As though compensating for the trauma of recent days, Flora's spirits permitted her to indulge in her favourite pastime that night: a fantastical dream where she was transformed into a part-girl, part-fish. After several hours of exploring the depths of the Waking Sea, her general-spirit decided that enough was enough, and thrust her back through the Fade as though propelled by the sudden blast of a whale-spout.
Flora woke abruptly, mouthing for air. As her vision clarified, a woman's face framed by shadow appeared above her. It was a face that must have once been beautiful: it hung from high, finely cut cheekbones. Countless years had withered the skin that clung to the artful bone; creased like a sheet of parchment crunched in a fist. The mouth and eyes were framed with sprays of deep crevasses. Hair the deep, rich grey of pewter dangled in knotted tangles, like lengths of fishing rope. Yet, the eyes were a feline, thrilling shade of amber; they had a light of their own in the gloom.
"She's awake, then," the woman said, in a voice that scraped like a rusted gate. She was not talking to Flora, but to some other unknown party. "I wasn't impressed when I plucked her from the rubble; I remain unimpressed."
Flora, used to being woken by irritable strangers from her tenure in the Circle, peered up at the old woman. From the corner of her eye, she could see a hollow space where Alistair had formerly been lying; the furs still shaped around his absent body.
"She's a comely child," said the stranger, addressing her words above Flora's head. "She knows about as much of the world as Morrigan, which is precious little."
This confused Flora somewhat; she had assumed that the woman had been talking to Morrigan.
"And Ferelden is to be entrusted to her? An ornamental creature more suited to life on a mantel or in a glass case?"
Flora decided to interject: a question had been nagging at her since she had noticed her brother-warden's absence.
"Have you eaten Alistair?"
The woman stopped her conversation with the air, orange eyes focusing on Flora's face with some incredulity.
"Have I eaten - ?!"
Flora's spirits flared in the back of her head.
Introduce yourself.
"My name is Flora," she said, still lying flat on her back amidst the furs. "Flora, Pel's daughter."
In her mind the clarification was necessary: Flora was a common peasant girl's name, and there were four dwelling in Herring alone.
The woman snorted in a surprisingly juvenile manner.
"Flora, Pel's daughter," she replied, mockingly. "Ha! Well, if there are to be introductions: I am Flemeth, Morrigan's mother. And my last husband gave me indigestion so I've no more appetite for men: Alistair is outside, staring at the swamp. He remains unconsumed."
Flora returned her attention to the woman, who was draped in a motley collection of furs and leathers; roughly hewn, as though hacked straight from the animal's back. She could feel the prickle of the arcane in her throat, and realised that she was in the presence of a powerful mage.
Thank her for saving you, prompted Flora's spirits, like a parent reminding a child that gratitude was required after receiving a gift.
"Thank you for saving me," repeated Flora obediently, and the woman let out a cackle; springing up with surprising agility.
"Come on, come on. You need to get some food in that belly of yours."
Flora decided that she quite liked this strange, old, tangled-up mage. She clambered to her feet, grimacing at an unwelcome twinge from her knee. Still, the rustle of Duncan's papers at her breast was comforting, and she followed Flemeth to the centre of the hut. It was then Flora noticed Morrigan, perched on a bench in the corner with a distinctly sulky expression. The dark haired witch did not greet her, or acknowledge her presence in any way; merely let out a quiet huff under her breath. A flicker of annoyance passed across the old mage's face, which she made no attempt to hide.
"Morrigan, if the Wilds are soon to be overrun with Darkspawn then you must learn how to interact with others in society," Flemeth commented acerbically, using a bony hip to knock Flora onto a nearby stool.
"Please don't nag me, Mother. 'Tis most annoying."
Flemeth made a click of disapproval with her tongue, shoving a plate of smoked meat towards Flora, charred beyond recognition.
"I know you have had an isolated upbringing, girl, but the winds are changing about us and we must alter our course or be blown astray."
"Isolated," retorted Morrigan, with a flash of her mother's feline eyes. "Except for the menfolk you bring back here."
"Don't show me your cheek, daughter, or- "
"You'll what, Mother? No, don't tell me, I have my suspicions!"
There was a quiver of tension in the air like a fresh-plucked lute string. Both women then looked towards the open-mouthed Flora, who was listening, agog. Flora took her plate and hastily rose to her feet.
"I'm going to see if Alistair wants to break his fast," she said, picking up a flagon of weak ale and wondering if they were going to start hurling spells at one another. "Thank you."
Flemeth snorted, while Morrigan let out a small hiss of disapproval.
Who was that? Flora thought as she used her knee to shove open the ill-fitting wooden door. Did you… do you know her?
Flemeth is not unknown to us.
Squinting against the pale, lemon-flesh autumn sunlight, Flora puzzled over the double negative. The quiet hum of insects rose about her as she navigated her way across the marshy ground, her boots sinking several inches into the mud. Once again, Alistair was sitting beside the broken bridge; staring wordlessly into the stagnant water of the swamp. A frog perched on the opposite bank was watching him with a single dark, oily eye. Unlike at Ostagar, there was no dawn frost in the Wilds; some peculiarity of environment kept it more temperate than the valley to the north.
Alistair startled as she sat next to him, pulling a face at the dampness of the grass. His eyes were hung with bruised purple; his broad shoulders stooped like an old man. Still, he tried his best to summon a half-smile for Flora; though there was no happiness in the sad little twist of his mouth.
"Morning. Not the most cheerful place to wake up, is it?"
"Do they argue like that often?" she replied, pointing her chin towards the ramshackle hut.
"Ah, so you've met the old witch now. What do you think? And yes, they fight like cats. Sometimes, I think they fight as cats."
He gave a humourless snort, skidding a flat grey pebble across the surface of the water.
"I think my spirits know her," said Flora, a little perturbed. She did not like the thought of her spirits speaking to anyone else; they were her companions. "Here, share this with me. The ale is for you."
She wedged the tankard into the damp, earthy grass and put the plate of smoked meat between them. Alistair glanced at it without interest, groping for another pebble.
"What is that, toad?"
"No," she replied, her mouth full. "Ain't mushy enough to be toad. Come on: eat. You have to get your strength back."
The second pebble went skipping across the stagnant water; bouncing three times before sinking below the surface. Alistair watched it fade away, his jaw clenched so rigid that it looked almost painful.
"What's the point?" he said at last, tiredness threaded through his voice. "The Wardens are all dead. Duncan is dead. The king is dead. Loghain is a traitor, and the Darkspawn will overrun the country in months, if not weeks."
"You have to help me," insisted Flora, shuffling across the damp grass until she could look him in the eye; her pale gaze clear and earnest. "You have to help me save Herring."
"Herring?!"
"Mm! You said yesterday: it might take the Darkspawn only a week and a half to reach the north," she said, staring at him with unnerving intensity. "I mean, they'll run into Skingle first- "
"What in holy Andraste's name is Skingle?"
Flora's face darkened, her brow furrowing.
"The next village over. They're our mortal enemies. They turn into seagulls and steal our fish, and they sabotage our lobster pots, and they… they worship sharks!"
"Maker's Breath!"
"Anyway, they're vicious in Skingle, so they'll keep the Darkspawn horde busy for a few days - or weeks! But then they'll be in Herring, and the winter fishing season is stressful enough for my dad without dealing with… with monsters too."
This was the most that he had ever heard Flora say in one go. Alistair stared at her, slightly mesmerised, wondering if he was still asleep.
"You want me to help you… defend your village against the entirety of the Darkspawn army?"
"Yes," said Flora firmly, thinking on what she had learnt about battles from the disaster at Ostagar.
Men can fail. Plans can fail. Courage can fail.
Alistair continued to gaze at her exquisitely sculpted face; only enhanced by the plainness of her garb and the dreariness of their surroundings. She could have stepped straight out of a painting from the Orlesian school of art: which liked to portray huge-eyed, winsome little maidens in the guise of milkmaid, or beggar girl. Yet there was a steeliness in his sister-warden's unblinking stare that would seem incongruous in any lazy pastoral scene.
"Alright, then," he said with a half-laugh of despair. "I'll help you save Herring. Maker knows how we're to do it. We haven't got a copper coin between us, not even a horse, not even any food."
Flora gave her jumper an experimental shake, as though hoping that a small fortune might slither out from the unravelling sleeves. Instead, the beribboned scroll fell neatly into her lap, dislodged by the sudden movement. Alistair glanced at it, his handsome olive brow creasing.
"What's that?"
"Duncan gave it to me," Flora replied, watching a small beetle wander across her bare toes. "The day of the battle. I don't know what they say, I can't read."
She grimaced, wondering if her mention of the battle would plunge her brother-warden into another well of gloom. But Alistair was still staring at the bundle of parchment; the creases on his brow deepening to ploughed furrows. His fingers twitched, as though desperate to reach forward and close around the scroll; to touch something that his commander had laid his hands on during the last day of his life.
"He didn't say not to look at it ," Flora said after a moment, handing him the roll of parchment. "He just told me to keep it safe."
There was an imperceptible tremble to Alistair's hand as it stretched out and took the scroll, plucking at the ribbon until it twisted, sinuous, to the wet grass. The scroll was made up of several sheets of parchment bundled together; the first far newer and crisper than the others.
"Flora, of Herring," read Alistair, eyes scanning ahead. " Officially discharged from Kinloch Hold… into the care of the Grey Wardens… witnessed by Knight-Commander Greagoir… these are your dismissal papers from the Circle. Look, there's your hand underneath the First Enchanter."
Flora eyed the uneven cross that she had inked at the end of that critical night when Jowan had made his last, desperate stand; mortally wounding the Tranquil and forcing her to reveal the nature of her abilities. Duncan had been there through some happenstance of fate: he had seen her conjure a shield that could deflect blood magic with ease. He had watched her breathe life into the mouth of a dying man; her fingers working the wound closed until it was little more than a pinkish smear.
Your abilities are extraordinary, he had said to her in Irving's office afterwards, low and urgent. You are not limited; you are specialised.
In Rivain, we have mages who spend half their lives talking to those on the other side of the Veil. We call them spirit healers.
My gifted girl.
Flora swallowed a sudden lump of melancholy, wondering if anyone would ever name her gifted again. Immediately, she felt guilty for thinking of herself so soon after her commander's death, and resolved to light a candle for him at the first opportunity. There was a pall in the sky above the Southron Hills to the north; a dimming of the light that she would later realise was caused by a vast shroud of ash, left hanging in the air after the defence-fires burned out of control.
Men can fail. Plans can fail. Courage can fail.
She then realised that Alistair was still talking, and hastily returned her attention to him.
" - any Templars challenge you on the road," he was saying, peering down at First Enchanter Irving's scrawling hand. "Proof that you've been discharged."
Alistair shuffled the letter to the back, not before gazing one final time at Duncan's bold, slanting signature at the foot of the page. As he cast his eyes down to the next set of papers, he hesitated; a small furrow of confusion forming between his brows. The parchment was far older than Flora's Circle dismissal; so delicate that he was surprised that it had survived their ordeals intact. The ink on the yellowed pages was faded, the words barely discernible to the naked eye. At the bottom of each sheet was a signature, and these had been preserved better than the main contents.
"'First Enchanter Haelmar'," he read, brushing away a cricket that had leapt erroneously onto the page. "'High King Arkud of House Undin. Nerwenye of the Brecilian Forest'."
Flora, who had heard of none of these, gave a little shrug. A bird with a strangely elongated neck and a collar of black feathers had settled on the swamp's opposite bank, and was eyeing up the dessicated corpse of a frog.
"The First Enchanter's name ain't Haelmar," she offered after a moment, still distracted. "It's… Orville, I think. I only met him two times."
"It's Irving," Alistair corrected, holding the parchment up to the meagre light. After an initial burst of energy, the sun seemed to have settled back into a shroud of gloom; the skies were overcast and it seemed more like early evening than before noon. He scowled, angling the parchment back and forth before lowering his nose an inch away from the faded letters.
"Is this better?" Flora reached out a hand, palm gleaming with burnished gold.
"No, it's worse," replied a squinting Alistair. "It's so bright that it obfuscates everything on the page."
"Ooh!" Flora took the offending hand away, quickly. She did not know what obfuscates meant, but it did not sound good.
"There's a date on one of them," he continued, slowly. "I think it says - 5:20. That's the Exalted Age… that's during the Fourth Blight, Flora!"
"There have been four Blights?"
He shot her a semi-exasperated look, continuing to labour his way through the faded words. The letter from the dwarven king was the best preserved: the ink still shading the page.
"'I, High King Arkud, master of Orzammar and the dwarven subterranea, do pledge full dwarven support to the Grey Wardens in the event of a future Blight. This includes a promise in perpetuity of man, money, mineral, and machine. By the Stone, it is sworn. High King Arkud of House Undin."
Alistair trailed off into silence. The long-necked bird raised its narrow head and stared at them across the marsh; eyes gleaming. Flora felt as though she was fighting sleep in a Circle classroom while a lecturer read out formal prose from an archaic text.
You should be listening, chided her general-spirit, delivering a mental pinch somewhere near her ear. Stop daydreaming. This is important.
"What's a machine?" she said after a moment, plucking at a loose strand of wool trailing from her sleeve. "Can you eat it?"
"Flora," said Alistair in a quiet, almost wondering voice; so different from his usual strident cadence that she looked up in surprise. "Flora, do you know what these letters are?
"No," said Flora, feeling as though she were stating the obvious. "Menus?"
"They're treaties. Treaties of aid. The dwarves, the Dalish and the Circle mages - they've all sworn to provide armies for the Grey Wardens in the event of a Blight."
Flora gazed at him in astonishment, her pale eyes meeting his tawny stare. Alistair was speaking more quickly now, the words tumbling over each other.
"I knew it was something important - I heard Duncan arguing with King Cailan one night, outside the command tent… they didn't know I was there. Duncan was talking about using the treaties, and Cailan said that they didn't need any help, and that the forces they had would be more than enough- Flora, do you know what this means?"
"We have an army," Flora breathed, her own voice distant.
"Yes! Three armies."
"That are sworn to help us."
"Yes."
"To help us defend Herring."
"Yes - wait, what? No, Ferelden. "
He saw her stony little face and hastily amended: "but Herring is in Ferelden, so if we can save Ferelden, we save Herring too."
Flora realised that she was clutching handfuls of damp grass as though anchor herself to the ground. Alistair rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth, skidding slightly on the mud. The long-necked bird pecked idly at the dessicated frog, its amber eyes glinting.
"And we're Grey Wardens, Flora!" he reminded her, crashing a fist into his palm as though he were smashing it into the Archdemon's danger maw. "We could take these treaties to the dwarves, to the mages - and the elves too, I suppose, though I'm not sure if the Dalish can be held to any oath - and ask for their aid."
A sigh drifted past on the wind; as though distant Ostagar had exhaled a long and weary breath. Somewhere buried the tangled vegetation, one animal pounced on a squealing rival. The Wilds had a strange staleness that defied explanation; the trees clung to their tattered foliage year-round, the channels that wound between the pools stood stagnant, the changing seasons had little effect on the grey-brown marsh. Alistair stopped pacing, one hand resting on a rotted pillar from the broken bridge; his eyes fixed on the distant purplish hills. Somewhere within that horizon lay Ostagar, now surely teeming with Darkspawn; below it, a forested valley where hundreds of men had perished. He wondered if their bodies still rested on the pine needles, carrion for crows, or if the Darkspawn had already taken them for meat. He did not know which fate was worse.
The young man suddenly seemed to sink in on himself like a crumpled piece of parchment; shoulders slumping and head bowed. His hand, clinched around the treaties, dropped to his side.
"But, even so, we're only two Grey Wardens," he said, a hollow note ringing in the words. "Warden- recruits. Why should anybody listen to us? I don't think even the king really believed that there was a proper Blight, he just… he just wanted an excuse to have a battle. And Loghain Mac Tir certainly didn't believe it. That Maker-damned… traitorous… son of a nug! He'll be our enemy now, Flora - and he's got the power of the throne behind him. If he finds out that we survived Ostagar, he'll be after us, too. How can two junior Wardens kill an Archdemon?"
Alistair was speaking more and more rapidly, his mind vacillating between increasingly dire circumstance. Flora could see him shriveling from the vastness of the task he had just described; clouds settling across the handsome face.
"You know what my dad says," she said, clambering to her feet and wondering if she had a wet patch on the seat of her breeches.
Alistair looked down at her, his expression torn. She pried the treaties from his frozen fingers and smoothed them out over her thigh, then rolled them back into a neat scroll.
"'No point trying to predict next week's storm'," Flora continued, crouching in the damp grass in search of the ribbon. "We're not going to worry about what Loghain Mac Tir might be plotting. I bet he's not really from Oswin, he seems the Skingle type. And we're not going to worry about the Archdemon for now, either. Ain't no point. As for making people listen… do you know anyone important?"
She found the ribbon curled on a patch of muddy earth. Wiping it unceremoniously on her breeches, she tied it around the bundle of treaties. Alistair watched her wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head: rousing himself from despair.
"I - I was raised in the household of Arl Eamon Guerrin," he said, quietly. "His seat is in Redcliffe, about five days ride away. Longer on foot. He's no supporter of Loghain, as far as I remember."
"Are arls important?"
"Yes."
"Let's go there, then," Flora said, tucking the scroll back down her jumper. "It's a start."
Though I don't trust men in fancy armour to know what's best anymore, she thought privately to herself, thinking about an overly exuberant king and a grimly scowling general. Not after Ostagar. I know who I can trust.
Men can fail. Plans can fail. Courage can fail.
But my spirits have never let me down. They won't fail me.
AN: Rewrote this chapter too! I changed the following things:br /
1. wrote Flemeth as a bit more cougar-y considering her 'hotter-than-my-daughter' makeover in DA2br /
2. made Flo less "hoo-ra! Let's save ferelden and be heroes" and more "we have to do this. For HERRING."
I also wanted to show off Flora's eccentricity a little more; considering she's spent four years in the Circle talking more to her spirits than to actual people! Also it makes me laugh when I read her suggestion of "menus?" when Alistair shows her the treaties. Like Duncan asked her to safeguard a bunch of takeaway menus!
Thank you judy! replying to others in PM! :D thank you all for reading.
