They are attacked almost immediately upon leaving the gates, not by darkspawn, but by a large pack of wolves. Marian stays in the background as Alistair and Ser Jory draw sword and shield and Daveth moves to the mid-range between her and the other men, drawing his bow and nocking arrow to string.
Her only experience in fighting with swordsmen so far has been with Lily, back at the tower, and immediately it's clear that there's miles between her and the men in front of her. Alistair in particular is surprisingly lethal, but Ser Jory holds his own, swinging his greatsword in huge, powerful arcs to keep the wolves away from his undefended back while he takes on one wolf that's larger than the rest.
Marian starts there, freezing one wolf and setting another on fire; she's hoping it'll panic and run away or set the rest alight, but after her spell effect wears off, the fire flickers and dies quickly. Lesson one: flesh doesn't burn. The wolf is clearly injured, however, and Marian peppers it with arcane bolts until it falls. Alistair has already killed the one she froze and moved on.
At this range, she can watch the battle like a play, directing spells where they'll do the most good. It's easy to see when one of her fellow recruits is in trouble, or to take an opportunity to use one of her few spells that work on more than one creature at a time.
She casts cone of lightning at two wolves who have allowed themselves to be herded together. At the same time, Jory draws back from an overhand lunge to the alpha wolf's body, and he moves back into a ready position, which Marian realizes too late puts him directly in the path of her cone.
Jory screams, back arching and sightless eyes staring at the sky. He drops his sword. Marian pulls her magic back into her hands as fast as she can, wincing at the burn, but it's too late; Jory drops to the ground, boneless, and doesn't get up. She tosses a heal at him through smarting palms and freezes the last wolf in time for Alistair to shatter it with his shield.
"Damn it!" Marian says, racing forward and dropping to her knees next to Jory with a thump. Alistair stabs one of the dead wolves in the head, making her jump, but he goes to the next and does the same, methodically going through all the dead bodies. He's just making sure they're dead, she tells herself, willing her racing heart to calm.
Jory is not dead, but unconscious; she doesn't know what he looked like before her off-the-cuff heal spell worked its magic, but the scales on his scalemail are smoking and charred, and the flesh on his neck is hot when she tests it with her hand. But he is still warm, even though he is not breathing, and she can't find any wounds on his exposed skin... Marian frowns and cups her hand, letting her magic run into it like a puddle. Daveth says something behind her, but he is easy to ignore. She wills it into lightning and when it has obeyed, she pours it onto Jory's chest, over his heart; it flows straight through his scalemail, through the thick weave of his gambeson and onto his skin. Jory's chest jumps up in the air like a thing possessed, but he still does not breathe. Again, she commands, and this time when the lightning strikes he gasps, his eyes flying open.
Marian sits back on her heels and allows herself to feel tired. After a minute, Jory's breathing regains a more normal rhythm and he struggles to sit up.
"What was that?" Daveth demands, his eyes wide.
Marian stands, brushing dirt off her robes. "What, saving his life?"
Alistair glances at her and then away, to Jory, who is examining his hands like he's never seen them before. He reaches down and pulls Jory to his feet. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Ser Jory says, somewhat dazed.
Alistair cocks an eyebrow at Marian. "The Wardens frown on electrocuting your fellow recruit, just so you know," he says pleasantly.
Marian wants to make a face and taunt him a little, but this is not the wisecracking Alistair she'd met earlier; instead she turns to Ser Jory and apologizes.
After retrieving Ser Jory's sword, they press on into the Wilds. It's quieter than Marian expected, and Daveth seems to think so too, because he's looking around and frowning.
"Is that normal for wolves?" she asks. "I read that they don't normally come that close to people."
Daveth says, "Wolves behave differently in the Wilds."
"The Blight can change the way animals act," Alistair says. "They can catch the taint just the same as people, but there are visual signs in that case – they go all twisted and corrupted like people do. Or the darkspawn could be eating whatever the animals normally eat."
Marian feels a twist of pity knotting up her guts.
"I know," Alistair says in a lower voice, surprising her into looking up. She hadn't realized he'd dropped back to walk beside her. "But they attacked us. I wouldn't have killed them if I'd had a choice, and neither would you."
She smiles a little, a thank you, and he returns it in shared sympathy. They walk on through lush ground cover and along a small pond when Ser Jory shouts from the front. "Warden!"
Alistair breaks into a jog and leaves Marian to follow as best she can, cursing the mage robes she wears. Daveth and Ser Jory are crouched around a soldier wearing the king's standard, who lies directly in their path. There's a bloody trail crushed through the grass and plants that stretches as far as she can see; he's been crawling back to Ostagar for days, at a guess.
Marian can see his chest rise and fall, very weakly. "He's still breathing," she says, drawing her staff.
"Wardens?" the soldier gasps.
"Yes," Alistair says, crouching at his head. "You're right," he says to Marian. "He's not half as dead as he looks."
Marian lightly sets the butt of her staff on the soldier's back, over his heart, and casts the only healing spell she knows.
"They came out of the ground... " the soldier says, struggling up onto his hands and knees. Marian moves her staff with the man, doing her best to keep the weight of it off him; she's forcing pure magic into him, her best healing thoughts along with it. It's the best she can do without her standard healing spell. "My whole scouting unit, they're all gone. I've got to – I've got to get back to camp."
Alistair helps the soldier onto his feet, and Marian lets her staff drop. He seems stronger now, and limps away with only a little difficulty. The gates aren't far, and he'll be within shouting distance in a few minutes.
"Did you hear?" Ser Jory says, when the soldier is out of earshot. "An entire patrol of seasoned men killed by darkspawn!" His voice is perilously close to panic.
Marian will admit to having some of the same craven thoughts, but she's not fool enough to think that saying so out loud will somehow magically change what they have to do.
"We'll be fine if we're careful," Alistair says patiently.
"Those soldiers were careful, and they were still overwhelmed."
"How do you know that?" Marian asks.
Jory barrels on, ignoring her. "How many darkspawn can the four of us slay? A dozen? A hundred? And that's if little miss there can correct her aim," he says, glaring at Marian. "There's an entire army in these forests!"
"There are darkspawn about, but we're in no danger of walking into the bulk of the horde." There is less patience and more warning now.
"How do you know?" Jory keeps going with a tenacity that surprises Marian. "I'm not a coward, but this is foolish and reckless. We should go back."
"If you have to point out that you're not a coward, maybe you're doing something wrong," Daveth says, speaking with apparent unconcern to a nearby tree.
"Duncan knows what's out here," Marian says. "He said this is part of the Joining. Do you really want to go back empty-handed?"
"I know I don't," Daveth agrees.
"Know this: All Grey Wardens can sense darkspawn," Alistair says to Jory, soothing like he's a child. "Whatever their cunning, I guarantee they won't take us by surprise. That's why I'm here."
Marian rolls her eyes and turns away from the men, examining the edges of the small clearing. The Wilds were much greener than she expected from the ride in, lush with trees and smaller plants dotting the ground between ponds that range between ankle-deep and waist-high. They're on the edge of one of the ponds, and there's an old bit of ruined wall leaning over nearby.
Underneath is a tall flower, white with a red center, which looks exactly like the one the kennel-master asked her to search for. She plucks it, root ball and all, and wraps it in a spare cloth before stowing it in her pack.
"Picking flowers?" Alistair asks, leaning over her shoulder, and she nearly screams. She does jump and he backs away quickly, laughing. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."
Marian glares, but relents after a moment. "It's for that mabari," she explains, tossing her pack onto her back and standing. "What now?"
"Let's get a move on," Alistair suggests, and they follow him deeper into the Wilds.
The sun is setting when they find their first pack of darkspawn, noisily digging through what looks like a human campsite, complete with supplies and tents pitched in a convenient corner of Tevinter ruins. They take a precious second to coordinate strategy before the darkspawn notice them, but then the wind changes and one of the bigger ones raises its head, sniffing before its head snaps around and fixes on them. It screams in rage, calling the rest of the darkspawn.
Marian picks up her skirts and races forward before the darkspawn can spread out around them; she can hear the men following close behind her, and she skids to a stop when she judges she's just within range of her cone spells. She fries two short ones before they can react, and then Alistair is there with a bellow, cutting between her and the pack to draw them off. An arrow sings past her ear to lodge in a darkspawn's throat; it screams and flings itself at Marian, or maybe it's trying to get past her to Daveth, but Jory's there with a huge swing that starts somewhere over his head and ends chest-deep in the darkspawn.
Marian freezes the largest one to give Alistair, who is fighting it and two other short ones, some breathing room, and turns to take on one of the archers, which is hiding amongst the ruins. She takes an unnecessarily long time to deal with it, and when she turns back, Daveth is a whirl of long knives defending Alistair, who is dripping blood from his side and fending off the big one she'd frozen before.
Lesson two: frost spells wear off, she thinks, furious with herself. She bats a heal spell at Alistair and a directed lightning strike at the large darkspawn. Jory looks back from the other side of the clearing, where he's been fighting the other archer; he curses and starts to jog back, but Alistair surprises them all with a sudden, explosive lunge, burying his sword in the darkspawn giant's face.
The giant falls backwards, and Alistair lets go of his sword, but it might have been the only thing holding him up, because he falls backward. He lets out a giant breath, or maybe he knocks all the air out of his lungs, it's impossible to be sure. She's by his side in a second, but he flaps his hands at her, even though he doesn't seem to be breathing.
"Fine," he croaks. He pushes her at Daveth, but when she turns her head Daveth is burying his daggers in the darkspawn's spine, and it goes down.
"He doesn't need help," Marian says, turning back to Alistair. "You do." For a second, she wishes Wynne were here – healing is decidedly not her specialty, and that seems to be all she's doing! – but then she puts that aside. With gentle fingers she peels apart the leather brigandine Alistair wears under his cuirass, only to find a longish scratch, lazily seeping blood. The skin and leather around her fingers are saturated in blood; she must have already healed his wound.
"It's nothing," she says to Alistair, smiling. "It's almost healed." She lays a hand on his cuirass, pushing out with her magic the way Wynne taught her, and probes his lungs; they're fine as well, and he's done no injury to his back.
"Just catch your breath," she says, leaning over him. "You're fine."
"They're all dead," Daveth adds, standing while he cleans his daggers. He puts them back in their sheaths while Marian watches, fascinated; she can't believe she didn't notice them earlier, but when they're fully engaged with the sheaths, they practically disappear behind the leather straps.
"There's more to you than meets the eye," she says to Daveth.
He winks at her and stoops down to retrieve his bow. She laughs and looks back down at Alistair, who looks a little disconcerted. "What? He saved your life."
Alistair shakes his head and cranes his head to check for Jory.
A little while later, Alistair can speak in more than one word sentences and levers himself up off the ground, ignoring Jory's offered hand. "You should collect your vials," he says, and Marian could smack herself for forgetting. "There should be enough here for all three of you."
Alistair shows them how to slit the darkspawns' throats down the artery instead of along it, and how to scrape up the blood with the lip of the vial to avoid getting it on their hands. He folds one of the darkspawn up to force the blood to flow more quickly for Marian, who he insists should wash her hands as soon as possible.
"It's just blood," she says blankly. It's not the first time she's had blood on her hands, and what that says for life at the Tower she doesn't know.
"Maybe I don't want you wandering around with my blood on your hands," he says, stubborn, and she shuts up and scrubs her hands in the cold, cold water of a nearby pond until Alistair is satisfied.
"So where are these ancient Warden scrolls?" Daveth asks when they all have their vials stowed.
"South," Alistair answers, gesturing in what is presumably a southerly direction. Marian doesn't know how he can tell, since it's full night now, but she's willing to believe if it'll get them back to Ostagar faster. The Wilds are terrifyingly dark, and while it's mostly quiet, there are still nature sounds when she least expects them. The hairs on the back of her neck are standing at attention, like something is watching them.
They walk in a single-file line with Alistair in the lead and Jory bringing up the rear. The view is stunningly beautiful, actually, and Marian is distantly saddened at the idea of a darkspawn horde swarming over the Wilds and tainting everything they touch.
For the first time, she entertains the idea that being a Warden might be something to be proud of, rather than a means of escape or something to be escaped from. She has no plans for her life, other than to find her family; she may as well do something worth doing.
The decision calms a part of her that she hadn't realized was upset.
"Darkspawn ahead," Alistair hisses from the front. Marian snatches her staff off her back and shields herself with a quick gesture. She and Jory creep forward to join the other two, and Alistair points out into the deepening gloom to a bridge just at the edge of the light.
There's a darkspawn on the bridge, even bigger than the one Alistair took down at the last camp, with strange horns on its head. "What is that?" she gasps, then clamps a hand over her mouth.
Alistair sends her a warning glance, but answers anyway. "It's a Hurlock Emissary," he says, peering out into the night. "They use magic. That's your target, Marian – leave the rest to us." He gathers Jory and Daveth with a glance, and they nod, following his lead.
He counts off three beats while Marian feverishly arranges and rearranges her spells into a chain that takes advantage of spell effects and side effects; but that's all the time she has to think before Alistair gets to the end of his count and takes off, the other two following close behind. Marian stomps out the first beat of the cold spell she favors above all else, freezing the Emissary; she sprays it with bolts while the effect lasts, but all too soon it turns and flees to the other side of the bridge, disappearing into the night.
Marian licks her lips, glancing at the men; they're putting down their targets with efficiency, but they're not done yet. Venturing onto the other side of the bridge, where the emissary obviously felt safe, is a fool's gesture, but she'll never get a better chance to kill it. If she gives the thing time to heal itself...
She picks up her skirts and runs for the bridge before she can change her mind.
Alistair shouts at her, but she blocks his voice from her ears as she runs over the bridge. When she gets to the other side, she tosses a light wisp up into the air, illuminating two large darkspawn with bows, both drawing on her... and her target, the emissary, which has stopped thirty feet away and turned back to confront her with the advantage of numbers.
She gives thought to her shield, hoping to give it an extra charge, then forgets it and the archers on either side of her. Marian fires a long, thick strand of lightning at the emissary, who counters with a sickly green ball of energy, knocking her back a step. She snarls and fires bolt after bolt, refusing to let up even when the emissary returns each shot with that green energy, though she can feel herself starting to go light-headed. She glances down at herself only to see blood dripping from the points of her elbows and pooling under her feet; there is an arrow lodged in her thigh and one in her shoulder.
Huh, she thinks. Then she forgets it and pulls on her connection to the Fade, pulls as hard as she can and sends a wave of pure magical energy out of her hands, screaming with the effort. The world fades around the edges, going colorless and pale, but she can hear the others butchering darkspawn all around her.
She hopes she got the emissary, because she's having a hard time standing up. Marian leans on her staff, planting it in the ground.
"Marian!" Alistair takes her elbows and helps her stand.
"There's an arrow here – "
"And here. How did she do that?"
"I don't know. She's lost too much blood."
"I have some potions I nicked off the quartermaster." Someone tips her head back and forces her mouth open; when she tastes the foul muskiness that means medicine, she swallows as much as she can, and after a second she can swallow the rest of it. Her eyes are closed, she realizes, and opens them again.
"Marian?" Alistair asks, all anxiety. He still has her elbows in his hands. "Can you hear me?"
She nods with an effort. "Another," she whispers. "But take out the arrows first."
They lay her down on the ground and Daveth puts a leather strap between her teeth. "Scream if you want," he says, eyes wide. "We won't tell."
She has no intention of screaming – she knows that promise isn't worth the paper it's printed on – but when Alistair cuts the arrow out of her thigh, the pain is so overwhelming that when she comes back to herself she realizes that she's been screaming quite without her permission.
"Sorry," Alistair whispers when he moves to her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Marian shakes her head. The pain is worse when he cuts around the arrowhead in her shoulder; it feels deeper. She is away from herself for longer this time, and she barely notices when Daveth takes the leather out of her mouth. She swallows some healing potion when they pour it down her throat. It doesn't help the lingering pain, but it does mostly close her wounds; she could do the rest if she had any magic left over at all.
She pushes herself up into a sitting position, and immediately folds over, curling herself around everything that's wrong with her right now; the pain fades gradually, and she unfolds herself to find all three men staring at her.
"Don't happen to have a lyrium potion, do you?" she asks Daveth with a weary half-smile. She doesn't actually expect an answer, but he digs a hand into his pack and comes out with a very small vial that glows blue in the darkness. He hands it to her silently. "You're a wonder," she says, toasting him with the vial before tossing it down.
The empty hole in her mind heals itself over with nary a trace and she sighs, relieved. "Maker, that's a weird feeling," she says, and levers herself up with her staff. She casts a healing spell on herself and the last of the wounds disappears without a scar.
"What were you thinking?" Alistair explodes.
Marian is feeling a little hazy. "What?"
"There could have been an army of darkspawn here," Alistair says angrily. "You didn't know, because you didn't check with the Grey Warden."
"The bards love to sing of a single hero storming the castle," Daveth adds, stooping to casually loot one of the darkspawn wearing clothes. "Of course, normally the hero dies in those."
"And you know better than to draw that deeply on the Fade," Alistair continues, as if Daveth hasn't spoken. "You know what waits for you there."
He's worried as well as angry, Marian realizes, and sighs. "All right," she says. "All right, I get it, I'll be more careful."
"Good," Alistair says, and looks like he's sort of surprised at himself. "We should... we should go," he says, looking around. Her light faded when her magic ran out, and the moon has yet to come up, so all she can see is what's illuminated by the darkspawn torches. Daveth is picking over the bodies and the darkspawn encampment; she knows she should join him if she wants to trade with the quartermaster at Ostagar, but the idea is frankly disgusting. She sighs and finally moves, following Alistair through the camp. They've started moving more east than south; Marian truly hopes that Alistair knows where he's going.
Daveth comes up beside her and slips something into her hand, winks, and joins Alistair in the front. Daveth has stolen the darkspawn torches, which is a thoroughly good idea if they want the entire horde to see them coming, but Alistair takes one anyway. Marian rolls her eyes and finally looks down to see what Daveth gave her: two little lyrium potions and a healing potion. She laughs and puts them in her pockets, healing on the right and lyrium on the left. Lesson three: thieves are handy.
They turn north again once they're past the larger lake that divides this region of the Wilds, and soon their path leads up a softly sloping hill. There are more ruins in this area, and Marian thinks they must be close to the old tower, or at least she hopes they are; she is tired and hungry and more than ready to find a bedroll and fall into it.
Naturally, that's when they run into another group of darkspawn, led by something Alistair calls a Hurlock alpha. That makes the tall ones hurlocks, she reasons as she draws her staff, and the short ones... well, she'll have to ask Alistair later.
They all escape nearly dying this time, and afterward Alistair points out that it was Daveth's turn, and how like a rogue it is to welsh.
Marian rolls her eyes and steps past the men to walk into the ruined tower. It's built on the same scale as Ostagar, with huge, open arches and tall windows overlooking the valley. She tosses up her little light wisp again, but the tower is empty, overgrown, and deserted.
There's a shattered chest across from the door, and Marian walks over to it, but she already knows that the scrolls are gone.
"Well, well, what have we here?" a voice says behind her, and Marian spins, her hand already halfway to her staff. The woman standing on the ramp opposite is nothing like anything she's seen before; she's wild and dramatic and baring much more skin than Marian thinks wise in Ferelden's spring chill. "Are you a vulture, I wonder? A scavenger poking amidst a corpse whose bones were long since cleaned?" Marian can feel the magic in her; it burns so bright that she wonders why the others can't feel it, too. The wilder reaches the bottom of the ramp and pauses, assessing them with cool eyes. "Or merely an intruder, come into these darkspawn-filled Wilds of mine in search of easy prey?"
Marian brushes past the men, who still gawk at the wilder like children – it's entirely possible none of them have ever seen that much naked female flesh in their lives, a snide part of her remarks – and stops short when the other woman pins her with her eyes. "What say you, hmm? Scavenger or intruder?"
"Neither," Marian says, narrowing her eyes. "This tower was once the Grey Wardens'." Then she remembers that Alistair is the only legitimate Warden among them; she looks back guiltily, but he bows at the waist, just the smallest fraction, and gestures with his right arm in the courtly gesture for go ahead. She smiles, although she's a little startled by his fine manners, and turns back to the witch.
"'Tis a tower no longer. The Wilds have obviously claimed this desiccated corpse." The wilder starts moving again, a purposeful stroll across the tower ruins to the other side. "I have watched your progress for some time. 'Where do they go,' I wondered, 'why are they here?'" She turns, framed by the night at her back. Her eyes are bright with pleasure and curiosity. "And now you disturb ashes none have touched for so long. Why is that?"
"Don't answer that," Alistair warns under his breath, coming to stand beside her. "She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby."
She laughs, scornful. "You fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?"
"Yes, swooping is bad," Alistair says with a sneer.
"She's a Witch of the Wilds, she is!" Daveth hisses from Marian's other side. "She'll turn us into toads!"
"Witch of the Wilds?" She snorts. "Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own? You there," she says to Marian. "Women do not frighten like little boys. Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine."
"I'm Marian," she says after an uncertain moment.
The witch smiles, wickedly amused. "And you may call me Morrigan, if you wish. Shall I guess your purpose? You sought something in that chest, something that is here no longer?"
"'Here no longer?' You stole them, didn't you? You're... some kind of... sneaky... witch-thief!" Alistair sputters indignantly.
Morrigan raises a delicately plucked eyebrow. "How very eloquent," she says to Alistair, like she's talking to a child. "Tell me, how does one steal from dead men?"
"Quite easily, it seems," Alistair says, indignant and injured, ignoring Marian's hissed warnings to stop. "Those documents are Grey Warden property, and I suggest you return them."
Morrigan folds her arms and looks down her long nose at Alistair. "I will not, for 'twas not I who removed them. Invoke a name that means nothing here any longer if you wish; I am not threatened."
Marian lays her hand on Alistair's arm, silencing him, before she asks, "Then who did remove them?" She can't believe Alistair can't feel the power rolling off Morrigan in waves, growing hotter and hotter the more he irritates her – they must train templars in how to irritate mages, she thinks, gritting her teeth and digging her fingers into his forearm.
He shakes her hand off, but holds his tongue. Good enough.
"'Twas my mother, in fact," Morrigan says.
"Will you take us to her?" Marian asks.
Morrigan laughs. "There is a sensible request. I like you."
"I'd be careful," Alistair says, louder than he has to. Marian winces and turns on him, but he's clearly in no mood to be quieted now. "First it's," and his voice squeaks into a hideous falsetto imitation of Morrigan's voice, "'I like you...' but then 'Zap!' Frog time."
"What is with you and frogs?" Marian mutters. "Shut up, or I'll turn you into one."
"She'll put us all in the pot, she will," Daveth says, fear in his voice.
"If the pot's warmer than this forest, it'll be a nice change," Jory says, and Marian thanks the Maker that his faint heart seems to be absent for the moment. At least one of them has some sense.
It doesn't hurt that he's right, it's colder than a witches' tit and she'd quite like to get back to Ostagar before morning breaks.
Morrigan's smile tilts lopsidedly, edging into a smirk. "Follow me, then, if it pleases you," she says, turning and disappearing into the night. Marian takes a breath, then another, and follows, the other three behind her.
Marian loses sight of Morrigan every time she takes her eyes off of her, but the ground is so rough that she has no choice but to pick her footing nearly every step of the way. Morrigan makes exasperated sounds when she has to wait for them, and eventually she throws up her own light spell to join Marian's. It helps.
After what feels like forever but is more likely three-quarters of an hour, Morrigan makes a satisfied noise in her throat and bounds forward like a deer. The loss of her light is annoying, but now Marian can see where she's headed, an old, dilapidated hut surrounded by the ever-present lakes.
An old woman waits for them in the light of a torch planted in the ground. She dresses plainly, in every way an unremarkable old woman... but the Veil is thin here, thinnest where the old woman stands, waiting patiently for them. She's never felt anything like it before.
"I see them, girl," the old woman says as they stop before her. She looks each of them up and down, lifting her brows a little at Marian's Circle robes, before nodding. "Much as I expected."
She watches the old woman like a small and trembling thing in the presence of a snake, never knowing when she might strike; the others squabble amongst themselves, and she waits.
"And do you believe as these boys do?" Morrigan's mother asks her, watching her in return with eyes the color of old amber, identical to Morrigan's.
"I don't know what to believe," Marian says, and it is the truth. There are so many questions she wants to ask, but for the first time in her life, she thinks it might be better to keep them behind her teeth.
The old woman laughs, her eyes knowing. "A statement that possesses more wisdom than it implies. Be always aware... or is it oblivious? I can never remember."
"Do you have the treaties?" Marian asks before she can say anything else. She wants to be as far away from here as possible, away from the wilder witch and her mother, who is so alien that Marian doesn't know what to think.
The old woman smirks and turns, lifting a cloth bag from the ground and handing it to her. Marian touches the side; she can feel the ends of at least two wooden scroll rods. "Thank you for returning them," she says carefully, politely.
"Such manners!" Morrigan's mother says with a laugh. "Always in the last place you look. Like stockings!" She fixes Marian with her eyes, and says in a more serious tone, "Take them to your Grey Wardens. Tell them this Blight's threat is greater than they realize!"
"What do you mean?" Marian asks, confused.
"Either the threat is more or they realize less. Or perhaps the threat is nothing!" the woman muses. "Or perhaps they realize nothing!" She laughs, a long, drawn-out cackle. "Oh, do not mind me. You have what you came for."
"Time for you to go, then," Morrigan says pointedly.
"Do not be ridiculous, girl. These are your guests." It's an order, with teeth, and from the way Morrigan rolls her eyes, not a very welcome one. Marian is too tired and too glad to get away from such a powerful enigma to care about Morrigan's feelings.
Morrigan sighs. "Oh, very well. I will show you out of the woods. Follow me."