Piles of darkspawn bodies formed shadowy lumps from one end to the other of the dwarven hall. Each step Solona took was interrupted by the cooling mass of a corpse, or the sickening squish of body parts. The battle had been intense, and ended as abruptly as it began. While she waited for her heart to slow and her body to uncoil, she recalled that she hadn't had to had to issue a single directive to the group. Even the dwarf woman, on only her second day following them around, had quickly found her niche. Solona had forgotten she was even there, her being the single creature within the depths not bearing the taint. But Sigrun always popped back into sight when the group moved forward together, apparating uninjured from within the shadows.
The group reconvened with clumsy strides, dodging corpses as they stumbled toward the soft glow of Solona's staffhead. During battle, vision seemed altogether superfluous, since the gnarled forms of spawn were more clearly outlined in her mind than they were in sight. But now the spawn no longer registered, providing only obstacles at her feet. Solona tiptoed through the carnage with her mind replaying the battle, unsure whether it was their increased familiarity with each other to credit for their fast victory, or if it was just the two extra fighters.
Efficiency and familiarity certainly played a part, she decided. She'd gained an ear for the sound of an arrow piercing flesh, a subtle wet thud preceding a heavier fall. Nathaniel seemed to sense which spawn she angled for herself, focusing on any who were approaching, and buying her time for her kill. She wanted to be annoyed by his assistance, but there was no denying that it had helped tremendously. There were few things more irritating than having a spell interrupted by an unexpected blow from behind.
"We're not going to reach topside before morning," Sigrun observed. "We should make camp."
"You're sure there are no more darkspawn?" Anders asked.
"I'd been tracking that horde for days before you folks came along; I'm certain that's the last of them." Sigrun nodded toward a hallway to the distant right. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be able to sense them or whatever? You're the Grey Wardens."
"Yes but you live here. Don't you know all their secret passages and little hidey holes? Places they sneak off to for some alone time to think about… darkspawn things." Anders coughed and looked up thoughtfully. After a second he took an excited breath. "Ooh, Sigrun, do darkspawn have sex? I mean blech, but probably they don't mind all the rotting flesh and stuff. Oh what wonderful meat flaps you have, sir Genlock. Your internal organs are so black and slimy! Take me, you marvelous specimen!"
Anders laughed at himself. Oghren groaned.
"You would know that, wouldn't you? Sigrun? Ever stumbled upon two darkspawn getting their jollies?"
"No. Gross." Sigrun gave Anders a look of such disgust that Solona had to stifle a laugh.
"I do know many of the passages here," she continued.. "That doesn't mean I spiritually commune with the darkspawn, or know about their proclivities."
"Well you don't commune with them yet," Anders added cheerfully. "Just you wait, you're in for a treat."
"Yes, I am so excited to get a taste of that delicious, black darkspawn juice," Sigrun said in perfect deadpan. "Anyway, you'd know better than I would if they had sex. I thought they were just killing machines, but apparently there are ones that talk now, so who knows." Sigrun shrugged. "Concentrate your Warden powers or whatever, uh, tall man—"
"—Anders."
"Sorry. Anders. Do your Warden powers ever tell you about any two of them that are particularly close? Maybe a little bit of up and down motion? Gyrating hips? Heads thrown back in ecstasy?"
Anders laughed heartily. "Well I'm certainly going to start paying more attention now, aren't I!?"
Solona wandered ahead, her attention absorbed in the chant she was whispering to invite a wisp in from the Fade. She directed herself toward the passage that Sigrun had pointed to, feeling only emptiness ahead. Her left eardrum popped as the wisp slipped through the Veil beside Solona's head, bringing with it a gentle purple glow, almost the same hue still pulsing within the head of her staff. The little ball of light flitted ahead, casting a shine on the cave's burnished stone. Every few paces a carved archway or image protruded from the rock.
"Feeling at home Oghren?" Came Nathaniel's voice from far behind. Solona tried to block out awareness of it, but his soft tones stood out over their echoing footsteps.
"At home, here? Not a chance. This place stinks like darkspawn ass."
"I think this is the first time we've been down this deep together. Does it feel different to you? Do you hear the stones singing?"
Oghren huffed. "All I hear is my growling stomach and you blathering on. We gonna stop and eat or what? I'm running out of fuel over here."
"There's a good spot about a ten minute walk ahead," answered Sigrun. "Unless you like sleeping next to a giant pile of decaying corpses."
"Well… no."
Within minutes of Sigrun declaring the spot, Nathaniel had a fire blazing. Solona dropped down in a sheltered alcove nearby, but far enough from the light that she could hide her face. She pressed at her brow with her fingertips and took a deep, steadying breath. The battle of the horde had drained her last drop of energy, which only added to the cold numbness permeating down into her guts. It was as though ice water ran through her veins, and had been since they'd left the Keep. She'd wondered how much of it was still her reaction to Nathaniel, some self-protective measure to allow them to travel together without drowning in disappointment. Already she was weary of taking special measures to avoid him, but she didn't know what else to do. His rejection had coalesced into an acid ball in her gut and sat there unchanged, day in day out. She'd hardly let her eyes land on him a single time during this trip. Blocking out his voice was more difficult.
"I've watched you fight, Sigrun," he began as he poked at the fire with a stick. "The Legion of the Dead trains its people well."
"Oh they taught me a few tricks, but I was fighting long before then." Sigrun's voice moved as she spoke, but her steps remained deadly quiet.
"Oh. You fought in Orzammar's army?" His interest sounded genuinegeniune. Solona picked a chunk of slime from her hair, and let her head roll back to rest on the stone. She felt as though she could sleep for days.
"Fighting for scraps of food. For a place to sleep. For survival."
"Oh." Nathaniel sounded surprised. "I… I didn't mean…"
"It's alright," she said. "You're a noble."
There was a long pause. Solona didn't want to listen. She could practically see Nathaniel's face as he recoiled from the comment. She knew how little he identified with the haughty, privileged aristocrats that the title insinuated.
"Sigrun," he began. Solona was unsurprised at his offended tone. Here is where he tells her how difficult his life was too.
"I understand how difficult surviving poverty can be. When I came back from the Free Marches, I had nothing. No money, no family. Nothing."
Solona snorted, but was glad they couldn't hear her.
"I'm sorry." Sigrun's apology sounded genuine. "I didn't know that."
"You have my respect for surviving… what you did," added Nathaniel.
Sigrun laughs. "I didn't survive. Legion of the Dead, remember?"
"Oh," he paused. "You don't think you're actually dead, do you?"
"Me? Not actually dead, no. Symbolically dead perhaps."
"And what is the difference?"
"Several pints of blood."
Another snort escaped Solona's throat. Weariness infected her bones. Every exposed piece of skin was coated with ichor and her robe heavy with grime. She wasn't sure how she was going to tolerate another day or two coated in such filth.
In another breath she was on her feet, striding toward the fire. Firelight glistened off each set of eyes that rose to meet her. Ignoring Nathaniel, Solona addressed Sigrun.
"Is there water in this area?" Solona asked. Sigrun nodded, and pointed toward the darkness of her to right.
"Follow that pathway about ten meters and take a left," she said.
The water was easy to locate once she rounded the corner. The trickle of the running stream called her toward it, and with a sigh Solona began unbuttoning her robe. The light of her wisp revealed swirls of oil on the pool's surface, but bathing in this would still be better than wearing a thick layer of grime. Solona worked quickly, splashing her face and chest, scrubbing at her nails and arms with a soaked cloth. Time seemed to slow as she braced herself against the intensity of the cold.
Once her body was free of sludge, she turned to her robe, vigorously rubbing at the worst stains and picking off unidentifiable chunks. She worked as quickly as her quivering hands would let her, and eventually gave up, throwing the dampened garment over her head and tugging it back into place. Her teeth chattered as she sprinted through the darkness, the purple wisp trailing close behind.
The only open spot beside the fire was next to Nathaniel, so she sank into it, pushing her body up to the warmth of the fire. She glanced out the corner of her eye, taking in his long nose and pale skin. His face was a neutral mask, devoid of any trace of emotion. Solona longed for how he used to look at her, his eyes lit up with some internal fire. As quickly as that longing hit, Solona stamped it down. It was so easy to remind herself of the things he'd said that night that she went to him. Those words still played clearly in the back of her mind. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thorn of rejection from the center of her chest.
Nathaniel passed her a skewer, on which sizzled a fragrant length of rabbit. She accepted it quietly and took a deep bite. Its savory richness teased a moan from her throat, and her hunger made itself known in a furious wave. The pit of her stomach felt bottomless, aching with raw emptiness. Her teeth tore every last scrap of meat from the bones, and then she cracked the bones to suck out the marrow. The group grew quiet as everyone joined her in feasting.
Solona lost count of how many chambers they'd looted. Everyone's packs hung low on their backs, and Anders's jangled with every step. At times the silence within the dark tunnels felt pressurized and smothering, heavy with the party's unspoken thoughts. As their time in the Deep Roads had worn on, conversation dwindled. Despite occasional bursts of chatter from Anders or Sigrun, the unchanging darkness seemed to have seeped into the bones of each of them.
Solona glanced from face to face, inspecting their smudged cheeks and the hollows below their eyes, grown gaunt with the endless days in the Deep Roads. Velanna, who'd spoken only to complain over the last several days, had begun holding her tongue after receiving sharp retorts from nearly everyone. But Solona couldn't blame her. Their time in the Deep Roads was miserable. It felt like they'd been down there for months. The best they'd been able to calculate was that they'd been down for nine days or so, but there was no way to be sure. The complete lack of natural light rendered time nothing more than an illusion. With no dawn or dusk to define waking time from time for slumber, they'd developed their own rhythms based on their bodily needs. Strangely, this had come to include two shorter periods of sleep instead of the one long, night of rest such as was the norm up above. Even Oghren seemed to have grown twitchy, complaining that at least in Orzammar there'd been cycles of artificial light to help keep count of the days.
"This should be the last camp," Sigrun announced as Nathaniel magicked a campfire out of almost nothing. Even without access to wood, he still managed to find things that would burn. She continued, "we should be close to topside by end of the day tomorrow."
Anders sighed. "So the last underground camp. There'll still be the walk back to the Keep."
"But at least we'll have access to game again," Nathaniel added. "These potatoes have shriveled down to the size of berries, and after this meal, pretty much all our food will be gone."
"Do you always cut it so close with your resources?" Sigrun asked, her dark eyes landing on Solona. The woman moved noiselessly toward Solona and dropped into a squat at her side.
Solona shook her head. "It's rare that we're ever caught in a place that Nathaniel can't hunt for us."
"Yep," Anders added, with an appreciative twinkle in his eye. "Normally we eat like royalty, thanks to our strapping rogue over here."
Oghren grunted out a laugh. "So now you two are butt-buddies, huh?"
Anders cocked his head, saying nothing.
An awkward silence reigned. Sigrun looked expectantly from face to face. Solona kept her eyes down, internalizing the deep road's silence on a cellular level.
"Anyone want to fill the newcomer in?" Sigrun asked.
Nathaniel and Anders spoke simultaneously.
"It's not important—"
"I'm over it. We're over it, right?"
Nathaniel shifted uncomfortably beside Solona, snagging her attention.
"Well now I'm even more curious." Sigrun dropped from her squat into a full seat, and settled herself into a comfortable position.
Oghren groaned. "Sparklefingers and Howe both had designs on the boss and it came to blows."
Sigrun's head turned sharply to Solona, a look of surprise brightening her face.
"That's not exactly accurate," Nathaniel interjected.
"Well that explains why you rarely speak," Signrun said to Solona. "Don't get me wrong, the whole taciturn thing works for you. It's mysterious. Can't be comfortable for you all to be down here together, though."
"No," Nathaniel said, his voice rising. "No, no, see, Anders lied, with the intention of provoking me."
"And it worked, clearly," Sigrun snorted.
Anders held his hands up in a shrug. "What can I say. I was hurt that Solona liked him more than me. I still think the three of us—"
"Absolutely not, and that's no excuse for trying to ruin—" Nathaniel snarled.
"—it could have been a good time!" Anders laughed.
"You were trying to hurt us, Anders, hurt her!"
"You're one to talk about hurting her, aren't you Nate?" Anders' voice turned icy and sharp. "Why pretend like you still give a shit when you've made it clear to all of us that you don't?"
"Of course I did. I do."
Anders snorted. "That's some bullshit. But then, if icing someone out is how you show you care, then she's better off without you."
Nathaniel stood abruptly, his footsteps echoing off into a side passage.
As abruptly as the conversation began, it was over.
"Well, that didn't go well," remarked Sigrun.
Another long moment passed, the frigid air still and damp. Solona shivered slightly, but made no motion to warm herself against the fire. Sigrun's gaze traveled heavily over Solona's skin.
"I hate it when people talk about me like I'm not sitting right there," Sigrun said gently. Solona lifted her eyes to meet Sigrun's, but no words came. Solona felt as empty and cold as the Deep Roads themselves.
"It doesn't really matter, does it?" Solona asked quietly. "My job is to rebuild the Wardens, kill some darkspawn and help the people of Amaranthine. This is all just…" Solona waved her hand toward the fire. "…background noise."
"Is it?" Sigrun asked. The question, simple as it was, cut deep into Solona's heart. Her own words repeated in her ears, sounding as hollow as they'd felt coming out of her mouth. They were easy things to say, but less easy to believe.
Solona reached for her canteen of water, only to discover her fingers trembling too violently to twist the cap off. The trembling seemed to grow, snaking from her hands up into her arms, rattling down her back. Deep in her belly, the constant ache there stirred, jostled to life by the quaking of her body. Solona sat up straight and gulped some air. She shifted in her seat, elongating her body enough to contain the great pain inside her, pain that seemed to be growing with every breath. Forgetting for a moment that Sigrun, Oghren and Anders were right there, she squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed. She shook her head, and cleared her throat, trying to find a feeling of normalcy somewhere within her. When the ache swelled to constrict her chest, her gulping breath emerged as a sob.
"Sol?" Anders asked, the concern evident in his voice. Solona tried to stand, thinking a walk around the fire might help her body to calm down. Her knees shook, her feet sore with days-old blisters that had calloused over and then blistered again. The cold was like a living thing, coiling around her and reaching into her clothes to settle in a layer against her skin. She gave up her attempt to stand and landed hard back onto the rocky ground. It was only when she dropped her head into her hands that she realized she was crying. Tears streamed in hot rivers down her face; only her own sobs registered in her ears.
Until Anders spoke again, closer this time. On Solona's other side, Sigrun.
"I'm sorry," Sigrun said. "I shouldn't have asked. It wasn't my business."
"Sol," Anders said again. His hair brushed her cheek as he gently rested his head on her shoulder. Hands patted her back, though she could hardly feel them through the trembling racking her body. Even Velanna crooned a few quiet words of comfort. The aching inside Solona seemed to have joined with the cold, pressing itself against her from all sides, inside and out. She didn't even know for sure what she was crying for.
For herself, for Alistair, for Nathaniel. For the feelings she'd fought, and then embraced, only to be turned away. Iced out Anders had said. But Nathaniel hadn't been cruel to her since. His face occasionally wore the same look of concern that she saw there before. No, Nathaniel was, if anything, a small component of a much larger mosaic of emptiness and pain.
Solona let herself cry. It wasn't for the first time, but trying to dam the tears felt impossible, like putting up a wood fence to stop an avalanche. Unable to care that she was in full view of her party, she let the waves come.
She was the only one left awake when Nathaniel returned. His fire had been out for some time, and there was only a small purple wisp providing any light. In her mind, Solona could see him clearly, his tall, regal stature and his careful footfalls. In the absence of a fire, Sigrun, Velanna, Oghren and the rest of them lay close enough to share body heat, but it had taken long minutes of settling into each other's nooks before the shivers stopped, and breathing deepened enough to indicate sleep. Nathaniel lay down beside Oghren, though Solona could feel his thoughts racing. She fell into sleep long before he did.
When they woke, there was a new lightness in the air, at least around everyone but Nathaniel. Solona rose and gave the day's orders with a weight relieved from her shoulders. A quiet understanding seemed to vibrate around them all, a softness to their words sourced from an unexpected intimacy. With Sigrun especially, but also with Anders and even Velanna. Whatever beginning of a bond existed between them before, it felt strengthened, and Solona felt no shame at the memory of her vulnerability. A storm had come over her, completely out of her control, and its rains had cleansed her somewhere deep.
When they finally reached topside, the sky was orange and purple.
"Ugh, I can't wait to sleep," groaned Sigrun. "Can we just set up camp right here? There's got to be rabbits and stuff in those woods, right?" Sigrun asked."How long would it take you to catch us dinner? I can't wait to sleep."
Nathaniel wheeled around on his heel, squinting at the horizon. Finally, he pointed to the sun. "That's east," he said. "This isn't sunset. It's dawn."
"Dawn!?" Anders repeated angrily. "What in the bloody hell? We just walked all day and now it's morning again?"
For a moment, the whole group's mood soured. Nathaniel kicked at something, and Velanna's scowl deepened into something close to a raging disgust.
Out of nowhere, Solona laughed. She couldn't help it. A giggle bubbled up from a deep spot in her chest, attracting everyone's immediate attention. Sigrun locked eyes with Solona, a spark of humor rising immediately in their depths, which served to make Solona's laughter come harder and faster. It was contagious; a feedback cycle of laughter that saw their giggles escalating simultaneously into an uproar. Solona let her laughter come.
"We just walked all day, and it's already morning again," she repeated through wheezes. She couldn't remember finding anything funnier in her life.
Anders began to laugh too, even as he stomped at the ground like he was trying to punish it. Sigrun's laughter was a thing of beauty, throaty and unrestrained. The sound of it fed directly into Solona's, until her belly ached from the strain.
After a week and half of darkness, the sun seemed aggressive in its brightness. Solona squinted against the growing light, which stabbed at her brain through her eyes. She turned to face the fireball peeking up from the horizon, and resisted wincing away from it. "Fuck you, sun!" Solona yelled. "Go away!" Anders whooped and yelled his own stream of curses, before throwing his staff like a spear. It ricocheted off a tree and landed with a thump on some fallen leaves.
Solona let her knees give as she unslung her pack and dropped it off to the side. The layer of dead leaves provided a cushion softer than any surface she'd laid on their entire time in the Deep Roads. Overhead, the white wisps of clouds swirled lazily. Birdsong trilled from the nearby trees. When her laughter quieted and her breathing slowed, she finally smelled the rich scents of the land, so much different than the dankness of the Deep Roads.
A body fell to the ground beside her, and she knew without looking that it was Nathaniel. Nearby she felt Anders, Velanna and Sigrun, all splayed out over the earth, their bodies soaking up the sun's rays.
An autumn chill remained in the air, but it was nothing compared to the profound cold of the Deep Roads.
"Okay, that feels nice," Sigrun sighed.
"Yeah," sighed Solona. As the sun climbed higher, Solona's exhausted limbs warmed, sucking life from the heat and light around her. One by one, the group stood, hoisting their packs onto their back, the gaunt lines of their faces replaced with a healthy flush.
Emerging from the Deep Roads and into the break of a new