She is a pebble at the bottom of the Waking Sea: small and inconsequential, chipped from the base of some lofty granite cliff.

She lies all but buried in the sand and her companions are fish, and fronded plants, and the half-formed things that live in low places. The tide washes in and out overhead, and every so often the sun is blocked by a vast, elongated shadow: the hull of a boat.

She has no concept of time, or that she was ever anything other than a pebble. The fish whisk intently past her as though they had business to conduct. They are not brilliant in colour like the fish that dwell off the coasts of hotter places; but plainer fish taste better.

Whenever the sand shifts at the rough eddying of the water, what once was hidden is revealed again. A ship's anchor, encrusted in barnacles like an Orlesian countess draped in jewels. A lockbox disgorging its contents into the mud.

A skeleton, a gilded band around a hairless skull, turns its head and flops open a jaw.

It says to the pebble that was Flora: Time to wake up.

Time to wake up. We have mended you.

"At last," came a voice: dry and acerbic, as though spoken through lips curled with distaste. "The little girl wakes."

Flora felt as though she were being drawn up from the bottom of the ocean, like an anchor pulled through layers of increasingly clear water. She became aware of the smell first: animal, herbal, vaguely medicinal - with an edge of something potent and unidentifiable that made her nostrils curl. Then she felt the ache that ran the length of her body: a dull throb that sharpened to a point in her left knee. A flutter of panic ran through her and despite the protest from her aching flesh, she bolted upright without warning.

Someone recoiled from her with a catlike hiss. Flora rubbed her fists into her eyes like a child, feeling the pressure of her knuckles. Slowly, her surroundings clarified around her; patches of light and shadow fading into recognisable objects. She was sitting on a spread of animal furs - explaining the musky scent - alongside a wall constructed from tightly-packed earth. The room appeared to be a single-chambered dwelling, with a cook pot in the centre and an odd, mismatched assortment of furniture. One wall was entirely covered with haphazard shelving, containing dozens of glass vials. On a nearby table were a heap of half-skinned rabbits.

She turned her attention to the woman kneeling beside her, who was adjusting a slender bone thrust into a tangle of dark hair. Leather and furs were draped carelessly around a lean, muscled body; the long nails were caked with earth and there was a smear of something brown on her cheek. Her mouth was a bright red slash, the teeth small and pointed.

The corners of Flora's mouth turned down and the woman recoiled in distaste.

"Ah! Do not expect me to comfort you if you start crying," she hissed, appalled. "I cannot stand the sound."

"I weren't going to cry ," replied an indignant Flora. "I was going to frown. See?"

She drew her brows downwards in a scowl; emulating her Herring brethren. The woman stared at her for a long moment; the golden, lionlike eyes narrowing.

"Perhaps her brains have been scrambled in the fall," the woman mused, more to herself than Flora. "'Tis the only explanation for such vacuousness. Tell me, little girl, do you remember who I am?"

Flora made a valiant effort to pull her mind from her injured knee. She was clothed in her smalls and wrapped in a blanket, her lower half hidden beneath a heavy fur that smelt faintly of mildew. Her fingers groped for the bend in her leg; the flesh swollen and tender.

"You're the lady we saw in the Wilds," she said, feeling the golden mist rising from beneath her fingernails. "Where am I? What happened?"

The woman hesitated for the briefest moment, the corner of her crimson mouth twitching. Then she retreated, pushing upwards - a glimpse of bare thigh through the draped leather - and heading towards the cooking pot. Grasping the handle, she gave it a vigorous, rather vicious stir.

We were on top of the Tower, Flora thought to herself when it became clear that the woman would offer no answers, groping around in her memory.

We had to light the beacon. To signal General Mac Tir.

Alistair and I. The king sent us together.

Flora blinked, a small knot of dread forming deep in her belly. She felt as though she had been shipwrecked: washed up on some strange shore surrounded by scattered objects and the broken remnants of her vessel.

"What happened in the battle?" she asked, lifting her knee above the fur with a grimace. "There was a battle, in the valley, at Ostagar- against the Darkspawn. Did we - did we not win?"

Too frightened to look at the woman's face in case her expression gave away the answer, Flora put her mouth to her knee. She thought she might be sick, but when she parted her lips, only gilded particles of energy rose from her throat; straying out like fireflies at dusk.

"No," said the woman bluntly, ladling a spoonful of greenish stew into a roughly hewn wooden cup. "You lost."

"We lost?"

Flora almost choked on her own magic, fingers clamping convulsively on her knee.

"Yes," her companion replied, replacing the lid on the cook pot. "The Grey Wardens are slain. Your king is dead on the field. The Darkspawn have seized the valley, and your fort. Not a very good day for you, all be told."

Flora felt something splinter within her, as though her belly was made of driftwood and someone had shoved their boot through it. She was half-aware that something strange was happening to the bone in her knee; but she was so preoccupied that she paid it no heed. Her ancient spirit flared a voiceless warning in her head; clarified into words by her general.

Focus! it hissed, alarmed. You are doing yourself harm.

Flora paid no attention.

"The Wardens are dead?" she whispered, sure that she was about to be sick. "All of them?"

"All," said the woman, bringing Flora the bowl and dropping it ill-temperedly before her. "Drink up. Mother says you need your strength - oh, blast and damnation, I thought you said that you weren't going to cry!"

Abandoning the healing of her knee, Flora put her face in her hands. The woman eyed her for a moment, then let out a huff of distaste; retreating to a small, three-legged stool beside the pot.

Duncan's dead?

Yes.

Are you… are you sure?

There followed a vaguely irritated silence: her spirits knew well who had died and who had not. Flora dug her knuckles into her eyes and gasped; she felt as though she had been dashed against the Hag's Teeth.

I'm drowning. I'm drowning.

Breathe.

Obedient even in the crushing, oceanic depths of her despair, Flora took a deep breath, and then another. As she focused on her breathing, the tears dried into tiny, salt-flecked flecks on her cheeks.

Will you look after his soul? she pleaded silently, twisting the ragged hem of the blanket . Will you make sure the demons don't claim it?

There was a pause, then - gentler than usual- yes.

A miserable Flora returned her attention to her knee, but her heart was not in her healing. She looked up once again at the woman, who was picking at her teeth with a long shard of bone.

"King Cailan is dead," she sought to clarify, sniffling. "And the Wardens. What… what happened? Alistair lit the beacon, I remember now. That was the signal for the army to join in."

"It seems that the king was betrayed," the woman said, shrugging a bare shoulder. "The man who leads the army - I know not his name, no, don't tell me, I care not - paid no heed to the signal. He called for a retreat."

At first, Flora could not comprehend the woman's words. She blinked, her pale brow furrowing.

"Betrayed?" she croaked at last, barely above a whisper. "General Mac Tir didn't send the army in? But… but that was the plan!"

Flora summoned the scene from her memory: it stood out like a fresh-polished pearl.

The king, the general, her commander.

Standing at the map table, resplendent in their armour. Cailan grinning, Loghain scowling, and Duncan deliberately impassive.

Counters pushed across the flat inked geography of the map: resolute and uncompromising.

You: here. Us: there.

Wait for the signal. Then charge.

"He didn't follow the plan," she said in outrage, summoning Loghain Mac Tir's sallow, spare features. "Why not? It makes no sense. Now the Darkspawn are going to… to… do whatever Darkspawn do. Blight us."

The woman let out a humourless laugh, flashing her cat-eyes towards Flora.

"'Blight us,'" she repeated, a mocking edge to the words. "My, my. You seem to know even less than the other one, and that's saying something."

Flora abandoned her knee once again, wide eyed.

"The other one?" she asked, her belly constricting with sudden hope. "Someone - someone else survived? Someone other than me?"

"Yes, yes. I had forgotten about him for a moment; he is a creature of such little consequence."

Something in Flora's face must have struck an impression; the woman sighed and continued, waving a careless hand.

"Ever since Mother brought you both back here, he's done nothing but sit and stare at the swamp. I thought Grey Wardens were meant to be great heroes- " her voice dropped sarcastically, "- but I find myself impressed by neither of you. 'Tis a shame."

Clutching the blanket around her shoulders, Flora clambered to her feet. She stifled a sudden gasp of pain at the sharp twinge in her knee.

"Where is he?" she asked, then suddenly recalled the woman's name. "Lady Mortician."

"Morrigan!"

Morrigan's lip curled; her shaggy, dark head dipped towards the doorway. "Outside. And never address me as ' Lady' again ."

Avoiding the cooking pot and the mass of tangled furs, Flora made her way towards the hanging beads that framed the doorway. Parting them with uncertain fingers - her knee hurt! - she stepped barefoot out into sallow, swampy sunlight. Immediately she recognised the Wilds: the tangle of fetid marsh and soggy grassland that lay to the south of Ostagar. Everything was made more pallid by the wasting filter of the cloud-wrapped sun; the sparse vegetation was sickly and the air clung to the throat like oil.

Flora almost did not recognise her brother-warden at first; he was slumped in such a way that he seemed to have lost half of his height. He sat on the edge of a shallow marsh, staring hard into the rushes as though they might talk back to him. Nearby, the skeleton of a broken bridge rose from the stagnant water.

He heard her approach, barefooted across the damp grass; but mistook her for their dark-haired host. Without looking, he jerked an irritable shoulder.

"I don't want anything to eat," he muttered, gazing ahead without blinking. "Thanks. How is she?"

"Awake," said Flora, realising that he thought she was Morrigan.

Alistair turned as she sat on the grass beside him, the burnt hazel of his irises in stark contrast to the staring whites surrounding them. The corner of his mouth trembled as he saw her; he reached out to grip her blanket-covered elbow.

"Thank the Maker," he croaked, his eyes suddenly damp. "I'd hoped - I saw your body mending itself - I prayed that you'd wake."

It was the first time that he had put a hand on her without explicit instruction. Flora offered him a tiny, wan smile; her own gaze moving anxiously over his face.

"Alistair," she breathed, deciding not to enquire about how long it had taken for her body to heal - or how severe her injuries had been. "Alistair, are you hurt? Can I mend anything?"

She had already darted a quick glance over his body and ascertained that there was no obvious injury; though something might have been hidden under the leather. But Alistair shook his head woefully, retracting his hand.

"I'm not hurt," he said quietly. "I'm probably the only person to come out of Ostagar with not even a scratch to show for it."

Flora, under the impression that this was a good thing, did not understand why he spoke in such a melancholy tone. She stretched out her bare legs on the damp grass, watching a beetle wander an erratic path over her calf. Alistair returned his gaze to the reed-fringed water before them, his fingers clenching into fists. He said nothing further, but Flora - as a northerner and Herring native - was used to silence. She made no effort to fill the air with words; instead, she leaned back on her elbows and tried to ignore the insistent throb-throb of her knee.

The sun settled behind a mourning shroud of pallid cloud, and shadow crept over the Wilds like the slow spread of lichen. A bird called out to an absent mate; the fringe of reeds around the water rustled as something crept through them.

"I thought he was invincible," said Alistair, a humourless half-laugh escaping his throat. "It seems foolish now. He always warned us not to become complacent, that… that one of the inevitabilities of being a Warden was death. But I never thought that - that he would be- you know?"

Flora thought about what Duncan had said to her in the tent, about his body and mind succumbing to the rising tide of the taint. She did not mention this to Alistair, instead giving a soft grunt of agreement.

"Everyone's dead, except us," he continued despairingly, the words raw as they emerged from his throat. "I mean, I don't know about the bordermen, or Cailan's guard - maybe some of them escaped - but all of the Wardens are dead. It's just the two of us left."

Flora thrust aside her own sadness for their commander, recognising the added depth of Alistair's grief. He had been a Warden for over a year, she barely a month. She had never got to know their brethren - after Duncan's warning, they had avoided her like the plague - but Alistair had drunk ritewine with them, listened in fascination to their stories and fought at their side. She did not say anything, but let a tentative hand drop onto his arm, light as a fallen leaf. He glanced at her small, nailbitten fingers and made no protest; in some small way, grateful even for the touch of a mage.

At last, he glanced sideways at her, the corner of his mouth flickering.

"Did you forget to put on your clothes?"

Flora looked down at the bare legs stretching from beneath the blanket, her toes brushing the reeds.

"Mm, I didn't think about it," she replied honestly, then cast her eyes over her brother-warden's garb. She recognised the plain grey linen; her suspicions confirmed by the embroidered cross near the hem. "Are you dressed like a Templar ?"

Alistair nodded, shoulder twitching in a rueful shrug.

"The witch gave them to me. Her and her mother have a whole stash of clothing - and armour - in this big chest. Maker knows where they've scavenged it all from. I don't want to know."

He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes tight for a moment; then rose to his feet. Flora wondered again at how tall he was, then clambered up in his wake. Her knee gave a sting of protest and she inhaled sharply, feeling a flutter of alarm in her belly.

Alistair, who had been about to head towards the hut, glanced at her in surprise.

"Are you alright?"

Flora hesitated, testing her weight gingerly on the sore limb. It throbbed, but held.

"I didn't do a good job of healing my knee," she said in a small voice. "It still hurts."

He gazed at her for a moment and then sighed, the roughness of his expression easing a fraction.

"Come on. Let's find you some trousers."

Flora felt a tug of memory; recalling how he had said the same thing to her when they had first arrived at Ostagar. There had been no Grey Warden uniform that fitted her, and so she had been swaddled in the tent-like garb of a dwarf.

Inside the hut, Morrigan was crouching on the earthen floor, rolling a cracked yellow object about her palm. The stone, on closer inspection, proved to be a lizard's eye, cast in resin. Alistair flinched and averted his gaze, folding his lips tightly together.

"Do you have anything my sister-warden could wear? She can't go around in a blanket."

" 'Sister-warden ,'" repeated Morrigan, derisive. "I never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. Well, what we could scavenge from you when you arrived is in that pile- " a nail extended towards a heap against the stone wall, "- but we have some spare garb in the chest. Take what you must and bother me no further!"

Flora ventured towards the pile, feeling oddly hesitant. She wondered if taking hold of her ruined possessions might somehow transport her back to the top of Ishal; with the rain whipping in her face and the wind screaming about the parapets like a demon escaped from the Fade.

Don't be ridiculous.

Stop eavesdropping on me!

Still, she took a deep breath and folded herself beside the ragged pile; reaching out gingerly to tug at a tattered sleeve. Much of the clothing she had worn at the tower seemed to be torn beyond repair, and stained an alarming reddish brown. Her heart leapt to her throat as she pulled free her tunic, reaching inside the loosened buttons. To her relief she drew out the roll of faded parchment; blood-spattered but intact. Duncan's words reverberated through her mind, his cadence low and faintly reminiscent of a distant shore.

These letters are important. Keep them safe.

Alistair was preoccupied with glowering at Morrigan, who was caressing the gleaming end of her blackthorn staff with indolent glee. Fat scarlet droplets, like gobbets of blood, fell from the dark tangle of wood; melting away before they could splatter the earthen floor. Flora tucked the roll of parchment inside her blanket, then turned her attention to the last of her worldly goods; piled in a sad little heap.

Her boots were redeemable, though a small split near one toe would need a cobbler's attention at some point. The rest of her clothing was beyond repair: it looked as though it had been savaged. Despondent, she drew out the broken halves of her staff and set them to one side.

"I can't wear any of this," she said, apologetically. "It's more holes than clothes. Could I borrow something?"

Morrigan waved a disinterested hands towards a warped wooden chest, held together with iron bands. She returned her attention to her staff, caressing the blackthorn like a beloved pet. Flora worried that the clothing would be in a similar vein to the fragments of leather and fur clinging to the mage's tawny skin. As a northerner, she preferred ugly clothing that provided warmth and bulk.

The chest was filled with an eclectic mixture of armour, woollens and crumpled linen. To her relief, she managed to dig out a shapeless long-sleeved garment in navy wool, pairing it with the first pair of decent-smelling breeches that she could find.

"'Tis bewildering to me," the self-proclaimed witch commented, eyeing Flora with beady disapproval. "Why would any woman desire to completely obliterate their figure?"

Flora did not know what obliterate meant, so she offered only a solemn nod of agreement; oddly comforted by the rustle of bound parchment at her breast.

Keep them safe.

Morrigan was clearly in no mood to host guests. After shoving two more bowls of the suspect stew at them - a newly lean-cheeked Alistair refused to eat - she stormed towards the doorway in a clatter of leather and small bones. The fire pulled in her wake as a draught blew in, then settled back in the hearth.

Flora stirred her spoon around the bowl, listening to the dull scrape-scrape of metal against wood. She had no idea what the stew contained, but Flora had never been a fussy eater. When times were lean as a child, they had cooked seaweed up into a broth and eaten nothing but that; sometimes for days or even weeks. Swallowing a lump of something spongy, she nudged her toes into Alistair's knee. He looked up at her as though he did not know who she was.

"Alistair?"

"Hm - yes?"

"How long is Ferelden?"

He blinked, momentarily shaken from his brooding by the oddness of the question.

"How long? Do you mean, how long has it existed? How long is the current age? How long has it been independent?"

Flora meant none of these and certainly not the latter; the events of recent history were a mystery to her. She thought for a moment, then stretched her hands out to illustrate.

"Oh," said Alistair, understanding. "Distance. Well, which direction?"

"From north," Flora said, then paused. "We're in the south now, ain't we? From north to south."

His brow creased, then he spoke; setting his stew to one side on the tightly packed earth.

"Three and a half-hundred miles, perhaps?"

Flora could not count beyond the number of ribs in a grown human. She swallowed the last mouthful of her stew, which made its way painfully down her throat.

"Is that a… a long way?"

Alistair grimaced: not long again!

"It's not too far," he said, after a moment. "But it's not right around the corner. About a week and a half on horseback. Why?"

But Flora had fallen into a well of thought, her brow furrowed and the spoon motionless in the dish. Alistair gave a shrug and returned his gaze to the fire below the cooking pot; watching the ashy tendrils wend their way towards the small hole in the ceiling. Realising that he was not going to finish his stew, Flora - who could not tolerate wasted food - silently exchanged their bowls.

Night had crept in, sly as a thief. Darkness in the Wilds had a different quality to its companion in more civilised parts: it was velvet, furred and cloying; it had long fingers that stroked the skin like the touch of an insect. It was not black, but a hundred shades of grey, creating shadows from nothing and smothering noise until little more than an echo remained.

When it became clear that their reluctant host had no plan to return that evening, Flora and Alistair retired to the clump of tangled furs that served as their bedding. Alistair, still mired in grief, took off his boots without a word; stretching out next to the coarse stone. Flora, aware that there was no breastplate-barrier, made sure that there was a courteous foot of space between them. She pulled the fur up to her chin and stared upwards into the shifting shadow, inhaling peat smoke and some unidentifiable burning herb.

"Flora?"

Alistair's voice came disembodied from the dark; like the unfettered whispers of her spirits.

"Mm," she replied, turning her head. He was still facing the wall, shoulders hunched.

"I'm… I'm glad that you're alright."

"Me too."

In the small hours of the night, isolated in the darkness; Flora woke with a start. She had been dreaming of something , but the contents of her dream were slipping from her mind with each moment that passed: like the slack line of a fishing net. She thought that perhaps she had dreamt of Ishal, or the noger, or of her commander. Then she thought that she might have been dreaming that she was a pebble , which was a definite demotion from her favourite fantasy (being a fish). As she gazed up at the curving stone wall above her head, Flora heard a muffled, damp noise from beside her. Alistair had rolled in his sleep to face her; his handsome face contorted in a grimace. His brow was furrowed like a fresh-ploughed field, his lips drawn back over his teeth like a creature caught in a trap. The fine comb of his eyelashes were wet and clumped together.

Flora stretched out a hand, broaching the breastplate barrier that now existed only in her imagination. She began to stroke her fingertip down his nose and across his forehead, smoothing out the angry creases.

"Ssh, ssh, ssh."

The corner of his mouth twitched; a soft groan escaped his throat.

"Ssh, ssh, ssh."

Gradually, the wide olive brow was smooth once again; the shuddering chest relaxing into a more natural rhythm. Flora patted her brother-warden gently on the tip of his noble's nose, then drew back her hand, rolled over and went straight to sleep.


AN: I redid this whole chapter! I wanted to get these things across more clearly: Alistair's grief and Flora's naive disbelief that they had lost the battle. She also doesn't really understand the vast consequences of the loss, and is more concerned about the possible impact on Herring (hence her asking about the distance between Ostagar and the north) I also wanted to draw attention to the rare occasion of Flora completely fucking up her healing during the mending of her knee - her lack of focus meant that she grew the bone back carelessly and ill-fitting.

Incidentally, the measurement of a 'mile' came into common usage around 1500. It derives from the Latin 'mille', which means 'one thousand' - the reasoning being that a thousand paces would equal a mile.

ooh btw please forgive any grammatical errors, i still write/publish everything on my phone, and while i've never been very good at editing, i definitely got worse after having a baby XD

Thank you for reading! Also, a totally unrelated note: my daughter is six months old today! I love her SO much omg T_T