A/N: quick note to mention that I also post on AO3 if you prefer that platform. Updates typically come out there a day before they do here. My username there is the same as it is here.

We clash together in the predawn grey, as we always do after the events of Ostagar.

Eran moves with all the calculation of an eagle, shoulders squared, as he lunges towards me. His sword comes down from his shoulder in an arc, exacting where I will be when it crashes. I catch it in time between the cross of my swords; it was a light-hearted swing and he knows I know this. I shove him away with a frustrated grunt.

Sweat is dripping from my brow, even as the air is still frigid. My chest is stinging with each breath I take, the tinge of metal accompanying the back of my throat as I swallow. I retreat from him, breathless, and furiously swipe the hairs that stick to my face, catch on my clothes, my epaulettes.

"Do you tire so easily, little Swallow?" Eran calls out to me. There's a playful lilt in his words, but his expression betrays his worry. I look at him, breathless and worn. Eran barely seemed fazed. He rarely did. I shake my head indignantly, catching another string of hair and flinging it away. Though it is put up and bound with leather, it still isn't enough to keep it from being cumbersome, and its heat is stifling against the back of my neck. "We can stop if you want."

"No," I say, and bring my swords to bear again. I take my stance, prepared for a strike, but Eran plants his sword in the earth.

He comes to me and his hands fall to my shoulders. The scowl that I didn't realize I was bearing melts away. I lower my swords with a sigh.

"Are you in pain?" His concern is thick. He takes my face in one of his hands and tilts it to examine the still stitched together wound across my face. His eyes linger before drifting further, up to the pointless knife of my ear.

I jerk my head out of his grasp. "No."

The birds are singing as I turn out of his hold, sheathing my swords. The sound of my chainmail jerkin compliments their trills. The sky is brighter now, oranges and golds and blues. The others would be awake by now. We would be needed to pull up camp.

I hear the hissing noise of Eran's sigh behind me. "Is that all you know to say? Just 'no'?"

I spare only a moment to look back at him. "No," I reply, drawing out the word. I catch the ghost of a smile before I turn back and continue to the camp. I hear him hefting his sword and soon he is following me.

"Then what troubles you?" His steps are slow and deliberate once he catches up with me. He interlocks an arm in mine, forcing me to accommodate his slow, jaunty pace.

My gaze turns to the grass. I kick a twig out of the way. "You wouldn't understand."

"Oh?" Eran leans down into my shoulder. "Try me."

I shake my head. "Girl problems. You really wouldn't understand." It's a bluff, one I hope he takes.

He gently bumps my shoulder with his. "Girl problems, or girl problems?" I make a disgusted sound and playfully smack his arm.

He makes a hum, long and low in his throat, and is silent for a moment. I think for a while he is content to walk the rest of the way in silence. He's thinking, he has to be, about how he might fix whatever problem he thinks I have.

Finally, he asks, "You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" I immediately nod my head. "I mean it, Ariel." His voice lowers. It's warm, steady; protective. "About Ostagar, the Joining…Vaughan."

I jerk out of his hold a little more forcefully than I intended and keep walking. His steps are still for a time before I hear them pick up again. He dutifully follows me back to the camp.

Alistair is emerging from his tent as we arrive. He stretches howls into the morning air, reminiscent of those terrible ox-beasts the merchants used to haul their wagons. The dwarf merchant and his son are also up, packing their things into the back of their cart. Sten patrols around the edges of the camp, pacing. Magpie, the warhound Eran rescued from Ostagar, follows dutifully behind him.

Morrigan, her tent sequestered from the others, is already packing up all her things. How or where she managed to keep everything is beyond me. I'm not sure I want to know the answer. I catch Eran staring at her as we enter the camp. He lists in her direction; I grab him by the arm and drag him away.

And then there's the Chantry Sister.

She sits by the low-crackling fire, one leg over the other, reading some book or other. One side of her short hair is back against her ear, except that silly braid that dangles out in front of it.

I'm not sure what to make of her. Eran and Alistair had run into her back in Lothering, while Morrigan and I harassed the Revered Mother about Sten's release. When I confronted Eran about the issue, questioning whether he was trying to save another broken bird by having her, he was emphatic in telling me she was not, in fact, like the Chantry women in Denerim.

"And what do you mean by that?" I say, crossing my arms. "What are you even doing?"

Eran looks up from digging through the stockpile of extra armor we've picked up along the road. "Well, she needs gear. She only had a couple things, being cloistered for so long." He picks out a jerkin and eyes it meticulously, smacking a hand across its chest to dislodge some dirt. It's only lightly bloodstained. "She knows how to fight, Swallow. When Loghain's men attacked us, we thought she might need help."

"And did she?"

He laughs. "In truth, she did most of the work for us." He picks out a pair of gauntlets, then another. "Do you think these would fit?" I simply stare at him; as if I knew the answer to his question. "I know you're prickly about Chantry folk, but I promise, she's just…different."

She sits now in that set of armor Eran let her have. It suits her far better than those garish Chantry robes do.

She hardly notices us until we are upon her, starting a bit and snapping her book closed. "There you are," she says, standing. Her smile is bright and saccharine in the early morning dawn; how I wonder could anyone be so eager and full of joy at this hour? "Are we picking up camp?"

"We are," Eran replies. He smirks at me. "Take your time. I think some of us need more time to wake up."

I stick my tongue out at him; he returns the gesture. He leaves me with the Sister, drifting off in Morrigan's direction. I shift my weight to my other foot; my leg is starting to hurt. "I guess I should get started," I mumble, and turn toward my tent.

"Do you need help?"

I turn back around, brows narrowed. Her expression is unassuming, and I want to question 'Why?' but I simply stare for a moment too long. Her eyes change into question, or maybe concern, and I shake my head, looking away.

Perhaps uncomfortable by my stillness, she makes a gesture toward my tent. "I could help you tear down, if you like. It would go much more quickly that way, yes?"

"No. But thank you, Sister."

She laughs, and it sounds like a song. "You can just call me Leliana."

I am stunned for another second, unmoving, until finally I manage to smile pleasantly and nod. I turn without any further ceremony and stalk off to tear down my tent.

We're only a day's journey out from Lothering, well on our way to Redcliffe. We march in a line; Eran and Alistair take the head. Bodahn and Sandal, along with their cart full of their supplies and ours, follows behind them. Magpie happily trots alongside the wheel. Morrigan and Sten follow behind. Leliana is pitched with Morrigan in some conversation about the existence, or lack thereof, of the Maker.

I'm at the end of it all, trailing at the back of the group.

I started near the middle, following between the cart and Eran. I drifted back over the course of the day, in between stops, and thankfully Eran never brought it up. I think he knew better than to pry.

Maker, but my leg hurts. I push my hair back, trying to comb the wild mane into shape. A breeze whips by and promptly disrupts it again.

I feel a presence next to me and I look up from where I am kicking a pebble along. Leliana walks to my right, her eyes forward, looking around the scenery as we pass. I must have stared a little too long, because her gaze turns to me, her lips adopting a smile. I return a brief one before I look ahead, focusing on the back of the cart; there's a tear in the canvas, it will need to be fixed.

"I thought you could use some company," Leliana says next to me. I dare a look at her, but she is back to staring into the open wilderness.

I laugh, but it's dry. "Don't feel obligated. I can't entertain you with debate or pretty stories."

"That's all right." A brow shoots up. Her answer is so simple, so…assured? I am not sure how to describe it, and it confuses me. "Sometimes, the best company is found in the comfort of silence."

I'm not sure what she means; I'm not sure I ever will. Maybe it's just an overlong way to tell me she won't be a bother.

We continue like this for several hours. I count the amount of times Sten makes a noise of disapproval at some banter Eran and Alistair have going on. So far, I'm up to twenty-six.

Eran makes some comment on the time he sneaked off to some whorehouse or another, how he had, somehow, been mistaken as one of the workers by a very sloshed noblewoman.

"'Have you no sense what to do, little elf?'" he says, his voice high and throaty and plied with an atrocious Orlesian accent. "'I paid good coin for this!'"

Alistair is laughing, but he replies, "Maker, I don't think I want to hear the rest of this."

"No, no, it's great." Eran clears his throat. "So I let her strip naked. She asks me to blind her, so I do. She wants to be tied, so I say, all right, I can do that. She's spread eagle, one limb to each post of the bed."

I roll my eyes. This isn't the first time I've heard this story. Maker knows it won't be the last.

"The moment I finished that last knot, I bolted out of that room, fast as you please, and high tailed it back to the alienage." He laughs until he is nearly breathless. "They ignored her calling out for help, thinking it was just the throes of passion. They found her the next day and Maker, she was furious!"

Twenty-seven. This one was a rather spirited groan.

There's a giggle, clear from the wild howling that heads the front, and I glance over to see that Leliana is smiling furiously. "Your brother would fit perfectly in Orlesian society, I think." She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.

I watch her for a moment, studying the crinkle around her eyes, the freckles that dust her nose. There's a scar near the point of her jaw, hidden mostly by that curtain of red hair. "Is that where you're from? Before Lothering?"

When she looks at me, the mirth is momentarily lost, surprise taking its place, before the soft look is back again and she gives me a smirk. "Did the accent give it away?" I blink and look down, but she continues before the silence drags on too long. "I was a minstrel, traveling across Orlais, performing for different nobles and dithering ladies. Songs and tales were my life. There was much coin, much praise to be had there."

My eyes go to the bow slung across her back, then the knife fastened to her hip. I have yet to see her fight a proper battle, as Eran apparently had, but the way she carries her weapons tells me enough to know she's skilled, if nothing else. "And how does a minstrel learn to fight?"

Her brows raise, her countenance dropping before she laughs nervously, needlessly pushing her hair back behind her ear. "You pick up different skills along the road, yes? A pretty woman, traveling alone? She must know how to defend herself."

There's a pain that tugs at my chest at the implication, threatens to pry at my throat. I let out a grunt, the only response I can manage, eyes forward again. Morrigan is sitting on the back of the cart, a blasé expression coloring her features. She catches me staring and makes a face, her nose scrunching at me, and I turn my gaze back to Leliana.

There is a question that burns at the back of my throat. My mouth opens to ask it, but I think better, and my jaw snaps shut.

We continue on until dusk. The caravan stops as Eran and Magpie scout ahead, looking for a spot just off the road for us to set up camp for the night. They return a half hour later, and we are led into a clearing.

I pitch my tent a little further away from the others than I normally would. I have a quick meal of whatever dried goods Bodahn has on his cart, too impatient to wait for whatever slurry Alistair has prepared, and retire to my tent.

My armor comes off too slowly for my liking. There was never a need for it back in the alienage beyond a simple leather tunic. Nothing we ever did was dangerous. Foolish, maybe, but not dangerous. The heavier stuff leaves deeper imprints in my skin when I take it off, and Andraste's ass, but does it feel good to get the weight of it off!

I sit on my bedroll, just in a shift and my smallclothes, as I press my hands over my skin, trying to knead away the ache that stifles them. Old wounds are checked, cleaned, rebandaged.

There's the one at my leg. A long, ugly thing. It's been closed for a while now, the scarred flesh still pink and tender. It hurts to touch on the best of days; on the worst, it chafes against the fabric of my breeches and sets my leg aflame.

I hate to look at it. It reminds me of that night, those men; Nola reciting verses from Transfigurations, and then her lifeless eyes staring back at me.

Firelight floods into my tent; Eran pokes his head in before making a sound and ducking his head out, but leaving the flap cracked open just a little. "Sorry, little Swallow, I didn't know you weren't decent."

I sigh and throw a pelt over my legs. Eran had seen me in worse states. He had practically raised me as a child, dressing me, helping me bathe, bandaging all sorts of injuries. As I grew older, he became more respectful of my privacy. While it wasn't unwelcome, sometimes it was grating.

"What do you want, brother?"

He dared to pull the flap open and stick his head in again. "There's rain coming overnight. Has your tent been waterproofed?" I simply nodded my answer. I expect him to leave, but he lingers in the opening of the tent and stares at me overlong. "Turning in early, then?"

"Been a long day," I say, running my fingers through my hair. It immediately falls back across my eyes.

He laughs. "Maybe we should cut that mane of yours." I look up at Eran. He is smiling at me with that warm, protective expression he always has for me. "I've seen you fighting with it often enough lately, and it has been a while."

I say nothing, looking down to my covered legs. I pick at some imaginary lint stuck between strands of fur.

The tent opens further and Eran steps inside. He crouches next to me. At first he says nothing, simply watching me as a bird of prey might. He reaches out and brushes a length of my hair back over my shoulder. "Mother had long hair like you do. I know you wanted to be like her." I brush his hand away with a shake of my head. "Maybe you could…put it up? Do something like the noblewomen do with their hair?"

I look at him incredulously. "What, the complicated ones with the rings and coils?"

He shrugs. "It would keep it back, wouldn't it?" Silence. "I don't really know how to go about that, though. You know hair tying was never a skill of mine." He smiles at me, and I return it only fleetingly. "Well," he gets up from where he is crouched. "I won't pester you further. Rest well, Swallow."

I lay back on my bedroll once he's gone, staring up at the flickering shadows across the tent canvas. Sleep doesn't claim me as quickly as I hope. Instead, I listen to the commotion outside; there's laughter, storytelling. Occasionally Eran will shush them, saying I am probably asleep.

Alistair finally retires. For a while, quiet conversation happens between Eran and Leliana; nothing I can make out beyond the occasional word. My eyes are starting to grow weary when I hear Eran announce his farewell.

There's quiet for a while. Nothing but the sounds of the insects, night birds and the wind upon the trees; it's not so unlike home, only a little louder. I can hear what must be a dozen horrible frogs singing the worst a capella I could imagine. It is backdropped by the clap of thunder, after which all goes silent for a few moments before the chorus picks up again.

Just as I begin to drift to sleep, I hear it. What I think might be humming. It is almost indistinguishable from the wind at first, but as I strain my ears to listen…

Curiosity overrides my desire to sleep and I shuffle from my bedroll. I crept over toward the entrance to my tent, ear as close to the canvas as I can get it. And I can hear it, and it sounds…

I crawl along the edge of the tent until I am met with the seam of its opening, and I draw myself close to peer through the tiny space. Leliana is sitting by the fire, just where she was when I left for the night. She has one leg bent, the ankle resting upon the opposite knee. She has that book again, a finger tracing as she reads. Her face is quiet, contemplative, though there is the smallest hint of a smile on her lips. The firelight makes shadows over the planes of her face; the curve of her brow, the point of her cheekbone, framing around her nose, and setting her hair the color of flame.

And she is humming, and it sounds beautiful.

I reach for the opening of the tent without much thought, curiosity wringing my sense dry. As I shift, something hard juts into my scarred leg, and I let out a yelp before my hand can fly to my face. Leliana's attention snaps up, the book abruptly closing, and I am shuffling on my backside away from the tent opening. I hear movement, then nothing.

But I can see the fire-shadow Leliana casts as she stalks around the fire, the curve of her bow accompanying her frame. She makes one round, then another; she moves away from the fire, and when she returns she steps just a few feet from my tent. Each footfall is silent, measured, and deliberate.

She moves so silently that I can hear everything except her.

She lingers in front of my tent for a minute before moving away. I creep even slower back to the opening to see that Leliana is sitting at the fire again. Except this time there is no book, no humming; just a severe look, and the bow, arrow nocked, resting across her lap.

I don't stay to observe her for long, too afraid to be caught again, and I clamber back into my bedroll.

Sleep comes with difficulty. The rain began in the small hours before dawn, and even then, its usually soothing sound keeps me from sleeping fully. I emerge from my tent when next my eyes open, still heavy, too frustrated to toss and attempt to sleep again.

Eran is poking at the firepit, trying to rouse it. The rain had ceased some time ago it seemed. He looks up briefly as I approach, smiling. "Good morning, little Swallow. Did you sleep well?"

I sit down next to him, a soft grunt leaving my lips. The wet air and the cold already have me aching. My head feels clouded with sleep and even the bird trills sound like the most unbearable racket. "No."

He makes a sound. "Rain keep you awake?" I don't answer, simply content to watch the stick he has dig into the embers, coaxing them. "Did you hear anything unusual last night?" I shake my head. "Sister Leliana told me she heard something while on watch, but never found out what it was."

I could feel a stinging coming to my cheeks. "Must have been a rodent or some other." He hummed his response, thankfully not pressing the issue further. Silence stretches on for far too long, but it affords me enough time to allow the burning in my cheeks to go away. I clap my hands to my legs, drawing his attention, and stand. "So, are we going to spar or not?"

He laughs quietly with a shake of his head. "I figure we can skip the training for today, little Swallow." I must look a little disappointed, for he adds, "We've a long journey. I don't want you to waste what energy you have left before we head out."

I sink back down with an indignant huff. My brother chuckles next to me. The fire finally seems to pick up, sputtering and he makes a satisfied sound.

"If you wanted," he offers, "you could go and hunt for a hare or two. Take Maggie along with you, maybe?"

I shake my head. "I thought it was Sten's turn."

He reaches over and lightly punches my arm. I mock a cry and flail a hand at him. He smirks at me. "Yes, but you seem to need to burn off whatever nervous energy you have."

A disgusted sound leaves my lips unbidden, but I stand, dusting my pants off as I go. "We could just spar instead. That would get rid of my nervous energy." He waves dismissively at me with a hand. I stomp my foot like a child before turning and going back into my tent to dress myself proper in my gear. I return later; the others are beginning to rise.

I catch Leliana emerging from her tent as I approach. She smiles sleepily at me, a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn. I nod and smile pleasantly, but increase my pace, my heart loud in my ears.

Magpie makes for an excellent companion. She's about as smart as any person I've met; commands don't take her much time to parse. Together we find several hares in a nearby thicket. Unfortunately, because of her nature, a few of those hares end up as chew toys instead of a viable breakfast.

We returned maybe an hour and a half later, gutted and skinned hares in tow. The rest of our little party is up and doing their morning routine. Maggie trots off, finding the qunari warrior and sitting at his feet. I let Eran deal with the quarry I caught; he's better at that than I am.

By midmorn we are packed again, and the party heads off. Just as well; the rain pours down now with little mercy.

I take my place near the back of our little caravan. Sten insists on walking several paces behind me. I am no warrior, he says; I would be quick prey should we be ambushed from the flank. I might have disagreed with him had I been better rested.

Morrigan walks between Eran and the cart. The looks she gave my brother as we took to the road were nothing short of beguiling, and I think he fell for it. I would need to have a talk with Eran later.

Leliana is perched in the back of the cart under the cover of canvas. She is half curled, her back resting against one side of the cart. Her book lays open against her chest, her bow across her lap. Her eyes are closed; they have been for some time. Even here, resting as she is, I can tell she is not completely at ease.

As I stare and watch her, all I can think about is her sitting by the firelight.

And so I march, hair sticking to my skin, watching this woman—a human—in the throes of sleep.

And Maker, but she is beautiful, and it isn't fair.