The tavern was shaped like an L, and had two floors; somehow, it still managed to appear squat, as though a great palm had squashed it into the side of the hill. The walls were a tumble of grey stone; the roof a collection of mismatched tile. In an effort to disguise the building's general dilapidation, someone - most likely the innkeeper - had plastered over the peeling wood. It had not entirely worked: white curls littered the ground beneath the rotting shutters. Despite the air of neglect, a lantern blazed encouragingly above the doorway and each low window was painted amber with hearthlight.

The inn's name-sign hung from a purpose-built gallows near the small dock. While Alistair gathered their belongings, Flora wandered up to the swinging board. There were four words scribed there - two long, and two short - but she could not decipher them.

"What's it say?"

Alistair managed to tuck his sister-warden's staff beneath his loaded arms: Flora had wandered happily off the boat without it. As he did so, he vaguely remembered a time when he had not even dared to touch the length of beech, viewing it instead with the utmost pursed-lipped suspicion. Such a sentiment seemed ridiculous now: he felt a retrospective embarrassment at his own misgivings.

"It says- " He frowned, brow furrowed at the swaying sign. The image had long since decayed into flakes, but the letters were still visible. "'The Dragon's End.' Odd name for an inn."

"It's a good omen." Flora, like most fishermen, had a healthy vein of superstition. "It means that we're going to kill the Archdemon by Satinalia."

He laughed. "Satinalia's next month!"

She was undeterred. "By mackerel season, then."

Morrigan, who had no interest in sleeping anywhere infused with the smell of ale and unwashed patron, melted into the shadow like a late dream. Alistair and Flora, after a brief and whispered exchange, hid her staff in a tangle of long grass beneath the windowsill. The assault at Redcliffe, the attack of the undead and the possessed child, had proved a temporary distraction. Now, they remembered all too well that they had a price on their heads courtesy of Mac Tir.

"We should try and avoid attracting any attention," Alistair repeated as they approached the entrance. Based on the muffled chatter and enthusiastic rattle of tankards, the tavern was hosting a fair number. "Hopefully this place is isolated enough that they haven't heard about the bounty."

"Mm," Flora agreed solemnly, not realising that she had inadvertently seen the Grey Warden: Wanted! poster while finding a hiding place for the staff. The bounty had blown down from where it had been stuck, and trodden into the damp grass by oblivious patrons. The inked symbol of the griffon was lost to the mud, and the demand itself she could not read.

Alistair glanced sideways at her; face lit in several places by the lantern hanging in the porch. Even the waxed glow of candlelight could not soften the acute artistry of the features: cut with exquisite precision.

"I think we need to get you a big hat, my dear," he said dryly, reaching for the iron loop.

"Yes." Flora was intrigued: she had never tried on a hat before. "To store crabs in."

He hid a grin, twisting the iron ring and pulling the door towards him. The frame was warped from age: the door protested even as it yielded. A wedge of firelight widened to reveal the clutter of a rustic tavern. Chairs and tables were clustered in haphazard groups, the hearth bordered by a splintering tiled pattern of lilies. Several raucous guests were making enough noise for two dozen: they seemed to be mid-way through a drinking contest. A dog - part Mabari, from the shape of its ears - lay sprawled in front of the flames. It raised its head as the young man's broad-shouldered brawn filled much of the doorframe, hackles prickling.

Grateful that most of the patrons were distracted by the increasing intoxication of the competitors, Alistair glanced around. For a single, electric instant, he thought that Mac Tir himself was standing behind the bar - then he realised that the greying dark hair and sallow skin belonged to another burly man in his fifties. The innkeeper had his back turned, a grubby cloth in one hand and a tankard in the other.

"You youngins' here for a tumble or a tankard?"

A low, flat roughness underlined the man's voice. Mac Tir had disguised his own humble origins with learned refinement; though the roots of his youthful cadence were still there. Back at Ostagar Flora had guessed that the general had once a commoner from the north before he had finished his first sentence.

Alistair felt a flush creep up from beneath the collar of his shirt.

"We'd… we'd like a room," he said, impressed and relieved by the steadiness of his voice. "And some dinner, if you've anything hot left."

The weight of his coinpurse could have bought out the upper floor of the tavern; yet it did not even occur to Alistair to ask for two rooms. He had grown so accustomed to his sister-warden's presence at night - first separated by his own stacked armour, then by six inches of air, and eventually by nothing but their clothing - that the thought of now putting a wall between them seemed irrational.

"Think I've some stew," the innkeeper said begrudgingly after a moment. "Don't know if I've any clean bowls."

"They don't need to be clean," offered Flora helpfully, whose belly was rumbling.

There was a lull in the conversation behind them; the sound of the hearth gnawing through a log suddenly became audible. Alistair had a suspicion as to the cause of the sudden silence, and a subtle half-turn of the head confirmed it. Flora was oblivious to the eyes that had come to settle on her - most likely, she had learnt to ignore them - and was instead focused on the prospect of dinner.

Alistair remembered what Duncan had said to him on the last evening of his life: quiet and with a hollow rattle of melancholy.

Look after each other, won't you?

What do you mean, Alistair had asked, disconcerted by their commander's expression.

You'll find out soon, my boy.

Alistair understood now what his dead mentor had meant. He turned without subtlety this time, letting his height and the size of his arm send a wordless warning. There was no need to tilt the handle of his blade towards the light: his unarmoured body was weapon enough. A wary array of eyes surveyed him, then dropped back to their tankards.

"Stew," announced the innkeeper; bowls splattering as they landed on the wooden bar. "It's beef."

Alistair took the initiative, gathering up their belongings. He headed purposefully towards a table that was partially obscured by the staircase leading to the upper level; Flora retrieved both bowls and followed.

The stew was not beef, but - whatever it was - it was not bad. Alistair devoured his in a few minutes, mopping up the dregs with a chunk of grainy bread. He then noticed that Flora was swirling her spoon around the edge of the bowl: brow furrowed in three places.

"What's wrong?" he asked through a mouthful of bread, letting his own spoon rest. "Don't like the taste?"

Flora's frown deepened: she never rejected food, regardless of what it tasted like. Instead of responding immediately, her eyes slid to the square of glass set in the wall. The window had the greyish navy of a new bruise: night was swiftly seizing ownership of the sky.

"Do you think they'll be alright?"

She did not need to elaborate further: Alistair knew full well what she meant.

Nightfall: the assault on Redcliffe begins once again.

Flora's pale eyes searched his face for reassurance that preceded the parting of his lips. He met her gaze without blinking, his reply steady and confident.

"They'll be fine. Leliana's there, and the Qunari - Sten - too. Trust me, the enemy will wish they never left the castle."

Flora slid the spoon around the curved lip of the bowl, watching the pieces of meat slither over each other in the greasy broth.

"Maybe you should have stayed too," she said, though she did not sound convinced. "The bann said that you made the biggest difference of all last night."

"Well, Duncan said that we had to stay together," Alistair replied, and the lightness of his tone did not match how closely he watched for her response. "Me and you."

Although Flora's face remained opaque as ever, the spoon hesitated in its rotation around the bowl.

"Mm."

There was a distance in the sound: an breathy echo of wistfulness. Alistair felt the stew weighing down his stomach: he wished suddenly that he had not eaten so quickly. Then his spirits rose like a flock of birds from a roof; Flora's hand had made its way to his arm, the slender stems of her fingers curling over his sleeve.

"Me and you," she repeated as though it were a prayer, solemn and earnest. "Duncan was right."

To his surprise, Alistair did not respond with the flippancy that had grown as a rebuke to the Templar monastery's determined sombreness. A light-hearted remark withered unspoken in his throat. The trivial grin was set aside. His eyes settled on her face and stayed there: he made no effort to hide his stare, nor mask the intensity of it. He felt as though he was being drawn out to sea by a tide that he had no wish to resist. She gazed back at him, oddly mesmerised: the restless hearthlight mirrored in the clear grey of her irises.

"For yer room. Back passage. Try and keep it down, I got guests who need their sleep."

The iron key clattered onto the table between them; the sound breaking the stillness like a boot through ice. Flora blinked as though awoken from a dream. Alistair wondered wildly if Duncan's spirit was enjoying some sly, vindictive sport at their expense: sending interruptions in the form of old men. His sister-warden's attention was sufficiently diverted, fingers closing around the length of iron.

Their chamber was at the end of a short corridor: the door sat warped in its frame, and protested its opening. The rumble of their neighbour's snores reverberated within the passage: Alistair hoped that the walls were thicker than the innkeeper had intimated. With a pack slung over each shoulder, he watched Flora tentatively insert the key; twisting it the wrong way before realising her mistake. When the lock groaned and gave way, she nudged the door open with a knee: key in one hand and her congealing stew in the other.

The chamber was more cramped than their room at the Dane's Refuge in Lothering, with no hearth and a single shuttered window. The floorboards were partlu covered by a threadbare rug with its pattern trodden out. A small nightstand bore an ebbing candlestick and a pewter jug. There was a lone bed pushed against the wall, just wide enough for a pair to lie cheek by jowl. A chequered tangle of blankets rested at one end, accompanied by an aging sheepskin.

"Huh," said Alistair, depositing their belongings at the foot of the bed. "It's me."

Flora first looked at him, then followed the angle of his point. There was a small portrait on the wall: a cheap copy by a copper-artist of a famous original. Despite the clumsy strokes and inferior line work of the reproduction, the subject gazed out boldly, strong-jawed and tawny-headed.

She was intrigued. "Why's there a picture of you here?"

He laughed, approaching the painting to inspect it more closely. It had not been placed wisely on the wall: opposite the window, half of its face was bleached out by sunlight.

"It's not actually me. It's the old king."

The dimly lit room did not allow for closer inspection. Flora held up her hand, fingers gleaming as though dipped in the liquid fire of the forge. The diaphanous light fell across Maric Theirin's face, and Ferelden's most famous son seemed to smile at them. Flora looked at the king, then across at Alistair. She preferred her brother-warden's face; it was no less proud, but somehow less arrogant.

Alistair was silent, startled by the swiftness of his acknowledgement of the man who had fathered him. A week ago, he would have turned Maric's confident half-smile to the wall, or shoved him beneath the bed before Flora could catch sight. There were a handful of people in Ferelden who knew that he was a Theirin, albeit one born on the wrong side of the sheets; and each had treated him differently once they learnt it. Even Duncan had insisted that Alistair accompany him during the recruitment drives, and kept him from the most dangerous missions. In contrast, his sister-warden had not cared; she did not really understand the significance of his parentage - or that he was now the sole Theirin in Ferelden - and she did not ask for clarification. He had asked her what the social hierarchy was in her home, and (after asking what social hierarchy meant), she had recited: hook-maker, net-mender. Boat-builder. FISHERMAN. There were no lords in Herring.

"Maric," she said vaguely, disinterested. "Hm."

Alistair gazed at his father a moment longer, then turned away with an odd twisting in his gut. He was unsure whether it was apprehension or anticipation.

Flora inspected the sheepskin on the bed, then let it drop and wandered across to the window. Night had swallowed the sky; an unveiled moon presided amidst a host of emerging stars. The white light polled between the hills and painted the west-facing trees silver; winter had stolen the gentle dusk of evening. She put her nose to the warped glass - it was cheaply made, and shifted in its frame - and peered out. The space before her eyes misted with her tangible breath: Flora erased it with her elbow. As the fog yielded, she caught sight of something buried in the darkness beyond the glass: a tangle of pale and indecipherable shapes.

What's that? she thought, and unsurprisingly received no answer.

The rear side of the tavern faced a grassy slope that led into the meandering topography of the Bannorn. The shadow had pooled at its base; the hillside cast darker than the starlit sky. Flora felt the window shift against the pressure of her forearm: she gave it an experimental nudge, and with only a little resistance it gave way. The frame swung outwards and she was hit with the cool slap of night air.

Alistair looked around at the sudden chilly breeze to see his sister-warden clambering over the sill. This was not as alarming as it could have been: their room was on the ground floor. Still, his eyebrows rose to his hairline; gold meeting gold.

"Are you trying to escape?"

"No. Ow." Flora looked down as her sleeve caught on a splinter of wood. A red bead swelled on the tip of her finger and she lifted it to her mouth. "There's something out here."

He watched her slither to the damp ground outside; the window was set low in the wall and it took little effort. The shadow leached the crimson from her hair; her braid hung heavy and ink-dark. With a swift glance to check that their key was still in the lock, Alistair crossed the chamber in four strides.

A fine mist was blowing in off the lake; the moonlight turned it into a billow of spun sugar that left the skin cool and slick. Flora paid it no attention - it was not rain, but merely drizzle - and ventured towards the grassy incline. The pale shapes clarified as she neared; her eyes grew more accustomed to the shadow with each step.

At first, she did not understand what she was looking at. There were a series of long, bow-shaped white growths emerging from the earth: some in pairs, some alone, and each the breadth of her brother-warden's arm. Other pieces seemed to be buried in the hillside: they emerged from places where Calenhad's weather had chewed away the grass. An archipelago of pale, knuckle-shaped objects sprouted from the mud along a curved gradient.

Then she turned to the side and saw a broken jawbone wedged alongside a fence post; rising almost to the height of her chin. The jawbone was decorated with a lopsided array of serrated teeth, no less intimidating for the gaps in their number.

It's a skeleton, she thought in sudden realisation. Isn't it?

The response was unimpressed.

You're a mender. You ought to know bone when you see it.

I know bone, Flora replied with some indignation. I've never seen a dragon skeleton before. I've never seen anything to do with them before.

She reached up to gingerly touch one of the teeth. Fereldan rain had not worn away its viciousness: it was as sharp as a knife-point. Flora eyed the jawbone with some misgiving - there were very many teeth there, certainly more than twelve - and retreated several feet.

You could gut a whale with one of them.

Meanwhile, Alistair had tried in vain to fit himself through the window, but the length of his limbs and broadness of his shoulder was making it difficult. Not wanting to risk breaking anything that they would then have to pay for - Flora could mend him, but not the window-frame - he leaned forward and spoke into the shadow.

"I'm coming out through the door. Won't be a moment."

He disappeared, and Flora heard the echo of his passage across the room. She returned her attention to the dragon's skeleton, turning her head slowly from left to right. The peculiar name of the inn - The Dragon's End - suddenly made sense: the dragon must have crashed into the hill and died there. Over the centuries, the skeleton had been reclaimed by nature: brambles twined around the jutting ribs as tree roots broke what weapons could not. Only part of the skeleton remained visible, the rest buried in the damp soil of the hillside.

Why did it crash into the hill? Do dragons fall out of the sky when they die of old age? How long do dragons live?

Her general was irritated. Stop bombarding us. You've never shown any interest in dragons until now.

But -

You should be asking questions about the one dragon that matters: the Archdemon.

Flora did not want to ask, or even think about, that colourless alien eye; or the strange silhouette that she had glimpsed behind the cloud in her Fade-conjuration of Herring. She counted the number of knuckle-shaped stumps that made up the tail - there were twice times twelve, and another two. They emerged from the grass like large, very pale mushrooms.

"Maker's Breath."

Alistair rounded the side of the building. He stopped short in astonishment, performing the same left-right head turn as Flora.

"Look at that. I've never seen a dragon's skeleton before."

Flora was impressed at the speed of her brother-warden's identification. He approached the remnants of the ribcage, sliding a hand up the curved white bone.

"How big do you think it was?" she asked, watching him test the strength of a rib with a shove. Despite a crack running its full length, the bone did not move an inch. Flora had seen her brother lift the wheel of their loaded cart from a rut with little effort: the bone must have been as strong as forged steel.

Alistair appraised it, taking in the length of the tail and the height of the rib.

"The size of a barn, maybe?"

"Do you think the Archdemon will be bigger?"

He thought about it for a moment - no one had seen the Archdemon in person, not even Duncan. "Probably. Yes, I'd imagine so. A lot bigger."

He then glanced sideways at his sister-warden. A line sunk itself into the smooth white span of Flora's forehead as she contemplated this - then, she made a northern eh sound in the back of her throat, and gave an ambivalent shrug.

"Ain't bigger than the Waking Sea."

And the Waking Sea is the most dangerous thing in Thedas.

She felt a low sigh of frustration wash up against the curve of her skull.

Alistair, unable to resist, was hoisting his way from one rib to another; the muscle in his arms straining. Flora, impressed, watched him navigate several overhanging bones in a row; grunting as he swung the mass of his body along. She was not tall enough to reach the curved upper part of the ribcage. She also had a suspicion that she no longer had much strength in her arms: it had been four years since she had hauled a boat up the gritty grey slope of a northern beach.

"Six in a row," her brother-warden said, landing proud and breathless on the damp grass. "Not bad."

Flora gazed at him with mingled admiration and jealousy. Skeins of damp hair clung to her cheekbones; as though the contours of the skin had been outlined with an ink brush.

"I need to borrow the lay-sister's arms," she replied, recalling how the taut sinew had flexed when Leliana drew the bowstring to her ear. "I bet she could do six."

He grinned at her through the shadows: the white teeth set stark against the tawny jaw.

"She could probably do a whole gymnastics display up there."

Flora did not know what a gymnastics display was, but her brother-warden's smile was infectious: warm and vital. The green flecks in his eyes stood out in the moonlight, bright as splinters of glass. She smiled back at him - so swift that he almost missed it - and then, inexplicably made shy, dropped her gaze to her boots. His eyes were still on her; Flora felt a prickle of heat rise to the surface of her skin like a rash.

"It's late, my dear," he said softly, the words snaking between the old bones.

"Mm," Flora agreed, her voice equally hushed. Her wet eyelashes were clumped together in sooty triangles.

"We ought to - " Get some sleep . "Go to bed."

"Yes," she said. "Please."


AN: OK, this is a bit of a random tangent and one I totally made up, I just liked the idea of this half buried dragon skeleton emerging from the side of a hill! I think it's a nice reminder that they're eventually going to be facing a dragon. Also, I wanted to emphasise how inexperienced and young they both are - Alistair is twenty! TWENTY! Though I actually feel he's more like 23-24. But anyway, I thought it was a nice moment of immature levity - wandering around the dragon bones, testing their strength. He's definitely just hung off those bones to impress Flora, lol. I also wanted to emphasise the chemistry between them both; the sexual attraction is at odds with their mutual shy formality lol.