Summary:
Maiara and the Hawke siblings bond on their journey.
9:30 Dragon, Cloudreach 12th
It was raining again.
It almost felt as if the storm were moving with them. It came in bursts of cold showers, bright flashes of lightning, and deep booming thunder. For a few hours at a time it would pass, but the sky remained gray and indifferent to the discomfort of those below it.
Maiara was grateful for the Hawke siblings taking her along. Her clan had never spent much time in the Hinterlands and she knew nothing about the terrain. There was the dim recollection she had of their visit into the Wilds, but other than that they had never strayed so far south. The temperate Brecilian forest was more to their liking when it came to roaming Ferelden. Sometimes they'd drift along the coastlands, but more often than not they'd find themselves driven back to the woods.
Unfortunately even the section of the Hinterlands they were traveling through was largely unknown to the Hawkes as well.
The three of them were taking shelter in a cave while the storm raged outside. It was midday, but there was no hint of the sun in the dark, brooding clouds as they continued to wash the world away.
Artemis had convinced some damp wood to support a fire while they waited out the storm and tried to figure out where they were. She had drawn a rough map on the cavern floor, scribbling triangular mountains, squiggly rivers, and x's for landmarks. She and Carver were quietly bickering and redrawing sections of the map according to their memories.
"No, that's more to the west." Carver said lowly, erasing another marker and moving it to the left side of the map.
Artemis shook her head. "Carver, we just passed a structure like this earlier. I think we need to move northeast. We must have ended up on the wrong side of the Highway."
Her brother frowned as he looked down at the map. "That… would make sense."
Maiara listened to the two of them silently as she prepared their meal for the day. They'd had little luck with big game, but they'd found more than a few smaller critters on the run. They'd been trying to get back to the Imperial Highway and from the sound of things, they'd gone too far. If their journey had led them away from the main path of the Blight, it would explain why they'd had any luck at all.
Thank Andruil for Artemis. The mage was the only one capable of hunting, it seemed. Or, rather, she was the only one capable of ranged attacks. Maiara and Carver were incapable of sneaking up on small animals like rabbits and fennecs. At least Artemis could fry their little hearts with a bolt of lightning.
She found herself staring at the siblings as they redrew the map, this time speaking amiably and without conflict. It seemed they were allied in their thinking once more. She noticed that it was a common dance between the two of them. They would find something to disagree upon and argue back and forth before one of them was inevitably proven right. Then they would speak as good friends, as if the dispute had never taken place.
Carver looked over and caught her eye before quickly looking away.
Was he blushing? Maiara couldn't tell with the fire as her only light.
A moment later, Artemis muttered something under her breath before patting her brother's shoulder and rising from her position on the ground. The tanned mage stretched with her arms over her head as she twisted her body to work out the kinks. Sighing in relief, she dropped down next to Maiara as she tended the fire.
"So," Artemis smiled. "We may have been going the wrong way."
Maiara couldn't help but return the smile. "I heard." She shrugged. "Better for you to lead than I. I'm sure I would have had us halfway to the Frostbacks by now. My sense of direction is… bad, to say the least."
"Really?" She sounded genuinely surprised.
The elf nodded. "Yes. Really."
"Huh. I guess I thought you Dalish would be good with that sort of thing." She said, poking at the roasting rabbit with a stick. "I mean, you've gotta know where you're going in those landships of yours, right?"
Maiara laughed. "Oh, so you think that's a Dalish thing?" The mage shrugged sheepishly. "Hm, well maybe it is. Although I'm not exactly in charge of where we go. The halla guide us. We go where they take us."
"Those white deer?" Carver asked, joining the conversation as he brushed the map away.
The Warden nodded. "Yes. They are our guides. We could not go anywhere without them."
"They pull your landships, don't they?" Artemis probed, clearly curious. "I saw some Dalish passing by the West Road, once. Those red sails are so beautiful."
Perhaps in the past it would have irked her for humans to question her so much. Maybe it would still bug her if the wrong people were asking. The Hawke siblings had saved her, however. It wasn't as if she believed that she owed them. She genuinely felt that she could trust them. Artemis in particular had an air about her. They would make wonderful allies, she knew.
"We call them aravels." She explained softly, thinking back to her clan. She hadn't thought about them since Ostagar. The pain of leaving was still in her heart, but acceptance had settled in beside it. "They're enchanted. That's how we move so quickly. That's why they're called 'landships' by passersby. It looks as if they're sailing across the land as easily as a ship cuts through water."
She told them stories about growing up, about how they were constantly on the move and how that was fine. Settling down was strange and they never stayed in one place for longer than necessary. She talked about her childhood and how she'd always get in fights and how that had left her with only a few close friends in the clan; Merrill, Fenarel, and Tamlen. Without going into too much detail, she told them about the ruins she and Tamlen had disturbed and how it had led to her becoming a Grey Warden.
They'd had a few queries while she'd spun her tale and she'd answered them as well as she could. She was no true storyteller, she knew. She could only tell it as she had experienced it, bias included.
"Then there was Ostagar…" She finished softly, looking up into the too-blue eyes of the Hawkes.
Carver grimaced and looked down. Artemis put a hand on his arm and squeezed.
"We volunteered," Artemis explained, keeping her hold on her brother. "Well, Carver volunteered. I ran off after him when I found out."
"You should have stayed." He grumbled, before taking his share of the rabbit.
"If I had, you'd be dead." Artemis countered with a grin. "And we wouldn't be having such lovely company, now would we?"
Her brother continued to frown and Maiara smiled sadly. She missed her friends. She missed Tamlen.
A pang of hurt and guilt coiled around her heart at the thought of him. How could she leave him behind? She should have stayed.
"As you know, apostates can't just join the king's army willy-nilly. So I had to prove myself as a warrior before they let me come along." Artemis continued. "Good thing my darling brother took so much time out of his busy schedule to spar with me. I can kill a man with my lance with or without magic."
Maiara shoved her memories into the background and nodded appreciatively. "That's impressive. And no one caught on? There was… an unusually strong Chantry presence at Ostagar."
"They were there to keep an eye on the Circle mages," the apostate explained nonchalantly. "They never let them out of their camp, so they didn't have much reason to be looking for me."
"Most templars are idiots," Carver added. "There's a chantry in Lothering, too. Bethany – our sister – goes to worship every week. She's… also a mage."
Maiara got the distinct feeling that the topic of mages in the family was a sore spot for Carver.
"I see." She said, taking the knife and carving her section of rabbit as well. It wasn't much. They'd eat again later. The rain was already letting up and they needed to keep moving.
Maiara was ravenous. She'd finished her food in what seemed like seconds and felt like her hunger had only grown stronger. She'd have to keep an eye out for edible plants and fruit along the way. Anything for a quick snack would help.
They were passing through a forested area again and headed roughly northeast. Getting lost had likely set them back several days from their destination, so they'd have to move faster to make up for lost time. If the darkspawn horde was moving as well, they might have less time than they knew.
Carver kept them moving at an unbearable pace. The human warrior seemed to have an endless amount of stamina. His sister kept up well enough, but Maiara could see that she was having trouble sometimes. They rested more times than they wanted. The pace was just too exhausting.
Mythal must have smiled upon them, because they stumbled into a grove of fruit bearing trees. They'd filed their packs and pockets with apples. Maiara knew that she couldn't eat too much at once, but she could at least spread it out along with the meat they procured along the way.
By the time they'd set camp for the night, they'd picked up a few hares and a nug. They roasted the whole lot and had nug and apples for dinner. The hares would be saved for the next few days if they ran out of luck.
During that meal, Maiara learned more about her new companions.
Bethany was Carver's twin sister, apparently, and she'd remained at home with their mother. Their father had been a mage and Carver was the only one aside from their mother to lack the gift. He was the odd one out in his family and it was made clear with every word. He was more than happy to finally have someone to talk to about something other than magic.
Maiara didn't mind. She knew next to nothing about magic herself. The only mages she'd known were Merrill, the Keeper, and Nereus. Artemis seemed nice enough, though. Not very mage-like from what little she knew.
"I can't help but notice," she said at one point, looking between the two dark haired humans. "Your noses. You have matching scars?"
Carver blushed and Artemis laughed.
"I was waiting for you to ask!" The mage exclaimed jubilantly. "Brother, do you want to tell the tale or shall I?"
"Who knows what embellishments you'll think to add?" Carver groused as the blush subsided. "We were sparring. Arte made it past my defenses and struck my nose. After she was done laughing, she grinned, picked up a knife, and cut herself across the face."
Maiara stared at Artemis while Carver spoke and saw that she was smiling placidly the entire time.
Carver looked over at her and rolled his eyes. "She said 'Now we match, too.'"
They'd camped along a small stream and found the water to be clear and clean, completely untouched by the darkness of the Blight. There were even a few silvery slivers of fish and they could hear frogs croaking in the shadows of the reeds.
After their meal, they'd taken the opportunity to clean some of the grime and blood of war from themselves. Still prepared for trouble, Carver recommended they do so in shifts and volunteered to keep watch.
Maiara had shrugged and carefully removed her armor and left it in camp. She would clean it separately and didn't want to risk getting the cloth brigandine muddy. Carver had turned beet red and turned away without a word. It was a strange reaction and she wondered if perhaps she'd offended him. She'd always heard conflicting tales about human men and she was unsure which ones were true. Perhaps they were more private than rumor made them out to be?
Artemis had laughed and followed her down to the river, only choosing to remove her clothes when they were out of her brother's sight.
"Ah," Maiara understood then. Humans were definitely more private than vicious rumor had implied.
The mage crouched down in the shallow stream beside her as she splashed her tanned skin with the cold water. "Maker's balls this is cold!" She shivered as she washed, but leveled a smile up at Maiara. "Thank you for that. The look on his face was priceless."
Maiara would have blushed if she felt any shame about it. She was more concerned that she may have offended the younger Hawke. "That was not my intent. I… should I apologize?"
Artemis shook her head, flinging cold drops of water around. "Nah. Well, if you want. So, the Dalish really do dance naked under the moon, hm?"
It was only then that she blushed. Of course humans would have rumors of their own. "I… no, we do not. It is simply that…" She sighed and knelt in the water as well. "We see no shame in our natural bodies. It is also safer to bathe in the company of others. If we had such qualms about stripping beside our lethallin, we would hardly get anything done."
Artemis wiggled her eyebrows and smiled. "Suuuuure." She laughed at the exasperated expression Maiara had on her face. "Okay, okay. I know. You're serious."
The elf sighed and continued washing. She'd accumulated a lot of grime over the last few days. The rain hadn't helped at all. She had mud and blood caked in the absolute worst places. The chance to wash up was a true blessing from the gods.
"So," Artemis said slowly. She started a lot of conversations with that little word. "You said you had other Warden friends. You think they made it out?"
Maiara scrubbed at her skin with a stone from the streambed. "I hope so. My commander believed they would have made it."
The mage nodded and copied her actions with the stone. She probably wasn't used to bathing in the wilderness. "I hope they made it. I know not everyone believed it, but… this is a Blight. We need the Wardens." She narrowed her eyes in a glare as she scrubbed at her skin. "How could this happen? There was supposed to be a flanking charge. It never… did they abandon us?"
She heard tears cracking Artemis's voice and looked up. The other woman was staring at her with watery eyes and a broken countenance. Maiara felt her mouth go dry as she thought back to that night.
Swords clashing, her ears ringing, the rain was so cold. The darkspawn beat at them again and again. The signal was lit… the charge never came. She remembered the cold certainty that had settled over her heart, granting her the knowledge that it was true. They had been abandoned.
Looking away from Artemis, she dunked her head into the water. She knew it would take forever for her hair to dry, but she needed the shock. She came up with a sharp gasp and the world was clearer.
Vibrant periwinkle eyes still gazed at her across the water.
"Yes." She said at last, looking up to meet her stare. "There was… animosity between the king and his general. I thought it was nothing. Just human politics."
A memory of a whisper; words spoken softly against the dark that no other human would hear.
"My fellow Wardens and I," Maiara explained slowly, thinking back to the moments after the Joining. "Our commander wanted us present for a meeting over the battle strategy. There were many present alongside the king and his general. The man, Loghain, was irritated about every word that fell from the king's mouth. He didn't even want Wardens present to be sure the signal was lit."
"It was lit, though." Artemis said, obviously working to reign her tears in. "We saw it."
The Warden nodded. "Yes. It was. I think the king was right to send extra men." Could Nereus and Alistair have survived? Ostagar must have been overwhelmed and they were at the top of a tower surrounded by darkspawn. "When the strategy was concluded, the king spoke of how 'glorious' it would be to fight beside the legendary Grey Wardens."
Artemis snorted when she laughed. "Yes, that sounds like King Cailan alright. He was overly fond of going about and giving speeches to the soldiers. I liked it. He had a wonderful voice."
Maiara winced, thinking back to the visceral scream the king had let out when he'd died. She pushed the thought away and continued. "Loghain turned away after that and he said something so quiet that I wasn't sure I'd heard… no one else would have heard it, anyway. I didn't think there was such malice behind his words. Not until I looked up to see the signal burning in the sky like a star as my commander lay dying."
She'd finished scrubbing and washing as much as she could. She'd get dressed and clean the armor as well as she could by firelight. She heard the slosh of water as Artemis rose to follow her.
"What did he say?" She sounded cold, somehow, yet furious at the same time.
"'Yes, Cailan. A glorious moment for us all.'"
