The terrain is rough and the path they're following is little more than a track through close, bare-branched trees. It would be a cruel, cruel trick if her map is mistaken or a lie and there's nothing up there except snow.
The forest around them is thick with all the signs and smells of spring newly in bloom, even though there's still a distinct chill in the air. The track is small enough that they have to walk single file, and Marian is in the rear, behind Sten. She anticipates very little conversation today.
By the time they stop for a quick lunch, Marian is the most astonishing combination of tired, irritated, and bored out of her mind. When they move out again, Marian takes the first opportunity to walk with someone else, anyone else; she finds herself discussing magic with Morrigan, which is a delightful surprise.
They talk about shapeshifting, and Marian picks up several useful hints that she tucks away for further thought later. Morrigan talks about shapeshifting like it's as natural as breathing to her, as though everyone instinctively knows what it's like to shed the human skin and become something else. It's nothing like the magic Marian learned in the Circle, and it prompts so many questions she doesn't know where to start. Do other magical traditions hold such surprises for her? How long has Morrigan known how? Did Flemeth teach her, or did she come across it on her own?
"Did you grow up in the Wilds?" Marian asks instead.
Morrigan looks over her shoulder at her in surprise, her eyebrows arched, like no one's ever asked her a simple question before. "I did," she says, turning back to watch her footing. "Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered."
"You wonder a great deal, I think."
Marian laughs. "It's a personal failing," she says. She's no problem poking fun at herself, and she knows her incessant need to know everything can be alien or off-putting to some people. "I apologize if I'm bothering you."
"I did not say I minded," Morrigan says, glancing over her shoulder again. And – is that a smile on her face? "Ask your questions."
Well, who is she to argue with explicit permission to ask anything she likes?
So Morrigan tells Marian about her life, about growing up with birds and animals for company and talking to trees. Marian remembers more than one occasion in her childhood, when Carver and Bethy simply would not stop pestering her, when running away to live with the wolves sounded the most perfect kind of bliss. Morrigan sounds like she enjoyed it too; she's wistful, nostalgic when she talks about it, like her mind is far away in simpler times.
"But one can only remain a child for so long," Morrigan says, waving the past away with an imperious hand.
Marian laughs. "I have a hard time imagining you as a child. It's like you sprang up out of the Wilds fully-grown."
"In truth, I was a most troublesome child," Morrigan says, amused. She bends to duck under the branches of a tree that's growing over the path; Marian bends the branches back so she can pass, and politely holds them for Leliana. "I recall the first time I crept beyond the edge of the Wilds. I did so in animal form, remaining in the shadows and watching these strange townsfolk from afar. I happened upon a noblewoman by her carriage, adorned in sparkling garments the likes of which I had never before seen. I was dazzled."
Zevran is before Morrigan in their ragged line, and Marian can tell that he's listening now. He hid his startled head-tilt quickly, but not quickly enough. She can't blame him. This is... unexpected from someone as remote as Morrigan prefers to be.
Morrigan is lost in the past again. It makes Marian wonder whether Morrigan would rather be there than here. Coming along hadn't been her idea, after all, but Flemeth's.
There's a thought – if Morrigan is meant to be Flemeth's next host, why would Flemeth risk her on such a precarious venture as this?
Without you they will surely fail. And all will perish under the Blight, even I.
I give you that which I value above all in this world. I do this because you must succeed.
That must be it. Self-preservation can be powerfully motivating.
"This, to me, seemed what true wealth and beauty must be," Morrigan continues, unaware of Marian's distraction. Marian hauls herself back to reality by the ear. "I snuck up behind her and stole a hand mirror from the carriage. 'Twas encrusted in gold and crystalline gemstones and I hugged it to my chest with delight as I sped back to the Wilds." Even now, so many years later, there's reflected awe and delight in her voice. Now Marian can picture her, a dirty, skinny little waif in shabby clothes, cradling a sparkling mirror that's half her size.
The mental image is surprisingly adorable, and Marian says as much.
"Bah," Morrigan says, glaring at Marian over her shoulder, though she's not as displeased as she'd like Marian to think; there's a smile tugging at her mouth. Marian grins at her, wide and bright, and Morrigan rolls her eyes and turns back to the path.
"In any event, Flemeth was furious with me. I was a child and had not yet come into my full power, and I had risked discovery for the sake of a pretty bauble." She sighs. "To teach me a lesson, Flemeth took the mirror and smashed it upon the ground. I was heartbroken."
"But you were just a little girl," Marian objects, horrified. Her levity is gone like it never was, blown away with the wind. "That's hardly fair."
"Fair?" Morrigan laughs. It sounds more like herself than she has in weeks, with harsh notes that grate. "What sort of a thing is that to teach a child? No," she says, shaking her head. "Beauty and love are fleeting and have no meaning. Survival has meaning. Power has meaning." She looks over her shoulder at Marian, fierce and cool, refusing any sympathy or pity. This is normal for her, the absolute truth and the veil through which she sees the world, and that might be the worst part of all. "Without those lessons I would not be here today, as difficult as they might have been."
"That's a dangerous philosophy for people like us," Marian says, her brows drawn tight in concern. "Some things are more important than survival."
Marian's braced for a reprimand, but instead it earns her an easing of the fierce tension that lined Morrigan's shoulders and braced her back. "I take your meaning, Warden," she says, and there's a little amusement in her voice, enough that Marian blows out a silent, relieved breath. She doesn't like being flayed with the edge of Morrigan's tongue. She'd rather leave that for Alistair. "Fear not, I have no intent of succumbing to a demon."
Would that it were that easy, Marian thinks, but this she keeps behind her teeth. Morrigan knows, just as every mage knows, that it's not as simple as that.
There's silence for a long while, and Marian's not expecting Morrigan to speak again. She's therefore surprised when Morrigan says, musing as if speaking to herself, "Perhaps it was a lonely life in the Wilds... but such was how it had to be." Marian makes no reply – what does one say to that? – but Morrigan goes on, unfazed by Marian's silence, almost dreaming by the sound of it. "I find myself at times wondering what might have become of the girl with the beautiful, golden mirror..." And then she snorts, dismissing her own whimsy. "But such fantasies have no place amidst reality."
It would pain Marian deeply to dismiss her dreams in such a fashion. For so long, all she's had is her dreams, those of a better future, of finding her family and living the life she ought to have lived. They're part of her. She's so sad for the little girl Morrigan once was, the one with wistful, far-away dreams of beauty and love.
Marian thinks very little of Flemeth's parenting skills.
Morrigan says nothing more, and Marian chooses to leave her to her thoughts.
They make camp a few hours later in a bowl-shaped dell that's probably charmingly picturesque when spring is finished with it, but for now it's bare and perfect for their needs. Marian sends Cú off to hunt for his dinner; he presses against her leg for a moment before he trots away, weaving through the trees until he's out of sight. She stands there and watches him go. She knows he's imprinted on her, that he loves her beyond reason and he'd never leave her, but there are dangers in these woods that no mabari can defeat alone.
He'll be fine, she tells herself, but there's a fine, shivery tension in her stomach that she knows won't subside until Cú returns to her.
Thank the Maker, it's not her turn to cook. Wynne has something of a limited repertoire, but everything she does make is delicious. After dinner, it's Leliana's turn for Marian's time, and then finally she can collapse down next to Alistair, a glorious, sweaty mess.
"Hi," Alistair says, amused. He holds out a rag and she smiles gratefully, wiping off her face.
"Hi yourself."
If she stinks, he doesn't seem to care. Carefully, Marian leans sideways, pressing her shoulder against his, and the thrill that goes through her when he leans back into her is... Oh, she might as well admit it. She has it bad. It's such a little thing, such an innocent thing, and yet she'd happily sit here all night next to him, brushing shoulders like it's going out of style.
So she does. They sit talking for near an hour before Cú comes back to camp, looking as pleased with himself as she's ever seen him. He must have caught something delicious. She makes much of him. So does Alistair, who scratches Cú just where his ear joins his skull, a place that's perpetually itchy. Alistair's proving more experienced with dogs than she expected, considering he'd pretended dogs didn't like him.
"I knew you were lying to get out of holding his head at Ostagar," Marian says, narrowing her eyes at Alistair.
After a startled moment Alistair laughs, abashed. "I can't believe you remember that."
"Believe me, it was memorable," she says drily.
Alistair shakes his head. "I shouldn't have done that," he says, still amused, but also apologetic. "They'd been feeding me stories for weeks about bloodthirsty, vicious mabari. Someone told me one about how the Hound Warriors would feed their mabari the flesh of the vanquished, and I kept having these horrible dreams about giant dogs with giant teeth rending me limb from limb." He takes Cú's muzzle in his hand and gently shakes it. "But you'd never do that, would you?"
Marian leans back on her hands, watching Alistair and Cú wrestle playfully beside her with a smile on her face. It's a good night.
She shares her tent with Leliana that night, and if she pretends she's sharing with someone else entirely... well, no one need ever know but her.
They hurry through tearing the camp down the next morning to leave all the quicker. Cú immediately romps off into the bushy undergrowth, leaving Marian to walk between Wynne and Zevran. The track is slightly wider here, and they could walk two abreast if someone was willing to get particularly cozy. There are people here she wouldn't mind getting that close to, but Zevran isn't one of them. She's not particularly happy with him at her back, either.
Zevran clears his throat.
"Something I can help you with, Zevran?" she tosses over her shoulder.
"No, no, cara. I was hoping there was something I could help you with," he says, so amiable that she just knows he's up to something. No one is this agreeable this early in the morning, not unless they want something.
"Am I to take it that you had something in mind?"
Zevran laughs. "I'm sure I could come up with several things," he says, insinuation thick in his voice. Marian has to roll her eyes or explode. She's thankful that no one's looking at her face. "No, it is only that you are in charge of our little group, are you not? It must be a heavy burden for one so… inexperienced."
A wicked amusement rises, a feeling she has never had any kind of defense against. "Oh, it's awful," Marian says. "No one ever tried to kill me until I met you."
He shrugs his shoulders as if to say such is the way of things – like that's not perfectly infuriating or anything – and then he moves on like she hadn't said a thing. "Might I make a suggestion?"
Marian glances ahead, and the path looks clear enough that she risks turning around to walk backward. "Somehow I doubt I could stop you." Behind Zevran, Leliana is watching them both, obviously entertained.
For all that Zevran has such a suggestive and knowing way about him, he hasn't made a serious effort in her direction yet. Perhaps her reaction to his initial proposition put him off, though she in no way believes he really meant that nonsense about serving a deadly sex goddess. It's a smoke screen, no more – he expects the rejections, and he'd be shocked if she took him at his word.
Not that he wouldn't take advantage of it, of course. Oh, no.
Zevran smiles at her, a slow, inviting curl of his mouth. He really is terribly handsome, Marian acknowledges in the privacy of her own mind, and doesn't he just know it? "Perhaps together we could find a way to... ease your burdens?"
"I thought it might be something like that," Marian says, raising her eyebrows. He doesn't even have the grace to look ashamed; instead he just smiles at her, seemingly saying, Aren't I adorable?
Maybe in another time, another place, if she hadn't met Alistair first, if he hadn't tried to kill her... Maybe. But the person she would be in that other place would be so different that they wouldn't be the same person anymore. In this time and this place, this Marian isn't interested.
"Unfortunately, I think I'll have to do that on my own," Marian says with a polite smile, and then she turns around to walk straight. At the head of the line, Alistair is looking at her over his shoulder, concerned. Are you all right?
Marian smiles at him; her intent is firm reassurance, but she can feel how her face goes all soft and warm at the sight of him. He grins back at her, and they share the look for an age, or at least until Alistair trips over a gigantic tree root. Sheepishly he turns back to watch where he's going accompanied by a sharp retort from Wynne.
They've just been caught by half of the party making calf eyes at each other, but all Marian can do is laugh.
"I see," Zevran says behind her, amused. "Not on your own, after all."
Marian groans right out loud.
Over lunch, Marian takes out Genitivi's notebook and her own well-thumbed map and tries to figure out how far they've gone, and how far they might need to go. It's hard with only the approximation of a location, and soon she gives up in disgust. When it comes time to get moving again, Marian sends Cú scouting ahead and takes the opportunity to walk with Alistair instead of subjecting herself to the merciless interrogation she expects from Leliana.
"We're very subtle," she says, amused.
It takes Alistair a moment to catch her meaning, but then he laughs. "You should have heard what Wynne said to me," he says. "I thought she was a nice old lady, but now... I'm not so sure."
Marian laughs. "Once she caught Jowan sleeping in her class, and she dangled him out of the window for five minutes while she lectured us on the benefits of getting enough sleep." Her amusement fades slowly as her thoughts run along a well-traveled path, from Jowan to what he did, what he turned himself into. Could she have helped him?
She tried, she reminds herself. He made a choice. She's done everything she could for him, and more than she probably should have, to tell the truth. That's enough. She has more than enough to take on without claiming responsibility for Jowan's actions on top of everything.
Alistair has been watching her, she notices when she shakes off the malaise and comes back to reality. He seems a bit worried, though when she smiles, he returns it. "I think that's the first time you've ever talked about the Circle of your own free will," he says.
Marian grimaces. "It's not..." She tries to think of a way to explain her huge, complicated, conflicting feelings about the Circle in four words or less.
"You don't have to," Alistair says quickly, worried.
"I don't mind," Marian says, shaking her head. "Not with you." She's a bit shy saying that, but the way Alistair looks so pleased when she does makes it worth the effort. "It's just – I don't really know how to talk about it," she says, giving up on censoring herself. It'll be hard enough to hit truthful without constantly editing herself. "But if there's something you want to know, you're welcome to ask."
They walk along in silence for a few minutes while Alistair turns that over in his head. They're nearly into the Frostbacks at this point, and the air holds a distinct chill that makes Marian doubly glad of the fur lining in her overtunic. She can hear Cú somewhere ahead, barking – probably at a rabbit, or one of the creepy hairless mountain nugs that somehow survive the freezing winters that Ferelden is famous for. She hopes he's safe and enjoying himself – and that he'll bring back something for the pot.
"All right, I've got one," Alistair says, catching her attention again. She looks over at him to find him watching her. "How did you come to the Circle in the first place?"
That's easy enough to answer. She describes the epic confrontation between her and the little boy in the market, the fire she'd made without thought or concern for consequences; she skips over the race to warn her siblings in favor of describing the old hags who crowded around to watch as she was taken away by the templar.
That templar had been a good man. Marian wishes she could remember his name.
Her florid description of the boat and the way it smelled, the way it swayed and made her sick, earns her a laugh. She leaves the rest out. It's not important.
Alistair's a good audience, though she'd known that already. He listens and he seems genuinely interested in even her wild theorizing. Marian finds herself discussing the details of primal magic and researching esoteric magical spells. She wasn't expecting him to ask some of the questions he comes up with, either. When she asks, afire with curiosity, he shrugs. "I was trained as a templar," he says, as if she needs the reminder. Though maybe she does – how long has it been since she thought of him as nothing but the templar? Looking back, Marian's ashamed of herself for the way she reacted. She'd been in a bad place, but that's no excuse to take it out on other people. "Templar training involves discipline of the mind, as well as the body. No one got out of there without an education. And I was actually quite good at it."
Marian's brain near shuts down in shock. Where has Alistair been hiding this?
She's never been attracted to someone's mind before.
Alistair's ears go red, but he grins at her, pleased with himself. "I thought you might like that."
She's helpless against the way her emotions swell and surge against their bounds, affection and desire rolling through her in equal parts. Her heart is ten sizes too big for her chest. She doesn't care who can see, or what anyone thinks – she reaches out and takes his hand, holding it tightly in hers. His skin is warm, far warmer than she'd expected in this chill. It stokes that ceaseless, maddening tension, that heat, that he so often prompts within her with a look or a word or even just the brush of his fingers. "I really want to kiss you right now," she murmurs.
Alistair squeezes her hand, but while there's interest in his face, and desire, he seems uncertain about both. He seems... hesitant.
"Whatever it is, it's all right," Marian says softly. She's concerned now, but this isn't the place or the time to pry. That'll have to come later, when they're alone. He offers her a grateful smile, and she returns it with interest.
The path spreads out before them, leading up a steep slope. It's gravel here, wider and graded for easy walking. That's the work of human hands. Marian looks up, suddenly hopeful, and – yes! There's smoke coming from the top of the hill. Even if it's not the precise place they're looking for, it's somewhere, with people. Someone must know where Haven is. This side journey can't be for nothing. She won't allow it.
Hand in hand, Marian and Alistair drive themselves up the slope with eager steps.