Thanks for serenbach, Velf, interesting2125, Enaid Aderyn, Nithu, Arsinoe de Blassenville, Sin Piedad, and The Fall for your reviews! They make my day :D Also thanks to mille libri for beta duty and answering the question "OH GOD IS THIS AWFUL I THINK IT'S AWFUL OH GOD NOW WHAT."

Later that morning, after we'd broken camp and struck out for the clan, Alistair fell in beside me and pulled at my sleeve until I'd fallen behind the group to talk to him.

"That wasn't too soon, was it?" he asked, wringing his hands in comical uncertainty.

"Too -" I bit back the incredulous exclamation and accompanying eye-roll just in time, choosing instead to take his hand and say, "No, definitely not too soon. Although, if you really want to be sure, then we should do more testing."

He giggled and blushed at himself for doing so, and let me pull him along after Cammen.

We reached the Dalish encampment in late afternoon, and climbed unchallenged over the folded earth. Cammen was frowning and looking around and above us for the absent guards, but the reason for their absence became clear when we crested the earthworks and saw what had happened in the camp while we were gone.

The clusters of hospital beds lay in shredded ruin, and their former occupants had been strung out on ropes like junkyard dogs, anchored to landships, trees and anything else sturdy enough to restrain them. They slumped quietly in their places now, but the torn-up earth and their broken, bloody fingernails told of how violently they had tried to claw their way free. Every healthy adult elf stood guard just outside their reach, steadfastly ignoring their prisoners with grim, tired eyes.

"It's all right, it's over!" Cammen called, running down the berm and waving his arms to attract their attention. "The curse is undone! Zathrian gave his life to save us!"

Every hollow-eyed face turned towards him, and one by one, the sick elves struggled to their feet. Some swayed and looked almost dead, ribs visible beneath tattered clothing, while others seemed merely tired, but at some signal I couldn't catch, or perhaps moved by the spirit, every throat in camp burst into song. The ancient hymn was in elvish, but it spoke even to me of the the mingled grief and joy of the honored fallen. After a few measures, Leliana joined in, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"But I think all the survivors will make a full recovery," Wynne concluded her report as we lounged around a roaring bonfire and waited for dinner. "We lost several, who escaped and had to be put down, or who managed to get at each other and fight. I did my best to keep them asleep, but I can only cast that spell so many times before becoming exhausted."

"You did great," I told her sincerely. "I'm sure you saved many lives."

She smiled tightly, sadly, and I knew she still felt she hadn't done enough. I remembered her despair at every young body we'd passed in the broken Tower, every mage she hadn't been able to save from Uldred and the abominations, and patted her arm. "You're too hard on yourself, Wynne. Get some rest."

"Yes, rest would be... welcome," she sighed, looking old for the first time since leaving the Tower. But she didn't seek her bed right away, instead fingering the embroidered sleeve of her official Circle robe. Finally, she asked, "Was the Tower the first time you'd ever seen an abomination?"

"Well, there was Connor, but I don't think he counts," I said, remembering almost losing my lunch after seeing that first bloated, slavering hunger abomination.

"He was possessed by a demon, was he not?" she asked sharply. "Then he was an abomination."

"Connor was still in there, fighting," I explained, rubbing my forehead. Was he in the Tower now? Was he frightened and lonely? "He resisted the demon's evil, he only wanted to save his father. That's how we were able to save him. If he'd been all mutated and nasty, we'd have killed him."

Wynne nodded slowly. "Madness and cruelty are the hallmarks of an abomination. If those are lacking, if he fought them because he still felt human compassion and love, then yes... He was no abomination. And of course, the reverse would also be true. I never thought of it that way."

And that means we didn't slaughter all your students, I thought. Glad I could help lay that to rest. I stopped her nervous fiddling with her sleeve by giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. Then Lanaya approached us, asking what we wanted for reward, and I waved her off, telling her we'd work it all out tomorrow, "because now, we eat!"

She laughed, and I was gratified to see that the clan's new Keeper knew how. Zathrian had looked as though he hadn't laughed in a thousand years.

Then all conversation ceased, because dinner was ready. The recovering hunters ate ravenously, surpassing even the Gray Wardens, and then made their way at long last to their family landships. The reunions of wives with husbands and children with parents had gone on for the whole evening, and even now it was hard not to dwell on those broken families whose fragments lurked around the edges of the camp, mourning for hunters who had not been so lucky.

The following day we spent helping the elves repair their broken furniture and wash the soiled bedding, preparing them to move their camp as soon as possible. The clan clearly wished to leave this place and its suffering behind them. As for ourselves, we were stuck here until Morrigan brought word that the ex-werewolves were assembled and ready to move.

In the meantime, Alistair and I hammered out some details with Lanaya about the treaties. To our surprise, Zathrian had remembered them and told her they were to be honored, and she readily agreed to touch base regularly with us so we could communicate about where the battle would be fought.

"And we will need five dozen basic sets of clothing," I added at the end of our conversation. "We're taking the new humans that Zathrian freed, and they're all naked. We're hoping to incorporate them into the human army, where they'll be taken care of and kept disciplined while they learn to get along with other humans."

She pressed her lips together, but gave no other sign of anger at being asked to help their old enemies. Leliana had told all the elven elders a wonderfully embroidered tale of Zathrian's heartfelt forgiveness of the poor werewolves, and how it had all been a big misunderstanding, and various other pleasant half-truths that secured Zathrian's place in lore as a hero and the werewolves' as tragic figures instead of villains.

Alistair himself took the responsibility of talking to Cammen's father and explaining the young man's choice in career. He didn't take it very well, but agreed at least not to disown the boy for taking "woman's work." Gheyna, for her part, needed no convincing to welcome her conquering hero and the two had not been seen since shortly after his return, resulting in much risque speculation from Zevran.

By sunset, enough hunters had met with success that the scent of roasting deer and boar filled the encampment and the roaring bonfires raised the temperature to something approximating the Orzammar Commons. The wounded had continued to recover and the fact that their ordeal was over had finally begun to sink in, and there was an almost carnival atmosphere among the elves as laughing men and women sliced off chunks of steaming roast meat and heaped their platters with fruits and salad from the buffet.

"I don't want to ask him, you ask him!"

I perked up my ears at whispered exchange and saw a twittering flock of elven girls, clustered together in appealing shyness and debating who would ask Zevran... something evidently very important. The discussion looked like it may go on for some time, and I glanced at the Antivan elf to see if he'd noticed. Of course he had, and that reminded me of a question I'd been meaning to ask.

"So Zevran," I began with a grin, interrupting his lurid staring. He turned at once and directed his brilliantly toothy smile at me.

"Yes, my lovely?"

I changed tacks at once, and pretended to glower. "How can you say that when you – you ogle those girls right in front of me!" Then I covered my face in my hands and faked a pitiful sob. "Don't you know how it makes me feel?"

"But my dear, surely you can never doubt your place in my heart!" Zevran placed one hand on his breast and affected a noble pose. "Truly no other damsel could ever surpass you in beauty."

"'Place in your heart'? I don't think your heart was doing the thinking," I scoffed, then returned to my original topic. "Really, though, I was curious. How come I don't see any half-elves around? By now, surely you could have founded an entire new race with your work-related conquests alone."

He laughed, flashing those pearly whites again. "All children of mixed human and elven parentage are fully humans. There are no half-breeds."

"Really?" I asked, fascinated. "What about dwarves? Can dwarves have half-breed children with elves?"

"No," he said, and then dropped his voice to a suggestive murmur, "but they can with humans." He winked at Alistair, who was frowning in blissfully ignorant contemplation of the buffet table. I laughed and swatted his arm, and he went back to lounging elegantly in his folding chair so that the firelight played over his golden skin for the benefit of the elven girls, who tittered.

After the meal, the carcasses were cleared away from the fires and various people brought out their instruments, flutes and soft drums made with halla leather and played with the hands instead of drumsticks. Someone gave Wynne a cup of hot berry wine, the flock of admiring girls finally got up the courage to ask Zevran to dance, Leliana convinced Lanaya to teach her the songs in her ritual songbook, I insinuated myself into the drum circle, and Alistair had plenty of smooth, tight, bare elven midriffs to pretend he wasn't watching.

"See, look, you hold it between your knees like this, isn't that clever? And the halla leather is way softer and nicer than nugskin," I told him happily, having lugged the borrowed drum over to show him.

"Uh-huh," he said, keeping a covert eye on Zevran's undulating harem.

"And if you play it long enough, you turn orange," I added, grinning.

"Uh-huh."

"And grow a tail."

"Uh-huh – wait, what?" He shook himself and looked at the drum in surprise. "A tail?"

I burst out laughing and mussed his hair with one hand. "I'm just teasing. I'm sure Zevran would be happy to share, you know, if you asked him."

"Um, no, I don't think I'll do that," he mumbled, blushing beet-red. "I'm just going – I think I'll just get something to drink."

I watched him go, considering making some sort of joke about cold showers, when it occurred to me that I, myself, had not really bathed since … practically forever. Yuck. I recalled the sandy pool just outside the camp where the girls had taken their laundry, and wondered if perhaps it would be empty now, with everyone busy celebrating their survival.

I returned the borrowed drum and collected Rocky from where he had been making eyes at a small, black-and-white drover dog that belonged to the herdmistress. The little dog was coldly ignoring him, turning up her dainty nose at the uncouth warhound in favor of lying faithfully at her mistress's feet.

"Come on, old man, she thinks she's too good for you," I told him, pulling him along by the collar while he cast wistful looks over his shoulder. "We'll find you a nice Mabari bitch, all right? You guys can make tons of adorable Mabari puppies, and we'll raise them on a diet of darkspawn and Archdemon blood, sound good?"

He woofed in fierce affirmative and followed more willingly after that.

The spreading pool, welling from some deep underground spring that I suspected might have been opened up specifically for this encampment, reflected silver moonlight and the green flashing of the fireflies that danced on its far edge. I pulled off my trousers, socks, boots and leathers, and waded into the warm water in my tunic – I didn't feel quite comfortable being completely naked in the forest, even with Rocky to guard.

I shut my eyes and ducked underwater, managing to swim a few strokes this way and that despite the shallowness of the pool, wanting to stay in practice since life on the surface seemed to involve a lot of water and someday I might have to really swim, scary though that was. The only water for swimming back home was the calidarium, and a careless swimmer would bonk her knees on the stone bottom. Then there was Ortan Thaig and its river, but the water chilled to the bone in minutes and wasn't anyone's idea of a good time.

I scrubbed at my hair, worked sand against my grass-stained hands and knees, and tried to get the stains out of my tunic. Then I felt the swelling warmth of Alistair's approach and looked up, squinting through the trees in the direction of camp.

"What are you doing wandering around alone in the dark?" he asked with a concerned frown.

Rocky barked indignantly, and I said, "See? Rocky's here. And now so are you. I knew you wouldn't leave me alone for long anyway, once you noticed I'd gone."

"Even so, you ought to – oh." He stopped, finally noticing the pile of discarded clothing beside the pool, and immediately stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at his boots.

"It's okay, I'm still in my tunic and it's practically a dress, it's so big. I'm done now anyway," I told him and stood up, wading to shore while squeezing the water out of my hair.

When I stepped barefoot onto the sand, he risked a glance in my direction and froze. The wet cloth clung to me, tracing the rounded curves of muscle in my hips and thighs and dripping water down my calves, the tickling sensation and the cool breeze making my poor cold nipples stand out against the fabric. I stopped in front of him and he swallowed, hard.

"Hi," I said shyly, wondering what he would do now, especially after what had happened yesterday. He was still here, he hadn't turned red and run off, and that was good, right?

"Hi," he said, his voice dropping an octave and coming out deeper, rougher. I cocked my head to look up at him, reached out and touched his hand. He shivered, and dropped to his knees.

I grinned at that, his face now within reach, and stepped into him, enjoying being taller for once as he tilted his chin up to meet me. Our lips touched, light and soft, and I drew back and opened my eyes to make sure he was okay, that I wasn't making another mistaken assumption.

His eyes burned, and for a moment I feared I'd just bit off more than I could chew – I wasn't ready – but then his fingertips came to rest so lightly and gently on my waist, and I couldn't be afraid of him. He sighed and leaned against me a little, and closed his eyes to feel my breasts and belly against his firm chest. I know, because I'd closed mine for the same reason. He wrapped his arms around me and I leaned into the contact with a sigh.

It's not like he hadn't touched me before, many times. He'd leaned on me, picked me up, hugged me and roughhoused with me, but all that had been for companionship and for comfort. This... was different. His body felt new; I ran my hands lingeringly over his shoulders and felt his doing something similar, venturing over my back and waist, almost tentative in his care.

That wasn't new – he was always careful with me. Annoyingly so, in other circumstances, when I wanted a good firm hug. But now, with the simmering edge of fear flickering in the back of my mind... He held me like fine crystal, like something lovely and exquisite and worthy of care.

Because, to him, I was.

I took his head in my hands and captured his mouth, suddenly eager for more. He gave a grunt of surprise that quickly became a moan as I invited him to follow my lead, tipping his face slightly and licking his lips. He didn't need to be shown twice, and it was my turn to moan as his fingers tangled in my damp hair and welcomed me deeper.

His other hand dropped to the small of my back, broad and strong, and pulled me snug against him. I could feel him smiling and it made me happy; I giggled at his throaty purr of appreciation as he caressed the curve of my hip. Encouraged, he slid his hand low over my bottom. Dread instantly poured over me like a bucket of ice water; I flinched and jumped back before he touched anything forbidden.

"I'm sorry! I wouldn't-" he started, catching my hands.

I clamped down on the hated fear, shoved it back and made myself smile coyly. "Nuh-uh, naughty man," I pretended to scold, shaking a trembling finger at him. "I'm saving that for later."

He grinned and said in (mostly) mock contrition, "I am a very naughty man. I'm very very sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"

He held out his arms, and I buried my face in his neck, fingers curling involuntarily into fists as I clung to his tunic, willing myself not to shiver, or breathe too fast, or otherwise indicate that anything untoward had just happened. He stroked my hair and hummed quietly to himself, rocking us slowly from side to side. Gradually the adrenaline settled out of my blood and my heart ceased its terrified pounding, and eventually I uncurled my hands and hugged him tightly.

"I suppose we should head back before they send out a search party," I said.

"Mm," he said, his breath warm on my skin. "But then I'd have to let you go."

I stilled, suddenly, breathlessly aware of his lips brushing my neck.

"Oh, but you feel cold," he said then, and pulled back, rubbing my arms briskly. "We should get you into dry clothes."

"I'm not cold-" I started to protest, although this was completely untrue because the breeze was chilly. He raised an eyebrow at me to let me know he wasn't fooled and stood up to grab my boots and trousers and toss them to me, before tucking me under his arm to head back to camp.

Some awkwardness in matching up our different strides led to much shoving and silliness, and ended with me hanging onto him by the waist and taking two steps for each of his, both of us smiling and giggling in a way that likely left no doubt in anyone's mind what we had been doing. We passed Cammen and Gheyna on the way back, wearing similar expressions; Gheyna and I beamed at each other while our men blushed furiously.

Later, as I snuggled up to Rocky's warm flank in my tent and tried to sleep, I wondered just how sensitive Alistair was, whether he knew I'd been upset, whether he knew why. He wasn't the fool he sometimes acted like, and he had been so gentle, and so nice. More importantly, how long would his patience last before he gave up in disgust?

He was handsome and charming and if he set foot in the Commons, he would instantly be up to his eyeballs in luscious, willing noble hunters with tits like feather pillows. He could do so much better than... than another man's broken, discarded plaything.

"We'll just have to see how it goes, I guess," I told Rocky, squirming closer to use his furry shoulder as a pillow and throwing an arm around him. He raised a foreleg, suggesting I scratch his chest since my hand was in the neighborhood anyway, and I obliged him, glad that not all relationships have to be complicated.