Chapter 36: Return To Redcliffe
The Guardian's instructions were sound; their horses were waiting for them at the rear at the temple. They followed the winding path that ran alongside the slow-flowing glacial river, the valley gradually sloping downwards. They made camp beneath a rocky outcrop, which offered enough protection from the wind to allow them to make a campfire. Alistair and Flora, working in a silent synchrony first developed on the field, constructed the two tents; while Zevran fussed over the cooking utensils. Leliana was kneeling some distance away, her hands folded in prayer.
"You Fereldans live off your meat," Zevran said, sorting through their food bags with a wrinkled nose. "Your diet is very limited. In Antiva, we eat far more fruit. Did you know that there are seven varieties of grape which grow in Rialto alone?"
Flora was using her non-Ashes containing boot to hammer the pegs into the densely packed earth, feeling the familiar dull ache in her knee. As she sat back in the dirt and reached out to rub her kneecap, Alistair crawled around to her side of the tent and thumped the remaining pegs into the earth with his mail-clad fist.
"There we go. First class accommodation, though I dread to think where that blasted elf plans on sleeping," he said cheerfully, then caught sight of her fingers on her knee. His face fell and he gave a small grimace.
"I suppose me tackling you earlier didn't really help with that. Sorry," he said, guilt casting a shadow over his face. "Here, let me."
Sitting beside her, he peeled off one of the mail gloves and began to use his own stronger thumbs to soothe the swollen joint, the movements second nature.
Flora shook her head mildly, grudgingly acknowledging that he was better at it than she. After a few moments he paused, then looked at her oddly.
"The Ashes can cure any mortal wound or fatal illness, right?" he said slowly, recalling Leliana's words from earlier that day. "Why didn't you take a tiny bit to heal your leg? I'm sure it would count as part of our allocation."
"I did think of it," Flora replied honestly, glancing reflexively over towards the fire as she heard the sizzle of cooking meat. "But…" She broke off, dropping her gaze to the densely packed earth between her legs.
Alistair gazed at the top of her head, then reached out to place his fingers beneath her chin, tilting her face up to meet his stare. It was her turn to look guilty, grey eyes darting across towards the fire.
"But what?"
"Loghain was right, I was the best barrier mage at Ostagar," she said, in a mumble so low that he had to bend his head to hear her. "If I'd been in the battle, I could've made more of a difference. Saved someone."
Saved Duncan.
Or the King.
The names hung unspoken in the cold air between them. Alistair withdrew his fingers from her chin, remembering the answer he had given the Guardian. Yes, I believe it would have been better if I had died and Duncan had lived. I should have died in his place. If I had protested harder, refused to follow orders and insisted on fighting in the valley – how might that have changed things?
Alistair listened to Flora hesitatingly explain that the recurring pain helped in some strange way to remind her of those whom she failed to protect at Ostagar. And as he listened, he began to see the flaws in her- and by proxy, his own- thinking.
In a sudden moment of clarity, beside the slow flow of the glacial river, Alistair realised that there was nothing else that he could possibly have done at Ostagar to avert its terrible outcome. His half-brother's hopeless dream of defeating the Darkspawn in battle had doomed not only him, but the Wardens too. It was as if a weight that he had been carrying for weeks was suddenly lifted from his shoulders.
Flora had finished explaining and was peering at him hesitantly, bitten fingernails curling against her aching knee, the badge of Ostagar that she would most likely bear for the rest of her life. He gazed at her for a long second, then leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead.
"I'm so proud of you, Flo," he murmured, and she looked up at him, startled.
"Really?"
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. She went pink and smiled at him, then her eyes darted somewhere over his shoulder.
"Your exotic meal of meat, meat and more meat is ready," announced Zevran, his lip curling as he appeared around the corner of the tent. "I'm beginning to regret not killing you and returning to Antiva for the customary victory feast."
Alistair, for whom the assassination attempt was still too recent for jests, shot him a glare. Flora, hunger overcoming the pain in her knee, scrambled towards the fire.
Over dinner, Zevran and Leliana conversed extensively over different nobles whom they had come across in their time. Zevran brought up various houses who had branches in both Antiva and Orlais; while Leliana tried to wheedle information out of him about various contracts his guild had undertaken in the past.
"So, it was a Crow involved in the death of the corrupt Marquess Deliere? I knew carriages didn't just catch fire by themselves!"
"I could not possibly divulge that," replied Zevran mysteriously, giving her a portentous look and tapping the side of his nose. Leliana let out a squeal of excitement, her eyes lighting up.
"How exciting! I wonder who took out the contract on his life. Maybe his sister, the Marchioness, had something to do with it."
"Again, I could not possibly divulge that information," intoned Zevran, eyeing her significantly while inclining his head.
Flora, who had no experience with the nobility save for the frenetic fortnight she had spent in Cailan's guard, had little to contribute to the conversation. Instead, she was hunched over beside the fire mending some of their damaged saddlebags, a needle and thread clamped between her teeth.
Alistair, who could contribute to the conversation but lacked the inclination, watched her work the needle in and out of the leather, making little knots every so often to strengthen the tie. His mind kept drifting back to the glimpse he'd stolen of her fragile collarbone in the Temple's Inner Sanctum.
"Could you hold this tight?" she asked him and he swallowed, realising that the inside of his mouth was dry. He took the edge of the rope bag and gripped it taut as instructed, while she finished the final hemming.
"Does this count as evening entertainment back in Herring?" he asked, mostly to distract himself. She nodded, choosing to take his comment as a straight question rather than a joke.
"I've spent a lot of hours repairing my dad's nets," she mumbled through the needle, her fingers working at a tangled thread. Alistair glanced at her, ashamed suddenly of his teasing. Something she had said in the temple came back to him, and he spoke up again suddenly.
"You said you almost drowned when you were a child?"
She nodded, returning the needle to the bag and making the finishing stitches.
" I had gone to collect cockles from the next beach. The tide came in too quickly and I was stuck."
On the opposite side of the fire, Leliana and Zevran paused in a heated argument about the signs of Antivan poisoning.
"What happened?" asked Alistair, feeling a ridiculous lurch of dread in his stomach. Flora shrugged, tucking the needle back into the small sewing kit they had purchased back in Lothering.
"A travelling apostate saved me. His face is my first memory."
Flora paused for a moment, recalling the narrow, hawk-like features and dark eyes, blazing with purpose. "I had been in the sea for so long that- well, my dad always said afterwards that the saltwater had washed away certain corners of my mind. I didn't even know my own name."
Alistair reached out and patted her knee, awkwardly. "Sorry."
Flora rolled her eyes at him, giving a little shrug. "It was a long time ago."
They finished the rest of their meal in silence, the moon glowing like a huge pearl above the Frostbacks.
When Alistair yawned and glanced over at a sleepy Flora, Zevran stretched and let out an expectant beam, holding out his hand to Leliana.
"Shall we retire for the night, my lotus flower?"
Leliana let out a squeal of outrage, recoiling as though he had offered her a decapitated Darkspawn head.
"Surely you jest? I'm not sharing a tent with you!"
Zevran looked perturbed. "But we've been flirting all evening! Did that mean nothing to you?"
"That wasn't flirting, that was normal conversation!" hissed back Leliana, colour flaring in her cheeks. Zevran gave a mild shrug and turned his most charming smile to Flora, who was openly laughing.
"How about it, my little Rialto lily? I admit, I wouldn't mind seeing that body again. I must warn you though, I seem to have left my smallclothes behind in the Temple as an offering."
His face fell slightly as Flora continued laughing, hiding her face in the rope bag that she had been mending. Alistair shot Zevran a look that suggested he was seriously contemplating hurling the elf into the glacial river alongside them.
"Ignorant country girls," grumbled the Antivan, scowling at Flora. "Well, I'm not sleeping outside. Alistair? You were raised in the Chantry, so…"
Alistair quailed slightly, then gestured towards Flora.
"I have to sleep near her or she gets nightmares. Archdemon whispers. It's a Warden thing," he said hastily, and Zevran raised his eyebrows.
"I admit, that is one I have not heard before. So, it seems we are at an impasse?"
Fifteen minutes later, Zevran called out bitterly from the adjacent tent.
"Enjoy your night with two beautiful redheads, Chantry boy. I'm sure you'll put it to excellent use."
Alistair grumbled, feeling the damp canvas of the tent against his back. Flora, resting her cheek on her arm, smiled at him and gave a little shrug. Her face was only inches away from his own, so close he could see the faint freckles dotting her cheeks.
"Ignore him," she mumbled, glancing over her shoulder at Leliana. "Do you have enough room?"
The lay-sister nodded, her hands pressed together as her lips moved silently in prayer.
From somewhere outside, an owl gave a long and mournful hoot. The quiet gurgling of the river, its glacial flow winding its way through the valley that it had first begun to carve at the very dawn of Thedas, echoed between the canyon walls.
Alistair reached out and a yawning Flora gave him her hand, their fingers curling together in a practised gesture. Leliana, finishing her prayer, opened her eyes and rolled over to face them.
"So this is really all you do," she wondered, her blue eyes gleaming in the sliver of light provided by the moon. "Holding hands? It's very sweet."
Alistair frowned, sensing a vague jibe hidden in her quilted words. Flora merely smiled, then reached her free hand over and clumsily patted Leliana's head, her fingers half over the bard's face.
"'Night, Leliana. Don't let the weever fish bite."
"Weever fish?!" exclaimed the lay-sister into the shadows. "Do such a thing really exist?"
"Healed enough of their stings back in Herring," whispered back Flora, dropping her head against Alistair's shoulder. He slid an arm around her narrow back, resting his chin on her hair.
"I'm not sure if mountains are their natural habit though, eh?" he murmured, his lips brushing against her ear. She yawned, mumbling something incoherent.
The Archdemon's tangled whispers, more muted than usual, crept down her back in the darkest part of the night. It felt as though water from the glacial river was dripping slowly down her spine, icy fingers spanning her neck and constricting her breath. She caught a glimpse of a malevolent eye, heard the beating of leathery wings and then felt a pressure around her fingers, warm and insistent. Like an anchor, it pulled her back through the Veil and she awoke with a gasp, as though breaking through the surface of the sea.
Alistair was gazing at her, his eyes dark and sympathetic in the shadows, his fingers clenched tightly around hers. Flora could feel Leliana's back pressed against her own, the woman softly snoring as she slept.
Not wanting to speak and risk waking the lay-sister, he took her hand and began to rub his thumb over her small knuckles. They were still bruised from when she had pounded her fist against the stone door in the Temple, demanding that the Guardian clarify his statement about her father. Alistair wondered about that for a moment, sliding his thumb into the gaps between her fingers. He felt her fingers curling against his skin and caressed them with his own, touching the bitten nails affectionately before rubbing his thumb in a circle over her soft palm.
I'm just holding her hand, he thought defiantly to himself, although there was something slow and intimate about it that made his breath catch in his throat. When he returned his gaze to her face, he realised that she had fallen asleep.
When dawn broke, he was alone in the tent. The watery sunlight penetrated the canvas and illuminated the two overlapping bedrolls beside him, upon which rested a tangle of empty furs and blankets.
"One more, please, Flora!" called Leliana's voice from outside. He could hear the fire crackling, accompanied by Zevran's quiet humming. Alistair crawled out of the tent, blinking in the sudden light. It was a cool and crisp winter morning, the sun clinging to the top of the Frostbacks.
Leliana was kneeling beside the fire, where several large salmon were resting precariously on skewers. Zevran already had his in hand, turning it over the flames. He raised his dark eyes to Alistair as the Warden approached, nodding in greeting.
"I assume you were a good little Chantry boy last night," the Antivan elf murmured, nostrils flaring to take in the scent of grilling fish. "With a lay-sister on one side and your sister-warden on the other. It is the stuff of Antivan romances."
"Actually, I had mouldy canvas on my other side," replied Alistair mildly. "Where's Flora?"
Leliana gestured over towards the slow-flowing glacial river. "Getting breakfast."
Flora was crouched barefoot on a boulder in the river shallows, her breeches rolled up around her knees. Her damp hair was tied on top of her head, wet strands falling loose and soaking the top of her shirt. She peered down at the pale blue water flowing lazily around the base of the boulder, her eyes narrowed. In her hand she held her staff, with Leliana's knife bound tightly with twine at one end. Slowly she exhaled, expelling the air from her lungs, watching and waiting.
Seconds later, Alistair watched Flora slide down from the boulder, makeshift spear driving forwards at an angle towards the river shallows. She splashed into the water after it, letting out a squawk at its temperature.
The next moment she emerged, soaked from the waist down, waving her staff in the air triumphantly. A large salmon flapped helpless at the end of the blade. Not wanting it to suffer for any longer than necessary, she gripped the fish by its tail, slid it from the blade and gave it a single, hard smack against the boulder. Clutching her limp prize she returned to the campfire, leaving damp footprints in her wake.
"Thank you!" sang Leliana, plucking the fish from Flora's arms.
"You aren't very ladylike, are you?" observed Zevran archly, taking a bite of his own grilled salmon. "Just an observation, my flower. In Antiva, ladies are encouraged to undertake traditional feminine pursuits."
Alistair handed Flora a blanket, which he had dived to get as soon as he had seen her plunge into the frigid waters. She smiled at him gratefully, towelling her damp hair.
"Nice spearing… fishing?" he commented lightly, watching Leliana efficiently gut the salmon before impaling it on a skewer.
"Thanks!" Flora beamed at him, tipping water out of her ear. "This is nothing. When this is all over, when we go to Herring, I'll spear an eel for you."
He grinned back at him, irrationally cheered.
They continued to follow the winding river valley, tracing the tributary as it descended towards Ferelden's largest lake. As the sun began to dip beneath the horizon, they ascended a low ridge and Lake Calenhad came into view beneath them. The trail had brought them to its southern-most tip; they could see the grey squatness of Redcliffe Castle perched on its high promontory, as if standing guard over the village on the shore below.
"I hope the Arl is alright," muttered Alistair, squinting across at the darkened windows of the Guerrin ancestral seat. Flora, seated behind him, gave his mail-clad shoulder a small squeeze. She wasn't sure he had felt it until he shot her a brief smile over his shoulder.
"The Maker will preserve him," replied Leliana, certainty in her voice as she turned her horse's head towards the upper path. "Come, let's not waste any time."
As they approached the castle, they began to see some small signs of life returning to the vast structure. The broken windows in the East tower had been boarded over, and the iron gates had been rehung. As they rode into the main courtyard, two stable boys clad in Redcliffe livery ran to take their horses. Ser Perth, one of the knights who had assisted in the defence of Redcliffe, came out to meet them. His lined face was suffused with anxiety and tentative hope. He gave a nod of respect to the lay-sister and cast a curious glance at the elf, whose tanned skin clearly denoted him as one not from Ferelden.
"Alistair! Were you successful? The Bann has been summoned, he's in the village."
Alistair nodded, glancing over at Flora, who suddenly remembered that she had the Ashes in her boot. Grimly, she hoped that there would be an opportunity for her to subtly remove them before they assembled before the Arl.
"How is he?" asked Alistair as they entered the main hall of the Castle.
This too was undergoing restoration- the broken tables had been cleared away and the torn tapestries taken down. More servants were carrying in replacement items of furniture, their cobwebbed state and musty smell suggesting many years kept in storage. A fire was roaring in the main hearth and two chambermaids were chattering to each other as they scrubbed the flagstones. Slowly, Redcliffe Castle was coming back to life as normal routine was resumed. However, the castle without its Arl was like a bridge without a keystone- there was something vital missing, a strange tautness in the atmosphere.
"He lives, for now," replied the knight, as the new steward shouted orders at two hapless elves carrying a large armoire.
"The Castle looks a lot better," commented Leliana, glancing around as they crossed the hall. Ser Perth nodded, holding open the door to the main staircase.
"Since young Master Connor has recovered, the Arlessa has begun the business of restoring Redcliffe."
"While Arl Eamon still lies dying," muttered Alistair, and the knight winced
"The villagers are also eager to resume normality," he continued hastily, leading the way up to the second floor. The vast stained glass window flanking the staircase had also been clumsily repaired, an iron bar welded over the missing fragments. It had once depicted an Almarri lord on the hunt, but his prey – once a golden halla - had been smashed beyond recognition.
"The Arlessa has sent to Val Royeaux for replacement glass," murmured Ser Perth, and Alistair let out a derisive snort. Leliana flashed the knight a polite smile, to cover the Warden's obvious disdain.
"Orlesian glass is the finest in Thedas," she said diplomatically, glancing up at a hastily hung tapestry. "I'm sure it can be restored with a skilled artisan."
"All this fuss about Orlesian craftsmanship," complained Zevran, as they reached the stone balcony of the upper floor. "Antiva has craftsmen of equal skill, and they charge a far more reasonable price."
Flora had fallen silent, irrationally intimidated at being in an Arl's castle now that it was not empty and demonically possessed. She kept her eyes on the floor, trying to avoid treading too heavily on the thick, silken carpets.
Then they heard a child's laughter, high and unsullied by demonic influence. Connor Guerrin, son of the Arl, ran out into the main upper passageway, calling over his shoulder.
"No, mama! I don't want to pack my velvet suit. The letter said there would be clothing for me at the Tower!"
The child stopped abruptly as he almost collided with them, his eyebrows rising imperiously.
"Who are you?" he demanded, dark eyes running over each of them in turn. Ser Perth inclined his head, respectfully.
"Master Connor, they are here to help your father."
The young boy nodded slowly, already aping his mother's Orlesian airs and mannerisms. His eyes fell on Flora and he let out a cry of recognition, pointing a finger at her.
"You!"
Flora hung her head miserably, wondering what basic rule of etiquette she had unwittingly violated. Connor stared at her, and in his open-mouthed shock he resembled his father far more.
"I remember you! You were in my dream- my bad dream," he said slowly, approaching her. "You killed the monster."
Flora nodded mutely, welded in place as the child wandered up to her. The boy gazed up into her face, curiously.
"You don't look as powerful as you did in my dream. You're quite short."
"Sorry," Flora muttered, visibly uncomfortable.
At that moment the Arlessa emerged into the passageway. Her joy at seeing them returned was tempered by her irritation at seeing her son fraternising with the common mage girl. Having resigned herself to the fact that Connor was to be sent to the Tower, Isolde was determined that he should associate only with the upper echelons of Circle society.
The Arlessa strode towards them, her pale blue eyes wide with pointed concern.
"Have you the Ashes?" she demanded, omitting pleasantries. Ser Perth nodded, and the older woman's face collapsed in relief. After confirming that Teagan had been sent for from the village, she gestured them through the double doors into the Arl's bedchamber.
OOC Author's Note: Poor Zevran, having to sleep alone in a tent! Also, weever fish are definitely a real thing. And they do sting people! I imagine that Flora did a lot of spear-fishing in the shallows of the Waking Sea, in rock pools and the like, when she was younger. I don't think there's much to do in Herring that isn't related to the fishing trade in some way. Also, I wrote about freeing Connor from the external perspective, rather than describing what happened in the Fade. I think it's interesting to theorise about how people perceive one another there - like, how Connor saw Flora as appearing more powerful there than she did in reality.