It had been three days, and the castle still reeked of blood and darkspawn.
Servants and knights alike had spent the entire first day scrubbing the walls, the floors, even the dirt, but the stench of death was seemingly permanent. It was a sulfur-like smell, sticking to everything and everyone who got close to it, and even the burning of clothes and corpses wouldn't rid the air of it.
After the second day of non-stop trying, Eamon called off the efforts. It was likely they'd see darkspawn here again, so what was the point?
Elissa couldn't stand it. Her stomach roiled at the very thought of the smell. She had almost taken to sleeping on the walls to free herself of it. So nauseous and disgusted was she that most meals had been avoided—Elissa's stomach was growling now as she sat, but she knew if she ate, it would come right back up.
Thankfully, the scent of burning wood and candles was wafting in from the farmlands and village. The incense the sisters had burned for the dead was still lingering in the air. The combination was so strange and made so much sense, that Elissa hated it.
Far off in the distance, Elissa could see the pyre of darkspawn bodies still blazing away. It had taken far too long to round them up. Far less time had been taken to gather the bodies of their own, but only because they numbered far less than the darkspawn had. If Elissa had the energy, she might've been able to figure out the ratio, and it would've heavily favored the monsters. So many of them had died in comparison to the darkspawn.
The townsfolk and knights that had died had been buried the day before. Prayers were said, the Chant of Light was sung by the remaining priests. Elissa had found herself down there with them, guilt overcoming her until she had helped. No matter how many people they saved, more were dead.
If she was better, more of Redcliffe's villagers might have survived. If she was just...whatever the hell she was supposed to be, there wouldn't be so many dead.
She could feel them. Lost souls scrambling between here and the Fade, drifting, confused, scared. She could feel the spirits, benevolent and not, tensing on the other end, waiting for their opportunity to tear their way through. So much death. It attracted demons. Where there was death on such a large scale, there were likely mages.
And where there were mages, there were other, far more dangerous, beings just waiting for a chance. Between the spirits passing into the Fade and the healers, Elissa suspected Redcliffe was about to become a hot spot for abominations. She imagined Ostagar to be the same way; some sad, depressing middle ground for spirits to aimlessly wander, lost to eternity.
Redcliffe wouldn't be the same. It was nowhere near as destructive as Ostagar, but Elissa couldn't help wondering what the next Ostagar would be. Part of her didn't want to know, but she would be right there at the thick of it, fighting darkspawn until the Maker graced her with an end.
Movement at the edge of the elves' camp tore her eyes away from the pillars of smoke. The Dalish had been the first to arrive, having aided in the retake of Redcliffe. Their scouts had thrown themselves into the battle with such courage Elissa thought of herself as a coward.
What had been a small number, no more than thirty, was now well over two hundred. Every Dalish in Ferelden capable of fighting darkspawn was here. So suspicious of humans, rightfully so, but they were the first to answer the call. They were the first to ally themselves with the Wardens, the first to believe them when they said this was a Blight, and Elissa knew as soon as this was over, humans and human lords would forget.
It was a sad thought. Humans were evil, vile beings to anything they deemed lesser—elves, mages, qunari, even dwarves.
Elissa watched as the elves bustled about, frantic about some new development, and just as she got to her feet to go investigate, the door to the watchtower opened. It was Leliana. The bard had spent most of her recent days assisting the Chantry clean up this mess; she was the main reason Elissa had found herself at the gravesite, shovel in hand. It would've felt...intrusive if Leliana hadn't been there.
"I thought I might find you up here," Leliana said.
Elissa looked back to the Dalish, and then to Leliana. She followed her gaze for a brief second, but didn't seem concerned by it. "Did you get lonely?"
Leliana shrugged as she produced a small package from her bag. "Not particularly, but I did miss you, and I thought you might be lonely, so...here I am." She tossed Elissa the cloth and it took more brainpower than Elissa was happy to admit for her to catch it. "You haven't been nosing around for scraps, either, or buying anything, so I assumed your secret stash was getting low."
Elissa frowned. The package was light, almost airy, but as she pulled the cord and unwrapped it, she almost laughed. It was jerky. Four strips, but it was something. "I haven't thought about this in months."
"Ah, well, being the guests of an arl will do that, no?"
She smirked faintly as she sat again. Leliana moved to join her. "Free food is free food."
"Indeed," Leliana agreed.
They sat in silence for a while. Elissa watched the elves, still curious, while Leliana hummed a melody to herself. She'd never really heard Leliana sing—whenever she wanted to, Elissa was always either too tired to listen, or so smelly she would've been embarrassed to hang around. Sleeping on dirt didn't do much to help the exhaustion, and bathing in dirty river water didn't help the smell, but oh, did Elissa try.
Eventually, her appetite got the better of her, and Elissa decided to risk losing her meager supper to her weak stomach. She tore into the jerky with a hunger only another Warden would understand. Sometimes she forgot how much her appetite had changed since her Joining; it was almost second nature now. Just eat, whenever you're hungry and wherever you're at, so long as your stomach stopped growling. She didn't even think about it anymore.
Regardless, Elissa offered Leliana part of her snack. She knew she'd turn it down. Whenever Leliana brought Elissa any sort of food, she refused to share. She didn't want to keep it from Elissa, and typically ate before joining her to save the trouble.
But Elissa would offer anyway. Leliana could turn it down every single time, and Elissa would still try. She felt it was rude to eat in front of someone without at least offering. Plus, food had been scarce once, in the Deep Roads, and Elissa was still very, very careful about what she ate.
"What do you think they're up to?" Elissa asked, nodding in the direction of the elves.
Leliana paused her tune, blinking to clear her thoughts. "Perhaps they are praying to their gods before battle? They know as well as we do what's to come."
"In the middle of the night?"
Leliana shrugged again. "Who knows? They have different customs than we do."
A figure materialized at the edge of the camp, and then a second, much larger than the first. It was clear the first was one of the elves and the second a human. They conversed briefly, and then the elf gestured towards the keep, bowing their head in acknowledgement once. The second figure stepped out of the torchlight as the elf retreated into their camp.
"Why is a human with them?"
Leliana arched her brows. "You are far more perceptive than you like to appear." The bard got up, extending a hand for Elissa. "I imagine you'd like to go find out, though, yes?"
"Someone has to be nosy when Aedan isn't around."
Elissa accepted the help up, but when she looked to Leliana, the Orlesian was staring at her, eyes narrowed. She raised an eyebrow in a silent question—what?
"You look so alike," Leliana said.
"We're twins," Elissa said, frowning. "I haven't told you that?"
Leliana blinked as she turned, and Elissa fell into step alongside her. "No, I don't think so. I always assumed it was because you were siblings, but it's...different."
"Oh, well...we're twins," Elissa repeated. "He was born first. Used to pick on me for it when we were kids. He liked to remind me he was the oldest."
Leliana smiled faintly as they headed down to the courtyard. "By how long?"
"Less than five minutes," Elissa said, exasperated. "I don't think he stopped lording it over my head until he got Sam, and then he spent every waking second of the day training that damned dog like it was all he wanted to do in life. That was when we..." She trailed off, swallowing and blinking away a sadness she didn't know she possessed.
Leliana looked at her over her shoulder, still smiling, but it faded rather quickly. "What's wrong?"
Elissa shook her head. "Nothing, just...nothing."
Leliana's brows furrowed as Elissa caught up. She looked like she wanted to pry, but to Leliana's credit, she never did. She allowed Elissa the privacy of her own thoughts, gave her the time to process.
"So why Sam?"
Thankful for the change in subject, Elissa said, "Aedan's always had a fascination with our family and our history. The Couslands came into power when Flemeth killed Lord Conobar—when he died, his guard captain took his lands and titles, and that man was our ancestor. His name was Sarim, so Sarim is Sam's official name, but..." Elissa shrugged, smirked a bit. "When you're a kid, you'll do anything to terrorize your brother, so I started calling him Sam as a joke, and after a while...it just stuck."
Leliana laughed. "I can't imagine young Aedan was happy about that."
"Maker, no! He hated it," Elissa said. "Now I don't think Sam would even respond to Sarim, but who knows? That dog's smarter than he should be. Sam got Aedan into more trouble than either of us ever did on our own. He had to chase Sam out of the larder the same day we joined the Wardens. Maker only knows how he survives without our Nan's cooking. He ate more of it than I did."
"He sounds like quite the troublemaker," Leliana said.
"Oh, definitely," Elissa agreed, "but I love him, and so does Aedan."
"So why didn't you ever get a dog?" Leliana asked.
Elissa looked away, up towards the sky now that they were outside again. She swallowed deeply before returning her attention to Leliana. "Aedan got Sam after we, uh...found out I was a mage. Our father didn't... He didn't think it was a good idea for me to have one, being untrained and all. He figured it would be dangerous for the pup. I could catch its fur on fire or something if it made me mad."
"Oh...I'm sorry I asked."
Elissa swallowed again, shaking her head. "Don't be. It was just a question."
"It must've been terrible to grow up and watch your brother have things you'd be denied. Most people would've grown to be resentful of their sibling."
Elissa just shrugged. "What is there to resent? My magic, or Aedan's lack thereof? It wasn't something either of us could control, and he was my best friend." Leliana nodded in understanding. "Aedan was all I had. I latched onto him, I think."
"What about your other brother? Aedan told me about him once, but speaking of him made him sad."
"Fergus?" Elissa sighed, stretched her neck and cracked it. Sitting on the ramparts made her sore and stiff after three days of demanding activity. "I don't know. What about him? I never really spent much time with him. He was always...I don't know. He seemed far away."
"Do you think he's alive? Aedan said he wasn't at Highever when it was attacked."
"He wasn't. He had taken our father's men south to Ostagar ahead of Father and Howe. Howe claimed his men were delayed by storms—they're common around Amaranthine and the roads between the city and Highever. With our men gone, it was easy for Howe to...do what he did."
"Didn't you see him at Ostagar?"
Elissa shook her head. "King Cailan had him scouting the Wilds when we arrived. We had to go into the Wilds as part of our Joining and we found some of our men ripped up by the darkspawn. We assumed he died, but when we were at Howe's estate, I found reports that said otherwise, so... I'm holding out hope for Fergus, for Aedan's sake. They were close."
"Were they?"
Elissa stopped short. In their conversation, she hadn't realized where they were—halfway across the bridge and towards the road, smack in the middle of the shadowy figure's path. It had been their intention to intersect with the man's path. They'd wanted to know what was going on with the elves and what a human had to do with it.
"Fergus?"
The figure threw his hood off, but Elissa already recognized him. That same, domineering build, strong enough to wield a greatsword. He was as big as their father had been during the war with the Orlesians—tall, impossibly broad-shouldered. Even with the beard, longer and unkempt, she knew it was him.
Elissa didn't know she missed him. Elissa hadn't known she was worried. All she had felt when she found those reports was anger. Anger that Howe had known about their brother before they did. Anger that Howe had been keeping tabs on the three of them. Anger that Howe had been the man to send assassins after them, despite Loghain's reluctant approval.
The next thing Elissa knew, she was being wrapped up in those bear arms in a hug so strong she could've snapped in half. She felt his deep, thundering chuckle rattle through her bones as he dropped her back on her feet.
"How's that for timing?" Fergus asked.
"Uh...rather perfect," Elissa said, breathless. Her ribs ached, but in a good way. She would take broken ribs for something good like this again. "W-what are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" he asked. "What are you doing here?" He gestured to her as he took a step back, eyes wide. "You're a Grey Warden now?"
"The Warden that arrived before you left, he saved Aedan and I in exchange for us joining his order," Elissa explained quickly. "What are you doing here? How are you alive? Didn't the darkspawn...kill you?"
Fergus' mouth settled in a grim line. "Fortunately, no. We skirmished with a few packs of them, and many of my men died, but a few of us were lucky enough to be rescued by a tribe of Chasind folk." He blinked, frowned. "What do you mean, saved?"
Elissa looked back at Leliana, expression falling as she realized the implications. He didn't know. How could he? From what Elissa understood, Fergus had been with that tribe for almost a year trying to recover from his wounds. They had been so severe Howe had clearly not thought of him as a threat, so he focused his attention on her and Aedan, but...
"Why don't we go inside?" Elissa asked gently. "There's been...a lot that's happened since you left."
