"With any luck, they'll decide to keep you in the Circle for observation."
Alistair's eyes were narrowed and the clean line of his jaw was wound tight as a lute string. The object of his ire - perched on the ship's rail - let out a contemptuous snort; yellow cat's-eyes glinting. The breeze, amplified by acres of open water, plucked free strands of hair and flung them about the witch's laughing face.
"I'd like to see them try and contain me," she commented with acerbic glee. "'Tis a thought most amusing. Not all of us are content to be penned like mindless cattle."
This remark, although not directed to Flora, was clearly about her. Alistair ground his teeth, but Flora was not listening. She was leaning over the water with the absence of expression that signalled a conversation with her spirits. She had given up on trying to restrain her own hair: the wind delighted in deconstructing any attempt to tame it.
When we arrive at the Circle tomorrow, what do we say when we show them the treaty?
What do you mean: what do you say?
Are there any special… words to use? I don't want to say the wrong thing to the senior mages.
There followed a drawn out pause. Flora felt her general's hesitation wash around her skull like ale swirled in a tankard.
Don't worry about that now. You aren't there yet.
She waited, but there came no further clarification. Since there was nothing to be gained by brooding, Flora thrust her concern to the back of her mind. She smiled at Morrigan, who looked rather taken aback.
"I'm glad to see you. They'll miss your magic in Redcliffe tonight. You must be wondering what a Circle is like inside."
Three consecutive sentences was a speech for the typically laconic Flora. The witch eyed her with mild curiosity; the waning afternoon light casting a finger of shadow across her face. Instead of responding she made an ambiguous sound in the back of her throat, her palms curling around the rail beneath her.
The boat skimmed across the water; sails straining with ice-laced air from the Frostbacks. The captain leaned near the helm and glowered; he was not sure if a heavy coinpurse compensated for a full day's loss of revenue. He had agreed to ferry the two Warden-recruits north in no small part due to his respect for Teagan Guerrin, who had forsaken his own bannorn to come to Redcliffe's defence. Bardon had vaguely heard of Grey Wardens, but he had believed them to be long extinct - after all, there had not been a Blight for centuries. If some Grey Wardens did remain in Ferelden, the captain envisioned them as a band of grizzled and venerable warriors; not as a fresh-faced and untested pair barely out of adolescence. And: one a redhead.
Alistair could feel the man's sceptical eyes boring into his back: he grimaced and turned his attention to the coast. They were fifty yards from the shore, close enough to see the hedges and crumbling stone that marked field boundaries. The central part of Ferelden - known colloquially as the Bannorn, despite being made up of several arlings - produced much of the land's yearly crop. The harvest had been gathered months prior, and now the fields were covered in shorn, greyish scrub. A few were occupied by clusters of huddled sheep; one contained a herd of reclining cows.
Watching the passing fields. Alistair recalled an old portent he had once heard about cows all lying down together - it either boded fair weather, or foul. He could not remember the particulars. As he searched his memory in vain, Flora came to rest her elbows on the railing beside him. The copper beech hair caught his attention first; several strands blown back against the high cut of her cheek. Yet again Alistair marvelled at how every small part of his sister-warden defied the pattern of his youthful crushes: the merry, plump, soft-cheeked and snub-nosed women who had once peppered his dreams. Flora's nose followed the straight line of a mathematician's ruler: her jaw chiselled with unerring precision.
"I think the captain wants to throw me overboard," she confessed, shooting Bardon a wary look over her shoulder. "Fishermen hate redheads. If my hair didn't grow back so quick they would have kept me bald in Herring."
Alistair turned and met the suspicious stare of the boat's master, whose fingers were tapping an agitated rhythm on the helm.
"Man's a fool," he said lightly, keeping his voice too low for the fisherman to hear. "Who wouldn't appreciate this?"
He held one of the errant strands between finger and thumb. For a moment, the only sound was the rustle of water against the hull and the griping of gulls overhead. Flora wondered if he was going to mention what had almost happened between them in the shadowed space beneath their feet.
If we hadn't been interrupted -
When Alistair instead remained lost in thought, Flora understood: she could not quite explain it either. There was still a glaze of politeness over their daylit interaction. They had never spoken about or even vaguely alluded to the shrinking of the space between them at night. When the sun gave out its heatless light overhead, he treated her with the kind, gentle deference of an older sibling - a brother-warden in all senses of the word. But then there were electric moments when the mask of formality dropped and their eyes met without camouflage; both would startle as though stung. They would gaze at each other, transfixed, for a drawn-out heartbeat; then some minor daily intrusion would sever the tautened air and they would continue about their business.
Flora brooded for several minutes, brow furrowed in three places. Even the nagging wail of a gull overhead could not rouse her; much to the disapproval of her general.
Can't you set aside your trivial adolescent lusting for the time being? It's a distraction.
Dunno. I can't help it. It don't feel trivial.
Bah! At least this one is more suitable than the last.
The allusion to Duncan made Flora's stomach sink in her belly, as though some cruel blacksmith had lined the organ with lead. An irrational guilt curdled like sour milk on her tongue. Aware that if she let their dead commander linger too long in her mind, she would descend into a melancholic sulk; Flora turned her eyes to the meandering line of the lake shore. The fields had yielded to wild moorland, broken by the occasional cluster of woods. The fir-trees sprouted like a fistful of dark feathers; the surrounding land scarred by swathes of raw and inhospitable rock. To the west, the sun was retiring behind the Frostbacks; the colour drained in gradual inches from the world.
"Look, Flora."
Flora looked up; her brother-warden was pointing across the bristling waves. She was gratified to see Alistair steadier on his feet; he only had one hand clutching the rail as the boat shuddered. Following the tangent of his arm, she saw a cluster of ragged grey rocks grouped on tbe shore. A ring of granite columns assembled around a squat thumb of a plinth: as though guarding it, or perhaps preventing an escape.
"Ooh." Flora was fascinated, leaning over the rail for a better look. "I've heard about stone circles in stories. But I ain't never seen one before."
"The Chantry broke apart most of the old shrines," he observed, eyes moving over the protruding stone. "They aren't keen on anything that doesn't follow their lore. Maybe this one was too heavy to pull down."
"I wonder when it was made?"
The half-light of sunset played tricks on the eye. The violet shadows shifted and it seemed as though the granite monoliths were moving; rearranging themselves for the night watch.
"A thousand years ago," he said, then realised that she could not count beyond the number of ribs in a human chest. "In the time of your great-great-great-many times great-grandfather."
Flora felt her general smirk. She could not imagine having such venerable ancestors. Her parents were the only family that she had ever known, and they existed entirely separate from the intimidating procession of forebears described by Alistair.
"The lay sister would know precisely when," Alistair continued, watching the stones recede from view as they sailed on. "She probably eats Fereldan archives for breakfast."
He saw the corner of Flora's mouth twist up a fraction: like any northerner. she was economical with expression.
"In Herring," she said, her voice distant as though it were travelling leagues from the north. "They say that standing circles are traitors from the olden days, who got turned to stone as punishment for their crimes."
Alistair thought darkly: Mac Tir, even that fate is too good for you.
"But some people think," Flora continued, digging the blunt of her fingernail into the warped edge of the rail. "That the chieftains of the ancient tribes - the ones that used to rule here - were made into rock by their mages when they died, so that they could come back to defend the land in times of mortal danger."
"I wouldn't say no to a band of warrior chieftains," Alistair replied, a wry twist to his words. "They could join us alongside your giants of Highever. Perhaps we ought to go to the standing circle for help instead of the Circle Tower."
The corner of her mouth quirked once again. Morrigan, who had ignored their conversation thus far, interjected with feigned surprise. The witch was still propped on the railing; she had the balance of something four-legged.
"And where were these giants and granite chieftains when the people of Ferelden were battling against their neighbours, hm?"
Morrigan found herself on the receiving end of a cool and unwavering stare: the pale irises colourless as dawn in winter
"The people of Ferelden," Flora replied evenly. "Didn't need help."
For an instant, Flemeth's daughter forgot that the progenitor of this statement was a foolish girl with minimal capability and a habit of talking to herself. Beneath the folklore, the vagaries and the daydreaming, there ran a vein of iron in the fisherman's daughter and occasionally, it showed itself raw and untempered.
Then Morrigan remembered that Flora had, in all seriousness, requested to be turned into a fish the previous day. With a scoff and a sufficiently mocking laugh, the witch shook off her astonishment and stalked away across the deck.
Alistair almost said: Maric led that rebellion, didn't he? The one that expelled the Orlesians and liberated Ferelden?
The thought hovered, part-formed like a clay vase, on the tip of his tongue.
"Maric led that rebellion, didn't he?"
Although it was posed as a question, Alistair knew very well that it was fact. Every child in Ferelden who had received even the most basic of educations knew about the Marician uprising: it was the first piece of lore they ever learnt. He had heard the tale a dozen times: each time, the mention of each father made his stomach clench with a resentful fascination.
Flora had not received the basics of a Fereldan education. She knew vaguely that another country - Orlais, or some other - had invaded and occupied the land several decades prior, and that eventually they were expelled. The young rebels who had fought in that war were now in their grey hairs. No men of Herring had taken part in Ferelden's defence: invaders were not interested in fishing villages.
"Maric, the old king," she said, remembering what Alistair had told her on tbe Redcliffe boundary. "Did he?"
He nodded. "It took him three years. To drive out the Orlesians. I wonder how long it'll take us to end the Blight."
"I hope not three years." Flora looked alarmed. "I want to be back in Herring by summer."
Alistair chose to ignore her last words and focused instead on the earlier part of her statement.
"The first Blight lasted two hundred years."
Flora could not count to two hundred, but she knew that it was exponentially greater than twelve. She grimaced, leaning her elbows on the rail and peering into the ridged slate-grey waters.
"It won't take us that long. We might not even need the dwarves and elves. There's lots of powerful mages at the Circle. I think a dozen of them could defeat the Archdemon."
"Speaking of."
Alistair raised his arm before them, finger angled above the sloped peak of the helm. "Look."
Flora turned with some trepidation. Sure enough, near the far northern shore of the lake - as yet, no taller than her little finger - rose Ferelden's largest Circle Tower. It took up the largest islet of a moon-shaped archipelago; the two horns curved out into the lake in a broken crescent. Even at a distance, the features of Tevinter architecture could be seen: the steep slopes of the support columns, the concentric medley of arches and the overly ambitious height. It stood silhouetted against the honeyed hues of sunset; a dark and chiding finger.
Flora gazed at it with an odd fascination: the last time she had approached the tower from the outside, her view had been obscured by the runed bars of a mage cage. Her Templar escort had made a comment along the lines of welcome home; at the time, she had not realised that he was being sarcastic.
Alistair eyed her in a manner he hoped was not too overt; attempting to chip away at the pristine enamel of her face to glean some sense of the emotion below. He gave up after a few moments - it was like divining from saltwater - and cleared his throat. She looked at him, a line of hair wound around the end of her finger.
"How does it feel? Seeing the Circle again."
Flora was silent, her brow creasing. The end of her fingertip had drained to the bloodless white of bone.
"I can't describe it," she said, quiet and bemused. "I… I don't know. They won't try and make me stay, will they?"
"No," Alistair replied, before his sister-warden had even finished speaking. "No, definitely not. You're part of the Grey Wardens now. Not even the Templar-Commander has the authority to reverse that."
He gently freed the end of her finger, restoring the flow of blood. Flora was not sure that she truly felt like a Grey Warden either. She had only been part of the Order for a month before the defeat at Ostagar; and all she had done during those weeks was mend the wounded in the infirmary and purge the excess taint from Duncan in the evenings. According to the stories told by the more venerable brothers, Grey Wardens were merciless in both life and combat: they ventured into Ferelden's foulest places to hunt Darkspawn with bloody and single-minded zeal. Flora could only claim a few engagements with Darkspawn; each more alarming than the last, and she had not slain a single one.
Still, she appreciated Alistair's sentiment; though before she could say so, the sail angled itself to catch the full breath of the wind and the boat swung to the side. The captain's hand guided the rudder, eyes bright with the prospect of soon disgorging his unwanted passengers. The half-light was just sufficient to discern a squat, stone building set back from the shoreline; a low stable annex suggested that it was an inn.
"Ain't going closer to that place," the fisherman told them bluntly, his stare lost in shadow. "The mages put evil spells on the water: the boat'll tip over and sink. Or the mast'll fly up into the air and the sail'll smother us."
The receding sun filled the sky with an artist's palette of hues: apricot, peach and bright violet melting into each other like watercolour. In contrast, the meandering lowlands of the Bannorn lost their colour with each passing minute: hills, hedges and huts all a uniform shade of grey.
The tavern had a small dock perched in the shallows; little more than a few planks of wood fixed to a set of submerged stumps. Such was Bardon's eagerness to deposit his passengers that he had moored and shoved out the boarding plank in record time.
"Thank you," said Alistair to the fisherman's back: the captain was already hastening to pull up the plank and cast off. "For - taking- "
The young man trailed off; the boat was already straining at its sole mooring, ready for departure. Flora wanted to watch the boat leave, but - against her wishes - her gaze kept wandering back to the tall, twilight-smudged outline of the Circle Tower. She did not know why it had such a lodestone effect; in an effort to ignore it, she physically turned her back on it.
"Shit," exclaimed her brother-warden, slapping his palms over his pockets in agitation. "I think I left Teagan's coin-purse on the boat."
"Oh." Flora replied vaguely: they had survived the first weeks of their journey well enough without coin. "We can find a pigsty to sleep in. Or a haystack. Can you eat hay?"
Alistair did not want to sleep in pigsties, nor eat hay. The temperature had fallen with the sun's descent and the evening damp had settled across the back of his neck like a clammy palm. Desolate, he watched the boat's stern diminish as it ploughed through the choppy waters.
"Forget something?"
Morrigan laughed: leaning against the remains of a stone wall. Her yellow eyes caught the last light of the sun: they gleamed like lanterns in the ripening dusk.
Alistair ground his teeth. He was not in the mood for the witch's snide humour in addition to a night sleeping under the stars. Then, to his surprise, Morrigan extended her hand and let something leathery drop to the wet grass. It was the coin purse, still heavy with the bann's coin.
"Thoughtless to leave this on the railing," crowed Morrigan triumphantly; her painted lips curving upwards. "Aren't you glad that at least one of us is observant, hm? How fortunate we are that my eyes are competent."
"Thank you," interjected Flora, bending down to retrieve the purse when it became clear that Alistair was struggling to express gratitude. "Now we won't need to find a haystack."
"And we can get dinner," he added, suffused with relief. "I'm starving."
AN: So we're almost at the Circle - I thought it made a lot more sense to go by boat from Redcliffe, but I also wanted to have the tavern stop beforehand. I love making up the Alamarri stories that Flora tells Alistair! Though the thing about standing stones being traitors was inspired by actual English folklore. I also like showing how Morrigan is gradually - very gradually! - accepting her role as a member of the party. Ha, also they have no idea about the shitshow that awaits them at the Circle D:
In OOC news, I've started my new job! It's amazing but a LOT lower key than my old job haha. I know that's just the way things work in Wales but I have a decade of London crazy work ethic instilled in me!
