oOo
Most mornings I woke just before sunrise. Some habits just couldn't be broken, even if nobody else roused for at least an hour and I was always left itching for something to do. Most days I would train, if there was nearby water I would bathe, and if all else failed, I would check over my equipment.
Today, though, I felt like relaxing in my tent. We had just managed to acquire one of the key allies in the treaties, and the fact that Elissa and I were actually succeeding was something I could scarcely believe.
We had marked the Brecilian Forests as our first destination, because after peering at our only slightly inaccurate map of Ferelden and marking how far the darkspawn had come, we'd agreed that the Dalish were those most in danger of being overrun before we could get to them. They would also probably need the most organisation.
And now we had found the Dalish elves; offered to help them; met werewolves, bears and a talking tree whilst we battled through a forest; found our way through a veritable labyrinth; and had just managed to make Zathrain release the werewolves from their curse, despite the cost of his own life and despite how we had actually just been hacking at him with our weapons.
Elissa was better with words than she was with her swords, and that was saying something.
Also, werewolves were quite real and not just a story told to encourage misbegotten little children like myself to stay in bed at night.
Last night we had returned to camp thoroughly exhausted but decidedly pleased at how much we had completed. I had been in a good mood because, despite my doubts, Elissa and I made a good team. We had already planned out a general route to follow and we seemed to nearly always be in agreement – I wouldn't deny that, as per Morrigan's scathing comments, Elissa was more the leader than I was. She was good at handling people, and she had naturally gravitated into a position of authority. Frankly, I was glad for it. Leading was something I still dreaded, ever since that time Samson had tasked me with organising that blasted training expedition. I still wasn't sure what had happened to my pants.
The more I got to know Elissa – uncovered what was behind the mask – the more grateful I was to have her as a comrade. Yesterday I had even uncovered the first concrete traces of a sense of humour. We had been taking a breather after getting rid of a troublesome little drake whilst Leliana and Morrigan (because they had hung back while we tired ourselves out banging our swords against the monster's scales) searched around for useful items amongst the gathered hoard.
"Why have you remained a Templar if you hate the Chantry?"
I hadn't expected that one, even though my training before joining the Order had already been discussed at some point or another. Elissa just wasn't usually so probing; she would ask what, when, where… but not why.
"Haven't you seen the uniform? It's not only stylish, but well-made. I'm a sucker for good tailoring."
She looked confused at that as she drank some water and trickled some down her face and neck before handing it over to me. "I thought Templars wore heavy plate, mostly."
"Ah, that's just in public. In private, we have these yellow and purple tunics, right? Much more comfortable, and you don't break the beds when you jump on them during a pillow fight."
She smiled a little then, which was the Elissa version of whooping laughter, doubled over slightly as she pulled on the collar of her outfit to try and reach an itch. "You had lots of these pillow fights, then, I take it?" She was looking at me sidelong as she continued to wriggle her hand over her collarbone.
She was actually playing along!
"On confession day we could go all night. Being a Templar isn't all about chasing men in skirts and hiding behind priests, you know." She finally removed her hand and readjusted her gauntlets, lips pursed in what I thought was amusement. "You don't really want to know about my being a Templar, do you? It's really quite boring."
In reality, I didn't want her to start asking too many questions that I would have to deflect. The whole subject made me uncomfortable.
"I do want to know, yes. And you can always make up something more exciting."
Well, that was new.
"You know, I like the way you think. But I guess if you're really curious, there's no harm in obliging. I have a couple of interesting-looking moles I can show you later, too, if you're interested." She rolled her eyes, but I knew her well enough now to know that it was good-natured. "The truth of the matter is that I did hate going to the monastery. I felt like I'd been cast off, unwanted, and I was determined to be bitter. But I took some solace in the training itself, I guess. I was actually quite good at it."
Elissa nodded thoughtfully, eyes in the distance. "I think I understand."
I could have left it there, but neither of the other two where anywhere to be seen so I carried on talking, determined to try and start broaching her past now that we had discussed mine. Besides, she hadn't even asked who had sent me to the Chantry. She probably assumed that my parents had been religious fanatics.
"It took years and it's difficult to achieve the discipline, if rewarding. The religious doctrine and sword training all came later. I never really felt at home, though, until I joined the Grey Wardens. And Duncan felt my Templar abilities might be useful for when we encountered darkspawn magic, so I kept it up. What about you? You've clearly had some weapons training."
I waited, a little nervous. This was the first time I'd ever probed anything to do with Elissa's past. Come to think of it, my staunch avoidance of the topic probably made it very obvious I knew not to ask. Blast.
Elissa took a few moments to answer, her head tilted as she considered me. "I was trained in both swordsmanship and archery. It took me years of begging." She sounded… wistful?
I tried to imagine Elissa sitting in a room doing some delicate cross-stitching or whatever it was Ladies did. I realized I couldn't even imagine her in a dress.
"Did you wear dresses or did you also insist on walking around in that leather armour?" I asked, amused.
"Dresses are overrated," Elissa informed me dryly, arms crossed.
"Let me guess, you also climbed a lot of trees and ruined lots of dresses."
She pressed her lips together and made a little snorting sound, clearly trying not to laugh.
"You've got me," she said, and she was actually smirking a little. Then she looked at me, eyebrows raised. "I would wager that you ran underneath everyone's feet and caused chaos in the kitchen growing up."
I pretended to think about it as I raised a hand to my chin. "Well, the cook did call me 'that little hellion'. Or was it rapscallion? Anyhow, he did once threaten to move all the cheeses to the top shelves of the larder. That straightened me up."
The cook had had a little bit of a soft spot for me, actually. Looking back now, I suspected the man had been a bastard himself. That or I had won him over with my charming personality and witty-one liners.
Elissa was shaking her head.
"It is always cheese with you, isn't it?"
"Cheese is delicious," I protested. "Nothing's better than a good fondue."
The same cook had made me some for my birthday, once. The birthday before I'd been sent to the Chantry. I'd already been planning how I would become a chef. Ah, the Chantry, destroyer of dreams.
"Alas, if only you were not a migratory Warden, you could have an entire pantry dedicated to cheese."
Elissa was looking more relaxed than I'd ever seen her, one hand holding onto her elbow as the other rested on her face, fingers not quite covering the smile curving her lips.
"Imagine the size of the larder at Weisshaupt. I know where I'm going, once we've stopped this Blight."
"I am not surprised cheese is all that is needed to lure you in. A merchant could convince you to marry his daughter, if only he had some good cheese."
I gasped in mock delight, hand over my heart. "Being married to the daughter of a cheese merchant! My destiny is clear now."
Elissa snorted in amusement and I grinned, pleased with myself.
We lapsed into silence as we watched Leliana coo over a little treasure chest she'd dug out from amongst the gold. She probably hoped to find some jewel-encrusted shoes in there.
"Do you miss home?" I asked Elissa, quietly, half-expecting… something. Some sort of unfavourable reaction. I couldn't help wanting to know.
She didn't react, really, as she was wont. She took a while to reply though, watching as Leliana sifted through what looked like old parchment and tutted in dismay. "I suppose… my home is with the Grey Wardens now."
Elissa was generally an honest person, but that was an admission beyond what I'd expected. And I didn't really know how I felt about it.
I took a few moments to sort through the surge of emotion her words had caused, and thought that perhaps I liked that so much because the Grey Wardens was home to me, too. If there were two of us, it was definitely real, definitely still here. We were keeping the Grey Wardens alive.
"Really? I… I guess I like the sound of that."
I looked up and caught her looking steadily ahead, and I'd almost opened my mouth to say something more. But then The Shrew returned and informed us that we had much to do and that now wasn't the time for being idle. Elissa agreed that we probably had a lot to explore yet, seemingly unbothered as we rose and Leliana began to lament the lack of good shoes in Ferelden, no matter where she looked.
It had been hard to forget that comfortable companionship, the feeling of ease I had felt despite being some way underground in ruins infested with monsters.
It was… it was awful to have lost the Wardens and Duncan. The nights when I didn't have glorious visions from the Archdemon, I had… well, they started off as memories, usually, sitting around a campfire or a sturdy wooden table, voices I remembered and topics that had made me feel awkward at the time; and then it twisted, mutated. Darkspawn overran camp, or the Archdemon found us, or the ground itself started to swallow people up. I felt guilty that I couldn't remember all their names, even as my mind conjured images of their deaths.
But somehow, that same feeling of belonging still stayed with me, of finally being where I was supposed to be. Maybe because, even as small a number as we were, Elissa and I were still both Wardens and that was enough. It was easier, those times when I sputtered awake from a particularly disturbing vision, sitting bolt upright and nearly hitting my head on the beam holding up my tent as I stumbled out, to find Elissa was awake as well, clearly awoken from the same vision and needing the same air and stars to reorient herself. Those were the times when I had discovered why some people preferred silence; when it was just the two of us, there was no need to pretend, no need to try and smooth things over with jokes and talk… things would feel just fine as she scrounged up some stale bread and I some of my carefully hidden cheese, and we'd pass the time in quiet until dawn with some absolutely awful mead that was so bad that Bodahn, who'd taken to following us around with his caravan, had refused to accept any coin for it.
I blinked back into the present as I heard the sound of Dal barking. Sometimes, he was warning us of people nearby. Other times, it was a squirrel. And yet more times, he was just barking.
Time to get up, then.
Forcing myself out of my lovely warm bedroll, I quickly got dressed in my armour, which was now an almost-new set of chainmail. Thank the Maker for dungeons guarded by dragons.
As I exited my tent I looked over at Elissa, who was in a terribly lively discussion with Sten. I stood close to the fire and idly began checking over my longsword to disguise my interest in the stew Leliana had left unattended. I was just about to make a move when Elissa appeared next to me with a scowl on her face. I jumped; she was in fight mode and had approached me far quieter than normal.
She was… irate. She was quite a small woman and yet, totally intimidating with the right prompting. The tattoos helped.
"Something wrong?" I ventured cautiously, hoping Sten had aggravated her and not I. I had managed to cause ruckus even before breakfast in the past – one of my many innate talents.
"He seems to believe that being a woman and being a fighter are two mutually exclusive concepts."
I blinked in surprise. "But that's ridiculous."
"Perhaps not for the qunari… Even so, there are few enough female warriors."
"The Wardens have had a number, though none as pretty as you, of course." I smiled to show her I meant nothing by it, and she scoffed, but with no real heat. She crossed her arms and stared at the stew.
Now, don't be a coward Alistair. You've faced greater challenges than this. You've drunk darkspawn blood. You've competed in tourneys. You've survived Ostagar. You can do this.
I coughed and then tried to expel all the words at once. "Elissa, thank you for offering to talk. It meant a lot to me."
Elissa seemed a little startled, before she considered me. She must have found what she was looking for, because I was rewarded with a sincere smile and a nod.
There was something about her soft little smiles, especially when usually she was so intense, and focused. She had a gaze and commanding presence that made people look twice from across a room. Her smile would stop people in their tracks… but only a privileged few ever saw it.
"Don't worry about it, Alistair."
"So, you know, I'd just like to say the same thing… You don't have to, of course, but the offer stands."
Her expression dimmed until it was unsure, and then totally blank. "You want to hear about how I joined the Wardens?"
Well, that was a nice way of putting it.
"Yes, well, if it helps…" I nodded vigorously to support my words. She looked at me again, and—truly every time Elissa looked at you it was like being put under scrying glass—I wondered if she was considering that I probably already knew that her recruitment had been under less than ideal circumstances, even if only in general terms. Most Wardens still came from dark places: they were waiting to be executed, or bandits looking for a cause to follow, or orphans starving in the streets, rather than Knights like Jory had been.
"Perhaps another time."
Why did I feel disappointment? I pushed the feeling away as I nodded and tried to find something else to talk about, not sure what I had been expecting, but oddly flat-footed after the rejection. Luckily Leliana returned and we were able to focus on food instead.
The rest of the day was spent travelling out of the forest, keeping northward so as not to veer too closely to the horde still in the south. It was slow going and nearly nightfall by the time we reached more open ground. Elissa made the call to make for camp while we still had some cover.
I was set to the task of setting up the tents with Sten and I was glad to be finished, flopping down next to the closest firepit Morrigan had banked up as soon as I'd taken off my heaviest armour pieces.
I watched as Elissa flitted around camp, helping where needed but a little brusquer and colder than what I considered her "normal" now. She hadn't been avoiding me, as such, but there was… something different. Well, she'd behaved more like when I'd first met her; I realised now how raw everything must have been then, that judging her demeanour then as being her usual disposition had been incredibly short-sighted.
I chewed my lip, knowing that it was my doing that wounds had been opened up again, that today had been quieter.
What were you supposed to do in this situation? How was I supposed to fix this?
Then I started berating myself, reminding myself Elissa wasn't mine to fix, that she was doing just fine. If she'd had a day where she hadn't smiled and hadn't talked unless she had to, that wasn't the end of the world.
Somehow it still felt like it though. I'd been a bit moodier than my usual self, even though I'd kept catching myself and asking why I was behaving like an ass. That I wasn't going to help things by antagonising Morrigan or being uninterested in Leliana's stories of the fashion in Orlais or provoking Sten by asking "why?" in response to everything he said.
Honestly, when had I started to become so personally invested in whether Elissa smiled or not? It was ridiculous, I was better than a sulky child that took things personally.
I'd made Elissa retreat. Alright. Lesson learned. If she wanted to talk about it, she would; she knew where I stood on it now, and there was no need to bring it up again.
I just hoped everything would be back to normal by tomorrow.
oOo
