Ch. 8: In Which Olivia Makes a Detour and Goes to Denerim

As it turned out, killing the demon freed Connor, but did nothing to heal Arl Eamon. "At least the demons are gone," said Bann Teagan sadly. "Eamon is going to be horrified at what happened here if he ever wakes up, but at least he can be thankful that both his wife and son are safe."

"Safe-ish," added Olivia. "The Templars are bound to take Connor away as soon as the tower is fit for habitation and nobody who's going to the Circle as a mage can ever actually be 'safe'."

"There's still the problem of Jowan, as well," said Teagan, ignoring her. "He's the one who started all this by poisoning Eamon and now I have to figure out what to do with him. We can keep him locked up for Eamon to decide what to do with for a while, but if he doesn't recover, then we'll have to do something eventually and Jowan will be my problem. What do you think?"

Why was he asking her this? Olivia felt tired. "Based on everything I know? I'd actually suggest killing him."

"This isn't about him betraying you, is it?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. Honestly? If you do anything else short of letting him go, which obviously isn't going to happen, the Templars will eventually get their hands on him and make him Tranquil. I'm not really the type for mercy killings, but that's a fate I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, much less the person who watched my back for ten years, even if he did eventually double-cross me and is a complete idiot."

Teagan looked uncomfortable. "Anyway, Eamon is remains in a coma and we still need to find a way to heal him. I think it's time to go back to the original plan."

Olivia looked at him. "I have no idea what that is."

"The Urn of Sacred Ashes."

"Nobody knows where the Urn is," pointed out Olivia flatly. "That was your plan?"

"There's a scholar in Denerim named Brother Genitivi who probably does know where it is, actually," said Teagan. "He's been looking for the Urn for years now."

"The knights we sent couldn't find him, but perhaps the Maker will lead you to him," added Isolde hopefully from the corner of the room.

Now both Teagan and Isolde were looking at her expectantly. Olivia realized that she wasn't getting out of this. "To Denerim it is, then."

The next night in camp, Morrigan came up to Olivia, looking nervous. "I…need your help."

Olivia frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Remember the grimoire you gave me? As it turns out, it's not my mother's actual grimoire. It does, however, have a rather disturbing section in it."

That didn't sound good. "What does this section entail?"

"It's about how she has lived for so long." This was beginning to seem ominous. "You know how there are legends of several witches of the wilds? All of them are Flemeth. She will have a daughter, then, when she's about to die, she will take over the daughter's body. I'd rather obviously prefer if that did not happen to me, and if I want to be safe then Flemeth has to die. She'll probably be able to come back from it, but if you bring me her real grimoire then I can figure out how to protect myself from her. The only problem is that if I'm anywhere nearby when she dies, she'll take over my body anyway. Someone else has to do it for me. That's what I need your help with. Will you help me?"

Well. That was incredibly creepy and horrible. "Of course I'll help," said Olivia reassuringly.

And that was why Olivia ended up leading the group on a detour back to the Korcari Wilds and Flemeth's hut.

As Olivia and her companions, minus Morrigan, arrived, Flemeth was standing outside of the hut, looking almost like she was expecting them. "And so you return. Lovely Morrigan has finally found someone willing to dance to her tune. Such enchanting music she plays. Wouldn't you say?"

"We know your secret, Flemeth," said Olivia calmly.

Flemeth laughed. "Which one, though. I have lots of secrets. What has Morrigan told you? What is she plotting this time?"

"She knows how you've lived this long."

"I admit that she does. The real question is, whether you do. Ah, but it is an old, old story. One that Flemeth has heard before, and even told. Let's skip right to the ending, shall we? Are you going to kill me like Morrigan wants you to? Or is the story going to go in a different direction?"

Olivia cocked her head. "I think I'll take option one. I've been betrayed enough times to not want to do the same to one of my own friends."

Flemeth looked amused. "Such loyalty. This is familiar. Come on then." Flemeth walked over to more open ground and transformed into a dragon. Well, at least that explained how she'd gotten Olivia and Alistair out of the Tower of Ishal.

Killing the Flemeth dragon was much easier than Olivia would have expected. Suspiciously easy, in fact. Olivia got the feeling that Flemeth had planned this entire thing out, though there wasn't much she could do about it. She got the grimoire out of the hut and returned to camp, where she gave the tome to Morrigan. "Ah," said Morrigan, looking pleased and a bit relieved. "You got Mother's real grimoire? I'm glad you were able to find it after all. My thanks for retrieving it. I shall begin unlocking all her secrets- er, I mean figuring out how to protect myself immediately."

"She's probably going to be able to come back from this, you know," pointed out Olivia. "Killing her was far too easy."

Morrigan nodded. "It'll slow her down, though, which is the most I could have hoped for. Thank you."

The rest of the trip to Denerim was long but uneventful. Olivia actually spent a lot of the time talking to Zevran. At first she was really just sounding him out to find out whether or not he was planning on getting around to assassinating her, but pretty soon he started to grow on her. It was partially the constant flirting, but mainly it was because he actually reminded her quite a lot of herself. On the outside that would probably seem a bit odd, considering that she was a mage and he was an assassin and one wouldn't expect much overlap between the two, but they had both been dragged into the Circle and the Crows respectively as children, neither of them had exactly been given a chance to choose what they wanted to do with their lives before, and they both had pretty much the exact same coping mechanism of hiding how they really felt about things underneath an outer shell of flippancy, though Zevran's version did tend to involve more flirting. By the time they reached Denerim, everyone else in the party had decided that they were a couple. To be quite fair, they now assumed the same about Bethany and Alistair as well.

"I just don't understand it!" Alistair commented to Leliana. "Why would anyone go for someone like that?"

Leliana smirked. "The fact that you have to ask just proves that you're straight."

Alistair groaned.

Bethany sitting next to him, laughed. "If it makes you feel better, I don't understand it either. I guess he's just not my type."

Alistair seemed much happier. "And what is your type, then?"

Bethany smiled at him. "Adorable, sweet blonds, of course."

All right, everyone kind of had a point with the assuming that Alistair and Bethany were together. Or, well, courting. They acted so sappy around one another that you could almost see the hearts and flowers. The other day he had given her a rose. A rose. The most clichéd thing ever.

"Olivia," said Wynne kindly, "I think we need to talk about this."

Olivia looked at her blankly. "Why?"

"You and Zevran are quite taken with each other, aren't you?"

"You've got that right," said Olivia cheerfully.

"I've noticed your relationship, and I wanted to ask where you thought it was going," continued Wynne.

This sounded just a tad ominous. "We have a lot in common and I enjoy his company. It's probably going somewhere," she admitted.

"That's what I'm worried about," said Wynne. "You have responsibilities as a Grey Warden and I'm worried that you'll neglect them."

"I can handle having a relationship without ignoring my responsibilities," said Olivia, annoyed.

"Can you? One day, you might have to choose between saving him and saving everything else. Then what will you do."

Olivia almost groaned. She was pretty sure that this conversation was brought on at least partially by the Circle's brainwashing. "Wynne. One of the things which Zevran and I have in common is we both understand that when you could die any day, spending all your time angsting is pointless. You need to take what happiness you can when you can or you'll miss out on it entirely. We also have enough common sense to realize that 'saving everything else' is the priority." She wondered if Wynne had had this conversation with Alistair as well, talking about Bethany.

Wynne still didn't look very happy. She looked even less happy when Olivia walked away from her and headed straight over to Zevran. Olivia didn't care.

In Denerim, they didn't find Brother Genetivi. They did, however, find someone impersonating his apprentice and notes suggesting that he had gone to some village in the Frostbacks called Haven. "It just had to be all the way on the other side of the continent," complained Olivia.

They also found Alistair's sister. Who turned out to be absolutely horrible to both of them when he and Olivia went to meet her. When they left her house, Alistair looked like a kicked puppy. "That… that harpy…. Is my sister? I hoped that…"

Olivia felt sorry for him. "Most of the time, people just want to look out for number one."

"Your family isn't like that."

"My family is not exactly the statistical norm," Olivia pointed out. "About half of us are mages. We all keep pretty big secrets belonging to the others and have to look out for each other to survive, so loyalty is a big priority for us."

"It's just…. Argh." He made a frustrated sound and wandered off, looking unhappy. Bethany walked up to him and gave him a one-armed hug, smiling. Alistair looked slightly less dejected.