"Ow…ow." I would like to say more than that, but practice a little restraint as the quillback spine is slow extracted from my arm.

"Keep faith Inquisitor," Blackwall sooths, despite the fact that his voice was not created for anything within the same country as 'soothing'. "We're halfway done."

"Half?" I'd really been hoping it was more than that.

"I really don't think you get to complain, Boss," Bull says from where he's lying face down on a nearby rock, Cassandra pulling spines from his backside like his pants are a particularly stripy pincushion. "Yowch! Think you could do it any harder, Seeker?"

"For the last time Bull, it isn't going to happen."

"Okay, for once that wasn't the way I meant- vashedan."

Bull swears a bit more. I turn to Blackwall and say, "should we find a place a bit further away?"

"Lets."

We gather our limited healing potions and leave Cassandra and Bull to sort things out. The quillback ambush had been a welcome fight, despite the injures, and I'm glad that a dragon hasn't dulled thrill of a good old fashion wild animal attack. Almost makes me homesick.

The fight had also, thankfully, chased us near some natural shade. There's a nice outcropping where the heat hasn't hit to badly, and we sit down again, I offering Blackwall my arm so he can resume his work.

"You're awfully good at this," I say, thinking how much better I'm fairing than Bull.

"Had to patch myself quite a few times as a travelling Warden," he explains, the next quill slowly extruding itself under his touch. As we sit in companionable silence, he adds, softly, "a lot of those days, the loneliness could eat you from the inside out."

"Oh." I turn my head to him, but he still has his concentration firmly on the line of foot-long spines still in my arm. "That is…quite a heavy one. Are you alright, Blackwall?"

"Now, yes." The final one comes out, and he lays it beside him, hardy stalks of grass coming to encircle it in their blades. "Now that I've allowed my mistakes to be known, I can begin to make peace with it. Truly atone. And some may never forgive me, but it was a step I had to take." He ties a knot on the bandage, and finally looks up at me, meeting my eyes with surprising intensity. "Shame wants to stay inside, where it can fester, but I won't let it anymore."

He's told me as much before, but never that look deep in his eyes. I haven't seen that since we first found him behind those bars. "Has something happened?"

He frowns. "No Inquisitor, nothing's happened."

"And why keep calling me 'Inquisitor'? What happened to 'my Lord'?"

At that, the frown turns into nearly a grimace. "I thought it wouldn't be…prudent. Considering your current state."

For a moment, I hold the glorious fantasy of playing dumb, but I let it die as soon as it arrives. I slouch, ignoring what the position does to the pain in my arm. "You know about that, then?"

"Cassandra may not talk to me, but she talks to Bull. 'I just don't understand why anyone would choose to be a man'? That's quite, as you say, quite a heavy one."

"No offense intended," I say blithely.

"Of course," he says, but doesn't seem tickled by my joke. "…I take it you've been ruminating on what that might mean?"

"All day," I admit. It took getting stabbed in the arm several times to get me to stop, but here we are again, right back at square one. "But it doesn't matter. I can't be that, not when I have the whole Inquisition and the opinion of the entire Vashoth race riding on my back!"

I resist the urge to pick at the bandages. Dismal memories seep around the edges of my mind, like the poison in the quills as the poultice beats it back.

"You know," I say darkly, "they attacked my company, just because someone spread a rumor that I was using forces to secretly convert people to Qun? What a laugh. The Qunari call me less than, and the humans will still claim I'm their scion."

"That is more than any one person should bare," Blackwall says softly.

"And even if I weren't, I-," I swallow. "I love to fight, it's what I am. I enjoy the glory of it."

He lifts his bow. "As do I. That doesn't sound like such a terrible thing."

"You don't get it," I fret. "Women who fight don't exist under the Qun."

"You're not under the Qun," he reminds me. "For that matter, neither is Bull. I know you talk to your horse in gibberish and wear some fancy paint, but you've never based your identity on where someone else came from. Why start now?"

I sigh and draw my knees up to my chest. "I…I'm scared Blackwall. I'm scared of what it means."

He puts a hand on my arm, above where the bandage is tied with strength but still care. "I know, Inquisitor."

A few minutes of silence pass between us, my face pressed downward, only the sound of Bull's occasional grunts from the around the corner to disturb us. Finally, I say, "can you stop calling me Inquisitor, though? It sounds strange coming from you."

"I can." He pauses. "Shall I say 'my Lady' instead?"

I think, and tuck where a strand of white hair has fallen out of place. "Yes. Yes, let's try that."

"Very well," he says with a small smile. "My Lady."

The words thrill something inside me, something I have no word for, and it fills every fiber of my being. It shoots outwards, reaching my toes, my fingers—I swear I can feel it in the tips of my horns. I don't know whether to beam or hide my face so I settle for both, unable to meet Blackwall's eye as he checks on me.

"Adaar?" he asks, unease written into his voice.

"Yes!" I say a little breathlessly. "That's me!"

He helps me up, and as we gather our party (Bull somehow the grumpier of the two), I can't make the twisting winds in my head into something substantial. I almost wish I had Kaariss's way with words, but then examine that thought, and realize if I'm wishing that I must be going crazy.

Somewhere along the way we slow, as Bull's brave face is no longer fooling me, and I make him get off his horse to walk. The slow pace is no trouble. I have a thousand things to figure out before we get back.

Blackwall and I ride side by side, mute throughout, and soon enough Griffon Wing Keep appears in the distance, setting sun striking every silver wingtip.

We stop on a ridge as soon as it comes in sight. "I feel…" I say to him. "I feel something should be different."

I look down at myself. Despite all my revelations, I'm the same as when I left, less than a week nothing on a body that's been alive for thirty-two years. At the very least, I should wear my scarf different, or have some wicked scar to prove I've changed. Instead, I have the marks of quillback spines, a burn of dragon fire on my left hand, and a lingering odor of sweat and sulfur. I run my fingers through my hair and, just to try something, let it fall out to the sides of my face.

"I'm sure that will come with time, my Lady," Blackwall assures me. The title gives me the same delight it did the first time, and I try to hide better the heat in my cheeks.

We watch Bull and Cassandra pass beneath us, to Bull's call of, "look who's the slowpokes now!" as they plod to our destination.

"I should definitely talk to them before we get there, at least," I muster, motioning to their backs. The thought sends a sinking through me, the idea of talking to my companions not nearly as comfortable as it was a few days ago. Or, I realize suddenly, as comfortable as it is with Blackwall. "Cassandra's suspicious already. And if she's talked to Bull he's…annoyingly perceptive."

"Comes with the territory," Blackwall agrees.

Suddenly, Dams nips Geoffroy on the neck, and the stallion immediately shies away from her with a squeal.

"Hey!" I say, pulling her reigns away from the other horse. "What was that for?"

"Ha!" Blackwall exclaims. "I think our mounts are friends."

"That didn't look friendly to me," I say.

"A bite can be, if it's from the right person," he says with a sly grin.

"Eugh," I say, but I can't hide my amusement. "You're staring to sound like Bull."

"I heard that!" calls from the distant sands.

I lean and whisper, "annoyingly. Perceptive."

But whatever the bite was, Geoffroy seems to have already gotten over it, and moves away from us and down the ridge. Blackwall turns and shrugs. "Guess we're moving out."

"And here I thought I was in charge." I look at Dams, but she gives no recognition that she's been anything but a perfect traveling companion. "Alright, lead the way, miss," I tell her, and we venture forward, after Blackwall and after our friends.