THERE WAS A MISPRINT LAST CHAPTER! For any of you that read "Celebration" on Friday, I mistakenly had Oghren at the party. The Orzammar quest has NOT BEEN COMPLETED YET. Sorry for the confusion! The error has been fixed. That is all!


Morning in Denerim broke with a dull light, the entire city blanketed with a thick cover of fog and low-lying clouds that made the rays of the rising sun weak. Still, despite the dreary gray things progressed as normal. The gates opened up to allow traders to enter the market place, the square becoming noisier directly proportional to the amount of people that filled it. The Highever estate was quiet as well save for a small number of elves that left the building and exited the property out of the small side-door instead of the perpetually locked main gate.

Only one thing wasn't normal this morning, and Keran was already on the trail of getting to the bottom of it.

The two-leggeds had been making a lot of noise last night, and though it was fun to play around with them while they were moving about and drinking, eventually the big mabari had gotten tired of all the attention and gone upstairs to sleep, worn from his day of playing in the yard with Falonfen. However, after all of the two-leggeds downstairs had quieted down and finally gone to bed in the wee hours of the morning, his master hadn't come up to his room. It was morning, and the man was still nowhere to be found. Curious, the hound now had his nose pressed to the ground, trying to sniff out where his master had gotten.

Eventually he found himself outdoors near the garden where the scents were much less confusing and exciting, the traffic out here lighter than they were indoors. Trotting through the garden, Keran found his master sprawled out on a bench under the gazebo, the smaller female that had been with them for some time laying directly on top of him, her arms crossed over his chest and head resting there.

Huffing quietly, the dog made his way up and started licking his master's face. It was time to get up, and he was hungry.

At first Aedan didn't react at all to the mabari, then he woke with a sudden start, pushing the dog away and wiping his face with his sleeve. His muddled mind registered that there was something heavy laying on him, and looking down he tried unsuccessfully to figure out what it was. Through the haze of his hangover it took a long minuet for his tired brain to realize that he was looking at the top of someone's head, and even longer for him to figure out who it was. "Oh Maker." He breathed, now trying desperately to remember what had happened between them last night. His memories were pretty good until about his third mug of ale, and from there on everything was a hazy disjointed blur. He was relieved to see that both of them were clothed, so unless he had been coherent enough to get undressed then re-dressed in last night's state of inebriation, then he could be decently sure that they hadn't gone too far.

Roused by his moving, Solona seemed to wake a little, squeezing her eyes shut against the diffused light of the morning and shivering with the chill that the fog brought. She shifted to make herself more comfortable, burying her face further against her arms and Aedan's chest then apparently started going back to sleep, shifting her hips one last time to get more comfortable between his legs.

Silently Aedan was spitting curses, using all the ones he knew and a few that he'd heard Kallian use when he started to run out. Dear Maker, all of her moving around wasn't helping any. He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to shake her awake, but she squirmed again and groaned, reluctant to wake up and mumbled as much. Delving for a sense of calm, Aedan tried not to simply throw her onto the floor. "Solona, you have to get up." He muttered through clenched teeth, shaking her again for good measure.

She opened her eyes and stared at him for a moment, then closed them again, a small smile settling on her face. "Good morning Aedan." She said dreamily. Silence stretched for a couple of seconds, then her eyes snapped open, a look of panic crossing her face. She got up with surprising quickness, flailed around and uttered half-spoken apologies then promptly fell over, hitting the wood boards of the gazebo with a loud thunk. Groaning loudly, she held her head, eyes squeezed shut. "What happened?" She hissed, fighting back a wave of nausea as her hangover headache hit her full blast, her head throbbing in double time.

Leaning over the side, Aedan took a few calming breaths, was licked on the nose by Keran and swatted at the dog again. "I honestly don't know." He replied, wiping his face with his sleeve again in a futile attempt to get the dog slobber off. Only the part of his body that Solona was laying on had been spared from being covered in dew from the morning fog. Shivering with the chill of the morning now that Solona wasn't keeping him warm, he wanted nothing more than to be alone to sort everything out, preferably in a bath that was warm.

Cracking an eye open, Solona looked up at him for a few seconds. "Why are we outside?" She asked weakly, rubbing her temples with glowing hands, massaging away the worst of her headache so that she could at least move without the world spinning and going dark around the edges, though it would probably take some time to recover from the night's events in full.

"I don't know." Aedan replied, considering standing up before deciding that it would be a bad idea for more than one reason. "How much do you remember?"

Chuckling once Solona sat up and got her bearings, eventually deciding that they were out behind the estate in the rose garden. "I remember learning how to waltz." She replied, internally searching her memories to try and pinpoint when they'd made it outside. "I stepped on your feet a lot, and I remember you saying that the song wasn't really a waltz anyway."

Aedan did remember that, and his feet started hurting like they had suddenly remembered too. By that point he'd been so far gone that he hadn't particularly cared that the meter for the song was completely wrong for a waltz. Then he got a flash of Solona's body pressed against him and stilled. "I think… we kissed. Again, I mean."

Almost reluctantly Solona met his eyes, worried that he would look repulsed by the idea, but his expression was carefully neutral. "Well, we were pretty drunk." She plastered on her best smile, trying to make it seem real and turned her face away, slowly getting to her feet through a wave of dizziness.

She didn't see him frown at the forced dismissal, and sitting up on the bench he very nearly called her on her bluff but Solona started talking first.

"Sorry, I'm going to go in and see if there's anything left to eat. You should go in too." Without looking back she practically ran away, rounding the corner before he could get a word in and was gone.

Keran whined, nudging Aedan's knee with his snout. Dropping a hand on the dog's broad head, he smiled ruefully at the canine. "How is it that I understand you better, and you don't even talk?" Keran whined as his response and Aedan snorted. "I suppose I better get you fed, huh?"

Barking enthusiastically, Keran started ahead first, eager for food and halted looking expectantly over his shoulder to where Aedan was still sitting, apparently in a state of deep contemplation and glaring at his lap. "Maybe in a couple of minuets."

•º•.•º•

For the first time in her life she finally understood why it was called a "mess hall". There was simply no better way to describe it, and Kallian sighed at the thought that she would have to help get the place clean again. Maybe she could pull rank and say that she as leader had more important things to do than mop up vomit, but the acidic glare that Rido shot her when she tried for a stealthy escape meant that she wasn't going to get away with it for very long.

Sighing, she found a section of the mess hall that was more or less vomit-free and started moving tables back into place. Half of the estate residents weren't even up yet, recovering still from their hangovers. Kallian had a bit of a pounding head as well, but with a cousin like Shianni, a person started to build up a tolerance for strong drink. So it was that she came to be on dawn duty.

By the time that she and three others had managed to get all of the tables back into place they had been joined by others roused by the noise they had been making and started to help. Seeing that they were more or less done, Kallian snuck upstairs, making herself scarce before anyone could stop her. Breathing the scent of fresh air not tainted by ale, vomit and sweat (the trademarks of any decently thrown party), Kallian headed back to her own room in hopes that she might grab a quick nap and hopefully sleep off the rest of her hangover since she hadn't seen Solona about. Actually, she hadn't seen her at all last night after the third time the Remigold was played…

Curious, she started poking around, realizing that Aedan had gone missing too, which made her search that much harder. Usually people who disappeared together during a party stayed missing until they turned up disheveled in a corner mostly naked. She could only hope that was the state that she found the two in.

Her quest was cut short however when she ran into Theron almost literally, the taller elf still barefoot and looking as lost as ever. Shaking her head, Kallian sighed and rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. This guy was supposed to defeat the Blight? Maker help them… he couldn't find his way through a dungeon if he were being lead by the hand. "Where are you tryin' to get to?" She asked in a deadpan, still holding onto the hope that she might be able to turn the estate upside down before the imagined Aedan and Solona in her head could get themselves decent.

Theron snorted at her mildly insulting way of offering help. "I'm not trying to get anywhere." He replied and glanced over Kallian's shoulder briefly, his attention obviously elsewhere. "I'm looking for Alistair and Aedan. We were supposed to finish what we started yesterday this morning, but I haven't seen either…"

"Oh!" Well, that cheered her up. If they were looking for the same people, then maybe there was a chance after all. "I was lookin' fer Basher too. You can come with, so as you don't get lost." She grinned at him, openly teasing the Warden for his lack of indoor navigating skills.

He frowned at the jest and glanced down the hall again. "That still leaves Alistair." Theron took a short breath and put his fingers to his lips then whistled loudly, a sharp shrill sound, then simply waited for a moment or two. Right as Kallian was about to ask what that was all about, the answer came streaking around the corner, all wagging tongue and slobber.

Theron knelt and the mabari halted in front of the elf, wagging his tail and looking incredibly happy to see him. Grinning, Theron scratched the dog behind the ears roughly, and then held his face, looking straight into the dog's eyes. "Find Alistair." He said slowly, and then let go. "Understand?"

The mabari barked three times, wagged his tail, and then took off running in the opposite direction.

"Think he actually understood that?" Kallian asked, skeptical. She knew that Keran was insanely intelligent for a dog, and had heard any number of legends about a mabari's ability to think and reason and understand its human counterparts, but she thought that for the most part it was an exaggerated fishwife's tale meant to impress enemies.

Theron nodded, watching after the spot where the dog had disappeared a moment longer before returning his attention to Kallian. "I do. He's found any number of strange things along our journey. Finding a friend shouldn't be all that hard. And he can follow his nose." Shooting Kallian a sly grin, he started back toward the stairs that would lead to the upper level. "You will be sitting in again, right?" He asked over his shoulder.

Sighing, Kallian followed. "Yeah, I suppose. You boys are practically useless 'round Denerim without me, so I might as well be there to help ya'll plan this great escape and homecoming parade." She paused when they were at the foot of the staircase, looking both ways before speaking up. "We still need to find Basher."

"No, I'm here."

Turning sharply, Kallian saw that he was indeed right there, but her eyebrow arched high when she took in his physical state, wondering where he'd slept last night to be in such a condition. He was obviously suffering from a hangover headache with the way the he squinted at any light, and his hair was a tousled mess. His clothes were rumpled and damp around the edges, like he'd been thrown in a body of water and was only now mostly dried after the experience. Whistling, Kallian crossed her arms over her shoulders and leaned back on her heels slightly. "What happened to you?"

Irritably, Aedan waved off the question, rubbing his face and ran both of his hands through his hair, straightening the untidy mess somewhat with the motion. "Fell asleep outside." He replied in clipped tones, blinking like an owl in the relatively dim light of the hallway. As if just realizing that the both of them were standing there, he stared first at Kallian then at Theron before his face visibly registered remembrance and he sighed. "Right. Meeting. I'd forgotten…"

A rumbling bark came from around the corned and all three looked to see Falonfen rushing back, though Aedan did so with a grimace, the large dog's loud bark setting his head to pounding. Trailing behind was a rumpled but otherwise whole looking Alistair bar a defined slobber mark on his sleeve where the Mabari had obviously been dragging him along with his mouth.

Theron sighed when he noticed the way that Alistair stumbled slightly, the elf shaking his head. "Was I the only one that stayed sober last night?"

Both Kallian and Alistair nodded, saying, "Yes" and "Probably" at the same time, then glanced at each other and had a quick laugh at Theron's expense who only rolled his eyes at the two.

Equally not amused but for a different reason, Aedan started heading up the stairs. "Lets get this over with, then."

•º•.•º•

She might lie to others, but she couldn't lie to herself. Solona was avoiding Aedan as best as she could, ducking out of sight if she ever saw him coming down a hallway and generally making herself as scarce as possible. For the most part she did her best to stay out of the common areas and away from her room, think that it was the first place he would check if he was determined to confront her about the night before. Her avoidance tactics including burying herself in the kitchen with the Highever elves, helping them to get things back in order after the chaotic mess of last night. When that was done, she spend a good deal of time just downstairs tending to those suffering from their hangovers and wasted a good portion of the day that way.

When she saw to her last patient, Solona glanced to the stairwell again like she had ever ten minuets or so since coming down here, each time expecting to see Aedan coming down the stairs looking for her. Maybe he'd given up and taken her suggestion. She knew he had a lot of things to plan with the Wardens before they headed out that evening to continue their quest. She wasn't entirely certain why they were leaving separately, but she was sure that there was a good reason for it and that everyone was hammering out the details upstairs. She hadn't seen Kallian either, and wondered if perhaps the elf was sitting in on the meeting, even though she wasn't going along. It would be just like her. She enjoyed knowing what was going on at all times.

Sighing, Solona packed up what little was left of her elfroot supply and tucked away a half full vial of liquid lyrium in her sash, and headed upstairs. It might be safe enough to return to her room now and start packing up. Not like there'd be much to put away. Her personal belongings still mostly consisted of what little she'd brought with her from the Circle, though she had acquired some new clothes, which were a double-baked blessing in disguise. It was hard to go unnoticed when clothed in the flamboyant colors that the mages issued as part of their standard daywear, and her old mage robe had been so tattered and blood stained that it was of very little use anymore anyway. Besides, when on the road traveling, she couldn't afford to bring much because in the end she would have to carry it.

Once up stairs she was on the look out, ready to duck in a door or up the stairs if she caught sight of Aedan. Just as she was about to reach out and open her door she heard a dreadfully familiar voice and stopped on the spot, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"There you are!" Aedan came around the corner, looking at once both relieved and mildly astounded, as if surprised that he'd actually managed to find her. "I've been looking all over for you."

"Oh, well…" Maker curse her foul timing. "…you know, things to do. Been a bit busy. I'm sure you have too."

"I'm sure." He repeated, his tone completely agreeable, but his expression less so, like he doubted that it had simply been a set of circumstances that he hadn't seen her all day. "Solona, we need to talk."

"No Aedan, we don't." Solona replied with a bite in her tone, refusing to meet his gaze. "There's nothing to talk about."

"To the Void there isn't." He reached out and grabbed her arm, finally getting her to look at him, though when she did her eyes were full of anger.

"No Aedan, there really isn't." She jerked her arm out of his hand, but didn't turn and attempt to ignore him again. "There's nothing between us that needs discussing."

"I know you're lying." Aedan's voice had dropped low; almost threatening and it sent a shiver down Solona's spine to hear him that way. "I know how you really feel about all of this. You're the one that said you wanted no more lies between us, remember?"

"I do. I remember very well what I said, but that doesn't change anything." She lifted her chin defiantly, mustering all of her courage to look him in the eye and say what she was about to say, deliberately ignoring how fast her heart was beating. "It doesn't matter what I feel about this, or about you. The fact is that you're somebody importantly, and I shouldn't even exist. Entertaining any sort of wild dreams that you and I could make this works is just… fantasy."

For some reason her explanation for refusing to talk hurt far more than he was willing to admit or had even considered. She'd already thought this all through, he could see that now and it put him off his track of trying to get answers out of her. "So that's it?"

"Yes." The single word held all her resolve to keep him safe from herself, regardless of what she wanted or what even he might possibly want. "I owe you and Kallian my life, and I made you a promise. I'm here to see that those debts are paid and be your friend if you allow it, but it will never be more than that." Her voice trembled in the end, betraying the illusion of her steadfast resolve but she didn't drop her gaze.

For a long moment Aedan considered her words and his own reply, then nodded. "If that's how you want it to be, then that's how it'll be."

"Good." She nodded, doing her best not to collapse in a crying heap and was suffering through the effort fairly well. "I'm going to go pack then. We leave early tomorrow morning." Offering a polite nod of her head, she went back to the safety of he room and closed the door behind her before the first tear escaped her eyes.


AN: Did I just get them together only to break them up again? I THINK I DID! OH HO HO HO HO HO! Please excuse me while I dodge angry fan mail.