AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've decided to add a new point of view at this point in the story, since I felt the need for a little added variety.

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Berton gave Jessimyn a little shrug as he watched her bite at her lower lip. He wondered if she was even aware she did that when she was deep in thought, wondered if she knew how adorable it was. They were standing close enough that he could have put his arm around her again, but she'd already pushed him away, so he kept his hands at his side. If she only knew how often he wanted to touch her, how often he restrained himself...

"Lylimet wouldn't have known to call me Jessimyn," she was saying, and they were close enough that she had to tilt her head up to look at him.

"Maybe, maybe not," Berton replied. "How do you know that one of the others didn't call you that, and she heard it?"

"But as I said, Kyran is really the only person who calls me by my full name, and I don't think he really talked to her much," she said as she took a step back.

"But he might have," Berton pressed. "And you forget, kitten, that you're not exactly unknown. There have been very few other women in the Grey Wardens throughout Thedas, but you're the only one in Ferelden, as far as I know. It's possible she'd heard of you, what with you being a hero and all."

Jessimyn scowled. "I thought you were going to call me by my name."

Berton smiled at her and reached out to touch the ends of her hair, which was still lying unbound around her shoulders. "In front of the others, yes, I'll do my best."

She just sighed. "I'm not going to get any better from you, am I?"

He couldn't help but laugh at that. "So many ways to answer that question." He lowered his voice, which always seemed to make her lean in a little to hear what he was going to say. "I could tell you that there are many things you could get from me... all you have to do is let me know you want them."

She snorted. "You assume quite a bit with that statement. But as I once again realize that trying to talk to you is pointless, I'll leave you to your filth."

She turned and started walking back towards the camp. "Was it just her using your name, or was there another reason why you think she knew you?" He gave the question casually as he moved back to his laundry, not turning to see if she'd stop.

There was no response as Berton scrubbed at a pair of breeches, and he assumed she had ignored his question and gone back, when he heard her voice from behind him. "I don't know. There was just... something about her. Almost something... familiar, but I can't say what it was, or why I felt that way."

"As in..." Berton set the breeches aside and grabbed a shirt. "...someone perhaps you'd seen before? Maybe someone you saw in, say, Lothering or Redcliffe or somewhere else nearby? Or maybe she reminds you of someone you once knew?"

He heard her laugh behind him, then caught her movement from the corner of his eye as she once again moved to sit next to him, though not within reaching distance. "I think I'd remember someone who looked like her," she said.

Berton cocked his head at her. "True. Hers is not a face you'd forget. Are you sure that your reaction to her wasn't just one of jealousy?" He watched her face as he asked the question. He couldn't help it. It was almost like a game to him, to see what he could say to her, to see how she would react. He was actually a bit disappointed when she didn't seem to rise to the bait.

"Jealousy? No. I mean, if you're implying that I was feeling catty because she was prettier than me... no, that's not it. I don't know. Maybe I'm grasping at nothing here."

"Likely," Berton said, and he heard her make a small noise, but he kept talking. "You feel guilty for what happened to Joffey. While logically you know there was nothing you could have done to save him, your mind is trying to come up with things you must have missed, things you had to have done wrong, so as to justify your guilt." He looked up to see her giving him a thoughtful look, and he smiled. "I do it, too."

Jessimyn nodded slowly, combing her fingers through her still-damp hair. "Maybe..."

Berton set the last of his clothing aside and stood. "Go back to camp," he said. "You must be freezing. Or stay and watch me bathe. Either is fine with me." He pulled his shirt off, and she jumped up quickly.

Berton laughed softly as Jessimyn scurried back to camp, and he waited until she was out of sight before pulling off his breeches. The bath was quick, and Berton chuckled to himself, thinking he was glad Jessimyn hadn't stayed to watch, as the cold water wouldn't have left him looking very impressive to her. Not that he'd expected her to stay, of course. It was also much too cold for him to fully appreciate the memory of what her thighs had looked like under her shirt, so he pushed that thought away, to save for later.

The frigid weather had everyone going to their tents early that night, and they were packed up and on their way as soon as the sun was up the next day. Jandin picked up Lylimet's trail, and the group continued their journey. It was nearing sunset when he stopped, and Berton wondered if they had lost the trail until Jandin called everyone forward. "Look at this," he said.

They'd been walking near the edge of a small stream, and the ground was wet, so that the tracks they were following were fairly clear. Everyone moved to crowd around Jandin, to see where he was pointing. There were a few clear footprints, but on top of them were some other tracks.

"Wolf," Berton said in a low voice, and Jandin turned to nod at him.

"Yes, so it would seem. But that's not what's odd. We've passed a number of animal tracks, being this close to a source of water. No, look where they begin... and where they end."

Berton turned his head, letting his eyes follow the tracks back to where they started, a little ways away from the water. "Just tell us what we're supposed to be seeing, Jandin," he said.

Jandin smiled. "Well, the tracks are almost perfectly on top of Lylimet's, but more importantly, they just seem to... appear out of nowhere." He pointed to the first set of prints. "Right here. They're just all of a sudden there."

Berton glanced at the nearby stream. "But the wolf could have been walking in the water and jumped out at that point, could it have not?"

"Maybe," Jandin said with a shrug. "Problem with that, though, is that the water's really fucking cold. Would you want to walk in it barefoot if you didn't have to? But that would also seem to suggest that the wolf was aware it was leaving tracks and was trying to cover them. I don't know of any animals smart enough to know to do that." He walked a few steps up, to where the wolf tracks ended. "Same thing here. They just stop. Again, I suppose it could have either jumped back into the stream, or over there into the brush, but it would be really strange behavior for a wolf."

"Maybe it... just didn't leave any other tracks?" Kyran offered.

Jandin shook his head. "The ground is too soft here. I haven't seen this wolf, to see how large it is, but they can weigh as much as a person, probably more than, say, Jess, and she's leaving tracks behind. There should be more."

"I'm just a dainty elf, and even I leave footprints," said Zevran with a smile.

"So what does it mean, then?" Berton asked.

Jandin grinned. "I never said I had an explanation for it. I just said it was odd."

"What about this?" Jessimyn asked, from where she was crouching next to some of the tracks. She was pointing to a strange marking in the soft ground.

Jandin moved to kneel next to her, and Berton followed to peer over their shoulders. "I don't know," said Jandin. "Could be nothing. It's not a footprint, or pawprint, of that I'm certain. But it could be a..." He leaned in closer.

"...noseprint?" Jessimyn asked, and Jandin gave her a nod.

"Could be. Maybe. But that would imply that the wolf was scenting after Lylimet, that it was following her just as we are." Jandin frowned. "Again, odd behavior for a wolf. Of course, that's assuming this is still the same wolf, but I suppose it's too much of a coincidence that we'd be running into multiple lone wolves."

Berton watched as Jessimyn rose slowly, a slight frown on her face as she bit at her lower lip. She glanced up and caught him watching her, and her face smoothed, as if she was trying very carefully to hide something. Berton frowned. "Well, let's keep going. Zevran, I want you to be looking out for this wolf as much as you're searching for traps."

The elf nodded, and the group pushed on. Berton waited a little while, until they'd all spread out to their normal traveling distances, with him and Jessimyn trailing behind. "What were you thinking back there, kitten?" He asked, pitching his voice low so it wouldn't travel forward to the rest of the group.

She gave him a somewhat startled look. "What do you mean?"

Berton grinned at her. "You thought of something back there, but now you're trying to hide it. What was it?"

Jessimyn slowly shook her head. "No, it's just that same sense I've been having, like there's something I'm not getting. There's a strange familiarity to all of this for some reason, but I don't know why." She gave him a little smile. "I'm actually trying not to think about it, since every time I attempt to focus on it, it's like whatever it is I'm grasping at just slides further away."

He chuckled. "So you find something familiar about a situation where you're tracking down a dangerous woman who killed a fellow Grey Warden, while simultaneously being followed by a clothes-stealing wolf?"

She smirked at him and shook her head. "Oh, Berton. If only things were as simple as what's inside your head."

They spent another week, slowly following the trail Lylimet had left for them. Occasionally they found wolf tracks, but it was like before, where they'd only find a few, and they seemed to just appear and disappear at random. Berton was getting very frustrated. He would have almost preferred an ambush to the continual boredom of following this woman who seemed to be moving in circles, though always in a vaguely southward direction. In fact, all of them, besides the elf of course, would get twinges from time to time, almost like they could sense... something, but it was never clear. Truly, that worried Berton more than he would tell any of them.

Regardless of Jessimyn's experience in dealing with the darkspawn, she was still a relatively young Grey Warden, and Jandin and Kyran had gone through their Joinings even more recently than she. Even if the darkspawn were not very close, far enough away that their sense of them was only slight, they should have all been feeling them. Instead, one of them would feel something, but the others would have no sense that anything was nearby. That wasn't how it was supposed to work. Berton had been out with groups before many times, in the Free Marches, and they all generally seemed to sense things at the same time. No, whatever was going on, it was definitely outside of anything he'd ever experienced before. And Berton didn't like that, not one bit.

When Jandin lost the trail again, it was late enough in the evening that Berton had everyone set up their tents. It could take hours to find it again, so they weren't likely to get much further that day anyway. Jandin and Zevran would continue looking for the trail as long as the sun was still up, so Kyran got a fire going while Berton and Jessimyn went to go look for fresh meat for the evening. She was decent enough with a bow, but she was a little squeamish with the skinning, which Berton found hilarious. The woman could kill darkspawn without batting an eye, but she couldn't handle skinning a rabbit. They'd just barely gone out when they heard a commotion coming from the direction of the camp, and they went back to see what was going on. Jandin and Zevran had returned, and Jandin hurried over to them as soon as he saw them. His face was a little red, and he seemed to be out of breath.

"What is it?" Berton asked. "Did you find the trail again?"

"Even better," Jandin said, a strange smile on his face. "We found Lylimet."