Author's note

Warning - The chapter starts with a somewhat explicit description of anxiety/a panic attack. I know from experience that it can be alarming to read about it if it's something you're going through yourself, so be aware!

Furthermore, it is the last chapter before "we" arrive at Ostagar and we'll meet my favourite character ;-)

I really hope I'm getting parts of Alexandra's personality across, since there's nothing I dislike more than a flat, flawless, person. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on that :-)

Enjoy! Oh, and of course I don't own these characters (Bioware does), I only use them for a bit!

Chapter 5 - All before me is shadow

Once Duncan had left Alex in her old room to pack, everything that had passed that day finally caught up with her.

Initially, she only noticed that her hands were trembling, so she tried to steady them. When that didn't work, she decided to ignore it and move away from the door to start gathering her stuff.

The moment she wanted to take a step forward a wave of dizziness washed over her; Nothing but her hand grabbing the doorpost prevented her from falling down.

Then she doubled over, slamming partially against the door, as painful stings shot through the left part of her chest, leaving her arm tingling with a strange sensation.

She felt unbearably hot, sweat breaking out and making her skin clam at the same time her body was shivering uncontrollably.

With her arms cramped around the upper part of her frame, she wanted to move towards her bed, but she felt too weak to do so. It was as if her lungs weren't extracting the amount of oxygen her body needed to function. She gasped for air, taking in more and more, breathing deeper in and out, but it didn't help.

I'm going to die!

This single thought took over her mind, pushing the whole mess of other worries and concerns out for the time being. She needed to alert somebody, anybody, about what was happening to her.

She was unable to do so, as her vision blurred, preventing her from seeing her room clear. The blood pounding in her ears made it so that she couldn't hear anything else, leaving her to feel utterly alone; there was no way she was getting out of here and no one would come to her aid.

For an instant it felt like she got detached from her body, as if she was seeing herself from a distance through a glassy fog, before crashing back into herself and her terrifying reality.

I am going to die, she thought again. She had just lost so much, and now she was going to die. All at once, tears started to flow. She cried, harder and harder, causing her chest to grow even tighter as bile rose in her throat.

Just in time she managed to stumble forward, towards the waste bin, and threw up.

She emptied the whole content of her stomach into it, because that seemed like the only thing that could make her feel slightly better and much to her surprise; it did.

Once she was finished, she sunk down to the floor, leaning her head against Emilia's bed; She felt hollow in more sense than just having nothing left in her belly.

The cool material of the bed's frame distracted her slightly from the hopelessness of the situation she was in. Her hands were still shaking and she didn't trust her legs, but it felt like she was regaining some control over herself.

What was happening to her? Had she fallen ill? Had her heart finally given out after her Harrowing and all the horrible things that had come after? Had Jowan done something to her with blood magic?

She shook her head to clear it further, there was no time to analyze what had befallen her, since Duncan had given her a mere twenty minutes to gather her things. If she really was dying, she would 'find out' later anyway, she thought darkly.

Thus, she crawled over to her own bed and pulled herself on top of it, not daring to stand up yet. Her heavy wooden suitcase was beneath it, so she hauled it up and put it beside her.

The first thing she grabbed, within arm's reach, was a thick leather binder laying in the drawer of her nightstand. It was filled with all the letters she had received from her parents and brother over the years.

She looked hesitatingly at them, weighing them in both her hands and her head. She had kept all of them, but never had she read one. She loved her family and was a proud Cousland, even after five years at the Circle. On the other hand, she had also been angry at them from the very moment they had sent her away. She had felt abandoned and out of childish spite, she had never opened their letters or written one back.

Nonetheless, holding them now gave her some sense of comfort and she figured she'd only need more of that in the times to come.

Next she grabbed the book with a purple velvet cover lying on top of her nightstand: In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, Volume I, written by one brother Genitivi. More importantly, it belonged to Brianni. She could almost always be found with her nose in one or another installment of the immense tellings by this writer, but this was by far her favourite, probably because of the stories on the Dalish clans.

Alex realised she wasn't going to see Brianni before leaving. Even if she couldn't ask for her permission, however, she wanted to take something from her friend with her. Even after her betrayal. She neatly tugged the letters inside of the book and stowed it away at the bottom of her suitcase.

Another few, slow and deep breaths later, she attempted to get up. The nausea returned briefly, but she seemed able enough to walk over to her closet. Their closet, she reminded herself, as it was the shared property of her and Emilia.

There wasn't a lot of space in her middle sized suitcase, so she only took out the essentials from her wardrobe: two robes, three tunics, one pair of trousers and a few undergarments. She put all of it in her suitcase, before grabbing some additional clean clothes to change into right now.

Once she had put on a fresh pair of pants, a simple white tunic and her dark blue cloak, she felt a bit more like her old self. The dirty clothes, covered in what had to be Jowan's blood and what else, she threw into a corner of the room; let someone else deal with that.

Lastly, she looked over to Emilia's part of the closet. Just like she was taking something of Brianni with her, she wanted a memento of her other friend as well.

She was still deliberating what, when her eye fell on the Amell handkerchief. Under different circumstances, she would never have dared to take an object so dear to her friend with her. Unfortunately the reality was that a tranquil wouldn't care for such sentimentality and the old Emillia would therefore definitely want her friend to have it.

Merely a brief moment after she had put the handkerchief in her suitcase and had closed it off with the thick metal clasps, she heard a knock on the door.

She didn't have to say anything, as the door swung open almost immediately, revealing Duncan behind it.

"It is time." He looked at her apologetically. "We are to depart on our journey to Ostager. We have, however, one additional stop to make before we reach the ruin, as I have one last recruit to conscript."

"I can take over if staying awake proves to be too much for you, princess." Alex's eyes snapped open and above her towered the frame of the miscreant they had picked up a few days earlier. She immediately sat up straight and felt herself blushing as she realized she had dozed off while it was her duty to keep watch. A quick glance at Duncan reassured her that at least he hadn't noticed her mistake, as he was vast asleep.

"No, it's fine. Go back to sleep," she bit back, more infuriated with herself than with Daveth, because she really didn't want to give the man in front of her even more reason to mock her.

Ever since Duncan had recruited him back in Denerim, he had been constantly teasing her and he had started to call her all kinds of nicknames once he found out she was a Cousland. To top it off, the idiot couldn't even get the proper titles straight.

"Suit yourself, your grace," he responded with a bow, before laying back down and leaning back on his arms. He apparently wasn't planning on going back to sleep and was watching her with curious eyes.

She ignored him the best she could and wondered for the hundredth time how Duncan had recruited this cutpurse out of all the people in Denerim. When he had told her back at the Circle that he had one last recruit to pick out, she hadn't expected them to travel all the way to the capital of Ferelden in the far west. Still he undoubtedly had his eyes set on Denerim, so they had left Kinloch Hold, first with a boat and then on horseback, and had reached the city gates of the capital in about two weeks.

She had wondered if it wasn't possible to round up some recruits in Highever, but Duncan read her mind and explained to her that one of his fellow Grey Wardens had already set out to find new men and women for their cause there and therefore they had to travel elsewhere.

Though she wouldn't dare to admit, it had calmed her nerves somewhat. She was torn between wanting nothing more than to travel home after being away for so long and not knowing what to do upon seeing her family again.

The nerves came back in full force, as Ducan mentioned that her brother and father were supposedly stationed at Ostagar with the Cousland army, also on the king's request to assist in the upcoming battle. She could only imagine her father's discontent at what happened at Kinloch Hold; it would only be outmatched by the disappointment she had in herself.

Besides that, she was still struggling with coming to terms with the fate that was decided for her and if it hadn't been for Duncan, she would have probably lost it already. It hadn't been easy for her to open herself up a little and she wouldn't go as far as to say she was comfortable around the man, but she did trust him.

At night, around their campfire, he trained her in a way that was foreign for her as a mage. He almost never let her use her magic, he reasoned that he didn't have the proper background to be of use in that department, but instead he made her do regular soldier training. She had to do push-ups, lunges and sit-ups until her muscles ached and run around camp until she was out of breath. He had even given her one of his daggers, to help her get more familiar with physical ways of fighting; it was tucked away now in one of her boots. All the training paid off, she could literally feel her body getting into better shape with each day that passed.

"You know, you're not what I thought you'd be when Duncan told me he was traveling with another recruit." The voice that disturbed her thoughts belonged, of course, to Daveth, who was still watching her while laying back lazily.

Here we go, Alex thought sourly. "Enlighten me, what did you think I'd be?"

"Not a woman, yet here you are!" He was smirking now, rubbing his light stubble beard with slow strokes.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Well congratulations, you have eyes! For whatever it's worth, you're not what I thought you'd be either."

"Oh, not expecting a fine gentleman like myself, did you?" Alex really hoped he was joking, since he wasn't that great to look at. He was tiny and slim, for a man at least, and his face was somewhat pointed, reminding her slightly of rodents.

Wanting him to shut up, she returned his gaze dead serious, replying, "No, I didn't expect Duncan to come back with a criminal."

His face fell a bit at her harsh words, making her almost feel bad about it. He did however quickly regain his posure. "Well what's it that people say? Somethin' about pots and kettles? Weren't you sentenced to life at some mage prison? That makes you the biggest criminal of us all, innit?"

As he understood she wasn't going to take his bait, he continued, "It's true that I was a thief back in Denerim, hell I've been pickpocketing there for the last six years. There are more purses there, than anywhere else in Ferelden, it was the only thing I liked about living in the big city." His eyes were practically glimmering.

"Well I'm glad you have such fond memories of, you know, the most important city of the country." Her eyes rolled again, as they had dozens of times in the past few days, making her wonder if they were going to fall out of their sockets before ever reaching Ostagar.

"Well, it's a whole lot of different than where I come from." When she still didn't encourage him to carry on, he stood up and walked over to her side of their little campsite. He sat himself down beside her, a bit too close for her liking, and continued talking anyway. "You know, doll, life is fleeting. That pretty face of yours could be decorating some darkspawn spear somewhere next week. Don't you think the least we could do is get to know each other a bit better, since we are in this together?"

As much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. Even if she wasn't looking to make friends, she might need Daveth to watch her back, not her backside as he had been doing non-stop, in the near future. So despite herself, she asked, "Fine, I'll bite. Where are you from?"

Daveth looked awfully pleased with himself getting her to talk. "I was born in a little village on the edge of the Korcari Wilds, a little blot you wouldn't even find on the maps. I grew up with scary stories about the cannibals, witches and wild animals that roam the forests."

"The Korcari Wilds? Isn't that where we are heading now?" She asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "And now there are darkspawn there as well, what do you know about them? Don't all those fancy noble folk get lessons in about everythin'?"

She shrugged, her history lessons were a long time ago, so the details were a bit murky. "Not much really, and what I was taught focused mainly on the wardens."

"Go on then, I hardly know nothing about those blighted creatures or the wardens for that matter." He turned to where Duncan was still sleeping soundly as he said, "And our pal Duncan over there didn't really let loose anything."

Alex had also noticed that Duncan didn't seem too eager to tell a lot about the Grey Wardens; how to become one and why they were most suited to fight against darkspawn least of all. "All I know that there have been four Blights so far, all brought to an end by the Grey Wardens." She tried to remember more, had there been something about griffons?

"Hmmpf, still a whole lot of nothing... if we're going to the Wilds, it could be some kind of test... It is all too secretive for me, makes my nose twitch." He wrinkled his nose then, as if he was already knee deep into all different kinds of monsters.

She felt unease settle in her stomach too; she hated not knowing what was going to happen. Ironically, she thought, her destiny was both set in stone and entirely unsure.

"Well, since you're both awake, we might as well move on." Duncan had seemingly awoken and was watching the both of them through the flames of the campfire. "It's still a while to go, and the sooner we get there, the sooner you'll be relieved from all uncertainties."

With that he stood up, walked over to the campfire and shoveled some dirt with his foot in order to extinguish the fire. The three of them packed up the camp in silence, mounted their horses and carried on the long road to Ostagar.