Chapter 6

Leliana awoke with a yawn and rubbed the sand from her eyes.

It was impossible to determine the time of day when inside the Deep Roads. They just ate when hungry and slept when sleepy, trusting their body clocks for the job. It worked for the most part.

The past few days had been especially exhausting.

They were tasked with venturing into the Deep Roads and finding the whereabouts of one Branka, the last Paragon of Orzammar. In this endeavour, they were aided by Oghren, a lecherous dwarf who was drunk all the time, and his protégé, Faren Brosca, a casteless dwarf.

Where Oghren talked a lot, Faren was more the type to sigh and shake his head. He talked enough when spoken to and was amiable enough, but still looked as if he preferred to be left alone to his devices. Oghren and Faren were both warriors, and that helped immensely what with Darkspawn crawling out of mostly everywhere.

The redhead groaned and sat up straight. She was about to look around, see what the others were doing, but was interrupted when someone placed their hand squarely on the top of her head and patted it.

"Go back to sleep, Leli. You need it."

She turned to Alistair, the one who had spoken to her. "Huh?"

The blond shrugged. "You fell asleep while on watch duty. Figured you were tired, so I let you rest."

Oh.

Leliana felt like smacking her forehead, but was too tired to do even that.

After days of traversing the Deep Roads and clearing thaig after thaig of Darkspawn with minimal sleep and food, a little exhaustion was the least of her worries.

Aedan had called to camp for a while and it was a decision met with unanimous approval. However, instead of setting up tents and dispersing, they had made a couple of fires on either side and sat in a huddle between them. Someone was always awake – Aedan or Alistair most of the time – and the others either slept or ate or chatted in between the two.

They had camped right in the middle of the Deep Roads. One could never be too careful while here, she had learnt.

The gentle warmth of the fires coupled with the intense exhaustion of drawing a heavy war bow innumerable times had made her lids heavy even as she sat next to Alistair, her back to the stone, and volunteered for watch duty. It wasn't a shock that she had drifted off, but she still felt bad for doing so.

It wasn't anything new, either. Leliana had succumbed to sleep many a time during the wee hours before dawn while on guard duty. She'd always woken to find Alistair, watchful as ever. Sometimes she even found him styling his hair. It was comforting, knowing that he was always vigilant, always there.

Sighing, the redhead stretched her arms and rubbed the nape of her neck, cracking it loudly. Alistair winced beside her.

"Must you make that scary cracking sound?" he asked quietly.

Leliana hummed and rolled her shoulders. She then fixed the man with a cheeky grin. "Scary, you say?"

A shrug. "Not scary scary, obviously. Just the 'Holy Maker, that sounds like she broke something in there' kind although I know it doesn't."

The redhead stared at him for a good few seconds before breaking out in a chuckle. Alistair narrowed his eyelids. "I don't quite see what's so hilarious, you know."

That made Leliana laugh in earnest. She tried to keep it quiet so as to not wake the others who were asleep, but this was just too good! Only Barkspawn raised his head to look at her curiously from where he lay by Morrigan's feet.

"You're just really adorable sometimes," the bard said finally with a gentle smile after her giggling subsided. Alistair seemed miffed, though.

"I will wisely pretend you did not just say that after laughing your arse off at something I said." Alistair crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm still unaware what."

Leliana reached out and patted his cheek. "It's okay," she said soothingly. "You're a humorous person. I like that."

"I still want to be able to know the jokes I crack."

Still smiling, the bard reached back with her hand and tried fruitlessly to squeeze the aching muscles of her shoulders into compliance. Everything from her shoulders to the small of her back groaned in protest. A slight grunt of frustration escaped her lips.

"Something bothering you?" Alistair asked, again catching her attention.

"Mmm. Just a backache. Nothing too serious."

"Huh. Turn around."

Leliana eyed him curiously, raising an eyebrow. The look earned her a sigh.

"Just do it," the man repeated. "I can help, Leli."

Still incredulous, she nonetheless turned and presented her back to him. "Help? Have you been learning the healing arts – oh... oh mon Dieu..."

"Feels good, dunnit?" the man chuckled as his fingers curled around her collarbone and his thumbs dug into the skin surrounding her spine, giving her a little massage. "Told you I could help."

Prior to her rest, Leliana had taken off her maille shirt and the gambeson she usually wore beneath it. She was clad in only a tunic at present, and that gave Alistair all the freedom in the world to work his magic. The redhead moaned softly in relaxation and closed her eyes. The last time she had been given a massage was back at Lothering, almost four months previously. "Alistair, how-"

"How do I have the hands of a God? Why, I'll tell you," he said with a snicker as he worked down her back, pressing his thumbs along her spine and the rest along her flanks. "But damn, you're all rigid and knotted up back here."

Leliana didn't grace the observation with a response. More accurately, she couldn't. Leliana was too absorbed in the relief and pleasure which flooded her body. How could something as simple as a massage feel so divine?

"There's a great fuss amongst templars about keeping the mind and the body fluid, flexible and relaxed," Alistair was saying as his glorious fingers retraced their path back up her spine. "We had to give massages and had them given to us and had to stretch before and after training. Helped with keeping the body in line. So I guess this is one thing I can do relatively well."

Soon, his fingers reached the cool skin of the nape of her neck and the redhead sucked in a breath. She had to lower her head to give him ample room to work, and he expertly moulded the sore muscles there.

Leliana caught herself thinking how his hands would feel on certain other part– no, don't even think about that.

A loud, drunken hiccup brought her out her reverie.

"I call next," Oghren slurred, raising a flask of brandy towards them.

"Brilliant," Alistair muttered, finishing up with her neck and moving on to her arms. "Now I have to play masseuse to drunk dwarves. Could my life be any better?"

"At least you're doing a good deed," Leliana said and rolled her neck before turning to face him, smiling. "But thank you. That indeed felt very good."

The blond merely waved it off. "Don't thank me for that, at least. Just happy to help."

Her aches having subsided significantly, the bard resumed her previous position and leant back against the stone wall as Alistair went off to massage Oghren's back. She smiled warmly as the two bickered, even as the almost-templar rendered his services.

He is truly an amazing individual, she mused.

It was true as far as she was concerned. Wardens had an innate ability to sense the presence of Darkspawn, and down here in the Darkspawn infested Deep Roads, his senses must've been excessively overtaxed. As she had come to understand it, Aedan was a junior Warden, and a more recent member of the order whereas Alistair had been a part of it for about three quarters of a year. As such, his senses weren't as well developed as his brother Warden's.

On top of that, they had encountered the Archdemon for the first time in the flesh. That must not have been a very stellar experience for either man.

Leliana shuddered and pulled her knees up.

The Archdemon was a dragon, and a more hideous creature she had never seen before, not even in her wildest nightmares. The horribly mutilated, patched skin which resembled flesh more than it did scales, the excessively large fangs which dripped with some foul fluid... she shivered again at the recollection. And Aedan and Alistair were known to have nightmares about the Archdemon; it spoke to them in their dreams. By the Maker, that screech would make anybody blanch.

And being confronted by one's nightmares was never a good thing. Yet both Aedan and Alistair stood tall, keeping all the fear tightly enclosed in their own minds, not showing anything they felt.

A few hours later now, one of them was sound asleep while the other was giving massages.

The goofy blond had well and truly won her respect.