Leaving Duncan to his thoughts and the corpses of the failed initiates, Alistair gestured for Flora to follow him. She did so dutifully, still shocked by the untimely ends of both Daveth and Jory. The torches lit up the overgrown pathway, the foliage trodden down by dozens of boots. The junior officer was a foot taller than Flora, his stride measuring double that of hers. She had to quicken her pace to keep up, then almost collided with him when he stopped abruptly in his tracks. They were in the last stretch of isolated pathway, a dozen yards from the large courtyard that marked the entrance to Ostagar. The sound of the main camp drifted towards them, along with the scent of roasted meat.
Alistair was silent for several moments, a furrow dividing his handsome brow in two. Flora took an instinctive step back, peering warily up at him through the evening gloom. His hazel eyes were uncharacteristically serious, his mouth in a rigid line.
"What?" she asked nervously, as a fresh burst of raucous laughter broke out from somewhere close by. Alistair stared down at her, his gaze searching her face as if he was looking for something in particular. One of his gloved hands reached out to grip her elbow, the fingers tightening around the flesh. Her spirits roused themselves; flickering their displeasure in the back of her mind.
Flora recognised the wariness lurking in the depths of Alistair's green-flecked eyes. She had seen the same mistrust on the faces of the Templars at the Circle - she could recognise it anywhere, even in the honest face of this young Warden.
And he was trained as a Templar, wasn't he? Duncan mentioned it on our journey down.
"You're hurting my arm," she said, and was relieved when his fingers loosened their grip on her elbow.
"Did you deliberately mess up the ritual?"
"Whaa?"
"Did you - did you use your magic to change how the Darkspawn blood affected you?" The words came out in a tangled rush. "I've never seen anyone need three vials to receive the taint before."
Flora was oddly flattered that Alistair thought her skilled enough to deliberately alter the outcome of her Joining.
"I didn't do nothing," she said, deciding that she ought not to give the impression that she herself was skilled. "I told you, my body reacts to poison differently. It's my spirits, they don't like it."
Alistair's frown deepened; the suspicion writ raw across his handsome features.
"It's just - peculiar, that's all," he said, not quite looking her in the eye. "A bit weird."
The corners of Flora's mouth turned down almost comically. Despite knowing that it was unfair, Alistair could not resist blaming her for the strangeness of the situation.
And for how disconcerting she is, the young officer thought, annoyed with himself. Duncan shouldn't have brought such a pretty girl to a fortress full of soldiers. It'll distract them from their purpose.
"Am I in trouble?" Flora asked, full of trepidation. "Because of the ritual?"
"Yes," he replied meanly, then felt guilty as her eyes expanded to the size of saucers. "Well, no, not really. Come on, sister-warden. I'll take you back to the initiate's tent."
Avoiding the campfires and curious stares, Alistair led Flora back to the tent where she had left her meagre belongings. He did not speak to her again, walking several paces in front and keeping his eyes fixed ahead.
The initiate's tent was dark in comparison to the surrounding courtyard, which was lit by several squat-bellied braziers. Alistair lifted the flap for Flora, catching a glimpse of her fine-hewn, miserable face before hastily excusing himself.
Flora avoided the bunks that had so recently belonged to Daveth and Jory. She sat on the spare bed in the corner, also avoiding the large patch of damp on the blankets, and let out a sigh. It seemed as though she had inadvertently bungled her second ritual of the week.
Did the taint even have any effect on me?
Yes, it runs in your blood.
Then why don't I feel any different?
Because we are suppressing it.
Oh.
Flora could not be bothered to enquire further. A bone-weariness had crept up on her, tiredness lapping at the corners of her brain like a rising tide. She leaned back on the narrow bed, flailing her legs with a grumble of effort until her boots slithered off. The mattress, hard and lumpen, felt identical to her old bunk back in the Circle dormitory.
I'll close my eyes for a little bit, she reasoned to herself. Just for a moment. It's been a long day.
The moon hung so low in the starless sky that it seemed to rest on the lofty pinnacle of the Tower of Ishal. The king's camp had fallen silent, Cailan finally growing tired of music and jest. Conversely, the terrace housing the Grey Wardens still hummed with activity. The men within suffered from taint-induced insomnia; often staying up beyond midnight to drink, converse and commiserate. A dozen, ranging from junior to senior, were gathered around the smouldering remains of a campfire. They spoke in low voices, laughing occasionally, indulging in characteristic dark humour. Empty bottles of ale rested alongside discarded swords, while their owners sprawled nearby. The Wardens lacked the discipline of their army counterparts, as General Mac Tir was so fond of - and frequent in - pointing out.
One Warden had just finished telling a story about an initiate he had escorted through the Korcari Wilds. On seeing a Hurlock for the first time, the potential recruit had fled shrieking into the marshes. The Warden had chased him down on foot, only to find him neck-deep in quagmire.
"Poor bugger," the bearded man commented, taking a long draw of his brandy. "Thought he could escape, but the Wilds wouldn't let him go that easy."
"What happened?" Alistair asked, his brow furrowed. "Did you manage to free him?"
The reply was more than a little condescending, and accompanied with a pitying glance.
"No. Genlock arrow got him. "
Alistair grimaced, while the other men laughed. The bearded Warden shook his head, wryly.
"Ah, you care too much about the uninitiated, young Alistair. What happened to your three, anyway?"
There was a ripple of interest around the campfire. Several of those on the verge of nodding off suddenly sat upright, exchanging swift, darting looks at one another.
"Two died during the Joining," Alistair replied, not elaborating on the nature of Jory's death.
"And the little girl?" The man's question was overly casual, tongue flickering quickly over his lips.
Alistair did not like the keen look on his brother-warden's face; a Mabari scenting a particularly succulent rabbit.
"She survived."
The man's grin widened. A dwarf nudged his neighbour and muttered something crude.
"Maker be praised," he drawled, lasciviously. "Which tent she staying in? I must introduce myself."
"Try it, and I'll introduce your balls to my blade."
The other Wardens sat up straighter, the conversation dying in their throats. The dwarf dropped his skewered sausage into the fire. The man with the beard flinched, grimacing as though struck.
"It was only a jest, Duncan," Gehan protested, lamely. "I'd never lay a hand on one of our own."
The Warden-Commander had appeared in the shadows at the edge of the campfire, lupine and far more predatory than anything lurking in the forested valley below. His tawny flesh was made richer by the flickering firelight, but his eyes were as cold and dark as a starless night.
"I haven't forgotten what you were before I saved you from the gallows, Gehan," Duncan said, conversationally. "You come within a horse-length of my new recruit and I'll string you up myself."
The look he cast around the campfire made his meaning clear: and the same goes for the rest of you.
The other Wardens, keener to stay on Duncan's good side than they were to joke with Gehan, murmured deferential acquiescence. Duncan kept up the glare for a moment long, then cast off his anger like a mantle; smiling easily at his men.
"How did you find the eastern Wilds today, Halmick?"
"Damp, dark and more depressin' than my great-aunt Helga's undies drawer, Duncan!"
The Warden-Commander spent several minutes talking with his men. He heard a condensed version of the full-length reports that sat on the desk within his tent; probed when he wanted further clarification; promised to act on a complaint that General Mac Tir had appropriated their smithy. He smiled at a joke from the dwarf and accepted a gulp - but only one - from someone's ale. Finally, his gaze came to settle on Alistair, who was sitting at the very edge of the campfire. It had taken a long time for the others to invite him to their nightly gatherings; the young officer was seen as the Warden-Commander's favourite, routinely accompanying him on his recruitment journeys and saved from the more dangerous undertakings into the Wilds. Alistair was the subject of frequent jibes and ribbing on account of this preferential treatment.
Tonight, though Duncan did not seem especially pleased with his young officer. The lines on his brow deepened as he frowned, surveying the shadows at the edge of the crowd. The other men had resumed their bantering, more bottles retrieved to sustain the evening.
"Alistair," murmured the Warden-Commander in an undertone as laughter rippled around the fire. "Where's my new mage? I asked you to keep an eye on her."
Alistair hung his head. "Sorry, Duncan. I - I left her in the initiate's tent. Thought she might want a nap."
The young officer looked shame-faced, aware that he had not carried out his instructions with the usual dedication. Duncan sighed, declining an offered bottle of ale and the seat which he had been about to take.
"Come on."
Alistair followed in Duncan's footsteps, across the Warden terrace and up the steps leading to the main courtyard. They inadvertently roused the Mabari kennels as they passed by, leaving a cacophony of barking and the curses of the handlers in their wake.
"I thought that supervising a pretty girl would be an enjoyable duty, Alistair," the Warden-Commander said with mild reproach as they passed beneath the looming Tower of Ishal. "You've abandoned her like a pup with a twisted leg."
"No, I- " Alistair flailed for a moment. "She's not just pretty. How am I meant to keep the men away from her? They won't listen to me."
"Tell then that she's a powerful mage who could light their manhoods aflame. Ah, so that's what this is really about." Duncan had spotted the grimace flickering across Alistair's handsome face.
Alistair's silence served as assent. They had reached the drab exterior of the initiate's tent; the Warden-Commander drew to a halt before entering.
"Alistair, when I recruited you from the Templars, I expected you to leave their prejudices behind along with their armour." Duncan's dark eyes bore into the young officer's face, opaque as the night sky overhead. "She's a mage , not a ravening Hurlock."
"She talks to… to things in the Fade," Alistair protested, making scant effort to keep his voice down. "Whole conversations with them. And you saw how she reacted to the Joining. She's just - strange."
Duncan felt a jolt of wistfulness for Rivain; where those who communed with the spirits were properly appreciated, rather than viewed with fear and suspicion. He knew that he should not blame the boy - the Fereldan ran deep in him - and yet.
"She's not strange," he replied, reaching for the canvas flap that hung over the entrance. "She's sweet, and fresh out of a Circle. Unleash your nurturing side on her."
Alistair grumbled beneath his breath, but respected Duncan too much to protest any further.
"Alright," he said, the reluctance raw on his handsome face. "I'll do my best. She's not a Mabari pup, though."
I wish she were, thought the young man to himself. Much less complicated.
The interior of the tent was bathed in shadow; the moonlight casting a pale, elongated oblong between the bunks. Patches of damp laced with creeping black mould decorated the canvas walls. Flora was on the bunk furthest from the entrance; the only occupant of the tent. She was slumped inelegantly on the pallet mattress, one arm trailing downwards and her face buried in the crook of her elbow. She would have looked exactly like an Orlesian doll cast from the cradle, if not for that unmistakably Fereldan colouring.
Duncan crossed the tent, inordinately relieved. Restraining himself from touching her cheek, he instead gave her shoulder a gentle shake.
"Flora."
He liked the sound of her name on his tongue: trochaic and lyrical. It brought to mind roots, and growing things, and leaves budding in the springtime.
I've spent too much of my life surrounded by rot and darkness.
Flora opened one eye and then the other. As one who had been raised in communal dormitories, she was used to being woken by a myriad of people, and did not startle at the proximity of the Warden-Commander. She gazed thoughtfully at him through her autumnal hair; he smiled at the solemnity of her expression.
"Am I in trouble?" Flora asked, still brooding over Alistair's earlier comment.
"Have you misbehaved?" Duncan replied, his smile followed with an inward sigh: far too old and decrepit for flirting. Come on, set a good example for the lad.
Flora looked confused; she wasn't the sharpest sword in the armoury. She rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve like a child, then clambered out of bed so gracelessly that she managed to hit her head on one of the supporting struts.
"Ow," she said, while Alistair gawped at her in disbelief. "They're made different from the Circle bunks."
A lump had appeared on her forehead, the size of a silver coin. More alarmingly, Flora was still covered in the remnants of the Joining - Daveth's blood was caked in flaking patches, beside more sinister stains. Her Circle tunic and leggings were saturated, along with their soft-soled and unsuitable slippers. A clump of something nasty clung to the end of her untidy braid.
"Well," said Duncan, unsure whether a chuckle would be unkind. He had plucked this lovely creature from the silent, academic reverence of the cedar-scented Circle. She had been pristine from head to toe, her braid shining as though polished, her clothing plain and spotless. Now, she looked as though two Mabari had dragged her backwards through multiple hedges. Conversely, a yawning Flora could not have cared less about her appearance. She had never seen her reflection in a mirror prior to her move to the Circle at fifteen, and had spent the majority of her northern childhood covered in the blood and guts of fish and other marine creatures.
"Alistair will take you to find a bath," the Warden-Commander continued, softly. "And some new clothing. I'm afraid that we probably don't have any armour to fit you in our stores. Or any shirts, for that matter."
"I don't need armour," she replied, not wanting to cause any more problems for him. "And I don't care about having clothing that fits."
Flora frowned, turning her pale, clear as seawater irises on him.
"I don't think I should be naked, though," she said thoughtfully.
Duncan laughed at the grave expression on her face, hearing Alistair almost fall over behind him.
Ah, Alistair was right, he thought to himself, watching her flinch in alarm at the still-unfamiliar hoot of a nearby owl. She is a little strange, though charmingly so.
"I assure you, I won't let that happen," he replied with equal gravity. "And neither will Alistair."
As he left, the Warden-Commander noticed that the bump on his new mage's forehead had vanished, melting into the skin without trace.
AN: Rewrote this from scratch! Wanted to feature more of Sexy Duncan before I tragically have to kill him off, WARGHHHHHH!
