The rain had come back with a vengeance, and was trying to kill them.

Zevran's declaration of this had made it clear which party members, in all their Fereldan ignorance, expected nothing better than perennially murderous weather. Alistair and Morrigan had both rolled their eyes at him, and then at each other, and then at the clouds.

Happily, though, the expatriate majority vastly outweighed the worryingly acquiescent locals, with calls of unanimous, resounding agreement.

Except for Rhodri.

Zevran wasn't one to begrudge people their joy, but the Warden's starry-eyed delight at the flash flood which had nearly swept her tent away was… well. If nothing else, it was a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of locking people inside a tower for a decade or more.

"Isn't it marvellous?" she gushed to him as they trudged– well, Zevran trudged; Rhodri was positively larking through the lashings of rain and mud. "Real, live weather! Much more exciting on this side of the window, I can tell you!"

Zevran went to make some pleasantly non-committal remark but paused as the Warden threw her head back. Her mouth unlatched, tongue rolling out like a saddle flap, and her canines gleamed in the weak sun as she caught the rain in her mouth and gulped it down with relish. When she righted herself and turned to him again, she held up her hands to him in a conciliatory gesture.

"Now, I know our plans are a little delayed since we have to go back around and pass through Edgehall to get to Redcliffe, but don't you worry about a thing, amicus!" She beamed down at him, her face dripping. "Our day-to-day schedule won't change a bit! It'll be business as usual. Bene."

Zevran, who despite his now-waterproofed cloak could not recall ever being wetter in his life, grinned up at the Warden. "Do you know, we might even be able to streamline the day's tasks while it's raining."

"Oh?"

"Well, in all this wet, we are getting our bath and laundry done while we walk. Very efficient, no?"

It was a joke. A joke . Why, for the love of all good things, did she have stars in her eyes?

"Oh-h-h," Rhodri touched her hands to her cheeks. "What an excellent point! We're ahead of schedule! Ah!" She bounced on her toes. "We could have dinner at any time!"

Leliana sniffed miserably. "It's a pity we can't find dry lodgings at any time…"

The Warden turned around and put a hand on Leliana's shoulder, smiling warmly. "Good thing the rain's warm right now, hmm? Besides, the more we walk, the sooner you'll get to meet everyone!" She sighed. "I wish we could write to them that we were on the way, so they could look forward to it. I'd have told them all about the magnificent Leliana, and every mage in the tower would be in love with you before you even got there!"

The woeful look on Leliana's face turned up into a small smile, almost childlike in its shyness.

"Well," Leliana said in an uncharacteristic mumble as she grabbed one corner of her cloak and wrung it out, "we had better keep moving, then. I would hate to disappoint them."

Rhodri beamed. She reached out and cupped the woman's cheeks, and her voice was like a finger of brandy. "Oh, I don't think you could, Leli."

While Leliana looked fit to die from an acute bout of the swoons, Alistair's blushing face registered in Zevran's periphery. Zevran bit back the urge to groan and tried his hand at catching the rain on his tongue.

The upside to all of this was, at least, that Leliana had found the Warden's attentions encouraging enough to attempt a little more boldness. In fact, Zevran probably owed her his gratitude. Thanks to her efforts, he had been made aware that complimenting Rhodri's figure was most unwelcome.

Not that he had been contemplating doing so– at least not unless the Warden invited him to. After all, wearing clothes that left everything to the imagination tended to discourage remarks about whatever was obscured, not least because one seldom knew what precisely lay beneath the cloth. Leliana appeared to have missed that. The mystery of the unguessable body was relieved when Leliana made a thoughtful hum and indicated the contours of the Warden's figure (her thoroughly waterlogged robes now clung to her on all sides) with a generous sweep of the hands.

Zevran's glance had been brief– and accidental; his eyes had mindlessly followed the direction Leliana had gestured in, but they fell on the Warden all the same. Sandbag arm and leg muscles bulged like stopper knots over spindleshank limbs; yawning shoulders tapered down to a wedgepoint on railthin hips. Utterly fascinating. And, if Zevran's cursory look had not misled him, she was also slightly bow-legged. The good Sister had, quite innocuously and very foolishly, paid a quick compliment and suggested something to draw the eye to her broad shoulders.

By the time Leliana had finished detailing her proposal of a handsome belt with an elaborate buckle, the Warden's face was purple. A barely coherent 'no' left Rhodri's lips while she wrenched another cloak out of her bag and threw it over herself; a stricken Leliana left it at that.

Zevran had hardly looked at anything below the Warden's neck to begin with. The fluttering silhouette, when caught in the breeze, reminded him a little too much of a bat for comfort's sake. After that, though, he made a point of keeping his eyes in line with her chin or higher.

He didn't stop there. Fearing that another flirtation in too short a time frame might send Rhodri to an early grave, Zevran abandoned all plans to catch her eye for some days. It was possible she would notice the absence of his flirtations, attempt to fill the deficit by making her own come-ons to him. Or, if she was as spoiled for attention as nobility usually was, she might grow dramatic, broadcast her neglect, sulk, languish. Act coldly toward him, even, in the absence of the ego-stroking she perhaps considered her due.

By the time they had reached Edgehall three days later, though, Rhodri hadn't so much as looked at him expectantly. Zevran resolved to withhold his flirtations a little longer, until they reached Redcliffe, in case she was simply slow to catch on: nothing. There were jokes and stories aplenty; she carried him while they walked, when he wobbled with sufficient melodrama. She still pushed the larger half of her food into his hands, dropped her voice to a genteel, close-quarters volume with him, slathered him with pleases and thank-yous and how-did-you-sleeps. What that all meant was anyone's guess.

For better or worse– likely the latter, Leliana had regained some of her gumption once they arrived in Redcliffe. Zevran might not have cared that the Sister was of a mood to tease him, might not have taken it so damned personally, a few months ago. But there she sat, eyeing him like she had won a competition between them as they prepared the potatoes for the evening meal.

"I am surprised you are here helping me with the cooking, Zevran," she cooed, tilting her head ever-so-slightly in the direction of the Tevinter Warden, who along with Alistair was axing the gizzards out of a far-off tree stump for firewood.

Zevran permitted himself to raise an eyebrow as he plucked another potato from the bowl between their feet and quartered it. "Oh? Surely you know by now that I have no interest in poisoning any of you." He tsked playfully. "For shame, Leliana! What little faith you have in me."

The Sister gave a sing-song hum of disagreement. "You know what I'm talking about," she reproached coyly. "You and Rhodri are almost never apart now. Did you think nobody had noticed?"

It took all of Zevran's willpower not to raise his eyebrows at her. Someone who made flirtations as vague as Leliana had been doing could not possibly have missed the fact that Zevran had ceased attempts to catch the Warden's eye a good two weeks ago. He forced looseness in his arms and, as if to show the laxity off, tipped his hand and let the potato pieces tumble back into the bowl.

"Ah, my dear!" He shuffled a little closer to her. "Have I been neglecting you? You said there was no need for my services, but if you find you are jealous, I am more than happy to offer them again."

"No, no," Leliana shook her head and took another potato. "That won't be necessary, thank you."

"But surely you must have sought to tell me something from all this," he crooned softly. "I would hate for you to feel left out."

"Not at all." A smirk curled the edges of her mouth. "But I know a shadow when I see one."

Zevran pressed down the roil in his guts with a chuckle. "Now that is quite an accusation to level at an Antivan Crow. You think I wish to kill her?"

She snorted. "Quite the opposite, actually. I think you are very fond of her."

"Lovely woman," he pressed the words through a vacant, gleaming smile, "I think you have been in the South for too long! Have you forgotten that we Northerners are warm by nature?"

"Only with one person at a time, then?"

Zevran waggled her eyebrows at her. "Oh, I have more than enough heat to go around." He shrugged innocently. "But I know when such gestures are unwelcome. I would not dream of making anyone uncomfortable. My fellow Northerner, however, has been nothing but pleased about it."

Gentle, bruised shock flashed over Leliana's face, interrupted as a crisp voice from behind registered.

"You are a foolish woman," Morrigan stepped past her to drop two blocks of wood into the would-be firepit. With a wave of her hand, a fire was lit, and she turned and eyed Leliana witheringly. "The assassin is clearly using his wiles to get into the Warden's good graces. Though perhaps if you are gormless enough to be hoodwinked, I would do better not to intervene. He might be good enough to poison you first."

Zevran made a low, sultry hum. "Ooh, I do love it when you talk about me as though I am not here. It makes me feel so mysterious! Tell me more about my wiles, dear woman."

The witch regarded him with a curled lip. "'Tis hardly worth remarking on further," she said icily. "They appear to have convinced only the one person. Not even Alistair has fallen for your sycophantry, you know this?"

"My, my, you sound terribly disappointed."

"Hardly. I merely wonder when, precisely, you will attempt to finish the job." She shrugged with one hand. "The Warden was foolish enough to spare you; being murdered by you seems a fitting consequence. Unless, of course, you fear your Crows enough to want her to keep you alive."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "And am I to believe that you joined the Warden's cause out of a sense of… patriotism, perhaps?"

Morrigan snorted. "You are as ridiculous as your haircare habits."

"Am I?" Zevran shrugged and let his eyes drift over to Rhodri, who was striding over to them with a face almost entirely obscured by the pile of firewood she was carrying. "We all have our reasons for doing what we do. But if it brings you comfort, the next time someone shows me mercy, I will be sure to turn on them at the first opportunity. Will that do?"

His answer was not dignified with a response; Morrigan turned on her heel and left for her rag fort before the Warden could come within talking distance. Leliana, who had been silent much of the time, had her gaze firmly set on Alistair.

Zevran noted the swell of relief that Rhodri's approach brought and, before he could begin to consider the cause, announced to himself that her arrival signified the end of Leliana's teasing. Appeased enough, he took another potato and peeled it.

§

Antiva had always felt like a place that was constantly changing. Alliances shifted like desert sands; people might stay in one place long enough to be used as a landmark, only to disappear without a trace. The weather was a moody whore at the best of times, never one way or another long enough for anything to be done. Certainly never long enough, as any Antivan launderer would loudly bemoan, for the washing to properly dry on the line. Small events, in the grand scheme of things, that would invariably coax a loud response from anyone who thought to notice them.

And then there was Ferelden. As that uniquely Southern, incessantly biting evening chill had begun to permeate the daylight hours, even the slightest breeze felt like a threat of snow and ice. The days were shortening quickly enough that Zevran no longer trusted his stomach or head for cues on when to sleep or eat. Rain came down with such a force it almost bored through flesh and bone on its way to the earth. Dramatic, was what it was. Hyperbolic, even.

But the stoic Fereldan people said nothing, did nothing. Well, no, that wasn't true. They gritted their teeth and ploughed on, but that was all they ever did. Joy, misery, trial or leisure– everything was a muted, stifflipped affair with them. Zevran had started to nurse a theory that the Fereldans were so unflappable in the hopes that if they pretended to ignore whatever disaster was unfolding, it would simply go away on its own sooner or later.

Zevran wasn't fooled, though. Even the trees weren't having any of this cold-weather, short-day nonsense. Entire forests' foliage were fizzing into opulent gold, sparkling like champagne in the soft light when he passed under them. Others were deepening into red and orange– he had initially mistaken this for a fire, only to be corrected by a deeply unimpressed Alistair. Zevran took the reprimand as well as he could force himself to. but how was he to know, after all? What sort of leaves changed colour with the seasons?

Or, when it came down to it, fell off? Now that was positively operatic. Leaves bursting into the colour of fresh flames, then all but throwing themselves off the branch to carpet the ground with their remains. Was it magic? Were the trees given to the same sort of theatrics as Antivans when exposed to cold weather? Trees couldn't speak, after all; perhaps it was a cry for help.

Still, Zevran was nothing if not an optimist. While the world busied itself with dying, the Wardens grew. Alistair was now two heads taller than Zevran, with a chest like a barrel (much to Leliana's delight), and Rhodri could easily have repurposed Zevran as a chinrest, if she were of a mind to. In the first month since leaving Honnleath, the Wardens outgrew three pairs of boots between them. Size was closely related to strength with them, and that in turn, meant that Zevran's odds of being carried around grew further still. Even better, Rhodri radiated heat, which was particularly welcome in these colder times, and it was taking longer and longer before exertion demanded she put him down. With a proper bed and a bowl of fish chowder, Zevran could die happy.

The warmth of the Crestwood bakery was the next best thing, though. Burnt butter and sweet honey hung thick in the air, and opportunity to win extra favour with the Warden knocked with vigour.

"Ah?" Rhodri's eyes widened. "They won't be edible in a month? But cookies are dry and hard already! And– and they're not made of flesh, so they don't even rot!"

The baker, who had up to now been obliging to the point of saintliness, looked at the Warden like she'd never been in a shop before.

"...Yes," he began slowly, "but even most dry foods don't last that long."

She chewed on her lip, brows drawing in dismay. "I don't think there's another bakery near Calenhad…"

The baker said nothing. He stayed as he was behind the counter, eyes fixed on the Rhodri's staff as she shifted from foot to foot.

Entirely unprompted– and possibly unwelcomely, going by Alistair's glare, Zevran touched Rhodri's arm. "You know, my lovely Grey Warden" he said with a winsome smile, "if we had the dry ingredients, we could prepare them ourselves on the road, no? We could get up a little early on the day of the visit and make them then."

Rhodri made an interested hum. "You think so?"

"I know so," he crooned. "We have a pan, and with a little heat and plenty of butter, we will be in business."

This seemed good enough for her– and though it was hard to say if the baker was genuinely accepting of Zevran's workaround or simply wanted the apparently-vulgarian Warden out of his establishment, he also gave his approval. The party left with three bags of dry mix. Enough, so said the baker, to make a total of one hundred and twenty cookies in three different flavours ("Everyone gets one of each," Rhodri had declared while her hands drummed her legs). The victorious Warden, who insisted on carrying all the bags, held them in her arms like they were no heavier than a housecat, beaming all the way back to the party camp.

§

Zevran Arainai and Severin Rhodri Amell Callistus were not friends, and Zevran was not, and had not been brooding about it.

In fact, it was definitively true that he had not been brooding, because it was physically impossible, given that there was nothing to brood about. Crows did not have friends, and despite the fact that he was no longer hired as a Crow assassin, the training and conditions were not simply shed like a tunic at the end of the day. No, if anything, he was a Crow emerito, still as perfectly entitled to the label as ever. He had never had friends and he never would, and that was the end of it. He hadn't put this much thought into Taliesen, or Rinna– though perhaps if he had paid these things a little thought, Rinna might still–

His stomach tensed in a particularly hard cringe before he could stop it. The motion was enough to alert the Warden, who was carrying Zevran through a hip-deep creek.

"Ah? Did you get damp, Zev?" Her arms curled and swelled upwards, bringing him higher. "I'm sorry about that, my friend. Is that better?"

Her neck was stretched to keep her sharp chin from jutting into his bicep– not that he would have been so opposed to her repurposing it as a headrest. Zevran affixed a coy grin to his features.

"Forgive me, my Warden," he said with a gentle touch to the shoulder, "you have kept me wonderfully dry. My mind simply wandered– a little too far away from me, perhaps. It must have been your radiant beauty unconsciously dazzling me, no?" He waggled his eyebrows.

"Ah, I see." Rhodri gave an understanding nod and waded on. "These things happen. Right, so where were we? My turn, wasn't it?"

Alistair confirmed that it was, and this was taken with a word of thanks.

"All right, so: would you rather be able to fly like a bird, or leap like a frog?"

The ninth guard's legs gave out, her hands falling away from her freshly-opened neck before she could meet the stone.

No, she was the tenth. The ninth was that fellow who tried the fast and dirty kick from on his back.

Number eleven hurtled around the corner, a colossal, scowling man decked out in plate armour that shone in the light like the midday sea. Sword drawn, eyes glittering, sweat on his brow already.

Another easy one, then. At this rate, Zevran would have to eschew the cask of wine he customarily rewarded himself with after bigger jobs. Ten quick-and-easies didn't fall under that category.

He smirked, shelved all thoughts of alcohol, and started the dance. Prowling, blades twirling like toys, taking the man's eyes away for a second. Just long enough to make a swipe–

"Zev–!" Taliesen's voice, at a worrying rasp, sounded from up ahead. "Poultice!"

Easily, so easily, Zevran bowed out of his own attack, winding past the enormous guard with a poultice at the ready. Taliesen sat against the wall, blood oozing out from under the hand he had clasped beneath his ribs. His tan skin had a paleness creeping in that made Zevran's belly drop.

Wood soles on stone had his head turning– the guard was moving at a blur– Zevran tossed the poultice to Taliesen and weaved away, but not before another guard could seize him by the neck and crash him through the stained-glass window.

In the balmy afternoon, the blood from his cuts rained heavenward as Zevran plummeted through the thick, warm air. Red sky above, unforgiving water below. My kingdom, he wished, prayed, bargained through a swelling last breath, for a pair of wings.

Zevran chuckled. "Oh, an easy one."

Leliana, who had sweet-talked a blushing Alistair into carting her across, caught Zevran's eye from her spot up on the nearby bank and flashed him a quick, muted smile.

Rhodri frowned. "Is it? Fancy that. I thought I'd made it quite hard, actually. What would you pick?"

"My dear Warden," Zevran crooned, "if you can fly, you can mimic any jump by flapping your arms. No jump can mimic flying, though. Not for very long, anyway."

Behind them, Alistair held the pack filled with cast-iron frypan baked cookies, lovingly made earlier that morning, over his head (Rhodri had insisted that for safety's sake, they make a special trip carrying only them). He made a begrudging mumble of agreement, and Zevran kept his smug grin to himself.

The Warden hummed thoughtfully. "That's a very good point. I'm still going to choose to leap like a frog, but it's a much closer call than I thought it would be."

"I don't think jumping like a frog is as useful as flying when it comes to fighting the darkspawn, Rhod," Alistair pointed out.

Rhodri drew up to the bank and carefully set Zevran down. She climbed out, hauling Alistair out after her, and with a few hand-waves (and an inspection of the cookies to ensure they were unharmed by the creek crossing), the party was dry and moving on.

"You're right, of course, Alistair," Rhodri conceded, returning to business, "terribly impractical. But one of my students, Clarrie– oh, you'll love her, she's my little clown. She told me not long before I left that she'd asked Enchanter Philomena what would happen if someone had legs as powerful as a frog's and they kicked someone in the arse."

Zevran snorted. "Clever girl. And what was the answer?"

She huffed a giddy laugh. "Nothing. Philomena smacked her in the head with a book, and that was that. I promised her I'd do my best to find out, though, and this'd be my golden opportunity."

"Hmm! I did jump and kick a man's posterior once," he mused with a grin. "I had been poisoned, you see, and lost control of my arms for a moment. My teammate was in need of a helping hand, and I had to give him the next best thing before my legs gave out, too."

Rhodri's eyes widened. "Oh, my," she breathed.

He nodded. "Indeed. I can confidently say that they go quite a ways ahead when they stumble." Zevran chewed his cheek, Taliesen's disbelieving laugh at the feat echoing in his ears, as he added, "Once they are down, though, they do not go so very far."

The Warden roared laughing and gave him one of those anaemic nudges, and his smile was absolutely not the result of that, but rather from the well-earned satisfaction of having told a story well.

"Good to know," she said when she'd gotten her breath back, fixing him with her gleaming shark-grin. "I'll let you tell Clarrie yourself. Come to that, I can think of a few others who'd be keen to know, so if you're not averse to a small, adoring audience…"

He chuckled. "Always ready."

From beside Alistair, Leliana caught Zevran's eye again and subjected him to an infuriating smirk; Zevran arched a brow at her and faced forward. If one of the Maker's foremost worshippers couldn't tell the difference between friendship and friendliness– and make no mistake, there was a very obvious difference– there was no helping her.

"We must be almost there by now," Alistair said, seemingly to nobody in particular.

Zevran smiled inwardly. The good thing about the Wardens' perpetual ignorance of this exchange was that they frequently prevented escalations by interrupting the unseen proceedings.

"Once we're out of this clearing, I think," Rhodri murmured. "My goodness, trust the leaves to stay on the trees when we need to watch where we're going, sic?" She chuckled good-naturedly.

Leaving the wood lended an unexpected air of victory to the party of four, especially after Alistair remarking about bears being particularly active in the thickets once the leaves began to change. Even flippant, devil-may-care Rhodri hadn't laughed it off, which as far as Zevran was concerned said more than enough.

But the forest was behind them, and ahead lay the worn track down to, Zevran could only presume, Lake Calenhad. The winy water gleamed like lust in the mid-morning sun, knifed square in the middle by the most uninviting, needlepoint edifice Zevran had seen since House Kortez's hospital. Any taller and the tip of it would have cut a cloud to the quick. The path to the tower was made mostly of guesswork, supplemented by the occasional piece of eroded bridge foundation; Zevran was almost (almost!) relieved to see the pathetic little pier down by the water's edge, even with the loitering Templar stationed there.

"Ah!" Rhodri threw a hand down the hill at the sole building this side of the water: a whitewashed wooden house with an adjoining firewood shed– and a grey-haired, soft-bodied man on a stool in front of it, sucking down on a cup of Maker-knew-what. "Mr. Kester!" She beckoned them as she fell into a jog, waving at the man as she went.

The man called Kester waved back and was on his feet by his second attempt.

"Well, well! The Grey Warden is back!" He gave her a warm smile. "And with friends, too!"

Rhodri beamed. "Alistair is a Warden as well, Mr. Kester. And our friends here," she gestured with a pride that made Zevran's belly jitter, "have also come along to help."

Kester kept them talking for a good while about the stories his father had told him of Grey Wardens– partly, Zevran presumed, as a means of checking the truth behind his father's tales; quite a number of the myths he relayed were promptly debunked.

Zevran offered a quick thanks to the Maker when Kester sighed and patted his belly. "And so what brings you all the way out here, then? Calenhad's a lonesome place at the best of times."

"We're here to enlist the help of the mages against the Blight, believe it or not. As a matter of fact, we were hoping to loan your boat to get over there." Rhodri gave him a hopeful look as he stiffened, quickly adding, "I'll happily reimburse you, if need be. You need not even do the rowing."

Kester sighed again. "'Fraid I can't offer you the boat, Warden. Templars took it."

Rhodri frowned. "They took your boat? What for?"

"Well, 'ficially, I don't know nothing. They wouldn't tell me anything. Greagoir come and all he said was, 'Don't you worry, Kester, we got it all under control, we do.' Then he put that Carroll feller in charge of my boat!'" He pointed at the Templar milling about at the end of the dock and shook his head. "But I did hear the boy mumblin', and it didn't sound good."

Rhodri's shoulders squared, and she leaned closer to the man. "What was he saying, Mr. Kester?" she said urgently. "I need to know before we go over there. Please."

Kester looked around furtively, and with a dark glance at the tower, dropped his voice to a murmur. "Abominations, he was sayin', and demons. They're never a good thing." Kester gave a meaningful nod and then a sympathetic wince as the colour started to drain from Rhodri's face.

"No…" Alistair agreed with a grimace. "Those are… quite bad."

"Oh, mercy," Rhodri whispered. She turned to the others, and her eyes were wide with fright. "My people are in there. We need to get to them. Everyone move! Now!"

She didn't wait for a response, breaking into a sprint toward the dock. Zevran, lightest on his feet, caught up to her first, with Leliana hot on his heels. The clank of platemail was enough to know Alistair was somewhere in the vicinity.

Demons. Of course it was demons. Why had Zevran worried about something as pedestrian as dying by darkspawn or bears when there were demons waiting to lay waste to him? He ought to turn and make a break for it while he could. What business did loyalty have outweighing self-preservation at a time like this? Typical Zevran, always willing to dive into the lion's mouth for a shred of kindness.

The mage was such a soft, tender thing, even in the face of death. She sobbed as her spell fizzled out, but instead of darting away from him and his knives, she stumbled forward and clutched Zevran's waist.

He ought to have died then and there, really, for not shanking her at that impossibly opportune moment. But no, he let her velvety arms pull his malnourished frame against her, unendingly plush and pillowy. Simple fragrances, soap and clove oil, clung to the air near the hollow of her neck, indulgent enough to force him to bite his lip.

"I don't want to go like this," she choked, her head tipping onto his chest. "Can we just sit for a moment, eat a little? Please?"

Fingers reached around and grazed the small of his back. It had to be coincidence that she had gone straight for a secret erogenous zone of his, but Zevran found it odd all the same. With a smile, he hooked a finger under her jaw and tilted her lovely, round face up to look at him.

"I think we can afford that," he purred.

With a hand on his knee and another clutching a peach, the mage, whose name was Beatris, began narrating. She was adept in a branch of magic Zevran had never heard of (though in all fairness, he had never heard of any), and in terrible trouble with the local junta for attempting to draw attention to dirty dealings while she was conducting research for the Circle. With each bite of the peach, her hand slid a little further up his thigh, and by the time there was nothing but a stone left, his breeches were being unlaced.

Gentle questions started as she moved into his lap. About him, his interests, his family. What he loved, what he hated, peppered throughout with approving moans or soft, sympathetic kisses depending on how he replied. The whole thing was trite, terribly trite, and Zevran had just enough wits to answer whatever she asked as she fucked herself on him, and fucked him in the process.

Until she paused.

What he had just said to her before that escaped him. Words were cheap and hard to hold onto, and Maker knew she had teased him fit to bursting before she'd even started climbing on him.

"Something is wrong?" he mumbled.

She watched him with the sort of pity that made his guts twist.

"Did they really put you in an oubliette?" she asked in a pant.

Had he said that?

"Just for training," she added.

Ah, he had bragged. He smiled.

"Mmm. You see? My hardiness knows no bounds. My hardness, too–"

A yelp of surprise was stifled under her mouth, melted into a groan as she ground her hips against him.

"Come join me," she murmured. Her thumbs stroked long, indulgent lines over his cheeks, along that bastard tattoo. "Leave them. I can show you better. We'll go to the provinces, you and me, live like this forever." She rolled her hips once, twice, as if to prove she meant it.

Zevran gave in and spent himself, stupid fool Crow that he was, gasping concessions and promises to the first friendly face to wring an orgasm out of him who wasn't a prostitute. But why would she ask him along with her unless she meant it? She could have deposited him beside the road, or kept pleading now that he was too incoherent to say anything clever. Mercy, she could have taken his knife and gutted him, but she didn't.

She brushed his sweat-damp fringe out of his eyes, pulled him along with her onto the carriage seat, and slept like that. Zevran idly twirled a lock of her hair and decided that Beatris Rafaelo wasn't to be killed. Certainly not by his hand, anyway. The Crows would have to be handled somehow; perhaps he could speak to them on her behalf.

That was a matter for tomorrow, though, not now.

Not now.

He nestled into her neck and let himself drowse.

At the end of the dock, the Templar named Carroll watched them stampede over with a raised eyebrow. He was a young man, hardly older than either Warden, Zevran guessed, and his incessantly wandering gaze gave him a curiously adrift look.

"You're not looking to get to the Tower, are you?" he said, straightening up. "Because I'm under strict orders not to--"

"What's happening in there, Carroll?" Rhodri cut across him. She snapped her fingers impatiently when no answer came immediately. "Quickly! What is it?"

A childish smile broadened his mouth. "Can't tell you," he said in a sing-songy voice. "You're not authorised."

She closed her eyes slowly and opened them again. "I am a Grey Warden who has every right to be in that Tower," she said."Either you give us the information and take us across, or I throw you into the lake and take us across myself."

The smug look evaporated; for someone who was so sure of himself, this Carroll fellow was remarkably easy to intimidate.

"Oh, uh… I don't want to end up in the water. I've heard strange things live in there." He nodded quickly. "I'll take you right now. Just like you wanted!"

"What's going on in the Tower, though?" Rhodri pressed as they all climbed into the boat. "Kester mentioned something about abominations and demons. Is it true?"

Carroll nodded, not volunteering anything more as he took the oars and dipped them into the water.

"And?" Rhodri clicked her fingers near his face again. "Focus. Focus! What's happening? Is everyone safe?"

"Don't think so," he mumbled. "There were a lot of demons last I saw, and that was two weeks ago when I was sent out here to take over the boat."

The Warden went still, and silence fell over them until she spoke up again.

"This won't do," she shook her head hard. "We're moving too slowly. Carroll, you will swap places with Alistair, and he and I will row. Alistair, come please."

With a gently apologetic look from Alistair, a protesting Carroll was shuffled to the middle of the boat, and the two Wardens shared a glance before taking up the oars and moving the boat at a far speedier pace. What Zevran guessed was normally a two hour trip took half that as Rhodri and Alistair rowed tirelessly, their movements not slowing until they had reached the dock on the other side of the lake.

The sprint up the endless flight of stairs inside the Tower awakened and exhausted muscles Zevran was not aware he had possessed-- and going by the gasps from Leliana and Alistair, the latter of whom was weighed down by plate armour, he was not alone in this. Between Rhodri's demands and the giant spider he was sure he had seen lurking in one of the landings, though, resting was nigh on impossible.

It came as a relief to reach a level she deemed high enough off the ground to warrant leaving the stairwell, and even more so when he saw that the only doors in the place were shut. That would afford him at least thirty seconds of stillness, and he propped himself up by his knees and drew in huge lungfuls of air while he could.

He glanced up once he was able to and saw Templars with furrowed brows pacing nervously, a baffling state to be in when there was no noise coming from within. Surely if there were Fade beasts prowling, people would be screaming and casting noisy spells. That meant, then, that the mages were either safe, or dead.

Wouldn't they be out here if they were alive?

The most senior-looking Templar left his place by the doors to stride over, a scornful frown etched into his face.

"Well, well," he said, not taking his eyes off Rhodri. "Look who's back, a proper Grey Warden and everything! Glad you're not dead." He curled his lip, looking outright disappointed that she still drew breath.

A wide-eyed Rhodri ignored this remark and threw her hand at the door. "What's going on?" she demanded. "Why are the great doors closed? I heard about demons and abominations from Mr. Kester."

He rolled his eyes as though her manner of addressing him was nothing unusual. "That is none of your concern. Your business, surely, lies out there in the world you were itching to see."

"I carry the Right of Conscription, Greagoir, and I am here to seek aid from the mages and anyone else I consider fit to give it," she snarled. " Why are these doors locked?"

Greagoir tsked, a weary look coming over his face. "Whatever hearsay you caught was correct. Abominations and demons have overrun the halls, hunting templars and mages alike." He sighed heavily. "I told my men to flee while they could. We've barred the door while we wait for the right of Annulment from Denerim."

Rhodri's mouth fell open. "You locked my people in there!" she hissed. "And you intend to--"

"Not only the mages," he barked angrily. "My men are in there as well. My first duty is to protect the innocent folk of Ferelden--"

"You locked innocent Fereldan children in there!" Rhodri shouted over the top of him, voice cracking. She stormed over to the doors. "I need to get in. Let me in!"

Greagoir squinted at her. "Still as arrogant as ever, I see," he spat. "You seem to be forgetting how powerful abominations are. One could lay waste to an entire village--"

"Open the doors! I will handle it."

There was silence for a moment before the senior Templar let out a long puff of air. "I am in no position to refuse help, I suppose. But know that if you go in there, I will not open the doors again until I have proof the Tower is safe."

She looked over her shoulder. "Define proof."

"Assurance from the First Enchanter himself, if he even still lives." A wry sneer pulled at the corner of his mouth. "In fact, if you can bring him out alive, I will even pledge my Templars to your cause."

Rhodri gave him a curt nod. "Fine. Now make haste and open these doors."

Greagoir jerked his head at the Templars stationed at the entryway, and they set to work unbarring the doors.

Leliana stepped forward. "You know you won't be going alone, Rhodri."

Zevran sauntered over, smiling smoothly. "Not at all. We would not dream of leaving you to do all the work yourself."

Alistair joined them at the doors and gave the Warden a firm nod. "We're ready."

Rhodri's face softened for a moment before evening out again. "You're good to me," she murmured. "Thank you. Please stay behind me at all times, and give me room to cast."

Her attention was snared by a loud creak as one of the doors started to scrape open, and as soon as there was a gap big enough to fit through, she had wedged herself in and shot out of sight.

A breath stalled painfully in Zevran's throat as a surprised gasp from the Warden reached his ears. Knives already out, he passed through the door in time to see her fall face-first onto the stone floor.