch and straddled it, resting her back on the trunk. Signs of life were beginning to stir below her. A rooster crowed, chickens were stirring and the elf who tended to them was out to feed them. Memories began to come to her. Her cousins and she would clamber up into this very tree, as high as they could go, to hide from Cyrion when they'd got themselves into trouble, or to fantasize about a life far away from the alienage. She shook her head at that thought. She had had a life far away from the alienage and back again, and for a moment she wished for normalcy once again, knowing it would never come. She would never truly be normal again, her life would never again be ordinary, and while that had bothered her for a bit at first, she was used to it now. Her thoughts drifted to her time as a Warden.

The enormity of the task she and Alistair faced after Ostagar had seemed staggering to her at first. She was young and in spite of her rogue training had never truly had to fight for her very life or battle to defend another until the day she was to be married. And then she quite abruptly suffered tragedy and loss and had to abandon everything and everyone she had known to that point for a life on the road with a strange human. She had been thrown into a terrifying adventure and all out war, suffered more tragedy and loss, and then found herself leading an effort to raise an army while trying to coax her depressed brother-in-arms back into a better frame of mind while dealing with her own personal horrors. Even so, she managed to smile as she remembered the weeks following Ostagar.

Morrigan and Alistair at each other's throats, tossing threats and insults back and forth, much as Soris and Shianni had bickered as children. Leliana's songs and stories, the way she'd fussed with Kallian's hair and chatted about shoes and fashion. Sten arguing with her about how she couldn't be a woman and fight, among many other things. Wynne mothering them all. Lucius constantly stealing socks and undergarments from Alistair and Morrigan and hiding them in other people's tents, or leaving signs of his affection for members of the group. Morrigan had found a dead rabbit in her bed once. There had been horrors and hardships, of course, and more were to come before this would all be over, but there had been humour and good times as well.

Kallian had survived and grown and become stronger, and even though she had not married – for this was what signalled a girl's transition into womanhood in her culture – she was now a woman. Her mother would be proud of the woman she had become, Kallian believed this. Her father would be, too, she knew this, but she couldn't help thinking he would be disappointed somehow with the direction her life had gone. He had so wanted for her to have a happy marriage and to have children. That thought brought a tear to her eye and Kallian brushed it away angrily. She had cried enough lately. The sun was now creeping into the sky and the others might be waking soon, and she made her way back down to the ground.

As she walked past the orphanage, she was startled to realize she had not noticed the corpse of a recently deceased dog and a nearby pool of blood, between the path and the building. They must have been there earlier, or I would have heard a commotion otherwise, she thought to herself. A noise ahead of her drew her attention back up and she saw her father standing outside his front door, smiling at her. As she drew closer to him, he held out his arms.

"Good morning, Kallian, my darling daughter," he said as he pulled her into an embrace.

"Good morning, Papae. It feels so strange to be back here. I feel different."

He smiled. "You are; how could you not be? You have been through much since you were taken away from us and you have assumed great responsibility." He rested his chin on her head and they were silent for a moment.

"About Zevran, Papae…"

He chuckled. "Oh I am not so old as to think that you would not meet someone and fall in love when you were out on your own, da'len. While you lived with me, I felt it was my duty as your father to do what I could to keep you chaste and find you a good match, but once you were conscripted…well, you became your own responsibility." He looked into his daughter's eyes.

"I must admit it is a bit concerning to know he is an assassin, the assassin who tried to kill you."

Kallian nodded. "Well, it was just that one time and it turned out he wasn't very good at it."

There was another moment of silence and then a voice said "I heard that, you know" followed by laughter, and Kallian giggled.

"He is a good man, Papae. You have nothing to worry about." From Zevran, at any rate, she thought.

"I can see that you are both happy and comfortable with each other, and that is enough for me, da'len." He hugged her again. "The Maker brought you back to me, my child, and not only that but you also saved my life. Some things just don't seem that important anymore. Come; let us get some breakfast into you and your friends before you get back to saving the world."

Stay tuned as our merry little band of do-gooders continues to roam about the alienage and help Ser Otto with his problem.