The prevailing wind in Ferelden blew to the east: it hurtled down the slopes of the Frostbacks and swept across the Bannorn like an invading army. Many Ages prior the Alamarri had named the east wind Lleu Sayer, meaning the charioteer; it charged like a reckless youth around the hills and through the long, wending valleys. Lleu Sayer harassed the Waking Sea and scalped the western flanks of trees; it gnawed away at cliff faces and - over the centuries- changed the shape of the land itself.

Sailors had another name for the westerly wind, especially those who navigated Ferelden's unfriendliest coast. Lleu Sayer drove ships onto the rocks, it tore sails in half with its teeth and wrestled for control of the helm. For these deadly antics it had earned an alternate name: the Widow's Wail.

Yet for once, Lleu Sayer lay idle: it had ceded its dominion of the skies over Ferelden for a single night. Nualláini, its gentler cousin, exhaled into the Circle ship's mainsail: filling it until it strained at the mast. The vessel carrying the Warden-recruits and their allies cut through Calenhad like a scythe parting still waters. It would arrive at Redcliffe by sunrise: exceeding even the most optimistic predictions made by the captain.

The wooden hull of the ship provided some protection against the midwinter chill. The cabins set below the deck lacked windows but were better insulated for it; as frost crept along the mast and stiffened the sails, the occupants happily relinquished natural light for warmth.

Alistair's cabin was an ink-spill of darkness, broken in three places by the lantern, the faint lustre of his sister-warden, and the line of light beneath the door. The hall beyond was quiet, and the organic sounds of the wooden ribwork were muffled by the water: the cabin seemed to exist apart from the rest of the ship, a world within a world.

Alistair would not have minded such a severance. The bunk was designed for the breadth of one person, and not one of his unusual dimensions. His feet stuck out from the far end and one shoulder protruded over the edge: yet he would not have extended it for all the coin in Ferelden.

Do you want me to go back and share a room with the teacher? Flora had asked, solemnly.

No, Alistair replied without hesitation: startled by the urgency in his voice. No, stay here, with me.

We can still sleep together?

There was no latent meaning to Flora's question. In the wake of his observation - that she needed more time to grieve Duncan - she was unsure what degree of closeness was appropriate. Alistair had responded by leaning back into the bunk; bringing her down with him in a seamless movement. She made herself comfortable, as though he were a mattress of bone and muscle. Her body, submerged within the loose pleats of the nightshirt, settled on his; the contours and angles of flesh aligning with eerie cohesion. If the intimacy of her mending had been torturous, her proximity was an ecstatic agony: Flora was Maker-naked beneath the linen. Her damp and unravelling braid left wet fabric in its wake, which then clung to the skin beneath.

Alistair held her in silence for several minutes, astonished at how his pulse slowed to match the measured, deliberate beat of her heart. His thumb had stolen within the loosened lacing at the back of the nightshirt; it traced languid circles at the base of Flora's spine.

She roused herself from her thoughts, propping herself up on a forearm. The nightshirt slid down her shoulder, sagging open at the collarbone.

"Did you ever win any prizes when you were at the Templar mon- monatarly ?" she asked, a question entirely unprompted. "Monstery."

"What, like... as part of a competition?"

Flora nodded, stifling a yawn. She made no effort to cover herself; he did not hide his admiration of her breast: small, freckled and tilted upwards. The nipple had the same blushing hue as her tongue.

"Only for physical contests. Not for anything intellectual ," he replied, gazing at her. "Brute strength, wrestling, that sort of thing. Took a lot of knocks to the head, which probably explains a lot."

Still, Flora was impressed: the only prize that she had won in the Circle was Tidiest Bunk , and that had been a case of mistaken identity. There were three Floras on the apprentice floor, and the medal had been reassigned to its rightful owner shortly after. She settled back down against his chest, his pulse beating a steady tempo on her cheek.

Alistair wondered whether being in a constant state of arousal was healthy . He knew that Flora was aware of it - she could hardly plead ignorance, given her physical proximity - and yet she seemed wholly content. He had made a single attempt to adjust himself and spare his - friend? companion? Sister-warden?- the unmistakable strain against her thigh. Flora had intercepted him wordlessly, slender fingers curling around his with deceptive innocence as they guided his hand back to her waist. After that, Alistair made no effort to disguise the hard line of flesh.

"Why do you ask?" he asked, slightly stilted. "About prizes, I mean."

She made an ambiguous noise. Neither of them wanted to discuss the Blight, or how much of the south had already been claimed by the Darkspawn, or the whereabouts of the Archdemon.

"Did you ever win anything at the Circle?" he continued, and felt Flora's incredulity against his shoulder.

"Me! Noooo. No. Never. I ain't smart."

"Me neither."

They were silent for several moments: each one grateful that the other was not an intellectual. His palm settled on her neck, warm and heavy; one thumb stroking the convergence of hair and skin. The touch felt disproportionately intimate. Flora tilted her head into the contour of his cupped hand like a Mabari desiring attention. The exposed line of her neck shone milky-white in the candlelight; Alistair wanted to taste the hollow of her throat. He also wanted her to make the same half-gasp that she had made earlier: her whimper had awoken a feral hunger within him.

Alistair heaved a deep sigh and shifted position in an attempt to distract himself. This resulted in several unwelcome exposures of his body to the cold air outside the blanket. Flora clung to his shoulders as he shifted like an unmoored boat beneath her.

"I'm too long for this bunk," he explained, settling back against the mattress. "One day I'll find a bed that keeps my feet warm."

"Oh." She thought for a moment, admiring the breadth of his shoulder. It reminded her of the foremast's spar, extending its wingspan above the ship's deck. "Maybe you're descended from a giant."

He eyed the rumpled crown of her head in the darkness, amused.

"A giant?!"

"Mm. We have 'em on the northern coast. They don't cause no trouble, 'long as you don't get too close."

There came a creak of wood from the wall: the occupant of the neighbouring cabin had just settled down on their own bunk.

"Tobin says that his dad was a giant," a sleepy Flora continued, tilting her head towards the slow stroke of his thumb.

Realising that Alistair had no idea who she was referring to, she clarified.

"Tobin's Herring's carpenter. He is massive. It might be true."

"I feel sorry for Tobin's mother," Alistair replied drily. "Though I think having a giant for a father would be preferable to the one I've got."

Maric Theirin had not been a stranger to Alistair that evening. The old king had inadvertently instructed his son in the art of restraint: or, how Alistair was able to maintain some semblance of control with a single layer of linen between himself and a naked Flora. Alistair had heard all the stories, and although each one was shaped differently by the teller, they remained the same at their core:

When the old Theirin was young, he was overcome with desire for his best friend's lover: he seduced her and then he stole her. Loghain never forgave him, not really. You don't properly forgive that.

Jehane's husband hasn't bedded her for months.

What's his excuse? - not even the depths of the Deep Roads could stop Maric Theirin from seeking his pleasure with one of his companions.

The last tale was told only by a few: it had chafed at Alistair for a decade.

King Maric stayed at Redcliffe for three days and three nights, one and twenty years ago. While he was there, a servant woman caught his eye. He bedded her and then bade her farewell, ignorant of the seed he had planted in the plush soil of her belly.

Although Alistair could not help his physical resemblance to his father, he was determined not to mimic Maric's carnal appetites. He had seen all too well how such impulsive desire manifested in Cailan, who flaunted his adulterous liaisons as though they were his birthright. Despite Morrigan's taunts, Alistair had declined plentiful offers over the years to rid himself of his virginity. The priestess wanted more than kisses in the monastery's chapel; there had been a brothel in Denerim; women had always darted admiring glances at him from the tail of their eye. Each opportunity he had declined, though not unkindly.

Now, as Alistair held his warm and pliant sister-warden in his arms, he was sorely tempted to yield to the Theirin lust that gnawed like a wolf within his belly . The nightgown was no barrier: it clung to Flora's body like a taunt. All it would take was a lifting of fabric, a slight bend of her thigh, and then he would have her. He had not even kissed her yet; not on her mouth, at least.

"Flora," he said into the subterranean gloom. Her whole body moved in response to her name on his tongue: fingers curling on his shoulder and face turning up to his. Her braid was unravelling in slow inches, the dark red strands trapped between them.

"Mm."

Alistair didn't know how to finish the half-formed thought. His fingers found the slackened lacing at the small of Flora's back; he wondered how easily it might come undone. He could not stop thinking about the freckles scattered over the ripe apple of her breast: proof that she was a girl of flesh and blood, and not some sculptor's alabaster creation. He wanted to see if she had freckles elsewhere on her body too: delicate stipplings the colour of weak Antivan tea.

"Flora," he said again, and the name had raw entreaty in it. "Tell me one of your Herring stories."

It was a plea: distract me.

Flora, to his overwhelming relief, did not question his diversionary tactics. She paused for a moment while she drew one up from her memory like an anchor. While she rifled through her internal archive, Alistair turned onto his side; bringing her with him in a seamless gesture. Her body fit alongside his like a Tevinter puzzle-piece; he tucked himself in tightly around her.

"Do you know what's beyond the Amaranthine?" she whispered as though imparting a secret, naming the ocean that bordered Ferelden to the east.

He shook his head; they were close enough that Flora could feel the voiceless answer. Sure enough she continued speaking in a practised rhythm: the story had been passed down through the Ages like an heirloom.

"Beyond lies an endless sea, as wide as the sky," she said, her voice distant. "A sea without shores. And there are storms the size of countries that roam its waves: these are called untethered storms. Only two creatures are able to survive these storms, one that lives in the air, and the other that lives in the water. The first is the albatross. Do you know what an albatross is?"

Alistair half-shrugged, mesmerised by the soft growl of her voice: throaty and unassuming. "No. A type of seagull?"

He could feel her indignation.

"No. No. It's a bird with wings larger than a ship's sails. It carries the souls of dead sailors over the sea, and on to the endless ocean. If you see it, you'll have good luck for a year. But once you see it, you have to look away quickly - if you see the same albatross twice, you'll only live as many years as the bird has feathers in its tail."

Independent of instruction, Alistair's hand crept downwards. It drew the fabric of Flora's nightgown upwards, then - with nonchalant familiarity - claimed the smooth landscape of her thigh. His fingers skated over the skin, moving in abstract patterns as he listened. Part of him felt as though he were in a dream: cocooned in an earthy darkness with his sister-warden's hoarse whisper drifting from beneath his chin.

"The second creature that can survive an untethered storm is called Nilidh in the north , " Flora continued, stifling another yawn. "And Kraken everywhere else. It's so big that when it moves, the entire ocean moves with it. That's what makes the tide go in and out. No one knows what it looks like though, because no one has seen it and lived."

Alistair traced her name across her thigh with his thumb. He almost asked if the Kraken could defeat the Archdemon for them, and then remembered that they were in unspoken agreement to avoid the topic of the Blight.

"Once, many Ages ago, the Nilidh came to the Waking Sea for the first time," his sister-warden said, solemn and focused as a novice reading from the Chant of Light. Her voice emerged from the mossy darkness, soft as damp leaves underfoot.

The words were not hers - there were far too many of them to belong to the laconic Flora - but the creation of storytellers from Ages past; passed on by mouth round campfire or by candlelight.

"While it was there, a fisherman saw it from the shore. He decided that he would kill it while it was in unfamiliar waters."

Alistair could not emphasise with the reckless fisherman. He - at some point - would also be faced with a vast and monstrous foe; he could think of nothing more foolish than launching a preemptive strike. He felt grateful for the warm pressure of his sister-warden's back against his chest.

"And so the fisherman took his little boat out into the wind and waves, and sailed right up to the Nilidh . The creature swallowed him in one gulp and he was never seen again."

Flora did not seem bothered by the melancholic resolution: Herring stories usually finished poorly for their protagonists. Alistair, on the other hand, preferred a happier ending.

"' But then…' " he prompted, encouraging.

"But then what?"

"We've had enough tragic endings recently," he reminded her, and the teasing tone had a raw vein running through it. "Add on a happy bit."

"Ain't a bard," Flora replied, vaguely alarmed.

"Come on, my dear. For me."

Flora took a deep breath, her brow furrowing in three places. Unable to help himself, Alistair pressed his lips to the name of her neck; inhaling the salt-soap scent. Her fingers drifted over his, following the ridged line of his knuckles.

"But," she said eventually, more hesitant with her own words than with those she had inherited. "But, the Old Man of the Sea took pity on the fisherman. He took out his hook and line, and drew the dead man's soul up from the black well of the Fade. He put the soul into the last creature that the fisherman had caught, which was an eel. The eel found itself in the Nilidh's belly, but - since it was so slender - it was able to swim back up inside the monster's throat. There it stuck fast, and the Nilidh choked to death. The fisherman swam off into the endless ocean, and was never seen again. THE END."

Flora pressed her lips together and eyed the wall, mutinous. She was determined to avoid any more creative exertion: she did not claim to own an 'imagination'.

Fortunately, Alistair seemed to be satisfied with her amended ending: she felt him smile against her hair.

"So he had to spend the rest of his life as an eel?" he murmured into Flora's ear, one arm folded over her belly as he bent his lengthy bulk around her. "I thought you were making it a happy ending."

"That was a happy ending," she replied, mid-yawn. "The fisherman defeated the monster, and he was altogether changed. He would learn to live as an eel, eventually. He would appreciate how to be something other."

They were both silent for several minutes, aware of their isolation in the damp and earthy darkness. The stillness was accompanied by the groan of the eaves: the muffled snoring from their neighbour in the next cabin; the whisper of water against the hull. The lack of windows was disorientating: they could have been underground, nestled together like creatures in hibernation.

"I never thought- "

Alistair trailed off, the words left hanging in the shadow. Flora did not prompt him to finish, focused on tracing each of his knuckles with a careful fingertip. He took another deep breath; she felt his ribcage expand against the back of her head.

"I never thought that- "

He did not know where to begin: it seemed too much to fit into the span of an ordinary sentence.

I never thought that I would lie in bed with a mage.

I never thought that when I first set eyes on you, we would end up like this.

I never thought that Duncan would die before we had even begun to fight back.

I never thought that there would be just us left. Two of us against the Archdemon.

Why does it feel as though I'm holding the world in my arms?

"I know," whispered Flora, her voice disembodied in the darkness. "I know."


AN: Happy 2021! I don't want to jinx anything, but thank fuck that shitshow of a year is over. Only silver lining is that thanks to working from home, I got to spend the whole spring with my baby girl when I was meant to be in the office. So that was amazing! Anyway, I hope you managed to celebrate a least a bit during the holidays. Even if it was an odd one this year!

So anyway: this chapter! Lots of Herring lore, which I love making up, hehehe. Love a few tales from Herring! I didn't make up the bit about albatrosses carrying the souls of dead sailors, that's a mariner legend. I also made up the stuff about the names of the winds, but historically our winds (in real life!) have been given names - look up the classical compass winds! So cool!

Anyway, in this chapter we have a remarkable display of what NOT to do when you're trying to put things on hold :P I thought this was a pretty good reflection of their immaturity: Alistair's literally just said that he's going to give her more time to get over Duncan, and then they're both groping each other beneath the blankets like a pair of horny teenagers! Which they basically are, lol. Neither of them have the maturity to get out of the bed and sleep separately, which would have been the SENSIBLE thing to do if they wanted to slow things down.

Also, a bit of foreshadowing with Flora's made up ending to the story: the fisherman defeated the monster, but he was altogether changed.