Flora remembered little of the journey from the entrance courtyard to the Warden encampment. Her eyes were still clouded with golden mist; her mender's sight meant that she kept seeing glimpses of bone and sinew beneath the flesh of those who drew aside at their approach. Such a massive outpouring of energy had sapped the strength from her limbs. The wind blew rain in her eyes and snatched the hair from the untidy braid; she could feel her vomit-stained shirt clinging unpleasantly to her skin, and taste the residue of the taint beneath her tongue. If it was not for the strong fingers clamped beneath her elbow, both supportive and guiding, she would have fallen to her knees. There was a muffled exchange of conversation, and then the chill and cloying dampness of the fortress was replaced with cedar-scented warmth. The sudden gleam of firelight seemed brighter for its contrast with the shadowed exterior. A rustle of drawn canvas blocked out the thud of boot against cobble and the mournful cry of the wind.

After blinking hard and rubbing her eyes, Flora finally managed to clear her vision; the last of the golden mist fading away. She had been guided to a narrow bunk in one corner of a hexagonal tent; larger than the average, hung with striped blankets on the walls and a worn patterned rug on the floor. A low, oblong table sat in the centre of the tent, supporting a clutter of cups, glasses and heating apparatus. A wooden chest with a repetitive geometric pattern on its lid rested near an armour stand, on which hung the distinctive pewter and mail of the Warden-Commander's armour. Several small wooden charms hung from a frame fixed to the far wall.

The Warden-Commander himself was standing before a cabinet cut in the same geometric pattern as the chest, pouring a generous serving of dark crimson liquid into a silver beaker. The bottle hailed from Antiva, a nation renowned for the potency of their wine; the pungent scent of alcohol tickled his nostrils.

Good, Duncan thought, recalling how his young recruit had - somehow - drawn the taint from the wounded scout simply by inhaling, flooding her mouth with the foul toxin. The stronger the better.

He turned to the centre of the tent, beaker in hand. Flora was sitting on his bunk, absentmindedly pleating the blanket between her fingers. Despite being covered in mingled blood, rain and her own vomit, with hair bedraggled and stuck to her face, she was still the most extraordinary looking girl that the Rivaini had ever seen.

"Oh," she said in distress, realising that her bloody fingers had left brownish smears on the patterned blanket. "Ooh, I'm sorry."

She turned her anxious face up to his, the cloudy grey eyes huge with apology.

"It doesn't matter," Duncan replied, crossing the tent in a half-dozen strides and offering her the beaker. "Drink this."

Flora took the beaker, gulping it down hastily - yet not swift enough to avoid the alcohol breaking apart into wine, yeast and sugar in her throat. She made herself swallow it because Duncan expected it of her, although it was not a pleasant experience.

"Finish it," he instructed sternly; the ever-obedient Flora did as she was told. "Good girl."

She went pink at the praise and he felt something dormant flicker to life within him; the blood throbbing a little more forcefully along the courses of his body. To distract himself, the Warden-Commander went to retrieve a spare linen shirt from the chest. He brought it over with a washbasin and cloth, placing the items on the bunk beside her. She looked at them, then gazed up at him; the firelight picking out bright threads of copper in the mass of mahogany.

She's all hair, mouth and eyes, Duncan thought to himself, amused and wistful. It's a cruel irony to meet a girl like this, thirty years too late.

"Thank you," Flora breathed, her voice made hoarse by the excessive volume of magic that had passed through her throat. "I 'preciate it a lot. "

With a nonchalance that reflected years of little privacy, she reached up and unfastened the button at her throat. As her fingers dropped to the second, Duncan - begrudgingly - made himself turn back to the cabinet. She was reflected in the small Orlesian glass he used to trim his beard; the shirt hung tantalisingly loose around her unblemished shoulders. With even greater reluctance, the Warden-Commander tore his gaze away. He turned his attention to the desk standing in a shadowed corner, pretending to read a letter that he had already read and responded to.

"What's this?"

Duncan turned, unsure whether he was relieved or disappointed that she had finished changing. The hem of his linen shirt fell halfway down Flora's breeches, she had rinsed her face and hands, and her hair fell in a wine-red tumble to her waist. She was standing before the hanging charms, her fingertip prodding one tentatively.

"It's from Rivain," he explained, crossing the tent to stand beside her. "That's a rattlesnake. The one to the left is a sand fox. The other is a chimera. They all live in the sand-sea between Dairsmuid and the coast."

Flora gazed at the intricately carved figures a moment more, then brought her fingers to her mouth and began to bite at her nails. Duncan glanced reflexively at her hand, and felt a peculiar lurch of disbelief in his gut. That very morning he had noticed her bitten nails, clasped around a tankard as she yawned above it. Now, a half-inch of nail sprouted from each small finger; delicate and incongruous.

"My nails grow when I heal," Flora explained, noticing the incredulous expression on her commander's face. "Dunno why. The more I heal, the more they grow. Look, they break easily."

She pressed a fingertip into her palm: the nail bent with little resistance, then snapped. Bringing her finger to her mouth, Flora nibbled at the ragged remnant of the nail until it was uniform and short.

"Sorry," she mumbled through her fingers, casting him a mournful look. "I ain't got no manners. My hair grows too, but only a few inches. It's why I have to keep cutting it."

At last Duncan understood why the ends of her hair were so uneven: the result of taking a careless blade to her ponytail every few days. The Rivaini in him appreciated the peculiar nature of her magic as much as the man enjoyed her beauty.

"Tell me about what you did," he said, careful not to sound too urgent in case it unnerved her. "To the scout."

"He shoved me," Flora replied, suddenly indignant as she remembered. "He shoved me after I'd helped him! He didn't even say thank you."

Duncan realised that a more focused approach to his questioning was required: Flora's mind, as befitted a daydreamer who spent half her time conversing with her spirits, flitted off on tangents like a rogue butterfly. Taking her gently but firmly by the elbow, he steered her over to the bunk and sat her down. Deliberately keeping a foot of space between them, he lowered himself beside her and then turned to fix her in his gaze; capturing her pale eyes with the magnetic pull of his coal-dark irises.

"After you'd mended his wounds," he said in a low voice, so that she had to lean forward slightly to hear him. "What did you do?"

Flora looked uncertain: she was not altogether sure what she had done. A tiny line indented itself between her eyebrows as she thought about it.

"I cured him," she said wonderingly, after a moment. "I breathed the - the taint out of him, like it was a poison. Otherwise, it would have spread and… and killed him."

"You breathed the taint out of him," repeated the Warden-Commander, the slowness of his words in contrast to the wild, speculative racing of his mind. "You cured him of the taint's poison. Are you certain?"

Flora paused, listening to a voice that Duncan could not hear.

"Yes," she said, having received due confirmation from her spirits. "He's not infected any more."

To hide his astonishment, Duncan rose and crossed to the cabinet; pouring himself a beaker of the potent Antivan red. Downing it in three gulps, he filled the beaker a second time. A dozen different thoughts were tangled in his mind like the contents of a dressmaker's silks chest.

I ought to write to Weisshaupt about this girl.

She breathed the corruption in and the man was cured. And she seems to have suffered no adverse effect as a consequence.

Her magic must be a natural counter to the taint.

The memories came thick and fast: some from a year ago, others from that very morning.

He had forgotten his mother's name several years prior. No matter, a commander did not need a mother. Then he had forgotten the name of his second-in-command. Only for an instant, but this was a man whom he had known for a decade.

Food had long since ceased to hold any pleasure for him, but more recently it had also failed to sufficiently fill him. He found himself eating greater quantities, yet never able to sate a hunger that gnawed at him like a wolf chewing his belly.

With each year that passed, sleep grew more elusive. As a young man he had slept like the dead; now, he was lucky to steal four hours a night, and those hours were plagued with ghastly visions that left him drained and weary.

The thought that perhaps he was now too tainted to successfully lead a defence against the Archdemon was one that haunted Duncan. It brought a sour curdling fear to his throat; he was not used to feeling helpless and yet there was nothing that could be done. For thirty years - longer than many - his body had valiantly fought the taint: now, at the most crucial moment, it seemed to be losing the fight.

One day I'll wake, look in the mirror, and see a Hurlock staring back beneath the trappings of skin.

Duncan took another long gulp of wine, forcing his features back into some semblance of neutrality. When he turned back around Flora was sitting on his narrow bunk, inspecting the embroidery on the blanket. It was a Rivaini stitch in orange and tan; geometric diamonds contained decorative crosses.

"Right," he said and Flora looked up in some alarm: she was slightly intimidated by people who began their sentences with a hearty Right!

"We ought to decide what's to be done with this scout," Duncan continued, still unsure whether to confess the corruption of his body.

"The one who I mended?" Flora asked, confused. "Eh?"

"The ungrateful whoreson who had the nerve to push you away once you'd saved his life," corrected the Warden-Commander, relishing the heat of the anger as it coursed along his veins.

I'm still a man. I still feel.

"Oh," she replied, with a practical shrug. "It ain't unusual for people to react in such a way. They don't like mages touching them."

"Perhaps I should recruit him into the Wardens," Duncan continued, somewhat maliciously. "Feed him a double dose of Darkspawn blood at his Joining. Or I could save some time and just kill him."

Flora blinked open mouthed, half-amused and half-shocked.

"You can't kill him," she intoned sternly, assuming incorrectly that Duncan was joking. "It's against the RULES. And you can't give him the taint again after I worked so hard to get it out."

He laughed, a proper belly-laugh rather than the weary chuckle that he had adopted in recent years. The corners of Flora's full mouth turned upwards unexpectedly. The smile broke the haughty veneer of her beauty; like a shaft of sunlight penetrating deep water.

Duncan looked at her and thought, the spirits put this girl in my path for a reason. He found himself speaking impulsively, crossing the tent and crouching before her. The smile melted away and Flora peered at him, a faint crease furrowing between her eyebrows.

"Could you do the same for me?" he asked, simultaneously realising that extracting the taint from a man recently blighted was a wholly different thing to removing it from a man poisoned for thirty years.

"Remove the taint?" Flora breathed, her pale eyes searching his face. "From you?"

"Not in the same way," Duncan sought to clarify, unblinking. "But I can't lead the Wardens as I am now. I can't defend this nation. If you can remove even a part of it - weaken its hold over me…"

His words hung in the damp air as the rain pattered gently against the canvas overhead. It was fully nighttime now, the shadows within the tent were elongated and the voices of men muffled outside. Two dwarves were having a hissed argument over an item lost, accompanied by the uneven clunking rumble of a cart wheeled over the cobbles. Neither Duncan nor Flora paid any attention to these noises. He was watching her closely; she had lost the focus in her eyes, listening to whispers from the far side of the Veil.

At last she blinked twice, and then fixed her thoughtful gaze on him.

"Alright," Flora said, awed at the faith that he had placed in her. "I'll try my best."

Duncan did not realise that he had been holding his breath until he exhaled, the air shuddering as it escaped his lungs. Flora ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips, tasting the effervescent sweetness of her magic as it rose with premature eagerness from her throat.

"I won't know when to stop," Flora said, anxiously. "I don't know how quick it'll happen, if… if it happens at all. I don't want to do it wrong."

As she spoke, he caught glimpses of light flickering within her mouth. Duncan did not want her to panic but was not sure how to reassure her: she was young, and wholly inexperienced. At last he resorted to putting a hand on her elbow, which he felt was not too inappropriate.

"Then we'll only try it for a short time," he said, quietly. "And if it works, we can do it again on some other night - or day," he added hastily.

Flora nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving his face. Her expression took on a distance; listening to words from a far shore once again.

"Alright," she breathed, curling her fingers into her palms. "My spirits say fifty heartbeats. Will you count it? I can't count that high."

Duncan made a sound of assent, aware that the prolonged crouching had sprung an ache in his knees.

Perhaps your ailments are the result of age instead of the taint, he thought to himself, wryly. I doubt she can reverse the years themselves.

Then he had no more time to ruminate on the process of ageing because she had taken his face in her hands; face alight with a healer's concentration. There was no hesitancy in the press of her lips against his mouth: this was how Flora mended, how she had always mended; it was not a kiss; it was healing . Duncan felt her breathe deeply, then flinch a little at the inhalation.

He was so focused on keeping motionless - a difficult task, since his arms seemed determined to take her in their grasp - that he forgot to start counting. At last he remembered, but then found that the gallop of his own heart was far too rapid to use for counting. Flora, on the other hand, seemed almost serene; her eyes closed and her hands framing his face. She knew what to expect now: the inhalation of something sweet, rotten and cloying, then the exhalation of sanctifying breath. Trusting in the strange workings of her body to transform the taint into harmless ether; she was relying on Duncan to keep count.

In the end, neither of them brought an end to the purification: it was ended for them.

"Maker's Breath!" Alistair's voice was somewhere between a squawk and a croak of disbelief. "Is it true, then!?"

The young officer stood in the tent doorway holding a lantern. The breeze swung the suspended metal cage back and forth, sending light tilting around the tent. There was a conflict of emotion on his face: disbelief, tinged with something else.

Flora drew back from Duncan, swallowing the last remnants of the taint. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she wondered why the Warden-Commander had not been counting.

"Is what true?" she asked, confused. A few golden particles still clung to her lips, although Alistair - caught up in indignation - did not immediately notice them.

"That… that you're his bedwarmer," Alistair continued, stumbling slightly over the words. "The rumours."

"I am not," an astonished Flora replied, still envisioning someone who warmed up stones to heat blankets. "I was mending."

Alistair, somehow, managed to look even more horrified.

"Mending?! Using your weird magic on him?"

"WEIRD?"

Usually by this point Duncan would have stepped in to stop the bickering between his two youngest recruits. On this occasion he did not; because he was sitting on the bunk half-paralysed with shock at the cacophony of sensations assailing him. He could smell the last lingering trace of the stew that the men had eaten for dinner on the breeze; picking notes of tarragon and parsley from the acrid wash of woodsmoke. He could see the pattern on the blanket; the blurred mass of tan and black had clarified into a sharp-pronged geometric design. He could feel the damp linen plastered to Flora's forearm- when had he put his hand on her? - and the warmth of the skin beneath. The mildewed interior of a damp-stained tent suddenly seemed more vibrant than any enamelled Orlesian foyer; the guttering tallow candlelight brighter than a Divine's pyre.

My mother's name was Tayana, he remembered suddenly; the memory rising unprompted to the surface of his mind. And she wore glass beads in her hair.

Suddenly he became aware of the squabbling that surrounded him. Flora was pink-cheeked with affront, Alistair narrow-eyed with suspicion.

"You're barely trained," the junior warden protested, the green flecks in his irises standing out like shards of glass. "You said it yourself: you don't really know what you're doing. What if you'd hurt our commander?"

"My magic don't hurt people," Flora said, indignant. "I was trying to help. WHY ARE YOU BEING MEAN."

"Enough," said Duncan, thrusting off his astonishment and gathering his senses. "Alistair, you ought to know better than to pay heed to rumours. I asked for her assistance and she gave it. Flora- "

He broke off suddenly as she looked up at him, the words immobile in his throat. It was almost as if he were seeing her for the first time: the dark line circling the soft grey irises, like someone had traced them, the faint tea-coloured freckles dotted across her nose, the coppery highlights buried in the mass of dark red hair.

"Flora." He composed himself. "Thank you. I'll let you know if - if further mending is required. Now you both ought to retire for the night; it's been a long day and who knows what the morrow might bring?"

Alistair escorted Flora back to their tent begrudgingly; neither speaking nor looking at her. Flora, suddenly weary from the day's events - the king, the scout, the commander - trudged dolefully behind him. She felt as though she should be proud of herself; that she had accomplished something today; but all she felt was a homesickness that seemed to stab at her belly like a knife. She had scant knowledge of Fereldan geography, but knew that Herring was many, many miles away from where they were.

That night, she noticed that Alistair had added another piece of armour to the barrier between their bedrolls; building up the wall that divided them. In the Warden-Commander's tent, Duncan crumpled the letter he had penned to Weisshaupt in the palm of his hand.


AN: This chapter is entirely new from the original - I wanted to introduce the concept of Flora being able to purify the taint, which I didn't bother doing at first, and who better to demonstrate her ability on than Duncan? I loved the idea of him doubting his capability to lead - thirty years of the taint doing a number on you has to have some consequence, right? - and I wanted to build his connection with Flora so that, when he dies, she feels greater obligation to take up his cause (rather than just fucking off back to Herring haha.) I also loved poor Alistair bursting in and getting totally the wrong end of the stick!

Interesting question though - Flora started off her night being inappropriately propositioned by Cailan. Duncan was having some trouble restraining himself during the mending - if he had given in to temptation and kissed her, would that make him any better than the king? Hahahaha! I love morally grey characters!