The faces slid to the side as though they had been brushed away; no longer accusatory, but wreathed in astonishment. The crowd parted before Flora as she made her way with a contemplative purpose towards the bann. At no point - even when she was surrounded, fury washing over her from all directions - had she contemplated using her shield. She heard the word Loghain in her wake, sharp as a barb. The anger of Lothering's survivors now followed a different course: directed between the lean, wasted span of the teyrn's shoulders.

Still - despite this apparent success - Flora was irritated with herself as she walked away. Her own blunt promise echoed in a sly, sidelong taunt: the last word that the Archdemon hears will be Lothering.

WHY did I say that? she thought, perturbed and a little uneasy. I'm not going to be next to the Archdemon when it dies. I won't be anywhere near it.

Well, I suppose I could… run up and say 'Lothering' in its ear when it's dying.

When someone else has finished killing it.

There came a laden sigh. She could feel it pressing down on her shoulder like the lead weights used by merchants to calculate their wares. The sigh was not exhaled from any earthly mouth, and was inaudible to all but herself.

Who? demanded her general, almost weary. Who else?

It ain't my job. Menders don't kill monsters.

You are a Grey Warden, are you not? One of a scant few left within these borders. The purpose of the Order is to battle the Blight. To slay the Darkspawn commander.

I just joined the Wardens to escape the Circle.

Bah! You did not 'join' the Wardens. You were conscripted. You had no choice.

Oh.

Flora summoned the memory of Duncan's face: alight with keen and glittering purpose, eyes boring through the miasma of her shield. He told her later, in the soft and obfuscating cloak of twilight, that he wanted her from the moment he saw her

Wanted me to mend him, he meant. His body and mind were so rotten they were falling apart -

Flora had always ascribed some higher purpose to her liberation by Duncan: one that was not driven by lust, or at least not solely because of it. She maintained this belief even when desire began to wear through the tarnished veneer of professionalism.

Still, this was neither the time or place for brooding over a dead man's motives. Flora shoved aside the memory of their late commander as though it were something tangible; like he had stumbled drunkenly into her path, forcing her to elbow him away.

Ridiculous adolescent infatuation - her general was still ruminating bitterly to itself - should have bestowed our power on the brother instead.

Good luck with that.

Flora's brother had drowned before she was born. His remains, part devoured, had been spat up on the gravel like an indigestible bit of sinew.

Ha. You wait.

This time, a sigh of reproach from Compassion accompanied her general's acerbic retort. Oddly, it did not seem to be directed at Flora. The entire exchange took place within her skull in a matter of moments. Her spirits seemed to exist beyond the mundane passage of time. They could - and often did - hold a lengthy conversation, over the span of a heartbeat. Flora, as with most of her magic, did not understand how this could be possible. Still, she did not need to comprehend it to participate in it.

The above conversation had transpired during the twelve steps between the clustered refugees and the gatehouse. In the same span of time, Teagan angled a hiss into Leliana's ear. The bann's words emerged swift and keen, each one a tiny dart.

"That's the bloodline that held the wild north for a thousand years ," he said, oddly excited. "I would wager this arling on it."

Leliana inclined her head in a silent confirmation. The younger Guerrin shifted his weight from one foot to another. He was eager to enquire further - how did this inconsequential bard know so much? - but Flora had come within earshot. The lovely face was otherworldly and terrifying: a marble Andraste in the form of Vengeance . In reality Flora was conversing with her spirits. Teagan had interpreted her stupid, gormless stare as something more potent.

The bann, aware that he lacked the finesse of his brother, decided to remove himself before he could plow unprepared into a clumsy interrogation. Flora's parentage would have to wait; there were more immediate matters to attend to.

He stride forward to the group of newly mended refugees. Most of them were still mired in blinking stupor: as though Flora's blunt promises had clubbed them around the head.

"My seneschal can find you work here," he said, directing his words to a man who still bore the trappings of authority. "If you want it. Redcliffe has had its own troubles recently and there are repairs to be made."

Some of Lothering's survivors looked mildly interested in the prospect, others still bore a weariness that pressed down on their heads and shoulders. It was unimaginable that they were now forced to establish a new life elsewhere: that their world had come apart so catastrophically within the span of hours.

While the bann and his steward made arrangements, Flora came to a rather hesitant halt before Wynne and Leliana. The two women had smoothly segued their conversation onto a less revelatory course: they were now discussing the location of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, as proposed by various sources.

"Genitivi's theory defies recent speculation that the ruins are beyond the border."

"An idea favoured by Orlesian scholars, naturally," murmured Wynne, with a nod to the bard's native tongue. "Although if it did lie on the westward flank of the Frostbacks, why have they not located it? Val Royeaux has the resources to fund a thousand expeditions."

"Because it is not on that side of the mountains," continued Leliana, eyes burning like Chantry candles. "Why should it be in the mountains at all? The logistics behind it - why, it's a question of practicality. Did not the Marches scholar, Brother Cholor Remus, suggest that it made more sense for the Temple to be constructed near civilisation?"

"I don't know if you could call Haven civilisation," murmured the senior instructor, who had heard unsavoury rumours. "Still, what else would you expect in a town that gets trampled each time the Orlesians and Fereldans remember that they loathe each other? Present company excluded. I haven't read the work of Cholor Remus - he tends too much towards the fanatical."

"Oh, but you must." Leliana's eyes shone brighter. "His writings are exquisitely crafted. A beacon of faith and piety."

Wynne smiled and did not mention that Brother Remus had once called for a genocide of all those who suffered the heretical affliction of magic.

Flora could contribute nothing to this conversation. She stood beside them, content to stare into space, mouth slightly open.

"New hair?"

This remark came from Leliana. The bard was gazing at Flora's ponytail, streaming from the crown of her skull like a banner. It was a change from the dishevelled braid or the ridiculous, lopsided bundle that worked its way down past her ear.

"This is my war hair," said Flora, turning her pale eyes on Leliana.

"War hair?"

"Mm."

Not wanting to lower the conversation, she decided to go and find someone more on her intellectual level. The eyes of the refugees followed in her wake: they prickled like the stares of chased prey in the bush. Flora was not sure why they were still watching her when she had fulfilled her obligation to them: they were mended in body, if not in mind. Such was beyond her capability to fix; she had learnt from a young age not to tamper with the workings of the gelatinous, jellyfish mass within the skull.

She passed within the open mouth of the archway with the gatehouse perched overhead. A trellis of ivy hung lopsided from one wall like a patchwork blanket partially pulled down. The morning was a dull one - no surprise, given the country and season - and a swell of dark cloud hung menacingly above the castle. Although it was not raining, the sagging collar of Flora's shirt was stuck to her skin.

A boy, grubby and barefoot, was playing with a flock of chickens near a well. He waved a stick at them and frowned when they made no reaction. He did not acknowledge Flora as she passed. He had hay in his nest of blond hair, and she wondered if he worked in the stables like Alistair had done. She doubted that Alistair would ever have tormented chickens: he treated animals as civilly as anyone else.

As she had done the previous night - more calmly now that she was not in the sweaty aftermath of a nightmare - Flora followed the invisible skein that connected her to her brother-warden. She was grateful for this unseen compass; the interior of Redcliffe Castle was a maze of courtyards and archways, some more ramshackle than others.

A fragment of white below caught her eye. Flora bent down to pull a strap of cream cloth from beneath the toe of her boot. Looking forward - there was no need to shield eyes from the sun's anemic effort - she saw the source. A tattered banner had once hung from a curtain wall, boasting the white keep and red mound of the Guerrin seat. Now it lay folded in pleats on the cobblestones, twisted from the descent and with one corner ripped to shreds.

Flags meant little to Flora. Herring certainly didn't possess one - it hadn't possessed a name until the people labelled it after their most plentiful harvest - and the Chantry sun meant less than nothing. Did Ferelden have a flag? She had no idea.

Still, Flora thought that Redcliffe's banner ought not remain crumpled on the ground, victim of the havoc caused by the maleficar. Picking it up, she brushed off the grit and a stray chicken feather; folding the flag into three parts and setting it on a nearby barrel.

Alistair was sitting on a stone bench near a doorway, in a corner of the courtyard that was made smaller by his presence. The shrinking of the environment was a natural consequence of the size of his frame: everything around him seemed built for the proportions of children. His head was bent and his attention focused on something in his lap. A tiny pile of shaved wood lay beside his boot.

He looked up as she came closer, and Flora saw in his eye that he had not sensed her approach. The taint ran elusive within her body, a single dark thread woven into a tapestry. He attempted a smile, face wan beneath the olive. A clutter of borrowed tools lay beside him on the bench. The smile curved his mouth but did not reach his eyes.

Connor's wounded knight rested on one thigh, remarkably serene given the severity of his injury. The tiny arm, no longer than Flora's smallest finger, sat within Alistair's palm. He had filed down the splintered stump and carved a new notch within the arm; now, he was waiting for the resin to thicken so he could perform the vital reattachment. Recognising that he could do nothing to help the survivors of Lothering, Alistair had taken himself off to a distant corner with a problem that he could solve at that moment. Concentrating on the toy knight had diluted the swell of anger, and had distracted him somewhat from his own impotence. It was not a perfect solution, but it was better than losing his temper at the empty air where Loghain mac Tir ought to be.

Flora went to sit beside him, then caught a half-glimpse of herself in a nearby channel of water, a ghost of her features cast on the dark stone. The channel was intended to collect rainwater and siphon it away: it now served equal purpose as a mirror. She had almost forgotten that she was covered in the blood and charred skin of the wounded. When she touched her fingers to her chin, they came away slick.

Crouching like a frog on the cobbles, Flora cupped her palms in the drainpipe. She splashed her face until the water ran red down her wrists, rubbing the excess away with her sleeves. The girl that Alistair had so recently held in his arms emerged from the sloughed-off carnage. She looked more human now: her eyelashes stuck together in damp clumps and her nose ruddy from the wind. A breeze had sprung up, splitting the stagnant air and dispersing the mist from the battlements.

"You've been mendin'," she observed, easing herself to her feet before him.

"What? Oh."

The resin had thickened. Alistair pressed the arm of the knight back into its hollow socket, using the broad ball of his thumb to hold it in place. He kept a delicate force on the limb for a count of ten, then released. The knight gazed up at him with beady dotted eyes, restored to wholeness once again. It did not look grateful for its enforced recovery: it looked oddly resentful.

"Well, there's not much else I can do at the moment," he continued, once the count was finished and the knight mended. The words emerged soft and bitter, angled to the cobbles instead of to her. He could see the pattern of her vein on the inside of Flora's wrist. It still held a faint, gilded gleam; as though an artist had dipped his brush in old gold and traced the path of the vessel along the skin.

"I told them that Loghain would beg for their forgiveness on his knees."

Her comment was like a blade withdrawn a single foreboding inch from its sheath: a sharp and deadly promise uttered in entirely nonchalant tones. Alistair felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise; the breath stopped on his throat. The profile of her face could have been incised with the same blade: the high brow, the long, straight nose and the sloping cheekbone like a flourish of a pen. It was a profile made to be engraved on the flat front of a coin. Her irises were so pale that they seemed to leech colour from her surroundings.

Having said this, Flora took a seat on the bench beside him. She then realised that she had sat in a puddle of dawn rain collected on the stone's uneven surface. Standing up, she looked over her shoulder to peer at the damp seat of her trousers, then sat several inches to the left of the puddle, her thigh pressed in casual intimacy against his.

Alistair felt a thrill of simultaneous excitement and dread pass through him. He felt as he had done on the balcony in the incoherent hour before dawn. It was as though he had been flung up into the air by something vast; spiralling head over heels, limbs flailing, small and impotent as Connor's knight. The realisation that he had fallen in love with his sister-warden was accompanied by an immediate barrage of resistance from the part of his mind devoted to reason. The loudest protests reminded him that the paint on their friendship was still wet; that she spoke of Duncan as though the man was alive; that he had caressed her intimately under cover of darkness, but had not yet kissed her on the mouth. The nature of their relationship changed according to the height of the sun. Increasingly bold, he would take her in his arms beneath moonlight or by the wavering efforts of a candle: at dawn, a shy and hesitant formality was restored.

The oblivious Flora was biting the fresh growth of her nails and staring ahead mindlessly. To distract himself, Alistair nodded towards the wall that faced them. It was constructed in a notably different style to its nondescript grey neighbours: limestone was layered with basalt in a latticed pattern.

"That's the arl's Exalted Age rampart," he said, mind still racing, "constructed no less than thirty years ago."

Eamon Guerrin liked his history, and was proud of displaying the features of Redcliffe Castle that harkened back to Ferelden's glory days. The fact that few of these elements were authentic was of little importance: to the arl, something built in the style of the Exalted Age was equally worthy to any genuine object, and would be shown off with the same measure of pride.

"How long ago was the Exalted Age?" she asked through the remnants of her fingernail.

"Three - no, four hundred years ago. Does that sound right to you?"

Flora wondered if Alistair had forgotten how ignorant his sister-warden was. She had never bothered with any numbers beyond twelve, though the opportunity to learn them had been offered to her several times at the Circle.

"Don't know what year it is now," she said, resisting the urge to suggest that he join Wynne and Leliana if he wanted an intellectual exchange. "Don't even know what year I was born in."

"More's the pity," Alistair said, stifling a sigh. "I'd sleep a little easier if you did."

"I'm old enough," came the reproachful response, accompanied by a sidelong glance. "I could be as old as the First Enchanter. Preserved by my magic. Like a mackerel in brine."

This coaxed a smile from him. "A mackerel, eh?"

"Mm. Pickled."

He laughed, realising with a pang that she had coaxed humour from him once again, despite lacking any sense of it herself.

"Well, I can tell you what year we're living in, at least. It's 9:29 - that is, the twenty-ninth year of the Dragon Age."

Alistair hoped that Flora was not going to ask him how the Dragon Age had been given its name. He assumed that it had something to do with dragons , but such creatures had been extinct for centuries. Perhaps it had been a case of mistaken identity - a large bird and too much dwarven ale, perhaps? The commander of the Darkspawn had taken on the form of a dragon, true - but it was not a true dragon; it was an archdemon that had clad itself in scales and leathery wings. Besides, as far as he knew, the chronicler who had named the age three decades prior to the Blight did not have the gift of prophesy.

"I like the wall," intoned Flora instead, solemn as a judge. "It looks sturdy."

An: I wanted to include more of these contrasting moments in this chapter: Flora, striding boldly away from the villagers after making her declarations of revenge, simultaneously thinking: wtf, why did I say I'd do that? I'm not doing that! Someone ELSE will be doing the Archdemon killing, not me. WHO though, Flo? WHO?

A similar pattern occurs after she repeats her promise to Alistair: the bold, commanding statement, reminiscent of great leaders and Alamarri chieftains, and then - oops, looks like I sat in a puddle, better check how wet my trousers are.

So in the original story Alistair only realises that he's in love with Flora when they're in Orzammar. I brought it forward because I think I've established their relationship more solidly in this version. Also, I like messing with poor Alistair's mind: such a revelation only makes things messier :P