A/N: Just a quick pronunciation tip: Adaon is pronounced uh-DAY-un. Kind of like 'a day n' a night'.

That is all.

The journey to Lothering was slow, rambling, and wholly unpleasant.

They had departed Flemeth's hut at dawn of that following morning. Alistair still had his sword and his satchel with the treaties, but Nike's bow had been lost. Her heart had wrenched back into misery when it was confirmed the bow was gone; it was the only thing she'd had left from her mother.

Flemeth had provided small bags with changes of clothes and some provisions. When Morrigan had exited her room with a similar small bag over her shoulder, she had wordlessly passed Nike a short bow and a quiver of arrows. From the look of both, they had previously belonged to the Chasind.

Nike did not ask how Morrigan had gotten them; she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Morrigan seemed disinclined to any conversation at all, not even bidding her mother a goodbye. With how the previous evening had ended, Nike could not say she was surprised.

She and Alistair did thank Flemeth for her help and hospitality, but she brushed them off with some nonsensical line or other. Before they had even crossed the dooryard, the strange old woman had gone back inside, and the hut almost appeared as though no one had lived in it for years.

None of the small party seemed much in the mood to talk. Nike walked beside Holly, her hand resting on the hound's shoulders more often than not. Holly's fight with the ogre seemed to have affected the mabari deeply as well. Normally, she'd ramble around the party, or take herself into the woods for some time to hunt for a rabbit or two, or chase down a particularly interesting scent.

No longer. Now she refused to let Nike out of her sight, even to get food for herself. The first night out from the Wilds, Nike had realized that she'd need to go hunt something up for the dog; their meager rations were not enough to fill the mabari's belly for a single day, let alone for the entire journey. Nike's back had been a constant dull throb, and she was not relishing having to try and hunt.

She had just resigned herself, slinging her quiver back up on her shoulder, when Morrigan strode into camp and wordlessly dropped a brace of two fat pheasants in front of the hound. A third she tossed to Alistair and then, just as wordlessly, she disappeared into the trees again. Nike stripped the pheasants of feathers and claws before letting the mabari eat them, and Morrigan did not return until the following morning.

Slowly the scrublands of the Wilds began to fall behind them, as they entered into the Southron Hills. Morrigan came and went, scouting their way ahead, and they accepted her changes of trajectory without comment. The horde, it seemed, had taken a path that would bring them through the Hinterlands to the west, so going east among the Hills and then looping back west toward Lothering was their safest bet.

They saw no one until their reluctant guide determined that they could join up with the Imperial Highway. Here, ragged and tattered bands of refugees started to appear, a handful at a time. Like their own poor company, these refugees mostly kept to themselves, lost in their own fears and miseries.

Nike watched them, every time they set up camp. The crying she started to get used to; the children, she did not. Seeing the haunted-eyed kids drifting listlessly through their camps, or hugging close to their loved ones, gouged at her. She kept seeing Oren's face on every little head, and as the numbers around them grew, so too did her pain.

After they joined the Highway, Morrigan stayed with them. She seemed discomfited by the refugees, but not for the same reasons as Nike. One afternoon, after watching the mage's tense and distrustful glares at the refugees, Nike moved up to her side.

"Would it be easier, if you were a raven?" she asked in a whisper. Morrigan made a faint 'hmm' sound, then as what Nike said registered, looked at her sharply.

"If I was a what?"

"A raven?" Nike said. She kept her voice soft so that those nearest wouldn't overhear. "I'm sorry for making assumptions, but there seemed to be a raven at your mother's house. It was never around when you were, and it had your eyes. I also recall seeing a raven around the ruins when we were looking for the treaties, just before you appeared. It seemed logical that it was you; I am not that familiar with mages, but I have heard tales of them shapeshifting into animals sometimes. Am I mistaken here?"

She said the word 'mages' even more softly, never looking at Morrigan but rather scanning those nearest to them to insure no one was eavesdropping. She did not want to endanger Morrigan any more than she already was, tromping around Ferelden as an apostate.

Morrigan said nothing, only continued to look at her for a long moment with an expression that managed to be bewildered, irritated, and just plain shocked, all at the same time.

Finally, she said, in just as low a voice, "You are not mistaken. I am surprised that you noticed. I am able to take the form of many animals. I dare not do so here, with so many eyes around."

"If it would make you more comfortable, you can go off into the woods. You don't even have to fly back if you don't want too; Alistair and I will be all right, and you can keep an eye on us from the trees, or the skies. When you need to get back to us, you can change again in a quiet location and then return as yourself. These people are miserable, and distracted by their pain. I doubt any would put such a thing together."

"Are you not afraid I will just abandon you and go my own way?"

"You could have done that any time since leaving your mother's hut," Nike said. "You have leave to do it now if you wish. Lothering is along this highway, we cannot get lost now. If you don't want to be here, don't want to help us, that's all right. You are a free woman, and as far as I'm concerned you've more than fulfilled any obligation you had to us; indeed, it is we who are now obligated to you for everything you've done. I know you did not want to come. There is no ill will between us if you wish to go."

Now she did look at Morrigan, and was a bit surprised to see in her eyes both warmth and sadness for a moment. It quickly faded into the background as her expression became purely thoughtful, almost clinical.

"No," she said at last, almost airily "I pledged that I would aid you and aid you I will. Doubtlessly one morning I shall simply come to my senses and depart, probably soon. Until then, however, I will stay until it suits me differently."

"I hold you to nothing more or less," Nike said. "I will ask you neither to stay, nor to go. You have your freedom."

Morrigan did not reply, she simply turned and walked away across the highway, soon vanishing into the nearby trees. Some ten or twenty minutes later, a large raven appeared. Instead of merely circling overhead or taking up a convenient perch somewhere at a distance, however, it flapped in and rather boldly landed right on Nike's shoulder.

As Nike had predicted, no one around them noticed, save Alistair. He gave a tired blink at the raven.

"Well, that's a treat," he said. "Brazen as you please; is it someone's pet, I wonder?"

The raven gave him a steely look and Nike added a half smirk in his direction. His confusion was slow to fade.

"Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I've seen that look before, only…oh. Oh, ok. Why not?"

He said no more about it, and the raven stayed put on her shoulder until they broke for camp that evening, when it left, and Morrigan the human returned.

The raven was back on her shoulder the next morning, and by afternoon the Highway led them down out of the Hills and toward a small village nestled near the river.

"There it is," Alistair said. "Pretty as a painting."

"A crowded painting," Nike replied. Around and among the stone and thatch houses and buildings of the hamlet were more tents and lean-tos than could be counted. Columns of cookfire smoke rose up by the dozens. Alistair seemed to deflate as they took it in.

"I wasn't expecting there to be so many," he said.

"It's going to be hard going, getting horses or supplies," Nike said. "Sending a message may be difficult as well; so many are going to be trying to message family to the north that they are coming."

With an irritated croak, the raven on her shoulder lifted into the air and winged away toward the village. Nike did not miss that Morrigan flew high, well out of range of any arrow or sling that may be shot at her. Starving men and women would not think twice on having a little raven for supper if it was all they could get.

With nothing else to do, they kept on. The refugees on the road started to drift apart as they neared the closest fields; going to find any clear spot they could pitch their camps, no doubt. The crowds actually began to get worse, and the smell that rose up in all quarters was not the most pleasant. Hoping to avoid as much of the madness as they could, Nike lead them on a circuitous route around the edges of the ad hoc camps hoping to find a thinner spot where they could cut in and head for the inn. She doubted any rooms would be available, but if nothing else the innkeeper could point them to a place where they could send a message, or get horses if there were some to be had.

For the very first time it occurred to Nike they had nothing in the way of money, and very little that they could hope to barter or trade. Finding a place to send a message or get horses may not be the worst of their problems, if they could not pay for those things when they found them.

Theirs was not the only cup that was dry. Even at the edges of the camps, people were hunkered down, begging for scraps of food or a coin or two. Everyone was dirty, ill-used, exhausted. Babes suckled listlessly at breasts that had no milk to pass, as mothers pleaded with any whose shadow fell upon her for a penny, or a bit of bread, or some porridge.

Nike and Alistair had a few small bits of meat left but those vanished into those hungry hands far too swiftly.

They were nearing a bridge that looked like it may afford an open shot down to the inn, when a group of men stood up. They had been lounging near the stream the bridge crossed, and Nike had not noticed them any more than the other refugees. As they started toward them, however, she realized these men were nothing of the kind. They wore armor, and had weapons. They did not look world-weary, nor starving.

Alistair saw them too, and groaned. "Trouble," he said.

Nike touched her hand to Holly's big head and stopped her as she eyed the men, lifting her chin. The strangers grinned easily as they approached.

"Well, hello." The only one with a beard spoke as they drew to a halt. The other two looked little more than boys.

"We have nothing you want," Nike said.

"You don't know what we want," Beard said. "How can you be sure?"

"Gentlemen, come now," Alistair told them. "I can show you our packs empty of food, and our purses empty of coin, just like everyone else here."

"Well, if that is what we wanted, your lovely lady friend here would be correct," Beard told him. "But we're not looking for coin, or for food. We're looking for Grey Wardens."

"Grey Wardens?" Nike almost shocked herself with how casual and nonchalant she sounded. "We certainly don't have any of those hidden away under our cloaks. Aren't they off fighting the Blight?"

The two younger men looked a little unsure and crestfallen, but Beard didn't bat an eyelash. "They were. With the King, Maker rest him, at Ostagar. We were at Ostagar too. Seems there were a couple of Wardens that weren't with the King when the battle began. It further seems these two Wardens snuck into the Tower of Ishal and let the darkspawn in to overwhelm the camp and hit the King and his men from an unexpected quarter. It's only by Loghain's quick thinking in pulling back, that we and the rest of our company were saved."

Nike felt rocked right down to her heels, her gut going cold as his words sank in. They thought that she and Alistair had betrayed the King and let the darkspawn in to ravage the camp and overwhelm the King's trap?

"Why would the Wardens betray the King?" Alistair asked, and he sounded just as horrified as Nike felt. "Most of them died right alongside him; what would it serve for them to betray him like that?"

"That's what we'd like to ask them," Beard said smoothly. "Maybe you've seen them about, these two treacherous, murdering Wardens? One's a man, with short gold-red hair and a boyish face- he'd be just about your height, too. In company with a young woman who carries herself like a noble, with copper-penny eyes, and a mabari bitch at her side?"

Here he began to rub the hilt of his sword, his smirk going wider as he looked from one of them to the other. "Seen 'em? There's a rather high reward for their finding. Certainly worth the while of the lucky sods who spot them, hmm? And luckily, that reward ain't fixed on them being alive or in pieces when they're found."

They were in trouble. Alistair had his sword and she had a bow, but in close quarters like this she might as well be unarmed. Holly started a low growl, deep in her chest, but Beard seemed unperturbed by the presence of the mabari.

Suddenly there was a commotion on the bridge they stood beside. A woman with golden hair and deeply tanned skin was pushing her way toward them, moving upstream against a bleary-eyed crowd of homeless trying to get into town. She was calling to them in loud voice.

"Angie! Angie Tucket, you look sorrier than pig muck!"

Nike nearly turned to look behind her, see who the woman was really calling for, when she abruptly recognized her. They had never spoken, but this woman was the selfsame soldier that Daveth had been intent on wooing back at Ostagar. She wasn't in the home-made battered armor that she had been when Nike had first seen her on the road, and she didn't look any bit as dour as she had in the camp while trying to ignore Daveth, but it was her all the same.

The woman finally got off the bridge and without even sparing the three men a look, swept in like a thunderclap and embraced Nike bodily, lifting her with unfettered joy right off of her feet.

"Angie! By the Maker it is good to see you! Mother is going to be thrilled, we've been looking for you to come in for three days now. And this must be Hector?"

She set Nike down and thrust a hand at Alistair, who looked about as bowled over as Nike felt. He took it and nearly had his arm shaken right out of its socket.

"Y-yes," Nike said. "That's Hector."

"You look just like she described you in her letters," the woman said expansively. "The twins are so excited to finally meet you; Carver hasn't stopped talking about you since we knew you were coming. Brand? Brand, what are you gawking at?"

This last was directed toward Beard, who was staring at the woman as if she'd lighted straight down from the skies.

"'Day, you know these two?" he asked.

"No, I just like to randomly hug strangers," she said tartly. "Of course I know them! This is my cousin, Angie. You know, Mom's younger sister's daughter. I haven't seen her since she was sixteen. Ang, I'm sorry we couldn't come see you when you married Hector here. Dad…you know."

"Yes, I was deeply sorry to hear about your father," Nike told her. "Hector and I totally understood."

"O-of course we did," Alistair replied.

"Come, Mother's going to be so happy to see you. Hector, I'm sorry but Carver is likely going to drag you away and start gossiping like an old fishwife; let me know if he becomes too bothersome. Now come on, we can't keep them waiting. Brand, why are you still here? Don't you have some work or something to do?"

Without waiting for the three men to leave, the woman threw one arm around Nike, the other around Alistair, and started walking them away from the bridge, gabbing loudly the whole time. Only when they had gotten some distance and the three soldiers had vanished from sight did she look around and then blow out a breath, releasing them.

"Good Maker, that was close," she said. "Sorry about that. I really have been watching for you for a few days now. I hoped I'd get to you two before something like that happened. You've both got quite a price on your heads; it's not safe for you here."

"So it would seem," Nike replied. "Thank you for your good timing. Do they really think that we betrayed the King? That we let the darkspawn in at the Tower?"

"That is the story," she replied with a nod. "Straight from Loghain's mouth. I think he believes it too, to be honest."

"But you don't?"

"Not for a tick," she said. "But it's not safe to talk about it now. My family live not too far from here- you'll be safe there for now. Certainly safer than just wandering around Lothering; there's quite a few soldiers still there who were with us at Ostagar, and every single one of them wants what Loghain's offering for your heads."

"It's the Maker's luck we ran into you then, Miss…?" Alistair lifted a brow inquiringly and she gave him a sharp, charming grin.

"Hawke," she said. "Adaon Hawke. Pleased to meet you."