Camp that night is quiet. The temple is somehow even more oppressive now that she knows it's empty. It's too big, she decides, lying awake on her pallet. Even the echoes are swallowed by that vast expanse of empty space. Anything might be out there, her instincts say, even though her mind knows it's clear.
She's not the only one in a mood. Morrigan snapped at Zevran when he enquired about their adventures in the mildest of ways, Alistair is quiet, and Sten is so impatient to get back on the road that Marian had to remind him that humans need sleep.
On the other side of the fire, Genitivi and Wynne are swapping stories of places they've been and mutual acquaintances; Marian would normally eavesdrop like her life's depending on it, but she can't work up an interest tonight. She doesn't want to think about her father anymore, but she can't avoid the thoughts the way she has. There are others she mourns, too.
They never found Lisette's body in the Circle. Marian has been trying very hard not to think about what that means.
But forgetting the people she's lost, pretending they'd never existed, is an insult both to them and to her feelings. And it's not like it would save her grief, either. Nothing can do that now.
And yet she doesn't think her father would want her carrying on like this. He wouldn't want her to hurt this way, not over him. She hates to disappoint him. She can't help it.
Of course, Lissette would be incredibly disappointed that Marian wasn't weeping entire oceans of tears. Marian laughs, a little damp, and turns onto her side, and remembers...
Sometime during the impromptu wake she cries herself to sleep, and though her eyes are red and puffy the next morning, she feels better.
It's two days back to the highway, and then another two days to Castle Redcliffe, with bandits and darkspawn and assassins dogging their every step. What could be better?
Marian makes it all the way to noon without anyone trying to ask her existential questions or confess their life stories, which is a minor miracle in and of itself. The woods are lovely here, the trees seeming to race to see who can put out the first growth of the season, their leaves the pale, untested green of spring. Everywhere she looks is something beautiful. Even the weeds are a promise of new life on the way.
All right, then. She can take a hint.
She scarfs down lunch and pushes herself up, intending to check in with everyone, but her gaze first falls on Alistair, who eats with a steady, grim look that Marian recognizes. Neither of them can skip eating anymore, not with the way that the blight in their blood burns through their energy, but that doesn't mean that they have to like it. Alistair looks like she feels.
He won't talk here, though. He might not talk to her at all, but certainly he won't while everyone else is listening.
Hmm.
When they set out again, Marian dawdles with Cú just long enough to make sure she'll be at the rear and grabs Alistair's arm as he goes by. He turns a confused look on her, but she just raises her eyebrows expectantly. He shrugs and waits with her for everyone else to go by.
Of course Marian's having second thoughts about this, now that it's too late to change her mind without looking weird. Alistair is their darkspawn detector – she's far too new to the blight in her blood to be sure in her abilities yet. He normally keeps to the front, where he'll sense the darkspawn in time to warn the rest of them.
But Sten is leading them, pushing the pace with his long legs. They'll be fine. Right?
Marian sends Cú racing to the front with a whistle, and then she follows Leliana onto the thin path, which forces them to walk in single file. She walks in silence until they come to the wider place in the path that she remembers from their trip into the interior. Then she goes more slowly, allowing the space between her and Leliana's back to grow larger, until she judges that they won't be overheard. Only then does she look over her shoulder at Alistair and tilt her head, silently inviting him to walk alongside her.
He looks a little uncomfortable, but he joins her, and they walk together in silence while Marian wonders what she can say. She doesn't want to push him; she has this feeling that he'll go stubborn and stop talking altogether.
Maybe she just wants to know that she's not alone in feeling this way, and to make sure that he knows it, too. So how does she get there?
"Jowan and Lissette were my best friends at the Circle," Marian says. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the startled way his head turns. He hadn't been expecting that, then. Good. She keeps her eyes forward, and snorts a little. "Jowan you've met."
"It was memorable," Alistair agrees. It's not quite his usual wry sarcasm, but he's trying. She appreciates the effort.
"I couldn't find Lissette," she says. She presses her lips tight against yet more tears – she's so tired of crying – and sighs. "She'd be so angry with me that I'm not out here doing all the things we said we'd do if we got out."
"Like what?" He sounds honestly curious, and she glances at him quickly to find him watching her.
"Oh, lots of things," she says, remembering all those nights they stayed up and talked in the girl's dormitories. "We'd drink ale until we were sick, and stay up all night to watch the stars – that one is not as fun as we imagined it – and meet fabulous people..." She trails off. The rest of that conversation isn't fit for male ears. "But really I think she just wanted to go home again. To Val Foret. Sometimes she'd get letters from her parents, and we were all so jealous – not many people want to acknowledge their little mageling baby."
"Mail call was like that at the monastery, too," Alistair says, his voice far away. "The rich ones got letters all the time, and they treated it like it was nothing." He sighs. "Arl Eamon wrote sometimes, at the beginning, but I never wrote back. Eventually he stopped."
"It must have been hard to leave home," Marian says quietly.
Alistair laughs, short and choppy, with no humor in it. "I couldn't have reacted worse," he says, reaching up to touch his chest. Marian knows that he wears his mother's amulet under his armor where it's safe. He never takes it off. That was when he'd broken it, she remembers him saying, when Arl Eamon sent him away. "I missed it, all of it, even the smell of fish that never washed out."
"And the people," Marian says, wanting her mother more than anything.
"And the people," Alistair agrees.
What, or who, had he seen to send him down into the depths like this? Eamon? Duncan? Goldanna? Does she even know him well enough to guess? He must have had friends, in Redcliffe or at the monastery. But he's never mentioned anyone from those times.
She'll never know if she doesn't ask, but she finds herself curiously reluctant to break their implicit silence. It feels like trespassing on what ought to be the privacy of his memories.
Marian opens her mouth, hesitates, and then mentally shakes herself. Faint heart never won fair maiden, she reminds herself. She stifles a giggle, slightly hysterical, and shakes her head when Alistair raises his eyebrow at her.
She doesn't think he'd appreciate that particular reference.
Marian takes his hand and sidles a little closer as they walk. "If you want to talk about it..." she says, holding his eyes with her own and hoping he knows that she means it, most sincerely. Then she looks away to watch the path. She won't push.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Alistair asks. She looks up, startled, to find him watching her, almost like he's worried.
Well, and why shouldn't he be? She's been quiet, too, and it's probably easy to tell that she's been crying. She's just... not used to being the one someone worries over. Not anymore.
"I want it not to have happened," she says with a smile that's meant to be reassuring, but to her horror, it wobbles. She takes a quick breath and looks away, but she knows he saw it; his hand tightens on hers.
They walk in silence for a long while, long enough for Marian to regain her equilibrium. The silence isn't fraught, or tense, or awkward, but she knows he's thinking about something serious from the look on his face. He doesn't let go of her hand, and so neither does she let go of his.
"It was Duncan," Alistair says reluctantly, breaking the silence. "In that little room where we were separated. Duncan was there."
Marian looks up at him, at his face; he's so lost, even now, after everything. Ostagar wasn't that long ago. How could she have thought he was over this? He'd hero-worshipped Duncan, that much she knew even if she hadn't been able to figure out why.
"You miss him," she says.
"He'd have known what to do," Alistair says, bleak with regret. "Not like us, bumbling around with our thumbs up our arses."
"We're not doing so badly," she protests, but he's right. Duncan wouldn't have to skulk around Ferelden to beg and borrow the support they need. He would have gone straight to the source of their problems and solved it, by any means necessary. He'd been a formidable man, with formidable skills. Marian sighs. "You're right, though. I wish he'd explained more. I wish he were here."
"Me, too," Alistair says, squeezing her hand. "I miss him. He was a good man." He's quiet for a moment. "Who did you see?"
"My father," she says softly. "Just the way I remembered him."
Alistair grips her hand a little tighter, draws her in a little closer, bolsters her with the simple touch of his hand on hers and his solid presence, a bulwark between her and the rest of the world. He doesn't say anything, though, and Marian's thankful for that. "Maybe the dead can't sleep if we mourn them too much," he says after a while. "Maybe we're supposed to let them go."
That hurts more than she would have expected it to. Let him go? Can she? She misses her father quite desperately, but if that were the millstone around his neck, then... Marian doesn't think she could bear the idea that her grief is the millstone around his neck. He deserves to go to his rest unencumbered by her, his least-in-sight daughter.
She has nothing to offer Alistair, no insight or insulting little moralistic tale that will fix him. He's not broken, and neither is she, but they are hurting. She only has herself to offer, her presence and her affection, and she can only pray that it's enough. That she's enough. Marian tugs him to a halt with their joined hands and when he looks at her, confused, she slides her arms around his neck and hugs him tight, rubbing the side of her face against his.
His hands go to her waist, at first tentative in surprise, but soon enough he wraps his arms around her and ducks his face into the soft, secret place between her shoulder and neck. She's pressed against him all the way down to her thighs. If they weren't wearing their armor, this would feel very different. She puts that thought aside for later and turns her nose into his hair. He smells like unwashed man and metal, frankly, but in some strange way she's come to like it, to associate it with him. It's comforting.
She spares a passing thought for what she must be doing to his hair, which he keeps always so neat, but she doesn't care. Neither does he, from the way he keeps pressing her closer, tightening his arms around her until she's as close to him as she can possibly be.
Marian can't feel tears on her neck, but he's breathing sort of strangely, like he's trying to keep from crying. She wishes he wouldn't, not when it's just them, but she already knows she's not going to say a word. He can cope however he chooses.
She wonders if he's ever had anyone to comfort him like this, with concern and affection. Her heart aches for him and the little boy who's never once in his life been put first.
When they catch up to the rest, Leliana looks at them over her shoulder, glances quite deliberately from Marian to Alistair, and winks at Marian. How she can come to that kind of conclusion when they both look wrecked, Marian can't imagine... but then she looks at Alistair again, and the short hairs on the side of his head do sort of look like she's had her fist in them. His lower face is flushed from what Marian assumes is the heated skin of her neck. Marian probably has the beginnings of beard burn on her cheek from Alistair's stubble.
Damn. They don't need this, not when they're both off-kilter. If her companions chase Alistair back into his shell of nerves, she'll have her vengeance, and it won't be pretty.
Marian tries to communicate that with her eyes, and Leliana just grins and turns around again. Marian sighs. Leliana's a good sort, though, she probably won't tell. Marian wipes the evidence clean from their faces with a small healing spell for each of them, though it's more effort for less result than she's gotten for a long time. She's got a tension headache and she aches all over. She needs some sleep. His hair is more stubborn, refusing to be smoothed into place, but it doesn't matter so much in the absence of other evidence.
Alistair is better, more present, that night at dinner. Even Morrigan deigns to eat with them that night. Afterward, after knife-fighting and meditation, Marian has second watch, the two hours from midnight on – though with no timepieces it usually ends up being when the person before her can't stay awake any longer. It's hard for her to get back to sleep after she wakes Leliana for third watch; she's restless, and the tension headache from before has spread into her shoulders and back. Thinking about it isn't going to get her anywhere. She wipes all thought from her mind with a ruthless hand and manages to force herself into sleep.
When she wakes up, her thighs are slick, wet and cold. Marian grimaces and touches her thigh; her fingers come away bloody. She drops her head back onto her bedroll with a sigh.
Of course. She's not regular, and she'd wondered how long she would get away without having her monthly. She'd been hoping for longer than this, though.
Marian has a few rags in the pack she's using as a pillow, but nothing to hold them in place. She cleans herself as best as she can with a rag and the dregs of what's left in her water skin, and then she raises her voice and calls for Leliana.
Leliana puts her head through the opening of the tent they're now sharing and opens her mouth to ask what's wrong, but then she notices the bloody rag in Marian's hand. "Oh," Leliana says, her brow furrowing in concern. "I thought – Do you have anything?"
"I have more of these," Marian says, gesturing with the bloody rag she's holding because putting it down will make more of a mess. "I don't have anything else, though."
Leliana searches through the packs scattered around their tent and comes up with a cotton undershirt she rips apart into strips with ruthless disregard for her wardrobe.
"Thank you," Marian says, accepting the cotton with a grimace. "I should have been prepared, and obviously I'm not."
"I had no idea," Leliana says, sitting back on her heels and regarding Marian with that same concerned look. "Are you not drinking the tea?"
"What tea?" Marian asks, completely lost by this turn in the conversation.
"It's made with the sap of the witherstalk," Leliana says, cautiously, like she's not sure how Marian will react. Should that mean something to her? Sap of the witherstalk... Marian turns her mind over to see what falls out. A fragment of memory comes to her, a conversation she'd overheard between two of the gossiping girls in her dormitory. They'd been talking about one of the more foolish apprentices who'd fallen pregnant, and why hadn't she...
Why didn't she just use witherstalk sap, like everyone else? It only takes a little, and it doesn't taste that bad. No worse than –
Oh. "A contraceptive?" Marian asks. "Are you – " She stops, thinking better of asking Leliana if she's sleeping with someone; none of the available options are flattering to anyone involved, and she's pretty sure that she would have noticed if her tent-mate had been sneaking out of a night.
"Not just a contraceptive, though it does serve that purpose," Leliana says, her expression easing. Had she thought Marian would make a fuss? Over this? How ridiculous. "It puts your natural cycle on hold as long as you drink it. A woman on the road is wise to take precautions."
Marian grasps the reference immediately and shivers. She's wondered a time or two whether that might happen to her, but it seems so remote, so unreal –
But it would, wouldn't it, until it happened to her. Everyone thinks themselves invincible until something changes their mind.
Leliana promises to bring her some later and withdraws to give Marian privacy to deal with the mess between her thighs. When she's done and everything is where it belongs, she joins the rest in breakfast and tearing down camp. Marian ends up in the rear again, this time through no fault of her own. Leliana and Zevran are ahead of her, and Zevran immediately launches into a charm offensive.
"Have you given any more thought to our conversation of yesterday?" Zevran asks Leliana, pitching his voice to carry. Whatever the purpose of this is, it's meant to be public.
Leliana shakes her head. "I have told you what I wish you to know. As to the rest, I'm afraid your curiosity must go unsatisfied."
"Heartless cruelty," Zevran accuses her, lazily amused. Marian laughs despite herself. "You must know I'm not used to this... going unsatisfied." He lays delicate, affected disdain on the phrase, treating it like it's someone else's soiled laundry he's found in his things.
"You must give me leave to doubt that," Leliana says, clear amusement in her voice.
Zevran laughs. "Somehow I suspect you take what you wish, though naturally, as a gentleman, I can deny you nothing, dear lady."
"If only I could believe that," Leliana says. She's acting quite unlike herself, coy and theatrical, and yet Marian senses a thread of genuine amusement underneath it all. Was this what she was like when she was a bard? Had she sparkled and charmed the Orlesians she was sent to rob and kill?
Are Leliana and Zevran so different, in the end?
It's a question that preoccupies her for the rest of the day. It's not that she doubts Leliana, not really. But she'd had such an immediate and negative response to Zevran's choice of occupation, in sharp contrast to the way she'd only felt relieved that Leliana had admitted the truth, at last. Of course, Zevran had actually tried to kill them, and Marian's still not sure that he's not merely biding his time for another opportunity to fulfill his contract.
She trusts Leliana. She doesn't trust Zevran. But can she trust her own judgement?