The rain peppered the sloping slate and ran down the basalt walls; filling the cracks underfoot until water spilled over the cobbles. The jutting roof of the tower provided the balcony with some shelter, though a fine mist of drizzle was carried sideways on a sly, subtle breeze. Dawn was hidden behind an impenetrable mask of cloud; the world still cast in grey.

"It's raining."

Alistair spoke softly: he could hear the muffled rhythm of boots against stone from somewhere below . He hoped that the sentries would limit their patrol to the ramparts that connected the towers; that they would not disturb this rare, precious moment where he and his sister-warden had no other eyes on them. He reassured himself that guards did not venture into the castle's secluded places without cause. The balcony - more a dead-end beside a servant's passage - had granted them their first privacy since the morning.

"Yes," breathed Flora, peering up at him. "Innit nice?"

Her eyelashes were stuck together with rain and they resembled the fronds of a plant. There was no duplicity in her face: she was sincere.

Alistair opened his mouth, expecting the usual sort of humour to emerge: something wry, or witty. Instead, he found himself nodding dumbly like a child, or a Mabari. The outer parts of his mind felt as though they were cracking away, revealing the glossy dark core of something primordial. He had felt lust before - many times, he had grown through adolescence like any other boy - but this desire was something new: a need as vital as the one for air.

"Remember when Leliana was asking us," she said, reaching up to push the damp hair from his forehead with her fingers. "Asking us about writing down the story of - of everything that's happened."

"Yes," he said, feeling like a lumbering destrier bowing its head to meet a pony. "She said that she would write verses about it once it was all over. Craft some epic ballad."

Flora had no idea what a ballad was. It sounded like the component of a ship: rudder, transom, tiller, ballad. She leaned back against the stone, palm was resting in a puddle. The drizzle fell around them in a soft, sibilant rattle: gently percussive against the basalt.

"Mm. And she asked what book we would write. If we could write," she clarified, in deference to her own woeful illiteracy. "Well, I would write one called ' Rain: Why It Is Good, And Not Bad.'"

"A bestseller," Alistair said, hoarsely. He had no idea what his sister-warden was talking about, but her peculiar verbal meandering was distracting him from taking her in his arms. "Well, I've never finished a book in my life but I'd try my best with that one."

"Or maybe," Flora continued, warming to her subject. "Rain: Why It Is Good And Not Annoying."

As she spoke, her fingers found the coarse weave of his tunic; wandering along its edge. One of the laces had fallen from its knot and dangled in a loose tail.

"Or I'd write a visitor's guide to Herring," she said. "But it would just say: GO AWAY ."

This was her attempt at humour. Somewhere in the midst of his desirous mind, Alistair realised that Flora was trying to distract him from Lothering and their foe's gloating vision of victory - she had seen the rage and futility clouding his face on the stairwell. His attention was already diverted, but her efforts struck a chord in his heart regardless.

"Sweetheart," he said quietly. There was a simple acceptance in the word: the resignation of a man who knew that his world was different now.

Flora gazed up at him, pale eyes anxious. A strand of wet hair was stuck to her cheek like a flourish of red ink. The edges of her nostrils were pink from when she had wiped her nose vigorously on the sleeve of her - his - shirt.

"Mm?"

Alistair looked down at her and thought that she had the most beautiful mouth he had ever seen. It was full and decadent; turned down at the corners like the women in paintings from the Exalted Age. Desire ran hot and urgent in his veins once again. His eye followed the line of her pale throat downwards. The flimsy weave of his shirt was saturated with rain: the fabric clung boldly to the high, rounded contour of her breasts. He could see the pink of the flesh below the linen; a dusky smudge guided his eye to the nipple.

The blood rushed from his head with such speed that he felt dizzy. He shut his eyes, squeezed them painfully tight to try and purge what he had seen from his mind. It was too late: her breast, laid bare by the flimsy, rainsoaked cloth, was branded on the inside of his eyelids. Alistair felt a fleeting, irrational guilt: she had been exposed by his cheap shirt. It was as though he had unbuttoned her with his own hand, spreading the folds of fabric to gaze openly at her breasts. He felt certain that the coarse wool of Herring would not have betrayed its daughter so shamelessly.

Alistair raised his chin as he blinked back his vision, determined to give her the opportunity to cover herself. Instead, he felt determined fingers anchor themselves in his belt. Flora was staring up at him, cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted. Making her intention clear, she gave the belt a little, impatient tug.

He lifted her swiftly in one arm, looking around with urgency for a suitable surface. The tower loomed overhead; at its base, the densely packed stone sloped outwards to provide a sturdier foundation. It was not perfect and yet it would do: she agreed with an imploring glance.

Alistair pressed her up against the angled wall, his feet planted wide and his fingers closing possessive on her hip. He leaned in as she turned her head sideways; yielding neck and throat to his desirous lips. He kissed the pale skin beneath her ear; the kiss was not gentle and he found himself hoping that it would leave a mark. Fleetingly he wondered if this was how Maric had done it: taken his mother in some shadowed corner of the keep, rain wetting their hair and the distant, echoing footsteps of sentries.

Alistair thrust the unwelcome thought from his mind. As his mouth explored the untouched line of her throat he was gratified to hear her breath catch; the little staccato gasp followed by a sigh. He was simultaneously delighted and galvanised: he wanted more than whimpers, he wanted her writhing in open-mouthed ecstasy: her wails loud enough to summon guards.

He paused in his adoration of her throat, just long enough to adjust her hips against the sloping stone. To an onlooker; his slow, relishing thrusts and her quivering feet would suggest penetration. From a lesser distance, the layers of fabric between them became apparent: this was a feigned lovemaking, a rehearsal for the inevitable act. He ground himself into the yielding softness at the part of her thighs; she draped an arm above her head and sighed. This was not the first time he had made love to Flora's neck with his tongue. Alistair was learning her body one unexplored inch at a time; committing the places that made her shiver to memory. He sucked the skin below her ear fiercely enough to leave a tender pink smudge; and was rewarded with a breathless whimper.

His linen shirt was bundled in anticipation around her waist. His fingers stole beneath the buttons to caress the soft, white plain of her belly. There was no defined muscle beneath the flesh: Flora was not a fighter and it had been years since she had hauled a boat up the shingle. It was tempting to kneel and put lips to the unblemished skin, but Alistair had just discovered that she trembled when her earlobe was bitten.

Suitably distracted, he caressed her naked hip instead, tracing the slanting bone with a thumb. Immediately, he felt her fingers close around his wrist; gripping it with purpose. His fear that he might have overstepped some boundary disintegrated when she lifted his hand instead, the shirt lifting with it. Peering up at him through her eyelashes, Flora held his palm against her bare breast, pressing his fingers so that they curled around the soft swell of flesh.

"Touch me," she whispered, with shy urgency.

Her breast was a ripe pink apple in his palm; small and firm. To Alistair's later astonishment, he would feel no hesitancy in that crucial moment. Any amateur's awkwardness was driven out by a resolute Marician lust: passion had always run hot in the veins of Theirins. His thumb sought out the rigid dart of her nipple and circled it; his desirous mouth returned to her neck. He had to keep his lips distracted, lest they venture to the prize so recently won. He kissed her slow and tender below the earlobe while a covetous hand wandered over her breast: exploring the yielding flesh, the untouched skin, the stiff little nipple that betrayed her need.

One summer, as a boy, Alistair and some of the other stable lads had been overcome by a bold and daring recklessness. They had stolen into the winecellars under cover of darkness; sidling past the iron-bound barrels and stacks of cheap mead. Barely daring to breathe they crept into the farthest reaches of the cellar, where the oldest and finest vintages were kept in glass vessel so delicate that their shelves were lined in velvet. The boys had no idea what they were sampling - too fidgety by fear and adrenaline to read labels - but Alistair had been handed a bottle with a thick, plum-red contents. Unsure if he even really wanted to, he put his mouth to the open neck and took a clumsy gulp. Immediately, he felt the world swim around him; blurring into a mass of childish faces and barrels. The dizziness was accompanied by a decadent, hedonistic rush of blood to his skull. Strange, heady fruits mingled on his tongue: a rich blossoming of hues and flavours that he could not name. He knew in an instant that this wine was not meant for the likes of him: it was made to delight the gilded palette of a king.

Now, ten years later, he touched Flora's breast and was struck by the same opulent disorientation. He could almost taste the arl's prized vintage on his tongue: supple and seductive, dark red as a ruby.

I'm going to kiss her, he thought wildly to himself, inhaling the aroma of the past. Kiss her mouth. I'll exorcise the memory of Duncan.

Then, unbelievably, there came noises from the courtyard below: the clattering halt of horses' hooves and the impatient dismount of someone in a hurry. Their hidden balcony was not as isolated as it would appear: located only two dozen feet above the gatehouse. Alistair tried to ignore it, fingers still working determinedly at his belt buckle; Flora turned her head to the side in an effort to do the same. The interruption was mildly annoying but could be overlooked; true privacy was impossible in the open city of a castle, and he wanted her so badly -

"I've a message from Denerim! For the love of the Maker, where is the arl?"

The peculiar acoustics of a castle - steep walls and stone - directed the words from below onto the balcony as though launched with intent. A shroud of shadow fell over them: a reminder that they were not merely a young pair of - friends? Companions? - exploring their physical compatibility, but also the only surviving Wardens in Ferelden; pursued by enemies both human and monstrous. His eyes met hers and read them like the words of the oath they had both sworn: to a man who had been killed in defence of a nation that was not his own.

Alistair saw his sister-warden's face turn towards the courtyard below, and knew that the moment had passed. He felt an odd and vaguely bittersweet melancholy. On the one hand, they had been thwarted - again. On the other, it would have been far too reminiscent of how he himself had been conceived: a hurried, semi-private entanglement in a damp and unremarkable corner of Redcliffe Castle. Slowly, with immense regret, Alistair withdrew his hand from the inside of her shirt. The sadness struck with merciless swiftness: a pit scraped out in his belly.

"You deserve better than this," he said thickly, trying to convince himself that it was true. "Better than this, Flora. You deserve a - a bed, and walls, and - a ceiling. "

Flora did not look as though she felt she deserved better - she looked vaguely mutinous. Alistair did what perhaps he should have done a few minutes earlier: shrugged his arms from the exterior of his sleep tunic and draped it over Flora's shoulders to cover her. She clutched it together with a hand and frowned, the pale expanse of her forehead creasing. Herring girls cast off their virginity behind the rocks on coarse sand; they had no need of beds and ceilings .

"You're so beautiful," he said, both as an appeasement and a statement of raw fact. "The most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on. Maker's Breath. This is going to be an exercise in self-restraint."

"Do you often," she asked, peering at him through the shadows. "... Restrain yourself?"

Flora did not mean ' restrain yourself'. She meant the exact opposite, and they were both aware of it. Alistair gave a half-laugh, glancing swiftly at her before turning his eyes determinedly to the view of the lake.

"More than I should," he said, "but I'm only a man, Flora. I'm only human."

Flora smiled at him, pleased and curious. Leaning back against the stone, she bit at her small nail and watched her brother-warden pace back and forth in an effort to temper his arousal. She was also reassured by the fact that he had not descended into ruminating fury at the mention of Denerim, for she understood now that Denerim meant Mac Tir.

"Think of seagulls," she suggested, in an attempt to be helpful. "Or slugs. Slugs in buckets."

"Thanks," Alistair replied, dryly. "Slugs in buckets."

He returned to the balcony, willing his arousal to subside. Broad palms flat on the stone, his eyes meandered from the forest of lofty parapets to the lake below, serene and sprawling. A gaggle of fishing boats had set out on the water like a cluster of ducklings; their sails white smudges no larger than his fingernail. The sky to the east was stained with the plummy red of dawn, veins of colour creeping through the grey.

"I never realised how beautiful it was here," Alistair said, astonished. "How could it be that I never noticed before?"

Flora came to stand beside him at the parapet, her attention caught by the fleet of little boats. He saw her mouth move as she counted them, her eyes opaque as a mirror.

"It's good that they can go out," she said. "Like things are normal again. I wonder what the catch'll be like. Trout, probably. A lot of trout. Maybe pike."

As she spoke - mostly to herself - she scratched her nail idly into the cement between the stones. Alistair suddenly understood why the world seemed brighter, its colours bolder. He gazed at her and Flora felt the press of his stare. She smiled sideways, wistful; then tilted her chin towards the courtyard to the rear.

"Eh."

This was Herring-speak for, let's go.

The company gathered at one end of the great hall, now cleared of its ruins and wreckage. Dawn filtered in grey fingers through the high windows. The nearest hearth had been lit, but the rest stood as empty mouths: there was little point in lighting them for such low numbers. Wary servants crept around with flagons of ale and tankards, their eyes darting between those seated at the hastily-summoned table. They did not trust messengers: they seldom brought good news and often disturbed the peace. Respite had been brought to Redcliffe only last night; they were not ready to yield to chaos again so swiftly.

The long slab of oak was the sole survivor of the fight against the demon; it needed to be shored up at a corner with a stack of books. A collection of mismatched chairs - no benches remained - had been scavenged from neighbouring chambers. Most seated at the table had the hasty, crumpled appearance of an unexpected summons from slumber; erratically dressed and sleepy-eyed, fresh growth on the jaw or hair in uncombed disarray. The sole exception was the impeccable Leliana, who appeared to have been ready for several hours.

The bann eyed the bottom of his empty tankard and contemplated the wisdom of another before the sun had even fully risen. The occasion warranted it, and he raised his hand for a servant. His steward brought forward the jug and Teagan gave a grunt of thanks: Guerrins were notorious for their courtesy towards those who served them. Lifting the tankard, he eyed the man sitting at the end of the table over the rim: brow furrowed.

The messenger, hunger temporarily overriding etiquette, was devouring a platter of cheese and rye bread. Crumbs scattered around him; dogs snaked their way between knees, noses pressed to the tiles.

"My lord," he said, mouth full. "I- "

More crumbs fell and the arlessa winced. Isolde had not deigned to sit at the table; standing stiff as an iron rod several yards away. She wore an exquisite silk robe in blush pink; cut in the Orlesian style and wholly unsuitable for dawn excursions during a Fereldan winter.

"Finish it," the bann instructed through his tankard, the words echoing within the silver. "Whatever Mac Tir has to say can wait."

He glanced down at the table to where the pair of Warden-recruits were sitting. It hung unspoken in the air: that this man from the Capitol may be wielding more than a message from Mac Tir. Alistair and Flora, despite their junior rank, were still members of the Grey and bore prices on their heads. Everyone seated at the hall was armed, except for the young Wardens themselves: who appeared to have come to the hall from somewhere other than their chambers. Still, Alistair could break a man with his blacksmith's hands if required.

The messenger's eyes darted frequently towards them, though it may not have been for sinister reasons. They made a striking pair despite their damp dishevelment. The length of his leg and breadth of his shoulder made the chair on which he was seated seem crafted for a child, the bold, leonine features unmistakeable. She had her chin in her hand and appeared vaguely bored; though those who knew her were aware that this haughty indifference was the natural cast of her face. Despite the disdain, the girl drew the eye like a lodestone: her features touched by an otherworldly hand.

"Oh," Flora said in sudden remembrance, the words partially muffled by her hand. "Will you fix something tomorrow?"

Alistair matched her low tone, eyes still on the messenger. "Anything for the lady. What's broken?"

"A tiny man," Flora replied. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and she clarified: "One of Connor's toys. His arm's off."

"I see." Alistair spared her a swift, gentle glance before returning his scrutiny to the stranger. "Well, I think we can manage that. Can't promise I'll mend it as spectacularly as you."

The corner of Flora's mouth twitched.

Morrigan and Sten were nowhere to be seen but Wynne had answered the summons, taking the time to don a proper robe and comb her hair into a hasty bun. The senior mage sat beside Teagan, stirring her spoon in methodical circles. The herbal tea was pungent: skeins of rosemary and elderflower drifted down the table.

"I was told to give the message to the arl," said the man through his last mouthful of rye bread, uncertain. "Will he not come down?"

"No," replied Teagan tersely, watching him with a hawk's eye. "But you have his brother here, and the arlessa. Or is she not a worthy recipient for your words?"

The messenger spluttered, fingers clenching nervously around the tankard's handle.

"Of course not - I mean, of course she is - you are. I will… I will deliver the message now."

Instead of reaching in his pack or within the depths of his coat, he cleared his throat and paused a moment; transferring the words from mind to tongue. It was imperative that he recite the message without a flaw: men had been put to death for error in the distant past.

"Ah," murmured Leliana in an undertone, Alistair close enough to hear. "A quirk of Loghain's; sending his messages by word instead of on paper. He did as much in the last Orlo-Fereldan war."

An astute and admirable habit, said Flora's general in her ear, sudden enough to startle. If the messenger is killed by the foe on the road, the message is lost.

Nothing about Loghain is admirable, she thought back, feeling the hard muscle of Alistair's thigh tense.

He has northern blood. Does that not qualify as a benefit?

No. His dad is from SKINGLE. It don't count.

The messenger spoke, each word clearly enunciated; his rural cadence withheld for the purpose of recitation.

"Redcliffe. I heard that you were in ill humour. I pray that this message finds you recovered. If so, you will surely have heard of the tragedy at Ostagar. I grieve the loss of your nephew most heavily. His death plagues my mind. You will have also heard of course how the Grey Wardens led him to his death. Such a betrayal has not been seen within our borders since Orthor and Hephorus. Never the less, we must set aside mourning garb and attend to business. I know that the Empress is ready to press her border further to the east. We must be ready to defend against the chevaliers and commissaires of Orlais . If you are hale, come to Denerim. We are long overdue a talk. Maker be with you. Gwaren."

The aggrieved clatter of wood against stone made everyone jump. Leliana's hand flew to her knee, confirming suspicions that a blade lay beneath the demure lay sister robes. Alistair had thrust himself to his feet with such force that his chair now lay on its side several yards away. His face bore a luminous Marician anger.

AN: So it's taken over a hundred chapters for Alistair to cop a feel, hahahaha. This isn't slow burn, it's stationary, immobile burn! Oh well, lol. I wanted to convey the sense that strange times = strange relationship development. As in, he's now had his hands on her naked body (at least, the upper half) but he's not kissed her on the mouth and they'd still describe their relationship as 'friends'... maybe, friends with benefits? They can't define it, I can't define it... let's move on, haha.

I love Flora's resting bitch face :D the dissonance between her exterior and interior is fun to write

As always, headcanon a plenty :P Loghain's father lived in Oswin, but I like the idea that he was originally from Skingle (Herring's rival/arch nemesis neighbouring village) and that's why Flora doesn't like him, haha