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.)

8. Highway — I

9:30 Nubulis 15

Hinterlands, Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

---

If Alim had thought the trip to Ostagar was bad, their walk to Redcliffe was something else.

It would perhaps not be much of a surprise to anyone to hear that mages in the Circle didn't exactly get a lot of exercise. It wasn't like they just sat around at their desk reading all the time — they did move about some, there were a lot of stairs they ended up going up and down multiple times a day, and some forms of spellcasting could get pretty strenuous when you really get into it...but that was about it. The heaviest thing Alim had regularly carried was a stack of books, sometimes as far as his room but usually just from a shelf to the table he was using at the moment. The longest walk he would ever take was from the initiate bunks on the bottom floor — well, the second floor, the Templar barracks and storerooms and such were under that, but they weren't allowed to go there — up to the refectory on the fifth which, yes, was a significant number of stairs, but it wasn't really that far, was it? He'd done it multiple times a day, for literally as long as he could remember, and he was fit enough it didn't get him winded or anything, but still, carrying books up and down a couple flights of stairs was the maximum amount of physical exertion he ever put into anything.

Since leaving the Tower? Yeah, not so much.

Alistair had gone relatively easy on him, at first. He'd been with Duncan when they'd stopped by the Tower, but while Duncan had looped north via the Pilgrim's Path — along the way picking up Keran, Lýna, and several Warden initiates who'd died since — he and Alistair, along with the mages and Templars who'd volunteered to go to Ostagar, had turned south, to link up with the army around Lothering. A big group like theirs took rather longer setting up camp and breaking it down again in the morning, and was also kind of slow, what with all the other weak little mages about. Alistair had made it clear that Alim could go at whatever pace he wanted, Alistair would stick with him, if he needed to slow down or even take a break, that was fine.

Or if he wanted to poke around in the dirt or chase birds or whatever, that was also fine. Alim had been locked in a big stone box his whole life, okay, he'd never seen these things before. He'd seen a bird in real life, once, when one had gotten into the library somehow, made a nuisance of itself — Alim had been eleven, he remembered, because he'd literally never seen a bird before outside of pictures in books. And, outside they were, just, everywhere! They were migrating back into Ferelden after the thaw, and they were everywhere, all twittering and cawing, these big flocks of them here and there, several times when Alim had seen a bunch of them hopping about in a tree, or scattered across a field, he hadn't been able to help himself, zipped on over, startle them into flight, yelling and honking and flapping all around him, giggling to himself like a...well, like a child, he guessed.

And everything smelled! The air smelled different — which, Alim had known it would, they'd been allowed to prop open windows on occasion — but everything smelled. The horses and the hounds were shockingly terrible, all the different plants had a variety of spicy tangy scents all their own, even ones that hadn't even started budding yet, the water smelled, the dirt smelled! The water probably just had things in it, whatever, but the dirt, he hadn't realized dirt even had a smell!

Also, there were bugs. Everywhere. Alim was starting to dislike bugs quite a lot.

And yes, he did wear himself out a bit, running around like a crazy person, or a small child who'd been allowed far too much syrup, it really hadn't made the walk itself easier. That first day, he was mostly just exhausted, passed right out once they were down for the evening. After that, he'd been fucking miserable. Everything had hurt. And the second morning had been worse than the first, he'd practically needed a hand from Alistair just to stand up, he'd been so stiff and aching. Flopping down at their camp that evening — arriving some time behind the rest, the consequences of Alim's earlier antics making him even slower than the rest of the mages — Alim had proclaimed, in his most melodramatic tone, that this was it, he was done for, he was never rising from this spot again, Alistair could just go ahead and put him out of his misery, thanks ever so, go on without him. Only being mostly sarcastic.

He'd mostly been better by the time they finally got to Ostagar. A couple days resting and recovering at Lothering had really helped, but he assumed his body was also just adjusting to actually being made to do things. By the time the initiates were making their journey into the Korcari Wilds, he'd built up enough endurance that, with a little help from magic, he'd been the least slow and clumsy person there — or, the least slow and clumsy person who wasn't Lýna, and possibly Marian. Marian was bigger and heavier than Alim — because he was frustratingly tiny, it was honestly the single most annoying thing about being an elf — but she was also better at spelling her steps light, and had much more experience hanging around in forests, so it was a toss-up which of them had fared better on the unstable ground of the swamp. (The real surprising thing was that even without magic Lýna had somehow managed better than both of them, he realized she lived there but that was just unnatural.) Their time in the wilds had been exhausting, but less because of the travel itself and more because, well, it turns out fighting with magic was really hard, spells useable in combat were some of the most energy-intensive and snapping them out like that wasn't easy, and holy shit fighting that darkspawn mage had been the most terrifying experience of his life, worse than the Harrowing, until it'd been topped a week later by that darkspawn Templar, Andraste save him, that thing, and there were apparently more of them out there, Maker...

The walk back to Lothering, after the battle, had been easy enough too. It was about what he imagined walking south with Alistair might have been like if they hadn't had a big slow group to stay with and he weren't going easy on Alim. Just, casual sort of stroll, for hours and hours and hours, not taking any breaks but not going at a particularly strenuous pace either. It'd taken them two days and change to get from Ostagar to Lothering, which was faster than the army had travelled the same distance, but not that fast. They really weren't that far apart.

Redcliffe was not that much further from Lothering than Ostagar was. Half again the distance, maybe? Not quite that much. It was roughly 70 miles, he thought, he couldn't remember precisely. Neighbors, relatively speaking, but the distance seemed greater in person than it appeared on a map.

Lýna wanted to get there tomorrow.

This was...possible. Technically. At the slow, casual walk they'd been going at before, no, but if they took it at a somewhat quicker pace, and kept at it constantly from sunrise to sunset, they could, theoretically, knock out fifty miles in a day with no problem. Which meant they could, theoretically, make it to Redcliffe by early afternoon tomorrow. Theoretically, that seemed perfectly reasonable.

Actually doing it, though, was perfectly miserable.

At the head of their little group, setting the pace for the rest of them, was Lýna, obviously. She'd decided to not actually take the Highway, instead paralleling it across field and forest just to the north — with the bounty on their heads, that was reasonable, Alim hadn't argued — and she tore across the uneven terrain with ease. Skipping along at a light jog, skidding down into game trails, sometimes leaping over dips, hopping atop protruding stone or fallen trees, light and easy as anything. Didn't seem winded at all, even after hours, as though this were no more difficult than wandering around the camp at Ostagar.

Surprisingly, Leliana was right there with her. The crazy Sister had abandoned the heavy outer layer of her Chantry robes, leaving her in plain cloth pants and shirt, the latter cutting off significantly above her elbows. Alim would think she would be cold, but maybe the exercise helped. She was right on Lýna's tail the whole time, matching her pace at a light, brisk walk — elves being tiny, the human Sister didn't have to jog to keep up — even copying her hopping around, echoing her footsteps seconds behind the lighter elf. It was taking more out of Leliana than it was Lýna, her face going red, her hair darkened and plastered to her head from sweat after a couple hours, but she stayed right on her anyway, as though determined to prove she could keep up, for whatever reason.

And Lýna had noticed. After an hour or so, Alim noticed she'd started cutting glances back at Leliana now and again, watching her. It could be his imagination, but he thought Lýna had gradually keyed up how much hopping around she was doing, looking back to check if Leliana had done it too, making their dance over the earth slowly more difficult. Like playing some kind of game.

His mind wandering, Alim found himself wondering if it were some weird Dalish flirting, but no, that was ridiculous. If anything, it seemed more like the kind of game their hunters would play with the children they were training up. Which was still weird, but if Lýna wanted to entertain herself while also getting a feel for just what one of their new tagalongs was capable of, well, more power to her, Alim guessed.

(He thought it much more likely Leliana was doing it as some kind of weird Orlesian flirting, but she was barking up the wrong tree. Dalish had a whole thing about fraternizing with humans — supposedly, Dalish caught doing it were expelled from their clan, there were even stories about the couple both being murdered for the "crime" — and Lýna was so completely oblivious, if Leliana just came right out and propositioned her Alim was willing to bet Lýna somehow wouldn't notice.)

(Of course, that was assuming a Chantry Sister would even get it in her head to try flirting with a Dalish elf, Alim didn't think it was actually happening, he was just saying, Leliana was both Orlesian and insane, it would be far more likely than his first thought.)

Just behind them was Perry, but he wasn't doing the hopping about the women were, just following along. And also sweating like mad, panting, and cursing up a storm, but he was keeping up, so. Just behind him were Alistair and Keran. They were both tall enough they could follow at a walk, though a somewhat rushed one — after a couple hours Keran was flushing a little from exertion, her breath not so labored as Perry's, but definitely thinner, her conversation with Alistair slowed somewhat. Alistair, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine, but he had been in training to become a Templar since he'd been ten, Alistair was in ridiculously good physical shape, Alim hadn't expected anything else.

Alim was at the back. And he was dying.

Okay, not really, it wasn't even as bad as those first couple days after leaving the Tower. And he'd figured out a trick — he could use a certain healing spell he'd learned ages ago, which was supposed to be for when someone couldn't breathe on their own for whatever reason, to take a bit of the edge off, so he didn't get out of breath. He wasn't certain whether that was safe to use for hours straight, or if it was even safe to use in this context at all, but it didn't feel like he was hurting himself, so he was probably fine. The cool air was more of a problem. If it were a couple weeks earlier it might have been even worse, but after an hour or two his throat and way back in the inside of his nose started to hurt terribly, stretching down further into his chest, teasing out the urge to cough, which then made it even harder to keep up with his breathing, and...

Sometimes, he thought he faintly tasted blood. Was that bad? He was pretty sure that was bad. He started just healing the surfaces of his breathing passages every half hour or so, which he did have to pause a moment to do, but it only took a quick sprint to catch up again, it was fine. He'd rather have to play catch-up every once in a while than start coughing up blood or something.

He was keeping up, mostly, but he was absolutely covered with sweat — which then made him feel uncomfortably hot and cold at the same time, because yes, working hard, but also the early spring wind was cold, shit. And, by early afternoon, he was passing the I did too much shit my muscles hurt stage and into the I did too much shit I can't stop shaking one. It wasn't that bad, most of the time, while he was moving he didn't even notice, but whenever he slowed to drink his fingers were annoyingly unsteady, far too difficult to get the damn cap twisted off, and he kept accidentally slopping water over himself. He didn't know what the hell that was, but it couldn't be good, could it? He was getting kind of light-headed too, maybe it just meant he needed to eat something, hmm...

So, no, he wasn't actually dying, but he kind of wished he was, if only so he would have an excuse to lay down and stop for two minutes.

After taking another quick break to heal his insides and take a drink of water, Alim was just catching up when Morrigan appeared again. She was staying with them, yes, but she hadn't taken to running along in human form — why the hell should she, when she could lope around as a wolf, or turn into a fucking bird and fly on ahead? Humans (and elves) really were desperately inefficient at traveling long distances on foot compared to some animals, it was just the reasonable thing to do, if the option were available.

Which, okay, he was also so jealous. First Marian's flying, and now Morrigan's shapechanging, why didn't they ever teach them anything fun at the Circle? (Stupid question, he knew the answer to that.) He'd looked into the subject, it had been his illicit curiosity like Jowan's had been Fade-walking (and blood magic, apparently), but there wasn't really anything useful in the library at Kinloch Hold. Well, there might be in the Enchanters' library, higher up the Tower, but Alim wasn't allowed in there. Just story after story about the ancient elves, and hedge witches over the centuries, and it was something some Dalish and wilderfolk still practiced to this day, and it was a disgusting, unnatural ability, blah blah blah, nothing actually at all helpful in figuring out how to do it.

That was by design, he was certain. After all, the primary reason he'd wanted to learn how to do it was so that he could change into a bird and fly right out of a window and get the fuck out of the Tower forever. Like they hadn't had anything similar to Marian's flying thing around either, Alim assumed the Templars didn't want them seeing anything they could use to easily escape.

Alim didn't want to learn it for the same reason anymore — joining the Grey Wardens was a commitment for life, he would never be going back to the Circle. Besides, if he tried to go back, they'd probably immediately execute him as a maleficar anyway. Which was fucking absurd, he hadn't done anything, Jowan had been the one practicing blood magic, and even he hadn't actually hurt anyone either! But sure, cut off the awkward, harmless mage's head, and also kill all of his friends, that's a reasonable reaction to this incident, of course.

(He hoped Jowan was okay, wherever he was. The Templars hadn't caught him, had they?)

Anyway, Morrigan was perched on a protruding bit of rock — crouching over her heels, arms propped over her knees — watching as their group walked by. Not watching their group, watching Alistair — her head was tilted at a thoughtful angle, smiling very faintly, eyes widened, somewhat more on one side than the other, with a cold kind of amusement. The amusement of a cat watching a helpless mouse passing by, contemplating when best to pounce.

...It was, Alim suddenly realized, a very elven expression.

Human and elven faces were shaped somewhat differently so, naturally, to change the lines of their faces to make clearly-visible expressions they had to do somewhat different things. According to very old Tevinter records, the first elven empire had actually had a very extensive system of nonverbal communication, complicated enough the Tevinters never managed to fully document it before it fell out of use, that communicated so many specific shades of meaning with such subtle cues the humans had trouble even figuring out what was going on. The old elves had been infamously practiced at the art of saying one thing and meaning another, and the Tevinters had speculated this was actually a form of sarcasm — that there was something nonverbal that cued when they were being less than entirely truthful, and perhaps even why, but that these went right over the heads of people not trained in these gestures. (Which also included many elves, this particular game was one largely limited to their nobility.) According to less old Orlesian records, something similar had developed among the elves of the Dales too, it seemed to be something they just did naturally.

But even just with normal facial expressions, the difference was noticeable. See, humans had rather more prominent jaws, and the fleshy bits of their cheeks, while elves had larger and more expressive eyes. Elves could do things with their lips, like smile and smirk and the like, obviously, but the subtle shades in those sorts of things humans could do were less obvious, so the eyes made up some of the difference. There was also a lot of head-tilting, different directions and different angles combined with various expressions carrying different meanings — the ears made it a lot more obvious exactly how an elf was tilting their head than a human, they could make fine distinctions humans really couldn't.

The differences were less extreme in mixed environments, like in the Circle, but Alim had noticed it was very obvious with Lýna. Both that her expressions were kind of off, and sometimes completely unreadable, and that she had trouble figuring out theirs too. Especially if someone's hair or a helmet or something was covering their brow — an elf would still have their head-tilting and would naturally exaggerate tone carried on their voices, but humans didn't seem to think to do that. (Human voices were also somewhat less expressive in general, one of those things that had been weird growing up around mostly humans, realizing that his vocal range and his hearing were just better than everyone else's.) He thought he was figuring her out quicker than the others just because, well, elven sight and hearing, picking up the little details and then pattern recognition, so. He was kind of figuring out Dalish (elven) nonverbal communication, a little bit.

Which was what made this thought fucking weird, because he was just noticing that Morrigan's expressions were very elven — mostly carried through the eyes and the voice, he meant, with a lot of head-tilting — and that was just...why? It was almost like, he didn't know, what might happen if a human were raised by Dalish elves, picking up their mannerisms as best they could. But that didn't make any damn sense, because Morrigan's mother was human, and she was clearly Chasind, and...

Or, maybe Chasind just had elven-esque mannerisms to begin with. It wasn't like he'd met many Chasind before, he had no idea. The Chasind and the Dalish had been in close contact ever since the Orlesian invasion, at the latest, so that wouldn't be completely out of the question. It was just kind of weird.

And, also, not really important right now? He was a little light-headed, okay, and also a rambly, easily-distractible son of a bitch. Once, he'd been with Lacie, they were literally half-undressed already, and he'd gone off on a rant about something he'd read that day, and must have said something that had annoyed Lacie very badly, because she'd shoved him into the wall, sorted out her clothes and left without a word. Jowan hadn't stopped mocking him over it for a month. Of course, he had absolutely no right to judge, because one time he was trying to talk to Lily and not come off like a total ass, he—

No! Focus, Alim, you were thinking a thing!

Right! Morrigan! Shapechanging! Neat magic he could totally learn now that he didn't have asshole Templars breathing down his neck! Woo!

Also, maybe would be nice to distract Morrigan before she picked a fight with Alistair for no good reason — she did seem to like doing that, he had no idea why. "Hey, Morrigan."

The witch's eyebrow twitched. "Yes, little boy?"

Oh, she was going to keep calling him that, apparently. That was very cute, and not at all extremely irritating. Passing by her perch, "Walk with me, I want to talk to you."

She let out a long, put-upon sigh, but she did hop down after a couple seconds, slid up next to him. "If you insist. I did wonder when one of you would see fit to prod me for information."

He tried to stop himself, he really did, but he couldn't help it if she was going to just set him up like that. "Is there something else I should be prodding you for?"

Morrigan was surprised enough she paused for an instant, falling a step behind, letting out a single shocked chuckle, uh-heh! "I shall pretend I didn't hear that. Go on, then, ask your questions."

"Right." Circling a puddle of mud, Alim considered what the hell he was supposed to say. He somehow suspected blurting out teach me how to turn into a bird! would go badly. "Ah, so, you grew up in the Wilds? I mean, obviously, but it was just you and your mother? I didn't see a lot of Chasind around."

"What sort of question is this?" Morrigan muttered, huffing a little. "For nigh as long as I recall, 'twas simply Flemeth and I. Is that thought so strange to you?"

The thought that her mother was literally the Flemeth, sure, but. "I mean, I grew up locked in a stone box packed in with a bunch of other children and constantly overseen by armed guards watching for the smallest excuse to murder us all, so, everybody's upbringing is foreign to me, when you think about it."

"Hmm." Alim felt her eyes on him, but he didn't glance over to check her expression, just focused on keeping up with the others. "For the most part, yes. The Chasind are uncomfortable in my mother's presence, and avoid her should they have no pressing concern to address."

Oh, really? Couldn't imagine why...

"When I was a girl, we would visit a village on occasion. Flemeth wished for me to have some knowledge of our people, so I must find myself now and again forced into their company. Festivals, ceremonies, the like. Our stays were always brief, and I but rarely made such visits on my own."

"Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious? They all know who I am — and who my mother is. They fear they may by word or deed cause some minor offense to me, and thereby invite upon them the legendary wrath of the Witch of the Wilds. My mother always knows, you see." It could be Alim's imagination, but he suspected that was a note of bitterness on her voice. "In time, their fright grew tedious, and I never visited again."

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. Alim nodded — that clicked together nicely, didn't it. "I can hardly imagine that, myself. Living out in the wilds, I mean, I can't remember ever being outdoors before Duncan recruited me into the Wardens, and that was...a little over a month ago, I think?" Alim actually wasn't certain what the date was anymore, he'd lost track. Huh. "Did you know dirt has a smell?"

Morrigan chuckled. "Of course dirt has a smell, you ridiculous man." Oh, he'd been promoted from little boy to ridiculous man, neat, he'd take it. "In fact, it has a wide variety of smells, depending upon the composition of the soil."

"Yeah, well, I'd literally never touched dirt before, so, news to me." He couldn't leave it right there, that'd be giving her an opportunity to ask him about the Circle, and if they were going to talk about him he'd rather be able to dictate what the topic would be. "I'm sorry, that just seems...quiet. I mean, maybe it's just me, at the Tower we're all packed in there, there are always people around. I can't imagine living with only one other person."

"'Tis not so quiet as you imagine. The Wilds are unbound and ever-changing, place to place and day to day always new. There are all manner of living things, ruins long ago forgotten by men, even the occasional spirit come to experience our world first-hand. The Wilds are my home, 'twas never a burden to live as I did." Morrigan paused, just for a moment, but Alim was more concerned with picking over a fallen tree than checking her expression. "In fact, were the choice available to me, I would remain in the Wilds rather than submit myself to what you term civilization." The scorn on the word was very obvious.

Of course, if civilization was a thing where she was feared and reviled for an accident of her birth, was bound by law to either surrender herself to a Circle or face execution, that attitude made perfect sense, didn't it? "It's not all bad — some of the villages around the periphery seem like pretty nice places to live. But yeah, I'm not particularly impressed with civilization either. Ostagar was an idiotic, beareaucratic, political mess beginning to end, and the Bann of Lothering can suck the biggest, smelliest dick."

Morrigan let out another surprised uh-heh! "Well. 'Tis the banns who are the problem, are they not? Banns and arls and kings, obligations and lands and gold. 'Tis an unforgiving and cold place, your world. I often wonder why anyone should choose to submit themselves to it."

Most of the time, they didn't — a person couldn't help the circumstances they'd been born into. But that wasn't really the point. "Chasind might not have the rest, but they do have lands."

"No," she said, flatly, "we don't. We might say a man lives upon the land; we do not say he owns it. What an absurd idea this is, owning the land! Is the land a thing one might pick up and carry off? You might as well say you own the air you breathe! The farmer who works the land, it no more belongs to him than the pond belongs to the frog, or the sky belongs to the hawk. This business human society engages in of drawing lines in the earth and calling one side their property, 'tis a foolish, childish notion. And, in fact, the root of most of their troubles."

...Well, she wasn't wrong about that last part. When it came down to it, economy was all about who controlled the lands that produced wealth, and how that wealth was (or was not) distributed to those who didn't. From a certain perspective, he could see how one might think the ever-accumulating wealth of the few and the miserable poverty of the many was an artificial imposition on the peoples of the world created by the private ownership of the land. There had been peasant revolts over the centuries that insisted much the same thing, actually. And, well, that was ultimately what most wars were about, wasn't it? a dispute over who should get to control which valuable lands, or, at larger scales, the tax revenue and markets produced from them?

Though, honestly, it hadn't occurred to him that people could just...not own the land. He meant, there were the Dalish, obviously, but practically everywhere in the world somebody somewhere had ultimate ownership over the land people lived on. Even if it wasn't invested in a single person, but a community in general...but not really even then. Most villages in Ferelden, and Orlais and most other countries, were organized under a form of the old Orlesian commune system — that is, the land the village sat on, and the farms around it, were said to be held by the people of the village in common. Exactly how that worked place to place varied, but basically, no one person had exclusive rights to any of it, and whatever work needed to be done or retasking of particular bits of it or whatever, all that was agreed upon by the residents. But, really not even then, because technically all that land was really owned by the local lord, the management of it was just left to the peasants. It was just assumed land that was actually used had to be owned by somebody.

The more he thought about it, Alim couldn't honestly say he knew why that was. Obviously, lords and kings and what-not wanted it to be that way, since their control over the land was the core of their own wealth and power, but other than that.

...And he'd gotten completely distracted from what they had been talking about by politics and economy and... He knew he'd been trying to build up a little bit of a rapport before asking after neat magic, but he'd sort of lost track of what angle he was coming at. Damn. He was blaming it on having to keep moving along while also trying to think his way through the conversation, he was too damn tired and light-headed for this. Oh well. "Yes, people will be asses to each other, this is how the world works. So about that turning into animals thing."

"Oh? What of it?" It could be his imagination, and he couldn't really spare the attention to look — they were scrambling through a particularly rocky bit of forest right now, up and down and up, ugh — but she sounded somewhat wary. Like she thought he was about to go on a rant about it being a disgusting, unnatural ability that blah blah blah.

So when he said, "How did you learn to do it?" he thought he heard her steps hitch for a moment in surprise.

After a couple seconds hesitation, "'Tis a skill of Flemeth's, taught over many years." Oh, that probably meant it was hard to learn, then. Damn. "Though, 'tis not one I used where I could be seen. The Chasind have tales of shapechangers."

Fereldens did too, though they mostly involved Chasind mages changing into wolves and eating people — so, probably not the same stories. "Oh? What kind?"

"They tell of witches who watch their clans from hiding—"

"Or stalk them from the bushes?"

"One might say," Morrigan purred, amused. "Little Chasind boys are warned that if they do not behave they might one day be left out in the Wilds, alone and helpless. And there a witch will snatch him up, drag him off kicking and screaming, deep into our secret haunts to be devoured." Oh, so they were basically the same stories, then, never mind. "I hear it is quite effective in silencing tedious tears and complaints."

"I bet it is. I wouldn't want to get dragged off by your mother, either." Morrigan let out another chuckle at that — and how was she managing to not be out of breath, his voice was coming out all thin and breathless, and here she was laughing and not having any difficulty, ugh. "That reminds me, about your mother. I was wondering."

"Must you?"

Yes, he really must — he wondered about everything, he couldn't help it. Of course, he also wasn't certain exactly how to ask what he wanted, so... "Is she...really what she seems to be?"

And Morrigan laughed again, because that was a sort of vague question, wasn't it. "That depends — what does she seem to be?"

He knew what he wanted to say, but... Eh, it would probably be fine. He'd gotten the feeling Morrigan found other people's unease with her mother amusing, she probably wouldn't take offense. "Human?"

"Oh, she was," she said, her voice lower, softer — slightly uneasy. "Tell me, how much do you know of the tale?"

"About Flemeth? Well, I know several." There wasn't a whole lot to do in the Tower, after all, he'd done a lot of reading over the years. "Most people might think of the legend of Cormac Wolf-Hunter, but sources disagree on that one, the earliest versions don't mention Flemeth at all. Her alliance with Calenhad the Great is a historical certainty, but there is disagreement over whether the Chasind matriarch mentioned was truly the Flemeth, or coincidentally shared the name. And there's the story of Lord Conobar of Highever, of course — there are multiple legends that claim to explain the 'true' origin of Flemeth, but that's the most popular one."

"And 'tis the one that, according to my mother, approaches nearest the truth. How do the Alamarri tell it? I confess I've never asked."

"Oh, well." Pausing to heal his throat and take a drink, Alim considered how best to summarize the story. Clearly, all the context of the War of the Crowns wasn't really important to what they were talking about, that could be edited out. The politics between the (mostly) Andrastian Alamarri and (mostly) pagan Chasind and Avvar, very different peoples sharing the Teyrnir in...relative peace, also wasn't important...but the Chasind did come in later, trying to chase Flemeth down, but the politics that went into getting them to agree, didn't need to get into that.

Okay, he had it. Starting to jog after the others again, he started, "Right, well, it starts with a Lord Conobar, a Bann sworn to Teyrn Talemal of Highever. Highever was at war with the Teyrnir of Denerim and the Arlings of Edgehall and Redcliffe — though, Edgehall and Redcliffe weren't called that then, they were Avvar kingdoms at the time — so everything was a huge mess. Lord Conobar's wife, Flemeth, was a mage, and— Oh, that would have been in the early Towers Age, the Three Twenties or Thirties probably, mages in Chantry lands weren't remanded to the Circles until the First Exalted March on Tevinter during the Black Age, over a hundred years later. Anyway. Because of the war, people were moving all over the place through the Teyrnir, fleeing battles or famine and the like. One day, a poet and storyteller ended up in Conobar's town. Osen, I think his name was, uh...Avvar? Is 'Osen' an Avvar name?"

"He was Chasind."

...Suggesting he'd actually existed, but okay. "Well, a pagan anyway — non-Andrastian, that is — that's the point most of the versions I've read linger on. Anyway, Flemeth quite liked this guy, and either they were caught in a tryst or Lord Conobar simply suspected Flemeth of infidelity, different versions disagree on that. Either way, Flemeth was locked up in their keep, and Osen was killed. Here, versions differ again — either Flemeth called on spirits for help, or sympathetic servants released her. Either way, she killed Conobar on her way out.

"So, now she was wanted for murdering a bann, which is generally not good. There were all kinds of people after her now, chasing her into the hills in the west of the Teyrnir. Hounded for weeks, she finally turned to a demon for help, and became an abomination. The Teyrn asked anyone he could think of for help killing the monster now stalking his lands — Chasind, Avvar, the Templars even sent a few teams of demon-hunters — but after many, many deaths Flemeth fled to the south, and was never seen again. The damage done by the abomination and the face the Teyrn had lost weakened his rule considerably. He ended up being killed by the Arl of Edgehall in a battle near the River Dane, and Highever was pretty much out of the war then."

There was a brief silence, Morrigan turning the Alamarri version of the story over in her head, he guessed. "That is not so different from what I was told. I cannot say much about the war and your lords — these were not things that concerned Flemeth, so of them I know little. But, according to my mother, 'twas not the Lord who was her husband. She was the wife of Osen the Chasind storyteller, instead. The war had cast them from their home, and their clan came to this Lord Conobar's lands, hungry and desperate. 'Twas this Lord Conobar who desired what was not his. In exchange for Flemeth, he offered Osen riches, and their people new lands to settle upon."

Morrigan paused there, despite her story obviously not being over. To wait for his reaction, perhaps? He guessed the thought of a man selling his wife to another might seem abhorrent and unthinkable...to someone who wasn't hungry and desperate. If their entire clan could be provided for in exchange for just one of their number, well, that was a perfectly rational thing to do, wasn't it? Especially since, well, Flemeth was a mage, they couldn't exactly force her into anything if she didn't agree to it, she'd just fry the man alive. "Not a bad deal, I suppose."

"No," she admitted — some kind of tone definitely on her voice, but Alim couldn't read it. "In fact, 'twas Flemeth who convinced her husband to agree to the arrangement. And all would have been well had the Lord kept their terms. But he was a foul, jealous man, and a faithless one at that. Mother's clan were not allowed the home they were promised — instead, the Lord chased them off his lands entirely. Osen was slain, his body left in a field to rot."

Alim winced — he knew little about Chasind customs, but even he knew you didn't abandon someone's body alone in the middle of a field. That was just insult on top of injury.

"The spirits told Flemeth of the deed. The Lord had proven himself a liar and a cheat, an oath-breaker — you may not know this, but to Chasind the making of an oath in bad faith is the worst of crimes, unforgivable." He hadn't known that, actually, interesting. And, for the spirits to tell her anything she must have been a Dreamer even before becoming...whatever the hell she was now. That wasn't so unexpected, he guessed, it was believed Dreamers had once been rather more common than they were now. (Others suspected Dreamers were exactly as common as once they'd been, they just kept their talents to themselves, but naturally there was no way to know for certain.) "Flemeth begged the spirits grant her justice, and 'twas they who slew Conobar.

"'Tis true Flemeth called for help, though your story forgoes telling why. After Flemeth's betrayal," said with a sort of amused disdain, "after she killed the first few men sent after her, the Lord's family tracked down her clan. Every single one was put to the sword — men, women, children, all slaughtered."

"Oh, Maker. That seems...disproportionate, for a blood debt."

"The Chasind and the Alamarri measure the weight of blood differently. To the Chasind, he murdered her husband, so she murdered him — the debt was paid. To the Alamarri, she murdered her lord, and yet evades justice for the deed — and so her family's lives were forfeit. 'Tis foolish, as such things often are, but there was naught to be done about it."

"I suppose not." From what he'd read, blood feuds could so often get messy and all too complicated, there was a reason the Kingdom tried to mediate these sort of conflicts between families before they could get out of hand. Tried, because for it to work the people involved had to agree to pay attention to the 'proper' authorities in the first place, which they often didn't. And this was back in the Towers Age, there wouldn't have been a Crown to appeal to. "And so she called down a demon to help her, then. Rage? Desire? Vengeance?"

"All of these, and yet none." Her voice dropped, taking on a solemn yet theatrical sort of awe — a little over the top, because she was talking about her mother, but she was also telling a story, so, fair. "Something did answer Flemeth's prayers, yet 'twas no demon. There are things that yet linger, in quiet places all but forgotten. Old things, powerful things. The entity that came to Flemeth was no spirit, no demon. No," she said, so low Alim almost couldn't hear it over his own breathing, "'twas something else."

That was vaguely creepy, sure, but it was also far too vague. Which was just making Alim even more curious. "What was it? What is she, I guess?"

Morrigan hesitated, briefly. "She tells me her first people called her All-Mother. More than that, I cannot tell you."

"She always knows?"

"Yes."

Right, so Morrigan couldn't tell Alim who and what her mother was — or the thing possessing her mother, but Alim suspected the distinction was meaningless, after six hundred years in direct contact — because she'd been told not to. That was fine. Slightly frustrating, Alim hated leaving interesting questions unanswered, but that wasn't Morrigan's fault. If his mother were an ancient abomination, he suspected he would be leery of disobeying her too. "I understand, I won't ask again. Despite how fascinating this all is, and how every curious bone in my body is burning to know, I will control myself."

Her previous more serious tone lifting away, Morrigan chuckled. "I do apologize. I understand how difficult that must be for you."

"You really don't, it's physically painful, honest."

"I expect you shall understand my own curiosity, then? I imagine your mother is not like to be an abomination of legend, but I am curious nevertheless."

Alim shrugged — which was awkward to do while jogging along through the forest, but he managed it. "There's not really anything to say."

"...I see." That was odd, she sounded...slightly irritated? Why?

"Oh! No, I'm not trying to be evasive or anything, it's just there really isn't anything to say. I've been in the Circle for as long as I can remember. The Circle's records say the Templars took me from the elven quarter in Denerim, but that's literally all I know."

"My apologies, I didn't realize."

"It's alright. I'd like to learn about my family someday — I mean, it doesn't matter to me so much, just idle curiosity, I guess — but I long ago accepted that I probably never will." If he went to Denerim and asked around the elven quarter whether anyone remembered the Templars stealing a little red-headed boy, someone might be able to tell him something...maybe. It was a long time ago now, there was no guarantee anyone still around would know anything. "But anyway, this was supposed to be a conversation about shapechanging."

"Yes, I recall," Morrigan drawled, amused. "'Twas you who led us along other paths once and again."

"I know, I have trouble following one topic all the way through sometimes. See, something else interesting will occur to me, and then I'll need to know about that right now, and completely forget what I was doing." It was even worse when he hadn't slept very well, or was a bit tired. So, like right now. "But anyway, shapechanging, uh..." Blurting out teach me how to turn into a bird! didn't seem right yet either, hmm. "Uh, what's that like? Turning into an animal, I mean?"

"Do you refer to the process itself, or what comes after?" she asked, though she didn't wait for him to say which, went on immediately. "The process 'tis uncomfortable, but not painful. Truly, it is... I don't want to say terrifying. Unsettling? There 'tis a moment where I'm not one shape nor the other. Naught but power and will, driven to a single purpose. 'Tis intimidating, I confess, to cast oneself into the ether so."

So, the transformation worked through spirit magic, was what it sounded like. She must be translating the substance of her own body into another — which was pretty fucking impressive when he thought about, it would be so easy to kill herself on accident — in the interim her consciousness unmoored from physical form, essentially making her a spirit. A very short-lived one, an artifact of the process of the spell, which wasn't unheard of in the more advanced magics...though the caster floating their own consciousness through one was a bit absurd. Alim could imagine how reducing oneself to a spirit, if only for an instant, might be existentially terrifying.

As intimidating as the thought was, Alim couldn't help smiling a little bit. Just from the hints she'd given in a couple sentences, he'd figured out more about how it was supposed to work than he had from months and months and months looking this shit up in book after book after book — with the thought of exploiting transubstantiation to reshape his own body while bridging his consciousness out of and then back into it through a spiritual construct, he could probably recreate the effects on his own. It'd be difficult, and somewhat dangerous, but it was still exciting, that he'd made so much progress on something he'd been dreaming of for years in only a few seconds.

"And after, well, 'tis both different and not. 'Tis not the experience of being the animal that is reached, but being in its shape alone. And that which was new to me may not be to you. The ears of a cat and the eyes of a hawk seemed so much finer to me, revealed shades of my world I'd never known, but it mightn't seem so different to you." Because humans had shitty eyesight and hearing, she meant, though Alim was pretty sure hawks could see even better than elves. Also, elves couldn't fly, he thought that was important to keep in mind. "You might be amazed at what the nose of a wolf can tell you, be you so surprised that dirt has a smell."

If Alim weren't busy trying to catch up to Alistair and Keran — they'd fallen a little behind at some point, he wasn't certain when that'd happened — he would have thrown Morrigan a pout. "Gonna keep teasing me about that, then."

"In turn for suffering yours, I must have my own prodding, you see."

"Oh, ha ha." It was possible she was just messing with him, she clearly enjoyed picking fights with Alistair for the fun of it, but it didn't sound the same. Was she... Was the barbarian wilder hedge witch flirting with him? He suspected the barbarian wilder hedge witch was flirting with him. He didn't know for certain, of course, it was very subtle, but... That was...slightly unsettling. He probably hadn't done himself any favors with that "prodding" comment ages ago now, especially not with the tone he'd said it in, but he couldn't help himself, being set up like that...

Anyway, he was just going to...ignore that. Yes.

"That's a very impressive bit of magic, now that I'm thinking about it. I mean, I'm making a guess about how it might work, but it's quite complicated, and the raw power that would go into such a thing..."

Morrigan chuckled again, sort of rueful — and also not struggling with her breath, still, how was she doing that, Alim was struggling to speak and keep moving over here... "'Tis not so complex as you imagine, I suspect. Using only the limited, sanitized arts practiced by your Circles, perhaps 'tis so, but there are arts unknown to the so-called civilized world. New magics innovated over the centuries, or traditions of magic passed down generation to the next through uncounted ages."

"Really?" The general assumption among Circle scholars was that hedge mages were largely untrained, what magic they did know improvised by each individual mage. Self-taught, and bereft for it. The Dalish had their own traditions, but it was thought they'd lost much of what had been — forget Arlathan, even from the time of their kingdom in the Dales, it'd been seven hundred years now, who knows how much might have been lost in only that time? Avvar shamans were known to exist, which suggested the assumptions about hedge mages weren't necessarily true for them either, but... "Is shapechanging one of these old traditions?"

"Yes. It's old elvish magic."

"Wait, old elvish like the ancient elves? You mean, pre-Tevinter Arlathan?"

"According to my mother? Yes."

...Andraste's tits, he hadn't thought anything had survived from back then! Well, most anything — supposedly Tevinter had picked up some things from the old elves, but not a whole lot. They had difficulty translating elven texts, so most of what they learned from them was from observation in battle, or analyzing various artifacts they looted from one site or another, or literally off elven corpses. Interacting with elves certainly refined archaic Tevinter magic somewhat, motivated them to systematize their own approach to spellcasting, but this was less due to learning from the elves and more reacting to them. It was thought the vast majority of the old magics of Arlathan had been lost in the Tevinter conquest.

But then, Circle scholars weren't likely to ask barbarian tribesmen elf or human, were they?

"That's amazing, I had no idea. Are there other ancient elvish arts still out there?"

"A fair few," Morrigan said — lightly and casually, as though she didn't even realize she was saying something absolutely incredible. "And 'tis no small feat that they yet survive. The zealots of the Chantry wish to uproot and obliterate all traditions that don't conform to the limited magics they deign to allow. I believe they would do away with magic itself, if they could. But where the Chant is weak, the old ways yet live. Weakened and scattered, yes, but they are not gone."

"Well—" Alim nearly tripped over a root, dammit, stupid nature... "Good, that's good. That they're not lost, I mean. I always thought it was...very sad, that it was all gone. 'Sad' is too small of a word, but you know what I mean."

Morrigan was silent for a few seconds. "Yes, 'tis a tragedy, I quite agree. But I confess I'm surprised you would think so, being a Circle mage as you are."

He couldn't help chuckling a little, and then immediately regretted it, he need to focus on just breathing for a moment. Were they going to take a break soon? Because a break would be nice. "Ah, yes, but I was about to be executed as a maleficar before Duncan conscripted me — clearly I was a terrible Circle mage."

"I see. And what crime did you commit that you deserve such a sentence?" Somehow, she managed to imply both that she couldn't imagine someone like him doing anything that bad, but also kind of half-hoping that he really had been getting into some kind of forbidden magics, because that would at least be interesting.

"Nothing." He could practically feel her disbelief, so he insisted, "No, really, I didn't do anything. If I did I'd admit it — the Templars have no right to judge Wardens, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm not a maleficar, but my closest friend is." Was? Alim honestly wasn't certain whether Jowan was still alive.

"Oh?"

Because of course she would ask after that. Bluh. "Yeah, he did blood magic, right in front of me — and the First Enchanter and the Knight-Commander, like the big dumb idiot he is. I honestly think it was the first time he ever used it." He'd been so panicky at the time, hysterical, he'd hardly seemed to know what he was doing. "Do you know what the Harrowing is?"

"I've heard tell of it, yes. Disgusting, barbaric practice."

Alim wasn't about to disagree, though it was a little funny to hear a wilder using that word. "Well, Jowan was fucking terrified of it. I tried to tell him he shouldn't be — it's scary, yes, but as long as you don't agree to anything the demon asks you, you'll be fine — but he didn't listen to me. Fear isn't a rational thing, necessarily, and I've always been better at magic than him, he probably dismissed it as me saying yet another thing he found difficult was easy, you know. A couple months after my Harrowing, Jowan was talking to Lily — one of the Sisters in the Tower, they'd been screwing for a while by then — and they came up with an idea to escape. But they needed my help, because I had access to areas of the Tower they didn't. Also, they needed me to swipe something off one of the enchanters and forge a couple signatures, long story."

Morrigan chuckled. "A story I would like to hear someday, I think. I wouldn't have imagined you had such talents."

Biting his lip, Alim managed to not blurt out something about other talents he'd developed over the years, which would have sounded far too suggestive. And then he needed to take a moment to breathe again, because dammit, that was not helping. "Right, um, sure, someday. Anyway, long story short, we broke into the Templar vaults, and destroyed our phylacteries, so they wouldn't be able to track us. Lily then led us out through a laundry chute—" And Morrigan started laughing at that, but that was fair, the whole thing had been very silly. "—which was unpleasant and Jowan even got stuck, had to use magic to get him out—" And she was laughing harder now, because of course she was, that had actually been pretty damn funny. "—but we got to the bottom floor, snuck out to the back door.

"Only to find several Templars were waiting for us there, including the Knight-Commander himself, along with Irving, the First Enchanter. Greagoir accused us all of being maleficars — or, conspiring with maleficars, in Lily's case — and Jowan panicked. He pulled a knife, slashed open his wrist, and then... I'm not sure what happened, exactly. I woke up in a cell. They told me that I was clearly a maleficar as well, or at the least a collaborator, so would be executed as soon as they got the paperwork squared away. A few days later, I was let out, I fully expected I was being led to my death. Instead, Duncan showed up with Irving, and invoked the Right of Conscription."

"And so you are free."

"Well, relatively speaking — joining the Wardens is a commitment for life, so I can't really leave. If I do, I'd be a maleficar and a deserter, I'd have Templars and Wardens after me. But this is definitely a huge step up, I'm not complaining." Even with the archdemon nightmares, and a Fifth Blight rising in his homeland they had to deal with, and Lýna being a fucking brutal taskmaster sometimes, no, he didn't wish he was back in the Tower, not even a little bit. "Honestly, this last month has probably been the best of my life, despite all the shit that's happened. I wouldn't tell the others that because, well, they'd take it the wrong way, but it is what it is. I'm satisfied with the idea of being a Grey Warden for the rest of my life, however short it might be, even if I had somewhere to go I don't think I would leave. So, I guess I am free, yes."

Morrigan let out a hum, but didn't say anything. Not that there was really anything to say.

"Wanna know a secret, though? I actually was trying to study forbidden magic, just not blood magic. All of us had our little fascinations with one thing or another we weren't supposed to be looking into. Well, all the initiates I talked to, anyway, but I mostly avoided the boring ones, so. My fascination? Shapechanging."

"Truly?" Morrigan asked, the note of surprise obvious.

"Yep. I read everything in the library I could find about it, which unfortunately wasn't much. I used to have dreams about turning into a bird and flying out through a window and getting the fuck out of there forever."

"I imagine living in the Circle to feel rather like a bird caged." There wasn't a trace of pity on her voice, but there was definitely something there. Alim couldn't tell what it was, but it didn't sound like a bad something, so he decided to just ignore it and move on.

"Of course, now that I'm out of the Circle I can study whatever the fuck I want, and there's nobody who can do a thing about it. Except Lýna, I guess, she is my superior officer and all, but she's also very Dalish and doesn't give a damn."

An edge of laughter on her voice, she drawled, "Do you intend to ask something of me, Alim?"

Lurching to a stop, bouncing on his toes, "Can you teach me to turn into a bird?!"

Uh-heh! "Ah. This is what you truly wished to ask me, is it not?"

"Yes!"

Morrigan smiled, her shoulders shaking with half-suppressed laughter. "I see. 'Tis not simple magic, and you may find it difficult to achieve. But if you truly wish to learn, yes, I will teach you."

"Yes! Thank you thank you thank you! Oh, this is going to be great! But, uh," he cut himself off, pointing in the direction the other Wardens had disappeared in, "we're falling behind, so, maybe not right this second."

"Perhaps not." It could be Alim's imagination, but it looked like she was biting the inside of her lip. Stopping herself from laughing at him, maybe.

"Right. Later, then." He set off jogging after the others again, rather reluctantly. Now that he knew the Chasind witch would be willing to teach him shapechanging, just, ah! Running along like this was terrible, he'd much rather be learning neat new magic right now, but he could wait, it was fine. It just made concentrating on keeping himself going and not falling too far behind even more difficult was all.

After a long moment, Alistair and Keran again coming into sight ahead, Morrigan said, "You are a very strange man, Alim Surana."

Yes, he was aware. Also, he was faintly surprised Morrigan knew his surname, he didn't think anyone had used it since she'd turned up — the only one of the Wardens he was certain even knew it was Alistair. Maybe he'd just missed it. "Hey, it could be worse. I could be stupid and boring instead."

"Oh, and what a tragedy that would be."

Well, she didn't have to sound so sarcastic about it...

---

The wind turned, the thin smoke rising from their lowly-crackling fire curving over her, setting the stars above to twinkling.

The night sounded different here. Quiet.

Like the great forest far to the east, in some ways, but in other ways not. The wetlands she'd lived in most of her life, for all that there had been Chasind villages dotted here and there, had still been mostly wild. And they were noisy, even at night — sometimes especially at night. There were all manner of animals that preferred to live in the dark. Owls in particular, wolves and bogfishers. Monkeys sometimes, especially in the summer.

And bugs, all kinds of bugs, enough that in the dead of night their calls were so thick as to cut over those few nocturnal birds, clicking and chirping, a low buzz that was subtle enough it was noticeable mostly in its absence. Higher in the hills, perhaps — not quite into the mountains, but yet mostly Avvar lands — or further to the south, where the land was firmer, drier. Or in the dead of winter, the lakes and the rivers frozen, a thin blanket of snow covering the ground. The night was silent, then, save for the occasional howl of a wolf or coo of a halla, a creaking of trees or the cracking of their fires, below that lulling quiet, as though all the world slept, save for those few who kept vigil, waiting for the thaw to come.

The forest — the Brecilian, the Alamarri called it, which sounded sort of like Èvhreshiļsã, Lýna assumed they were the same word — had been similar in some ways, but different in others. For all that the soil in the wetlands was thick with water, ponds and lakes and streams and rivers everywhere, it actually rained very little — the water didn't fall there, but flowed in from elsewhere, from the mountains to the west and north, the forest to the northeast. In that great forest, it rained, in some places seemingly without end. Rarely a heavy rain, though those did come with great fury on occasion, but a constant, slow drizzle, speckling the land and everything on it day after day after day. Even when it wasn't raining, it was still wet, a persistent fog that at its thickest obscured the trees only a dozen paces away, water beading on their things, the cool air damp against her skin.

The forest wasn't home to bugs the way the wetlands were, more like the rocky hills to the west, but it was noisier than they, in its own way. Those lands were home to all manner of creatures, from the smallest mouse or squirrel to the largest bear or elk, and they were always crashing about, their breath snuffling, bears roaring or wolves yipping. And there were even wilder things there. Èvhreshiļsã was a place of old and forgotten things, and as in many such places spirits had more a presence there than most — there were sylvans, many of them. She'd been told they would sometimes repel humans invading from the south, Gwaren, but they mostly left the People alone. These spirits had been friends to the Ancients who had once lived there, were perhaps echoes of the Ancients themselves, they recognized the People as kin, however distant. Sometimes, one would call out to them as they passed, speak in riddles and trade in minor favors, but for the most part they didn't react to their presence, perfectly still as though ordinary trees.

In the night, Lýna could hear them breathing.

And of course, there was at least one storm dragon. They hadn't gotten close, but they'd still heard it, the beating of giant wings and the cracking of thunder shaking the air. Their Keeper had wisely decided to turn further west to avoid it.

And while the forest had much fewer bugs, there was the rain. The ticking and pittering of drops striking wood and leaf and stone, like a million tiny drums all around. Very quiet, most of the time, a low hiss that was different from the buzz back home but close enough to feel familiar, sometimes louder pattering and splashing when the wind blew, tossing the thick green ceiling over their heads, the water they'd slowly collected falling all at once. No, it was never quiet there either, not really.

The night was quiet here. Not silent, no, but quiet, too quiet.

There were sounds of life in the trees, yes. Since night had fallen, Lýna had heard a couple owls, the barking of a distant dog. Occasionally, she caught a soft rustling in the brush — there were deer in these woods, she knew, she'd seen several over the course of the day. But there wasn't as much as there should be. The Alamarri had chased the wilderness out of their lands, slowly pushing at the world over centuries, and so it was quiet.

Even after she didn't know how many nights, she still found it... She wasn't certain. It felt... It felt like it should be winter. The land sleeping, waiting, only the occasional sound of a passing creature, the trees creaking in the wind, their fires cracking, low chatter now and again. But it was too warm, the plants not yet blooming but still long after the thaw...and yet the land slept.

Or, perhaps as though this were a place the darkspawn tred, their presence scaring away the wildlife, their taint poisoning the water, killing the bugs. But there were no darkspawn here, if there were Lýna would be able to feel them.

Instead, it was just quiet. It was unsettling.

She knew the others assumed she always brought them into the trees to rest for their shelter, but no, that wasn't it, really. It was far windier here than in the wetlands, the trees set to slowly dancing, creaking and hissing and rustling — that was why she slept under them. The noise the trees made wasn't so like the buzz of the bugs back home, or the hiss of the rain in the forest, but it was something, enough to cover the unnerving quiet here. Tonight, she'd brought them close to the shore of the lake — the largest she'd ever seen, like the sea, water stretching beyond the horizon — the soft lapping of waves against the shore another layer of noise to keep everything from feeling so uncomfortably quiet.

The Alamarri towns and cities were a foreign land too, but even their fields and their forests were alien to her. And something, she didn't know what, something instinctive, told her she didn't belong here. These were not her people, this was not her home. Part of Lýna, a weak, childish part, desperately wanted to go home.

But there was no home to go back to. Her clan had already moved on. They should be seeking passage across the sea, perhaps even now stood on lands Lýna had never before seen, only heard tell of in stories.

And that was not for her. As much as the old, Delẽ Lýna might want to be with them, she was a Grey Warden now. With these strange, foreign people in this strange, alien land — this was her place. What remained of that old Lýna just had to accept that, and adapt.

She had no doubt she would. That was what her People did, after all.

She just wished it wasn't so quiet.

At least the stars were the same. Or, mostly the same — she had the feeling they weren't quite in the same places she was used to, but it was pretty close, and they tended to move around a bit anyway. The Wolf had already risen, its pack following along behind it, chasing the Dragon across the sky. Stories echoing in her ears from long ago, she would have been a child, watching the Wolf and the Dragon, and she was reminded of that ruin, that odd statue of what was clearly supposed to be the Wolf and the All-Mother. That, picking through that ruin toward the mirror, was the last time she'd seen Mẽrhiļ, the last time she'd seen any of her clan.

It felt like years ago, but it couldn't be so long. A month, maybe? Felt like longer than that.

Staring blankly up at the stars wavering and twinkling through the thin smoke, remembering and not-remembering, she didn't notice the figure approaching until they were very close, only a few steps away. Her fingers twitched, nearly going for her father's dagger by instinct, but she stopped herself — it would be someone in their group, one of the Wardens or Morrigan or the Alamarri shaman. It was fine.

After a brief pause, the person moved, laying on the ground a short distance away, it sounded like. They let out a sigh, enough for Lýna to recognize her voice. She glanced up and to the left quick, the grass tickling her ear, spotting Leliana's head nearby, several inches away, her light orange hair seeming to glow in the firelight. Another glance around, and Lýna saw they were alone, for the most part. Perry was at the edge of the pool of light cast by the fire, meticulously sharpening his weapons, the little knives laid out in a glinting row next to him, but the others must be off in the trees, settling in to rest.

Lýna wasn't surprised — she'd expected the shaman to find a moment to speak with her alone before too long. All the Wardens had been present when Leliana had explained that her (their?) god had sent her a vision of the Blight, had commanded her to assist the Wardens in their efforts to oppose it. The others had reacted very strangely to this, giving the shaman odd, unpleasant looks, which was just baffling. But Lýna suspected they'd been too distracted with whatever that was that they hadn't noticed that, in speaking of the message from her god, Leliana had been... Well, she spoke of the Blight, but she'd been looking at Lýna in particular as she said it.

This was just a suspicion at this point, but Lýna had a feeling the Alamarri shaman had been instructed to assist Lýna specifically, not the Wardens in general. If that were the case, Lýna would be a fool to turn her away. The others had clearly expected her to, were still a bit unnerved by Leliana's presence...

...which was also just confusing. Wasn't Leliana a priest of their god? Shouldn't they be pleased? If a shaman were sent to aid her by the All-Mother or the Wolf — and it would have to be one of them, the other Creators were all locked away — she thought she would, well, she wasn't certain how she would react, but not badly. In fact, the All-Mother had assisted them — first by preserving the papers Duncan had wanted, and again by tasking Morrigan to help them. (And Lýna still wasn't certain how she felt about that, it was an overwhelming thought.) Maybe she'd feel a bit more ambivalent if it were the Wolf offering help, but she'd certainly take it. Even if it weren't one of her gods, say if it were an Avvar shaman sent by their Lady of the Skies, she would never turn away any help such a powerful god had to offer. And the Maker these Alamarri worshipped must be a powerful god. She meant, supposedly these Templars were given their magic-nullifying gifts by the Maker himself, and she'd been told there were thousands of Templars — the power it would take to sustain those gifts in so many people all at once was, just, incredibly...

If Lýna were being honest, she didn't think she liked the Alamarri god much — most of the things she'd heard about him and his followers were...not exactly pleasant. But she wasn't going to turn away whatever help he might offer. That would just be stupid, and childish.

So, she'd known Leliana would find time to speak with her before too long. She couldn't guess what about, but that she would hadn't been a question.

Speaking hardly above a whisper, with that peculiar accent on her Alamarri, Leliana said, "They are beautiful, aren't they? The stars."

And that was not what Lýna had expected to be the first thing the shaman would say to her, but all right. "Yes."

"There is a story in Orlais about those, just there." Leliana was pointing up at the sky, Lýna tried to follow along, but it was sort of difficult, from this angle. The Twins, maybe. "About Alindra and her soldier. Do you know it?"

"I know little of Orlais." Besides the human empire's history with the People, she knew practically nothing.

"Alindra was born long ago, the only daughter of a wealthy lord. She was beautiful and gentle, and had many suitors — but spurned them all, for she did not love them."

"I don't know this word, suitors."

"Ah, I suppose you might not, I am sorry." Leliana paused for a moment, humming to herself. "It is common in Orlais, and many other places, for marriage to be a matter decided upon by the couple's families. A father might receive several offers for the hand of his daughter, so a potential husband will try to endear themselves to the woman as well. So that she might tell her father she prefers him, you see? A man approaching a woman in this way is called a suitor. Does that make sense? I don't know how Dalish do these things."

Assuming Lýna correctly understood what she was talking about, it did make sense, though it was sort of odd they had a special word for it. "The clan choose. Can say no, but, is rare." Due to the circumstances the clan had been in at the time — and because a lot of the other kids her age and most of the elders had never really liked her, superstition surrounding her parents' clan she still didn't entirely understand — Lýna hadn't felt she was in a place she could refuse the decision she would be bonded with Muthallã. She might have, had things been different. Tallẽ, she'd been a true hunter by then, the clan and Lýna's role within it more secure, so she could have refused, she just hadn't wanted to. "But, we don't have word for this. We say be nice."

Leliana giggled, high and bouncing. "Yes, the nobles do like to have their fancy words, don't they? But, Alindra, refusing all her suitors. She would often sit at a window, look out into the sky and sing. For hours, she would sing. One of her father's soldiers would hear her, and linger under her window, entranced by her voice. In time they met, and he fell in love with her, and she with him. When Alindra told her father about the man she had chosen, he was furious — for Alindra was high-born, her love nothing more than a common soldier."

Lýna frowned to herself, confused, but didn't interrupt. She had long ago come to think of their hunters, Chasind hunters, and Avvar warriors as being more or less the same thing — there were differences, of course, but the skills they had and their worth among their people were similar enough. Her first assumption had been that Alamarri soldiers must be the same thing again...but she knew now that wasn't true, not at all. Soldiers were expected to fight — and only to fight, their skillsets only partially overlapped with hunters or warriors — at the command of their lords — which was another concept Lýna didn't entirely understand, sort of like the elders of huge clans, but not really. Except, they were often forced into these fights, sometimes with very little in the way of good equipment or training, and were almost always paid — yet another concept she still didn't really get. And, paying soldiers to kill people was apparently fine, but putting "bounties" on people, paying non-soldiers to kill people...wasn't? was, in fact, morally reprehensible?

She didn't understand the distinction, to be honest. But there were a lot of fine distinctions Alamarri made about things that seemed very superficial and sometimes just stupid to her, not getting it wasn't unusual.

Anyway, her confusion came in because, among her People, a hunter would be a perfectly acceptable partner for the daughter of a keeper — in fact, many keepers were themselves bonded with hunters. Hunters, among the People and the Chasind, and Avvar warriors, they were important to a clan. It took years of training, strength and endurance and intelligence many people simply weren't willing to build, and their skills were absolutely essential to the survival of their people. There were reasons Lýna had decided to do her best to become one as soon as possible — she'd never been entirely welcome in the clan, never quite considered one of them, but as a hunter there was no question who she was.

Leliana said, Alindra's father was a lord, and the man nothing more than a common soldier, as though it should be obvious that made him an unacceptable partner for her, but... Well, Lýna knew, in her head, that the Alamarri didn't think of these things the same way the People did. But in her heart, what the shaman was saying simply made no sense at all.

"To keep them apart, he had Alindra imprisoned in the highest tower of his castle and sent her soldier to war." That... No, Lýna wasn't asking, Alamarri were weird, move on. "Alas, not a month had passed before news of the soldier's death reached Alindra. Alone in her tower, she wept for her love and beseeched the gods to deliver her from this cruel world."

This time, Lýna got as far as opening her mouth to ask before changing her mind and closing it again. She didn't really understand what was going on — she understood the words, mostly, there must be something assumed but not stated that she was missing — but tracking down the heart of her confusion would take a while, it wasn't worth asking.

"So earnest was her plea that the gods themselves were moved. They gathered Alindra into their arms and lifted her high into the heavens, where she became a star. The gods also raised up the soul of Alindra's soldier love and there he dwells," Leliana said, pointing toward the east, "across the horizon from her. The band of stars between them is a river of Alindra's tears, cried for her lost love. They say that when Alindra has cried enough, she will be able to cross the river to be reunited with her soldier."

Lýna vaguely recognized this story, actually. There was a narrow band of light stretching across the sky, dim but easily seen on clear nights. The Avvar had a...somewhat similar story, though in their version the couple were both warriors and had been bonded before their deaths — they had done something dishonorable, Lýna forgot exactly what, so the Lady of the Skies had separated them as punishment. They would remain separated until the woman's hair, unfurling behind her as she flew over the earth, grew long enough the man could reach it. The stories were different, but also similar enough Lýna assumed they were basically the same, one Avvar and one Alamarri.

Or Orlesian, she guessed, hadn't Leliana said it was an Orlesian story? Didn't matter, if Lýna was being honest she wasn't certain what the difference was anyway.

Lýna remembered quite liking the Avvar version when she'd heard it, translated into Deluvẽ by their storyteller what felt like forever ago now. She assumed she didn't understand Alamarri people well enough to really get this one. But she was sure it was fine, and also didn't want to be rude...but also didn't know what one was supposed to say now. So, out of a lack of other options, she muttered, "Midhèra ny-sa."

"Sherana-ma."

Lýna blinked, it took her a second to figure out what the human woman was attempting to say. "Śelna ny-la. But, this is odd. We most say ma ghý śerynĩ dy-la, short is śerynĩ."

"I am sorry, I don't understand. I was trying to say thank you?"

"Yes. Śelna ny-la is..." She trailed off, frowning to herself — she very much doubted her Alamarri was good enough to explain Deluvẽ well. "Not lift. Go up?"

"Rise?"

"Yes! This is it. This thing you do, I rise for it, I am higher now. See? But, we don't say this. We say...I am lifted by you? Ma ghý śerynĩ dy-la, I think, yes, I am lifted by you is best. See?"

"I think so. That's pretty," Leliana breathed, slightly surprised, "I didn't know that's what it meant. I only knew it was how you say thank you, but that's nice, I think."

Lýna guessed so, though she wasn't certain how meaningful it was. Deluvẽ and Alamarri said things in different ways, but that was just the way they were, she didn't think comparing them like that was really fair. "Where you learn Deluvẽ? Is odd, how you speak." It came out sort of blunt, unfortunately, her Alamarri wasn't good enough to say it more delicately. It was odd, though. She could kind of see where it might have come from — she'd heard it said shelna-ma dh'al before, by Avvar, it was why she'd recognized it — but it was sort of an unnatural-feeling thing to say.

"I learned a bit of..." The shaman sighed. "In Orlais, when we say 'Dalish' — Délois — we mean a language that is spoken in the Dales. Many people live in the Dales now, and most of them are elves. There are two separate Dalish languages, one of which is a kind of Cirienne, and the other is elvish. I learned a little bit of elvish when I lived there, but not very much. That Dalish is different from your Dalish, I think."

"You lived on Delzã?"

"Oh, yes. I grew up in Lydes, which is a city not far from Halamshiral. Close to the same distance we are from Lothering right now."

It took a second for Lýna to recognize the mispronunciation of the name, but she couldn't think of anything to say once she did. Instead, they both fell into silence for a moment, staring up at the stars overhead.

Lýna had never been to Delzã. She'd never met anyone who had.

"These are the Twins."

"I'm sorry?"

"These stars. We don't say...people are made stars, no. We use stars to remember, stories. These are the Twins."

"Oh? If you're willing to share, I would love to hear it." Leliana certainly sounded sincere, soft and curious. Lýna hadn't expected that, none of the Alamarri she'd met had asked her really anything about the People at all — even after Lýna had asked after one or another Alamarri thing which, honestly, was very rude.

There were a few different peoples who lived in the south, and when they met it was normal to share their languages, their stories, their ideas about things. That was just...being neighborly. Lýna had held off offering anything about the People at first because she didn't speak the language very well — and simply hadn't been in the mood to speak to anyone much at all, really — but it had quickly become very clear that the Alamarri didn't think much of them. Thought her People were savage brutes, not worth learning about. Nobody had ever asked, so she didn't volunteer anything.

Honestly, Lýna had grown accustomed to Alamarri being irritatingly prideful, and very, very rude. She hardly even noticed most of the time anymore.

So when someone actually did ask, Lýna didn't hesitate. "I don't know what you know. There is, First of the Sun and...Protector? I think this is the word. The Father and the Mother to the People. Their first children, brothers, are together one. The Owl cannot fly without Shadow, and the Shadow lives by the Owl.

"The Owl, since he be very young, he is brave, and... I don't know the word. Wanting to know things, to look?"

"Curious, I think."

"Yes, this." That was right, Lýna did know that one, it just hadn't come to her in the moment. "Yes, he is very curious. He go where in fear none go, to see, to know. One day, he walks alone, and finds deer. She is sick, near death. The Owl, in kindness, he sits with her in the last breaths, and he lifts her spirit and he flies." Lýna lifted a hand, smoothly brushed at the air, her fingers fluttering — the same gesture one of their storytellers used speaking of the Friend to the Dead crossing into the Beyond, she realized, she hadn't done that on purpose. "He goes with her to the places of the dead, in friendship. And he stays, he speaks with the dead, he teaches and learns of them.

"In time, the Shadow is alone, he wish to find his brother. But the Owl flew far, more than Shadow can follow. He goes Beyond, and soon is lost. There, he finds cruel spirits, they wish to lead him away. One is Fear, the other...lies, that he deceives? Deceive...ship?"

With a little warm amusement, Leliana corrected, "Deceit."

How did deceive become deceit, exactly? Oh well, it wasn't important. "Yes, Fear and Deceit. But the Shadow, he is clever. He wins games they play, and so he wins them. They lead him to the Owl. And they return, together one anew. From then, the Owl is Friend of Dead. He goes with them, in kindness, so they no more are alone. The Shadow, here his new friends are ravens. They fly, they watch and they listen, they come to the Shadow and tell what they know. From then, the Shadow is Keeper of Secrets, He-Who-Knows and Teacher-of-Teachers."

The shaman was silent, a brief moment. Then, her voice sounding oddly thin, brittle, she said, "Ravens are... Your people believe ravens are, what, the spies and messengers for a god of knowledge? In most cultures, ravens are a symbol of death."

"I know." Well, she knew they were with the Chasind and the Alamarri, it was more complicated with the Avvar. The Avvar funeral ritual involved the body being picked apart by birds, which usually included a lot of ravens, so there was some connection to death there...but not really. To Avvar, birds belonged to the Lady of the Skies — they were her eyes and ears in the physical world, her messengers. Their ideas about ravens were closer to the People's than the Chasind's. (Actually, the Avvar were more like the People than the Chasind in a lot of ways, Lýna had always thought that was weird.) "For us, owls are with death. Ravens are with the Keeper of Secrets."

"Oh." Leliana laughed a little, softly under her breath, but light and cheerful. "That's wonderful, I love it. I never knew how..." She trailed off. After a brief moment of awkward silence, the fire cracking and the trees hissing, the shaman continued, her voice low, cautious. Almost afraid...but that wasn't quite the right word. Something near to it, anyway. "The Maker... When He speaks to me, He calls me little raven. I never... I didn't know how to feel about that, you know? In most human cultures, ravens do not have a...good image. They are...carrion-feeders, they follow war and spread plague. But maybe He means it in the elvish way — and elves are his children too, that would not be so strange. That's... That's a lot better, I like that."

"May be." For a second, Lýna hesitated. She wasn't at all certain Leliana would take what she kind of wanted to say well — she'd noticed many Alamarri didn't like elves much. Even their elves, Perry in particular had been the target of a lot of snide comments and pushing around back at Ostagar. But Leliana had bothered to learn elvish, at least a little, and actually cared enough to ask about the People. It would probably be fine. "The Beyond, it's hard to know us, with them. They see spirit, not body. If you be human, or be elf, your Maker may not see."

The shaman let out a laugh, high and bright. "Oh! I can't..." She broke into giggles for a moment, and then another moment, enough she sounded rather out of breath for a bit there. "I am sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I just imagined the look on the faces of some people I've known, if you told them humans and elves are indistinguishable in the eyes of the Maker— Oh! Oh, that's funny." With a last short giggle, Leliana let out a breathless sigh. "Thank you. That was a wonderful story, I will remember it. What did you say before? Midhe..."

"Midhèra ny-sa."

"Yes, thank you. Midhèra ny-sa," she repeated, carefully.

"Śerynĩ dy-la." Lýna hardly thought her awkward, stilted delivery was worthy of praise — her Alamarri really wasn't good enough yet to do this sort of thing. Honestly, she was pleased enough that Leliana had asked at all, she didn't need to thank her for it.

"And, thank you for..." Her voice falling lower, again with that wariness from before, she said, "For believing me."

Lýna blinked. "What?"

"Nobody has ever, just, without even..." Leliana paused a moment, her mouth working wordlessly, Lýna heard her swallow. "I've told people the Maker speaks to me, before. There were a few people who played along, humored me, but only one person has ever believed me. And now you. Everybody else... They think I'm lying, or else mad."

"...I don't understand. These Mothers, these Sisters, they too speak with Your Maker, yes?"

Sounding almost shocked, "What? No. No, no, no, no. That is, we don't— Even the Divine herself, the head of the Chantry, she doesn't claim the Maker speaks directly to her. It's not... That's not something the Chantry does. It's, ah, heresy. Actually."

Okay, and now Lýna was very confused — what were all these Chantry people, if not priests? "I don't know this word."

"Heresy? Ah... The Convocation of the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux, led by the Divine, make judgements about what beliefs and practices are acceptable. Heresy is something the Convocation has said is wrong. The accepted teaching is that humankind has sinned, and the Maker will not return until all the world sings the Chant. He watches us, but He does not intervene, and He does not speak to us, directly. To claim the Maker speaks to me is heresy, it conflicts with some of the most important beliefs of the Chantry. I know this, but..." Low, almost bitter, "I know what I feel. They may not believe me, may think my beliefs are heretical, but it doesn't matter. I know."

And as Leliana explained further, Lýna was only getting more confused. That happened sometimes, learning Alamarri things, it was very frustrating. "You say... People who follow your Maker, the Mothers, the Sisters teach them. But the Mothers, they don't speak to your Maker. Others teach them. People."

"Yes."

"So...they say, we speak for god, but their god does not speak to them?"

"Ah..."

"And people listen to them? Why?" That was just...incomprehensible. Lýna had assumed these Chantry people had the authority to speak for their god because...well, because he'd told them what to say, that their authority was his. But, if they didn't claim to be in communication with their god... How did that even work? She didn't understand.

"Lyna..." Leliana said her name (mispronounced) with an odd note of shock, disbelief, Lýna wasn't certain what was going on over there. Probably just as surprised and confused as she was. There were a few quiet, barely noticeable sounds from that direction, the shaman's breath hitching a little — Lýna glanced that way to see Leliana had turned over, lying on her stomach and propped up on her elbows. Staring down to Lýna, eyes wide and face unreadable. "When I said the Maker speaks to me, did you believe me so easily because...because you think it is ordinary? expected?"

Okay, Lýna didn't know how to read her face, or the tone on her voice, she didn't think she liked it. She looked away, staring blankly up at the stars — and tried her best to not feel like an idiot. "Yes. I see Chantry, and I think... The Chasind, the Avvar, they speak to their gods."

"Their gods are spirits."

"Does your Maker have body? No? So he is spirit."

Lýna wasn't looking, but she could hear Leliana's mouth open, then close again. Finally, "I... I never thought of it that way." She was quiet for a moment again, thinking. "The Dalish believe their gods are locked away, yes? Nobody should speak for them either."

"We don't speak for them! No one say, oh, the All-Mother, she tells me, you do this, or, the Firekeeper wants this. No one say this. We tell stories. And we know, many are not true. Stories are just stories! Your Mothers, they say they speak for god, but they lie. This is your 'heresy'!" Realizing she'd basically just called this whole Chantry thing, a group Leliana belonged to, a bunch of manipulative frauds, Lýna winced, took a breath. "I am sorry. This, they say they are chosen but they are not, this is...bad."

Leliana didn't speak for a moment, humming to herself. "It's alright, Lyna, I'm not angry. I understand why you might feel this way. I am...just trying to understand." Well, Lýna doubted she could help with that, she wasn't certain she correctly understood what it was Leliana didn't understand. "The Chantry... The Mothers don't claim to speak for the Maker. Well, they do, I suppose, but the things they say don't come from nowhere. The Chant of Light is the basis of most of the things the Chantry says about anything. Much of the Chant was composed by Andraste herself, or her closest disciples, and she was chosen by the Maker."

The People spoke of Andraste too — that wasn't what they called her, but Lýna had figured out who the Alamarri were talking about pretty quickly — though a lot of this Maker stuff was a little bit off. She meant, the People accepted she was a shaman, but some of the things the Alamarri said about her relationship with their Maker were...odd. "They say, your Maker doesn't speak to any. But he spoke to her."

"Yes, but Andraste was an exception."

"What is this?"

"She was special. The only one. The Chantry teaches that the Maker cast us away from Him after the First Sin, and ever since then Andraste is the only one He ever showed Himself to."

Lýna had no idea what the First Sin was, but it also didn't really matter. "They know this for true? How?"

She heard Leliana open and close her mouth again. "The Chant says... But then, Exaltations was written by Kordillus the First, describing a vision from the Maker, so she wasn't the only one, was she? I always just thought... You think there are others out there, even now?"

"Yes. Why not?" Lýna had never met nor heard of an Avvar clan who didn't have a shaman tied to their Lady of the Skies, and several of them might be speaking to their Lady at once, and this was fine. Because gods could be in more than one place speaking to more than one person at one time — that was one of the things that separated gods from ordinary spirits. The thought of this Maker of theirs only speaking to one person in all the world was just absurd.

"I... Well, I don't know. I've never thought about it. I've never heard of another before. Not since Kordillus."

"Your Chantry says this be heresy. So, people like you, they don't say it. Yes?"

Leliana chirped out a laugh, sharp and sudden, muffling quickly — glancing up toward her, Lýna saw only her hair, her forehead pressed against the dirt. And she stayed that way for a while, even after her laughter had died down, her hands folded over the back of her head, fingers dug into her hair.

"You are well? I speak badly?"

"No, I'm okay." The shaman took a quick breath, then propped herself up again, one of her hands coming around to wipe at her face. It...hadn't sounded like she'd been crying there, and she really hadn't had time to. Maybe she'd just gotten dirt or grass on her face. "I'm okay. This is...not what I expected, talking about this. Not bad! I just... I don't know. It's...comforting, the thought that I might not be the only one. And—" Leliana chuckled a little. "The way you are about this, I don't...

"Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't lose my mind when– a couple years ago. The way you speak of these things... It makes me feel less crazy. I think I really needed this conversation." Her lips pulling into a warm smile, eyes dancing in the firelight, "Śerynĩ dy-la."

Lýna had absolutely no idea how to respond to any of that. So she just nodded.

"Well. I have enjoyed talking to you, but I should get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."

That was certainly one way to put it. "Yes. Good night."

Pushing herself up to her feet with a little groan, she smiled down at Lýna, her orange hair almost seeming to glow in the firelight. "May you walk in the light of the Maker, Lyna Maharjel." And then she was gone, vanishing into the forest to Lýna's left.

...Okay, so that had been confusing. Lýna still wasn't entirely sure what a lot of that stuff toward the end had been about. It could be difficult and overwhelming to be a shaman, she guessed — especially in a culture where shamans didn't seem to be a thing? So, there was that. It sounded like Lýna had helped...somehow, she didn't quite get it, but she got that much. And Leliana had been nicer than most Alamarri she'd ever met, and seemed to like Lýna well enough, so, even if Lýna didn't get what had just happened it was probably fine.

So she definitely had the shaman following her lead, and Alistair. Morrigan would, if only because her mother had told her to help them, and she thought the other Wardens were all soft, delusional idiots. (Which they sort of were, compared to Morrigan and Lýna, so that was fair.) Perry was coming around, so that meant she only had to work on Alim and Keran now. Keran was the big problem, Alim was far more willing to listen to her — he just thought she was ignorant about how the Alamarri world worked, so could hardly be trusted to know what she was talking about. (Which she definitely was, compared to Alim, so that was also fair.) After they met this Arl of Alistair's, and Lýna proved she wasn't just a vicious savage and could actually handle these things, that would probably go some good way to convincing Keran. Maybe she would be willing to listen to Lýna without first exhausting herself bickering with Alistair long into the night, or without a few dead bodies on hand to drive in the point a little. And then she'd have all of them behind her, their loyalty won without them even realizing she was doing it.

After all, telling someone you were going to try to win their loyalty too often just made them defensive. It would work best if they didn't realize Lýna was at least partially doing it on purpose.

She wondered if Duncan hadn't known this, when he'd simply told all of them he was putting her in charge of their little group. Or whether, perhaps, Duncan had known that Lýna knew this, and of the five of them would be best able to hold them together if everything fell apart. Honestly, she didn't think so — it seemed to be an Alamarri thing that people were often expected to give their loyalty to people for no good reason, sometimes people they'd never even met.

But what Duncan had intended didn't really matter. Lýna was going to manage things the way she felt appropriate anyway.

By any means necessary.

---

[that is, the land the village sat on, and the farms around it, were said to be held by the people of the village in common] — This was actually very common in pre-modern societies of all kinds. In fact, this is what "commune" originally meant, referring to farming villages and certain towns in medieval France. I always think it's ridiculous when people bring up things like the tragedy of the commons, talking about how communal management of resources obviously doesn't work...despite communal management of resources having been the norm for literally thousands upon thousands of years. But, hey, we can't let reality get into our economic theory! It's ideologically inconvenient!

[transubstantiation] — This is obviously not meant in the Catholic sense, but the literal one, one, a magical process of one substance being made into another.

I was worried at first about including monkeys in the south, since irl they're mostly tropical, but it turns out the Japanese macaque has a range that gets pretty far north — they're even sometimes called snow monkeys, for the obvious reason. So, bam, there are now monkeys in the Brecilian Forest, the Korcari Wilds, valleys in the Frostbacks, and the Dales, in addition to tropical variants through Rivain, Tevinter, Seheron, and the Donarks. You're welcome.

Oh, also, the Brecilian is an enormous temperate rainforest now. You're double-welcome.

[Exaltations was written by Kordillus the First] — Kordillus I Drakon, the first Emperor of Orlais, essentially created the Chantry single-handedly. He's also considered responsible for the existence of the Circle of Magi and the Templars/Seekers (though they were rather different back then). He really is credited with writing part of the Chant of Light, the Canticle of Exaltations, describing a vision he had of the Maker's return...despite Chantry doctrine claiming the Maker doesn't do things like give people visions anymore, and won't until after his return...the primary source for the idea of his return itself being the Canticle of Exaltations in the first place? But that would mean— AAAAAHHHH

Surprise, the Chantry can sometimes be just as convoluted and contradictory as the Catholic church it was modeled on. Who would have thought?

(Personally, I think Kordillus I was just another conqueror coming up with justifications for his rule, but that's not the point.)

---

For the record, I am adjusting Morrigan's moral compass somewhat, because what was given in DA:O was completely over the top, and not really...functional, in most any circumstance. Basically, just changed to be more in line with some of her comments critiquing "civilization", about their society being cold and unforgiving, which really doesn't match her later extreme out-for-number-one-ness. Which doesn't mean she's nice, obviously, just... Well, you'll see when Redcliffe happens.

Also, Leliana's character is being adjusted somewhat — partially for worldbuilding reasons, and partially to bring DA:O Leliana more in line with DA:I Leliana. It'll be obvious something is happening during her DA:O arc, though it won't actually be explained until...well, not before the Inquisition starts, certainly. Also, I've adjusted her beliefs somewhat to be a sort of Andrastian version of certain irl Christian heresies from the middle ages. Because I'm a nerd like that.

If anyone's wondering about Leliana accepting what Lýna says here so easily, well, there are good reasons for that. Leliana believes the Maker Himself pointed her at Lýna — clearly, if this is what they talk about the first time the Maker comes up, He must have wanted Leliana to hear it. Also, it's just extremely validating, emotionally, so even if she didn't have a "good" reason to suspect Lýna has a point, she'd still want to believe her anyway. And, Leliana's other heretical beliefs still mesh with the slightly altered image of the Maker Lýna is hinting at, so it's not difficult to accept. It'd be harder to resist it, really.

Anyway. Yeah. There was supposed to be another scene here, but this chapter ended up being way longer than I intended it to be. So the last scene will be its own chapter. I prefer it split off, actually, so. It's probably over half done already, and after that we're getting to Redcliffe. Because I am a wordy bitch.

—Lysandra