Alistair gasped to consciousness, clinging to a bed that was becoming disconcertingly familiar as if the world might fall out from beneath him at any second. The dream he'd been having, so vivid at the time, withered away to the darkened edges of his mind and out of his memory forever.

The knock that had awoken him repeated itself and he labored onto his back, holding the covers close to his groin as he sat up.

"Come in, just...stop knocking," and he was less cranky than he sounded, just a bit tired and out of sorts. Yesterday had been a long one, almost completely unpleasant and more than a little confusing. And now he was going to be expected to go on a trip with Brand and her oddball little family of Grey Wardens and...yay. It was the mage at his door. Again. "What do you want?"

"Honestly? To be curled up in a warm bed. Instead, I've been put in charge of dragging everyone else out of theirs," Anders was already dressed and carrying a large pack. "The Commander is in the armory and wants me to take you down there as soon as you're ready. I have some clothes for you to wear out."

He sort of flung the shirt and pants into the room, as if entering any further would sully him for life.

"Weren't you with her last night?" Alistair, mindful of keeping himself covered, moved to the edge of the bed. The mage looked a bit unsettled by the question. Odd, I didn't think he could be unsettled. "I mean, she's not my Commander, and if you're together, it seems a bit disingenuous of you to call her by a title. Don't you think?"

Anders considered this for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching thoughtfully.

"Aren't you a Grey Warden, too? I mean, you were a Warden before and that means you're tainted so, unless you've found a way to replace your own blood, it stands to reason that you're a Warden still. And, as you're currently in the headquarters of the Fereldan Wardens, Brand Cousland is technically your Commander," he paused to lean against the door frame and smiled the same wolfish grin he'd smiled the other morning in the prison. "As for me, I call her Commander because I think women in positions of power are incredibly attractive, not that she needs the help, of course."

Fighting back some truly rude words, Alistair turned his attention to the wall. He really needed to learn that the mage was always going to have a comeback, even when he seemed to be caught off guard. Better that than spend the next however many days getting quipped to death.

"You have about twenty minutes, then we're leaving. Best not make Brandelyn wait, she gets a bit cranky when things don't go according to schedule," shutting the door behind himself, Anders left Alistair to get dressed.

It didn't take him long to put on a shirt and pants, but he was in no hurry to depart. Touching his face, he suddenly remembered the night before and how Anders had stumbled into his room and healed him. He found a small mirror on the night stand and studied his now mended jaw and cheek, covered as it was by several weeks worth of dark blond fuzz.

Poking around a basket Brand had delivered at some point the day before, he unearthed a razor and soap. Carefully propping up the small mirror on top of the bookshelf, where the light was best, he went to work shaving, taking pains to not catch his own eyes in the reflection.

While he worked, his mind wandered back to yesterday and the strange and frustrating things that had occurred. He'd awoken to the happy sounds of a happy family, his own sense of not belonging multiplying with every childish giggle that wafted through the door. Then there was the singing, and that elven woman bursting in on him, lecturing him, as if he didn't hate being here enough already. Oh, and he was zapped. It didn't hurt, but it was completely horrible to have to drag one's consciousness out of oblivion. The way it shut a mind down left a strange mental gap that was difficult to bridge and...

Bryce

The name came to him unbidden; the razor quivered against his cheek and blood bloomed across his skin. It was just a tiny nick, but it stung almost as much as that which caused it.

And only Brand would throw him in a room with a strange child and orders to kill anyone who tried to come in. And only Brand would have a son who chewed his lip nervously, glancing at the stranger beside him from the corner of his eyes with equal parts curiosity and concern and an utter lack of fear.

It was the concern that struck him the most, as he imagined that he must have looked like some sort of swamp creature to the young boy, which is what prompted him to at least cover his eye. And that had led to Bryce pulling up his feet up and asking if Alistair was a pirate.

They live near a port, it's reasonable that he's seen a pirate, and the mage certainly looks the part.

Then they heard Brand yelling, both whipping their heads towards the door. Bryce never looked scared, only more concerned with his teeth digging harder into his lip, and his eyes narrowing in consideration of what all that noise could possibly mean.

And all that before the explosion shook the floor and the next thing Alistair knew he was pretending, the child gleefully hanging from him, making him feel.

That was the high point. The rest of it, trekking through the tunnels, seeing Brand with that beast glaring down at her and defending the mage had been not much fun.

Being taken to task by Oghren, of all people and almost eloquently, was the low point, probably. But now that he knew the dwarf was respectable, a father and leader in the Wardens, he felt slightly less about the upbraiding.

The rest of the evening was a blur of chasing, waiting, talking and breaking out a quick and unacknowledged bit of skill. Then he was healed, but not really because the mage had only fixed the surface problems and left the unease that nested just beneath Alistair's skin, the creep of conscience and the overwhelming sense that he was an interloper here.

Yet, and this was brought home by the fact that he was sitting in a properly furnished room in nice clothing and shaving his face with a real razor and not a dagger, he was not a prisoner. Brand was trying, acknowledging in small ways that the situation was far from ideal, and that made it worse somehow.

It had been a long time since anyone had tried for him, since anyone had thought him worth any effort or faith at all. But it felt like a trap, and just as a restrictive as the cell had been.

With one last scrape, he finished with his face and rinsed off the razor. He might as well take it with him, he had no other possessions to speak of. From the hallway, he could hear Anders and Bryce talking about what Bryce could and could not take with him on this trip, each request escalating in size and ridiculousness ("My rocking horse?" "Too awkward." "My bed?" "Too big." "The fireplace?" "Stuck in the wall." "The stables?" "Too stinky.").

Alistair joined them in the foyer, an already cheery Bryce visibly brightening at the sight of his pirate friend.

"Hi, Al…And..." he tilted his head back and looked to Anders for help. The mage complied by bending down to whisper into the boy's ear. Bryce turned back to Alistair, eyes gleaming with the sort of amusement that only a four year-old could wring from something so simple as a name and, "Good morning, Alistair."

"Good morning, Bryce." For some reason, this tickled Bryce and he buried his face against Anders' leg, giggling like mad.

"He's always like this in the morning," the mage offered in a tone that some might consider cordial. "Goofy, giddy and prone to the giggles."

The child pulled back, although his fingers remained curled in Anders' pant leg, and pressed his lips together contemplatively, "Anders, may I take my...blocks?"

"Oh, you're going to be reasonable now?" Bryce nodded vigorously, leaping forward as Anders moved to open the apartment door."You're in luck, Brand has already packed your blocks. She knew you'd want them."

Nathaniel and Sigrun were waiting in the hallway. Howe looked like he'd been up all night, haggard and fretfully pale even for him. Sigrun was almost as cheerful as Bryce. Alistair had to admit that it was a strange juxtaposition, the dwarven woman's severe facial tattoos were a sharp contrast to her mirthful demeanor.

"Are we all ready?" Anders seemed slightly uncomfortable with his role as temporary group leader and the fact that he looked to Bryce for reassurance only reinforced that notion. When nobody offered resistance, Anders shrugged and threw open the passageway door stepped through, Bryce now clinging to his hand and the other three adults following close behind.

They traveled in relative silence, the shuffling of tired feet and the magical hum from Anders' staff as it lit their way echoing oddly off of the stone walls. This time, they took an unexpected turn and were soon spilling into a long, narrow room lined floor to ceiling and wall to wall in weapon cabinets, armor-bearing forms and sword racks. Even the middle of the chamber was occupied by a row of trunks that Alistair imagined held all manners of martial treasure.

Brand was alone, standing with her back to the door and rummaging through a cabinet. The floor behind her was piled with a hodge-podge of armor pieces ranging from basic steel chainmail to a rather fearsome looking breastplate that glowed crimson with heat.

"Alistair, you're the only one I need right now," Brand didn't even look up from the cabinet. "Anders, make sure our luggage is loaded into the carriage and Nathaniel and Sigrun will need to get their horses ready. Nate, you'll be riding Kadan."

The dark haired man was at Alistair's elbow and he could sense him tense up at this news.

"Commander, is that necessary? It's been awhile since..."

"It is necessary. I want him with us in case something happens and someone needs to get someplace extremely fast. I can't ride right now, and you're the only other person who can handle him."

This was final; Nathaniel let loose a sigh of frustration but filed dutifully out of the armory after Sigrun. Anders seemed hesitant, his eyes flicking to Brand, but Bryce was ready to get right out of there ("Horses, Anders.") and managed to tug the mage into compliance.

Alone, Alistair watched Brand for a few moments, registering what she wore- a forest green dress that was quite fitted in the bodice and seemed quite unlike the traveling garments worn by merchant wives in Antiva. Not that Brand had ever been that fashion forward, that he knew of. Her chestnut hair was in a long, loose braid that ended almost halfway down her back and, when she spun around to show him an exquisitely crafted hauberk she'd discovered he couldn't help the Maker's breath that almost made it past his lips. She was remarkably lovely this morning, even with exhaustion dulling her normally vibrant eyes.

He wasn't the only one taken aback; the moment her gaze landed on him, her face went unnaturally still. This only lasted a couple of seconds, and she caught herself before Alistair could officially label it Meaningful, but there was a definite and newfound flush that found its way to her cheeks and Alistair wondered idly if the mage would've healed him had he foreseen even this slight reaction.

"So...Anders fixed you," it was a statement, neutral as can be, and she carefully closed the cabinet and gestured to the pile of armor at her feet. "And you shaved."

"Yes, and yes," Alistair sifted through the offering for just a few moments before tilting his head towards a plain set of splintmail. "What material is that?"

"What?" Her eyebrow shot up in surprise, "You want that?"

"Why not?" The metal was a strange pale gold. "It will work, won't it?"

"Of course it will work, Wade forged it himself. Well, try it on over your shirt. See how it feels."

While he strapped himself in, he realized he was getting more than just armor- a long dragonskin-bound case rested across two trunks and she pushed the lid back just as he approached to show off how perfectly the selected cuirass fit him.

There were no words that could adequately describe how he felt when he saw the two blades nestled in their bed of black velvet. One was pale dragonbone, glittering hilt to tip with runes that glowed with ethereal power, the other was odder still, an alien metal that seemed to hum with its own strength.

"Maker's breath, you kept these?" He couldn't keep his hands from running the length of Starfang, his fingers already yearning for the familiar grip of it. Mikhail Dryden forged the blade especially for Brand but, while the sword was as deadly as anything when she wielded it, it sang for Alistair.

"Of course I did. In case..." she stopped herself and withdrew the other sword from the container. It had belonged to King Maric and, though Alistair never cared much for carrying something of his father's, it was an amazing weapon. "They haven't seen much action since Cauthrien's archers."

At the mention of pre-Landsmeet happenings, his eyes burned even as they darted to her face. He was sinking into a memory incredibly vivid with spilled blood and closeness. Briefly, he felt the heat of her lips on his and her smile as perfect against the backdrop of misery as anything had ever been.

"So, you're giving them back?" His voice went up a little at the end of this question; the surge of I once loved this woman catching him unaware. As if it were a fragile thing, Brand laid Maric's blade to rest in its coffin and lowered the lid with extreme care.

"They're yours if you want them." She'd felt it, too, her voice was as cautious as her movements. He nodded, trying to hide everything he was feeling; displaced longing most of all. "Good, they're too good to go to waste. If you want to grab your armor, I'll...get this to the carriage and we can be on our way."

It was almost curt after the past few minutes of muted familiarity, but Alistair didn't notice so much. He was unabashedly lost in a quiet memory of silent exploration and the way her skin reacted to his tongue and fingertips.

It was, admittedly, a nice place to be.

They were greeted in the still-darkened yard by the seneschal and the elven woman from the day before. Fiona. Neither seemed to be particularly happy and, within a few minutes, the grounds for their discord was revealed.

"Commander," Varel's voice was even raspier than usual, and he couldn't keep his grey eyes off the slight woman at his side. "Commander, please explain to Fiona that you have no need for two healers on your trip to Highever."

"What?" Brand set the weapon case at her feet and studied the pair in front of her, then let out a small noise of understanding. "No, I don't need two, but Fiona is welcome to come with us. Fergus, for one, would be glad to see her again."

Fiona allowed herself a look of triumph, "She's right, Varel. And I did just tell you the other day that I was thinking about writing to him."

"But Commander, this leaves the Vigil with only apprentices..."

"Semantics, Varel," Fiona cut the seneschal off with surprising authority. "Shona and Blythe are full mages and talented healers, they're only apprentices in the sense that they're studying under me for field experience. Besides, I've already packed." She smiled prettily, which caused Brand to snort.

The seneschal was displeased but out-reasoned.

"So, you're taking all of your senior Wardens with you? Is that the wisest course of action?"

"I can leave Nate and Sigrun, if you want," Brand was obviously amused. "You're the one who insisted I travel with scouts and you knew who I would choose. Besides, Oghren is more than capable of handling anything that should arise. I'm assuming that, once I leave, I'll be taking our recent troubles with me."

This remark did nothing to placate Varel's open concern, if anything his eyes went a bit wider with panic as he tried but failed to not turn to the mage at his side. Alistair realized that this was a domestic concern, not an administrative one, and he felt foolish for having missed the subtext from the beginning.

"Will two scouts be enough, then?" His arms crossed and he peered down at Brand with paternal concern that she waved off.

"Varel, please. Two scouts plus four Wardens on the carriage? We'll be fine. I promise I'll return everyone alive and in one piece."

"Not even you can ensure that, Commander. Though you are lucky when it comes to such things," this was the seneschal relenting while getting in a final word, his expression falling into resignation as he escorted the two women and Alistair to the carriage which awaited them by the stables.

Their vessel was already hitched to a pair of massive horses that stomped at the ground in response to the humans buzzing around them. Their coachman, seated on the front bench of the carriage, was an expansive man with curly white hair that extended alongside his face and overtook his chin to spill over a vast, cloak-covered chest. His cheeks and nose were ruddy even in the pre-dawn light and Alistair caught a gleam of good-humor in his pale eyes.

The carriage itself was generously proportioned but modestly designed. Besides the covered front bench, a padded backseat sat beneath a wide canvas awning. With Varel's help, Fiona stepped up and took that rear position, and Alistair noted that the seneschal held her hand for a few seconds longer than necessary. Fiona rewarded him with a small, genuine smile that telegraphed consolation and affection without giving much away. She was a strange one, he'd decided. He'd worked alongside many elves in the Free Marches and Antiva, and most carried themselves with her air of aloofness around humans. However, few of them also seemed so entangled in human affairs.

"Where is Fiona from?" He inclined his head towards Brand, who was still beside him, waiting for stewards to clear the side doors so she could have them load his weapons and armor.

"Oh, you mean you can't place her accent? She's originally from Orlais, the alienage in Val Royeaux. However, she was stationed in Weisshaupt for over twenty years and I think she's picked up a bit from there."

"Twenty years? At Weisshaupt? Why would anyone do that to themselves?" Even before he'd left the Wardens, he'd heard nothing positive about their headquarters or the members of the Order who inhabited those blighted lands.

"She had a baby," the corner of Brand's mouth turned down at this. "She couldn't leave the Wardens to raise her, since then she would just be an apostate, and the First Warden dictated that the offspring of active Wardens be taken away and placed with family members or orphanages. Fiona chose the latter and...well, I guess living in Weisshaupt didn't seem so hard after having to make that decision."

Maker. "I imagine not," he eyed the elf, already tucked into her seat, with new sympathy. Before he could say more, the stewards were summoning Brand forward and, within minutes, Alistair found himself seated inside a remarkably comfortable cab. The seats, hollowed for storage, were well-padded and everyone had a decent amount of legroom. He sat with his back to the coachman, Brand and Anders taking the opposing seat with Bryce in between. There was a small ledge just behind them and Ser Pounce-a-lot sat at the ready, seemingly nonplussed by all the activity.

"Why are we going to see Fergus?" Bryce leaned against Anders, whose focus was on the activity outside of the coach.

"Because I need to talk to him," Brand pulled his feet into her lap, unconcerned with the mud from his boots smearing across her skirt. "And you'll get a chance to play with your cousin Norah."

"Norah's just a baby," he looked up at Anders for support. "She pulls my hair. Delyn doesn't pull my hair."

Anders laughed, "Well, Delyn's older than Norah. She also punched you, didn't she? Of course, you're in love with her. Men will always let women they love get away with more."

And Alistair had no idea if a four year-old could possibly understand how love worked, but Bryce nodded in furious agreement, which earned a laugh from Brand.

"Bryce, what have I told you about listening to Anders? Especially when he talks about girls or women."

"Don't listen to Anders. Or...," his eyes rolled upward as if the answer was written on the canvas stretched above their heads. "Or I might get slapped."

"You do realize that your mother is just trying to keep you from having fun," Anders spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. "She secretly loves the way I talk."

Not so secretly. Brand went pink-cheeked again, but she managed to dart her hand out and smack Anders' shoulder, a gesture which made Bryce sink against the mage and giggle.

"See? Brand just slapped you!"

"Well, you know how she likes to be right about everything," Anders ruffled the child's hair with clear affection. "Fortunately for her, I'm inclined to let her get away with it."

Wow. That seemed highly inappropriate to Alistair, because he was sitting only a few feet away and all he could do was stare out the window and avoid Brand's reaction to what Anders had just admitted. I wonder if Fiona would let me join her? The idea of days and days of this seems as torturous as any...torture.

But Varel was already waving the coachman ahead and the carriage lurched into motion with a groan.

He kept his eyes on the sleeping world beyond the carriage, trying his best to ignore the way the man, woman and child across from him settled against each other in comfortable silence.

Yesterday, when Brand had come to release them from Nathaniel's room, she'd gotten a look on her face. A Meaningful look. It was just a blink, a fleeting lapse into what if, but Alistair had seen it. And he knew what had caused that half-second of confusion.

He'd found a small measure of peace while pretending with Bryce. It was more than the playing while things fell apart just beyond a closed door, and more than squealing laughter and nonsense about the life of a pirate. It was the fact that Brand trusted him with the huge responsibility of protecting her son. And it was the fact that her son saw right through Alistair's swollen face and what he felt was an impenetrable veneer of lost cause to something good, protective and trustworthy.

When Brand walked in, he was that person she trusted. He wasn't the Alistair she thought she knew, but he was as close as he could get and she'd responded to that.

Although the rest of the day had been pretty dreadful, those several minutes had been the nicest he'd had since...well, since before the Landsmeet.

Now, in the carriage, he could see the silhouettes of Brand, her son and her mage and they were all three together. Happily so.

His stomach clenched and his eyes narrowed against the bright bite of oncoming tears. He should know better than to allow himself even fleeting moments of hope. No matter if they all knew his name, and set swords aside for him and gave him a place in the carriage, he was still the painfully obvious outsider, back to lurking just beyond existence and living in the margins of a life that was hardly his own.

Whether in a cell, or a guest bedroom, or on a bench to himself, it was all the same level of captivity. The world was nothing but a prison when you had no real place in it.