oOo

Had Elissa been a man, she would probably be wielding a greatsword and taking down half a dozen enemies with one swing. As it was, she had two slim but sturdy blades, the longer of which was what I knew to be her family sword, simply because the hilt was so ornate and well cared for. She was fast and nimble, and almost recklessly aggressive. Half the time the darkspawn didn't get close to landing a hit, and even if they did it didn't slow her down or distract her. I was surprised at the amount of force she was able to put behind her swings; she certainly didn't look like she was capable of splintering armour like that. Every fight seemed to imbue her with the kind of fury I had rarely seen, only heard of. Every darkspawn seemed to have insulted her with its very existence.

That might have had something to do with the scouting party – or more accurately, what remained of it – that we had found earlier. Elissa had inspected the dead bodies as I bandaged up the survivor, and then asked the man about her brother. Once he had professed to know nothing about any Fergus Cousland, she had stalked off into some reeds and stayed there until the poor man had stuttered out of sight. I imagined no knowledge of her brother was torturing her, but that was better than knowing for sure he had been butchered by darkspawn.

In any case, her prowess with a weapon was now obvious. Not that I had expected Duncan to have made a bad choice – though the circumstances of her recruitment could just as well make her a last resort – but Grey Wardens had to be more than that, more than just warriors. We had to be made of stern stuff to survive becoming a Warden, and to be able to do what others could not.

The only one I had seen show real evidence of that conviction and self-assurance that you were on the right path and doing the right thing was Daveth, but I also suspected the circumstances of his recruitment had a lot to do with that. Still, I had heard rumours that Duncan had a similar background, and I was hardly one to judge. I did have reservations about Jory, who despite being a Knight was scared and nervous. Elissa didn't seem to feel anything at all, except annoyance at Jory's jitters.

Then again, this was my first time accompanying any of them... I doubted I knew exactly what to look for.

But you definitely couldn't be afraid of death, or darkspawn. Such a common trait made recruiting fairly simple, really. But I thought that they all happened to have that in various degrees, with Jory again being the most questionable. In fact, Elissa looked down on Ser Jory's reluctance to put himself in danger, though the worst she did was make a joke on the irony of her being a woman and the bravest of the lot of them. I rather liked her after that, though covering my laugh by forcing myself to cough silently had been hard.

I tried not to betray any reaction as she slowed to keep pace with me as we trundled along through the hills.

"Alistair, this is clearly a test of some kind. Is there any information you can volunteer?"

And wow did my name sound actually sexy in a noblewoman's accent.

I shrugged. "Well, this isn't the last part of the test is all I can say."

"Hmm." She considered with a tilted head and gauntleted fingers tapping on her arm. "And what do you think of my chances?"

She lacked the basic rigorous combat training of any soldier, so she didn't have the form or stamina she should. She was quick, agile and focused. She knew how to improvise, how to flank, how to take advantage of openings and even how to shrug off a hit. Definitely a quick-thinker with an ability to get out of tight spots. She seemed learned, assured and determined, and her chances were about as high as they were going to get.

But I decided not to say that.

"Well, mainly we have to decapitate darkspawn, and you seem to be pretty good at it." There, that was a pretty accurate summary.

She nodded. "Tell me, did you have to do something like this?"

"Yeeees… darkspawn are pretty disgusting, aren't they, so really, this is to see if you can handle seeing their ugly mugs."

A man's voice interrupted us from ahead.

"Hey, stop giving the woman help!"

Elissa raised an eyebrow at Daveth, who had turned around in front of us where he had been walking just out of earshot.

"Oh? The woman?" Elissa asked incredulously.

Daveth grinned 'roguishly' and gestured. "Yeah, Alistair, stop trying to garner favour with the lady."

Jory rolled his eyes in the background. I felt like laughing; this was the Order, all right. Bad jokes and camaraderie: get your fill.

"Daveth, two things. First: I asked, he answered. Second: do not call me woman. Understand?"

He bowed mockingly to her waspish tone. "As you wish, my lady." But when Jory surreptitiously tripped him up, Elissa actually had to bite off a guffaw, and the slight tension dissipated. Daveth and Jory had bickered, leaving us alone again.

She said no more after that and seemed happiest with silence. I wondered if she were worried about me asking the details of her recruitment.

And then we met the witch. I didn't bother to mask my immediate distrust of a Chasind that spoke so haughtily whilst dressed in scraps. Elissa addressed the hag so politely. The hag so keen to label me as a moron and look down her nose at me with her weirdly-coloured eyes. But in the end we had gotten what we wanted, though meeting Morrigan's mother would have stayed bottom on my list of things I wanted to do for many years, and I did have to reluctantly admit she had preserved the treaties even if I was suspicious of her motives.

When we returned to Duncan, Elissa took a second to slip off and hand away the pretty flowers she'd picked to help the mabari. I wondered if the warhound from earlier was not actually hers, and in fact just one that had escaped the carnage, and that led me to wondering whether the realization of all that had happened simply hadn't crashed down on her yet. She seemed a decent candidate, but there was surely a concern that a bit more strain would make her crack.

A few short hours later, as we waited for Duncan to arrive, I listened quietly to the three initiates' views on what being a Warden was all about. Jory seemed to be regretting being here at all, Daveth seemed very willing to commit and Maker knew I could sympathise with needing a cause to believe in, and Elissa was quiet but calm, as she always was without her swords in her hands.

I only had two seconds of doubt during the ritual, but I reminded myself of the necessity; of the Joining, of Wardens. As I spoke the words, I knew that doing so was an honour.

I couldn't claim much surprise that our Cousland heir accepted the chalice silently and survived. We hovered over the stone bench we had laid her on and waited, knowing that she was through the worst but that everyone recovered at different rates. When she did wake, she opened her eyes and met our gazes only briefly before staring past us at the sky. She nodded as we told her that she had time to rest and remained prone, but as I walked away her mabari dashed past me. I heard her greeting him, followed by her footsteps hurrying to fall into step with Duncan's. She was tough.

When they re-appeared a half-hour or so later, Duncan looked tired, and Elissa looked as she usually did, utterly calm, face as quiet as the surface of lake Calenhad.

Then Duncan revealed his and Cailan's poorly-concealed plan to get me out of the way and most importantly out of danger. I wondered fleetingly what she thought of it all. I couldn't figure out whether she had realised or not how ludicrous this all was as she graciously accepted her meagre duties and didn't mock me a single time about my desire to be in the thick of the battle.

It was only later as we warmed ourselves by the fire that she stepped closer to me and for one terrifying second I thought the possibility of friendship was being squished under the heel of an attractive noble lady who liked blond ex-Templars. But then she looked up at me with focused intensity and spoke to me very quietly.

"What is the real reason we are being sent to light the beacon?"

I let out a huff of breath, visible in the cold, frigid air, and banged my hands together.

"Because it needs to be lit?" I knew it was fishy; I myself had been complaining earlier about the King needing two Wardens to hold the torch. Elissa looked at me levelly and waited. I shrugged. She didn't need to know and I had no incentive to trust her with such a dangerous secret. It was nice, though, that she'd asked me. "I suppose they want to make extra sure that our charming personalities make it through the night."

That was close enough to the truth, wasn't it?

The woman raised one eyebrow and lowered the other, a dubious look that sat inexplicably well on her elegant face. I almost laughed as she grumbled but realized that she wasn't going to get anything out of me. She left instead to get a tincture to make sure that her blades wouldn't stick to her sheathes from cold and I was left looking after her, shaking my head in disbelief. There was something a little unnerving with her calm. It reminded me of the more senior Templars I had known.

I scowled at the fire, feeling a little guilty for judging her. I reminded myself that when I was training to be a Templar, something I wouldn't have minded if it had been my choice but hated because it hadn't been, I had been resigned to my fate, and let out my frustrations with pranks and irritating sarcasm and frankly childish tantrums because that was the opposite of the maturity and emotional control Templars were supposed to have. I highly doubted the same outlets worked for Elissa, and it wasn't my place to judge that hers weren't breaking down into tears all the time and being openly sensitive. And maybe she did cry, just not where other people could see. I hadn't bawled in the middle of the mess hall or during training once after my first week. I shifted uneasily as I considered that, for all I knew, she cried herself to sleep every night just like I had all those years ago.

When she came back, I tried not to be too obvious about how I felt uncomfortable meeting her eye, even while I tried to figure out whether she looked like she had been crying. Instead I just ended up staring at her tattoos for a while. I cringed internally when she glanced at me and caught me looking.

She reached a hand up to her eye, running a gauntleted finger around the outer corner.

"I know," she said almost, almost, ruefully, "dynastic tattoos have not been popular for decades." She gave me a sardonic little smirk. "You need not pretend you like them."

"I do like them," I rejoindered reflexively. It wasn't dishonest, though. I could barely see their pale blue without the sun. They were interesting. "How did you make them that colour?"

She shrugged as she checked her weapons. "I requested something that was not too striking and this is the result."

"Oh, they're striking, all right."

She frowned at me and I brought my hands up quickly, waving them about helplessly. She had her hands on pointy things right now you fool, I scolded myself.

"Not in a bad way!"

Her lips actually quirked into a small smile and she looked away quickly.

I coughed and tried again, a little bolstered by the rare show of amusement.

"I imagine you could start a trend. Maybe that will be a female Grey Warden thing, getting tattoos. Do you have any more?"

I asked curiously. I knew that tattoos hurt, though I doubted that would stop her. She had certainly kept it together earlier when a darkspawn had wrenched at her arm and dislocated it. She'd let out one tiny whimper as Jory put it back in place and then resolutely refused to let anything past her teeth. If anything, she'd looked mad at herself for showing any pain at all.

She slid her eyes to me and an entirely new expression appeared on her face as one side of her mouth curved up.

"Are you asking me to show you?" She was looking at me very steadily.

I gulped and raised my hands again, this time defensively, as I stepped away. I may have been an innocent and virtuous Chantry boy, but even I could read her tone.

"Um, no, not at all! Aha! Just curious," I said desperately, and she actually chuckled a little as she looked away.

"Just teasing," and her voice was the warmest I'd ever heard it. She seemed to realise the same thing, and a little line appeared between her eyebrows and she shifted on her feet, her gaze down briefly before flicking to where Duncan was.

"I am going to see how much longer we have before it starts," she said rather shortly, and left before I could reply.

I stared after her, feeling uncertain and vaguely guilty, though I wasn't sure what I had done.

oOo