Dawn arrived sluggishly. A reluctant sun immediately swathed itself in cloud; it promised to be one of those days which never seemed to become fully light. A morning mist thick as pottage swamped Lothering until only the rooftops stuck out, like islands in a murky sea. The refugees who had managed to sleep in their improvised dwellings woke to resentful stares from those who had not; the grim-faced guards resumed their patrol, torches parting the fog. The Chantry bell tolled in an attempt to maintain normalcy: time for the sunrise service. If you cannot attend, then pray for your souls and for the spirit of our murdered king. A dull, sonorous echo rolled down the narrow streets of Lothering; both reverent and reproving.
The mournful clang of the bell woke Alistair with a start. For a brief, horrifying instant he thought that it was a warning - that the baying Darkspawn hordes had been sighted on the southern horizon. Then, almost immediately, he realised that it was only the regular, rhythmic chime of the dawn service; not the discordant cacophony of invasion. He had spent a decade of his life waking to the same Chantry prayer bell; usually accompanied by a snarl that he was late for church!
The room materialised in slow focus around him as he roused himself: the walls stained with old smoke, the solid oak of the bedframe at his back, the ashen remnants of the fire in the hearth before him. The sound of people moving around in the tavern below crept up through the gaps in the floorboards, along with the faint scent of hot porridge.
There was a warmth and a pressure on Alistair's side that drew his attention next. He looked down to see a dark red head against his chest and narrow shoulders kept close by his own possessive arm. Despite the awkwardness of his position - a six foot and three inch frame, wedged upright against the side of a bed - Alistair could not remember a more restful sleep; and he could only claim three hours of it. The gentle contour of Flora's body fit so well beneath his arm that they could have been a single entity.
I feel as though I've slept a night on a feather bed, he wondered to himself, watching an anemic shaft of sunlight inch across the plaster. Is it due to her mending magic, seeping through her skin? Or is it…
Is it due to her?
The young man immediately felt a stab of remorse. He stared into the black ashes in the hearth, and saw Duncan's reproachful stare.
"Do you got any blisters that need mending?"
Alistair looked down, jolted. He felt as though a fleeing horse had brushed against him and knocked him off balance.
Flora was awake: she was healing two spots that had blossomed overnight on her chin by pressing a gleaming finger to each one. As he stared at her, she turned her face up to him with a question in her eyes.
"I - I don't know," he said, after a moment. "I don't think so."
Flora peered at him, the last of her pimples melting into her skin beneath a grubby-nailed finger. She had clearly made no effort to remove herself from beneath his arm, despite having woken some time prior.
Then, assuming that he was perplexed by her unusual greeting, she smiled up at him.
"Morning."
"Morning," Alistair managed, in a voice only slightly different from his usual tone. "Aren't you tired? You only had a few hours of sleep."
"Nah," she said philosophically, lowering her hands and eyeing her clear complexion in the polished sword. "Don't need much. Are we breaking our fast soon? Where's Morrigan?"
Flora crawled out from beneath his arm, and he felt an odd melancholy at the loss of her slender, sturdy little body against his own. She sat upright and peered over the top of the bed, surveying the gloomy chamber with a curious eye. The room seemed empty, but that meant nothing. The spider weaving an intricate design between two ceiling beams could have been their shapechanging companion, as might the mouse scampering behind the skirting board.
"I can't see her," Flora continued, answering her own question. "But she might be here."
She rested her chin on the bare baseboard of the bed, stretching out her arms. Her sleeves were rucked up to her elbows, the faint pink outline of chains still pressed into her skin.
"We ought to break our fast and then leave straight away," Alistair said, having regained some of his composure. "In case those guards go looking for their runaway healer."
"Some people know that I'm a Warden too," Flora said, vaguely. "Those soldiers from last night. Their captain recognised me from Ostagar. He called me Duncan's bedwarmer. Are you sure it means someone who heats up stones for blankets?"
Alistair almost fell into the hearth. Fortunately, Flora was preoccupied with mending the last of the marks on her skin; face planted against her forearms. Ignoring her question, he returned to the more pertinent matter at hand.
"All the more reason to get moving as soon as possible," he replied, grimly. "There's a bounty on our heads, remember? Let's check the map now and then we can leave after we eat."
"Ooh! Yes. The map ."
Flora lifted her face, eyes lighting up. She liked maps: they provided plentiful information without requiring a great amount of writing, which she could not read. After some rummaging and muffled cursing, Alistair dug out a folded piece of parchment from the bottom of his pack. Flattening the map against the floorboards, both Wardens crouched on hands and knees above the yellowing square. Ferelden, inked in faded navy, lay before them: mountains, rivers and settlements traced by a careful, long-dead hand. It was an old map; the borders between Ferelden and Orlais had been redrawn several times with each iteration of war.
Flora recognised the north coast immediately; no other part of Ferelden possessed such a jagged, antagonistic coastline. She traced the crude inlets and headlands with a wistful finger, unable to read the calligraphed labels.
"Which one is Herring? This?"
She pointed at a random black dot. Alistair glanced at it, then shook his head.
"No, that's Highever. Herring isn't important enough to be on here. Sorry."
This was in response to Flora's indignant expression, eyebrows shooting into her hairline. He laughed then added, wryly:
"If, by some miracle, we're successful in our cause and manage to unite the armies and then kill the Archdemon, Herring will be added to every map in Ferelden."
"Oh, no." She looked alarmed. "They might get visitors. They don't cope well with outsiders."
"I'd guessed." Alistair suppressed a grin.
Flora stared down at the map, wondering how much of the south had already been swallowed by the Darkspawn army. She wished that the old parchment could, by some ingenious method, stain the land that had been seized by their enemy. For all they knew, the horde could have turned and moved deeper into the Korcari Wilds - or they could be within sight of Lothering.
Do you know where the Darkspawn are?
Yes.
Will you tell me?
We will show you.
When?
When the time is right.
Her spirits fell silent, and Flora had to be content with that. She hoped fervently that 'the right time' was not when the horde was a half-mile from Lothering. In the meantime, Alistair pointed his finger at a smudged black mark in the southern part of the map. "Here, this is Lothering. If we're still going to Redcliffe, that's here , on the southernmost tip of Lake Calanhad."
Flora looked at the length of his finger; then back up at his face. Her brow was furrowed in mild perplexion.
"Why wouldn't we be still going to Redcliffe? We're going to visit the arl there, aren't we?"
Her brother-warden gave a slightly self-conscious laugh, his gaze sliding sideways towards the hearth.
"Well. I just thought - since it was my idea, it was bound to be a poor one. You might have devised a better plan by now."
"Me?" Flora was astonished: was he joking?
It seemed that he was serious; the corner of Alistair's mouth twisted in the way that it always did whenever he disparaged himself. Flora lifted her eyes and caught his stare like a fishhook snagging flesh, the clear water irises unblinking.
"Alistair," she said, solemnly. "Your plan is a good one. We're going to follow it."
Her sudden smile caught him off-guard. For a brief moment, the wry mask of self-depreciation dropped from the young man's face and he stared at her, speechless. He had never felt so confused in his life; except for perhaps when Arl Eamon had revealed the truth of his parentage.
Flora returned her gaze to the map, leaning forward on a palm to place a finger between Lothering and Redcliffe.
"Two knuckles apart," she said, studying the faded demarcation. "How far is that in real distance?"
"Three days walking? Perhaps two and a half, if we don't have any lie-ins." He laughed, hoping to dispel the turbulence that had so unsettled the orderly structure of his mind.
Flora looked confused: what was a lie-in?
Before he could explain, Morrigan's head appeared above them; the suddenness startled them both.
"I have performed my good deed for the week," she replied acerbically, crouching on the bed above them like a forest spider on a log. "Don't you want to know what it is?"
"I think it's meant to be a good deed for the day , actually," Alistair observed under his breath, while Flora sat back on her rump and gazed at Morrigan with customary wide-eyed curiosity.
"What did you do?"
Morrigan pulled her musky fur more tightly around herself; the chamber was chilly, and the hearth lay in ashes. There were no more logs left to ignite, and only a few scraps of kindling rested in the nearby basket.
"I created a small... disturbance near the guard barracks this morning." She turned her wrist around, admiring the delicate weaving of the leather bracelet encircling it.
"'Tis safe to say the fools will be so preoccupied with looking for me, that they will no longer prioritise hunting down the healer who escaped her prison last night. The silly girl who put herself at risk for the sake of a few strangers," Morrigan added hastily, averting her yellow cat's stare as Flora's mouth opened in an O of surprise.
Alistair, astonished: "I must be dreaming - did you just do something helpful?"
"Gods forbid that she be captured and the fate of Ferelden be left to you," retorted Morrigan, bristling. "We'd be doomed for certain."
Flora cut across their squabbling with the glittering, steely firmness that occasionally cut through her gentle exterior.
"Thank you," she said, the pale stare flicking from one to the other like a whip. "D'you want to come to breakfast with us?"
To Alistair's profound relief, Morrigan did not. The witch replied that it would be foolish for her to show her face so blatantly after her provocation of the guards; a thin veil of an excuse draped over the truth that she simply did not want to join them. After they agreed to reconvene on the town's northern road, the witch folded herself abruptly into a mass of feathers and hollow bones; a dark, winged shape that arced across the bedchamber towards the empty hearth.
After rummaging further within their packs, Flora managed to find a large, ugly and shapeless woollen coat; scavenged from Flemeth's dubious collection. Despite it being a garment intended for the outdoors, she put it on immediately; rolling up the sleeves several times. As she buttoned the coat up to her neck, Alistair watched her surreptitiously. He had never seen her clad in anything other than garb intended for a grown man whose proportions far exceeded her own. The young Warden wondered if this was an attempt to downplay the extraordinary artistry of her face, or if she simply did not care about what she wore. He had a suspicion that it was the latter.
"Do you reckon Sister Lel- Lil- Lillian- " Flora stumbled over the Orlesian name," - has paid for our breakfast as well?"
She eyed him hopefully; her stomach letting out an opportune rumble.
"Only one way to find out," Alistair replied, rousing himself. "If she has, I might attend my first Chantry service in a year to give praise to the Maker!"
The tavern downstairs was already a quarter-full. Anaemic sunlight crept through smeared glass; illuminating the cling of dust missed by broom and cloth. A group of travelling men-at-arms were seated in one corner, backs turned and heads close in conversation. The surly elf from the passageway was contemplating the bottom of his tankard; the old, limping woman sat buried in her cloak near the door. Since this was no wealthy city tavern, no hearth-singer accompanied the muffled conversation or hid the hollow cadence of the innkeeper's stride.
As soon as Alistair and Flora descended from the upper storey, the owner of the tavern put down his polishing rag and hurried towards them. Instead of decrying Flora as the escaped mage, or - worse - both as a pair of traitorous Wardens; he ushered them towards a table.
"I trust that you slept well. I'll bring you eggs and somethin' to swill your throat. Wouldn't want to… ah… keep you from continuin' your journey."
The tavern-keeper swept them onto a bench, looking about nervously. Flora had the impression that he wanted them both gone as soon as possible. She was unsure why their presence was so disconcerting, but felt a prod of guilt regardless.
Alistair, meanwhile, was delighted by the prospect of hot breakfast! The chiselled face was split in a grin; flecks the colour of spring leaves lit up in the hazel eyes.
"Just to check," he ventured, hopefully. "We don't need to pay for this, do we?"
The man darted an anxious glance towards the door, whilst simultaneously shaking his head.
"Your bed and board are fully guaranteed by Sister Leliana. I'll not take your coin."
"That's excellent news," replied Alistair, then continued in an undertone as the innkeeper scuttled back towards the bar. "Because we don't have any more coin. What are we going to eat on the road?"
He looked doleful once more: not even the imminent arrival of eggs was exciting enough to counter three days without food. The cutlery that he had gathered up was clenched against his palms, leaving narrow pink indentations in the flesh.
Flora felt sorry for her brother-warden: who, until now, had always had his meals provided for him. By his own admission, he had lived first in the grounds of a castle, then within a Templar monastery, and finally as part of the Grey Wardens. Food was gathered and prepared by others, and made readily available at the end of a queue.
"It's just… it seems ridiculous. We've got this near-impossible task," he lowered his voice, "of ending the Blight, just the two of us, alone, while somehow evading Mac Tir's hired hunters, and we don't even have enough coin to buy lunch ."
Flora reached out and carefully extracted the fork from his tightened fist. There was a strand of melancholy within Alistair that she had first noticed at Ostagar, seemingly in discord with his charming, irreverent exterior. As a northerner, Flora was attuned to solemnity; it grew through her like something hard and skeletal.
"Eh, we'll be fine" she replied pragmatically, placing the fork on the table before them. "We're following the river to Redcliffe. There's always something to eat in the water. And we aren't alone . We have my spirits, and Morrigan."
Alistair snorted at the thought of Morrigan as an ally.
"AND. We have THESE ."
She rolled her eyes at him significantly, raising one brow while lowering the other; patting the crumpled treaties against her breast so that they rustled reassuringly.
Her brother-warden laughed out loud.
"Ha! What's that face meant to be?"
Flora was nonplussed. "What face?"
"The one you just made."
Mildly indignant: "That's my ' this is important' face."
Alistair grinned at her; it was always amusing when the dignified exterior of her beauty contorted into the unexpectedly comedic.
"It looks more like an episode of sudden lunacy' face, my dear."
Unable to think of any smart response, Flora crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue like a gargoyle. The tavern-keeper, who had just arrived with two platefuls and precariously balanced tankards, shot her a mildly terrified look as he served them. The eggs were overcooked but steaming hot, accompanied by a thick wedge of wheat bread. Alistair fell on them before the plate had even settled on the table, grabbing up the fork that Flora had taken. Flora picked up her own fork, then put it down again.
"Where can we find Sister Lel- Lolana?" she asked, suddenly curious. "To say thank you to her. For paying for all this."
The innkeeper darted a quick glance over his shoulder, then lowered his bearded face until Flora could see the years of drinking imbued in fine, florid lines across his skin.
" You don't find Sister Leliana," he murmured under his breath, shooting her his own variant of a significant expression. "She finds you ."
"Well, good," said Flora, oblivious to the ominous tone. "I hope she does."
The man retreated to the bar, wending his way between the tables and benches. Flora watched him go, taking an overly large mouthful of bread and almost choking. Alistair had already almost finished his eggs; the fork moving continuously between mouth and plate. She noticed that, even as the innkeeper ushered them onto a discreet table half-hidden behind a wooden post, Alistair had ensured that he was seated on the outside. This way, his body - tall and broad as a young redwood - shielded her from curious eyes or prowling watchmen.
Unfortunately, despite his valiant effort to keep her hidden, nature was calling. Flora slithered around the other end of the table, swallowing the last of her bread.
"I need the privy," she said, looking around. "Do I have to use the one upstairs?"
"No," replied her brother-warden, setting his empty bowl over the remainder of her eggs to trap the heat. "There's one down the corridor, by the back door."
He watched Flora shuffle between the tables, her plump braid falling the full length of her back. The red of her hair was so dark that it looked like the skin of a ripe plum. When she had disappeared from view down the passage, he finished the last of his small beer and leaned back on the bench. He tried not to think about the sheer magnitude of the task before them; recalling his sister-warden's stoic pragmatism.
We'll be fine, she had said, through a mouthful of food. We ain't alone. We can do it.
The former Templar-novice never thought that his older self would be grateful for the company of spirits. Yet, in the wake of Ostagar - where the entirety of the Warden senior command had been massacred on a single drizzly evening - he found himself oddly reassured by the 'presence' of Flora's unseen companions. Since they were (she claimed) many Ages old, he assumed that they must have accrued no small amount of wisdom by this point. It was good to have some sort of authority overseeing them.
His thoughts returned yet again to the moment where he had woken up with Flora curled against him. By all accounts, he should have woken cold and plagued with cramps; a man of his build was not meant to rest wedged upright. Yet, he had slept more soundly than he had done in - months? Years?
Because I woke up with her in my arms?
The thought both excited and troubled him. Duncan had been betrayed enough, the young man thought fiercely to himself. I won't be disloyal and covet the girl he so… admired? Desired?
"Alistair? Alistair Hay-hair?"
The voice was incredulous, strident and male.
Alistair startled, almost knocking the bowl of eggs from the table. He had not heard that nickname in a decade; the teasing moniker assigned due to the permanent presence of straw in his hair. Such dishevelment was a perennial hazard when working and sleeping in the stables.
He looked up to see three half-remembered faces hovering above him. The heraldry of their badges was a far clearer marker of identity: a grey keep on a mount of red rock. The men were older now, more weathered; the hair fading and falling away as the fourth decade mellowed into a fifth. Still, he recognised them; as a boy, he had wanted desperately to be one of them. He had spent hours surreptitiously watching the Redcliffe knights as they clashed swords in the training yard: the sweaty, iron-grey flanks of their warhorses gleaming as bright as their armour.
Alistair rose to his feet and one of them- whose horse he had spent years tending in the Redcliffe stable - let out a laugh of confirmation, pleased that he was right.
"I knew it! Soon as I caught sight of your long shanks and that hair."
"Ser Donall," said Alistair, the name rising to the surface of his memory. "It's been a while."
"Ten years," replied the old knight, making a gesture. "Come and join us by the fire."
Alistair hesitated, but the prospect of finding out more about Redcliffe and Arl Eamon - such as, whose cause he favoured - was irresistible. The arl had never been Mac Tir's most devout supporter; the two men had frequently clashed over the succession and kingship of Cailan. He picked up Flora's bowl, and her fork, and went to join the knights at the table beside the hearth.
There came a ripple of interest as Alistair sat, the careworn group roused themselves from their tankards to eye him curiously. Most of them remembered Alistair as a child in Arl Eamon's stables: at ten, he had the build and strength of a fourteen year old, but no other stable boy had a gentler touch with the horses. They liked Alistair best, with his kind hazel eyes, and merry smile; and his habit of sneaking them scraps from the great hall tables.
"You've kept growing," Ser Donall observed, reclaiming his ale. "Knew you were going to be a strong one. Should've taken you as my squire, you'd be a far sight better than that lazy sod."
The lazy sod - a scrawny youth with a weak chin - was skulking in the corner, sulkily cleaning the mud from a bridle. Alistair shot him a brief glance, then returned his attention to the ageing man before him. He recalled how Ser Donall had once been ambushed by three highwaymen on the road to Rainesfere. The knight had single-handedly slain two, bound up the third with rope and dragged him back to the gibbet. The incident had been the talk of the castle for weeks; for a time, the favourite game of local children was Ser Donall hangs the highwaymen.
The man sitting before Alistair now was a faded imitation of the bold knight who had ridden triumphantly into Redcliffe, resplendent in his armour and with a bandit staggering at his heels. It was more than the simple advance of years that sunk his eyes into his skull; his hair seemed to have gone straight from black to white. Thick crevasses were carved around the corners of his mouth, and his hand shook slightly when he lifted the tankard to his mouth. The other knights seemed similarly fatigued; their faces wary and conversation guarded.
"Why didn't I take you as my squire?" Ser Donall continued, speaking more to himself than the young man sat nearby. "Ah, yes - you were sent away to the monastery at Bournshire, I recall it now."
Another knight added: "Horses were sorry to see you go. Wasn't your choice to leave though, was it?"
"Lady Isolde was never all that keen on me," replied Alistair diplomatically, scraping the fork around Flora's cooling eggs to stop them from congealing. "She's still at Redcliffe, then?"
Ser Donall's eyes flickered.
"Yes." He changed the branch of conversation swiftly. "How'd you get on with the Templars? I can't see you getting up to pray at dawn each morning."
Alistair did not know what to say. Clearly, the news that he had been plucked from the divine constraints of the Templars and recruited into the Wardens had not become common knowledge in Redcliffe.
"I left the monastery," he replied at last, slowly. The hesitancy in his voice drew the attention of the others.
"Left? Are novices allowed to leave?"
"I," said Alistair, mentally scrabbling. "I, uh- "
"It's my fault."
The knights turned towards the new voice, then visibly startled. With a rustle of mail and a scrape of wood they rose to their feet, astonishment and admiration writ across each careworn face. Alistair had almost forgotten the effect that his sister-warden had on those seeing her for the first time; especially on men in groups.
Flora, on emerging from the corridor, had noticed immediately that Alistair was now seated amongst a group of armoured strangers. She did not recognise their livery, but remembered that Mac Tir's coat of arms was a gold dragon on a black field. As she ventured tentatively closer, she noticed that their heraldry sported a grey tower on a crimson mound.
Is that…. Redcliffe? They're from Redcliffe?
Yes.
She felt a surge of pride at her correct deduction. Her spirits did not grant her time to gloat over such triumph; the general hissed in her ear.
Speak what we speak.
Alistair watched his sister-warden approach. Despite the ugly, ill-fitting coat and the careless braiding of Flora's hair, she drew eyes to her like a candle in a shadowed vault. As she neared, he realised that there was a slight absence writ across the fine-featured face; this meant, he knew, that she was conversing with her spirits.
"I'm the reason that Alistair left the service of the Chantry," she said, slowly and carefully. "I led him astray with my feminine bile - guile."
It was clear to Alistair that she was simply repeating what her spirits were dictating to her; he could see the faint furrow of concentration across her brow. The young man realised at once what he needed to say. Hoping that it seemed a natural gesture, he reached out and took Flora's hand, pulling her to the bench. He did not release her palm once they were sat side-by-side; it was warm and soft, and fit into his hand as though it had been made for it.
"We're to be married," he said, deliberately not looking at her. "Flora and I. And I wanted us to be wed in Redcliffe; since it's where I was born. I was hoping that the arl might give us his blessing. Is he in good health?"
There was a hesitation, that eventually turned into a drawn out pause. Ser Donall glanced at the bottom of his tankard; another knight's gaze slid sideways into the hearth. Flora felt Alistair's fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around her own.
"Is the arl not in good health, then?" her brother-warden asked, keeping his tone deliberately casual.
"The arl is- " Ser Donall grimaced, as though he had bitten into something sour. "The arl has not been well for some time."
Alistair felt Flora fidget against his side. He hoped that she would not announce that she was a mender, and would be happy to heal their sickly arl. He thought it best, in such uncertain times, to hide her identity as a mage; much like he had chosen not to disclose their status as Wardens. Although Eamon Guerrin had been no supporter of Mac Tir while the man was a teyrn, the situation might have shifted now that Loghain had become regent of Ferelden.
Fortunately, Flora remained silent; either she had come to a similar conclusion, or her spirits had instructed her to stay quiet. Instead, she occupied herself with shoving as much bread into her mouth as humanly possible.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Alistair replied at last, feeling the pressure of her small fingers woven between his own. "I hope he's feeling better by the time we reach Redcliffe."
The knights looked unconvinced. Ser Donall explained in an undertone that they were on the eastern road; headed to South Reach to retrieve an apothecary of some renown. The arlessa had sent another party of knights west to seek out a Rainesfere priestess rumoured to have a Maker-blessed touch. It seemed that the lady Isolde was searching every avenue in an attempt to see her husband recovered.
Shortly afterwards, Ser Donall and his party took their leave. The old knight was uneasy, as if he had accidentally given too much away to the young couple. This confused Alistair; surely the arl's current health was not a shameful secret? It was not as though the Guerrins were in danger of being usurped or ousted from their ancestral seat; they were one of the most widely respected noble houses in Ferelden.
Still, it was clear that he would gain no further enlightenment from the knights. Ser Donall congratulated him on winning the hand of such a beautiful young woman - a blushing Alistair realised that his fingers were still clasped within Flora's - and wished them luck on their journey north. The party departed from the tavern shortly after; the surly squire trailing in their wake.
"So, Arl Eamon is ill," Alistair said into the silence that followed their absence, more to himself. "It must be serious if Isolde is sending out the knights."
"Who's Isolde?" Flora asked through a mouthful of semi-cold eggs; having gently extracted her fingers and retrieved her fork.
"The arlessa." His face contorted in an involuntary grimace. "I doubt that she'll be pleased to see me. She always thought that her husband was my father."
"Ooh." Flora furrowed her brow. "Well, if he's sick, I can cure him."
Alistair admired her absolute confidence: I can cure him.
"Is there anything you can't cure?" he asked, curious.
"Blood curses," she replied, scraping her fork around the perimeter of the bowl. "Hexes. Jinxes. Possessions. Um, also - the common cold."
"The common cold?" He bit back the urge to laugh.
Flora scowled: this was clearly a sore point.
"My spirits say that if they let me cure colds, I'll be too powerful," she grumbled, rolling the bowl around on its rim with an idle finger. "It ain't fair. People make fun of me when I say that I can't cure a cold."
"Well," Alistair replied, with deliberate solemnity. "Let's hope that the arl doesn't have the sniffles, then."
She eyeballed him, unsure whether he was teasing her.
The next few events happened very swiftly; so fast that they seemed to tumble together like toppling books. The door of the tavern flew back and crashed against the wall with such force that the reverberation dislodged a painting. Three men stood in the space, crowded together shoulder to leather clad shoulder, curved swathes of metal glinting at their hips. The sky behind them was a pale, sickly yellow; the sun only a suggestion behind whispers of insubstantial cloud.
"We're on a Warden hunt," announced one, the gilded dragon on his badge gleaming in the sunlight. "Heard a rumour there were a few grey rats holed up here."
"And the teyrn is paying good coin for each rat we bring him," added the man to his left, unsheathing his blade with slow relish. "Though he's only interested in their heads."
"Don't try to run," said the third, a cruel smile pulling at the corner of his thin lips. "We've no time for games."
"Oui," said the old woman huddled near the door, who had stood up, discarded her cloak and revealed herself to be anything but old. The point of her nocked arrow glinted brighter than the badge of Mac Tir as she turned it towards the doorway; her cropped auburn hair shone like polished copper. "I agree. ' Don't try to run'."
AN: lol how have I spent 5k words describing them waking up and having breakfast? No wonder this chapter took so long to finish!
So I've changed Leliana a little for this interpretation- she's got a bit of an intimidating reputation in Lothering already! Also, surprise stealth Leliana! Flora is having trouble pronouncing her Orlesian name.
Also I made flora unable to heal the common cold as a nod to our modern science being unable to do the same haha
I'm enjoying writing this story so much! It's literally so much FUN :D thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed 3
