Alim might have the sense to keep their destination quiet, but Zevran was a good listener, and he soon gleaned the gist of it, cinching his suspicion that these people were crazy. The Urn of Sacred Ashes was a children's tale, a narrative shortcut when you'd beaten your hero into too tight a corner. He was as religious as anybody short of Leliana, perhaps, but he did not expect miracles tucked away undiscovered in slightly inconvenient villages. From what he could see, Wynne, Morrigan, and Sten were all more or less incredulous as well, but Alistair was enthusiastic for reasons likely his own and Leliana's impulses made her the perfect mark for such foolishness.

There really was a comfort in having a leader to follow, though, even a slightly mad leader who let a chantry sister size him up for custom boots and seemed to consider darkspawn a minor inconvenience. His worries that Alim's attentions were only medical were allayed soon; his wounds were mere trifles after a few days' travel, but he and the Warden went on chatting, on the road and in camp. The young mage was mad for stories and not at all squeamish, reacting no more strongly to tales of sex and death than Zevran's attempts to tease him into a blush, regarding which he continued resolutely resistant. It wasn't long before he was out of tales he was willing to tell.

"Enough of Antiva. I would hear something of you," he finally said, one night when they were very close to the town that (almost) certainly did not contain the mortal remains of the Maker's chosen.

"I don't think you understand how boring I am. Apprentices don't really leave the tower. Unless you'd like to hear about books I've read, there's really nothing between being taken to the Circle and the disaster on my way out."

He could tell that this disaster was a sore spot. Alim hadn't prodded too closely at any of his, so he'd return the favor for now. "Bah, hundreds of brilliant minds, many belonging to the young and gorgeous and all locked in with all the magic sanctioned in Fereldan? There must be intrigues. I told you about assassinating a prince. You must have something to offer in return."

"Nirella once became convinced she'd learned an ancient and undetectable spell of invisibility and led a expedition to raid the kitchens. But it was a trick most of our mentors had tried themselves once and failed, and we were sent to bed with no supper." He shrugged. "I'm just not the artist you are. What can I say?"

Zevran shot him a decidedly unimpressed look. For the space of his so-called story, all Alim's chipper enthusiasm had vanished and he'd spoken fast and flat. It was very odd, from what little he understood of the Warden. "I don't believe you tried at all, but so be it. Fine. Tell me something from before the tower, then. Where did they find you?" He'd been turning over a theory. "Any exotic origins? Are you Dalish?"

Alim looked mildly confused. "No, Alienage, same as anybody." Well, there went that explanation for his strange fearlessness, not that it had been without holes. "Seven year olds aren't interesting, either."

"I was very interesting when I was seven." He had no real right to be annoyed that Alim was holding out on him. He wasn't sharing anything important, either. "Come, one adventure, one detail, even."

"I'm... ordinary. I don't know what to tell you." He shrugged.

"Earlier today I saw you vanish away an arrow wound by drawing the lingering energy out of a darkspawn corpse by pointing at it with a magic stick."

"Well, that isn't hard. You could do it too, if you were a mage."

"I think I'll just let you mull over how ridiculous that statement was."

"The truth of it is I was a star pupil, and that doesn't leave room for much else. The other apprentices were as tolerable as you'd probably guess, and I had some friends, but I wasn't much of a one for intrigues, and until the end, I didn't question things that I should have." Alim sighed, and Zevran thought this might be the first moment of vulnerability he'd caught in his Warden.

Without quite meaning to, he edged a little closer. This might be it. Maker willing, let him have a few hours to forget the world in the company of soft scholar's hands. "Even a star pupil needs proper rest, no? Shall I help you unwind from your academic toils?"

"Please, I have to beg Wynne to give me any lessons at all while we're traveling. And good as she is, she's not a library and a cadre of senior enchanters. Any more rest and my mind will atrophy entirely. I'll turn into a sloth abomination."

"You are a very silly mage and extremely lucky that I have a particular fondness for dark eyes and cheekbones a man would go to war for."

"That would be a strange war even for Antiva."

Sometimes he could swear the brat was doing it on purpose.

Zevran had to admit Alim could find a miracle if he looked for one, though, and that was one of the stranger thoughts he'd ever had a chance to entertain. The first night after Haven, there was too much buzz for him to work his way in, Leliana in raptures and Alistair delighted, the others more interested than perhaps they'd like to concede, not a moment's peace, and Alim fell asleep on his dog by the fire before they all left him alone.

He had to wait for the next night to ask the obvious question. "You're in an odd mood for a man who's one step closer to crushing king and darkspawn underfoot and just found the holiest relic in the world."

"Aren't I always, though?" He didn't look up from the fire. It was his night to cook. "Will you please stop propositioning Leliana, by the way? She doesn't like it."

"So you are aware of what sex is? I was beginning to wonder."

"I read. But really. Don't annoy her or I think she'll stab you. Taste this, would you?"

"Be still my beating heart, a Fereldan who cares what he's cooking?" Zevran bent down obediently to accept the spoonful of rabbit stew. He managed not to make a face. Alim might care enough to try, but not enough to actually do very well. "I can see why the sister might be feeling her oats. You, not so much, and once again, I wonder why."

"Strange day, is all." Said a man who, Zevran had on good authority, had once wandered through the Fade plucking friends free of their nightmares. "Before this place I don't think I really thought there was an Andraste, or at least not that she was anything other than a good general who knew how to rile up a crowd."

That was a surprise. The Circle of Mages, he'd always understood, was pretty tightly controlled by the Chantry. Casual heresy would be a hard thing to cultivate. He was even a little disturbed, though as soon as he realized that he pushed it away. Someone else's religious feelings were none of his concerns. "And now you are convinced?"

"No, not really. The ashes are magical, I can tell, but so is this." He tapped an ugly little ring on his finger. "And I bought it from a sleazy dwarf. If there were a Maker, I'd honestly expect something other than plain magic, but how would I recognize that?" He poked almost sulkily at the kettle. "This is as ready as it's going to be. Dinner!"

Zevran followed him quickly once everyone was served, edging out Wynne and Alistair's attempts. He was happy enough with the others not seeming to much enjoy his company. It made monopolizing the pretty mage easier. "So what is it you do believe? If you don't mind."

"Not really," he said around mechanical mouthfuls. "And, well, nothing. Not in any of the stories they tell us, anyway. That whatever made the world abandoned it to its own devices makes sense, but that I'm supposed to want the thing that left us to make this mess to come back? It sounds like a damned unappealing entity to worship."

A thought he'd had himself, but it didn't weigh on him at all like it seemed to Alim. "More unappealing than dragons?"

Muttering around a mouthful, it was almost impossible for even Zevran's sharp ears to catch Alim's odd reply. "Dragon, dragon, how do you do. I come from the king to murder you."

"You'll have to explain that one."

"Oh, it's from a story my mother would tell me. Who knows where she had it from. Some old folktale*. It involved a dragon terrorizing a countryside, a sequence of three sons, only the last of whom was virtuous enough to prevail. I always liked the poem, best. It kept popping into my head all the time we were there."

Zevran found he liked it, too, which surprised him. He'd never had a chance to be pleased by children's tales before. Before he could ask the little bookworm what other sorts of poetry he liked (an opening was an opening, though it was beginning to feel a bit like hurling himself at a brick wall), the dog trundled up to lick Alim's bowl and he rose to join the creature for a frolic.

To his polite goodbye, Zevran added, "What about Alistair? May I proposition Alistair?"

"He probably won't stab you, so if it has to be somebody..."

"Wynne?" Maybe he was trying to get a rise.

But he didn't seem bothered, apparently feeling his mentor could take care of herself. "She'll turn you into a newt."

Zevran wasn't sure that was something a mage could do, but he chose to subside. He could tell he'd lost Alim's company for the night, and wasn't sure if it was something he'd done. He was a little disturbed as well, but there didn't seem to be anything he could do about that.

He stood and strolled back to his tent. A pair of elegant Antivan leather boots leaned against the side. The note affixed to the side read, I thought you'd like a souvenir from the awful town with all the murder. When he straightened to scan the camp, Alim was pretending very hard not to look at him, distracted enough that the dog knocked him down as Zevran strode over.

*Alim's family story is "Dragon, Dragon" by John Gardner