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.)

25. Highway — II

9:30 Molloris 4

Grenford, West Hills, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

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They left for Orzammar the morning of the second day of Molloris.

After a couple years living in Ferelden, there were still a few things Leliana found peculiar, and one of them was Summerday, as the locals called it. Back in Orlais (and Nevarra and she assumed much of the Marches), the first day of Molloris was la Fête de la Révélation — the day the Chantry marked the anniversary of the Maker's first appearance to Andraste. It was probably the second largest celebration in the west, only exceeded by les Satinales. The Black Chantry observes the same event on the same day, but in the north it's a more solemn occasion (at least for the pious), fueled more by...humility, Leliana guessed she would call it, moved that the Maker would take pity on they undeserving sinners, grateful to Andraste for her intercession.

Needless to say, the White Chantry was less...restrained, on this particular day. There would be a midday service, though somewhat more involved than they would normally bother with, decorations of cloth or paper in white and yellow and red hanging all over the place, the service itself often entirely sung in more elaborate melodies than the standard chant, backed up with instrumentation and choirs. Leliana had sung in the children's choir at the cathedral in Lydes when she'd been young, and she remembered la Fête de la Révélation as her favourite — the service was held outside if possible, the spring rains passed to let in the early summer sun, warm and bright, excitement and happiness filling the courtyard, contagious, the children in the choir given meat buns and honeycrisp, chatting and eating on the cathedral steps. (If she closed her eyes, she could still smell the spices and feel the honey sticky on her fingers.) It wasn't an ordinary service, much of it broken up and replaced with la Accession, dozens of girls (fourteen) and boys (sixteen) dressed all in white, shining in the sun, filing through to kneel in the courtyard before the Grand Cleric. She would give an address, a mix of encouragement and lecturing, sing a benediction over them, and when they stood they were adults.

Leliana had done something similar when she'd turned fourteen, and on the same day, but the nobility held a separate, more private ceremony among themselves. Usually immediately followed with announcements of betrothals — it wasn't appropriate for someone to be married (or even betrothed) before la Accession, but they were often arranged in anticipation of the date.

The service broke up into a sort of festival in the courtyard, food and drink and laughter passing around, but they normally didn't linger for long. But it wasn't over then, they would gather together again in the evening, just before sunset. A great bonfire would be built up, more food and rather stronger drink set out. This part of the celebration often went well into the night, and was less child-friendly than the midday observance, to put it delicately.

To put it less delicately... Well, births were somewhat more common in Pluitanis and Matrinalis than other months — count back the weeks, and most of those children had been conceived on la Fête de la Révélation or les Satinales. Making love in public around the bonfire was horribly improper, of course, they'd often be interrupted if they were caught by the authorities, but it did still happen.

Fereldan Summerday was not nearly as important a celebration. In Lothering, there would be a more subdued version of la Accession, inside the Chantry — the service was different, the Mother leading the new adults in vows, affirming their faith in the Maker and their loyalties to their family and the community. (Such would never happen in Lydes, there were simply too many people for it to be practical.) There was a similar tradition of gathering around a fire in the evening, but it was a more private one, families — usually a few closely-related households, but sometimes even single households alone — on their own land holding their own celebrations. Stepping out into the night, looking over the countryside in all directions, Leliana would spot little glows of burning fires dotted here and there, like stars fallen to the ground.

The Lothering Chantry hadn't done their own, the Sisters remaining home through the night. Leliana had been trying to convince the Mother to hold one in the village for anyone who wanted to join, but she'd been worried it would seem too Orlesian — Mother Vichiénne was from Orlais, of course, but she was very conscious of her parish's attitudes toward their home country, and hadn't wanted to step on any toes.

(Leliana had no idea whether Mother Vichiénne was even still alive.)

This year's observance at Redcliffe was even more limited. There had been a brief rendition of la Accession in the town Chantry, though little effort had been put into the decoration, and there hadn't been much music at all. There hadn't been many people there either, far fewer than Leliana would expect for the population of the area — people were at work putting things back together after the attack of the undead, preparing for their inevitable flight from the darkspawn, they didn't have time to spend on occasions like Summerday. Which Leliana thought was sad for the people who would be coming into adulthood this year, but...

There had been a feast at the castle, with the Guerrins, Fergus and his men, a couple select persons from the town and their families, and all the Wardens and recruits and allies. The food was somewhat less rich than one might expect to be served by an arl of Eamon's wealth, but Redcliffe hadn't yet gotten all the way back on their feet, so that was perfectly understandable. The wine was unexpectedly good, though. Ferelden wasn't exactly known for her wines, which could explain why the dinner wine (a fine, smooth rosé) had been imported from Arlesans. Lýna had been a little disappointed it wasn't spiced, giving her glass a pout. The adorableness had caught Leliana by surprise, let out a sort of...coo before she could stop herself — when Lýna gave her a confused look, Leliana had tried to cover her embarrassment with a smile, reassured her the dessert wine would be spiced.

For the rest of the feast, Lýna kept shooting her the occasional uncertain glance. She must finally be catching on, but she didn't ask, so Leliana didn't say anything about it. Besides, she was probably more concerned with keeping a safe distance between herself and the Arlessa...

It was, perhaps, the saddest Summerday she'd ever had. And with the Blight rising, Leliana had no idea how long it would be until life went back to normal.

That night, Leliana lit a candle, and prayed for a swift end to the Blight. The Maker heard her, she knew He did, His presence warm and certain and reassuring.

(They would succeed. There was no reason for her to believe this, the Maker hadn't even spoken to her, but somehow she knew. They would slay the Archdemon, and soon.)

Another peculiar thing about life in Ferelden was the seasons. In some ways, it was very similar to the far west — beyond the Marshes, Serault and les Escaliers — and las Déüvinas, to the west and south of the Dales proper (and also les Champs, though less so). The summers, beginning with Molloris, were normally sunny and hot and dry, though occasionally broken with intense thunderstorms — on les Champs they even got tornados sometimes; the heat only intensified through Matrinalis, finally breaking in Parvulis, the autumn windy but with little rain, the first frost falling in Frumentum; the beginning of winter was considered to be les Satinales at the beginning of Umbralis, but the first snow was usually in Cassus, the latter half of that month and much of Verimensis often brutally cold; the spring rains began to come in Pluitanis, but at that point it was usually still too cold, blanketing the land in heavy snows that lasted through Nubulis, until spring bloomed intense and vibrant in Eluveista, to give way to summer only a month later.

Or so she understood — the distinctions between the seasons were less extreme in the Dales. The summers were milder and wetter, the rains more frequent and the heat subdued. There was normally a dry spell in Solis and Matrinalis before the autumn rains began, these storms more violent, winds shaking shutters and uprooting trees, hailstones pitting and chipping anything left out in the open. (One particularly bad hailstorm had once shattered half of the glass in the family's greenhouses — normally they had a tarp stretched over them, but this storm had blown up too quickly, they hadn't had the time.) The Dales truly didn't have winter, Leliana hadn't ever seen snow until she visited a distant cousin in las Déüvinas, when she'd been ten. The 'winter' months in the Dales were mild, and somewhat dreary, cloudy and foggy, little drizzling rains settling in overhead for days at a time — in fact, it was mild and wet enough that some regions in the Dales had a second harvest in late Pluitanis and early Nubulis, mostly barley and berries and certain vegetables.

So, the seasons in Ferelden weren't much like the Dales at all, but Leliana had spoken with people from and read about places in Orlais which were similar, so she still thought to make the comparison.

The problem was Ferelden seemed to be on an odd...delay — everything happened a month later than it did in Orlais. Or, almost everything. The latter end of the summer lingered hot and dry well into Parvulis, much like in las Déüvinas, but autumn, cold and wet and miserable, struck faster, some years seemingly overnight, and then lingering longer. It wasn't unusual to have an early frost in late Parvulis, when only a couple weeks ago they'd been in the height of summer, and that autumn chill, frigid rains in the day and frequent frosts overnight, would last through the latter half of Frumentum and all of Umbralis. The first snow might be in Umbralis, but they tended to hit hard in Cassus, getting a foot or two before a dry, intensely cold snap hit in early Verimensis. Once the worst of the cold passed, there might be another few feet of snow, depending on the year and region of the country, and then winter sort of just...gradually trailed off, slowly transitioning into... Well, not spring as Leliana knew it, but rather like their autumn — cold, frequent fog and the occasional drizzling rain (especially in the latter part), frost falling overnight, dragging on with little change for a month or two. It wasn't unusual for Fereldans to not risk planting until well into Eluveista — a late frost could easily kill off an entire crop — which was when the spring rains finally hit, a month later than in Orlais. But even then it was still cold, the mild chill often lingering all through Molloris and into Ferventis, when summer heat finally began to show itself.

The point was, though the first day of Molloris was called Summerday, it didn't really feel like it. Both in that the celebration was extremely muted, as though it weren't a major holiday at all, but the weather also just...didn't feel right. Even after a couple years here, spring in Ferelden just didn't feel like spring to her, too cold and murky, foggy and cloudy and quiet and... Well, it sort of felt like winter back home, actually — except a Dalish winter was actually warmer than a Fereldan spring. There was something about this time of year especially that always left her feeling peculiarly unsettled, displaced, as though the world around her weren't quite real, half a dream, or as though she weren't entirely present, observing it all from behind a veil.

La Fête de la Révélation had probably been her favourite holiday growing up (even narrowly beating out les Satinales), but she kind of hated Summerday in Ferelden. It was, just, subtly wrong, in a way she couldn't quite properly define even to herself.

So, frigid and dreary as Fereldan springs were, their departure from Redcliffe was honestly miserable. The last frost had been over a month ago now (while they'd been at the Circle, she thought), so it wasn't freezing cold, but the morning was still chilly and inhospitable, a slow, steady drizzle dropped by featureless and monochromatic clouds. Leliana had traveled with companies of soldiers on a small handful of occasions — it wasn't unusual for bards to quietly infiltrate a manor or keep while a much larger encircling force acted as a distraction — but their departure went remarkably smooth and easy, especially considering most of the Wardens had hardly marched with an army before. They'd been planning their trip for weeks, of course, when the time came all their equipment was already packed up and ready to go — the Wardens slipped their packs over their shoulders, the pre-loaded bags thrown on the packhorses, and they were off.

In the end, Fergus Cousland — of the Couslands, the rightful Teyrn of Highever in exile — did end up traveling with them. Leliana hadn't been included in these discussions, as she wasn't truly one of the Wardens, but from what she'd heard that hadn't been certain. Of course, Arl Eamon's men had been whittled down in the disaster with the abomination, so the Arling (and especially the town of Redcliffe) was much less protected than usual — Fergus had been considering staying to protect one of their greatest allies against Teyrn Loghain. But, over the course of Eluveista, Arl Eamon had recruited and trained a fair number of replacements (not as many as he'd lost, of course), and they'd discovered large pockets of survivors up in the hills, led by some of his banns and landed knights, guarded by their men. So Redcliffe wasn't nearly as vulnerable as they'd been in the immediate aftermath, Fergus had decided he could do more good with them in Orzammar.

So, over their short column flew the banner of the Couslands of Highever — very simple, as might be expected of an old family that had held the same lands for ages, paired laurel sprigs over a field of blue — right alongside Lýna's.

When Solana had collected the completed banner from a couple locals she'd hired to stitch it, Lýna's reaction had been quiet bemusement. It had taken some explaining from the two of them, that it... Well, it was a matter of respectability more than anything — any legitimate company marched under colors, any armed band who didn't would likely be mistaken for bandits. The same was true of Wardens, it was the primary reason they had colors to fly in the first place. Lýna had stubbornly pointed out that the Wardens under Duncan hadn't, but they had, actually — Alim claimed the Wardens' colors had flown over the army right next to the King's — and Duncan might not have on his recruitment trip, but he'd been working alone, that was normal. A group this size, they needed to make clear who they were if they didn't want every village along the way panicking and preparing for an imminent attack.

(That was before they'd known Fergus was coming with — without the Wardens' colors, onlookers would assume they were all Highever men, so it was still relevant.)

Lýna thought the whole thing was silly, but she often thought things people in Andrastian lands did were silly, so she surrendered without much protest; if Solana was offended or disappointed by Lýna hardly reacting to being presented her colors by a subordinate (which was sort of insulting), she didn't show it. The banner was fixed to Edolyn's spear — who was a little flattered she'd been chosen to carry it, but Lýna didn't seem to notice — and that was that.

It was a slightly busy-looking thing, but whoever Solana had hired had done good work on it. The field was dyed a pale blue — much less expensive than the deeper, rich blue of the Teyrn's. Normally, the Warden arms had two gryphons adossés (or sometimes a single two-headed gryphon, depending on the artist), but as it was in pale with Lýna's family's there was only one, affronté with one wing displayed, the visible taloned paw gripping a large cracking bone — what was sometimes mistaken for a branch the gryphons were perched on was meant to be them bending and breaking a femur (presumably from an archdemon), representing the Wardens' triumph over the Blight. The body of the gryphon ran right into an archway, the edge facing the viewer — knotwork had been stitched into the boundary, looking very elven to Leliana's eyes — the largest feature of the other half a halla sautant, as though leaping out of the archway. Solana hadn't bothered with the shards of the mirror (as Lýna called it), but she had included a crescent moon, hanging over the halla's head. The gryphon and the moon were all in white, the archway black and green, the halla yellow.

As Leliana had noted, somewhat busy, but she'd seen worse — there had been enough intermarriages and lands passing back and forth in the Dales and along the border with Nevarra that some of the families there had absolutely ridiculous arms. Lýna was still slightly awkward about it, but it didn't bother anyone else — some of the Wardens even seemed pleased they had colors of their own at all (and weren't under some noble or knight they were obliged to obey by an accident of birth, she assumed) — so it would do.

The second night out, Alim explained that the Dalish did fly banners of their own, but they were meant to indicate particular clans. So, in flying that banner, the Dalish would understand their little group of Wardens were part of the clan — they, of course, hadn't gotten permission from the elders of Lýna's family to do that (not to mention Lýna was the only one among them who wasn't Andrastian, the very people who'd driven hers into exile in the first place), so it was understandable she wasn't entirely comfortable with it. Leliana was surprised she'd agreed at all, in that light.

As the weather was...not uncooperative, exactly — they weren't being pummeled by thunderstorms, at least — the terrain was rather more difficult than expected. The road from Redcliffe to the Crossroads was mostly fine, only packed dirt but surprisingly well irrigated, water diverted to the ditches to the side, the road itself unaffected by the rains. The same couldn't be said for the Imperial Highway near the Crossroads. The place where the Highway, the Red River, the road to Redcliffe, and the road up into the hinterlands to the south all met, roughly a half mile away from the shore, was a decent-sized town, considered to be a part of Redcliffe despite not being joined, and at certain times in history even outgrowing the town on the shore. There'd been a Tevinter fort here once upon a time, the foundations reworked into a keep housing the local magistrate, much of the trade that would leave through Redcliffe actually being done here, trappers or miners or farmers selling their wares to merchants in a sizeable market courtyard in the center.

They hadn't actually passed through the Crossroads itself on their way to Redcliffe — they'd walked between the Highway and the shore instead, attempting to avoid notice from Loghain's men. If they had, they might well have noticed something was seriously wrong earlier, as the town had been completely abandoned as people fled or were killed. The town had been repopulated in the month since, but it was still quieter than it should be, the market depressingly barren, too early yet for trade to pick back up.

Their difficulty was the Highway itself. As had happened in several places around the world, the locals had long ago cannibalized the Tevinter-built Highway for stone to use in their own construction. Within the town itself and its immediate surroundings, there was practically no sign of the Highway at all, the ancient road cut away from the landscape piece by piece, its former path marked with waist-high waystones. Given the Crossroads was on a patch of flat ground, and that the spring rains hadn't yet entirely passed, the town was terribly muddy. Their boots squelched with every step, a bad placement of a foot could send them staggering. Leaving the 'road' that supposedly still existed could have one sinking past the ankle, sometimes needing a hand from another to wrench oneself out of the clinging earth. Dairren even lost his balance entirely once, falling into thick, sticky mud, his side plastered with it from foot to shoulder.

It was slow going through the area, but once they left west it didn't get that much better. The Highway still existed, but stones had still been taken from it over the centuries, gradually filling in the further they went. The early sections were nearly as bad as the town, occasional islands of stone offering only brief respite from the muck — and the uneven ground proved treacherous for the horses, one section they had to slow nearly to a crawl to carefully lead them up and down and up and down. When the ground had more solid portions the gaps turned watery and slick, boots not sticking but sliding, several of their people soon absolutely filthy. After what felt like far too long, they finally reached solid ground, the familiar, sturdy and perfectly-symmetrical Imperial Highway stretching ahead of them, curving gently to the north.

Leliana now understood why most trade in the west of Ferelden, even areas much closer to Redcliffe, sent their goods out by way of Jader or Highever (and, similarly, why Orlais had twice conquered this region so easily only to see their advance stall) — the Highway here was simply impassable to caravans. Leliana would wonder why no Fereldan King had ever done anything about that, but she knew from the history of her own country how expensive of a project that could quickly become. Presumably, they just didn't think it was worth the bother.

By the time they stopped for the night that first day, most of their company were cold, and tired, and absolutely filthy. Dipping in a nearby stream to wash themselves off only made them colder. There was a lot of moody grumbling around the fire that evening, most quickly retiring to their tents, wishing for this day to simply be over.

The next day was better, if only due to actually having made it to the Highway proper — the weather hadn't seen any improvement. They passed through a village around midday, the Teyrn and a couple of his men dropping by only long enough to ask what the place was called. When he returned, the Teyrn looked faintly annoyed, explained that the mud around the Crossroads had slowed them down more than he'd thought.

He hadn't been sure exactly how long it would take them to walk to Orzammar, especially since smaller groups tended to move quicker than the proper armies that the normal estimates were based on, weighed down as the latter were by wagon trains and camp followers and the like. But thirty miles in a day hadn't seemed out of the question. It was a little over a hundred fifty miles to Orzammar from Redcliffe, following the Highway — accounting for a few unexpected brief delays, and several extra hours to get down to the city from the surface, and Fergus had guessed they'd arrive in the evening of the sixth day. Accounting for their slow start, he now thought the seventh day was more likely, though they might well be camping right over Orzammar that last night.

The announcement raised grimaces and groans from the men. Nobody wished for this miserable trip to last a whole extra day.

Though the dreary, surly quiet hanging around them was much reduced the following day. Their second dawn on the road dawned bright and clear, the clouds parted to let the sun shine, intense enough the morning mist clinging to the trees lifted in thin trails of fog. By midmorning, people were shucking off cloaks, their steps lighter and voices brighter, chatting and joking as they walked.

They camped that night not far from the shore of the lake, in a small clearing created by a slab of granite intruding through the soil, one section rising above the water level, creating a drop of about Leliana's height for only fifty yards or so before levelling again. There was enough soil most of the clearing was soft underfoot, but too shallow for the roots of a tree to grow — shorter brush should be just fine, but there was a circle of stones in the middle marking a firepit, the locals must keep this area clear for their own use.

There was a village nearby, within sight to the south through a couple lucky gaps in the trees, though they weren't staying at the inn there. They had no intent of doing any such thing along the way — such small rural lodges wouldn't have room for a group their size, meant only for passing trappers or merchants. Back in Orlais, it would be common for the leaders of a company to retire to local inns while the common soldiers made do with tents and campfires, but of course Lýna wasn't interested in doing so. (Leliana suspected she'd prefer to camp outside if given the choice.)

She was a little surprised that the Teyrn wasn't taking the opportunity to spend a night in a room with solid walls and a real bed. When he and a couple of his men left for the village, that's what she'd thought he was doing, but then they returned less than an hour later with an update on their progress — they'd made it further than yesterday, but the delay at the Crossroads still made a seven-day trip most likely — and a sizeable cask of local cider.

Leliana hadn't known this before moving to Ferelden, but the cider made in the Arling of West Hills (which had been conquered and lost by Orlais on two separate occasions) was highly prized by Fereldans. They did grow apples here, but the rocky soil of the hills (and the dismal weather) resulted in apples of slightly lesser quality than in other regions of the country, smaller and sourer; the locals mixed in a variety of berries, fermentation helped along with a little bit of maple syrup. It was so extremely popular with Fereldans, Leliana suspected she'd never heard of it before because they drank so much of it they simply didn't have enough leftover to export.

Needless to say, the Teyrn showing up with cider for everyone, completely out of the blue, was only further cementing the favor their people had for him. He had had plenty to start with, of course — Fergus was one of the Wardens' most important allies, the Couslands were well-regarded by Fereldans due to their escapades in the Rebellion, and the locals knew Fergus had helped them fight the undead despite no obligation to do so — but being friendly and generous with his travelling companions certainly didn't hurt.

Honestly, it was slightly surreal. Fergus Cousland was, in Orlesian terms, a duke, the last known heir of a family ancient and wealthy even by Orlesian standards. (Very few noble families had been continuously holding the same seigneurie since the Glory Age.) Watching him sit on the ground around the fire, slurping at stew alongside everyone else, sharing a cask of cider and drinking and talking and laughing... It was surreal, some part of Leliana couldn't quite reconcile what she was seeing with who she knew Fergus to be, but at the same time a sense of warm approval kindled in her chest, she couldn't help smiling as she watched. She wasn't sure if that feeling was the Maker's approval — sometimes it could be difficult for her to tell, especially while His eyes were on her (though she didn't feel Him there at the moment) — but she wasn't sure it truly mattered.

She wondered, sometimes — watching Lýna cultivating the loyalty of her people, and now Fergus doing the same — whether the rulers of her home country hadn't forgotten something essential.

The sun was properly setting when Lýna appeared out of the crowd, startling Leliana with a touch of her shoulder — Lýna was unbelievably quiet, she hadn't realized she was there. Without a word, Lýna walked off toward the south, so Leliana followed, putting the fire to her back. She caught most of a rather raunchy joke about the two of them sneaking off together, but the speaker (Dairren?) was shushed by the others before he could quite finish it. Despite being further away, Lýna would still be able to hear them, and it was common knowledge that Leliana was teaching her the Chant.

It was less common knowledge that Lýna was only learning so she could understand the rest of them better, and had no intention to convert — she was pretty sure most of the Wardens assumed that the latter was the point. Fergus had even suggested — not in front of Leliana, Lýna had told her about it later — that Lýna pretend to convert, just for the sake of appearances. Leliana was...ambivalent about that idea. It probably would make organizing allies to stand together against the Blight somewhat easier — most tended to distrust people of other faiths, which could make things...more politically precarious than they needed to be. As much as the idea made Leliana uncomfortable, ending the Blight was more important.

But she didn't think Lýna would do it, or even seriously contemplate it. They hadn't actually talked about it, she'd just mentioned that Fergus had said something about it and immediately moved on, but... Well, Leliana thought she had a decent feel for what sort of person Lýna was by now. She expected Lýna wouldn't want to cast aside her people's beliefs, but at the same time the dishonesty of it would also bother her. More than that, she would think it terribly disrespectful of their beliefs and traditions to do such a thing. That was the core of the insult in Andrastians' dismissal of her people's beliefs, she'd explained: where she was from, people might disagree about the gods, but at the very least they were decent enough to be respectful of each other's beliefs and traditions.

Leliana suspected Lýna didn't like the Maker much, but she did still respect Him, and Andrastians' worship of Him. Where she'd come from, their refusal to return the favor was horribly insulting.

(The way Lýna spoke of it, the far south sounded a lot like Rivain, in some ways — people of a variety of distinct faiths living side by side, and while they did sometimes fight amongst themselves they managed to live with each other in relative harmony. It sounded...not quite real, like something out of a story set in a time long ago.)

Lýna led her through a strand of trees to the banks of a stream, a short distance before it emptied into the lake. They were much closer to the village now, though there were sedges and brush along the stream, mostly blocking line of sight. There was a beach here, the rocky foundation of the hills crumbled to sand, a few stubborn tufts of grass clinging on here and there. Lýna sat along the boundary between sands and grasses, looking out over the lake, stars beginning to peek through the deepening dusk.

Though Leliana wasn't looking forward to discussing the Chant tonight, to be honest. Lýna really hadn't liked the second half of Threnodies. The first few chapters hadn't been a problem — the sixth involved the history of wars between early (human) kingdoms, the seventh speaks of the corruption and violence and tyranny of old Tevinter. Then in the eighth, the seduction of the Magisters Sidereal, the ninth, the breach of the Golden City. In the tenth, Tevinter began to crumble as their gods failed to respond to prayers or sacrifices, the dwarven empire descending into war, and then in the eleventh the Blight spilled out onto the surface. The twelfth and final chapter was a hymn, lamenting the end of the world and decrying the hubris of Tevinter.

They who are judged and found wanting / Shall know forever the loss of the Maker's love. / Only Our Lady shall weep for them.

Lýna had been — shockingly, confusingly — angry. Once she'd calmed down a bit, she'd explained that she'd been aware of the story, but she hadn't thought it was true. (That Andrastians actually believed that, she meant, Lýna thought the Blight had started some other way.) The thought that Andrastians believed their god was responsible for the Blight — indisputably the most horrible thing in existence, had caused the death of millions of people over the centuries — and that He'd unleashed it over a handful of people trespassing in His halls, and they still worshipped Him anyway... Well, she didn't have words for what she'd been thinking, and not just because her Alamarri still wasn't perfect — she'd seemed legitimately speechless, fiercely glaring at nothing, her hands clenched into rigid fists, so tightly her hands had shaken a little, mouth working silently.

And, Leliana had to admit, she had no answer to that. This part of the story had always bothered her too. She felt, instinctively, that the Maker hadn't unleashed the Blight...but she couldn't tell Lýna that, because that was definitely heresy. (And she couldn't explain how she knew, it was just one of those feelings she got.) Whether it was true or not, it was what the Chantry taught, and that was the point of these lessons. The Maker...

Well, He could be vengeful at times, she wouldn't deny that — He'd approved of her murder of her former associates (the ones who'd nearly started a war, betrayed her and left her for dead over her dissent), had even helped lead her to them — but the story in the Chant just seemed...off. If the Maker had simply cursed the Magisters Sidereal themselves to eternal torment, Leliana could maybe see that, but to condemn all the world...

(Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting. / You have brought Sin to Heaven / And doom upon all the world.)

No. No, something about it just seemed...wrong.

But, of course, Lýna hadn't taken not having an answer very well. The rest of the conversation had been very tense and...brittle. Lýna hadn't spoken to her at all for the rest of that day and the next, avoiding her — and not just Leliana, nobody saw her that day at all, probably hiding out in the trees around the ruined cathedral on the cliffs to the east of the town — before reappearing the next dawn, just as Leliana was finishing her morning prayers. She'd actually apologized, a little awkwardly, said she'd just needed a little while to cool off — the Blight was extremely personal to her, more than even she'd realized.

Which, why shouldn't it be? Lýna hadn't told Leliana much, but she knew Lýna had lost a number of family and friends to the Blight in the far south, and while hardly more than a child at that. (Sometimes she forgot Lýna was only seventeen, she was much more competent and disciplined than Leliana had been at that age.) In the dreams raised by that awful demon, she'd seen Lýna fighting for her life against shrieks (horrid things), her clan fleeing out of a forested valley — their home, Leliana thought, or the closest thing they'd had to one — the trees burning behind them...

Now that she'd had time to think about it, it shouldn't have been a surprise that Lýna would react badly. The apology had been sweet, but really not necessary — Leliana had been a little worried, but not offended. She understood perfectly.

They hadn't had another lesson in the week and some since. Lýna did still have to learn — as uncomfortable as it might make her, the reasons she'd decided to in the first place hadn't gone away — and she still needed to learn Cirienne too. But there was a tension over them tonight, more than there had been in any of their previous lessons, cold and wary. Lýna had been burned once, and was uncertain whether this one was going to go just as badly as the last.

Leliana's plan had been to go through the story chronologically — she wished now the copy she'd (accidentally) stolen included the Canticle of Shartan, though that would make the ordering more complicated — finishing up with Trials and Transfigurations, talking through Andraste's advice on how to live a moral life. She didn't think there was anything in the Canticle of Andraste, which should be next, that Lýna would find...particularly offensive. She might actually enjoy Andraste and Apotheosis — it was mostly the story of Andraste's (and Shartan's) rebellion against Tevinter, Leliana couldn't think of anything a heathen (she wished there was a better word for that) might find objectionable. Other than the claims about the Maker having created the world, of course, but Lýna seemed to just humor them on that one...

(Probably an extension of her respecting their beliefs, Leliana guessed — she thought they were wrong, but she wasn't going to argue the point...beyond asking questions to make sure she understood correctly, anyway...)

Perhaps she should...

Leliana laid down, flat on her back, staring up at the sky still streaked with blue and purple, red to the west not yet entirely faded. Not having to look at each other while talking could be better for some people's nerves — it wasn't a problem she had, really, but she suspected it would make Lýna more comfortable. Her voice low, warm and soft, Leliana recited, "These Truths the Maker has revealed to me:

"As there is but one world, one life and one death, there is but one god, and He is our Maker. They live in sin, those who have given their love to false gods."

There was a little noise, Lýna moving to speak — she probably didn't like that one much. But that interruption wouldn't go anywhere, Leliana continued before she could get it out. "Magic exists to serve man, and is never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have turned His gift against His children. They shall be known as Maleficarae, the Cursed. They shall find no rest in this world or beyond."

Lýna had gone still, her attention on Leliana almost palpable. "All men are the work of our Maker's hands, from the lowest slaves to the highest kings. Those who bring harm without provocation to the least of His children are hated and accursed by the Maker."

Leliana paused a brief moment there, letting it linger, silent save for the rustling of branches in the wind, distant chatter of people, the hooting of an owl. "Those who give false witness and make to deceive others, know this: There is but one Truth. All things are known to our Maker, and He shall judge their lies.

"All things in this world are finite. What one man gains, another has lost. Those who deprive their brothers and sisters bring harm to them, body and soul. Our Maker sees this with dismay in His heart."

One breath passed in quiet, then another, before Lýna apparently realized she was done. "What is this?" she asked, in Cirienne.

"It's from the Canticle of Trials." Then in Alamarri, "I understand you... Well, our last talk was...difficult. And I understand, I do, there are things about all this that are difficult even for those of us who were raised with it. I thought we would try something lighter. The Canticles of Trials and Transfigurations are the teachings of Andraste — sermons and parables, collections of little aphorisms. Those we call the Five Truths, and they are at the very beginning of Trials, the foundation on which all else is built."

"I see." Lýna was quiet a moment, Leliana let her think. After a few seconds, there was a shuffling from that direction, she turned her head to look — Lýna was lying down, her head and shoulder coming to land a few inches from Leliana's, her feet pointed west and Lýna's more north. "The second, it... I thought you shun magic."

Leliana let out a sigh. "The Chantry is old, Lýna, and many sing the Chant all throughout Thedas. That is part of what can make this difficult. When you ask me questions, I can tell you what the southern Chantry teaches, or what I believe — these are not always the same thing. And there are local folk beliefs that can be different — ask me about the Masked Lady of Serault later, if you want an idea of just how different they can be — and Mothers have their own opinions. There are factions in the clergy, and not everyone agrees on how the Chant should be read. And the Chantry, it has existed for over nine-hundred years — nothing remains the same that long, including the Chantry.

"Some Mothers preach very strongly against magic of all kinds, yes, and there are...common superstitions about magic. But the opinion of the Convocation in Val Royeaux is that magic is a gift from the Maker Himself — the problem is that magic is dangerous, and mages are vulnerable to possession from hostile demons. The Circles weren't always...the way they are." Leliana had honestly had no idea how bad they were, she'd never been to a Circle before... "In the earliest days of the Chantry, mages were free to live as they pleased, from Ferelden to the Anderfels. It wasn't until the Great Schism, when the White and Black Chantries split, that the mages of the south were remanded to the Circle. And it was only in the south that this was done, mages are still free in the north — the Black Divine is often a mage themself. That was six hundred years ago now, but six hundred years isn't forever.

"Do you...understand what I'm trying to say?" She hoped so, she didn't really know how to put it clearly...

"I think so. You..." Lýna was quiet a breath, and when her voice returned it was quieter, with something... Leliana didn't know. Cautious? Uncertain? "You don't believe your Maker made the Blight."

"I don't..." Trailing off, Leliana considered how to put it. She wasn't really certain what she believed, these inexplicable feelings she had didn't exactly help — she felt the Maker hadn't done it, but she couldn't explain where that feeling came from, or what or who might have done it instead. This was a sensitive issue for Lýna, so she wanted to treat it seriously, but—

Oh! Oh, she got it now.

Lýna knew Leliana was close to the Maker — blasphemously close, but Lýna didn't care about that — and that the Chant said the Maker had created the Blight. The Chant also claimed that the gods of other peoples were demons, executing some nefarious design to seduce people to spite the Maker — that turning from the Maker, following some other faith, was inherently sinful.

And, perhaps, that they should be made to suffer for it. Just as Orlais had conquered the Dales and enslaved the inhabitants.

Lýna had, while perhaps not herself fully aware of it, feared that Leliana believed her family and friends who'd died in the Blight had gotten what they deserved.

(She really shouldn't have apologized.)

"Oh, Lýna, I– I don't know. I don't know where the Blight came from. It is known that the Magisters truly did breach the Fade — Tevinter kept records, the details of the ritual and what they meant to do were written down." Multiple temples and several powerful families half-bankrupted themselves buying the lyrium necessary, and hundreds of slaves had been sacrificed. Old Tevinter truly had been horrifying. "It is known that the Blight began soon after that. But as to where it came from, who can say? They say there are...all manner of terrible things lurking deep in the Fade — perhaps, working such powerful magics, they woke up something that was better left sleeping.

"But I don't believe the Blight was loosed on the world by the Maker. I... I can't tell you how I know this, or what I think happened instead, because I don't know. I simply feel it to be so. I can't explain it better than that."

Lýna was silent a moment, again, she tried not to fidget — now that Leliana had finally made that connection, how what she'd said might have been taken, she just... Well, she wanted to reassure Lýna she didn't... But she didn't really know how. Thankfully, when Lýna finally found her voice, she said, "Your Maker led you to us. To help end the Blight."

"Oh! Yes, I...had that dream. I don't know how I knew what I was meant to do, I simply did."

"A dream?"

...Had she never told Lýna about that? No, she certainly had — her second night with the Wardens, they'd had that...baffling talk about her closeness with the Maker, and Lýna had suggested there were others like her out there but they kept it to themselves out of fear of reprisal from the Chantry (Leliana still don't know how to feel about that) — but she didn't think she'd ever told anyone about the dream itself. Simply that the Maker had come to her in a dream, and told her to help the Wardens...which was simplifying things somewhat, but she hadn't wanted to...

She had, foolishly, told people the Maker spoke to her before. After she... After her betrayal, planning her revenge while hiding out in the local Chantry, Leliana had spoken with Mother Dorothea about it. It had still been new to her then — she hadn't always been like this, she...

She'd died. She was certain she'd died.

Most of the time, she didn't like to think about it, the thought was...unsettling. She'd been stabbed in the back, and then again in the stomach— (Marjolaine, one corner of her lips curled in a wry smirk, her eyes sparkling — with malice or sadness? — and Leliana felt so cold, her fingers and toes tingling, slumping against Marjolaine as strength left her, terrifyingly fast, one hand on her cheek, Marjolaine holding her gaze, a thumb brushing a tear from her eye, and—) —she'd been abandoned in the dungeon, at the fringe of Halamshiral's elven quarter, hardly even conscious already by that point, hearing muffled and vision blurred, everything numb, the world so far away and drifting ever further. And she'd been so cold.

Leliana had killed enough people to know the wounds she'd had— There was no coming back from that, she'd lost far too much blood already. Even if a mage arrived in time to close her wounds, dungeons were filthy, she would have died of fever anyway.

And yet she'd lived.

She hadn't escaped on her own, no — Mother Dorothea, having somehow discovered the plot to draw Orlais and Ferelden into war, took it upon herself to free Leliana in an effort to stop it. She'd stolen the magistrate's skeleton key, slipped it into Leliana's cell, arranged a distraction to make sure she'd be able to escape unmolested.

But Mother Dorothea had had no idea how badly she'd been injured. She'd thought Marjolaine had been setting up Leliana to take the fall, to be blamed for the scandal so her patron could avoid any suspicion. She hadn't realized Marjolaine hadn't planned on Leliana surviving long enough to be blamed for anything.

Leliana had died, in that cell. She was certain of it. The world had drifted further and further away, colder and darker and number, until everything had just...stopped...and then...

Wake up, little raven.

...she'd gotten up.

Mother Dorothea believed her, but how could she not? When Leliana had appeared in her Chantry, she'd still been injured — but her wounds had somehow grown much shallower, and even from there healed easier and quicker than they should have, the only evidence remaining that Leliana had been absolutely soaked in her own blood. And Mother Dorothea, she didn't know why she'd decided to rely on Leliana to stop Marjolaine's scheme. As a former bard herself, Mother Dorothea...knew people, she could have called in a favor — hell, she could have just ordered her Templars to take care of it — but instead she'd turned to Leliana. She saw the Maker's hand in that as well, if more subtly, and Leliana couldn't help but agree.

That Mother Dorothea had believed her so easily and so completely had...perhaps given Leliana the wrong idea. She'd told people during her travels, Mother Vichiénne and the other Sisters in Lothering, several of the locals... They always reacted very badly — either assuming she was mad, or under the sway of a demon, or lying. Leliana had, quickly, learned to just...not talk about it.

The Wardens hadn't reacted too well either, but the longer Leliana went without mentioning it, most of them seemed to simply...forget. Except Lýna, who took her experiences with the Maker as truth without hesitation, only the second person to ever believe her. And that was...

Leliana glanced up in Lýna's direction. Lying there on her back, her hands folded over her stomach, Leliana couldn't make out her face from this angle. Her brilliant hair almost seemed to dimly glow in the night, reflecting gold from distant fires and silver from the stars above. Quiet and calm and just...waiting.

"It was..." She paused a moment — the dream had been rather...surreal, it was difficult to put it into words. "I think I was a bird?" Well, the Maker did call her 'little raven', she guessed... "I was flying over...the hinterlands of Redcliffe, I think. I could see everything beneath me, the trees and the animals and the people in their farms and villages. And out of the south this...blackness came. While I watched from high above, the darkness consumed everything. The forest crumbled away, it seeped into the earth, the animals and the people tried to flee — I heard screaming and the clashing of blades, smelled ash and blood. And quickly, so quickly, it was all gone. In every direction I looked there was not but blackness, thick and impenetrable and...wrong. Horrifying, and sick, I..."

There was something wrong about the Blight. This was one of those things she didn't know how she knew it, she didn't even know what she meant by it. But it was wrong, it should not be.

(That was another reason she thought the Maker couldn't be responsible for it — where else could this feeling have come from but Him?)

"And then, in the blackness, I spotted the...smallest flicker of color. I dove closer, wind tugging at my feathers and my eyes tearing from the stench of rot, and... It was a flower, somehow growing out of the Blighted land — embrium, a pure, unblemished white. Now, you may not know this—" Lýna was probably familiar with embrium, but she might not know the name. "— but there is no such thing as white embrium. It doesn't exist, there is only red.

"That morning... The life of a Sister can be quite boring, sometimes, we have little enough to do. I learned to brew healing potions long ago, so I tried to grow some herbs in our gardens. I did an awful job of it, I'm afraid — the brewing I can do, but I've never tried my hand at gardening before." Like stitching her clothes, they'd had servants for that sort of thing. "The embrium had died, before hardly taking root. But, when I went out into the gardens that morning, there it was: embrium, healthy and green and vibrant despite the season, flowered an unnatural white, pure and clean as fresh snow.

"Only a couple days later, you and the Wardens passed through the village." Leliana turned to Lýna again, smiling at the sight of her almost seeming to glow in the night, white hair pure and clean as fresh snow — it was what the Maker had used to identify Lýna for her, but it was also just pretty. "Have I ever told you I love your hair?"

Lýna's head turned, her eyes find Leliana's tilted in...surprise? confusion? It was hard to tell for sure in the dark. "No...?"

"Oh, well I do. And not only because it is how I knew you from the dream. It is a very striking color all its own, and I imagine... See, back in Orlais, the fashion is for ladies to wear elaborate hairstyles. As they see each other again and again at one bal masqué and then another, it becomes a competition, the ladies all trying to get one up on the rest. Complicated braids, and ribbons and jewels and bells. Once Lady Elise, a distant aunt of mine, had little cages holding live songbirds in her hair. It was quite charming for a time...until the poor little things began to, hmm, unburden themselves."

Lýna let out a surprised little heh! her lips twitching with amusement. "They are birds. She didn't think that may happen?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask — she rushed off to wash the mess out of her hair, and it didn't seem quite proper to bring it up the next time I saw her. I only imagine... Your hair changes colors when it's wet, did you know? It looks more silver than white. Back home, people often rub oil into their hair, to make it smoother and shinier — it's also scented, so it just smells nice. I don't think you would need any of the ribbons and jewels and things. With only a little oil in your hair, it would reflect the lamp light all silver and gold, and you'd outshine all those ladies with their silly elaborate ornaments. You'd be lovely."

It didn't really look like Lýna had any idea how to respond to that. She just stared back at Leliana, her face blank, as still and quiet as the night around them.

Had that been too much? It hadn't seemed like too much... "Ah, anyway, the dream. You meant to say, if the Maker sent me to help you, He must not wish the Blight to spread."

"Yes." Lýna watched her for a couple seconds more, not quite openly frowning (confusion? suspicion?), before turning away to stare up at the sky. "I didn't think of that, before. The only other way that makes sense is if he sent you to kill me, but if that was it you would have tried before now."

Andraste have mercy, she sounded remarkably nonchalant about the possibility of a god sending an assassin to kill her. Was that something that...just happened in the far south? "I don't think I could, even if I wanted to." Before Leliana had fallen out of practice, maybe, but she honestly doubted it — Lýna was extremely competent for a girl her age, and it was hard to sneak up on elves.

"No, you couldn't," Lýna said, flat and blank.

...Was that supposed to be a response to, um, the subtext, before? a subtle back off or I'll make you regret it? If it was, it was too subtle, because Leliana could easily just be imagining it. Lýna could be surprisingly oblivious sometimes, Leliana wasn't even sure she'd noticed...

Lýna didn't let her linger over that too long, shortly steering the conversations back to the Five Truths — as with everything to do with the Chant so far, she had questions. And, as always, some of the points she made were honestly sort of fascinating to think about. For example, the fifth — what one man gains, another has lost — was perfectly intuitive to her, though she didn't understand how people reconciled that with the idea of a person owning land, which... Well, honestly, it'd never occurred to Leliana that there might be a conflict there, and no matter how Lýna tried to explain it (awkwardly, her imperfect Alamarri not quite up to the task), she didn't quite understand the argument. She claimed one person staking an exclusive claim on a parcel of land inherently deprived others, which wasn't that complicated, it was the how that didn't quite click for Leliana.

And there was a brief misunderstanding involving the third, about harming the Maker's children. Lýna had thought that was just a prohibition against harming Andrastians, but it wasn't supposed to be — the Maker created all people, humans and elves and dwarves and even Qunari, whether they acknowledged Him or not was irrelevant. It might sadden a father when a child turns away from him, but he doesn't stop loving them. (Until that child strikes against the rest of the family, anyway.) It was very common these days for people to claim "the Maker's children" included only Andrastians, but Leliana was certain that was wrong.

Though, again, she couldn't explain how she knew that. She just did.

By the time full dark fell, they'd finished talking about that. Leliana considered continuing on further into Trials, but it was late already, perhaps another day would be best. Instead they talked of whatever came to mind for a time — mostly about the other recruits, or what they expected to find in Orzammar — trading some more Cirienne and Lýna's elvish dialect back and forth.

It was a little embarrassing, but Lýna's Cirienne was coming along faster than Leliana's elvish. Lýna was hardly conversant in Cirienne so early — her vocabulary was still small, and she had a tendency to make mistakes with articles and prepositions (a problem she'd also had in Alamarri when they'd met), and sometimes she simply forgot to inflect verbs at all — but her pronunciation was excellent, and she picked up words very quickly. Leliana, on the other hand... Well, the grammar in Lýna's dialect was very confusing. She suspected the elvish she already knew a bit of had been influenced by Cirienne, Lýna's dialect more conservative, more...well, elvish. It didn't help that the pronunciation had drifted too, and some words even had different meanings — Leliana kept saying things wrong, or getting words in Lýna's dialect mixed up with ones she'd already known...

Her progress was slow and stumbling, and it was just a little embarrassing. Leliana had been good with languages growing up. By the time she was Lýna's age, she'd already spoken two different dialects of Cirienne, Alamarri, and Nevarran fluently, and could get by decently well in the local elvish. Now, she could also hold a conversation in Antivan and Orzammar dwarvish (both common languages in certain criminal syndicates bards sometimes had contacts with), Minrathous Tevene, and could even make an attempt at struggling through Rivaini and Classical Tevene if she truly needed to. Having such trouble with even the basics of a new language, for the first time since starting with Tevene and Antivan and getting some things mixed up, was making her feel...strangely self-conscious.

Lýna never drew attention to it, but all the same.

After a time, words dribbled away, and silence fell. Or, a certain kind of silence that wasn't truly silence at all. The night was heavy and calm, yes, but still the trees danced in the gentle breeze off the lake, the occasional murmur of a distant voice, a hoot of an owl or the bark of a dog or the howl of a wolf. The last struck her with an unexpected pang of homesickness — there weren't many wolves near Lothering, driven up into the hills, but there were plenty in the forests of the Dales. The stars were stark and clear overhead, bands obscured by clouds invisible against the blackness, their form hinted at only by the missing patches in the familiar pattern. Idly, Leliana's eyes drew the constellations she could make out, songs she'd learned in another life echoing in her head.

There was a rustling in the brush, sudden enough and near enough Leliana's heart leapt into her throat. "What was—" she started, pushing herself to a seat.

Before she could even look, Lýna calmly muttered, "Maţiś." That was obviously elvish, but Leliana didn't know that one. "C'est chevreuil."

A deer? Leliana turned to look over her shoulder, searching the shadowy brush for— Oh! There it was, it was a deer — a female, small, probably only a couple winters old. She'd startled her, the deer gone rigidly still, staring unblinkingly across the few yards between them. "How did you know?" she whispered, not wanting to frighten the poor thing further.

"I heard it." That wasn't much of an explanation. Did she mean she could identify different animals just from the noises they made stepping through the brush? That was...a little absurd, when Leliana thought about it. There was a brief silence, and then, shocking Leliana in its suddenness, a long, low howl. Jumping, she looked over at Lýna — both of her hands were cupped over her mouth, which must be helping her make that noise somehow. It didn't sound exactly like a wolf, but it was close enough the call might be mistaken for one from a distance.

Of course, the deer immediately bounded away, crashing through the brush much more loudly than she'd appeared. By the time Leliana looked back, she was already out of sight. "Aww, why did you scare her away?"

"It was too close to the village. It might eat from their gardens."

...Leliana wondered if any of the Wardens realized how surprisingly sweet Lýna could be at times.

Humming to herself, Leliana laid back down again, eyes turning up to the sky. Neither of them spoke for a brief moment. Then, Leliana asked, "Do you think Alim and Lacie have returned yet?"

Lýna scoffed. "Yes. They don't do well in the trees."

No, Leliana didn't imagine they did. Alim had admitted to her once that he couldn't recall ever being outdoors before he left the Circle with the Wardens. (Life in the Circles sounded terrible, and terribly sad.) She was surprised they snuck off together at all — making love out in the woods...took some getting used to. "Mm. They can be silly and crude at times, but I think they're so sweet together."

"They are that," Lýna said, an amused curl to her voice.

Leliana hadn't expected Lýna to disagree, of course, she had insisted Lacie leave the Circle with them. "Maybe we should think about going back as well. It is rather late, and we'll be up early tomorrow."

"I'll stay here a little longer." Implying Leliana could go back to camp on her own if she wanted.

...But she kind of didn't want to. She should get some sleep before too long, but... Well, it was a quiet, cool, beautiful night. If there was one thing she missed about her life as a bard (there were more than just the one, truly) it was walking around Lydes or Valsienne or Val Royeaux or Halamshiral in the dead of night, the cities (mostly) asleep, quieter and deeper and more...more intimate? She didn't know, exactly. Besides, "The first I made love was on a night like this."

"...What?"

"Oh, did I say that out loud? I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. I suppose I can tell you about it, I don't mind..."

Sounding slightly exasperated, Lýna said, "That was Cirienne, I don't know what you said."

Oh. Oops. "I first made love on a night like this, under the stars. It is kind of a funny story, if you want to hear it."

Lýna was silent a long moment, long enough Leliana had time to wonder if this was too much — that was why she'd asked, instead of starting straight off. They'd never... Well, the closest they'd gotten to talking of love was when Leliana had asked about Lýna's late husband, and that was really it. (Which was unusual for Leliana, but Lýna could be skittish sometimes.) So Leliana was surprised when Lýna said, "If you want." Maybe a little warily, but she did say it.

Okay, then. Where to start? "The noble families in Orlais, often they can be very spread out. The family might have a few different holdings, and they'll have a household in each, or sometimes a branch of the family will take up residence in the cities. All of the nobility gather now and again in the Summer or Winter Court, so when marriages are arranged they are sometimes with people who live very far away, spreading the family further. As large as the family is, they can't all see each other very easily. So, every once in a while, the family will all come together in one place, often for as long as a month altogether. To strengthen the ties between far-flung branches of the family, to trade news and rumors, even just to enjoy each other's company.

"Lady Cecille took me to one of these family gatherings when I was... Oh, I think I was thirteen? I might have been fourteen — I'm not sure, it feels like it was so long ago. I was young enough that I still found the big formal dinners adults like to have terribly boring. Of course, the old know the young haven't the patience for sitting down and politely chatting like good little lords and ladies, so we were always put into another room, where we could chat among ourselves — and indulge acting out a little without offending the sensibilities of some distant aunt we'd never met before, and likely would never see again until the next gathering.

"To the rest of the family, I, hmm..." This was a delicate topic, she didn't really know how to explain it — it didn't help that Orlesian society was a foreign world to Lýna, she wouldn't have any of the necessary context. "Well. It was quite scandalous that Lady Cecille decided to raise me as she did. Not only am I not any sort of blood relative, but I'm a bastard child of nameless Fereldan peasants — not the kind of person a family like Cecille's would want to claim as their own. Some of the other children had heard tell of me before, from gossip passed around over the years, and... There were some accusations, and some snide comments about me not truly being one of them, but for the most part there was only curiosity. I was very popular that evening.

"One of the boys sitting near me was a distant nephew of Cecille's, a son of a son of a cousin of some degree. His name was Sifrèd." Lýna probably wouldn't realize the significance of his name being in the local Délois instead of proper Cirienne — that was very uncommon among the nobility, Leliana had found it just as curious as the others had been about her. "He was a couple years older than me, I don't know how many, and rather tall for his age. Like much of the family he was blond, but with a little bit of brown in it, giving his hair an almost layered appearance. He was...

"Well, he was very charming. He wanted to be a composer — to write music for other people to play, that is — and his parents were supporting him in that. I'm told he's quite talented, though I never did hear anything he wrote — I do know he has a lovely singing voice, though, that was clear enough from the prayer before dinner. He was sweet, you know, kind and friendly, and... I recall he referred to Lady Cecille as my mother, which, I didn't speak of her that way, but I confess I rather liked it." At the time, she'd been pleased that it suggested that she was truly one of them, that she belonged there, but in retrospect she suspected it was in part because...well, Cecille had been her mother, in all respects save one. "And when he spoke he was very expressive with his hands, light and graceful — the more we talked, the more I found that...distracting.

"After dinner we went out into the gardens, the children running around and getting into all sorts of trouble. I don't remember how this happened, but Sifrèd and I found ourselves out of the way somewhere in the hedges, alone. I was terribly excited about this, enough I could hardly understand the words he was saying — only the sound of his voice, warm and smooth and soothing. I asked him— Well, I didn't ask so much as demand a kiss. I knew we wouldn't remain alone for long, and I didn't want the opportunity to go to waste.

"And because Sifrèd was such a sweet young man, he must have asked if I was certain two, maybe three times? He shouldn't have had to, with how I'd blurted it out like that, but I was younger than him. It wasn't the first I'd ever kissed someone, but I would say it was the first that truly... Well, there's a kiss, and then there's a kiss," Lelaina said, with a low, suggestive drawl on her voice, smirking up at the sky. "At first, it was only an innocent peck on the lips, but it didn't stay innocent. We hid there together for a time, I don't know how long. It was slow and gentle, but it was warm and intimate and...sweet — I know I keep calling him that, but he truly was.

"And oh, I wanted him so badly. It snuck up on me, I'd never felt that way about anyone before. Maybe little flashes here and there, a...curious thought now and then, but never so intensely. It was exhilarating, enough I had to fight down giggles, my skin tingling and my head spinning — and that wasn't the tablewine.

"We heard people coming and broke apart before anyone saw, but I wasn't done, oh no. I can be a very decisive person, when I put my mind to it. I don't agonize over things and waver about — when I decide I'm going to do something, I do it. I decided I wanted him, so I was going to have him. We were all sent to bed soon after that, and I paid attention to where in the manor Sifrèd was put. Luckily, just under a nearby balcony was... I don't know the word in Alamarri. It's a kind of latticework in a wall, meant to shape plants growing along it. This espalier was mostly plums, I think. Anyway, that gave me what seemed at the time like a brilliant idea.

"I laid in bed for a time, waiting for the other girls to fall asleep, all but quivering in excitement. Once I felt I'd waited long enough, I snuck out. I couldn't go through the halls, worried of being caught, so I went to the nearest balcony. There was no espalier here, but there was a nearby tree — I was only on the second floor, and it didn't seem so far away. I climbed over the handrail, the stone freezing on my bare legs, and reached out to the nearest branch...

"...and then my foot slipped, and I fell ten feet down to the tile below."

Lýna let out a little huff of surprised laughter. "Maybe not a good plan."

Ruefully, Leliana admitted, "I said I was decisive, not wise. I didn't break anything, thank the Maker, but I skinned my knees and palms pretty badly, and I had awful bruises the next day. They were only those shallow injuries that hurt far worse than they truly are. I sat there for a few minutes, hissing through my teeth and trying not to cry out, already starting to shiver — it was colder then than it'd been earlier in the evening, and my nightdress wasn't helping much. I might have hurt myself like a fool, but if I had trouble getting out getting back in wouldn't be any easier. I decided I might as well stick to the plan.

"L'espalier was much easier to climb, thankfully — the branches clawed at my hair a bit, but I made it to the top without too much trouble. I snuck inside, and found Sifrèd after a little looking around. I think I frightened the poor boy, waking him up in the middle of the night, my hair a scattered mess and my nightdress with faint bloodstains from my little mishap. It took a little convincing — he was worried something was wrong, I think, that maybe someone had hurt me — but soon we gathered up a pillow and a couple blankets from the bed, went out onto the balcony.

"Sifrèd hadn't guessed why I was there, but I didn't make it difficult for him to figure out. I wasn't being subtle about what I wanted, kissing him and crawling into his lap, and... This time, he asked me a couple more times if I was sure about this, and I might have laughed at him a little — I thought I was making my intentions pretty damn clear. Or, looking back on it, maybe he was simply nervous himself, I'm not sure." She suspected that'd been his first time too. He was quite handsome, and sweet, but he'd also been off in his own world much of the time, always studying and practicing, he hadn't gotten out much. He had married eventually — a violist in one of the chamber ensembles he worked with, they were simply adorable — but he'd been so reserved and...cautious that night, in hindsight it seemed obvious. Leliana hadn't yet known enough to tell then.

"It did hurt a little, at first. Before Sifrèd, I hadn't had anything larger than my two fingers," she admitted — rather more bluntly than was quite proper, but the point of this kind of story was to be not quite proper — lifting up the two fingers in question to demonstrate, which...was probably a bit much. Not that it mattered — a glance in Lýna's direction showed she was looking up at the sky, she wouldn't see it anyway. "It was a little chilly on the balcony, so we had one of the blankets wrapped over us, close and warm. Sifrèd seemed—" A giggle bubbled up at the memory, her lips pulling into a smile. "—amazed, like he couldn't quite believe what was happening, and it was slow, and gentle, and sweet, and oh, it was wonderful. I felt just ecstatic, so full with it I could hardly seem to breathe.

"He didn't last very long but, well, that can happen sometimes." Especially since it'd likely been his first time. "And no matter — he still had those graceful hands of his, after all," Leliana drawled, smirking over at Lýna. Which was definitely too much, but she still wasn't looking anyway. "He was a little...clumsy at first, but he was a quick study. And he is a musician, you see. It didn't take too long until... Well, some of our cousins were not so far away, I think he was worried that if I made too much noise someone would come out and find us. Kissing muffles someone some, not completely but enough, and to stop me from pulling away he gripped my hair a bit harder than was comfortable — it hurt, a little, but that felt nice too, surprisingly. It was a surprise to me at the time, anyway.

"After making love a second time, we were both exhausted. We fell asleep out on that balcony, snuggled up together under the blanket — we didn't mean to, we were warm and tired, and it just happened. And it was nice, drifting off with him like that.

"It was less nice when we woke up in the morning, freezing, with a couple of our cousins standing out on the balcony staring at us. I panicked, and fled. I made it all the way to the same tree I'd fallen out of the night before, when I realized I'd left my nightdress behind. I'd just ran across the gardens at the crack of dawn, naked as the day I was born. And I wasn't the only one out there — the poor, startled gardeners had no idea what to do with me."

Lýna didn't make a sound, which was...odd. It'd been humiliating at the time, but looking back on it, she did have to admit it was rather funny. She'd told the story to people more times than she could count (though usually edited rather more than she had this time), simply for the entertainment value. Perhaps... Well, Leliana had gotten the impression that the peoples of the far south weren't as particular about nudity — that baffling and frustrating conversation about Lýna bathing in the lake, out in the open (with men standing right there at the docks), had been revealing in that regard — so perhaps it didn't register as anything that out of the ordinary? She didn't know...

Leliana turned her head to look at Lýna. She was still staring at the sky, her expression unreadable from this angle. She wasn't quite perfectly still, her hands laying on her stomach shifting a little, fingers idly tapping. It was hard to tell, not being able to make out her face, but Leliana got the feeling she was deep in thought — about what, she couldn't guess. "Lýna?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you thinking now?" She used Cirienne specifically so Lýna would have to think about it harder, help pull her out of whatever she was dwelling over.

There was a short, tense delay before she spoke. Even then, all she managed was, "Nothing."

Okay...

"This is..." Lýna trailed off, and while Leliana couldn't see it she could almost feel her frowning. "I don't know what to say, to this."

"You don't need to say anything, I guess." She was terribly curious what was going on in there, but if Lýna didn't want to talk about whatever it was... "If you're... I know we've traded stories in the past, and if that is what is bothering you, you needn't...return the favor. I did spring it on you, a little bit, I do go on sometimes. It's alright if you're not comfortable."

Lýna opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, obviously having changed her mind. "I don't...have stories like these."

"Oh, that can't be true." She'd been married once, and then betrothed a second time, there must be something. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, I understand, but you must have at least kissed someone before." If she remembered correctly, Lýna had said she'd been thirteen when she'd married, which was young — though hardly younger than Leliana had been when she'd seduced Sifrèd, all the same — and he'd died only a few months later, so it was possible they'd never made love, but Leliana couldn't believe they'd never even kissed.

Coming out more like a sigh than anything, Lýna said, "I did. There were three...four? A Chasind man...rape, this is the word you use." Leliana's whole body seemed to thump with shock — Maker, was she— "There were two times—" Shit, just, shit. "—men tried it, one — a Chasind man, I don't know his name — kissed me before I killed him." Wait, what...? "I don't think that counts?"

Okay, she... As much as she kind of didn't want to know, she had to ask. "You said, you killed him — before he could...? Both of them?"

"Yes. They didn't see my father's knife. It was messy, but I was fine, both times."

Oh, thank the Maker, about gave her a heart attack... "Ah, no, that doesn't count."

(Maybe Leliana was a little messed up in the head, but now that she had a second to breathe, she thought there was something...strangely, bitterly sweet about Lýna defending herself with her long-dead father's knife. Probably just Leliana being weird again...)

"Three, then. Muthallã and Tallẽ. And Ásta," Lýna added after a second.

Muthallã was her husband, Leliana remembered, and Tallẽ must be her betrothed — both had been taken by the Blight. But Ásta, though... It was most likely a woman's name, yes, but that wasn't what took Leliana by surprise. It...didn't sound elven. In fact, she was all but certain it was Avvar. That was curious. "Ásta? I don't think you've told me about an Ásta."

Lýna's voice dropping a little, harder, she said, "She's dead now, it doesn't matter."

...She really didn't want to talk about this Ásta. Understood.

"And it was only...once or twice, anyway. It wasn't... Muthallã didn't... With him, kissing was...not a common thing. At our bonding, yes, and at some other times, outside, but."

Unthinkingly, Leliana translated outside to where other people could see. She wasn't sure whether she had the right idea, but there was something about Lýna's tone — low, distant, and cold — that she just...didn't like. It was giving her a bad feeling, gradually settling in like frigid winter rain trickling down her back.

"Tallẽ did, a lot. More than Muthallã, anyway. He... When the elders decided we were to be bonded, he...was pleased." Implying Muthallã hadn't been? "We were friends, before, and... He kissed me sometimes, coming back from ranging, or leaving in the morning, or...whenever. At first, I was...not scared, quite..."

And that was only making the bad feeling worse. Andraste have mercy, what had happened to her? Leliana slowly and quietly sat up, so she could see Lýna's face better. There wasn't much to see — the darkness of the night didn't help, but Leliana was pretty sure her face was also just blank. There was perhaps a very faint frown — elven eyes shimmering in the dark narrowed just a little — but it was so faint she could be imagining it.

"He could tell something was wrong, so we talked about it, and... After that, it was fine. He was kind, I didn't mind. I don't... I don't think I liked it the way he did, I never understood why he did it. It didn't...bother me, so. But we never...did more than that."

"Lýna..." No, she didn't know how to say this. She kind of wanted to say Lýna hadn't needed to let him if she hadn't wanted to, but surely she knew that. And it didn't...really matter, in any case — as Perry had admitted outright, most of the Wardens found her too damn scary to take advantage, and it didn't seem likely Lýna would encourage anything herself. She wanted to ask why she'd been not scared, quite, what she and Tallẽ had talked about, but she wasn't sure if she'd get an answer.

Lýna's eyes flicked to hers, just for a second, before turning back up to the sky. "More than that, it was only Muthallã. It was not like this, with him. You and Sifrèd. Is what I'm saying. So I have nothing to say."

No. No, Leliana suspected Lýna did have a story there — it just wasn't a pleasant one. "Lýna, I... You needn't answer, if you don't want to. I can, just, go, if you want, and leave you alone until tomorrow. But I..." She hesitated for a moment, taking in a slow, shaky breath, swallowed through a tight, uncooperative throat. "Muthallã... Did he hurt you?"

"I didn't..." Her voice weak and thin, Lýna trailed off for a moment, still blankly staring up at the stars. Then she turned to meet Leliana's eyes, and... It was hard to read her face — there was definitely something there, but Leliana wasn't sure what it was. Wariness, maybe? confusion? some combination of the two, and who knew what else? Slowly, each syllable drawn out and precisely articulated, she said, "Was he...not meant to?"

"Oh—" The sound was entirely unconscious, driven out of her by that terrible question hitting Leliana like a kick to the stomach. The hot, clenching, sympathetic pain quickly crawled up her throat, almost as though she were about to be sick, tears already beginning to prick at her eyes. That was just— Oh, that hurt. "No, Lýna, he—" Her voice wavering a little to her own ears — with fury or sadness, she couldn't tell — she cut herself off, Leliana's fingers came up over her lips without thinking. She gave herself a moment to master herself, taking slow, deep, conscious breaths.

She really didn't know what to do with...that. It took some reading between the lines, but Leliana got the feeling her people...hadn't talked to their young ones about love much. Lýna said the elders decided who would marry who, not the couple themselves, and she'd been so young the first time... It wasn't much of a leap of logic to assume this was talked about like a duty to their clan, that it was just...what one does. That the primary purpose was to create and raise the next generation, and the preferences and feelings of the people involved were irrelevant.

Lýna said Tallẽ had been pleased they would be wed, contrasting with Muthallã, implying that he hadn't been — Leliana had noted before that the way Lýna talked about Muthallã was slightly...odd, but she'd assumed it was out of loss, and Lýna was just being her usual unexpressive self. It seemed obvious in retrospect that...well. Lýna had suggested before that she had never felt entirely welcome in her clan — because of Dalish inter-clan politics gone unexplained, which Leliana was still curious about, but this didn't seem the appropriate time to ask either — so, perhaps, when their elders had arranged for her to marry someone she didn't really get along with, she hadn't felt she could refuse. She'd simply done what was expected of her.

And Muthallã, well, this was also reading between the lines a little, but Leliana had the feeling he...hadn't liked Lýna much. (Which was completely incomprehensible to Leliana, but that wasn't the point just now.) She didn't know enough to say just how bad it was, but she didn't have to to guess that he'd been less than gentle with her — perhaps, it was as simple as him not taking her comfort into account, because he just didn't care about her that much to begin with.

And Lýna, not knowing any better, had assumed that's simply what it was. Whatever experience she had had with Muthallã, that that was normal, what it was meant to be like.

Did he hurt you?

Was he not meant to?

Oh, the implication of that horrifyingly innocent question was, just, agonizing. It was taking some effort to keep herself from out and crying right now.

Now that Leliana was sitting here thinking about it, it did...kind of explain a lot? There were her interactions with Alistair, to begin with. Lýna might sometimes sleep with Leliana now — which could be very distracting, but she'd been behaving herself — but before her it'd been Alistair. She understood that, to Lýna's people, there wasn't necessarily anything suggestive about this, but Alistair was Alamarri, and a healthy young man — he was trying to keep it to himself, but he was attracted to her. This was some more reading between the lines, but Alistair had been a Templar, lived at a monastery since the age of ten, so it seemed possible he was completely inexperienced himself, so might not know what to do about it even if he wanted to. He was subtle about it — Leliana assumed he had no intention of acting on it, he'd simply been comforting a friend in the wake of a nasty encounter with a demon, anything more than that an unwelcome distraction — but he wasn't subtle enough, watching him talk to her anyone could see it.

Not Lýna, though, she was seemingly oblivious. Leliana had overheard Alim telling some of the Wardens (in the form of an amusing anecdote) that Lýna was so thoroughly uninterested in Alistair that she hadn't even realized he was truly quite handsome. Not only was she oblivious to Alistair's (suppressed) interest, but the possibility hadn't even occurred to her — because love as something enjoyable and desirable, that people might come together for any reason other than duty, was foreign.

Also, the impression Leliana had gotten was that Lýna found Alim and Lacie baffling sometimes. She'd assumed that was just because those two could be very silly — their relationship was sort of odd, but it worked for them, and was none of Leliana's business — and they were quite baffling people just on their own, but now she wondered if Lýna's incomprehension wasn't due to something else. After all, in Lýna's understanding of what love was, why would Lacie choose to subject herself to Alim when there was no pressing reason she must?

And then there was Lýna's confusion at Leliana's unthinking flirting...

It made a lot of sense, yes, but that didn't mean it wasn't terrible.

Andraste have mercy, what was Leliana supposed to say now?

Right, she thought she mostly had control of herself again, so she should just...try to do that. Somehow. "No, Lýna, he... It might hurt a little, at first, if you're not careful, but... It's not meant to be like that."

Lýna had been watching her the whole time Leliana struggled, and she stared in silence for another moment, the faintest of frowns on her face. "Okay." Slowly, she turned away, again looking up at the sky. "Nobody told me about these things. I don't know."

Called that one, then. Not that it was too much of a surprise, when Leliana thought about it — Lýna's mother had died when she'd been very young, and she apparently hadn't been close to anyone else in the clan... There had been, ah, Áshalh, was it? but it wasn't out of the question some things might have...fallen through the cracks. "I'm sorry. That..." Well, she didn't know, exactly, she was just sorry. "It is meant to be enjoyable. If it wasn't he was...doing something wrong."

"I know that. I mean..." Lýna let out a thin, breathy sigh. "I know it can, when...alone? I think I mean to say. But with someone else, I thought it was...different. You know."

Well, that was something, at least. "No, making love with someone should be better than touching yourself. Most of the time."

"Oh." That one syllable sounded just...maybe a bit disbelieving and slightly annoyed — like at once she kind of couldn't imagine enjoying it, but also wished someone had ever said anything about this before. Or maybe Leliana was reading into it, Lýna didn't tend to be very expressive...

"I don't mean only the physical pleasure of it — though of course that can be better too, if your partner takes care to make it so. But it's more than that, it..." Oh, she didn't know how to... This was hardly something she'd ever had to explain before, or describe in plain speech. If she were writing a song that would be one thing — though she was terribly out of practice — but that was a very different kind of language that wouldn't really work here and now. "Love is the greatest thing in the world. I don't mean only making love, no, but... Sharing intimacy with another person is always beautiful, and the more vulnerable you make yourself the...deeper it can be. To make yourself completely open to a person, and be cherished so, to, to come together in love, to care for each other and embrace the feeling of... Oh, I'm not saying this right...

"For me, I think, love is more than only a physical act. It is... We are made to love. We are the way the Maker created us to be — and as a parent wishes happiness for their children, so He wishes for us. And He made us to feel this way, purposefully. He gave us...the capacity for the physical enjoyment of each other, yes, but not only that. He gave us hearts that yearn for each other, to be drawn to each other as the river flows to the sea, to feel...all that there is in this world to feel. All the affection, and the desire, and the devotion, and the heartache, yes, even that. Be it that between parents and children, or good friends, or passionate lovers, we are made to love.

"And, maybe I am only seeing what I wish to see, but I... It's the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes, I feel it's so terribly beautiful I might cry in awe of it all." She kind of was a little, honestly, her voice slightly strained as her throat tightened — she wasn't truly tearing up, but even just that was enough Lýna would certainly hear the difference.

"...Oh." Leliana almost had to laugh at that response — quiet, flat, vaguely dumbfounded. Lýna was quiet for a moment, watching the stars, her eyes narrowed slightly, fingers idly tapping on her stomach. "This is one of your heresies?"

"Ah, yes, it is," she admitted, a little sheepishly. "It's a common heresy, truly, I'm far from the only person in the world who feels so, but it isn't something the Chantry teaches. Or at least not officially — Mothers have their own opinions, they sometimes preach things the Grand Clerics wouldn't approve of." They'd never spoken of it, but Leliana suspected Mother Dorothea would agree with her here; Mother Vichiénne, though, certainly wouldn't. "This isn't something the Maker told me though, it... Well, it simply feels right. I can't explain it more than that.

"I think they... A lot of people, I don't think they've considered that we could have been different. There's no reason people must be the way we are, you see? This is a...strange idea to contemplate, it can be hard to imagine how the world could be so different, but in the Maker all things are possible. There must be a reason we are the way we are. This seems obvious to me, but not everyone thinks...so deeply on it. I think."

Lýna let out a little hum, but nothing more. For one moment, and then another and on, something about the silence feeling thin and awkward — Lýna unmoving save for her yet-fidgeting fingers, her hair fluttering a little in the cool breeze. There was something achingly beautiful about her in this moment, solemn and sad, that Leliana couldn't quite put words to. Like a sailor's wife on the shore awaiting a lost love who would never return, or...or the old elven statutes scattered here and there in the Dales, striped with crawling greenery and the paint washed away by the centuries, but some magic preserving their faces, beautiful and powerful, yet terribly sad, scattered relics of people who'd lived and loved and died so long ago...

There was a song in this moment, somewhere, Leliana was sure of it, heartful and bittersweet. It might be a good thing she was out of practice, and hadn't a lute on her in any case — Lýna would be terribly embarrassed, she was sure.

Maybe she could... Oh, this was a terrible idea, she had little doubt Lýna wouldn't react well. But from the instant the idea occurred to her the more and more appealing it became. She'd thought of it before, of course, and with how awfully...awful it was that Lýna didn't... Well. It was a terrible idea, but... "I could show you, if you like."

Lýna blinked, her eyes flicking over to Leliana's. "What?"

"What love is meant to be like."

"...What?"

"I don't mean anything too much," Leliana reassured her, smiling. "Just a kiss. If you like."

For the first time in a little while, she caught a clear expression — lips quirking a little and her eyes tilting, an elven confused frown. "Why?"

There were multiple answers she could give to that question but, after a moment of thought, the one she went with was, "I don't know if you're aware of this, Lýna, but you are quite lovely."

Lýna grimaced, eyes turning away from hers. As though she didn't like that answer, or simply didn't believe Leliana...which was very possible, actually — it didn't seem likely very many people might have told her that before (and if that wasn't a strange thought). Whatever it was going on in her head, Lýna didn't answer, again staring silently up at the sky, the tapping of her fingers increased in tempo.

...Leliana wasn't sure how to take that. "You're allowed to say no. I won't be offended."

Still no answer. Lýna's lips parted for a moment, her breath held, as though she were about to speak, but then the moment passed. And she said nothing, fingers ceaselessly tapping away.

That was... Huh. Honestly, Leliana had expected a flat refusal, she didn't know what to do with indecisive ambivalence.

Other than just...going ahead and trying it. Lýna certainly wasn't too meek to do anything about it if she changed her mind, and... Well, if Leliana was being completely honest with herself, she just wanted to — she had always had a weakness for pretty things, after all. She might not have gotten an explicit invitation, but Lýna's obvious indecision was good enough of a starting point. Right?

She kind of wanted to ask the Maker for advice, but she couldn't feel Him watching at the moment. Just had to muddle on the best she could herself, then.

Leliana pushed herself up to her knees, shuffled a little closer. Lýna twitched at the movement, just slightly, eyes dropping from the sky to watch her. Her knee coming up against Lýna's leg, Leliana slowly tipped forward, leaning her weight on her hands to either side of Lýna's shoulders, her face hovering a foot above Lýna's. And Lýna just kept staring at her, silent, wide elven eyes gleaming in the darkness. "If you want me to stop, tell me."

Lýna's lips parted, just a little, as though to speak, her eyes flicked to her left. And she didn't say anything, her mouth falling closed again after a couple seconds.

Okay, then. A little bit of Lýna's hair had blown into her face, Leliana leaned to one side, sinking to her elbow, so she could free a hand. That put a little bit of her weight on Lýna's arm, she felt her tense a little, Lýna's eyes snapping back to hers. She reached up, slowly brushed the lock of hair aside, her finger feather-light over Lýna's forehead, pushed it all the way back, where it'd catch on the back of her ear if the wind caught it again. She let her fingers drag along the side of Lýna's face, across her cheek, a little cool to the touch from the wind, Lýna's breath caught just a little, still staring unmoving. Her fingers had even stopped fidgeting.

Leliana approached slowly, giving Lýna more time to change her mind (not that she expected she would, at this point). A thrill already tingling down her spine — she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about doing this for a while — Leliana touched her lips to Lýna's, soft, gentle. She didn't react at all, unmoving, like kissing a lover in their sleep, hardly even seemed to breathe.

She slowly pulled back a couple inches, opened her eyes. Lýna was still staring at her, unblinking, expression perfectly blank — couldn't tell whether she should read that as a bad reaction or not. Leliana smiled, warm and soft, and dipped in to kiss her again. As their lips met again, Lýna twitched, just slightly, with a shallow little breath.

When Leliana kissed her a third time, slow and warm and gentle, Lýna moved to meet her. Uncertainly, awkwardly, yes, but she wasn't imagining it, Lýna's lips were moving against hers. A bubbling, giddy warmth rising in her chest, Leliana had to stop herself from giggling, her lips twitching with a smile. And so she kissed Lýna again, and she kissed her back — clumsily, timidly, but Leliana was thrilled all the same.

After a long, slow, warm moment, Leliana pulled back a hair — she glanced up, but Lýna's eyes had fallen closed now — her fingers light on Lýna's jaw, she gently pushed down on Lýna's chin, parting her lips just a little. Lýna's eyes blinked open at that, surprised, Leliana shot her another smile before dipping in again.

And on it went, slow and soft, the warmth in her chest building, burning in her face and her fingers, until she couldn't feel the chill of the wind at all. Lýna grew less cautious as the seconds went by, but hardly what Leliana would call confident, still shy and, just, unbearably sweet, Leliana couldn't tell if she was on the edge of giggles or tears.

Pulling back to take a breath — though Lýna needed it more than she did, thin and shuddering — Leliana's fingers had slipped into Lýna's hair, curling around under her ear. She pressed a soft kiss to the corners of Lýna's lips, then her cheek, a little chilled from the wind, then another further down, over her jaw, and oh, she was warm down here. Leliana buried her face in Lýna's neck, who twitched a little as her breath caught — not that Leliana was actually doing anything, just taking in the warmth and breathing in her scent, smooth elven body odor and oiled leather and smoke from the fire, along with a mix of sweet green and sharp herbs Leliana couldn't identify. It seemed to follow Lýna everywhere, probably some peculiar soap substitute her people used — Lýna did take a couple things with her to bathe, presumably there was something — but she had no idea what it was made of...

Lýna shifted under her a little, she pulled back to— Oh! Leliana had ended up resting more of her weight on her, Lýna was just trying to free her arms. Once those were out of the way, Leliana let herself settle again — though she did keep some of her weight on her elbow, Lýna was so little — reluctantly pulling away from Lýna's neck to take in her face. She couldn't read that expression, too subtle, or perhaps it was simply too dark for Leliana to make it out. Lýna's eyes were bouncing around a little, sometimes meeting Leliana's eyes, but flicking now and again down to her lips, around to her hair, sometimes to the side, looking away for a blink, her breaths thin but harsher than usual, enough Leliana could hear them.

"Are you all right?"

Lýna let out a little huff of breath, an almost-laugh, her lips twitching a little. "I don't know."

...Fair enough, she guessed. Leliana felt sort of great, actually, warm and soft and still fighting down giddy giggles, but she understood this must be a lot more confusing for Lýna than it was for her. "Do you want to stop?"

For a moment, Lýna seemed to hold her breath, tensing under her, staring to the left at nothing. Her eyes flicked to Leliana's, but just for an instant before dipping down and away. Finally, after a moment of rigid hesitation, she let out a thin sigh (her breath playing along Leliana's throat), whispered, "No." She swallowed, a little shakily, her voice coming through far more clearly the second time. "No, don't stop."

Well, that was the clearest invitation Leliana had gotten all night. She could hardly let that just pass by.

She sank down to Lýna again, letting a little more of her weight go, breathing her in. After a few seconds more — slowly and gently passing kisses back and forth, Lýna's breathing noticeably harsher than usual, sharp from the seasonings from dinner and sweet with mead — she felt one of Lýna's arms — slowly, tentatively, uncertain whether she'd be stung — come up around Leliana's waist. Tingles prickling along her skin, choking back another giddy giggle, Leliana shifted her weight over, moving one knee to Lýna's other side, straddling her thighs — Lýna was rather shorter than her, that's just the way it worked out. That wasn't entirely comfortable, the armor over Lýna's hips was digging into her thighs a little, but oh well...

Retreating from another, soft, warm, gentle kiss, Leliana let the tip of her tongue flick over Lýna's bottom lip — she twitched, fingers clenching on the cloth of Leliana's frock for just a second. (Leliana wished for a flash that she wasn't wearing the thick wool coat, but without it she certainly would have been cold before, sitting on the shore and talking.) Lýna's lips parted a little more, Leliana lingered a little longer this time, catching Lýna's bottom lip between hers as she pulled away, tugging a little, Lýna let out a huff of breath, her hand suddenly at the side of Leliana's neck, fingers slipping up into her hair. An involuntary shiver working up her spine, tension building in her chest — drawn to each other like the river flows to the sea — Leliana had to move, too keyed up to sit patiently still, but the metal over Lýna's hips dug deeper into thighs, ouch, stupid thing...

Kisses now profound and hot and lingering (only making that ecstatic tension, the urge to move, all the more intense), Leliana retreated a blink to breathe, but Lýna's fingers tightened in her hair, head rising a couple inches as her lips followed Leliana's. A little too eagerly — their teeth clacked together, a little sharp flash of pain as a sliver of Leliana's lip was caught between them. A low chuckle burst out of her throat before she could stop it, turning a little away, the corner of her lips against Lýna's, nose against her cheek. Leliana's breath sent gleaming white-silver hairs fluttering, brushing over Lýna's ear. The hand in Leliana's hair tightened a little again — not enough to be painful, it was just definitely noticeable, sending delightful little sparks shooting down her neck — Lýna let out a shaky breath, Leliana could feel her shifting under her, squirming in place just a little.

Of course, elven ears could be quite sensitive in the proper circumstances, Leliana had already been aware of that.

Since Lýna was rather busy catching her breath at the moment, well, might as well...apply herself elsewhere. Little light kisses along her jaw, and Leliana turned down into her neck, Lýna's head turning a bit away, seemingly on instinct. Smooth and hot, leather and smoke and green, the first couple brushes soft and gentle, but she was so warm and so terribly sweet — fingers still running through Leliana's hair slow and cautious, arm held gentle around her hips — and the desire to taste her struck like a flash of lightning, almost painful in its sudden intensity, her breath catching in her throat, but she was certain Lýna wouldn't let it go that far (yet), so this would have to do for tonight. She wet Lýna's skin with her tongue, breath shuddering near her ear, started taking light, playful nips, Lýna's hands twitching in her hair and clenching over her hip, letting out a low, wavering, cooing sort of noise — Leliana knew what that was, of course, she had been with elves before, they didn't make the same nasally sort of moans humans did — shifting under her, her spine curling up—

Lýna tensed, abruptly hard and still, her hand jumping to Leliana's shoulder. "Haj," she hissed, breathless.

"Mm?" Leliana hummed against her neck, and—

The arm around her hips lifting away, the one on her shoulder pushing up, Lýna's voice coming suddenly hard, "Dhjènĩ-ma!"

The word was unfamiliar but, Leliana didn't need to understand it to know what Lýna was saying. Reluctantly tearing her face away from the warmth of Lýna's throat, Leliana rolled off of her, sped along by a little shove from Lýna, landing heavier than she meant to on her hip. Lýna sat up, her legs spread out in front of her and both her hands buried in her hair, her breath heavy and...almost panicked? "Lýna?"

She didn't answer, gaze fixed down toward her knees, face hidden by her hair and wrists.

"Lýna," she muttered, one hand gently touching her arm, "What—"

Moving quickly enough Leliana could hardly react, Lýna slapped away her hand, spun around to her feet, silent save for the skittering of sand against sand. One of her feet slipped at first, the sand yielding under the force, but with a little hop she was running, in seconds vanishing into the trees, slipping through the brush with steps so light and quick it almost seemed like magic, only the slightest rustle as she passed. And then she was gone, so fast.

Leliana stared after her, her breath still a little heavy, the ecstatic tension slowly dribbling out of her, the wind cold against her flushed skin. What was that about? Clearly something was wrong, but...

She wanted to follow her, to... Well, this just felt subtly...wrong, leaving it like this, letting her run off, clearly distressed about something, and not... If there was a problem, they should talk about it, clear out whatever it was, or else their next lesson was going to be terribly uncomfortable. Also she...didn't like the thought of Lýna out there somewhere on her own. She meant, she didn't think Lýna was going to run off or anything — she'd be back by the morning at the very latest, no doubt about that. But there was clearly something wrong, and Lýna shouldn't be left alone to...

Well, Leliana was picturing Lýna finding some private place to cry for a while, which she probably wasn't going to do — she'd seemed more... Well, she'd seemed almost frightened, which didn't make a whole lot of sense, but. Regardless of whether Leliana actually thought that was going to happen, the thought kept pulling at her, and she just...didn't want Lýna to suffer on her own somewhere out there, that was all.

But she also didn't want to...crowd her. She meant, whatever it was that was wrong, it was definitely Leliana's fault, and maybe Lýna just didn't want to talk to her right now. That would be entirely fair. The way Lýna had just slapped her hand away and run off — which did kind of hurt, yes, but Lýna was obviously in distress at the moment, so she'd decided to not take it personally — if Leliana found her she might just...run off again. It might not do any good, just make it worse.

Leliana didn't really believe that, but Lýna could be a very private person. Who could say what she might do if Leliana tracked her down?

And that was another problem: Leliana had no idea how to find her. She might have gone back to camp, but it was more likely she'd run off into the trees somewhere, and... Well, Leliana hadn't spent much time out in the woods, and wouldn't even know where to start at tracking someone, even if she could see properly in the darkness — she'd be especially hopeless to catch a Dalish hunter, as little noise as Lýna had made as she left there probably wasn't much of a trail to follow.

...She couldn't possibly find Lýna, but...

She wavered another moment with indecision, but no, she didn't want to, just, leave this like that, leave Lýna to struggle through whatever was going on alone somewhere. Nodding to herself, Leliana tipped up to her knees, let her eyes close, focusing inward. It didn't matter what she recited, she thought — she probably didn't need anything at all to attract His attention, but she preferred to, thought it was more respectful. Quietly, haltingly at first, she begin to sing under her breath, the same song that came to her frequently, according to Alim might well have protected her from the influence of the abominations in the Circle.

O Maker, hear my cry: / Guide me through the blackest of nights. / Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked. / Make me to rest in the warmest places.

O Creator, see me kneel: / For I walk only where You would bid me, / Stand only in places You have blessed, / Sing only the words You place in my throat.

O Maker, know my heart: / Take from me a life of sorrow...

She trailed off — He was here. It was difficult for her to describe exactly what the presence of the Maker felt like. He was still at a distance, she assumed — He didn't come to her physically, still across the Veil and beyond the Fade wherever He resided in the modern day — but it was unmistakable. Like eyes on the back of her neck, a sense of being watched, but not in an anxious way, just...warm and calm, everything feeling heavier and clearer, and more real somehow. As though each second, each action, was given a greater importance than it would ordinary have, simply because He was watching.

Leliana took a shuddering breath, fighting against overwhelming, dizzying awe — she'd called, and He'd actually answered.

From the presence surrounding her came a warm (if slightly exasperated) sort of amusement, as though to say of course I did, you silly girl.

Oh. Well. Hmm.

As much as she might want to linger over the fact that He'd actually come, that hint of exasperation spurred her on. (She had absolutely no idea how much He could split his attention, and she didn't want to...distract Him from something actually important...) She didn't know how much He saw when He wasn't watching, He might well know everything that had happened already. But she drew attention to it anyway, remembering what had happened the last few minutes. A couple seconds into it, she abruptly remembered that Lýna didn't sing the Chant, was intensely skeptical of the Maker's benevolence — though she didn't come out and say that, most of the time, too polite — and...

Well, it hadn't occurred to her until just now, but He might not approve of Leliana pursuing her. In retrospect, it was obvious that that was what Leliana was doing. She might have framed it at the time as just a kiss, just trying to show Lýna that...well, that love wasn't some horrible, empty... Well. Leliana might have deluded herself at the time into believing that it was just about making a point, trying to show to Lýna how badly she'd been treated before, that it wasn't right, but that hadn't been it, really. Leliana had obviously been trying to sway her, thinking about it.

She had always had a weakness for pretty things...

And, Lýna wasn't Andrastian, and while Leliana hadn't actually taken her solemn vows yet... And here she was asking the Maker to help her find her, and... Well. She had the feeling this probably wasn't what He'd had in mind when he'd led her to Lýna...

But, thankfully, the amusement surrounding her only grew brighter, warmer, like summer sun shining on her in the night. It didn't come as words, exactly — when the Maker spoke to her, it was never a voice, she couldn't even describe how she knew what He was saying. As though meaning itself removed from language, echoing through her from outside, go to her, little raven.

And so she did.

She didn't know how she knew which way to go. There was no path laid out before her eyes, no light or sound she could follow, no hand at her wrist pulling her along. She wasn't being directed, each step entirely her own. And yet, somehow, she knew. The same way she knew anything the Maker told her, meaning absent of any sign from any of her senses, echoing through her from outside, she knew, picking through the brush and over roots and the occasional rock sticking out through the earth. She could probably do it blindfolded — what little difference it would make, as dark as the night was, the moon at some point having disappeared in the clouds — it didn't matter that her surroundings were entirely unfamiliar, that she had no idea where she was going, she simply knew, this way, this way, this way...

Even when the Maker's presence diminished, His attention drawn elsewhere, she still knew, each blind step absolutely confident.

Leliana smiled, humming to herself, For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light / And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.

In time, she knew not how long, she came upon a clearing in the trees, dimly illuminated by the half-hidden stars. Grass covered the earth in a thick carpet, the tallest reaching nearly to her waist — many were wildflowers, she saw, though few were in proper bloom, thin light casting the colors dim and grey. Sitting on a shallow shelf of stone was a figure, indistinct in the darkness, save for the glimmering of metal here and there, hair a white so clean it almost seemed to glow.

Lýna's hair was much lower than it should be, she noticed. It was hard to tell, the darkness too thick, but she thought Lýna was sitting bent all the way over, her head between her knees and hands folded over the back of her neck — looked uncomfortable to Leliana, but elven joints worked differently. If she hadn't come from the right direction, spotted the white, she might not have been able to see Lýna at all.

She lingered at the edge of the clearing for a moment, her eyes drooping closed, praying in gratitude. (Quietly astounded that she'd called for Him and He'd actually come, thank you thank you I'm yours I love you thank you...)

As slowly and softly as she placed her steps, moving cautiously, she was certain Lýna knew she was here — she hadn't looked up, but if Leliana could hear the rustle of the grass against her own legs Lýna certainly could from there. And Lýna continued not to react to her presence, even as Leliana sat next to her on the shelf, leaving a few inches between them.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. The grass wavered around them in the faint breeze, the smoke from their camp and the village setting the stars above to faintly twinkling. Lýna was almost eerily quiet, Leliana couldn't even hear her breathe.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, soft and heartfelt. "I didn't mean to... I shouldn't have done that."

Lýna was quiet another long moment, as still as a statue, until finally, "No." As awkward of a position as she was in at the moment, her voice came out kind of half-strangled, but understandable.

Though just because Leliana could understand it didn't mean she knew what it meant. "No?"

There was a thin sigh, so soft it was hardly audible. Then, slowly, Lýna's fingers unfolded from the back of her neck, and she sat up. Not all the way, still hunching over, leaning on her arms crossed over her thighs. She stared off into the trees to the right, turned far enough away from Leliana her face was entirely hidden. "You don't need to...be sorry."

"It's not about needing — you're...in distress, and I feel badly about it. I didn't mean to... I pushed, and I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

"It's not..." Lýna trailed off for a moment, clearly struggling for words. "You didn't...do wrong, for this. This is outside of...that. In part, I mean."

...She really didn't know what Lýna meant. If she was picking apart Lýna's more-broken-than-usual Alamarri correctly, she was trying to say whatever was bothering her was only tangentially related to the kiss, but... Well, generally, Leliana had the feeling that if someone fled into the woods after she kissed them, she'd probably done something wrong, even if she wasn't certain what that was herself. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

Lýna turned halfway back to her, staring down at her lap — there was a glimmer in her eyes, but whether that was a sign of tears or just that thing elven eyes do in the dark sometimes, Leliana couldn't see clearly enough to tell. "I don't mean I..." She trailed off, with a little frustrated sigh, her eyes falling closed for a moment. Then, the motion halting at first, indecisive, Lýna straightened, and turned toward Leliana, one hand rising to—

Oh! Leliana felt her eyes widen, her heart skip up into her throat, as she realized what Lýna was doing, cool fingers on her cheek and Lýna leaning into her. Before Leliana had even gotten through her shock, Lýna's lips met hers, hesitant but warm and gentle, and just so terribly sweet, this girl, honestly, she could hardly stand it...

After only a couple seconds Lýna broke away with a groan, leaned all the way forward again, her head between her knees and fingers woven at the back of her neck. Leliana could only stare at her silently, her lips still tingling.

Okay, now she was confused.

"How are—" Her voice came out a little croaky, Leliana broke to clear her throat. "Ah, how are you feeling now? I'm sorry, but I really can't tell."

"I might be sick."

...Oh.

Aïe? She really didn't know how to react to that...

"I don't... This is...not allowed, with my people." Lýna took in and out a thin, shaking breath. "If I'm with them, now, I be... Our Keeper and the elders would have unfriendly talk with me. And that is best. The worst, I may be cast out, our name taken back from me. I don't..." Another long breath. "I don't know."

Ah, Leliana thought she got it now: Lýna felt she might be sick from nerves, not disgust with herself. That was...sad, yes, but understandable.

She hadn't met many elves from the wandering clans before, but she understood they had a very dim view of mixing with humans. That hadn't always been the case — elves and humans hadn't been allowed to marry back in the old Dalish kingdom, no more than they could in Andrastian lands now, but from what she'd read they hadn't been nearly as sensitive about it then. They'd even had a sizeable human minority and everything (mostly Avvar, but some Andrastians too). She thought their modern attitudes could be traced back to the Battle of Red Crossing.

There were multiple stories out there about how the Exalted March on the Dales had started — most of them obviously meant to vilify the elves, casting them as bloodthirsty barbarians bent on slaughtering innocent Andrastians — but the less fanciful ones shared a common theme, if differing in the details. Red Crossing was a small Orlesian border town on the River Celestine, notable mostly as a stopover for trade with the Dales. The story always involved a pair of lovers, human and elf, who planned to run away together. Different stories mixed up the genders, in one the human the man and in another the elf, though a consistent feature was that the elf was a close relative of one of los guerrièrs verdeyars — an order of warriors sworn to defend the Dales with their lives, sort of inspired by the Wardens. (Nowadays they were often called chevaliers despite the modern concept not having existed yet at the time.) Exactly how it started varied story to story, the couple caught either by the humans or the elves, there's a misunderstanding, someone gets killed.

And then the opposite side retaliated, and then there's a retaliation to the retaliation, and a retaliation to that, and so on. In time, the violence escalated to the point of the local baron sending a band of soldiers across the river, into elven lands, pursuing 'criminals' who'd fled across the border (exactly what their crimes were had gone unrecorded). They were captured and killed, and in response los guerrièrs verdeyars forded the Celestine in force and sacked Red Crossing, lo baron himself killed during the battle. All-out war between the Dales and Orlais didn't break out immediately, but by then it was inevitable — fording the Celestine was even a common idiom for crossing a point of no return in several languages, and not just in Orlais, the event was that well-known.

If one believed the story, the entire war — the elven invasion of Orlais, the Chantry calling an Exalted March, the final destruction of the elven homeland — had grown out of a petty blood feud, itself sparked by a terrible misunderstanding. All because a human and an elf had loved each other.

If Lýna had been taught a version of that story growing up, well, Leliana could understand why she might be...uneasy.

"...I don't know what to say."

"You needn't say anything." Lýna finally sat up again, like before, leaning on her arms crossed over her thighs. She wasn't looking at Leliana again, staring off into the trees, still save for her fingers tapping against her legs, her fingernails clicking on one of the scales fixed to her hips. "I am...far from them, now. It shouldn't matter what they say, what I was told. But I still..."

But Leliana being human still made her terribly uncomfortable, yes, she understood. A little frustrating, and sad, but sometimes there was nothing that could be done about this sort of thing — one couldn't unlearn the stories and attitudes one was raised with overnight, after all. "It's all right, Lýna. Tomorrow, we can go on and...pretend this never happened."

"No."

Leliana blinked in surprise, waited for a moment but Lýna didn't say anything else. "No?"

"I can't..." Lýna grimaced — couldn't see her face, but Leliana caught the hiss of breath — turned to stare down at her knees, her hair falling over her face again. "I never went... No, that's not how you say it in Alamarri, I don't know. Tonight is, I can't say, I don't want to pass over this like it never was. I..."

The realization slowly came over her, tingles sparking along her arms, an unconscious smile coming to her face. "Lýna, do you want to be with me?" She had not seen this coming, truly, it was a pleasant surprise. Very little had... Leliana meant, she'd slipped and gotten a little flirty and teasing now and then — she did have a weakness for pretty things, after all, she couldn't help it sometimes — but Lýna had never reacted in a way to suggest, well, anything, had hardly even seemed to notice. As Leliana had observed before, Lýna seemed improbably oblivious about these things...

Lýna let out a heavy breath, shaking a little. "How this... Like with Alim and Lacie, I don't know how this works? Back home, it is never so...not...tied? I don't know how to say." She had no idea how relations worked between lovers who hadn't simply been arranged to be married, she meant, which was fair. "The elders always decide, or almost always, and for two women this is..." She trailed off for a moment, one hand coming up to brush her hair out of her face, the gesture seeming strangely self-conscious — oh, maybe it wasn't just because Leliana was human... "I don't know how it goes, how these things are to even be. I don't understand.

"So it's all that, and I... Some of it, it doesn't matter, or it shouldn't matter, but it's what I know, and Alamarri ways are still...confusing. Sometimes. So, I don't know, I need to think. For a time."

"I understand. If you want to talk about it, I'll be here." Come to think of it, she might not be entirely suitable, given the things Lýna has to work through were about her, might be too uncomfortable. "Or maybe Lacie would be better, she's a sweet girl. A little odd, but."

There was a little huff — in exasperation? or maybe a weak laugh? "I know this is...not best. That I can't say what I..."

"Oh no, that's fine! Lýna, if you need time to work some things out for yourself, that's fine, I understand. I know everything has been a mess for you for a long time now, from fleeing the Blight to trying to get by in a foreign land to the demons, and now this..." And, Andraste have mercy, she was only, what, seventeen? Leliana tended to forget about that, Lýna was far more competent than she'd been at that age... "With all you've been through these last few years, anybody might need to slow down and explore their own feelings on...anything, really. You don't need to apologize for that, you really don't, I understand."

"Okay." For a moment, silence hung over them — not particularly awkward silence, at least not on Leliana's end, they simply hadn't anything to say just now. It was a little cold though, Leliana hunched in against the wind, maybe they should go back... "It is late."

"Yes, I was just thinking that." Leliana pushed up to her feet — feeling a little stiff, she was colder than she'd thought — turned to hold out a hand to Lýna, smiling down at her.

Lýna gave her a flat look, perhaps a little exasperated. "You go." She paused for a second, then added, "I'm sleeping with Morrigan tonight."

...That was fair. Leliana still had to tamp down a brief flare of jealousy — she hadn't missed how easily Lýna and Morrigan got on, more familiar with each other's perspectives than the Alamarri's, but if nothing else Lýna's behavior tonight proved there definitely wasn't anything going on there. Also, Leliana just didn't like Morrigan much, but she understood why Lýna might be uncomfortable with her at the moment, so, yes, fair enough. "Ah well, would you walk with me anyway, please? I don't know how to get back," she admitted, sheepishly.

Frowning up at her, Lýna asked, "How did you find me?" There was a note of surprise, and also a sort of self-directed irritation, as though that thought hadn't occurred to her until just now.

Leliana grinned. "The Maker led me to you." That was still astounding to think about, honestly, she hadn't truly expected Him to come...

It was hard to read this expression exactly, eyes slightly narrowed and lips reluctantly curled, but Leliana got the feeling Lýna wasn't happy about something. "You know that, even if we are to be...however this is, I won't come to worship your god."

"Oh! Yes, I know that, and I'm certain he does too." Her voice dropping a little, warm and soft, "I told you earlier, Lýna: all people of this world are His children, whether they sing the Chant or not."

Lýna let out a scoff, her gaze breaking from Leliana's for a second, rolling her eyes. She popped up to her feet, ignoring Leliana's hand. Without a word, she turned away and started off toward the trees in a seemingly random direction — it wasn't the same way Leliana had come from, she didn't think... — smoothly slipping through the grass with only the slightest hissing. Leliana made far more noise scrambling after her.

That had been a rather cold end to their conversation, but Leliana didn't mind — she knew Lýna was uncomfortable with...well, a lot of things, she guessed. She didn't take offense, was the point. She followed Lýna through the quiet, dark forest, her brilliant hair like a torch in the dark, fluttering in the chill wind.

After a short time, she found herself smiling and humming to herself. Not the Chant this time, but an old canso she'd learned years ago, light and cheerful and bouncing.

Come to me / My girl, my girl / I long to take your hand.
Dance with me / My love, my love / Your warmth hold back the night...

She didn't know if Lýna would appreciate the sentiment, but it wasn't as though she would know — she certainly wouldn't recognize the tune. Besides, as uncertain as things were now, the awkward note they'd ended on, it truly had been a lovely night...

---

Áshalh — This is Ashaᶅ, using Delois orthography to reflect that Leliana is only half-certain she's remembering the name, and would certainly pronounce it incorrectly.

That snippet of a song at the end is obviously mine — you can tell by how bad it is. I kinda cringed at myself writing it, because I suck at poetry, but I take solace in the fact that it's supposed to be silly and over-the-top. (Renaissance love songs could be so ridiculous sometimes.) And no, I'm not writing the whole thing, I suck at poetry so bad.

I know I say this every damn time, it seems like, but how is this so long? Shit just keeps getting away from me...

Poor Lýna, has to deal with cultural brainwashing, teenage hormones, and a fucking Blight all at the same time — and I thought I had a rough time at her age.

Anyway, the plot through the end of the first game (not including Awakenings) and Act I of the second is outlined now (in general terms, not scene by scene). The plan for the Orzammar arc is currently:
The Lords of Orzammar (1-2 chapters)
Glory, Honor, and Other Lies (a little surprise for you nerds)
Unrest in Denerim III (a wild Isabella appears)
Kirkwall III
A Prince's Favor and A Lord's Trust (multiple chapters, arc title TBD)
The Battle of Dust Town
Kirkwall IV (a wild Varric appears)
Brotherhood of the Grey II
Unrest in Denerim IV
The Battle of Bownammar (several chapters)
(Birthright, Act of Mercy, and the Long Way Home will be between chapters of Bownammar)
A chapter or two at the end to tie it off (arc title TBD), and then that's it. Whew. Minor details subject to change as we move along, but I think this is pretty close to the outline we're going to end up with. I'm going to do a reread of the whole fic and take notes on original worldbuilding/character stuff — I have a terrible habit of making shit up as I go and then imprecisely remembering it later, and not being able to find things doesn't help — and take a little time to flesh out some side characters, particularly the new Wardens. That and my other projects may or may not delay the next update for a while, we'll see.

Right, that's enough of that. Thanks for reading my bullshit, moving on...