oOo

It had taken almost a week and we were dangerously close to Denerim by the time Elissa's ice started to crack. She'd barely spoken to anyone, even though I knew now she actually had a curious streak a mile wide. Before I'd gone and overstepped, she'd been asking everyone all sorts of questions. Usually, conversation was what stopped us all going mad as we trekked over endless fields and down terribly uneven cobbling that all looked the same. I had tried to start some party banter, but every attempt had been stymied by the frosty silence surrounding Elissa.

Everyone had sensed the shift in mood and become quieter, so it was some relief when things started to return to normal. We made camp before we got too close to any big cities – somehow people were actually falling for Loghain's lies about the Wardens being traitors, really – and it was the liveliest I'd ever seen; Leliana was so relieved at the broken tension that she actually convinced Bodahn to give her a lute and was singing along as she played. Sten was unmoved of course, but Morrigan was standing closer to the main firepit than normal and Dal was jumping around Bodahn and Sandal as they clapped along. Elissa was sitting next to her, cross-legged and looking relaxed.

I sat and listened for a while, as Leliana had a lovely voice, before I focused on the tedious task of cleaning my armour. There was so much mud in Ferelden and half of it seemed intent on making its way into my boots.

I was surprised when Elissa came and sat next to me. Surprised and distracted, I didn't realise I was staring at her in what seemed like sudden silence until she glanced at me and then immediately turned away as she picked at her gloves. I resisted the cough building in my throat as I tried to find something else to look at… and realised the camp was empty, with only Dal dozing off across from us. Maker, when had that happened?

"Do you already know how I was recruited?"

Her voice was very quiet, almost timid.

I worried whether she would be upset that I did, but I reminded myself that Elissa was direct because she valued honesty. I nodded solemnly, my eyes on the firepit. "Yes."

She sighed and looked into the shadows curling further around the trees. She was silent for some time. I tried not to fidget. Had Elissa sent everyone away? Had they sensed something amiss and left?

"Howe was my father's oldest friend. He was a sycophant determined to marry me off to his son. Nobody suspected him."

I scrambled for a response. I realized I had not been prepared for this conversation at all, even though I'd instigated it.

Maker, what do I say? What do I say to that? Think, what won't upset her… Safe, safe, something safe—

I latched onto the least dangerous nugget of information.

"I take it he wasn't your type."

Elissa flicked a hand in dismissal, and I had a sudden, powerful image of what she would have been like as Teyrna of Highever.

"He pursued me to improve his standing and was arrogant enough to be convinced that I returned his interest, in spite of the fact that I was only as polite as was required of me, and even then just barely."

Her scowl was thunderous, and I wondered how many years she had had to put up with him. I wondered how stupid he had been to continue when faced with Elissa's displeasure – I didn't doubt that at some point away from their parents and prying eyes, she had made her disinterest clear.

And something told me that before, she had smiled and laughed often, and had reserved her stoic persona for people like Howe.

I made her smile now, even though she tried so hard not to. It felt good, to be able to do something for her… even if it sometimes backfired. I would just have to get better at it.

"So… I guess Howe was working with Loghain," I ventured, cautiously.

"Yes, I suppose so." Her face twisted. "He was clearly just greedy, ambitious, and self-serving. My father should never have trusted him. But nobody suspected anything when Howe's men were 'delayed', and when his men did arrive we were unprepared…"

I sucked in a silent breath and held it as her face slowly crumpled, though she didn't try to hide it as she bit down hard on her lip.

Elissa blinked and looked at me as I laid a hand on her arm, frowning slightly as she examined my face. She turned her head away.

"It was so easy taking them down," she admitted quietly, but there was no shame in her voice, just sadness. "I had already seen what they had done to Oren and Oriana, and I was so full of anger… I wanted revenge more than I wanted to breathe. Every time we found another body, it only got worse. But then… we found father." Her voice caught on the word. She swallowed hard a few times, and when she continued her voice was level. "We could not move him; he was too badly injured. Duncan said that in exchange for ensuring that Howe paid for what he did, that I would become a Warden. I tried to convince mother to come with us, but she said that her place was at my father's side. I could not… I did not save either of them."

Her voice had dwindled to a whisper, her knuckles white as she dug her nails into her legs, back hunched as she stared downwards. I could feel her arm was tense and shaking. She seemed about to burst, ferociously trying to keep it together.

I needed to do something. I didn't know what to say, or whether or not she would welcome an embrace. In fact, I didn't think I could speak at all. I settled for leaning closer and resting my arm next to her own, our fingers touching.

By the Maker. How did Elissa function? I felt overwhelmed and that was just from seeing her struggle to compose herself.

I watched her try and control her breathing. It hadn't actually seemed real, until now. I'd known from Duncan, known that what he had seen with his own eyes was true… but Elissa had seemed so normal, if a little abrasive at times. It hadn't seemed possible, that something so terrible could have happened to her.

We sat in companionable silence as night truly took over, and the clearing remained mercifully quiet and empty as Elissa started to calm down with deep, even breaths.

Then she lifted her little finger to curl it around mine as she continued staring down at her feet, and my eyes started stinging. I stared at our hands, not convinced she was a real person. How could someone go through so much and be so… so good. How could her past be real? It didn't seem compatible with who she was. She wasn't broken, she wasn't bitter. She was… beyond anything I had ever encountered. Beyond anyone.

I felt protective. I wanted to wrap Elissa up and keep her safe from any more harm, make sure nothing else ever happened to upset her.

But I couldn't do that. The best I could do was sit with her and let her know I was here.

"Thank you," I said once the lump in my throat had dissipated enough I could be confident my words wouldn't come out an awful squeak.

She ducked her head and reached up to tuck some escaped hair behind her ear. "I… wanted to tell someone," Elissa replied, her glance to me quick and uncertain, faltering halfway up and returning to the ground.

"I'm glad you did. We're all we've got right now," I said, and she nodded in agreement.

We sat in silence a while, the fire dimming as we both neglected to add any logs. Crickets started up and the silence was… peaceful.

"Will you take Highever back, once the Blight is over?" I asked her eventually.

"I am Elissa Cousland no longer," she replied, voice as quiet as mine. "I am simply Elissa."

Morrigan's cutting tones had pierced the darkness then, and Elissa gave me a tense little grimace as she broke away and went over to greet the rest of our ragtag group. As I stared after her I realized she must have asked everyone to hunt for provisions to take with us. Leliana had some rabbits, Morrigan was carrying baskets of mushrooms, and Sten had an actual deer across his shoulder.

We hadn't had proper meat in ages. The camp was soon busy as everyone began preparing food, but I was still off-balance and struggling to put forward a semblance of composure. I glanced at Elissa, who didn't seem affected; how did she do it?

Even when Leliana ribbed me and asked if I was even in the land of the living as she handed me some grilled rabbit, I found it hard to focus. I stayed where I was, food barely out of Dal's reach as I wondered what to do. No words came to me, nothing seemed… adequate.

Well, I had to say something. What would I want to hear, if Duncan were here? What would I want him to say to me?

Ah, there it was.

I went over to where Elissa was methodically skinning the deer for its hide. I crouched next to her, and her gaze was steady when she met mine, her previous shyness seemingly overcome.

"You're doing great, you know," I told her, trying to convey the quiet conviction Duncan would have had.

Her hands stilled, and she had a moment of looking intensely vulnerable as she looked away again. She continued staring downwards as she thanked me quietly. I nodded redundantly, and decided it was time for me to retire.

As I lay in my tent, finally in my comfortable nightwear, my thoughts inevitably turned to Elissa.

I thought about how, when I'd first met her, I'd thought her indifferent. Then I'd thought that wearing her emotions on her sleeve just wasn't in her nature. Over time, it had dawned on me that, actually, Elissa made a very deliberate effort to stay in control of herself. I'd noticed how calm and collected she seemed, but now… everything was rewriting itself again as I thought of her holding herself together so tightly she shook. Grief just under the surface, always pushing to break through, and… and it made sense, that all Elissa could do was try not to feel anything, lest she get overwhelmed. Try not to think of anything, lest she break down.

Just hearing from her what had happened had been difficult, and that was for me… I couldn't get her voice out of my head. How it sounded when her pain had really bled through and become real, when she had spoken of not being able to save her parents. She had sounded almost ashamed, as if she should have been able to defy her father's injuries and Howe's entire army.

Oh. Oh.

Alistair, you fool. I groaned aloud and slapped my hands to my face as I realized the truth.

She felt guilty. She felt unbearably guilty about surviving when her family hadn't. Of course she felt guilty, of course she always got uncomfortable after I managed to make her laugh: she didn't feel like she was allowed to be happy. All she had left was duty, happiness had no place left in her world.

I was actually angry at myself for not really considering how she felt, more focused on myself and how it made me uneasy, as if her distance was unfair somehow.

How many people would actually care about duty and not revenge? Could I claim to be thinking of Ferelden instead of finding Howe and making him pay, if I were in Elissa's shoes? In fact, would I have been anything but angry and resentful that the world had treated me so terribly? That was how I had felt from being sent away for Templar training, and it was nothing compared to what Elissa had gone through. Nothing. All the memories she must be carrying around with her of her family, of being loved and loving them in return…

My stomach was churning now, and I was beset by the new and unwelcome experience of feeling so horribly for someone else's tragedy. She just didn't deserve it. Elissa did not deserve what had happened to her at all. If someone she had known before met her now, would they even recognise her?

Those little flashes of her dry sense of humour, her little smiles, the way she played with Dal… Her level head, her inquisitiveness, her tenacity. It made my chest ache to think how wonderful she must have been before Howe had tried to destroy her. I was willing to bet what meagre possessions I had in this world that she had been loving, and loyal, and friendly and teasing. I imagined how she must have played with her nephew and done her sister in law's hair and teased her brother and exasperated her parents with her leather skirts. I tried to imagine what it must be like to have had a family, an entire family, and to lose that, all at once. I tried to imagine having a half-dozen people that mattered more to me than Duncan, that had always been there in my life, what it would be like to watch them die, to find their bodies. Maker. Maker.

I squeezed my fists to my eyes and tried to breathe a little more.

I cared for her. That was normal. We were the last Wardens and we had gone through a lot together these last few weeks. We spent most of our waking hours together and I knew that she had been opening up to me more, and as I'd said to her earlier: when it came down to it, we were the only people left we could really trust. Leliana and Morrigan and Sten were with us for now but all of them were dubious for various reasons. Elissa and I were two halves of a team. A team that had to stop a Blight. We were comrades that shared a bond nobody else could possibly understand. Of course I cared about her. Anyone would.

oOo