A blanched sun sunk lower in the sky like an executioner's blade descending in slow inches; the pall of evening lurking on the western horizon. Castle Redcliffe, no longer the stalwart bastion of Fereldan legend, loomed above its town with menacing authority. It cast a long shadow over the people below, perched like a raven atop its peninsula of bare rock. The bloodless winter light leeched any vibrancy from the world, casting all in varied hues of grey. Even the ruddy cliffs had lost their blushing hue as the light faded from the air. A perennial drizzle had soaked patches of earth into a thick and cloying mud.

Dread swelled in the streets and lanes of the town as sunset neared. The mayor Murdock made a brave attempt to bolster the mood and strengthen wills; reminding the townsfolk that the blacksmith's anvil had not been silent since midday, and that the dwarven mercenary and his company had reluctantly joined their defence. The brawny youth with the face of a dead king had helped to repair much of the broken barricade; he had laboured tirelessly for hours with hammer and nails. It had been his idea to sink several spikes into the mud at a vicious angle, he remembered seeing similar lines of defence at Ostagar. The lay sister had set aside her 'burglarising' tools and taken it upon herself to offer a more spiritual assurance to the exhausted and grim-faced defenders; distributing tokens etched with the Chantry solarus.

Flora had watched several men carry barrels of lamp oil from the shore up to the town square; during the attack, the flammable contents would be ignited as an additional line of defence. Once they had disappeared from view, she spotted one last barrel that had escaped their attention. In awe of Leliana's sinewy torso - the woman's body seemed to be chiselled from rock - she decided to work on her own soft, slender physique.

What are you doing?

Her spirits sounded confused in the extreme. Flora gritted her teeth, leaning the weight of her body back against the prone barrel. The wood pressed against her shoulder blades as her boots slid inexorably forward in the mud; she slithered down in inches until she was sitting on the ground.

I'm growing my muscles.

For what purpose?

I look like a shrimp! But I wish to be a… brawny lobster. Like Leliana.

Her spirits fell into a perplexed silence. A breathless Flora hauled herself out of the mud and turned to inspect her meagre progress. The scrape along the earth measured barely six feet; her exertions had resulted in little actual ground gained. She rubbed her sleeve across her sweaty forehead and blew out her cheeks in contemplation.

Your companion is an archer and a veteran of physical combat. Her build is a consequence of her life. You are a mender. You have no need of muscle.

Flora could not deny this: unlike the rest of her party, she was no fighter. Still, filled with determination to solidify the gentle plane of her belly, she set to shoving the barrel once again.

"Hnghhh!"

You'll give yourself a hernia.

I - will - NOT!

Suddenly, the barrel rose into the air with effortless levity. For the briefest moment Flora wondered if - finally! - she had added a new skill to the narrow span of her repertoire.

Unfortunately, as she soon came to realise, she had not spontaneously learnt how to suspend objects in the air. The Qunari stood before her, the barrel supported on his shoulder as though it weighed less than an infant. His face, though mostly impassive, bore traces of incredulity.

"Why are you red?"

"I ain't," Flora retorted, despite obvious visual evidence to the contrary. "I'm… normal coloured."

He stared at her for a sceptical moment, then turned his attention to the cluster of buildings ahead.

"This barrel is intended for the defense?"

"Mm. You can take it the... last little bit of the way if you like."

Sten continued to eyeball her, a coarse hm shaped within his throat.

They made their way towards the huddled tangle of cottages and workshops; the ungainly mass of the barrel so inconsequential to the Qunari that it made no impact on his pace. Flora found it more difficult: Alistair, who was a foot taller than herself, tempered his stride to match her rhythm. Sten made no allowance: he expected her to keep up.

As the stone and timber-framed buildings spread out before them, Flora found her eyes drawn to the west. The sun had sunk to the midpoint between its apex and the horizon: dull with anemic pallor, it swaddled itself in a winding cloth of cloud. It was a stark signal that there were only a handful of daylight hours left, and that soon the castle would disgorge its malevolent offspring upon the town once more.

"At first, I believed your decision to defend this insignificant settlement to be folly."

"Hm," said Flora, averting her gaze from the castle. They passed a row of cottages; muffled movement at the windows suggested observation from curious occupants.

"But I have been consulting the map of this nation. This 'Redcliffe' bears strategic importance. If the situation ends up in open war, we will need fortresses such as the one on the rock."

He took one vast hand off the barrel, gesturing to the castle that loomed with open menace overhead. The banners lay limp against the stone; while bare flagpoles stood out stark against a bleak wash of sky.

"Yes," Flora replied vaguely. "Strategic, mm."

"And we may spend much of our time on the road. Combat skill must not be allowed to stagnate."

The Qunari did not add that he planned to assess the combative capability of each member of the party during the night's assault.

"You know, the townspeople call this a sea," said Flora, her head turning as though drawn by a lodestone towards the water. "They call it, 'Cal's Sea'. I think they ain't never seen a real sea. They ought to come up north."

She let out a heavy sigh; her heart constricting as though someone had reached into her chest and clenched it in their fist. It had been more than four years since she had last set eyes on the grey and tumultuous span of water that gnawed at the northern coast; wild as any beast that lurked within the Par Vollen jungle. The Waking Sea never sat idle for a moment, it was caught in a constant, agitated motion; a web of interwoven currents seethed beneath the tussling waves.

Sten ignored a tangent of such irrelevance: the barrel's destination lay just ahead.

Considerable progress had been made on the barricade since their arrival that morning. It ran the breadth of the road, the height of two grown men stacked one atop the other. Every building in town must have contributed towards materials: a Chantry pew reclined beneath a tangle of barstools and bedframes. Nearby, the other barrels of lamp oil were stacked in a precarious pyramid.

A few men were still stationed at their makeshift barrier; reinforcing, nailing and hammering more strength into the haphazard wooden structure. One of these was Alistair, elevated on several crates and nailing boards over a gap that would be far from the reach of most men. He had a mouthful of metal staples and a hammer at the end of his right arm; there was little elegance in his technique but brute force served well enough.

The afternoon drizzle had turned the earth into a cloying ruddy mud. It clung to their boots in clumps and left slick red smears over the cobbles, as though the battle had already been fought. Flora wandered over to the foot of the barricade and peered up at it, fascinated by tbe cumbersome marriage of pew and barstool. She had not been able to inspect Lothering's boundary fence at close quarters due to the patrolling Templars. This seemed of sturdier stock; despite the haste of its construction.

"Flora." Alistair had removed the nails from his teeth and was grinning downwards. "There's smoke coming from the forge and heavily armed dwarves wandering around. You've had a successful afternoon?"

Flora beamed up at him, absurdly pleased to see her brother-warden again after their hours of separation.

"Mm," she confirmed, placing a hand against the flank of the pew and giving it an experimental nudge. "This looks strong. They both agreed to help. Eventually."

"Well," Alistair replied lightly, his eyes darting swiftly over her before returning to his palmful of nails. "Who could say no to that face?"

Flora, now leaning her body weight against the barricade to further test its strength, frowned.

"Actually, a lot of people have said no to me today," she corrected glumly, her mind still lingering within vaulted halls. "And one of them don't seem to be changing his mind."

"That fool in the Chantry?"

The corners of Flora's mouth turned down: a silent confirmation.

Alistair let the rest of the nails slither from his palm onto a level section of wood, then clambered to the ground. Such was the length of his body and the broadness of his shoulder that it seemed as though a section of the barricade had detached itself. He peered down at his sister-warden's face; chiselling away at the cool marble exterior until he had exposed the confusion below. As time passed he was learning how to unmask her by slow inches.

"Flora," he said quietly, sensing a ripple of curiosity from those nearby. "Flo, you can't save everyone."

As we told you earlier.

"He would rather die than let me help him," Flora continued; the indignant words undercut with emotion of a rawer sort. "He doesn't even want me near him."

"He's an idiot."

Alistair reached down to fasten the top button of Flora's coat, closing the folds of wool beneath her neck. It was an impulsive act: his hand had stretched out of its own accord towards the exposed hollow of skin.

"Mm." Flora looked up at him, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards. "I might see if he's changed his mind."

There was a span of time in which nothing happened. He realised with a capsizing lurch of alarm that his fingers still gripped the wool of her collar, warmed by the residual heat from her throat. Flora didn't seem to mind being caught in his grip; she was still smiling up at him, a touch curiously.

Alistair let her go abruptly and she shuffled backwards, mud clinging to her boots.

"I'll see you in a bit," she said, reverting to the usual distinctive solemnity. "In a bit of time."

"Yes," he found himself replying, suddenly short of air. "See you."

He watched her as she shuffled towards the Chantry: the slender figure dwarfed by the man's coat and the trousers clumsily shorn at the knee. The only clothing that seemed to fit her properly were her boots, which he reasoned were the most important of all. Her hair, bound with Leliana's ribbon, fell down her back in a maroon stream; the same purplish red as vein-blood.


"I said," the protest came out weaker, but no less vehement for the man's failing strength, "I don't want your help. I'd rather die than have your foul magic in me."

Flora retreated from the reach of his flailing hand; sitting back on the cold stone of the Chantry floor and wondering how to proceed. The patient - Hamunde - had grown weaker in the time that had passed: each breath rattled like loose grain and his hands had swollen to twice their normal size.

Fat hands means that the twin beans have stopped working.

Were the years of teaching you anatomy wasted?

Sorry: kidneys. They ain't working, are they?

No.

Flora did not need to use her healer's sight to scry the effect of such inaction. She could sense the poison spreading through his blood like a stain; until the veins and arteries ran dark with corruption, a malignant cobweb beneath the skin.

"Let me help you," she said once again. "Please. Don't you have a family who want you to live?"

Hamunde swatted ineffectually at her, then turned his head away; exhausted by the effort of rejection. Flora, who was not used to being spurned, did not know what to do. She bit fretfully at her fingernail, tearing at a loose shred of skin until it bled. Her general buzzed with impatience like an angry wasp; though the edges of its irritation were blurred by the soft tide of Compassion's understanding.

"Why spend your time on this ingrate? He doesn't want to be saved."

She looked up to see Morrigan: the witch's presence a dischord within the pious, pillared hush of the Chantry. A scathing eye had already darted over the row of votives, the everburning flame and the crude effigy of Andraste-in-chains near the altar. Still, with remarkable restraint, she managed to bite back her scorn: directing her attention instead to the stubborn figure on the mat.

"I know," a morose Flora replied, using her palms to propel herself up. "So he keeps telling me."

"Then why waste your breath?"

Flora thought for several moments, but the answer was a complex one and she could not coax her tongue around it. Instead, she gave her usual response of dunno, feeling like an imbecile. Fortunately, Morrigan was not in a carrion mood and made no attempt to pick at such an inadequate offering. She swept another feline stare, cool and appraising, around the quiet hall; her brow faintly furrowed.

"I circuited the castle several times," she said after a moment, wandering several steps to the stand of burning votives. "There weren't many windows to spy through. The towers were scored with arrow-slits."

The witch licked her thumb and extinguished the sole candle that still burned on the metal shelf, her painted mouth curving. "Fire hazard."

"Arrow slits," repeated Flora, rolling a low hanging sleeve up over her wrist. "Leliana said that it's a fortress. I suppose it wouldn't make sense to have big windows if it gets attacked a lot."

Morrigan looked disinterested.

"And the few windows that there were, were blocked off," she continued, clicking her fingers. The smoking votive ignited once again, the slender flame fluttering in mild panic. "I could see nothing."

"Well, thank you anyway," said Flora, glancing towards the part-open door. The light was draining rapidly now: the sliver of air visible was the murky grey of used bathwater. Such a melancholic sky would host no vibrant sunset: only a colourless descent behind a sheet of cloud and a gradual dimming. There would be no good omens or Maker-sent portent glimpsed in the heavens tonight.

"We're going to have dinner at the fire," she added, turning her eyes away from the colourless sky. "You should eat with us. Important to get a full belly before a fight"

Morrigan's lips formed the reflexive denial; to the witch's surprise, she heard herself agreeing.


AN: OK this chapter is a lot shorter than recent ones! I wanted to balance it out haha. Also this week has just been so crazy, I wanted to publish something just to break up the work! I had a job interview (via zoom!) and I got the job! So now I'm going back to Wales! Working part time, and still in the historical field. So I'm so happy! I cannot WAIT to leave London behind and be back with my family and friends. Plus I can raise my daughter Welsh then hehee!

Anyway ooops this note hasn't been about the chapter at all! Here we see a bit of interaction with Sten and Morrigan, and a moment between Flora and Alistair by the barricade. I also wanted to demonstrate Flora's medical knowledge - she can't read or write and has no understanding of history, politics, the arts etc... but she has a good understanding of anatomy and the roles of the organs.