By Gods Forsaken

by inwardtransience

One day, the shadows will part, and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see. (How do you do a summary for something this big? Total retelling, Mahariel!Warden, mage!Hawke, Dreamer!Trevelyan!Inquisitor, worldbuilding, too many OCs, serious plot edits, primarily F/F.)

6. Lothering — I

9:30 Nubulis 14

Lothering, South Reach, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

---

Lothering wasn't quite the same as Lýna remembered it.

She'd passed through the town briefly once before, with Duncan and a few recruits (Keran the only one still living). It was a midpoint on the way to Ostagar from South Reach, if somewhat closer to Ostagar, so had been a convenient place to stop by and pick up some supplies. They'd stopped in the tavern to eat — Lýna had spent the whole time with her hood up, carefully shielding her face, nervously fidgeting — and one of the recruits (she forgot which) had complained about not staying there for the night.

Not that the tavern had actually had any space for them — even then, Lothering had been somewhat overrun with refugees from the south. All the rooms had been full, and even if they weren't, they were charging far more than Duncan would be willing to pay when they could just camp out by the highway. Which had seemed perfectly reasonable to her, that one human had still griped about it, though.

(Though, she had been a little blindsided that Alamarri apparently demanded money in exchange for allowing travellers a room to sleep in. That was just...absurd. Her people would never do something like that — they didn't use money at all, actually — and the Chasind and Avvar both kept lodges to house hunters and travellers, available to all. The idea of demanding payment for that was just weird.)

They hadn't quite reached the village yet, but it was visible from the old Tevinter road — solid, flat stones raised a bit off the ground, the surrounding landscape (a lot of flat farmland, a few clumps of trees here and there) laid out around it — so Lýna had a good vantage to see the place looked...different. The core structures of the village still looked more or less the same. There were two dozen or so little buildings made of wood and straw, in a few cases stone — these were homes, mostly, a few little shops. The tallest building was a tower with big cloth wings attached near the top, forming a sort of wheel that spun slowly in the wind — the mill, Duncan explained, where grains were ground into meal (because they didn't use magic for that, apparently). The largest, not so tall as the mill but wider and longer, was an arched structure of wood, its shape sort of looking like a split log lying on the cut side, smaller blocky bits sticking out of the sides, at the front edge two spikes reaching into the air, supported between them a large metal sunburst — the Chantry, what the Alamarri called the temple where they worshipped their weird magic-hating god. That was all the same.

What wasn't the same was the camp to the south of the village. When Lýna had passed through before, a sizeable field to the south of the village had been pounded into mud, footprints and lines from wagon wheels left behind. The army had camped there, Duncan had explained, on the way to Ostagar. The field had been empty before, but now at least a portion of it had been filled up again, dozens and dozens of little tents, much like those they'd used back in Ostagar, spread around in a random mess, like fallen leaves scattered over the dirt. Many people didn't have tents, beds of straw laid out on the ground surrounding a dozen little cookfires — just for warmth, she thought, it wasn't near one of the times Alamarri usually ate. The tents and the refugees easily doubled the size of the village, making the thing look weirdly lopsided.

Lýna wasn't surprised. Chasind had been fleeing north for some time, just as her clan had, and the several smaller villages between here and Ostgar they'd passed on the way south had been far emptier on their way north again. Lothering was, apparently, a necessary stop on the way into the rest of Ferelden — it wasn't really, it was easy enough to avoid it by traversing the hills east or west, but Alamarri liked their roads — so this would be a natural place for refugees to stop to rest fleeing from the Blight.

Honestly, the surprise on Alistair and Alim's face was more of a surprise to her than the thing itself.

The five of them were only a couple minutes away from the ramp down to the village when a few figures further ahead on the road rose, started sauntering toward them. It wasn't unusual to find people hanging around at the edges of the road, especially when a settlement was nearby, Lýna hadn't given the ones around much of a second thought. But these men were armed, with a haggard, hardened look to them, desperate. And it wasn't just the five...eight ahead of them, there were another four coming up from behind.

Hmm.

Lýna caught Alim's eye, tilted her head back over her shoulder. He glanced that way, an uneasy grimace crossing his face, but he nodded.

"Greetings, travellers!" one of the men said — his clothing looked rather more fine than the others', a dark leather with a purple-ish sheen, his boots accented with bits of steel, Lýna marked him as the leader. The man must have made his own calculation, and gotten it slightly wrong: he was focusing on Alistair. "I imagine you're weary, and eager to get into the village."

One of the other men, taller than Alistair with a rather scruffy, asymmetrical beard, leaned over to mutter (very loudly), "Uh, maybe we should let these ones through, boss."

"You should listen to that one," Alistair said, pointing at him. "He's smart, I like him."

The leader just smirked at that, a few of the men chuckling. "Nonsense! Everybody has to pay the toll — where would this country be, if nobody obeyed the King's law?"

Keran scoffed, repeated toll? under her breath. Lýna didn't know what that word meant, but she did understand they were being extorted for money, the words they used didn't really matter. The men were focusing on Alistair, but what few coins they had Lýna had actually given to Keran. Lýna herself had only the simplest understanding of the concept, and between the rest Keran was the most level-headed — she'd assumed that if Keran agreed it was worth spending it on something, it was probably fine. With how disdainful and disgusted Keran sounded, Lýna guessed these men weren't getting their money.

(She was pretty sure they were all going to be dead in a couple minutes.)

"So you're toll collectors, then." Lýna didn't have an angle on his face, but it sounded like Alistair was smiling.

"Indeed! For the upkeep of the Imperial Highway! It does look a mess, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh," Alistair hummed, very skeptically. "Well, this is adorable, lads, but I'm afraid we're not paying you squat. It's sort of a Grey Warden policy, you see, to not pay off brigands."

Lýna snorted — it was absolutely no such thing. If they didn't need what little money they had to buy supplies in town she would probably tell Keran to just hand the coin over and move on.

"Grey Wardens, huh? With that kind of bounty, we can retire." The other four were reacting to that, with what sounded like a mix of surprise and anger — it hadn't seemed particularly anger-worthy to Lýna, but there had been a word in there she didn't know — but they didn't get a chance to respond. The leader was reaching for the hilt of his sword, started saying, "Let's be heroes to—"

Before he finished the sentence, Lýna slammed shoulder-first into one of the men to her left, one carrying a crossbow. He crashed onto his back, his head coming back to knock against the stones, she crouched over him — the air filled with shouts and the harsh scrape of blades being drawn, an odd heavy thrum shaking the air the way they'd come — while he was disoriented Lýna slit his throat with her dagger.

She glanced around to get a picture of the fight. The four men who'd come up behind them were handled, splayed out on the ground by some spell from Alim — one wasn't dead yet, clutching his throat and writhing, his boots kicking against the stone, but he would be soon. Perry had apparently moved at the same time Lýna had, in the opposite direction, one of the other archers was dead at his feet, his axe bloody, as Lýna watched he pulled one of his tiny knives from his belt, a flick of his wrist and it appeared in another archer's chest, he went down gurgling. The melee, it looked like at least some of their attackers weren't actually bad, the leader in particular was holding up against Alistair relatively well — only relatively well, because when Alistair took a step back after the last exchange a seemingly casual flourish of his sword, as though reorienting for the next attack, just so happened to slice across the stomach of another man coming in at his side, that was far too elaborate of a trick for Alistair to be able to pull off if the leader were actually pressing him that badly. Keran was also doing alright, locked in a fight with the third bandit, a fourth dropped to his knees, blood bubbling past his fingers around his throat.

There was one archer left, aiming down at Lýna. She sprinted his direction, she saw his elbow twitch, dove over her shoulder at an angle to the left, heard the tink of an arrow bounce off the stone, his aim adjusted but not quickly enough. He was reaching for a dagger at his belt, but too slow, her dagger sunk into his side, clicking off his hip bone, while he reeled she drew her sword, swiped across his neck.

"Woah, hey, hey! Okay! We surrender!" The leader and the one Keran was fighting were the only ones left now, and the latter was injured, a weeping cut running down his arm. The leader had dropped his sword, raised both hands in the air, his own remaining companion following his lead, and Alistair and Keran...just stopped, kicking the dropped weapons aside while sheathing their own.

Lýna frowned — did they mean to just...let them live? Why?

His arms crossing firmly over his chest, Alistair gave the leader a glare. "I'm not cutting you down, but I'm not about to just let you go, either. We'll drop you off with the authorities down in the village, and you all can have a nice chat."

The leader blanched even further than he had at the swift and easy dismantling of his party. "There are no authorities in Lothering! The Bann left with his men, following after Teyrn Loghain — there's nobody but a few Templars in the village, they'll just execute us."

Alistair grimaced. "So, you thought you could just shake down poor souls on the Highway, because with the Bann's shields gone there's nobody to stop you."

"Well," the man grunted, shrugging.

"What's this about a bounty on Grey Wardens?" Alim was rejoining them now, looking a little shaky, rather paler than usual. "And what twisted Fade-dream did someone have that gave them the idea to do something crazy like that during a Blight?"

"Teyrn Loghain, he's offering gold for Wardens, alive or dead — ten soveriegns a head."

...So, this 'bounty' thing was when one person paid another person to kill people? Okay. So, Loghain had not only turned his back on the battle, and had his men kill soldiers trying to flee, but he was also trying to make sure none of the Wardens survived. That was... What the hell was he doing?

There was some shouting in anger and disbelief from the others, interrogating the man about this bounty. It turned out Loghain was blaming the Wardens for killing the King, which was almost clever, when she thought about it. The Wardens weren't trusted in Ferelden, due to something that had happened hundreds of years ago Lýna didn't really understand — if they tried to claim it was Loghain who had betrayed the King, who were people more likely to believe?

Of course, if he really was doing what he thought was necessary to stop the Blight, as Lýna had considered before, killing off all the Wardens was not the intelligent thing to do. She was just confused now.

And the conversation with the remaining "toll collectors" was still going on, arguing about whether or not they'd be brought down to the village to face execution for their crimes. Oh, Wolf take them all, this was pointless. Lýna stepped up behind the injured bandit, stabbed her dagger into his kidney, and then a second time to make sure she had it, hot blood spilling over her fingers. Everybody was yelling, the leader stepping away, Lýna darted forward, her sword coming up and biting down into his neck. The blade caught in his spine, but she'd done enough damage, he'd be dead in seconds. She pushed at his shoulder with a foot, wrenching her sword loose, bent down to wipe the blood off on his clothes, ignoring his pitiful choking and gurgling.

"Lýna! What the hell!"

Wiping off her dagger now, Lýna looked up at Alistair. He was clearly unhappy with her, his jaw set in a solid glare, his hands fists at his sides. The others didn't look much better, Keran wide-eyed and horrified, staring at her like she'd just done something completely awful and unforgivable out of nowhere, Alim and Perry vaguely nauseous. "What?"

"You can't just go around killing unarmed people, Lyna!"

Lýna coughed out a laugh. They were only unarmed because they'd made themselves unarmed, so silly 'honorable' people like Alistair would hesitate to kill them. That did not make them innocents. "The Templars, they kill them later, or we kill them now. Unarmed, for both. What difference?"

For a second, Alistair actually seemed a little stumped, the anger fading from his face for a second, blinking down at her. "Well... It's not the same thing, it's just not."

"...Why?"

"And we don't know they would have executed them! They were shit-heads, sure, but last I checked the sentence for petty thievery isn't death."

She noticed he hadn't actually answered her question — she also noticed Perry give Alistair a very uncomfortable look, maybe Alistair wasn't quite right about that. Straightening again, she said, "Not thieves. Killers." At his blank look, she pointed at the ground. "There is blood, on stone."

Alim's lips twitched with a half-hearted smirk. "Uh, Lýna? We just killed twelve people. Of course there's blood."

She sighed. "There was blood. Before. Look." Walking across the road, toward the opposite side of where the village sat, Lýna leaned over the edge of the bank. As she'd expected, there were a few bodies piled up at the bottom of the ridge the old Tevinter road sat on — three, five...nine, it looked like. Pointing down at the corpses, she turned back to the others. "See? Killers."

While they gathered on the edge to look, Lýna went back to the dead men. At a glance, it didn't look like any of them had anything worth taking — they must have things hidden away somewhere, at least some food, but it wasn't anywhere obvious. The exception was the leader, he had a little leather bag on his belt, bulging with the hard edges of coins. Pulling it off and peeking inside, it looked like there were several of the big gold ones, which Lýna knew were the most valuable — she hadn't any idea how much of anything you could buy with one, but she knew that much.

"Looting the corpses now, Lyna? Do we need to have a talk about how one behaves in a civilized society? For the record, killing people and taking their things is generally frowned upon."

She bit back another frustrated sigh. "He doesn't need these now." They were coming back, done whispering looking over the murdered refugees, Lýna tossed the bag of coins at Keran.

The human woman didn't even twitch. The bag of coins smacked against her chest with a heavy clink, fell to the ground. And Keran stared down at her, eyes heavy, disapproving, disgusted.

"Are you children?!" Keran and Alim both twitched with surprise, one of Alistair's eyebrows ticked up. Popping up to her feet, she stepped closer — Perry sidled to the side, putting Alistair between them, Keran leaned away a bit. "I do not understand you people. You say we need coin for food. Okay. I find you coin." She bent over to pluck the bag off the ground, pressed it against Keran's chest. "We can not end Blight if we do not eat."

Keran ground her teeth for a second, still glaring down at her. "It's not about th—"

"It is about that! You say it is not, but it is! You think what?" Lýna lifted the bag from her chest an inch, pushed it back against her armor with another clink. "You walk in town, say—" Clink. "—oh, I am Grey Warden, they give all we need?" Clink. "Loghain says, we kill their King. Think they help us now? Eh?!" Clink. "I kill him, you don't want his coin. Before Grey Warden, you are soldier!" Clink. "You take coin to kill people! What difference now? Eh?" Clink.

The anger on Keran's face had faded somewhat, looking a bit more uncertain — about the anger part, she meant, her lip was still curling in what Lýna was pretty sure was disgust. "I was in the city guard, not a soldier."

Somewhere behind Alistair, Perry snorted. "You're all thugs, you ask me."

Keran's eyes flicked in his direction, her face twisting in a snarl. "There is a world of difference between the city guard and hired thugs!"

"The fuck there isn't!" Perry leaned around Alistair, and Lýna was quite surprised by the cold fury on his face, the intensity on his voice. Perry had always seemed very timid and quiet to her. "Folk you arrest and drag on down to the pit, how many ever see sun again, you think?"

"They were all criminals!"

"So a hungry child what steal a loaf deserves to die, that it?"

"What? No!" She said it confidently, but Lýna saw the doubt on her face, eyes turning uneasily away from Perry.

Clink.

"Oh, would you stop that!" Keran shouted swiping the bag of coins out of Lýna's hand. "I don't care if we need the money, I'm not going to just sit back and watch you steal from and murder people!"

"What I do here, I kill killer, and steal from thief. I see no bad here." Keran didn't seem very pleased with that, but Perry, still peeking out from around Alistair, was giggling. "And you, Alistair. You fight this one. He want to kill us, for coin. But he see he loses, his friends all die. So he drop his sword, oh," she said, raising his hands, putting on a higher, mocking sort of tone, "I am sorry, I am unarmed, please don't give to Templars." She dropped her hands, shot him a glare. "He was killer. After drop his sword, he was killer yet. What difference?"

Thinking over his response for a moment — or, perhaps, trying to figure out how to say it in a way she might understand, he was good about that sometimes — Alistair pouted at her. "Ah, well, it's just not a very honorable thing to be doing, going around killing unarmed people."

"Honor," Lýna scoffed. "Like your glory, this one. You Alamarri like your pretty words. It is honor, to leave enemy alive? This give you no honor. This give you dead," she snarled, shoving him in the chest with one hand. Alistair was a very large man, at least compared to her, so he barely tipped back a step, but he seemed to get the point, his eyebrows both ticking up. "He try to kill us, I kill him. And I am not sorry.

"Here I am the only one with head in our job?" she asked, turning to look over the other three. Keran wasn't looking at her, staring at the bag of coins in her hand; Perry, apparently over his initial shock at her killing the two men, seemed to be fighting more laughter; Alim was still unusually pale, but a more solemn cast was coming over his face, his eyes steadily meeting hers. (She'd wondered, before, if Alim was quite ruthless enough for the Wardens, but it looked like he was coming around at least a little bit. Good.) "I am most young, of all, but I am only one who not silly child! Your pretty Alamarri words, your glory and your honor, you do what is needed and you feel sad after, this is nothing!

"This is Blight!" she yelled, pointing back the way they'd come, Ostagar and all those who'd died for no benefit. "We do not stop it, and all your people die! And you fret so for this shit?!" She gave the leader's corpse a solid kick, tipping him halfway over, his partially-severed head flopping. Keran flinched, Alim went even paler, Alistair's eyebrows just went up a little higher. "He is nothing. He try to kill us. You can not—" She pushed Alim a little, the man stumbling back a couple steps. "—stop the Blight—" She pushed Keran rather harder than Alim, but she weighed rather more than him, steadied herself with a single step back. "—if you die!" she finished, with one last shove, harder, with both hands.

Alistair, of course, was huge, and hardly even seemed to notice.

For a moment, Lýna glared at the other Wardens, gaze slowly flicking to one, to the next, to the next. They all stared back at her, silently. Lýna couldn't really guess what they were thinking, couldn't be certain she'd gotten across the message she'd meant to...but at least their anger and disgust with her dishonorable behavior was gone. They looked more solemn, at least, thinking about it. That would have to do for now.

Lýna turned on her heel and started off without a word.

She was down the ramp onto the ground, only a couple minutes away from the village now, when Alistair finally caught up. Clunking and clanking up next to her (his armor really was very noisy), he said, "I'm sorry."

She glanced up at him quick, but it didn't do any good, she wasn't certain how to read that look. Slightly nervous, but...that wasn't quite the right word. Cautious? "Why?"

"You were fighting the Blight for a long time before you ever joined the Wardens, weren't you? I forget sometimes."

Biting out a frustrated sigh, Lýna jerked to a stop. Sometimes she forgot that too, that the Blight hadn't come to the north yet — that it wasn't real to them, not really. Oh, they'd fought darkspawn, but they were warriors and armies, in a fortress that had been abandoned long ago. They knew stories, passed down through hundreds of years, but that was it. They didn't know what they were fighting, really.

She sighed again. "I first see darkspawn..." Oh, crap. "How say age?"

"I'm nineteen years old," Alistair said. "You can leave out the years old."

Giving him a double-take, Alim chirped, "What, no, really?"

"Yes, really. I know I don't look it — I am a very rugged, handsome man, after all."

Keran snorted.

She wouldn't have guessed Alistair was so young, but mostly because he was very large and his face was too square, made it impossible to tell. "Yes. I first see darkspawn when I was nine."

For a second, the four just stared at her, wide-eyed. Finally, Alistair breathed, "You were nine? Maker, what happened?"

"I was..." Oh, she didn't know how to say this in Alamarri either. "Ah, I learn to hunt, with adults, two children. We find darkspawn, they attack. We had all bows, we kill them." Lýna had managed to hit one herself, even, though her child-size bow hadn't had the power behind it to do much real damage. "One hunter, later, he get Blight sick. He died."

"I'm so sorry, Lyna."

Lýna gave Keran an impatient look — honestly, that had been nothing, she was just starting. "Then, they were few. Little groups, here, there. They grew bigger. Where we live, was Chasind village. We were...not friends, not well, but. We know the other, see? When I was twelve, darkspawn kill the village. All." She snapped her fingers, fluttered them in the air, like leaves flying in the wind. "Men, dead. Children, dead. Women, dead...some gone."

"...Gone?"

"Darkspawn take women, sometimes." The four looked a little horrified — they must not have known that. Duncan had told her why they do it just a few days ago, she hadn't known until then, but he'd also said it wasn't terribly important for the others to know. Unless they intended to spend some time in the Deep Roads, which didn't seem particularly likely. "We know not why, but we know. We learn soon. Bodies gone. Hunters on watch, sometimes, they never come back. Sometimes, we hear. They don't..." Lýna knocked herself on the side of the head with the palm of her hand. "They grab, they pull. The women scream.

"One time, we stay with Chasind. They have walls, and..." Houses having legs was how it was said in her language, she had no idea how to explain it in Alamarri. "Tall, above ground. I watch from wall, my part, and I hear screams. I look out, I see five genlocks, with Ashaᶅ. My parents died, when I am very young, Ashaᶅ took me. She was hunter, they come in and are hit. Ashaᶅ is taken, too far, it is too late. So I..." She mimed drawing a bow, flicked her fingers. "I was thirteen."

That had been the single most difficult shot she'd ever taken at the time. She hadn't been nearly as experienced then as she was now, and Ashaᶅ had already been very far away, how the darkspawn had been dragging her not been giving Lýna a very good angle. And...well, it was Ashaᶅ. The fact that she'd been killing Ashaᶅ had made the already difficult shot even more difficult. But she hadn't had time to run and get one of the older hunters, they'd be far out of range by then, and while they hadn't known what the darkspawn wanted their women for they knew it couldn't be good, so... Years later, and she still couldn't quite believe she'd pulled it off.

She was definitely glad she had, though. If she hadn't managed an impossible shot and killed Ashaᶅ before she could be dragged away, and Duncan had told her about broodmothers... Yeah. She doubted she would have taken that well.

(Which was slightly disconcerting to think about — she hadn't realized she had anything left to lose.)

"Maker's breath, you had to..." Alistair didn't get any further than that. Keran couldn't even manage that much, her hand was covering her mouth, her eyes wide and...

Alim, with a very serious look, drawled, "That's some dark shit, Lýna." Keran yelped out his name, turned around to smack him over the shoulder, said something about not joking about this, this is serious.

Lýna shrugged. "It's okay, I'm okay." It was years ago now, and she'd done what she'd had to. There was no point to feeling badly over it. "As I say. My clan, when we come to forest," she said, pointing to the northeast, "half dead. More. And my clan? We do well. Many, not so well. Some clans, all die. Villages, all die. Every person, one village, another, another. Word for the number, I don't know. Too many. Men, women, children.

"This is not war, soldiers fight soldiers. No. This village?" she said, pointing. "When Blight comes here, all die. All. Men, women, children. And the next village, and the next, and the next. All the Alamarri, all the world, if not stopped. So, if I kill, if I steal, I'm not sorry. To stop the Blight, I do anything. Any means necessary — you see, now?"

Looking at their faces, they didn't, she didn't think. But they were closer, a little bit. It would have to do for now.

The first time they saw a whole village slaughtered, they'd know. Just give it time.

As they approached the village, Lýna reached up, pulled her hood low over her face — she wasn't going to let the humans here get a good look at her if she could help it. Alistair, his joking tone a little thinner and more awkward than usual, said that wasn't really doing any good, the hood wasn't hiding her ears. Which, obviously, it wasn't supposed to. If she didn't want the villagers to know about that, she would have tried to get Alim and Perry to cover up too, wouldn't she? It was her face she was concerned about. Humans could be very stupid about the People, she just didn't want to draw undue attention.

Besides, her hair was also very distinctive. It hadn't been so uncommon growing up, but it wasn't a hair color humans could have at all, and it was apparently more rare among the Alamarri elves. Loghain knew the battle plan, so he had reason to suspect the five of them might have survived, and Lýna was the most different-looking of them — it was quite possible he'd given his men her description specifically.

She wasn't particularly surprised Alistair hadn't put that together, but she was still slightly irritated. She guessed this was why Duncan had put her in charge.

Their entry into the village was uneventful. There were rather less people hanging about in the open dirt between the buildings than the last time Lýna had been here — there had been refugees sitting around here and there, but she guessed they'd been relegated to that field now. There was still a noisy crowd of refugees near the Chantry, a man standing on a wagon selling his wares, a few men in armor looking on, silent and unmoving. Their armor was identical, save for minor size differences, heavy plate with a skirt of mail and dark leather studded with metal scales falling around their legs, beaten into their chests an image of a sword surrounded by these little squiggles...

Oh, fire, a sword wreathed in fire. These would be Templars, then, Lýna hadn't recognized the uniform at first. She'd never gotten close to any of them. She still thought the Alamarri magic-hating religion was weird, and a little bit unsettling, and the idea of Templars in particular made her uneasy — religious fanatics on a holy mission to contain magic, to capture or kill mages who didn't use their gifts in a way they approved of, no, that was just— It made her uncomfortable. It didn't help that they supposedly didn't approve of people just not worshipping their god either, whether they were mages or not. Especially since the Templars actually had some significant respect and power in the north. No, she didn't like Templars, she'd prefer to stay as far away as possible.

Alistair had admitted he'd been in training to become a Templar since he'd been a child, until he'd left to join the Wardens about a year ago. Lýna thought that a very good decision.

Unfortunately, she ended up getting pretty close. Alistair insisted they stop by the Chantry quick, inform the Templar Knight-Captain and the Revered Mother (a shaman of some kind, she understood), who were probably running the town in the absence of any other authorities, that the darkspawn should be only a couple days behind them. That was actually a good idea, so Lýna didn't argue, silently followed along into the largest building in the village.

The inside of the Chantry was nice enough, if very foreign. The entire main section, the big log-shaped part, was open, without any walls dividing the space up as humans tended to do with larger buildings. The ceiling arched high above her head, and the room was...well, not further than Lýna could shoot accurately, but a human archer probably couldn't. (Humans had poor eyesight and could be very clumsy sometimes, she'd noticed their archers tended to have terrible aim past fifty paces or so — even Chasind archers, and they tended to be better shots than Alamarri, in her experience.) The decoration was minimal, just a few hangings here and there in red and orange, a few more metal sunbursts. At the far end was a raised altar of some kind, dozens of candles on, around, and fixed into the wall above it. The floor was mostly bare stone, save for a long red rug running down the middle from door to altar, and a few big metal...things...that must have some kind of fire going in them, since they were letting off a thin haze of smoke. There was a bit of pale, thin smoke in the place, enough the edges of the wood beams in the ceiling were slightly blurred, stinging at her eyes just a little, but it wasn't irritating her throat to breathe it. It was strangely sweet-tasting, actually.

The place vaguely reminded her of Chasind lodges, the open space and the smoke and all. Except more red. A lot more red.

Lýna didn't participate in the conversation with the Templar leader, she wasn't needed. She kept an attentive eye on the people in the Chantry, listening. The Templar recognized Alistair, from when he'd passed through with the King a month ago, even seemed faintly relieved Alistair had survived Ostagar. (She got the impression they'd talked a bit while Alistair had been here.) The Templar explained a bit more in detail about this 'bounty', but he didn't seem to have that much more to offer than the men on the Highway had. It seemed like he thought the idea that the Wardens would outright murder the King was absurd on the face of it, but he warned them that that probably didn't matter — offer someone enough money, and they could believe most anything.

When Alistair got to talking about the Blight, the Templar waved over the Revered Mother. She was an older woman, Lýna guessed old enough to be a grandmother but not truly elderly yet, her skin peculiarly dark the way some humans were — like Duncan, but not quite so dark as he — wearing long robes in yellow and orange that just looked very uncomfortable, and her name was Orlesian. (Was that...Viśjẽny? Sounded almost elvish, honestly.) Her voice, low and soft and gentle, sounded Alamarri though, so perhaps it was just the name. The Mother greeted all of them, seemingly unphased to see Wardens streaked in blood both black and red.

At some point, Alistair noticed her hood was still up and, somewhat exasperated, told her to show herself. Alim explained, it was considered rude to step into the Chantry with one's head covered at all, and especially when speaking to the Revered Mother. Lýna shot him a glare, but...well, she guessed she had been getting a few odd looks from the people around since stepping inside, but she'd though it was just, well, the streaks of black and red blood on them. (She would have wondered if it were because they'd stepped into a sacred space armed, but they were hardly the only ones.) If it were just because she was wearing a hood...well, everybody within earshot already knew who they were anyway, it didn't really matter.

Besides, if the locals reacted badly to one of her People being in a Chantry, of all place, they could definitely fight their way out if they had to. So she obeyed.

The Templar twitched, his hand starting for the hilt of his sword before stopping himself, Lýna caught hisses of drawn breath from a few people here and there. But the Revered Mother just smiled, reached for Lýna's hand — she had to fight not to pull away, the woman was harmless — patting the back of her wrist, saying something about all of the Maker's children being welcome here, something about the Liberator Lýna didn't quite follow.

Lýna wasn't certain whether she should be annoyed at the presumption that she was one of their god's people, or relieved that the Mother wasn't going to make a scene. Instead she said nothing, just nodded and retreated a couple steps as soon as it seemed polite.

The conversation about the approaching horde lasted far longer than it really needed to. Neither of them doubted Alistair and Keran that the darkspawn were nearby, but the Mother (sounding very tired) was a little frustrated they weren't offering to stay and help. Which, that was a ridiculous thing to ask — Alistair insisted this village could not be defended, certainly not with five Wardens and a handful of Templars, the only thing they could do was run. After a bit of arguing, the Mother admitted that she expected it to be difficult to get the people of the village to pick up and flee, that they would be reluctant to leave their homes behind, which...

It hurt Lýna's head, a little bit, trying to think through the logic of that. The things Alamarri considered worth risking their lives for continued to baffle her.

Finally, they were done. Alistair and Keran in front, they headed back for the doors out into the village, Lýna pulled her hood back over her face. After stopping quick to ask one of the Templars, Keran led the way toward one of the shops in the village, though with a trace of annoyance about her — with all the refugees about, she thought they might have trouble getting the supplies they needed, she said.

Lýna wasn't particularly worried about it. Some food would be nice, just in case, but they could hunt and forage on their way to wherever they were going. Things like oil for their armor, things to clean and sharpen their equipment, those were more important...thought not an emergency. They would need such things eventually, but they could hold out long enough to get to Denerim without doing any serious damage. (Unless they were fighting darkspawn every step of the way, which didn't seem likely.) The others wanted to pick up some tents and bedrolls and the like — they didn't like sleeping in the wilds without them, which Lýna thought was honestly just silly. She'd taught them how to get by, setting a fire to keep away wolves and bears (and also give them some light in case darkspawn attacked), sleeping with their back to a tree to partially shield them from the worst of the rain (spread around to cover all the angles of approach between them), but they complained about it incessantly, were always rough and irritable in the morning.

That the rest of the Wardens considered the way things had been at Ostagar to be the bare minimum acceptable (and only barely acceptable at that) way to live for any length of time was honestly one of the most surprising cultural differences she'd run into so far. Honestly, the camp at Ostagar wasn't far from the easiest living she'd had in her life (since she'd been a child, anyway) — enough there'd been hours she hadn't been certain what she should be doing with herself, because she simply didn't have anything to do — and they thought that hardship? That these people considered sleeping out in the open, to live off only what they could hunt or find among the trees, for almost any reason for any length of time, to be unthinkable, to think she was slightly insane for not having any problem whatsoever doing it indefinitely, was just...

She'd thought the Chasind were soft (excluding their hunters and their mages), but the Alamarri were far worse. Sometimes she felt like the only adult taking a few little kids out on their first hunting trip, it was ridiculous.

(She knew she was the youngest person in their group, but it honestly never felt like it.)

They were exiting the first shop, mostly empty-handed, when Lýna caught a glimpse of yellow and orange. Halfway across the village, heading toward the only other shop in the place, she took a glance over her shoulder, drawing as little attention to the movement as she could. There was a woman, with bright red hair — or what humans called red hair, it looked far too orange to be red to her — wearing the same yellow and orange robes the Mother had been. Or, not quite the same, they seemed lighter, less ornate. Probably a priest of a lower rank than the Mother, then.

The woman was trying to be subtle, to stay as far back and out of their line of sight as possible. But the village was not that big, and those robes were very eye-catching, so she wasn't doing a good job of it.

Lýna considered her for a moment, frowning. That probably wasn't anything to worry about. Perhaps the Mother was simply more concerned with having some heathen barbarian walking around in her village than she'd made it seem, and had tasked one of her people with keeping an eye on her. This woman didn't appear to be armed, probably expected to call for help if Lýna did anything unacceptable.

That was irritating, but not really that badly, she'd expected something of the like. After all, her clan would hardly let outsiders walk around their camp unobserved. It was slightly odd that they'd chosen to assign the job to an unarmed priest but, well, Alamarri were odd. It wasn't worth Lýna spending too much time thinking over.

So she turned back ahead, casting their tail from her mind.

---

The instant Leliana had seen her, she knew.

Leliana had been going through one of the bookshelves in the chapel, sorting through the Chantry's collection to determine which were rare enough to be worth bringing along, and which were easily replaced, safe to leave behind when they evacuated. A fair portion of the volumes were written in Cirienne and Chantry Tevene, brought with Vichiénne when she'd been assigned here — the Revered Mother was originally from Montsimmard, not that her accent showed it — and Leliana was the only one of the Sisters who could read both languages. Cirienne was uncommon among ordinary people in Ferelden, and the well-born who could speak it normally didn't advertise it for political reasons, and of course only people who'd gotten an intensive traditional education could read Classical or Chantry Tevene.

She'd been going over a possibly unique version of the entire Chant (excluding Silence and Shartan) — bilingual in Chantry Tevene and Alamarri, complete with musical notation from cover to cover, probably copied by hand from an older text — when she caught sight of a group of armed men pushing open the doors and stomping inside. They got a few uneasy looks from Sisters and clerics and townspeople — and why not, they were a dangerous-looking group of people.

Three among the five were elves — not a single elf lived in Lothering, some of the villagers had literally never seen one in their lives before the King's army had come through. One was armed with a pair of axes and a row of little knives hanging from his belt, and was a rather shifty-looking fellow, quick-fingered and jumpy. A second had a dagger and a curved short sword, and...she? It was hard to tell, she was wearing a hood — how the hood jutted out slightly to either side halfway down the head and the overall shape of the profile revealing this was an elf, but little else — but Leliana suspected this one was a woman. Anyway, this one also had a bow and a quiver slung over a shoulder, a second quiver latched to the small of her back. This one had a subtle, quiet grace to the way she moved, almost seeming to glide after the others more than walk, and Leliana pegged her for Dalish at a glance — she'd only met a handful, but that was enough (and it would also explain the hood). Just as she marked the third elf, taller with brilliant red hair, for a mage — he wore leather and scale like the other two, a light shield hung at his back, but no weapons, and his hands were far too soft and uncalloused, a dead giveaway in this company.

The two humans, a man and a woman, were both wearing plate, though rather heavier and covering more of his body in the man's case, sections of the woman's instead scale or mail as appropriate. Both were carrying a sword and shield — she caught a glance at her back, the woman's had a design on it that was probably the heraldry of one noble house or another, Leliana didn't know Fereldan nobility well enough to identify it. The man seemed faintly familiar, but she was rather far away, she wasn't certain—

Just as Leliana was wondering whether she should do something about such a lethal-looking party walking into the Chantry, the human man started talking to Bryant, his voice floating faintly across the air, and oh, it was Ser Alistair! A junior Warden accompanying the King, they'd spoken briefly when they'd passed through Lothering. He was a good man — or, well, his heart was in the right place, at least — she'd wondered if he'd survived Ostagar.

Good. Far too many good people had died there, every one that had managed to slip away was a blessing.

While Leliana stepped over to the keep stack — the contents weren't unique, of course, but this book was hand-written, and she suspected the Alamarri translation might be original, she'd have to go over it later — Mother Vichiénne had approached the group. After a brief moment of discussion, the elf woman had thrown her hood back and—

White. Her hair was white.

Like a cloud on a sunny day, like freshly-fallen snow, pure and unblemished.

Like the flower blooming out of the black in her dream, the embrium that had miraculously sprouted in the garden.

Frozen in place, Leliana had stared, shock crashing over her so intensely she could hardly breathe. She was probably lucky she hadn't dropped the book.

Leliana had known, the instant she'd seen her. She hadn't dreamt about the Blight. Or, she had, but not just about the Blight. The Maker hadn't needed to send her dreams for her to know the Blight was coming, obviously, it was hard to miss that.

That dream, that vision, that flower growing out of the black, it had been this elf woman. She knew that, instantly on seeing her, not a hint of doubt.

The Maker had wanted Leliana to recognize her when she came.

After some minutes watching, and not really seeing much, other than the white of her hair, that it'd been this, that this woman was important, somehow, even if Leliana couldn't begin to guess why or how, she finally startled out of her reverie. And not because anyone had gotten her attention, or because her mindless daze had actually ended, no — their group (Wardens all?) had turned around, they were leaving.

The woman with the white hair was leaving.

Leliana followed her.

It wasn't something she did with conscious thought, truly. She just...like she were anchored to the woman with a length of rope, she was drawn forward, numbly, unthinkingly. She didn't snap out of it until the Wardens disappeared into Tindor's shop, and Leliana realized she was standing out in the middle of the village, staring at the door, standing out in the open in her Chantry robes and—

Oh my, she still had that book in her hand. She really had spaced out there, hadn't she, hmm.

The door into Tindor's clicked, and Leliana jumped, darted around the corner of Stefan's house, ducking out of sight...for some reason. She didn't know why she did that, just acting on instinct, she supposed. Andraste help her, it'd been years now since her time as a bard had come to an end, but she just...

The Wardens came out, mumbling about not finding what they were looking for, wondering if it were even worth going to the other shop. (Probably not, the constant trickle of refugees and the army passing one way and then the other had seen Lothering drained of most all their goods for sale of any value.) Waiting for them to open up some distance, and trying not to feel too self-conscious (what was she doing, this wasn't a job, she could just walk up and talk to them), she noticed a few children nearby, a young boy giving her a big open-mouthed look. She probably looked ridiculous, crouching at the corner of a house in her robes, an aged copy of the Chant cradled under one arm.

She grinned at the boy, brought a finger to her lips, winked. Giggling, he mirrored the gesture, then skipped back to playing with his little friends.

Halfway across the village, she spotted the woman's shoulders shift as she took an awkward step over a rut in the dirt, just a little — oh, that was very subtle, but Leliana had far too much experience at this game not to recognize that for what it was. She'd been spotted. Not that it would have been possible to hide, there was nowhere to hide, the spaces between all the little homes too wide open, the crowd not near dense enough to lose herself in. If any of them had glanced back more than once, they would have known.

Still, the prospect of getting caught had her heart skipping, a reckless smile quivering at her lips, fingers twitching for weapons she no longer carried. She hadn't carried, for years, Maker, what was wrong with her...

Surprisingly, the Dalish woman didn't react to the realization that she was being followed, just continued on with seemingly no added tension at all. Which was...interesting. Of course, it was very possible she'd simply marked Leliana and evaluated her to be no threat to her and her friends...which, at one level (one she'd thought she'd long ago let go of), that was almost insulting, it was also fair — Leliana was unarmed, and they had a mage.

Once they'd disappeared into another shop, Leliana hesitated, her fingers tapping at the cover of her (accidentally) stolen book. She'd overheard them, earlier — they intended to go to the tavern once they were done with their shopping, take a hot meal before again braving the road. Leliana didn't have to follow them, she could just beat them there.

So that was what she did.

The Dane's Refuge was the sort of place her friends growing up would have said had character — by which they meant it was a disgusting dive they wouldn't step foot in to save their lives (unless their parents explicitly told them not to, of course). Leliana would say it was exactly the sort of place that came to mind when she imagined a Fereldan tavern. The building was made entirely of wood, no care at all taken to conceal the functional siding on the walls and braces holding up the roof (which would be considered horribly common in Orlais), stuffed heads and horns taken from various animals hung here and there on the walls (which would be tantalizing exotic back home, it was just normal here). The place was somewhat full, men and women scattered at the tables here and there, most in the plain and rugged clothing of local farmers, but no more than she would expect on an ordinary Nubulis day — too early to plant yet, there was little enough work to attend to, and the refugees hadn't the coin to come here regularly.

A few people called to her, she just smiled back, didn't approach any who waved to her. (Ordinarily, if a Chantry Sister came to a place like this, it was because she was looking for someone to...spend some time with, but she'd have to disappoint.) She came up to the counter, asked Dalan if she could use the Bann's table for a while — she had some friends coming in, you see. Dalan agreed easily enough, it wasn't like anyone else was using it. There was a little alcove off to the side of the center room, "reserved" for the use of the Bann or the Arl's son or other persons of note passing through, but it was usually open to anyone who asked. It wasn't entirely closed off, so it was still somewhat noisy, but it was better than the main room, at least.

Her (accidentally) stolen book set on the table, Leliana hadn't even time to sit down until the Wardens were entering the tavern. She hadn't been watching the door — and why was she suddenly so very aware of the fact that she'd gotten out of the habit of keeping an eye on the entrances, that was uncomfortable — but she didn't need to to pick up on the nervous quiet sweeping across the thin crowd. The tavern hadn't been completely silenced, but there was a sudden drop in the noise of conversation, enough it was very conspicuous. Leliana could think of few things that might have caused that.

She turned back to the main room, but even as she moved there was a tromping overhead, heavy boots on the second floor, the balcony looking over the rest of the tavern, heading for the stairs. "Well! Look what we have here, men! I think we've just been blessed."

The Wardens came into sight, clumped just inside of the door, and then armored men casually waltzing onto the floor from the stairs. Leliana was behind the latter, she had a good view of the shields on their backs: a dragon, yellow on black, Gwaren colors.

Oh, dear...

"You're kidding me," Alistair said, in the tone of grumbling under his breath but loud enough Leliana could hear it from halfway across the tavern.

"And here we spent all morning looking for a party of this very description." The leader — probably a knight of some stripe, his equipment looked slightly finer than the others' — sauntered on closer to the Wardens, his people curving out into an arc. Patrons abandoned the nearest tables, picking up their plates and their drinks and retreating further into the tavern, even as Leliana moved closer, coming up behind the Teyrn's men. "And here the traitors fall right into our laps. Lucky us."

Ser Alistair sighed. "Look, we've already done this song and dance once today. Can we just...not? Please?"

"No, I don't think so." The man raised a hand, preparing to give a signal, the Wardens' stances shifted, preparing to move.

"Gentlemen, please!" Leliana hopped forward, bringing her hand up over the man's elbow. He turned to look down on her, she smiled, sweet and gentle. "Surely there is no need for this. We can sit down and settle—"

"Stay back, Sister." The man's shoulders turned, shoved her in the chest — not painfully hard, but enough to push her back a few steps. "We wouldn't want you to get hurt now, would we?"

One of the other Gwaren men muttered something that sounded very much like mad Orlesian cunt, she couldn't help huffing to herself a little. Maybe she'd laid the sweetness on a little thick...

As hands went more openly for weapons, the scrape of steel against leather ringing in the air, Leliana glanced around the room. Five Wardens, one was a mage, five Gwaren men on the ground, three with blades and two with crossbows, two more on the balcony with bows drawn.

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head to herself.

Her hand on the grip of his dagger, when the leader stepped forward to meet the Wardens his dagger didn't come with him. (My Creator, judge me whole...) Gripping the leather at the back of his neck, Leliana yanked one of the crossbowmen back, drew the dagger— (...find me well within your grace...) —across his neck, blood weeping over his skin in a thick river, he gagged, his eyes wild and shocked— (...touch me with fire that I be cleansed...) —panicky hands dropping his weapon. Releasing him, Leliana picked up the crossbow, spun down to a knee, sighting up to the balcony, she depressed the trigger, her arms thudding with the release, the bolt appearing pierced through a man's skull.

(...tell me I have sung to your approval.)

"Stop, stop! We surrender!" The leader lived, one of the men at his side, the other crossbowman, though he was injured, clutching his shoulder, blood dripping down his side. Only one of the men who'd attacked the Wardens had died, the man whose throat she'd slit, and the one she'd shot...

Leliana blinked — the other archer was down too. The white-haired elven woman was up on the balcony now, bow drawn and aimed down at the Gwaren men...but her own bow was still on her back, she must have killed the other archer and taken it. How had she even gotten up there? The fight had only lasted seconds, she hadn't had nearly enough time to go up the stairs...

His sword sheathed again, Alistair raised a hand toward the elf. "Don't shoot him, Lyna."

The woman frowned. Her hood had been pushed back during the brief fight, her unbound, chin-length hair tousled, her face sketched with meandering vines, little flowers here and there. "They try to kill us," she said, low and cold.

"They were just following orders. It's the man giving the orders we have to worry about," he insisted, "not the poor sods just doing what they're told."

For a second, the elf just stared at Alistair. She loosened the bow, dropped it over her shoulder (right on the corpse of its owner, possibly), bent to pick up a blood-streaked sword. (Plain design, but cast from silverite, very expensive, definitely Warden crafting.) Her open hand on the rail, she jumped over, landing feet splayed on one of the tables not far from the Wardens, hopped lightly down to the floor.

Had she...jumped, up to the balcony? Leliana knew that elves were lighter than humans, but... Huh.

The white-haired elf walked toward the leader of the group, her eyes darting between the surviving men, Alistair and the other Wardens, Leliana, the tavern patrons. Strangely, everyone was quiet, waiting — the patrons being quiet sort of made sense, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, and clearly the Gwaren men didn't want to make things worse, but the Wardens... Were they waiting for her to make a decision about letting them live? Leliana had sort of assumed Ser Alistair was in charge...

(Though, she guessed, her dream hadn't been about Alistair, had it?)

"Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just." Not that she probably recognized the Chant, her Dalish accent had been very noticeable. She might not even understand the words.

The elf looked at her, examining her, her head tilting in thought. (Ooh, pretty. And, the tattoos were nice too.) She glanced back at the terrified patrons, waiting with bated breath. She made a disdainful sort of sniff.

She stepped closer to the leader of the Gwaren men, and he tensed, hand twitching in want of a weapon. Looking up at him, meeting his eyes hard and steady and cold, the elf brought the flat of her sword against his arm. She slowly drew it down, wiping the blood off onto his sleeve, flipped it over and did the other side. Then, the motion slow and smooth, she returned her sword to its sheath. With a dismissive flip of her wrist aimed at the door, "Go. Take your dead, go."

Over the noise of the surviving men breathlessly thanking her, scrambling to collect their things and their fallen friends, Leliana heard Alistair scoff. "What, so you'll listen to a cute redhead, but not me? Is that it?"

The elf gave an impressive death glare for someone so little.

Leliana had been watching their interaction, half an eye on the Gwaren men, she somehow didn't even notice one of the other Wardens come up to her. The red-haired elf, the one Leliana was pretty sure was a mage — though, she hadn't seen him cast magic yet, the fight had also been very brief, they hadn't really needed him to. Probably trying to avoid attracting attention. With a soft, sympathetic sort of smile, he said, "Are you all right, Sister?"

"I am uninjured."

"That's not what I meant." The mage glanced down, Leliana followed his gaze.

There was blood on her hand, from when she'd cut that crossbowman's throat. She couldn't feel it, really, but she could see it, streaking across the back of her hand, dripping off her fingers. Her hand was shaking. "Oh! I..." She clenched her hand into a fist, swallowed.

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt around her, her stomach twisting, an ache building in he chest. Staring fixedly at her knuckles, she focused on the weight of her robes wrapped around her body, the smooth metal of her necklace against her chest, the smell of bubbling stew and baking bread and ale and mead on the air. The memories flickering at the edges of her eyes faded, she took a long, slow, breath.

She still felt a little queasy, but she tried to summon a smile for the man anyway. Barely a man, really — she couldn't be certain, but she suspected the Warden mage was younger than her, probably by several years. "I am fine, I... It's been a long time, since I've killed a man."

The young Warden winced. "Yeah. I've never killed anyone until today." Gently, narrow-wristed and long-fingered elven hands taking hers, magic rubbing over her skin cool and slippery, he quickly cleaned away the blood, leaving not a speck or a hint of a stain behind. Definitely a mage, she hadn't guessed wrong. "There were bandits, on the road," he explained, almost defensively.

"Ah. Yes, the Templars have been trying to deal with them, but they would just run away and return a couple hours later."

The Warden shook his head to himself — not surprised, just irritated. "Killing darkspawn, that's fine. Even a bit exciting, really. Killing people, though, I don't like killing people."

Maker, he was so young... "That is as it should be." Covering the back of one of his hands — he hadn't let go of hers, still staring down at it, oddly blank — she offered, "I would lead you an intercession, if it troubles—"

She cut off as the elf let out a sudden twitter of laughter, his solemnity vanishing behind a crooked smile. Releasing her hand, he called over his shoulder, "It's not a disguise, Alistair, I think she really is a Sister."

Had he... Had he been playing her? No, that had been too sincere a moment ago. He really did lament what he'd had to do on the Highway, she believed, he just also found the idea of a Chantry Sister doing what she'd just done absurd.

"Well, I can't say we don't appreciate the help, but..." Approaching them from the counter — probably apologizing to (and possibly bribing) Dalan for the trouble and putting in dinner orders — Alistair finally got a good look at her, hitched to a stop. "Sister Leliana? It is Leliana, right?"

She smiled. "Hello, Ser Alistair. I was glad to see you survived. Far too many died at Ostagar."

Alistair scowled a little — not at her, at the ordeal he'd just so recently gone through. Perhaps bringing it up had been tactless, but she wasn't certain what else she could say. "Where'd you learn to do that? I didn't think they taught Sisters how to fire a crossbow."

"You didn't think I came out of the womb swaddled in Chantry robes with a poitraile around my neck, did you?"

He didn't seem to have an answer for that.

"Come," Leliana said, tilting her head toward the Bann's table. "Let's sit down and talk. We have much to discuss." She led them over, trying to gather her scattered thoughts again, trying not to stare at the Dalish elf.

She hadn't put her hood up again, her hair still clearly visible. White as a cloud on a sunny day, as new-fallen snow, pure and unblemished, like the flower in her vision, the miracle embrium in her garden.

From somewhere, she couldn't say how exactly, a sense of warm approval brushed over her shoulders, Yes, little raven, yes...

Leliana smiled.

---

Alim didn't really know what was going on anymore. But he guessed that was okay, it didn't look like anyone else did either.

They'd spent rather longer in Lothering's tavern than they'd initially planned. Honestly, he was a little surprised the other patrons had just gotten over the fight breaking out, and a couple people just dying right there in front of them, it was damn weird. He would have expected, he didn't know, someone running to get the city guard or something...except there was no city guard, Lothering was tiny and in the middle of nowhere, and the Bann's men and the knights and the like that would normally be called in for this sort of thing were all marching east with Loghain. So, there wasn't anything they could do, it was just strange how easily they'd gone back to their own business.

Alim realized he was rather sheltered, having lived locked up in a tower for literally as long as he could remember, but he didn't think it should be that easy for people to just shake off that kind of thing. People had been nervous getting too close to the Wardens after, sure, but still.

And they'd ended up sitting in the tavern so long because they had to decide what to do with the crazy Chantry Sister hanging around. It wasn't just a one-off thing, apparently she'd only been there to intervene in the fight because she wanted to volunteer to join them doing...whatever the hell it was they were going to do. (They were still working on that.) Leliana introduced herself to each of them all nice — even spoke to Lýna in Dalish, which was a surprise (though apparently it was the wrong Dalish, Alim hadn't even realized there was more than one kind) — sweet and smiling and pleasant I-am-a-kind-and-helpful-Chantry-person, let's all be friends, walk in the light of the Maker and all that...

Which, honestly, Alim wasn't certain whether Leliana realized how unnerving that was. She'd just killed two people, cold and brutally efficient, and sure, she'd been kind of in shock afterward, but still, it was just...creepy?

Getting explanations for the Sister being creepy hadn't made her less creepy. Apparently, before coming to the Chantry Leliana had been a hand-to-Andraste Orlesian bard. Not the plucking at a guitar and singing songs kind, no, they called those minstrels over there, he meant telling stories at fancy parties between sneaking around and breaking into private rooms to get blackmail material, and, well, if their patron is particularly ruthless, maybe coming back after the party to murder the host. Because, clearly the thing they'd been missing was a professionally-trained spy and assassin, they were all set now.

Oh, and, why Leliana had gotten it into her head to follow them in the first place? No big deal, just, the Maker had sent her a vision to do just that, so coming along and helping them was the thing she was supposed to do. Because the Maker had told her. Because, He spoke to her.

So, not only was she an Orlesian bard who'd retired to the Chantry when it'd gotten too hot to handle, but one who'd apparently had some kind of religion-themed psychotic break. Wonderful.

And Alim wasn't the only one who was seriously unnerved about all this — Keran kept looking at Leliana like she was a venomous snake that might bite her at any moment, and Perry was keeping as much distance between the two of them as reasonably possible at all times. Worse than he was with Lýna even...though he didn't seem nearly as frightened of Lýna as he had been before, even since this morning he'd softened toward her a bit. Which was absurd, they'd just watched her straight murder two people earlier today, you'd think that'd make Perry go back to being scared shitless of her again. He had the feeling Lýna had said something in her little rant on the Highway that had changed Perry's mind about her somehow, but he had no idea what it was.

Granted, they had been murderers themselves, and they would have just been executed anyway. And, well, if Alim was being perfectly honest, he didn't really have a problem with what they'd done in principle. He'd killed those four men, and... Well, he'd never killed an actual person before. It was...uncomfortable. After throwing out the spell — spirit magic, basically shredding their internal organs into goo, flashy elemental magic was a bad idea so close to Lothering — Alim had just stood there for a moment, staring at their corpses. Cringing, because his aim hadn't been perfect, one of the four had only been nicked by the tail end of the curse, he'd died more slowly, choking and convulsing, and Alim probably should have put him out of his misery, but he could barely move, just staring down at them and...

It'd been awful, honestly. He didn't like killing people. He was certain he was going to see that one man dying again in the Fade tonight, he was not looking forward to it.

But, he didn't really feel bad about it. If they'd been innocent people, sure, but there was really no question they hadn't been. Alistair and Keran were clearly hung up on whether they had the right to just kill off murderers, instead of handing them off to the proper authorities so they could kill them instead, but Alim honestly thought that was kind of silly. They were going to die either way, he didn't see the point in getting worked up over it. Who knew how many they might have killed if Alistair had gotten his way and let them live, no, Alim didn't regret that they were dead.

What did bother him was how Lýna had killed them. Just, out of fucking nowhere, executing them without a hint of hesitation or warning — Keran had been in the middle of a sentence! Then acting all confused, as though she didn't understand why they might be just a little upset with her out killing two people right in front of them, Maker, that girl was all kinds of fucked up.

(Of course, she had been forced to kill her adopted mother to prevent her suffering a worse fate, when she'd been thirteen, and that's on top of half her clan dying, and who knows how many other Dalish and Chasind she'd been familiar with, and Alim knew she'd been widowed already, and she was not that old, she had to be younger than he was, and... Yeah, "all kinds of fucked up" seemed like a pretty good summary.)

Lýna and Leliana were just different kinds of creepy. Lýna had the whole violent, uncivilized tribesman aesthetic about her, which was unsettling, but in a this foreign person behaves weird and I can't really guess what she's thinking or might do next way. Once Alim had put together Lýna thought of them as her people now, yeah, she was still weird, but it didn't really bother him that much anymore. Leliana, on the other hand, was not only a trained killer, but also fucking insane, so was creepy in the this person is clearly mentally unbalanced and possibly unsafe way, which was just... Okay, they'd already had enough crazy in the group, with whatever was going on with Perry, and there was definitely something up with Alistair, and, oh shit, Lýna being all kinds of fucked up, she was probably just as unstable as Leliana, Maker, was adding another fucking lunatic to the group really necessary?

If he wasn't certain he could reduce them both to ash with a wave of his hand, he'd be more concerned, but as it was they were just creepy, and he did not want to have to deal with it.

Not surprisingly, since they were both super creepy, so they had that in common, it had been Lýna who'd decided Leliana could come along. Though, that was a little odd, because Alim had gotten the impression Lýna didn't think much of the Chantry, he'd expect if someone would think it would be a good idea to bring a Sister along it'd be Alistair or Keran. (They might have, if Leliana weren't obviously insane.) Lýna had taken the claim that Leliana was here because the Maker told her to remarkably calmly, especially compared to the rest of them, which...

Huh. Come to think of it, Lýna wouldn't realize that was heresy, would she? If the humans she'd been around growing up were all Chasind and Avvar... Didn't their priests claim to be able to speak with their gods, like, that was what made a priest a priest? Alim was pretty sure that was how it worked, the Chantry claimed their "gods" were actually demons — which seemed very plausible, honestly, but he wouldn't actually tell any of them that to their faces. He was just thinking, the claim that Leliana received visions from the Maker might not strike Lýna as unusual. In fact, she might be under the impression that was something that happened to Sisters just in general.

Right, he had to have a serious talk about the Chant of Light with that girl at some point, before she said something unfortunate to the wrong person.

And the day wasn't over yet. They weren't done picking up unnerving, deadly, possibly insane tag-alongs. Because apparently the Maker had taken it upon himself to fuck with Alim, that was really the best explanation for this.

They couldn't sleep in the tavern — there were rooms for rent, but they were full up. Also, Lýna thought it unsafe to sleep somewhere like that, given Loghain had put a pretty considerable price on their heads. Which was, unfortunately, a good point. Alim would have to put up with sleeping out in the damn forest again, for who knew how long. They hadn't even been able to find canvas to make tents, and there were bugs, ugh. Anyway, they'd dipped into the trees off the Highway, just north and east of where the Kingsroad met the North Road, had a fire going. Which wasn't really necessary, it wasn't even quite full dark out, but Lýna preferred to have the fire lit with plenty of extra wood set aside long before night fell. He hadn't argued, certainly not as much as Keran had, just assumed Lýna had some reason for doing things the way she did and went with it.

And they were sitting in a circle, arguing. Back at Ostagar, Duncan had given them very clear orders: should they lose the battle, the five of them were to regroup with Riordan in Denerim, and help coordinate further efforts with Queen Anora and her people. Lýna did outrank the four of them, being the only Warden-Lieutenant of the bunch, but Riordan had seniority, so Lýna's mandate only reached so far as getting them to Riordan, and ceding to his leadership. The obvious thing to do, then, was to go to Denerim and find Riordan — Keran and Perry supported this plan, along with Alim himself.

Alistair had a different opinion. Duncan's orders had not taken into account the possibility of Loghain turning traitor on them. Loghain and his army were going to get to Denerim ahead of them, and Riordan would be forced to flee into hiding — if Loghain had sent runners ahead, he might have already. Finding a fully-trained Warden who was doing his best to not be found was going to be pretty much impossible. Even if they did find him, they couldn't exactly coordinate with Queen Anora and her people, since her people included Loghain and his men, and they were actively trying to kill them. Events since Duncan's death had made his final orders obsolete. Instead, Alistair wanted to go to Redcliffe, and seek the assistance of the Arl there.

As the argument went on, Alistair's idea started to make more and more sense. It was true that they might not be able to find Riordan, and it was certainly true they would have difficulty, to say the least, working with the Queen while her father was trying to have them killed. The Arl of Redcliffe was the King's uncle, and he'd never really liked Loghain or the Queen much, so it shouldn't be particularly difficult to convince him of the truth. Especially if the truth was coming from Alistair — it took him a while to mention it, but Alistair had actually been raised in the Arl's household until he'd left for Templar training, Arl Eamon was the closest thing he had to a father. (That was a hell of a coincidence, but he'd take it.) Put it all together, and Alistair had a damn good point, Alim switched his vote to Redcliffe after a half hour or so.

Leliana, of course, wasn't a Warden, so she didn't get a vote. She just sat there, her Chantry robes practically glowing in the firelight, watching and listening, occasionally volunteering a bit of information or an observation here or there.

Lýna had hardly spoken a word.

Which, that wasn't unusual, most any conversation they had Lýna spoke very little. Her Alamarri still wasn't very good — though she could follow along without too much difficulty, so she clearly understood it better than she spoke it — and she just seemed to be a quiet person to begin with. (A little melancholic and seriously traumatized, Alim was pretty sure, but as long as she held herself together it wasn't really his business.) But it was a little odd in this particular context. He meant, she was their commanding officer, technically, and in all this disagreement about what they should be doing going forward, she hadn't expressed an opinion yet.

She just...let them argue. Practically unmoving, one leg folded up to her chest and wrists wrapped over her ankle, her white hair gone an odd pale orange in the firelight, her eyes following one to the other as they spoke, still and silent and emotionless, even as the argument grew more and more impassioned. She listened, she was clearly listening, but she hardly said a word.

It was just kind of weird, okay. She was in charge here and she wasn't...well, taking charge. He didn't know what to think of it.

And the argument went on, and on. Mostly Alistair and Keran bickering, honestly — and, if Alim was being very honest, he suspected the larger part of Keran's stubbornness that they track down Riordan was less out of a disinclination to so flagrantly disobey orders, and more a desire to find a senior Warden to help them manage all this who wasn't Lýna. It seemed Keran was less leery of Lýna than she'd been before... Well, no, that wasn't right, she still thought Lýna was a brutal heathen savage, just had more sympathy for her, after hearing some of what she'd gone through in the southern wilds. That didn't mean she liked her, and definitely didn't mean she wanted Lýna in charge.

Which, in the absence of a new Warden-Commander or big hats from Weisshaupt or whoever waltzing in, they were kind of stuck with her. Lýna had had that big long meeting, while Keran had been getting hammered with Alim and Alistair, where Alim assumed she'd learned more Warden secrets and operational stuff and whatever, who knows how much of the picture they might still be missing — Duncan had consciously chosen to maybe put dealing with the Blight in Lýna's hands, and they just had to live with that.

They'd been at it for...shit, must be nearly two hours now, when Alim perked up, frowning in concentration. It was subtle, but...he'd felt something. Some kind of magic, tingling at the edge of his awareness, but he didn't recognize it. "Hey, shut up." Keran threw him a fiery glare, her mouth opening to shout at him. "I felt something."

"Oh, you felt it too?" Alistair was frowning, glancing carefully around them — not that he could probably see anything, with human eyesight being terrible and the trees all around them throwing crazy shadows. "I thought I was imagining it. It was so little."

"No, there was definitely something—" Alim broke off as Lýna moved, picking up her bow and popping to her feet, drawn and aiming...somewhere to Alim's left.

Oh, there was a person out there. She was too far away, too many shadows dancing between here and there. At least, Alim assumed it was a woman, it was kind of hard to tell at this distance in this light. Definitely human, by her figure, those reflections dancing over her legs looked like leather, and those odd fluttery bits here and there, blurring her outline, those almost looked like...feathers?

The woman came closer, stepping into a strip of firelight unfiltered by shadow, and Alim let out a groan. You have got to be kidding, Maker, another one...

The Chasind witch they'd met in the wilds — and it was her, the same one, he was pretty sure, what was she doing here — called out to them...in Chasind, maybe? It wasn't Alamarri, but Alim suspected it wasn't Dalish either. Lýna hesitated for a moment, then responded in the same language, somewhat more awkward-sounding (but better than her Alamarri). The witch called out again, in Dalish this time, Lýna responded.

Then Lýna relaxed, stowing her bow away again. "Be welcome at our fire, Morrigan."

"Yes, yes, hello, grand to see you again and all that, what the hell are you doing here?"

As the witch stepped closer to the fire, enough the humans could certainly make her out now, she gave Alistair a flat, irritated look. "Clearly, I came to further expose myself to your so gracious company."

"I do have that effect on women."

"Mm, I see you've acquired one," Morrigan said, eyes turning to Leliana, "but lost another. And just where is dear Marian? I liked that one, she was feisty."

Alistair turned back, sharing a couple uncomfortable glances with the other Wardens. Marian had been on the line with Duncan, the foreign Wardens, and the King — none of them had seen her since just before the battle. She might have survived, she could fly (which was so damn cool, he was very jealous), but they had no way of knowing one way or the other.

Also, "feisty" wasn't the word Alim would use, but okay.

While Leliana muttered something under her breath about being acquired, Morrigan reached their circle, unbuckling something from her belt over the small of her back. "If you must know, healwize do—" Alim guessed that was an insult in Chasind. "—my mother insisted that I deliver her gift back to you." She lifted up a small wooden case, dropped it in Alistair's lap with a painful-sounding thunk.

Alim stared at the thing, wide-eyed. Old wood, sketched on the outside glyphs in blood dusted with lyrium — the Grey Warden treaties. They'd been back in their camp when the battle began, with the excitement of the fight in the Tower, their argument over retreating when Loghain's troops failed to show, they'd completely forgotten to go back to get them.

Alistair had shouted in annoyance at having things dropped on him, but he cut off quickly, staring dumbfounded at the familiar case in his hands. He was thrown enough, all of them were thrown — except Leliana, who obviously had no idea what it was — that Lýna actually spoke first. "Thank you, Morrigan."

"I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart, I assure you. You may thank my mother."

Lýna blinked, looking faintly taken aback, then said something in Dalish. (Definitely Dalish, they clearly both spoke Dalish and Chasind but the languages were distinct enough he could tell.) Whatever it was, Morrigan rolled her eyes, scoffing.

"How did you get to them? The place must have been crawling with darkspawn." Keran didn't sound disbelieving, really, more suspicious than anything.

The witch smirked. "Quietly."

"No, really," Alistair said, "I'm curious. I mean, I guess you could just chuck magic at them—" Leliana looked faintly alarmed at the revelation that their guest was a mage, but she bit her lip, kept her mouth shut. "—but I'm pretty sure they would have followed you, and even mages get tired eventually."

Alim laughed. "She couldn't have just chucked magic at them, Alistair — I don't care how good you are, there's a fucking army of the things. And they have their own mages too." Not to mention freaking darkspawn Templars, those were things of nightmares right there, Andraste save him. "Concealment magics? You must be really damn good to have pulled it off."

"Mm, I suppose you could call it that." The witch was smiling, her eye dancing in the firelight, as though on the cusp of telling a funny joke. "Darkspawn concern themselves with not but people, you see, humans, elves, and dwarves. Their taint may corrupt all that lives on the land in time, yes, but they do not seek to harm directly naught else."

"Uh..."

Morrigan's smile broadened into a toothy smirk. That magic he'd felt before sparked into the air again, tingly and strangely diffuse, her form seemed to blur, colors shifting, and...she...

The witch turned into a wolf. A full-size mountain wolf, would probably be higher than Alim's waist standing, fur a solid black, silver threaded here and there seemingly at random, the eyes the same yellow-ish green as the woman's. Was... Was she a werewolf? Ailm hadn't thought those were real, just legends! No, no, wait, she was a hedge mage, she was probably a shapechanger. Still, very neat.

The wolf-witch let out a low, sharp woof, and then all of them turned to Lýna. Because, with a woman fucking turning into a wolf right in front of them, Lýna had still managed to do something even more attention-drawingly unexpected: she was laughing, bright giggles that were just... Had Alim ever heard Lýna laugh before? He didn't think so. He couldn't help but stare, apparently all of them couldn't, because he just... Not only was it unexpected that Lýna would laugh at that, especially since she hadn't at anything yet (not that Alistair's jokes were that good, but still), but he definitely hadn't expected her laughter to be so bright and high and girlish, it was just fucking weird.

Eventually, she managed to settle down enough to speak, saying something to Morrigan — again, in Dalish. The witch shifted back, crouching on her heels between Alistair and Lýna. Smirking down at Lýna, she replied — again, in Dalish. Shaking her head to herself, a last few giggles bubbled up before Lýna finally went silent again, an uncharacteristically goofy-looking smile lingering on her face.

...Alim wished he understood Dalish, because he was really curious just what the hell that had been about. By how Leliana was watching her, he wasn't the only one.

Shaking off his confusion, Alistair asked, "So, you picked up our treaties...as a wolf."

"'Twas not difficult, given thought and care. Charging the horde like a heroic warrior out of legend simply wasn't an option — I understand if alternate strategies are difficult for you to imagine."

Alim coughed out a laugh, quickly fought to smother it. Alistair shot him a betrayed look. "I, uh, smoke, from the fire. You know."

"Uh-huh. If we can put a hold on mocking me for a minute—"

Morrigan smiled. "For a minute."

"—we do owe you for putting yourself in so much danger for us." Alistair almost sounded like admitting it was mildly painful, but he was too nice of a guy to not be grateful for someone doing something as completely absurd as grabbing something out of the middle of a horde of darkspawn for them.

"'Twas not done from kindness."

"I'm shocked, of course."

Morrigan hummed, smirking a little. "I thought I would bring it along as a peace offering of sorts. I understand you Wardens have run into some ill fortune, since last we met. I am here to offer my assistance in your efforts to end the Blight."

The offer was met with several seconds of dead silence. Alim glanced around, to see the other Wardens were giving each other similar looks. Alistair didn't like the idea at all, a corner of his lips pulled down in a grimace. Keran was glaring, like she'd sooner put her sword through Morrigan's heart than speak to her — which she very well might, this was a Chasind apostate, and Keran was rather pious (Alim had overheard her praying in the morning and everything). Perry looked mildly freaked out at the idea of having another weird wilder tribesman around, but he kept shooting Lýna questioning glances, Alim could tell he was already going to go along with her judgement on this one — which did sort of make sense, Lýna did know the wilders better than any of them did. Leliana didn't look too pleased about the idea either, but again, not a Warden, she didn't get a vote.

Lýna, of course, didn't look uncomfortable with the offer at all, was even smiling, just a little. Which, okay, that did sort of make sense, when Alim thought about it. The two might not have known each other before, but the witch was Chasind, who were still much more familiar to Lýna than Alamarri. Ferelden was a foreign country to her, the other Wardens (and Leliana) alien people of an alien culture speaking an alien language — on the other hand, the Chasind and the Dalish in the south shared the land, and it'd been made clear already they spoke each other's languages better than Lýna spoke Alamarri. It wasn't unexpected that Lýna might be more comfortable with Morrigan than, say, Alim himself (another elf), regardless of her being an apostate mage with uncertain motivations (and also human).

...Though, her being a mage probably didn't hurt. The wilders didn't have the same wariness of magic most civilized peoples did, Lýna wouldn't distrust Morrigan simply for being a mage, but she would consider the potential advantages of her aid. Having one mage was great, but having two mages opened up a whole wealth of tactical options that wouldn't have been available to them before. Lýna had likely decided to let Leliana tag along because any help was better than no help, and she seemed good enough in a fight — part of Lýna's whole by any means necessary kick she'd picked up from Duncan, she wasn't going to turn down allies when they waltzed over and offered themselves up — but a skilled mage was worth ten hardened warriors any day.

Assuming they could be trusted at least. "And why would you do that, exactly?"

Morrigan turned the same are you an idiot? look she kept giving Alistair on Alim. "What a foolish question. Doubtless you've noticed, little boy, there is a Blight rising. It has already overrun my home, I cannot go back. If it takes all the world, even we evil heathen witches," said with maximum sarcasm, "will have nowhere to go."

...Good point.

"Did you stick your mother somewhere, or do we get to look forward to her tagging along too?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's entertaining herself somewhere. If you are very fortunate, you will never see my mother again — future meetings are unlikely to be so friendly."

Yeah, Alim didn't disagree with that sentiment at all. He hadn't actually met Morrigan's creepy mother — who was almost certainly a Dreamer, maybe an abomination of some kind, and possibly the actual legendary Flemeth, which was just absurd to think about — but he'd heard the experience recalled by both Marian and Alistair. Marian had described what sounded very much like the old witch communicating with spirits while conscious, some of which might involve events that hadn't happened yet, and oh, also, she might not be entirely sane. No absurdly powerful demented barbarian mages for him, thanks.

Alistair had said something else, Alim had been too distracted being grateful Flemeth hadn't come along to pick it up, Morrigan letting out an irritated scoff. "If you must know, my mother ordered me to assist you. I would no more like to see the Blight sweep over this land than you, but neither do I enjoy forcing myself to remain in the company of those who despise me."

"So why don't you go, then?"

"Mother will know. She always knows." Yeah, because that wasn't creepy at all. "I'm not some helpless little girl tagging along for the adventure." Here she gave Leliana a blank sort of look, probably taking her for a Chantry Sister and nothing else; Leliana returned it with a brilliant grin, cheerful, but almost too cheerful, if that was even a thing. Morrigan's eyebrow twitched, smirking a little. "I am well-practiced in a variety of magics I would guess your little boy here might not have well heard of."

Alim couldn't help it — he'd actually been one of the better initiates at the Circle, and first Marian showing him up, and now this hedge witch dismissing him, it was irritating. But instead of going off on that, he just said, "Hey! How young do I look, anyway?"

"Twenty or so." Oh, she'd actually guessed high, hmm... "I was not using the term literally, but in the sense of experience — tell me, boy, how long ago did they let you out of that gilded prison of theirs?"

...Oh. "Okay, that's fair."

The Sister and Keran both looked like they wanted to say something about the gilded prison remark — which, Alim didn't disagree so they could both shut their fucking mouths, what did they know about it — but Alistair jumped out ahead again. "Can you cook?" Oh, sweet man, he must have noticed Keran and Leliana were about to say something potentially offensive and blurted out the first thing he could think of so they couldn't. He meant, Alim couldn't imagine why else he'd said that — the only person here who couldn't prepare their own meals was Alim himself. That was something all ordinary people had to learn at some point or another, unless they were filthy rich, but, yeah, gilded prison.

Morrigan actually seemed a little taken aback, blinking over at Alistair. "I...can cook, I suppose," she drawled, her tone suggestive, a too-sweet smile pulling at her lips.

Alistair shivered. "No thanks, I'm good, never mind." He turned to Perry, muttered loudly enough everybody certainly heard it. "Remind me to never eat anything the Chasind touches."

"Oh, there's no cause to be so reticent, Alamar. If you're very good, I might see fit to use one of the less painful poisons."

"That's very generous of you."

The witch hummed, smirking. "So. Am I staying, or do I need to pretend to leave?"

"Pretend?"

"I did say my mother ordered me here. If you do not allow me to travel with you, I will need shift into something quiet and stalk you from the bushes."

Nobody seemed particularly pleased with the thought of the Chasind witch stalking them from the bushes, even Alistair struggling for words this time, his mouth silently moving. For the first time in a while, Lýna spoke. "Yes, stay," then something in...this one was Chasind, he thought. Smiling, Morrigan responded in the same language, then tipped back off her heels to sit, folding her legs loosely in front of her.

"This is a terrible idea," Alistair muttered — probably not intended to be heard this time, but all the elves in the group would have, at least. "Yes, Morrigan, welcome, why not. Try not to kill anybody important."

Smirking with clear amusement, the witch drawled, "I shall endeavor to restrain myself."

"It was saying," Lýna said, which was completely incomprehensible until she added, "Denerim or Redcliffe." Getting right back to their previous business, apparently.

Over the next minute or two, the Wardens processed the sudden addition of the unwelcome apostate, and then filled her in on the question of the day. Morrigan frowned through the second half of the explanation of their little dilemma, and spoke just as Keran started again insisting they needed to find Riordan before doing anything else. "'Tis obvious which is the better decision, is it not? You go to Redcliffe."

"Well, it's not really your decision what— Oh," Alistair cut himself off, blinking in surprise, "you're on my side, never mind."

"Your side? My apologies, I didn't realize this was your idea. Denerim, then."

Keran gave Perry, her only solid ally in this argument, an irritated look — probably didn't appreciate him bursting into giggles like that. "I fail to see how explicitly disobeying our orders should be the obvious thing to do."

"I suppose you mightn't," Morrigan said, in a dismissive tone that suggested that was meant to be an insult. "As impressive and talented as I'm certain you all are," this time suggesting she was not certain of that at all, "no party so small could oppose the Blight alone. No, you need allies. If the simpleton here tells true, you may find them in Redcliffe. You will find only enemies in Denerim."

"I have friends in Denerim."

"Friends who are surrounded by warriors commanded by a powerful foe, and may even now believe you participated in a plot to murder their King — and you expect that meeting to go well?" this time suggesting she thought Keran might well be mentally ill.

And the argument kicked off again from there, but this time with the entirely unhelpful presence of a snarky witch with more venom than tact. It didn't go on for very long, though, before Lýna called, "Stop." But she had a soft elven voice, not nearly strong enough to be heard over Alistair and Keran shouting at each other. She tipped up onto her knees, leaned forward and slammed both hands down on the ground in the middle of their circle. The gesture wasn't nearly as loud as it would have been if they'd had a proper table between them, but the movement was more than enough to draw everybody's attention. "I need know more.

"What happens now?" she asked, eyes flicking to Alistair. He didn't answer immediately, probably uncertain what she was asking for. "Your King is dead. What happens now? Is Loghain king? Someone new? The clans meet and pick new king? What?"

Oh, right, Lýna didn't know shit about Ferelden, she wouldn't know what was supposed to happen next. They probably should have explained that.

"Ah... Well, it's complicated, I guess."

"Anora is Queen," Keran said.

Alistair shrugged. "I mean, technically, Anora is Queen, yes. The King's wife," he explained for Lýna, "she'll still be Queen, for now. But she's young, and the nobles don't like her much — Loghain won't really be king, but people will probably listen to him as though he is. He's the Queen's father, and much more well-liked than she is."

Lýna had seemed faintly confused for a second, but she nodded at that last clarification. "Queen, this is word for king?"

"It's 'king' for a man, 'queen' for a woman."

"...This is stupid. Okay. You say for now. Why?"

"Well, the Landsmeet..." Alistair paused for a moment, thinking, his fingers tapping at his knee. "A person doesn't become king just because their father was. See, there are all these noble families across the country — powerful clans, if you like — they control all the land and all the soldiers and so forth. After the king dies, they come together in something called a Landsmeet, and pick a new king. Since Anora was married to Cailan, she's still the Queen, but only until the Landsmeet makes a decision. They might pick her, they might not. I'm betting not, especially if what happened at Ostagar gets out. Which it probably will — Loghain's men couldn't have killed everybody who fled from the battle, and his men will probably talk too."

"Who?"

Alistair shrugged again. "Dunno. I would have said Loghain was a shoe-in, but, betraying the previous king isn't exactly good for one's image. Bryce Cousland, maybe — his men were at Ostagar, but he wasn't, he must still be in Highever. Leonas Bryland? Maybe Urien Ken— Oh wait, no, he was with the King, not him. Eamon would be a long shot, he's too old, but it's possible."

"We can go to them?"

"Um, I would say Leonas would listen to us, but Loghain's men are probably all over his arling right now, this might not be a good time to approach him. I don't know Bryce well, but I do know his sons — Fergus and Aedan. We'd probably find Aedan at the tavern in town, he could get Bryce to meet with us, but Fergus would be— Oh, Fergus was at Ostagar, damn it!" Alistair paused for a moment, his fists clenched in his lap, glaring furiously at the dirt — apparently he hadn't realized until just now one of his friends was probably dead. "Right. We could probably get Leonas and Bryce on-side, but it might be tricky. Eamon will be much easier, we can just walk right into his house and talk to him."

Alim snorted — his house, like it was no big deal, that was a hell of a way to refer to Redcliffe Castle...

"Good," Lýna said, nodding. "We go to Redcliffe."

"But what about—"

"Stop!" Keran's voice died in her throat, probably more at the look on Lýna's face than the single word — she might be tiny, but Alim wouldn't want to be staring that head-on either. He wouldn't be surprised if this girl could glare darkspawn to death. "We can't stop Blight alone. We need army. Riordan can't give us one. Queen will not. Eamon may, by Landsmeet. We go there, protect him."

"Wait, why do we need to protect him?" Alim asked. "I mean, I guess the arling is in the south, but he has plenty of soldiers of his own — I doubt they'll make it is far as Redcliffe so soon."

"Not darkspawn. Alistair say, before, Eamon is strong in Landsmeet?"

"Uh, yeah." Alistair seemed a little surprised she remembered that — that was a point he'd brought up much earlier, when arguing with Keran before Morrigan had turned up. He might not have realized she'd even understood all of that. (Alim doubted she'd understood all of it, there had been a lot of cultural stuff she didn't know, but probably enough.) "Redcliffe is a wealthy arling, and he's well-connected and well-liked, he'll probably be one of the stronger voices in the Landsmeet, yeah."

"Loghain knows this?"

"Oh shit, you think Loghain might try to kill him?"

Lýna nodded. "Maybe. He tries to kill Cailan's men, protect himself. More, he may kill big hats who be threat." Alim couldn't help smiling a little, he hadn't realized she'd picked up that bit of slang. "Eamon is big threat on his leaderness, yes?"

"Leadership, but yeah, probably the biggest one after Bryce and Arl Urien — and Urien is already dead, and his son is...not the kind of man he is. Yeah, if he's willing to assassinate lords to hold on to power, Bryce should be first on his list, and Eamon second." Alistair looked rather concerned over it now, an anxious frown dragging down his eyebrows. Apparently, that possibility hadn't occurred to him...which was fair, it hadn't occurred to Alim either.

Though, when he thought about it, it probably should have. If the Teyrn was willing to leave the King to die, to slaughter survivors of the battle who might have been witness to his treachery, it stood to reason he might be willing to knock off members of the nobility who might challenge his control over Ferelden. No matter how absurd that was to consider, Loghain Mac-Tir becoming this kind of... Set aside the principle of it, for a moment, that Loghain might have loyal lords of Ferelden killed, Teyrn Bryce Cousland and Arl Eamon Guerrin were personal friends of his! They'd fought together during the Rebellion!

Granted, from rumors Alim had heard (and books he'd read), there was some bad blood between Loghain and Eamon. The Queen Mother... Or, it was just Queen Rowan now, Alim guessed, since the King was dead. Anyway, Queen Rowan had been Eamon's sister, she'd been betrothed to King Maric since they'd been small children — apparently, their relationship had even been somewhat awkward, due to having been practically raised as siblings, that can make being engaged to be married a little weird. (This wasn't common knowledge, but Kinloch Hold wasn't far from Redcliffe, they'd picked up rumours.) During the Rebellion, according to rumor, the Queen had become involved with Loghain, back when he was just one of Maric's military commanders and not anything so respectable as a teyrn yet.

Again, according to rumor, Loghain had severed their relationship himself, insisted Rowan go through with the marriage to Maric, ended up marrying a merchant of some kind from Gwaren — Loghain had then left his wife in charge of their teyrnir, spending most of his time in Denerim assisting the King in the management of his kingdom. There had long been whispers that the true power in Ferelden was Loghain, even in King Maric's time, those whispers only getting louder as his son succeeded him. There had been other, far more scandalous whispers, wondering if Loghain weren't also usurping the King's place in...other matters as well. Some even questioned whether Maric was truly King Cailan's father at all.

Naturally, Arl Eamon wouldn't take kindly to these rumors. The relationship between the Arl of Redcliffe and the Teyrn of Gwaren had soured enough it was obvious even to common people, the rumors so thick on the ground it had practically been common knowledge in the Circle.

And Teyrn Bryce Cousland, well... The Couslands were an old and influential family, the only one in the country that could be said to match the Theirins. When the Landsmeet had been called after the death of King Maric, many nobles had been uncomfortable with the leadership of his son — he'd been young then, and seemingly more concerned with poetry and sparring with his retainers than the affairs of the kingdom. There had been a significant minority who'd thrown their support behind Bryce instead. He'd disavowed any interest in the throne, asked his supporters to support Cailan, but...

Given the deterioration of the relationship between Teyrn Loghain and Arl Eamon, and the serious damage to Loghain's image news out of Ostagar would inevitably do, it was almost a certainty that the next Landsmeet would choose Bryce Cousland as their king. Loghain must realize that — he'd been born a commoner, yes, not so at home with the politics of the nobility, but he wasn't an idiot.

The two greatest threats to Queen Anora remaining on the throne were Bryce Cousland and Eamon Guerrin. If Loghain were truly willing to kill to keep his daughter in power, those were definitely the two he needed to start with.

And Gwaren men killing survivors of Ostagar certainly suggested he was willing to kill.

As everybody else processed this terrible sequence of ideas, Lýna nodded, smooth and calm. Of course, why shouldn't she be, it wasn't like this was her country, these were just names to her. "So, to Redcliffe. Agree?"

Alim and Alistair assented immediately, quickly followed by Perry and even Keran — as much as she would prefer to follow orders and find Riordan, there were pressing reasons to go to Redcliffe instead, even she'd been convinced now. She didn't seem entirely happy with the idea of being stuck with Lýna's leadership (and Leliana and Morrigan's presence) for the foreseeable future, but since Alistair, their only other senior Warden, seemed unwilling to take over in her place, there wasn't really a whole lot she could do about that, was there.

"Good. We go at dawn. Sleep." With a final nod, Lýna popped up to her feet, slipped off toward the trees, probably finding one to prop herself up against for the night. Leaving the rest of them sitting in a circle suffering from conversational whiplash, their long, impassioned argument over what their next move should be shifted around to focus on an entirely different central question and then tied up so quickly and neatly Alim still felt like his head was spinning. The Wardens and Leliana stared blinking at each other, as though feeling there should be something else to be said, but not certain what it was.

He suspected this was going to be a common feeling over the next months.

The Chasind witch wasn't nearly as dumbfounded as the rest of them, just sitting there smiling, like a small child on Satinalia morning. "I think I like that one."

Alim sighed — yeah, the next few months were going to be just wonderful.

---

Alistair's age — Canonically, he was born in 9:10. Right now, it's the third month of 9:30, meaning Alistair is most likely still nineteen.

In case anyone is wondering about other ages, in our Warden group Alim is eighteen, Keran is twenty-eight, Perry is twenty-three, and Lýna is sixteen-ish (the Dalish don't keep track of birthdays so precisely). The group are weighted rather young-ish, but with how short and brutal life in this world tends to be for ordinary people, a man as young but well-trained as Alistair leading a mercenary band (which is what they come off like) isn't actually that unusual; a sixteen-year-old girl leading one is a bit weird, but Lýna is odd and intimidating enough people don't tend to notice how young she is (besides, she has far more experience than Alistair anyway). Leliana would say she's twenty-six. Marian is twenty-ish (poor farmers aren't much better about dates than Dalish), and the twins are fifteen/sixteen. Evelyn is currently nine, but by the time of the Conclave she'll be 19-22 (it depends on how the timeline ends up working out).

Cirienne — The proper term for Orlesian in Orlesian, pronounced something like "sear-yen". A term Orlesienne also exists, and is commonly used by Orlesian speakers outside Orlais, but within Orlais often refers to the dialect of the capital province, dominant in north-central Orlais. (Draw a triangle between the northern tip of Lake Celestine, Val Chevin in the east, and Montfort in the north, and that's about right.) They would consider other dialects to be Cirienne, but not Orlesienne, but it would all be Orlesienne to foreigners. For the most part, untranslated Orlesian will be rendered as French.

Poitraile — A similar concept to the Eastern Orthodox engolpion, a medallion worn by bishops.

healwize do — Alim is right, Morrigan is calling Alistair a half-wit. In-universe, this is Chasind, but in the real world it's Frisian. The Alamarri and the Chasind are very closely related, so I've given them English and Frisian, closely-related languages.

In case anyone's wondering about the others, Avvar is Icelandic, Nevarran is Spanish, Antivan is Italian, Rivaini is Welsh (with heavy borrowings), and Anders is Dutch. The common people in the Free Marches will speak a mix of Alamarri, Antivan, Nevarran, and Tevene, depending on which city we're talking about, but the upper classes mostly speak Cirienne or Antivan. Elven languages, dwarvish, and Qunlat are all conlangs (dwarvish influenced by Hungarian and Qunlat by Arabic); there is a "trade" language referred to as Argot that's a mix of Alamarri, dwarvish, and Cirienne. Modern Tevene is going to be a bastardization of Romanian with a shitload of loans from elvish and Qunlat (Classical/Chantry Tevene is just straight Classical/Church Latin). There's also another Orlesian language spoken in the east/south, which will be Occitan with heavy elvish borrowings. There were one more languages related to Rivaini (i.e. Celtic languages), especially in the south — this is why Alamarri and Chasind people have a lot of names of Celtic origin — but they've been extinct for centuries.

Because I think about this shit too hard, obviously.

Right, I could comment, but this AN is long enough already. Blah blah, Lothering woo, no Sten because the explanation for him being there is stupid thin and we already have enough stab-happy maniacs, Lýna continues to be precious, moving on.