oOo

I was lucky that the last few days had been steady travelling, because her taking a scouting party out without me in it would have been a slap to the face. As it was, I hadn't been avoiding her, but I had been sticking to walking near the carriage rather than taking point with her, making it obvious that being near me was her choice. I had waited patiently as we finished the journey to Lake Calenhad, which had been a little longer than intended as we had had to veer further northwards off the roads and into dense forest to avoid the now likely overrun Lothering. I had been deliberately keeping some distance whilst not being out of sight completely. By now I was desperate to have her talk to me, even if it was just to scream at me. Anything was better than this.

We were having one night of relative luxury as we stayed at a shabby tavern right on the precipice bordering the lake. Sten and I were sharing a room, as were Leliana, Morrigan and Elissa. Dal had been told he had to stay outside; I doubted very much that would happen.

I was nursing a drink as we waited for our food and staring into its depths—I couldn't deny it was a moody, brooding stare—wondering what Elissa was thinking. She was alone in her room, and I had the feeling she'd scared even Morrigan out of it as the mage had decided to join us for the meal.

What did I do? It had been six days. It had felt like eternity; only now did I realise how much of my time I spent simply talking to Elissa and being silly, ridiculously at ease. The tension between us and sudden lack of release for our stress had made us both irritable and short-tempered, and if I hadn't been so concerned about Elissa I would have cringed at how obvious it was to everyone else.

I sighed and dragged a hand through my hair, looking up to find Morrigan scowling at me in distaste.

"What?" I snapped, not in the mood right now for one of her scathing comments. I clenched my fists around my tankard and told myself that I just needed to keep quiet. It never did any good to engage.

"Alistair, if you spend one more day sulking like a child I will call down eagles to swoop upon on you and tear your flesh from your bones. How does that sound?" She was speaking in about as sweet a tone as she ever did, the one that came out when she was actually really angry.

I grunted irritably. Do not engage, Alistair. No engaging. None. No.

Leliana intervened, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You must go to her, Alistair", she urged me. I looked at her like she'd just grown a second head.

I didn't even bother to deny what we were talking about. I just shook my head. If Elissa hadn't come to me, then she didn't want to speak to me. I would respect that.

"Parshaara. You are being a coward."

Even Sten was ganging up on me now. I stared at him, feeling betrayed for some reason. "She needs space."

"A convenient excuse," Sten said gravely, looking down his nose at me severely before he took a swig of his drink. He didn't wince at the taste of days old swill, which was potentially more impressive than anything else he'd done so far.

"You need to show her you care! Put the effort in!" Leliana implored me passionately, flapping her hands as she tried to propel me out of the room on hand gestures alone.

"Of course I care! She knows that—"

"Just go already!" Morrigan exclaimed as she crossed her arms and looked away, clearly hoping that would be the end of it.

I looked at them all for a few seconds. Then it dawned on me in perfect clarity, like a sunrise after a heavy storm, why they were all in such total agreement that I needed to go to her – because Elissa was proud, and because she didn't back down.

Maker. I'd been leaving her to do all the work again. I knew her better than this.

I downed my drink—well I tried to, I got a few mouthfuls in before I decided to just leave it. I headed down the corridor and ignored the shouts of encouragement coming from behind me. When I got to the bedroom door I forced myself to knock on it immediately, before doubts could begin to creep in.

Fidgeting, I waited. I tried to fiddle with my gauntlets but I'd left all my armour in the room. I ended up squeezing my fingers together so hard they began to hurt.

The door opened. Elissa looked… surprised. And tense.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came to mind. I cleared my throat and tried again, staring at Elissa's feet. She didn't have shoes on. She had such small toes. And toenails. Small feet all around, really.

"I'd like to talk to you, if that's alright," I said, my voice low as if she were game that could be scared away.

She was silent and it was too torturous not to know what she was thinking. My gaze was drawn back up. She was looking at me, and she waited until I met her eyes before she nodded.

Elissa disappeared from the doorway and I froze on the threshold, wondering whether I was supposed to follow her in. I didn't have long for my discomfort with the idea to build as she soon reappeared, this time with shoes.

She led me out of the back door and onto some questionably secure decking overlooking the water. She was silent as she lowered herself onto the edge of the wooden platform, fearlessly dangling her legs over the edge as she looked out. I seated myself as I immediately realised why nobody else was out here: midges. And the stink of fish, but growing up in Redcliffe had made me pretty immune to that.

Elissa wasn't looking at me, and I waited a few beats before realising that it was my job to start crossing this bridge. I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. I really had to learn some initiative.

Just be honest.

"Elissa, I'm sorry. I know that won't help things much, but I really am sorry. I need you to know that." I blew out a breath. Step one over. "I also want you to know that… I know I've been leaving too much to you. It isn't right that I've been letting you make all the hard decisions. I won't leave you to carry this alone anymore. I've always thought of us as a team and I need to earn that; I've been relying on you like everyone else has, but from now on, you can rely on me, too."

It was actually a relief to say that. I looked out at the lake and tried to use it to centre myself. The seconds ticked by, as did my hope that things could be repaired.

"I do not want to be angry with you, Alistair."

She sounded very tired, almost resigned. I swallowed, for once completely unsure what to say. She didn't look at me as she waited for a response.

"You're right to be. I should have told you sooner."

She made a jerky movement. "Why? It is not like you could have done anything. What was done, was already done," she replied, voice flat.

"I know, but I wish I could. Do something. I know that's little comfort, but I really do," I said, throat feeling all closed up.

Was it always this hard to tell someone you cared? Really, truly cared?

Elissa sighed and ran her hands through her hair, which was, for once, completely loose. She looked like she should have been relaxing with a book, but instead she was clearly trying to hold back her agitation.

"I told you once that I was Elissa Cousland no longer. And I am not. I am a Grey Warden now. I have no title, no land. I will kill Howe, but I cannot reclaim Highever."

I tried to ignore how the re-emergence of the polite, regal way of speaking Elissa had lost weeks ago saddened me.

"Everything was taken from you. Nobody can just accept that," I said quietly.

Elissa sighed deeply, and ran her hands over her face. "I just hope Fergus is alive." Her desperate hope made me ache.

"As do I," I said with as much sincerity as I could pack into three words. Elissa absolutely deserved to have her brother be alive and well. "You're a fighter. Howe hasn't beaten you. He'll get what's coming to him, you'll make sure of that."

She looked at me now, examining me. I hoped that she found what she was looking for; that I'd be right next to her as she fought back. That I believed in her.

And then she shuffled closer and slipped a hand over mine and I was more surprised, more pleased, than I had ever been in my life. I stared at her, and her eyes were softer now.

"Thank you, Alistair," she said.

"Of course," I replied as I stared down at our linked hands. Her skin was too soft for someone who handled weapons all day.

"Hypocritical, really... I resisted an arranged marriage for years, I certainly did not want to be a mother." She let out a breath and looked at our hands. "Fergus is the heir. If he is alive, he will see to to continuing our line. My duty, and what my parents asked of me, is to be a Grey Warden. And if the Cousland line is lost, then it will just one of many things lost during this Blight."

She glanced up at me and held my gaze. I squeezed her hand gently. I didn't know how to tell her how proud I was of her, how she would always have been a rare and wonderful thing, even without the Blight looming over us and responsibility settled heavily on our –her– shoulders. What was truly gobsmacking, was that we had been so hastily thrown together and that we fit together so well, that it felt right despite the fact it was sheer luck we had both survived...

"You're an amazing woman."

The whisper slipped out of my mouth without my full consent, but Elissa leaned over and kissed me gently on the cheek without missing a beat. She rested her forehead on my shoulder and I could feel her breath through my thin shirt. I could smell her, sweet and musky at once.

"Thank you."

Then she was gone, rising to her feet and walking over to re-enter the tavern, leaving me to try and control the heat rising to my cheeks. I stared out at Lake Calenhad, and I probably should have been thinking about how close I was to Redcliffe, but instead I couldn't stop thinking about the tingling in my left cheek that I desperately wanted to rub.

It took a while for anything to penetrate my dazed thoughts about Elissa's lips having touched my skin. I cursed myself as I realised I had forgotten to tell Elissa about my father as I'd promised I would. Tomorrow, I resolved. It was late and that had been quite enough heart-baring for one day.

Sleep that night was quite hard to come by, but at some point the feel of an actual (albeit lumpy) bed must have lured me into it because the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and sunlight was streaming in through the window.

At breakfast the tension had dissolved, but Elissa was still quieter than usual. Everyone was eager to get back on the road and finally get to Redcliffe. Leliana spent her time looking between Elissa and me, but I shied away and tried to pretend her interest in what had happened wasn't really happening.

Waiting for the right moment for this was far trickier. The entire day passed, and I eventually decided that I needed to stop being a coward, and that I wanted some privacy for this. Once we had set up the camp in a clearing near the lake and had supper, the group had splintered the way it usually did off to different places. I caught Elissa's eye deliberately where she was talking with Leliana and gestured with my hand before heading off into the surrounding woods. I followed the sound of gentle waves until I found the lake, which was, as predicted, eerily empty of the usual ferries and boats. There I leaned against a tree and waited for her, trying to convince myself this was going to go as well as the last time.

"Arranging a secret tryst, are we, Alistair?"

I scowled heavily and eyed Morrigan warily as she stepped out into the open, looking as predatory as anything. I was too tired, too nervous and on edge, to deal with her right now.

"No, Morrigan." I sighed slightly and looked away from her. Was she ever going to find some real clothes?

"Oh? No suspicious or dim-witted reply for me, then?"

"Look," I turned towards her slowly, reluctantly. "My main goal in life is not to bait everyone as much as I possibly can. You may get a kick out of looking down your nose at me and judging me endlessly, but we actually have to work together as a team. As ex-Templar and apostate, that's difficult enough, so let's try not to make it harder." Morrigan looked a little surprised before she covered it up with a sneering curl in her lip. I ran a hand through my hair irritably as I turned away again. I wasn't doing this right. I sucked in a frustrated breath and then tried again. "I don't enjoy quarrelling with anyone, even you, so just keep your comments about me to yourself and I'll do the same and that'll do fine."

Sure, I hadn't been very accommodating the first time we'd met, nor in the first few days of our travels, but I had long stopped bothering with trying to annoy her. The witch's open dislike for me, however, was as strong as ever. And boy did she love letting the world know that.

The woman was silent for a long few seconds, and the curiosity to peek at her face was almost overwhelming, but I stubbornly kept my eyes turned in the direction of the water.

"As you wish." She said eventually, stoically, and when I caved in and looked, Morrigan had already melted into the shadows. I shifted ever so slightly, uncomfortable with the thought that she might eavesdrop on us, but I didn't hear anything and a second later Elissa was ducking under a branch and looking at me expectantly.

"Did I imagine it or did you actually want me to follow you here?"

I grimaced and said slowly: "I need to tell you something."

Elissa moved to stand closer to me as she looked around, humming slightly as she sat down on the rocky edge. I settled myself next to her.

"Look, I know it's a while before we get to Redcliffe, and knowing our luck something will hold us up at the Circle, but there's something you need to know."

She tilted her head, eyes a little hooded as she watched me. I tried not to notice the wind in her loose curls. I wondered if it was curly from the elaborate braided bun she usually kept it in or if it was naturally that way. "Is this about how you were raised, then? Was it by Arl Eamon?"

She was the perceptive one, wasn't she?

"Sort of..." I took a deep breath and it came out in a garbled rush. "I'm a bastard. The fatherless kind. And my father was... well, he was King Maric, which makes Cailan my, well, half-brother."

Elissa sat back slowly and looked at me, leaning back on her hands. Her face was quite blank, but she certainly didn't seem angry, so I tentatively kept my gaze on her.

I wondered if she already knew. If she had actually immediately recognised the sire in my features the day she met me in Ostagar. If she had been waiting all this time, wondering when I would trust her enough to tell her.

"And who was your mother?"

"A serving lady at the castle. Eamon agreed to take me in and raise me, but when he married Lady Isolde, she couldn't let go of the rumours that I was his bastard son. They weren't true, of course, and I look nothing like him, but that didn't stop them. So that's why I was packed off to the nearest monastery at age ten. But Isolde had made sure by then that Redcliffe Castle was no longer a home to me; she despised me."

I usually had an issue with not knowing when to stop blabbering: I was a terrible liar because I always went overboard on the fiction. I'd never struggled with just letting the truth pour out.

Elissa's eyes were on the sky. "That's a horrible thing to do to a child," she said softly. I shrugged, but the thought of her caring made me feel something... odd.

"She probably wondered if the talk was true, herself. I can't say I blame her."

"But you did back then, I guess." Her bare hand searched for mine, and for a while I didn't say anything while we both looked out at the view. She started tracing patterns over my knuckles.

After a few moments I was able to gather my scattered senses enough to reply.

"Of course I did. As I said, I felt like I had been thrown away... Eamon tried to visit me a couple of times, but I refused to talk to him, so eventually he stopped coming." I shook my head sadly. "I remember the day he sent me away. I had an amulet with Andraste's symbol on it, the only thing I had of my mother's, and I was so angry I threw it at the wall and it shattered. Stupid, stupid thing to do."

"You were young, Alistair, and we've all made mistakes."

I nodded, accepting her words.

"So... you aren't angry that I kept this from you?"

The corner of her mouth quirked up as she glanced up at me from drawing a sun on my palm. "You realise you're the only one who knows about my being a Teyrn's daughter. Leliana can tell I'm a noble, but that's as far as it goes."

I looked at her in surprise. "I... didn't know that."

She shrugged as she tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear. "I can understand how it would bring you nothing but grief, and I can definitely empathize with people treating you differently for it. You'll always be Alistair to me, but thank you for confiding in me."

I was going a little red as I mumbled "It just didn't seem right to keep secrets from you... but you're welcome."

We ended up staying where we were, sitting together as the time closed in on midnight. Elissa never let go of my hand. Her presence was doing funny things to me, and I tried to think of things to say but my mind was blank. I just couldn't think while she was sitting so close to me, holding my hand, and I wondered if it was normal to be excited and scared and nervous all at once just because someone was near you.

She turned to me, and the moonlight was lighting up her face and making her eyes almost luminous. The women of Highever must have hated Elissa; there can't have been a prettier woman living there.

"Tell me about the other Grey Wardens. How many of you were there?"

"Not many compared to other places, but a good three dozen. As you know, I was the junior member, only a Warden for six months after leaving the Chantry, but everyone was like family. We were kin, connected by the bond of having undergone the Joining and the Taint. I remember, there was this one Warden from the Anderfels—Gregor, Grigor?—who could drink like a fish. He bet that he could out-drink any of us, and that he would drink a pint for every half-pint we had... Duncan walked in on us later and we'd all passed out, except for Grigor, who was still drinking! We found it hilarious the next morning despite our hangovers, but Duncan had almost injured himself from laughing..."

My words trailed off as I abruptly realised I had absolutely nothing of Duncan's... nothing to symbolise the man who had been like a father figure to me, even. He might as well not have existed—he was gone, nothing left behind. He would be forgotten, lost to time.

"What's wrong, Alistair?"

Elissa's other hand came to rest on my arm, but I couldn't look up. My eyes focused on her fingers and I realised how tiny her hand actually was when it was against mine. I spent a little while arranging her hand so that I could press our palms together and see that her fingers only reached halfway between my last two joints. I curled the tips of my fingers around hers a little as I spoke. I could feel the little calluses on her palm.

"I just realised that I have nothing to remember him by... It's silly, I know."

I glanced up to see that Elissa was shaking her head vigorously, though her eyes were on our hands.

Maker, did this mean what I thought it did? Or was I just an inexperienced fool?

Maybe Elissa liked looking at hands?

"No, it's not. I completely understand."

"Do you... I mean, do you have anything...?"

"Only my family sword. And the shield that I gave you when you lost yours at the Tower."

I gaped at her. "Elissa, you should have said! I can't use that!" Surely it bore the family crest? How hadn't I realised that it bore her family crest? Was I really so unobservant?

She looked at me oddly. "Of course you can, Alistair, you have been for weeks. I don't use it, and you're putting it to much better use."

"Well, if you're sure... Thank you, in that case. I can't believe I didn't realise..."

"Don't use it any less now," she warned, raising an eyebrow. "I'd rather it broke in half than have you lose an arm."

"Or my good looks?" I quipped, and Elissa made a funny little face.

"Yes, or your good looks." Despite how it was a joke, there was something in her voice as she looked away. Elissa's face suddenly lit up before she started looking very- did she look mischievous? That was new. "So, if you were raised at the Chantry, have you never..."

I knew what she meant immediately, I wasn't that naïve, but I decided to tease her. And avoid the question.

"Never...? Never what? Had a good pair of shoes?"

"You know what I mean..." She was going red now, and something in me started to do an excited little dance. Or maybe the swill from yesterday was rising, it was hard to tell.

"I'm not sure I do. Have I never... seen a basilisk? Ate jellied ham? Have I never licked a lamppost in winter?"

"Now you're just making fun of me!" She accused, but there was a smile she was trying to suppress and I was defenceless against my own.

"Make fun of you, dear lady? Perish the thought!" I exclaimed, hand over heart, as she smothered a giggle. I raised a suggestive eyebrow. "But tell me, have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?"

She actually bit her lip as her eyes swept past me. "No, I've never licked a lamppost in winter." Her eyes were back on me, watching my reaction.

She cared what I thought. Holy Maker.

"Good, I hear it's quite painful. One of the initiates was dared to do it once. There was lots of pointing and laughing... Oh, the humanity." Elissa started laughing, and I found myself smiling, not just at her amusement but at the knowledge that I was the only one I had ever heard her laugh for. "But I too have never done it... That. Not that I haven't ever thought about it, of course, but you know..." I looked down, hoping that answer wasn't a disappointment.

"You've never had the chance?" Elissa guessed shrewdly.

"Well the Chantry isn't really a place for rambunctious boys... I was taught to be a gentleman, especially in the presence of beautiful women such as yourself. That's not so bad, is it?" I couldn't help but worry.

"No, it's not." She said, smiling a little as I inwardly sighed in relief, when she blinked. "Beautiful?"

"Oh, come on, you're beautiful and you know it! You're ravishing, resourceful, and all those other things you'd hit me for not saying."

"I would never hit you."

And there was such a serious gravity in her voice that I found myself responding in kind.

"Nor I you."

We sat in companionable silence for a few moments while I wondered if it was cowardly of me to want to run back into my tent and think all this over. Or not think at all, and just hyperventilate. "Come on," I said, standing and stretching before offering her my hand. "Let's get back to camp, lest your risqué talk make my ears blush!"

"It is late, isn't it?" She pointed out as she took my hand. She looked up at me as we started walking back. "I enjoy your company, Alistair."

I took a second to reassure myself I wasn't dreaming. Then I reached for her hand and wrapped my fingers around hers.

"And I enjoy yours, Elissa."

oOo