Moonlight's pale, steely sheen blurred into the muted aura of the candles; the Chantry was lit in melting patches. The dead women who had once presided over Redcliffe's Chantry slumbered in a procession of stone effigies that framed its main hall. If the priestesses took issue with the manifestation of magic within the vaulted chamber, they sent no sign. Indeed, any ghostly protest would have been hypocritical after the assimilation of their souls into the Fade, source of all arcane energy. It was still, and silent enough to echo the faint drip of a leaking rooftile.

In the sea of light and shadow, the bedrolls stood like islands. The dying man Hamunde was now quiet, the remnants of life escaping with each breath. In the centre of the hall, Flora knelt over her patient - literally: she was straddling the squire's belly with her back turned to his face, bent almost double over the mangled knee. In her experience, her patients often grew agitated when they saw the workings of her magic - most viewed it as unnatural - and this allowed her to effectively obscure their view.

Flora's brow was furrowed; like a butcher, her world had shrunk to the mess of meat and bone before her. There were shards of cartilage lodged in the tattered flesh: she pulled them free with her fingers and dropped them to the tile. Her own knee, bound but throbbing after the night's exertion, served as a reminder of her previous failure.

I can't do a bad job of this, she thought to herself fervently, as Compassion hummed like an insect in her ear. I mended my own knee poorly and it'll never be right.

A mistake you will never make again, added her general. Now, concentrate. This ought not be hard.

One of the pillars seemed to shift, throwing shadow across a patch of moonlight. It was not a pillar, but a young man who stood tall and broad of shoulder: the movement cast a sheen of gold across his forehead from the nearby candles. Alistair watched his sister-warden as she bent double, absorbed in her work. He could see her hands moving in slight, deft gestures: tbe fingers curving through the air like scalpel and thread combined. Beside him, the tallow candle burnt through a half-measure, though time seemed to pass more slowly within the cool stone interior of the Chantry.

Eventually Flora looked up at him, blinking away the healer's sight so that she saw skin and not bone. The relentless exertions of the night had taken their toll: violet smudged beneath her eyes.

"Could you fetch me something straight," she whispered, then added, while yawning, "Pleaaaaase."

Alistair went and retrieved the prayer book from the altar, wondering when he had lost his reverence for such hallowed objects. The prayer book was weighty and bound in vellum, dyed the brownish red hue of a bloodstain. He brought it to Flora, choosing not to look too closely at the squire's raw wound.

"Thank you," she replied, manoeuvring the book carefully onto the tile beside the flayed remnants of the limb. "I don't want to give him a bendy leg. He's got to ride a horse."

Alistair risked a glance downwards and found himself strangely fascinated by the cobweb-thin strands of white extending beneath Flora's fingers; following the guidance of the prayerbook's spine. The cobwebbed growth thickened within seconds, sealing over to form a rigid length of bone.

"That's amazing," he said impulsively, his astonishment reverberating between the pillars. "Flo, you're so clever."

She spared him a glance of vague alarm. "No."

"But - but look at what you're doing."

The muscle was growing now; spreading like reddish moss tethered to ropes of subcutaneous fat. Blood vessels knit themselves together in knots of fisherman's twine. Flora's fingers conducted the whole process; the small, sprouting ovals of her nails dancing in the twilight.

"I ain't doing it," she replied, patiently. "Not really. It's my spirit's magic, I'm just… a tool. Guided by their hand. I'm a tool!"

Flora was proud of this analogy: she thought it sounded rather eloquent. But Alistair did not look convinced, his eyes fixed unswervingly on her.

"From where I'm standing, sweetheart," he said softly, watching new skin unfurl beneath her coaxing fingers. "It looks a lot like you."

Flora smiled up at him through damp hair and shadow, her pale eyes honeyed in the candlelight. Then she flinched - having received some inaudible reprimand from beyond the Fade - and hastily returned to her task.

Not wanting to distract her any further Alistair began a circuit of the pillared perimeter, eyeing each prostate effigy in turn. The priestesses and their tombs had been sculpted from the reddish rock that dominated the surrounding cliffs; the effect was eerie, as if each holy woman had been flayed. Some were clutching Chantry tokens between clasped hands, others were cradling prayer books to stone bosoms. Only half of their name plaques were still legible; the rest blurred into obscurity. One macabre figure held both arms up to the vaulted ceiling in a soundless plea. Her right limb had been amputated, either from the passage of time or from clumsiness.

Prophetess Helthra of Rainesfere, Alistair read. Receiver of the Words.

"What… whaa…?"

The youth's startled question echoed around the stone hall. Alistair turned back to see Teagan's squire pushing himself up at the waist, Flora kneeling at his side. He looked as though he had been struck over the head with the flat of a sword: dazed and bewildered.

"It might be itchy for a few days," Flora said, eyeing the fresh limb. "Because the skin is new."

The squire stared down at his leg, which was seamless and whole. It made no sense: the last time he remembered looking at it, the bone had been sticking through the flesh in raw fragments. He opened his mouth, but no sound came forth. Then he looked at Flora, who was unceremoniously wiping her hands on her bloodied skirts. The golden gleam was ebbing from her fingernails now, the aura around her hands melting away.

Inhaling a sudden, shocked gulp of air, the youth scrambled to his feet. He shot a final frightened glance at the unescorted mage - the apostate! - then made a scuttling rush towards the double doors.

Three yards from the entrance, a fist shot out and grabbed the squire by his collar. The youth gave a squawk: almost as frightened by Alistair looming from the gloom as he had been by the unsupervised mending.

"Say thank you," said Flora's brother-warden pleasantly, his stare shot through with steel. "To the nice mage who fixed your leg."

On registering the size of the man grasping him, and the ease with which a single hand held him in place, the squire decided to do as he was told. He delivered a stammering thank you to said nice mage, who looked astonished; then, on being released, skittered towards freedom.

As the echo of the closing door reverberated around the church Flora clambered up, slightly unsteady on her feet. It had been a long day, and a longer night; unlike most, her work had not finished when the last enemy had fallen. She yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth with the voluminous sleeve, then looked across at Alistair.

"You should go and have your ale." Flora rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. "If you like. They want you in the tavern."

He half-smiled, one shoulder rising in a shrug.

"Who's 'they'?"

"Dunno. People." She yawned. "I'm goin' to wash my hands."

The soft growl of the north in her voice emerged more strongly in her tiredness; Alistair was struck by an odd jolt of familiarity. He searched his memory for its source, then recalled that Loghain Mac Tir's cadence became more northern when the general was roused to anger. Alistair thrust the recollection back down into the well of his mind, not wanting his sister-warden tarred by the association.

"Careful," he said, as Flora paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "You're already on the third bath of the day, including your swim. I thought that was forbidden for a Herring girl?"

Flora eyed him solemnly, her pale irises glinting like fish scales. "After this, I ain't bathin' till the Blight is ended."

While she scrubbed the blood from her forearms. Alistair occupied himself rearranging the furniture in the Chantry Mother's office. They had planned their battle strategy in the oval chamber earlier that day, facing the bann across the formidable wooden desk. He decided against moving the bookshelves that divided the room, worried that he might instigate a mass collapse. Instead, with a silent apology to the dead priestess whose quarters he had appropriated, Alistair removed a pair of thick lambswool tapestries from the walls. They were both weighty and luxuriant to the touch. One depicted, in woven figures no higher than an inch, the Exalted March on the Dales; the other showed the trial of an anguish-wrought Maferath. Neither were particularly cheerful: Alistair arranged them face-down on the flagstones. Retrieving a smoking taper from the prayer hall, he lit the two candelabras on the desk and eight small flames merged into a single aura of gold. He left the rest of the chamber in shadow; the bookshelves stood like silent sentinels, each set a different angle to emulate the spokes of a wheel.

Once the young warrior was satisfied, he began to remove the final pieces of his armour. Alistair had already divested himself of the more cumbersome elements: all that remained were greaves, gauntlets and the sheath of mail he wore beneath his breastplate. The weary muscle in his chest and arms protested at further exertion, a swift glimpse down the neck of his linen undershirt confirmed a mottled wreath of bruises.

"I ain't sleeping in this… this topsail ."

Such was the weighted hush of the Chantry that Flora did not speak above a whisper, as though the stone ears of the effigies might be eavesdropping. Alistair released the shirt from his fist as his sister-warden shuffled in, almost tripping over the hem of the robe. Her damp hair had been wrangled into a plump and unravelling braid.

"The sleeves are too long," she breathed, with a vague sense of melodrama. "They'll strangle me in the night. Or I'll dream that I'm a seagull. I can't risk it."

Alistair snorted, unfastening the laces that tied his own sleeves at the wrist.

"You can sleep in this if you like," he offered. "It's not too sweaty."

"I wouldn't care if it was," replied Flora honestly: the scent of the human body had never bothered her. "Could you check my maimed back first?"

It took him a moment to realise that she meant the shallow claw marks between shoulder blades; the scraping of the flesh inflicted earlier that evening. Alistair wondered if she was exaggerating for humorous purposes - although he had never known her to make a joke - then realised that it was most likely the first time she had ever been wounded.

Or, wounded and recalls it happening, he thought, recalling her broken knee and unconsciousness after Ostagar.

Flora moved aside some papers on the priestess' desk; setting them to one side in a careful pile. She then perched herself on the corner of the wooden slab, her back towards him, precarious as though she were sitting on a fence or an unlatched gate. Her shoulders shrugged and the heavy robe slipped down, revealing a white triangle of flesh below the nape of her neck. She reached behind her and drew the braid aside to give him an uninterrupted view.

Alistair approached, and rounded the corner of the desk until she was close enough to touch. She held herself very still as if he were about to perform some precise surgery, her chin bowed to her chest. He moved one of the candelabra closer, angling the shifting aura until it illuminated his sister-warden's shoulders. The skin was unblemished, a swathe of milk-pale flesh decorated only with an isolated scattering of freckles. He swept his thumb across the unmarred flesh: an artisan tailor testing the purity of a rare silk. Unlike fabric, her skin was warm to the touch.

"There's nothing there," Alistair said hastily, after realising that he had stood in silence for almost a half-minute.

"Nothing?" she repeated, twisting her head in a vain attempt to replicate an owl. "It's all fixed?"

"Yes. Did it… heal itself?"

He could feel the gossamer light down of hair, invisible to the eye

"Mm. Can I still borrow your shirt?"

"Yes," Alistair said again, barely hearing the word as it emerged from his throat. The formation of freckles on her back was vaguely familiar, but he could not summon the coherence required to recall its likeness.

He pulled his undershirt over his head, the bruised muscle of his torso protesting the movement. Flora reached back blindly and received a handful of fabric. She promptly began to squirm out of the priestess' robe; Alistair turned himself around to stare at a bookshelf straining beneath the weight of several dozen tomes.

Letting the material drop to her waist, Flora paused to bite at a loose snag of nail.

"I didn't see any fish in the lake when I was in it," she said, idly. "I wonder if they get good catches here?"

"I remember eating a lot of trout when I was living in the castle," he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the row of inscribed titles: Psalms and Psalters I; Chorales For The Martyrs; The Life of Andraste, Vol. X.

Flora noticed a difference in the timbre of his voice and peered over her shoulder, heavy folds of fabric settled around her hips.

"Why are you talking to the wall?" she asked, bemused.

"I'm giving you some privacy."

"Oh." Flora was struck by a sudden recollection; her tone became apologetic. "Ooh, I forgot that you're enraged by my body. I'm sorry, I'll change in the Chantry."

Her statement was so absurd and so blatantly erroneous that Alistair almost fell face-first into Maferath's Sin: In Three Parts. When he replied, his voice emerged in a register far higher than usual.

"I - I'm not enraged by your body. Wha, why? Why would you think that?!"

Flora shifted herself on the edge of the desk, freeing an unfinished letter that had been trapped beneath her.

"The first night at Ostagar," she reminded him. "I was having a bath and you came in and saw me, and you were fuming . You threw a blanket at my head, remember?"

There was no possibility that Alistair had forgotten her rising from the bathtub like a river maiden from Alamarri legend, serene and dripping.

"I remember," he said, softly. "But, I wasn't angry. I was… shocked, I suppose."

Flora kept quiet, listening and fiddling with the laces of the skirt. The bard had tied the strings tightly, but she could claim years of experience at untangling knots.

"Because," her brother-warden continued, and something prompted him to speak without the usual mask of humour or dryness. "In that moment, when I saw you… saw you there.I knew I'd been ruined for any other woman."

Alistair risked a glance behind, his eyes caught in the pale current of her gaze. Flora was also looking over her shoulder; the contour of her naked waist and hip like the curve of an Orlesian violin. Her hair, the sooty red of a cherry's skin, hung in damp tangles to the desk. She stared back at him, her mouth slightly open, he took a single step towards her; and then the door in the main hall gave a resounding thud as it was swung open.

The heat in the air, like a breath held to its limit, dissolved in a rush. Flora blinked and pulled the shirt over her; Alistair exhaled and wondered if it had been his imagination, or if something inexplicable had passed between them during that taut and elongated pause.

Teagan Guerrin strode into the chamber moments later, several tankards clutched in his fist. He had clearly ceded some ground on his earlier conviction; there was an ale-fuelled gleam in his eye. He looked at the two young Wardens - Alistair bare from the waist up, Flora clad in shirt and smalls - and let out a snort.

"Well, between the two of you, you're fully dressed," he observed drily, depositing the tankards on the desk. Liquid splashed over the priestess' final correspondence, seeping into the parchment and melting the ink. "Am I interrupting something?"

Yes, thought Alistair, mutinously. Or the start of something. Perhaps.

Flora still bore a look of slight dazedness, as if she had been hit over the head with something hard.

"I came to deliver your victory drinks," the bann continued, gesturing to the tankards. "And to confirm our plan for tomorrow."

Alistair approached the desk and took his ale, relieved to add some moisture to the dry landscape of his mouth. It was a mid-quality beer with a smoky aftertaste; he drained it in several long gulps.

"We're going into the castle," he said, recalling the brief fragments of a plan constructed earlier that evening. "Is it worth trying the entrance gate once more? You said it's been shut."

"Locked and chained for a fortnight now. The dead must just climb over it each evening." The bann gave a shrug. "We could take another look."

Flora surreptitiously released her sour mouthful of water, hops and yeast back into her tankard.

"I can break it open," she offered, after a nudge from her spirits. "The gate. I can use my shield. If we want to be obvious."

"We may not wish to be," Teagan replied, watching her from the corner of his eye as she slithered down from the desk: bare legs and hair. "Things are far from right up there. It might be worth taking a cautious approach. I know a few other ways of getting in, if it comes down to it. We might have to fight our way through."

They conversed for a few minutes more; Flora, wanting to avoid her tankard, sidled off between the bookshelves. The wooden shelves were bowed from age and the weight of the tomes crammed within them. She ran her finger along the array of leatherbound spines, and it came back dusty. The titles of the books were illegible to her: tangled of twisted symbols that slithered away when she tried to focus on them.

Why are you hiding? demanded her general, their tone testy.

They're talking strategy. I don't know anything about it.

Then this is your chance to learn.

Flora did not see the point in her learning strategy: she was in charge of nothing, had no position of command and led no troops. She was content to let others take control of their battle plan - Alistair had more experience, Leliana seemed equally competent - and fulfil a supporting role.

More is required of you. Don't stagnate.

Flora sighed, but obediently shuffled her way back along the shelf; towards the desk at the centre of the chamber. The bann was about to take his leave; leaving also the empty tankards for someone else to collect. After all, it was not the duty of a noble to tidy up after themselves.

"We'll meet at dawn, then," Teagan said, the corner of his mouth quirking as he noticed Alistair's makeshift bedroll, laid out between the shelves. "Have a… good night."


AN: Oooh! The sexual tension! Lol I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to keep these two apart! In the original story, they don't even have their first kiss until after the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the Circle! XD I wanted to make the chemistry between them a little more overt this time. I don't know if "I was ruined for" is a uniquely British idiom, but it basically means that, once you've seen/had/experienced something, nothing else will live up to that standard! Like, "once I had mint choc chip for the first time; I was ruined for any other flavour of icecream!".

I also wanted to show again how unprepared and inexperienced/unwilling Flora is to take a more central role - she's totally happy being a mender in the background! Unfortunately, she's going to need to get drastically out of her comfort zone during this story :) hope everyone is keeping safe and well!