The elves were packed and ready to leave by the end of the next day. They would spend one last night in the camp, eating a cold supper to avoid dirtying more pots than necessary since everything was packed up, and then head out on their way. We still had no word from Morrigan and the werewolves. Ex-werewolves.
As I sat leaning on Alistair's bent knee and chewing meditatively on venison jerky, an iron-haired elf with the quick and competent attitude of a master craftsman approached us carrying a long, hardened leather case. He knelt before me and held it out; I opened it to reveal a short bow with a deep, double-S curve, very different from the straight shafts of the longbow Cammen used.
"What's this?" I asked curiously, stroking the smooth, blue-tinged wood.
"A gift," he said in a quiet, steady voice.
"You don't have to," I protested rather weakly. It was a very pretty bow. "Lanaya already gave us surety and tons of supplies."
"This is personal," he explained, pressing it back into my lap when I moved to return it to him. "For my daughter, my Gheyna. For helping Cammen, so they can be happy together. I doubt he could ever have been content as a hunter, and yet, without your influence, he would even now be trying to please his father."
"Glad we could help." I blinked awkwardly and looked down at the bow, embarrassed at his sincere gratitude. "Uhm... So, what is this? It's... different?"
"It's a recurve, designed for smaller hunters," he said tactfully. "A standard longbow would be quite inconvenient for you, and crossbows are so slow and ugly."
I nodded. I'd never bothered with crossbows because reloading and cocking them, not to mention maintaining the cocking mechanism and lugging the big heavy thing around, never seemed worth it in the cramped, poorly-lit Deep Roads. But I would be very glad of a weapon that could take advantage of the absurdly vast, empty, wasted space up here on the surface. "Thank you," I told him, grasping his hand. "It's beautiful." He bowed his head respectfully and returned to his packing.
"Ooh! Latitia! He gave you the bow!" Leliana came trotting over from where she'd been washing up, and fingered the soft leather grip with evident pleasure. "I told him you didn't have one. You'll like it."
"I do already. Can you teach me to use it?"
She nodded and fetched a flat, rectangular valise from her luggage. It opened to reveal three pieces of wood, which she quickly locked together into a bow very much like mine, but even shorter and more deeply curved.
"Nice," Zevran noted, sauntering over. "An Orlesian takedown. I should have guessed. Do you also have the concealment harness? That I should like to see."
Leliana shot him a glare but by now I was curious, and fished a strappy leather contraption out of the case. She sighed and demonstrated how the harness could strap the pieces of the bow to her thigh, to be concealed under a dress. My eyes widened.
"That looks like an assassin's weapon," I said with surprise. "Leliana, what were you doing before you came to Lothering? I thought you were singing songs and dancing and doing your hair!"
"I was," she said shortly, color rising in her cheeks. "But sometimes, in Orlais, a bard is called upon to perform more politically sensitive tasks. Things requiring discretion, subtlety, a minimum of collateral damage."
Zevran nodded. "Yes, indeed. A bard is much like a Crow, but with a prettier voice and better plumage, my Orlesian bluebird."
"Anyway," she continued, flushed. "I left all that behind when I fled. I am not a murderer, not anymore. I am doing the Maker's work, now."
"Does the Maker's work include teaching me to shoot?" I asked, changing the subject before anyone embarrassed her further. I understood quite well that sometimes a person would rather not talk about their previous employment. Though, I did wonder what it meant that she had left her lute behind, but kept this.
"Yes, I think it does," she said in obvious relief. "We'll begin in the morning, when there's light."
The elves moved out the following day, and the forest filled in the campsite like waves crashing together again after a stone is dropped into still water. The ground shifted dizzyingly under out feet, and within moments, the forest floor smoothed itself out and left us standing around in the shrubbery, barely any sign that the elves had camped here at all except for some crushed moss and ferns where the earth had been folded up for too long and the tender plants had died.
Leliana taught me to use my new bow, sort of, but it was too heavy for me to draw fully yet. "You'll get stronger quickly," she assured me. "You're just using muscles that you don't normally use so heavily. We'll practice every day."
After that, we killed time for a while practicing disarming each other and Zevran. Then we convinced Wynne to hex us (mildly) so Alistair could practice cleansing it, his impressive victory over Zathrian having convinced everyone that the skill was worth the discomfort of waking up on the ground after the disorientation spell worked a little too well.
"Hey! Look! Look!"
In the late afternoon, the bright and excited voice of a young boy came to us through the trees, quickly echoed by many other cries of , "Look! Look! Hey! Look!"
"Yes, we know it's the Wardens, now stop that inane barking, you are not dogs!" Morrigan's voice silenced the calls, and we watched as a dreary procession made its way to us through the trees.
Morrigan led the pack of ex-werewolves – we were going to have to come up with a better name for them – who followed with their eyes on the ground, walking gingerly with their bare feet on the forest floor. They looked hungry and tired, and many bore scrapes and bruises where they must have counted on their thick hide and fur to protect them, only to be reminded that they had fragile human skin now.
Swiftrunner strode beside Morrigan, making a point of not showing any discomfort with his new body and flanked by another male with an aggressive stance, and behind him Gatekeeper, Sundancer, and a new female with black hair each carried one of the babies. Poor Sundancer seemed drained and nearly exhausted; her attendants cuddled the infants against their chests like the precious treasures they were.
"Long trip, I take it?" I asked Morrigan, handing her my water flask.
"You have no idea," she snorted, waving me away. "They are like ignorant children. Everything must be explained to them."
"I'm sorry, I thought you would be able to understand how they felt," I said a touch coldly. "Considering you yourself had to learn such basics as how to shake hands and say hello, when you first left the Wilds."
"I did not say I was not up to the task," she snapped. "Merely that it is a great deal of work."
"Right, yes, before we dissolve into general quarreling, why don't we hand out some food and clothing," Alistair interrupted, glaring at Morrigan before picking up one of the bags of jerky and handing it to Swiftrunner to distribute. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, blushing in sympathetic embarrassment for the naked women. Thank the ancestors they lived in a forest and hadn't been sunburned head to toe.
The allocation of food and clothing took much longer than I expected, a complicated dance of precedence and hierarchy resulting in some of them having two pairs of shoes and others having just socks, and somehow Sundancer herself ended up with almost half the food even though she seemed barely able to pick at it, the males constantly coming over and dropping parts of their ration in front of her.
Despite the urgency of getting back to Bodahn and civilization, we ended up camping there that night to give the – damn it, whatever they are now – time for their feet to recover somewhat, and to rest and eat. Alistair built a half-dozen campfires for them and showed them how to add wood and keep them burning, and they clustered around in wary astonishment, holding their hands out to the warmth.
"What should we call you now? We can't call you ex-werewolves," I said to Swiftrunner that night during a rare moment of quiet when he wasn't being constantly pestered for instructions and advice. "If for no other reason than because it would be dangerous for the other humans to know."
"We are the People," he said shortly.
"So is everyone else," I said after a moment's startled hesitation, trying not to sound condescending. "Every group thinks they are people. So, we should pick a new name for you."
"We should call them a tribe," Leliana cut in. "The Wolf Tribe. That will explain any oddness of mannerisms. Other humans will assume they are still learning civilized etiquette - which is true."
"Fine." He sighed and bunched his massive shoulders, getting to his feet in an odd sort of rolling motion where he used his hands to push himself up. I made a mental note to teach them not to do that. Then he strode away to break up a squabble between some of the younger males.
That left my comrades and me sitting alone around our fire. The tribe had quite naturally kept to themselves, eyeballing us with interest but too cautious yet to approach and make conversation.
Concentrating on my food, I felt a tickle on my arm and flinched involuntarily, then looked more closely at the tiny thing that crawled across my skin. It had eight long, spindly legs and a set of minuscule curved pincers.
"Morrigan," I said, pointing it out to her. "Is this a spider? Why is it so tiny?"
"All normal insects are small on the surface world," she said, peering closely at it. "That one is harmless. See the long legs? It weaves elaborate webs to catch its prey, other tiny insects, like flies."
"Spiders in the Deep Roads are as big as me," I said, watching the spider carefully attach a thread of silk to my arm and then rappel down to the ground. "I knew you had little bugs up here, but I didn't know... I guess I didn't think of spiders as bugs."
"'Tis the lyrium that allows them to grow so large," she explained, turning back to the rabbit she had caught for herself.
"Wow, now that is ironic," I said. When she raised an eyebrow at me, I explained, "That being underground makes spiders big but makes us small."
She chuckled briefly, and I had a thought. "If I have babies now, on the surface, would they grow tall or stay short like me?"
"I imagine that would depend on the father," she replied, casting a snide glance at Alistair, who sat next to me watching the spider with mild distaste, but Wynne suddenly sat up ramrod-straight and stared hard at him.
"Why does she not know?" Wynne demanded of Alistair, who flushed and looked at his boots.
"Duncan didn't tell her," he mumbled, barely audible. "I guess he didn't have time."
"What's this?" I asked, looking worriedly from one to the other and forgetting about the spider.
"Alistair has something to tell you," Wynne said gently.
"Now?" he asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice.
"Yes, now." Her voice was pure steel, and he sighed and stood up.
"Let's go for a walk," he said quietly, taking my hand.
I followed him, mystified and more than a little afraid, as he led me some distance away from the campsite. Rocky trotted along after us, bringing his bone and occasionally tossing it into the air and catching it again with a happy slurping noise.
"There's more to the taint than being able to sense darkspawn and each other," Alistair said, his eyes on the game trail we'd fallen onto. He paused for a long moment while we crossed a small clearing sparkling with fireflies. I stopped walking to watch them and we stood together in the dark.
"I know the Wardens come down to the Deep Roads to die," I told him, breaking the tense silence. "I assume it's to do with the taint. I'm not afraid."
He sighed. "There's that, yeah, but... It also - it's really, really hard for Gray Wardens to have children, even if their partner is a regular person."
I froze, his words an unexpected wrench at my heart. "No... children? Not ever?"
I hadn't really thought about children, not when there was no father for them. But I guess I'd liked the idea that I could try, if I wanted to, someday. Only now I couldn't. I choked back a sob of indescribable loss.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I should have thought about it earlier. I just - in the men's barracks it's sort of a joke, you know? Like, ha-ha, now you don't have to worry about getting someone knocked up by accident. And before that I was in the Chantry for so long, and Templars don't have families, either. I wasn't thinking it might be different for – for someone who could have been a mother."
"It's not your fault," I whispered, blinking hard as my eyes filled. It was Duncan's fault. I was almost angry at him, but then I remembered what would have happened if he hadn't taken me away to be a Warden.
"It's still better than dying alone on the Roads," I told him, sharing the thought. Then I remembered how all Gray Wardens die, and laughed bitterly. "I mean, it's better than having already died alone on the Roads. I've at least put it off for a while."
"We've got about thirty years," he said, sitting cross-legged on the soft grass.
"That's not so bad. Spares us the indignity of old age." I sat beside him and leaned on his arm. I didn't want him to think I was mad at him. I wasn't. But I was going to need a while to … to absorb what he'd said.
Suddenly too tired to think about it any more and desperate for a distraction, I asked, "Is there anything good about being a Gray Warden? Please tell me there's something good about it."
He grinned. "We used to ride griffins. They're extinct now, but still – imagine flying!"
I smiled a little, envisioning the great white beasts of legend, and he went on, telling me about mighty battles and the camaraderie of whole battalions of Wardens fighting together, all sharing the call of the demon's blood and making it our own.
"And the training's the best in the world," he added. "Even when I was in the Chantry and I hated it there, it was still good to train and get better at something, you know?"
I nodded, feeling the roughness of his tunic under my cheek and warm body beneath. "There's satisfaction in a skill perfected. But what about now, when it's just us?"
"There's more Wardens in Orlais, lots of them. I think there's some in the Free Marches and other places, too, I just have no idea how to contact them and even if I did, it'd take weeks for a messenger to get there and months before they could mobilize and come to help. But at least we're not the last in the world, right?"
I breathed a sigh of relief. "At least someone out there knows what they're doing."
"I suppose eventually we'll have to start rebuilding the order here in Ferelden. Once we get rid of this pesky Archdemon."
"He's really a nuisance. I wonder if he doesn't know how annoying he is. Maybe it's all just a plea for attention. Maybe his daddy didn't give him enough hugs," I suggested.
"What a revolutionary new Blight-fighting technique," he laughed, shifting a little in the grass to wrap an arm around my shoulders and pull me closer. "We'll hug him into submission. On the Feast of Satinalia we'll give him a sack full of toys and candy, and the darkspawn will all put down their weapons and become gardeners and wear bright pink dresses."
"Deep down, darkspawn just want to be pretty," I nodded solemnly.
He chuckled, and for a while we just sat and watched the fireflies. Despite my bravado, I felt very small and alone. I couldn't help but notice how much of being a Warden required that there be more than just two. And being reminded that the closest I would ever come to "going home" would be my Calling... had hurt.
The night breeze had picked up and I shivered, and abruptly gave up on being brave and climbed into Alistair's lap, curling up tight against his chest. "You're very important," I whispered, clinging to him. "Please try not to get killed."
"I do my best," he said lightly.
"I mean it. Please. You're all I have left."
He didn't say anything, but he leaned his cheek on the top of my head and his arms tightened around me. After a long moment, he said quietly, "I don't know what I did to deserve... you. But I won't let you down."
Something restless inside me, some small, frightened animal, settled down at last as the slow thrumming of his heart drowned out the incessant crickets and surface noises, and in the end, finally warm and safe, I slept.
Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, and also, if you're interested in the werewolves, their own story is off and running and you can find it in my profile. As usual, you are all thoroughly awesome. Pats on the back for everyone!