"You can turn that big horse around now. I ain't taking you nowhere."

The ferryman stood with feet planted squarely on the damp grass, bristling with annoyance like an irate hedgehog. It seemed that he had lost coin with the lost custom: no visitors meant no profit. His idle boat nudged against the dock, moored fast with a rope wrapped around a nearby post. Across the serrated, windswept waters rose Kinloch Hold; cloaked by the remnants of the morning mist. It lay a taunting half-mile away; with no passage, it might as well have been in Tevinter.

Bridling, Alistair fought the urge to make a sarcastic response, which in itself was a proxy for frustration. He did his best to suppress the anger that soured his gut like corked wine: he had heard once in passing that the old king had possessed a heated temper. Alistair had never forgotten this; and in an effort to disprove any similarity between himself and Maric Theirin, he substituted anger for acerbic wit.

Instead of replying immediately, he swung himself down from the saddle; landing two booted feet in the damp grass. His sister-warden looked apprehensive at being left with the reins, but the horse had dropped its head and started to graze. Alistair, inhaling a steadying breath, reached up a hand to help Flora slither down. He then turned back to the scowling ferryman, and spoke with a carefully measured calm.

" Why aren't you taking passengers to the Circle?"

The question hit the ferryman squarely between the shoulderblades: he had been on his way back to the tavern. After a brief hesitation, the man angled himself to them once again.

"The Circle ain't admitting anyone," he said, blunt as a northerner. "I'm fed up of people whining in my ear about how they wouldn't even open the door . Not my problem."

The tavern was named The Spoiled Princess. Its sign bore the image of a faded crown; though it hung loose from a lone bracket and looked distinctly less then royal. Empty bottles had been wedged into the soil to mark out an improvised pathway to the entrance. Flora did not want the ferryman to return to his own ale: beer and boats did not go well together in her experience.

"We have to get to the Circle," Alistair said, and there was brittleness in his voice. "We're…"

He trailed off without finishing; lips pressed so tight that they became bloodless.

Traitors, thought Flora, which is what everyone thinks the Grey Wardens are.

She understood why Alistair had not finished his sentence, and decided to offer her own assistance. She simultaneously made an impulsive decision to lie: since the truth might attract unwanted attention. Flora knew that there was a garrison situated over the lie of the hill; the guards in the Circle had alluded to it often enough. She assumed that the soldiers within it were loyal to Loghain, or at least were following his orders.

"I have captured this escaped Templar," she said, stilted and solemn; flapping her fingers towards Alistair. "I need to return him to the Circle."

The ferryman let out a bark of rude and openly incredulous laughter: his gaze sliding from Flora to Alistair.

"You," he said, still chortling. "Captured him. The lad's a mountain."

Alistair hunched his shoulders in an attempt to look meek and diminutive. This merely made him appear as though he were preparing to break down a door.

"Mm. I did."

"Where did you find this escaped Templar, then?" the ferryman enquired, narrowing his eyes in mocking interrogation.

"Running through the woods," Flora said vaguely, already bored of her lie. She was aware of the hours sliding by like silverfish slipping through a torn net. There was a man sat on the throne who ought not to be; an Archdemon lurking in the south; a possessed child and an assailed town that needed attention: yet, all she cared about was Herring, ignorant of the danger that crept northwards like a slow gangrene of the flesh.

The ferryman laughed, eyes sliding back towards the bottle and his tavern. Flora heard her brother-warden release a slow rumble of frustration in his throat: and knew that he was thinking of an oath sworn to a man betrayed. The low, slow and measured voice of their commander rolled from one ear to the other like a leaden ball: I chose you.

Flora realised that it would take a more eloquent speaker than either herself or Alistair to persuade the ferryman. Not bothering to waste any more time, she abandoned her lie and turned her back on the ferryman before his eyes could return to his ale. She could feel his gaze between her shoulder blades as she strode towards the lake, accompanied by a prickle of alarm from Alistair.

"We're going to the Circle," she said flatly, talking to the shoreline. "It ain't a choice."

"What," said the ferryman, bottle in hand not understanding.

"Oh, shit," said Alistair, who did. "Flora, no- "

But Flora was warming to the idea with every step she took towards the expanse of flat, iron-grey water. She was determined to purge the lake's memory of her undignified plunge into it several days prior.

"Flora," said Alistair more loudly, picking up each discarded boot as he followed in her wake. "Flora, what are you - surely, you can't be thinking of- "

Flora wondered at the incredulity in his tone, as though she was proposing a jaunt into the Deep Roads rather than a simple half-mile swim. She had eyed the distance between the rocky foundation of the Circle and the shoreline many times through Kinloch's barred windows; had swum the waters a hundred times in her mind. When she was not being assaulted by the undead, she - like any child raised beside the sea - was a proficient swimmer.

Alistair was despairing as he retrieved her abandoned breeches.

"Flora," he said entreatingly, watching the slender legs of his sister-warden advance down the gravel, the hem of her linen shirt flapping round her thighs. "You can't swim out there. It's miles."

Flora shot him an astonished look over her shoulder; winding her hair into a knot atop her head.

"Ain't miles."

She put a hand inside her shirt and retrieved the treaties, thrusting them towards him.

"It'll be freezing," he pleaded, watching her descend the final few feet over the shingle.

"Not colder than the Waking Sea," she retorted, then almost had a heart attack as her toes met frigid water. It was far colder than the Waking Sea: a murky brownish grey and entirely unforgiving.

Alistair, his arms full of her discarded clothing, watched his sister-warden as she inhaled sharply, fingers curling into her palms.

"Flo- "

But Flora had set her mind to it; she gritted her teeth and splashed her way forwards. The water bit at her ankles and calves with cold fangs. She could hear the whisper of Alistair's boots sinking into the gravel, and hastened on in case he made some attempt to grab her.

"Come back," he called in her wake, "it's winter, Flora. That lake is as cold as the Anderfels."

"It's refreshing," she lied, unconvincingly. "And I needed a bath."

The water had rapidly overtaken her knees. The hem of her shirt floated up like a jellyfish; drifting white and diaphanous around her waist.

"You've had your monthly bath in this sodding lake already." Alistair too had not forgotten her inadvertent plunge. One of her boots tumbled free from his arms and landed on the uneven stone.

I'll get used to the cold, Flora chanted inwardly in an attempt to convince herself. I'll get used to it.

Wait, will my legs fall off if they get too cold?

No.

Reassured she set her jaw and waded forwards, the Circle lying in a straight line before her. The cold had now reached her hips and the bottom of the lake belched silt between her toes. A light drizzle had begun to fall, speckling the surface of the water.

"Fine! Fine. Andraste's sacred ass."

Flora turned around, the shirt floating around her hips. The ferryman had set his bottle down before hurrying ill-temperedly towards his anchored boat. Alistair exhaled in relief, retrieving the fallen boot before following the man to the dock.

"I d-don't mind swimming," Flora lied, intensely relieved. "My great-grandmother was a trout."

"Not happening, my dear."

She watched the boat launch; the ferryman bluntly rejecting any assistance from Alistair with the oars. Her toes were now numb, but her calves retained enough sensation to feel something flit through the water past them. Flora considered making a grab for it, but then reconsidered; it would not do to arrive at the Circle dishevelled and thoroughly sodden. She knew that the senior mages were very keen on maintaining a neat and orderly appearance; it had taken her a long time to get over the shock of how often they bathed. Instead, she put her fingers to her mouth to sample the lake water. It tasted of mud, and left a gritty residue on her tongue. She felt a prickle as magic blossomed in the back of her throat; reflexively purifying the impure waters.

Ugh, it's dirty.

Six rivers feed the northern part of the lake.

Hmph. The sea ain't dirty.

The sea is saltwater.

Flora felt that her spirits understood much more about the world, and how the various parts of it fit together, than they chose to reveal.

The ferryman dug his oar into the silt to halt the boat beside her; his face still raw and incredulous. Alistair almost stood up to help Flora in, then hastily sat down again as the imbalance of weight tilted the curved hull.

Instead, he stretched out his arm to Flora, who gripped his palm with one hand and the side of the boat with the other. She hauled herself over the edge with the grace of a potato sack entering a cart; sprawling in the hull.

"Maker's Breath, Flora," Alistair commented, looking about for something to use as a blanket. There was nothing and so he took her feet between his hands as she perched on the bench beside him. "What in the fel was that?"

"Swimming," replied an unrepentant Flora, eyeing her newly clean toenails with fascination. "I'll teach you. If you teach me the letters."

"I'll teach you the letters anyway, sweetheart," Alistair replied, thinking privately that he would happily live his entire life without learning how to swim. "You must be freezing."

She gave a noncommittal shrug, her gaze meandering along the shoreline. He eyed her, rubbing her foot between the broad span of his palms. The boat pulled through the grey waters; aided by the nudge of a brisk westerly wind that spun through hair and clothing.

"So," the ferryman commented after a few minutes, oars cutting the lake surface in practised rotation. "Got fed up of life on the outside, did you?"

This was directed at Flora, who looked momentarily confused. The ferryman snorted, casting her an appraising glance.

"A man don't easily forget a face like yours. Weren't it two months ago you left? Back at the start of Kingsway. I took you over the water." He adjusted his grip on the oar. "You were with that long-haired man. The foreigner."

Flora felt Alistair's bristling alarm against her skin: if the ferryman remembered her, he might also remember that the long haired foreigner was none other than Duncan, Warden-Commander of Ferelden, and that Flora herself had been taken on the pretext of joining the Order.

And the Wardens have been named traitor, thought Flora, heart sinking to her belly as though anchored there. And there's a garrison over the hill.

"Listen," said Alistair and then trailed off: they had nothing to offer for the man's silence. The bann's coin had been spent on ship, board and steed.

The ferryman spat over the side of the boat, eloquent and northern. The glide of the oars did not pause: moving them in steady lengths towards Kinloch Hold.

"I'm not Mac Tir's man," he said, bluntly. "I've no loyalty to him. He's forgotten his roots. I hear he talks like a southerner."

Alistair could have leapt up and cheered with relief. He managed to restrain himself, aware that such a reckless imbalance might tip them all into the grey waters. Instead he reached up to steady his sister-warden, who was manoeuvring herself, with some difficulty, back into her breeches.

"Mm," Flora agreed, fastening the button at her belly. "But you can hear the north sometimes."

She summoned a memory of the general's scowling face, sallow and strong-boned. His eyes were as dark as Duncan's, but Mac Tir's stare scraped the skin like a cheese-grater. When he had spoken to Cailan, there was a stiffness to his voice: a deliberate, articulated arrogance draped over the words like a cloak. When he had escorted her back to the tent, accompanied only by shadow and the soft tread of a Mabari, he had slipped inadvertently into the coarse, flat cadence of his youth. Oswin, the rural province of Loghain's birth, lay only five leagues south of Herring. She knew the bold intonation in an instant, the throaty O and the slanting E, the roughness of each emerging word, as though it had been sanded by the throat. She knew him for a humble northerner like herself, and he had known that she knew it.

A rumble of discontent from Alistair returned her to the present. Her brother-warden was scowling, as was reflexive whenever Mac Tir's name was mentioned.

"The man talks like a deserter," he said, flatly. "A lying, king-murdering turn-coat. A pretender to the throne."

He glanced down at Flora, who was gazing up at him with a faint crease of curiosity furrowed across her brow. Instead of showing a microscopic twin of his own grimacing face, the pupil of her eye was a well: dark and deep. Alistair felt as though he might drown in it if he stared long enough.

"What does a deserter talk like?" she asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Like a snake," he replied after a moment, still annoyed but less so.

There were no snakes on the northern coast.

"I don't know what that is."

"Like an eel. But on the land."

Flora was fascinated: she wondered if snake could be jellied and eaten cold, or if their blood was poisonous before cooking. Alistair gazed at her face as though he could read the thoughts written on the inside of her skull; hoping that his gaze was not emerging as disconcertingly intense. He made himself look away after several moments, reminding himself of their goals both immediate and otherwise.

Seek help from the mages for Eamon's boy.

Remind them of their duty to the Wardens.

They might still be serving breakfast.

The ferryman's blunt complaint interrupts his musing: "Don't know why you're bothering. They ain't going to open the door for you."

Flora brought a fingernail to her mouth and bit at it, watching the water slide past the hull of the boat. She did not know enough about the Circle's admission policy to make comment; she had only ever visited its ground floor twice, on her arrival and departure. Alistair, who had spent a summer at the Jainen Circle as part of his Templar training, knew only a little more.

"I can't think of any reason why they'd lock the doors," he wondered out loud, not overly concerned. "I suppose I assumed that they weren't allowed to. Hey, Flo - I don't feel seasick!"

Flora smiled at him. Alistair nearly returned a reflexive grin, then paused: letting a flippant comment about a budding naval career slither back down his throat. Instead, he reached forward and swept a finger near her ear, brushing back a strand of rain-damp hair. The line of dark red clung to her skin like a knife wound, or the flesh-carving made by the more fanatical of the Ash Warriors. Flora's smile faded like smoke; her eyes remained fixed and unblinking on him. Alistair noticed that her pupils occupied more space within the cinereous grey irises.

"No gills," he observed lightly. "I thought you were descended from a tadpole."

"A trout," she corrected, pale brow creasing like folded vellum.

"A trout, my dear?"

"Mm. Tadpoles are freshwater."

Flora said freshwater in the same tone as she would have said rotting Darkspawn entrails. It was the strangest amorous exchange that Alistair had ever partaken in: not that his experience was extensive. He was not even entirely sure whether she was flirting or making a serious comment; like the Sphinx of Rivain, her face yielded nothing.

The ferryman rolled his eyes, pulling them closer to the rocky shore with each draw of his arms. The drizzle had abated and it was turning into the sort of mild and dreary morning that was typical of a Fereldan winter. The sky was the same nondescript grey as the lake, and the air blended with the water at the horizon.

The decaying edifice of Kinloch Hold crowned a rocky archipelago: the craggy rocks formed a natural deterrent to escape. A century prior, watchtowers had been constructed on each flanking islet: a half-circle of observing eyes fixed permanently on the bleak and lonely tower at its centre. As the Templars honed their craft, the need for the look-out posts diminished. Now, all that remained were their remnants: crumbling walls stood waist high amidst tangles of ambitious foliage.

Flora did not turn to look at the expanding foundation of Kinloch Hold: squat and square atop its rocky isle. She put a hand to her shirt to feel the rustle of her Circle discharge, only to feel a clench of panic in her belly when only her flesh sounded back. Alistair, who had been watching her, returned the treaties that she had handed him for safekeeping; kind eyes seeking to reassure her.

They can't lock you up again. I promise they can't.

His hand found hers and gave a swift, hard squeeze. It hurt a little, but Flora liked the reassurance of it: it was a grip that could haul in a straining net, or a boat up a shingled slope. Oddly enough, at the same moment she felt a current of grief ripple through her mind; a sigh from voiceless, faceless Compassion.

What's wrong? Flora thought, disconcerted. What's the matter?

As expected, there was no response.

Before she could dwell on it any further, Flora was jolted by the gentle bump of wood against stone. The ferryman had guided the boat alongside the rough-hewn step of granite that served as a dock; slinging rope around a squat iron mooring. The Circle reared above them, two hundred feet of bleak grey rock and barred windows. From such close quarters it dominated the sky, framed by a desolate wreath of cloud. The wind spun jeering around its circumference, as though mocking those trapped within.

"I'll wait a quarter candle," the ferryman said, watching the young Warden-recruits disembark. "Just enough time for you to realise that they ain't opening the door."


AN: Lol little do they suspect the absolute shitshow that's occurring beyond the closed doors of the Circle! I don't think Alistair will be getting the cooked breakfast he's hoping for.

I love this scene of Flora just being like; well I'm going to SWIM there, then! Of course since she's grown up on the coast, she's a good swimmer - but Alistair is absolutely horrified. I also like the parallels between Flora and Loghain; which she herself acknowledges even though she also hates him for abandoning FUNCAN (typo but leaving it in, hazard of writing/editing/posting everything on my phone!)

In other news, holy shit, my toddler is cutting her first molar!*** It's absolute HELL! And I know it's painful for her bless her, but seriously... for the past four nights, I have had three hours of sleep each night cumulatively! Last night I was up at 9, 11:30, then 1:30-4:30, then 5! Thank fuck I only work 2.5 days a week, but I do have to look after a 14 month old on each "day off". Seriously though, you can legit get by on 3 hours of sleep, I went to work Monday and taught five hours worth of lectures! The human body is amazing hahaha.

*** or else she's possessed and I need to call an exorcist.