So passed their first night on the road: a night so still that it seemed Ferelden was holding its breath around them. The surroundings fields had been left fallow for autumn so no lowing of cattle disturbed the serene chill of the air. There were no other fires visible save for their own. The shepherd's hut was the only man-made structure in sight; save for the watchful rise of the standing stone to the south; and that had been built by men long dead.
Alistair had not replicated the armour-wall that he had built between them in their quarters at Ostagar; instead, the two young Wardens slept on opposite sides of the hut, hunching around their packs while swaddled in blankets. At first a restless Alistair had not been able to sleep: his mind preoccupied with the vastness of their charge, and the dangers that surely faced them during its undertaking. He stared upwards, unseeing, envisioning hordes of Darkspawn swarming Denerim's walls, a dagger emerging from the dark engraved with the dragon of Mac Tir, then - as always - Duncan impaled on an ogre's rusted scimitar, Duncan torn limb from limb by feral, half-formed creatures, Duncan falling beneath a hail of tainted arrows. Alistair's panic grew until it seemed to take on physical mass, pressing at the walls of the hut as though about to burst through.
"They ain't helpful, you know."
Flora's voice slithered out of the dark; soft and full of the north's misty cadence. Alistair turned over, clutching the blankets with sweaty palms. His sister-warden's face stood out in the gloom; lit by the waxy glow of candlelight. She was lying on her belly, her head turned sideways on her folded arms. Her eyes were on him, the clear irises stained gold by the hidden candle.
It took him a moment to summon a response.
"Wha - what?"
She lifted her face from her elbows and looked at him, solemnly.
"Night thoughts."
"Night thoughts?"
"You know. The things you think about at night. Everything seems worse when it's dark."
Alistair was silent, wondering whether to tell her the terrible fantasies that had plagued him for the past week. He thought: I barely know her, she's a mage, she's a year less than me but seems younger. She talks to things that live in her head.
Then he heard himself speaking, the words pouring out like a libation.
"I keep seeing Duncan," he said, in a rush. "Duncan, dead . I can't stop thinking about how he died, and about how they must have taken him - taken him down to the Deep Roads. What would they do with the body of a Warden-Commander?"
Flora listened without interruption, letting him spill the torment from his mind and out through his mouth. Only once he had fallen silent did she speak; soft and thoughtful.
"The sea don't give back those it takes either," she said, fingers pleating the hem of her blanket. "Hardly ever. It's hard, but then you remember that the body… it's just a shell. Things leave their shells behind when they move on. A shell is an empty thing."
Alistair looked at her and she gazed back with the unblinking focus of someone never taught not to stare.
"Is that what you think?" he said at last, very quietly.
"It's what I know ," Flora breathed, without a shade of doubt. "The Darkspawn don't have him . He's beyond where they can hurt him. He's moved on."
She thought: like a crab seeking a new home. Duncan's shell was worn out, and even my magic wouldn't have kept it whole for much longer.
He thought: maybe she doesn't know her letters, or the current year, or who the queen is; but there are other things she knows. Who understands the capricious nature of death better than the mender? I believe her.
The sudden relief took him by surprise; the tension draining from his jaw and across the broad span of his shoulders. Somewhere overhead, an owl gave a sudden shriek and plunged into the bristling stubble of the field. His sister-warden flinched against her bedroll, still unused to the diversity of life beyond Herring and the Circle. Alistair reached an arm over the leather pack and patted her, reassuring but slightly awkward, on the head.
Like a Mabari, he thought, cringing internally. Why didn't I go for the shoulder? That would have been much more normal.
Flora beamed at him, though the smile swiftly turned into a yawn. The candle flame twisted in writhing patterns across her face; as though the light was imbued in her skin.
"No more night thinking," she whispered in stern instruction, fiddling with a strand of hair beside her ears "It ain't helpful. Think about what you'd like to dream about, instead. I want to dream that I'm half-girl, half-fish."
"Like a mermaid," Alistair said, adjusting bedroll beneath him. He was far too long and broad about the shoulder to fit onto the narrow bundle: either his feet or his head could rest comfortably, but not both. "An old woman told me a story about them once, back when I lived in Redcliffe. She said that they sit on rocks and spend all day combing their hair. Oh, and they lure sailors to their deaths with their beautiful singing."
Flora shot him a startled, slightly perplexed look.
"Not like that. I dream that I'm the other way round."
He laughed out loud; the sound breaking the night's unnatural stillness. "What, your top half as a fish?!"
"Yes ," she replied with a frown, as though it were obvious. "What would you rather have at the bottom of the sea: a 'beautiful singing voice', or ACTUAL GILLS? "
He grinned at her and after a moment she smiled sleepily back, pillowing her candlelit cheek against her hand.
"Goodnight, Alistair. No more night-thoughts."
"'Night, Flo."
Alistair did as he was told: shoving any doom-laden fantasies from his mind as though they were tangible. Just as he was falling asleep, he remembered - with a start - that they had brought no candles with them.
Morrigan reappeared at dawn as they fried mushrooms in a skillet over the fire. She made no apology nor gave any explanation for her abrupt disappearance, although she did spare the time to mock their grubby dishevelment. Flora offered her some mushrooms; but was secretly pleased when the witch declined with a sneer: more for her!
"The skies are clear," Morrigan pointed out, canting her chin towards the cloudless heavens. "The wind is dormant, the frost melted. Why are we not on our way? I cannot stand the waiting. You heard my mother: the Darkspawn horde are coming. The more we dally, the closer they get!"
Alistair looked closely at her, forking up a strip of smoked meat.
"Are you scared of the Darkspawn?" he asked, through a full mouth. "I'm surprised you'd admit to any weakness in front of us."
"Only a fool would not be scared of the Darkspawn," retorted Morrigan, promptly extinguishing the fire with a vigorous spout of water from the end of her blackthorn staff. "Ah, look, I've done your sister-warden a favour and given her a much needed wash."
Alistair looked at Flora, who now sat in a small puddle of mud; dripping and open-mouthed.
"Was that absolutely necessary?" he demanded, clambering to his feet and heading towards his pack. "It's practically winter. She'll get triple frostcough!"
"Thank you," said Flora earnestly, through chattering teeth. "For the b-b-bath. It reminds me of when my mam used to throw me in rockpools to g-g-get clean, back in H-Herring. It's how I learnt to swim."
"Spare me the reminiscing," hissed Morrigan, her features blurring even as she spoke. "For I care not. I shall expect you on the road in a quarter-candle."
Alistair, retrieving a blanket, decided that Herring might possibly be one of the most depressing places in Ferelden, second only to the Deep Roads. He could not understand why his sister-warden was so enamoured with it (he certainly did not feel the same way about Redcliffe). Nor could he understand how someone like Flora could have originated from such a sour little hamlet. He recalled what Duncan had said to him on the first night that they had spent away from the Circle.
Alistair, do you have any tricks for retrieving lost memories?
Tricks? he had said, not understanding. I know how to teach a Mabari to fetch. I don't know about retrieving memories.
Duncan had fallen silent for several minutes, his eyes trained hawklike on the sleeping girl.
I cannot remember, he said at last, with a growl of frustration. There's something about her face that won't leave me in peace. The way she speaks… it's misleading.
It is a very pretty face, Alistair replied, then added hastily, if you're into the intimidatingly unapproachable. Me, I prefer a plump-cheeked and jolly face on a woman. Friendly brown eyes. Sturdily built. And with nice, big… feet.
It took them less than a quarter candle to pack up their belongings. By the time that the sun had crested the horizon, they were heading north. The going was far easier now that they had left the Wilds; their route followed an unadorned dirt road wide enough for two carts to pass. From the deep parallel grooves that ran its length, it must have once seen a lot of traffic. Now, there was not a single traveller as far as the eye could see. The party made good time, crossing through farmland that had been left fallow during the winter. Each field bore stubble of a slightly different shade to indicate which crop it had once nourished.
They stopped for lunch on the bank of a narrow stream; which ran like a length of silvery ribbon between the patchwork fields. Although Morrigan again refused to eat with them, she did deign to assist with the ignition of the fire. Flora, eager to prove that she could be useful in ways other than failing to light fires, made a fishing line from a bent nail and a skein of wool. As she had hoped, her glowing fingertip proved effective bait; before long, she came up the bank with a greenish-grey trout in dripping arms. They had no fillet knife, but - to Alistair's mild alarm - the witch produced a slender blade from the inside of her leather skirts. Flora gutted and deboned the fish, secretly delighted that four years in Kinloch had not robbed her of this much-valued skill.
With bellies full of smoked trout and mushrooms, they set out once again on the dirt trail, Morrigan wheeling in the sky overhead. Although they no longer needed her direction - the occasional lopsided signpost confirmed that Lothering lay ahead - she clearly had no desire to walk with them. In the first stroke of good luck since Ostagar, the winter was proving slow to arrive. Autumn had dug its rustling copper claws into Ferelden and was holding fast; the temperature was mild and the rain more drizzle than downpour. Alistair mentioned that, a few years prior, there had been snow at the end of Harvestmere. Flora, who had lived on the coast and then under a Circle roof, had never seen snow.
Midway through the afternoon, Alistair pointed out a structure cresting the nearby hills. Like the half-buried bones of a vast, prehistoric creature the elevated roadway jutted upwards from the landscape; built in the speckled white granite that was characteristic of Tevinter engineering. The Kingsway was an ancient network of raised roads constructed when Ferelden was a vassal state of the old empire; its purpose to facilitate trade and communications. A half-dozen Ages later, much of the decaying road system had collapsed into ruin, or been looted for stone by locals. Some sections, though, remained surprisingly intact - and the Lothering Road was one of them.
If they had so desired, they could have reached the Kingsway and pressed on to reach Lothering that night. Instead, to Morrigan's disgust, both young Wardens chose to end the day's journey a mile away from the old highroad. As they set up camp in a derelict cottage (three out of four walls standing) she told them bluntly that they deserved to be overtaken and promptly consumed by the horde.
"Charming," observed Alistair, watching the witch flap off in a feathered huff. "She must have inherited her manners from her mother."
Flora laid out the bedrolls and blankets in the driest part of the old cottage, while her brother-warden coaxed a fire to life outside. Once the flames were a healthy size, they fried the last remaining mushrooms and leftover trout in a single, dented pan.
"It won't take us long tomorrow morning," he said, moving to one side as the wind blew a playful billow of smoke in his direction. "Once we get onto the Kingsway, it'll be a straight arrowshot to Lothering."
"Straight as the crow flies," intoned Flora, setting aside a portion of their dinner for Morrigan. "Good."
Alistair hesitated, glancing at his sister-warden from the tail of his eye. She had just finished assembling the plate, and was now stifling a grimace. He saw her reach forward as if to touch her knee; her fingers hovered anxiously above the swollen limb for a moment and then retreated.
"Flo?"
Flora looked up, her face falling back into its usual cool neutrality. It had taken Alistair a long time to realise that his sister-warden's haughty stare and the imperius turn of her mouth was just the natural manner in which her features settled; rather than any indication of internal state.
"Mm?" She had the northerner's habit of issuing vocables instead of vocabulary: why summon the effort of a word, when a grunt would do?
"We ought to… to try and be discreet when we get to Lothering," he said, watching the firelight play on the artful contours of her face. "And avoid attention, as much as we can."
I never got her that big hat, he thought grimly to himself.
"You mean, pretend that I'm not a mage? Like we said earlier?"
They had discussed this on the road: since Flora's staff was the only indication of her nature, it could be hidden somewhere outside the village.
"Not just that."
She looked at him, a faint crease etching itself across the smooth span of her forehead.
"We don't know what Loghain Mac Tir- " Alistair could barely utter the name without his lip curling," - what Mac Tir has said. On a fast horse, he could be halfway to Denerim by now. And who knows what sort of messages he's been flying around the country? He'll have needed to come up with some deception to justify his betrayal."
" Lie- ghain." Flora's mouth curved downwards in disapproval. "So we shouldn't tell anyone in Lothering that we're Wardens?"
"'Lie-ghain'." He snorted,despite the circumstances. "Yes, I think that's probably for the best. Do you… do you agree? I mean, I might have it totally wrong - probably do, actually. If we told people that we were Wardens, they might feel obligated to help us. The Wardens are respected in Ferelden, to a degree. Maybe we should say something."
Alistair's confidence was visibly unravelling. It was Duncan that made decisions while he, Alistair, obeyed; before that, he had been at the command of his Templar instructors; before that, the will of Arl Guerrin had ruled his life. He was not used to making decisions for himself, especially not ones of significance.
Flora smiled at him and it was as though she had reached out and placed a finger on his lips.
"You were right first of all," she breathed, as the smoke curled tendrils of ash heavenward before them. "It's best to be careful. The rules of everything are broken."
In Flora's mind, the natural order of the world had been unsettled with the slaughter in the valley below Ostagar: when one of the important men in gleaming armour had abandoned duty, discarded strategy and condemned the others to their death. She could still remember the three standing around the map table, counters spread before them on the parchment.
The king, the general, the Warden-Commander.
They seemed so certain, so confident in their victory. And look what happened. Duncan is dead, King Colin is dead. Alistair is right; nothing is sure anymore.
Somewhere within the hollow curve of her skull, her spirits gave a soft ripple of approval.
Though his name was Cailan, and not Colin.
Oh. Well, he called me Fiona. And Freya.
"I am right," said Alistair, seeming startled by his own assurance. "Huh. Well, this is an unusual feeling."
Flora scrambled to her feet, biting back a wince of pain as her knee gave protest at the sudden movement. Scooping up the spare plate, she angled her face up into the clinging chill of evening.
"Morrigaaaaaan. MORRIGAN," she bellowed; suddenly a northern fishwife. "I saved you some DINNER. Come and eat with us!"
Alistair groaned, leaning back on his elbows and eyeing her balefully.
"Do we have to invite the witch? Her face gives me indigestion."
Flora shot him a reproving look, still thrusting the plate skywards. She made an odd figure, clad in the ill-fitting garb of an apprentice boy with her hair knotted in a lopsided bundle on top of her head; silhouetted against the field as the daylight died around them. The knobbled spine of the Kingsway reared up behind her, rising and falling with the landscape.
"She needs to eat, too. She's part of our shoal."
"Our shoal? Don't you mean our party? Or are you still fantasising about being a fishwoman?"
She glanced at him slyly from beneath her eyelashes. "Always."
Her bellowing had worked: there came a flurry of feathers and Morrigan burst out from a whirl of arcane wind, her face contorted in annoyance. Despite her assumption of human form, a wild aura hung around the woman; feral and musky, as though old furs were draped about her shoulders. The tiny bones in her hair quivered as she shook her head like a displeased bear.
"Howl my name even louder , why don't you?! You'll bring every foe in the field down upon us."
"Do you have a lot of enemies, then? Somehow... I'm not surprised," Alistair observed acerbically. Flora held out the dented plate before her, like an offering.
The witch looked at it as though it were a rat crushed beneath the wheel of a cart. Flora waggled the plate invitingly and several mushrooms fell onto her foot.
"Eat something," she wheedled, employing her huge and luminous eyes to their best effect. "You don't have to talk to us. Or even look at us. You can sit with your back to us… right… here."
The witch placed her finger on the edge of the plate and pressed down with deliberate slowness. Flora watched the rest of the mushrooms and a large chunk of salmon tumble onto the damp grass. Morrigan cackled, her eyes flashing like a fox in the gloom. It was the first time that she had shown any sign of good humour since she had left the Wilds. Flora gazed at the woman for a moment, her brow furrowing.
"Are you mean because you and your mam were always mean to each other?" she asked, curious. "Because I ain't going to be mean to you. I want to be friends."
"Friends," spat Morrigan, her lips drawn back over her teeth. "I have no friends. I have no need for them."
Her face twisted abruptly and she turned away, stalking into the gloom. With each stride, her bones shrunk and twisted; feathers sprouted from greying skin; the features that made her human melted away and were reforged, hollow and avian. With an angry beating of wings, the crow thrust itself upwards, cresting the cottage's derelict roof.
"I'll never get used to that," predicted Alistair, gloomily. "It's just so… unnatural."
Unperturbed, Flora squatted to retrieve the fallen food from the grass; giving each mushroom a perfunctory rub against her jumper before replacing it on the plate.
"Do we have to be friends with her?" her brother-warden complained from somewhere above her head; he had come to assist in the retrieval of the food. "Can't me and you just be friends with each other, and be…. very distant acquaintances with the hedge-witch?"
Flora, still crouched like a frog on all fours, tilted her face up to his and smiled. The breath snagged in Alistair's throat as though caught on a hook; he had to consciously draw in the next lungful of air.
I thought I had grown used to the way she looks, he thought in bemusement. It's just a face with eyes. A mouth. Nothing unusual.
But, what eyes. What a mouth. Maker, help me.
"Are we friends, then?" Flora asked, hopeful and yet tentative. "Me and you?"
She remembered the prickly month they had shared at Ostagar: the breastplate between their bedrolls, his labelling of her magic as 'weird'. He had been wary of her even as he escorted her about the fortress; mistrusted her while simultaneously defending her from the slights of others.
Alistair, jolted from his reverie, blinked. He herded his racing thoughts into some sort of order, taking a gulp of air to slow the urgent beat of his heart.
"Yes," he said, smiling back down at her. "Yes, of course we are, Flo. We're friends."
AN: AN: Lol Flora has major resting bitch face! I love the contrast between her haughty, fuck-off looks and her temperament.
A vocable is a sound used to express something that isn't a proper word, like a grunt, or "huh", "ha!", "eh" etc! Flora, being a northerner, uses them a lot :P
This chapter is new too, I like to character/relationship build during travelling chapters, and since I had them sprinting to Lothering at a fast run in the original story, I thought I'd stretch the journey out a bit this time :P firstly, I wanted to develop Flora and Alistair's friendship! Since in the original, they become friends/comfortable with each other in a pretty rushed way at Ostagar (like within days). In the redux (lol trust me to pick the most pretentious sounding word for a new 'editon!') Alistair is standoffish and mistrustful of Flora the entire duration of their time at Ostagar. I wanted to grow their friendship a bit more organically this time!
Spot all the marine/Herring references associated with Flo this chapter! I think there are about seven, haha
I also want to develop Alistair's character arc more in this version - he's not so much a support character for Flora; but more a dual protagonist alongside her. He undergoes a pretty dramatic arc during the course of the game and I wanted the process of him maturing to start earlier. Likewise, since this is a loooooong story, there's lots of time to develop Morrigan too (so I made her extra mean to start off with hahaha)
Thank you so much for the reviews!
