Disclaimer: Dragon Age is owned by Bioware and not your illustrious writers.

The Good, The Bad, and Dear God The Ugly

Edana stopped dead as the group of wanna-be Wardens (and one actual) stepped out of Ostagar's southern gate.

"Oh great," she said with amused disgust, starting to walk again when Shai tugged at her arm. "A swamp. Thirteen years in Florida, booted into another world, and I end up in another swamp." She looked at Shai out of the corner of her eye, her mouth curling in a smile. The prospect of being out from under Duncan's sharp, judging gaze for at least the rest of the day had left her positively cheerful, despite the prospect of wading through mud and sludge and bugs. "The mosquitoes are going to leave me five pounds lighter from the blood loss, I'm telling you now."

"Not a good idea, that. Pretty sure you don't have it to spare," Daveth pointed out.

Edana snorted, not unkindly, and smiled a little wider. "You're sweet," she said, to his slight confusion. A few steps later, her face fell abruptly.

"Shaaaaiii," she said plaintively. "It's a swamp. If I see a single cockroach, I'm going right the hell back in there," a thumb jerked over her shoulder at the walled city, "And the bad guys can burn it down around my ears for all I care."

"If I see a cockroach, someone will have to get me out of a tree," Shai retorted almost absently. The place only vaguely reminded her of the only other swamp she'd been in. Some things were different.

"Is that one of those Enchanter people in the water?" She was positive those were robes. She stepped into water that was just shallow enough not to get into her boots. She poked the body with the end of her unstrung bow. Definitely dead, and slightly...chewed.

That's when she heard the first growl.

"Shit," Edana said, spinning around and bringing up her shield. Looking down the path, her eyes went wide. "Um," she said, stepping in front of her friend. "...don't all the people who write about that stuff pretty much agree that the legends of medieval wolf attacks were almost certainly all fiction?"

"Maybe where you're from," Alistair said grimly, readying his own weapon. The seriousness sounded odd on him, but oddly suited him, too. "Not here."

There was no more time to talk as the first of the beasts struck. Feeling clumsy and awkward, Edana kept herself between Shai and the wolves as best she could.

One wolf slammed against her, shoving her back as she gritted her teeth and struggled against it. Her first attempt to push it back did nothing, and the second brought snapping teeth far too close to her throat. With a grunt of effort she slid her feet farther apart, shoved her hips back, and heaved. The wolf went flying... rather farther than she'd have ever expected.

Part of her brain stood stock still for a moment as she stepped quickly forward and brought her axe down. 'Oh. So that's what I wasn't getting.'

Shai was a little shocked at the speed in which she strung her bow. The encounter was over much too quickly. Her heart still pounded in her throat, but it was time to salvage arrows.

It was only when she was done that she remembered the body. She dragged it from the water and began patting down pockets for a clue about his identity. "Find anything?" Jory asked.

Shai held up a piece of paper. "Only this, and I don't recognize the language," she said wryly.

Alistair took the letter and unfolded it. After a second, he looked back at Shai. "It's in the Common tongue."

"You mean," Edana asked slowly, "the language we're speaking?" She snatched at the scrap of paper. "Gimme," she said, reasonably polite. For a long moment she stared at the scrap, before the edges started to tremble. For a moment she looked on the verge of tears. Then her face started to get red, her fingers tightened on the note, crinkling the edges.

Then she started to swear.

Ser Jory blushed a bit at "Pencil-dicked", Daveth choked over "necrophiliac goatfucker", and Alistair looked rather nauseated over "syphilitic jizzstain".

"That goddamned viper was too fucking good for you, you ergi son of a bitch!"

As a group, all male gazes turned to Shai in horrified curiosity. She started when she felt their stares. "Don't look at me, she's the coherent one." She scowled, feeling as if she'd lost a limb.

Alistair looked like he was sticking his head in a lion's mouth when he spoke up. "It looks like you've both had a shock, but we really cannot loiter. Darkspawn are all around us."

Edana took a deep breath. "Right. Right. Lead the way."

She hitched up her shield and scowled, swiping at the dampness at the corner of her eyes that she was trying to suppress. She swallowed hard and glared at Alistair's boot heels for a moment.

"So. Um. Your alphabet... how many letters are in it?" she asked, trying to get her voice under control. Alistair turned and looked at her, looking confused. "Look, way too much of my self-image is tied up in being able to read, read well, remember what I read, synthesize it, and use it. I'm not walking around illiterate any longer than I have to. We can't sit down with a slate and chalk right now, but we gotta start somewhere. I can watch and listen at the same time."

Shai stayed silent as they trudged along the path. She wasn't quite ready to face their new handicap.

Luckily, before she could think about it too terribly much, she spotted a lot of blood in the road. And some of it was moving.

"Holy crap, that's a person!" She slung her bow over her back and sprinted forward. The man laying amidst all that blood reached up, grabbed her wrist.

"Ambush," he gasped.

"Shit!" Edana said, hitting her knees next to the injured man. In the back of her mind she marveled a bit at how far her language degraded when she was stressed. Another week of this an all that would be *left* would be the obscenities. Her shield was set aside as she tried desperately to remember what first aid she knew.

"He's been chewed up pretty good, but it doesn't look short-term lethal," she said, glancing up at the men who were standing around awkwardly. "Can you tell us what happened?" she asked the injured man.

"Darkspawn." He trembled, still trying to crawl in the direction of the town. "Came out of nowhere. Got... got everyone. I have to warn-!" He broke off, coughing.

"We need to get him back to town," Shai said, fowning.

"No, no I can make it." The wounded soldier's voice rang with desperation.

"I have some bandages in my pack," Alistair said, his voice neutral. Edana frowned and looked up at him, then down at the man's injuries, coated with blood of unknown origin.

Oh.

Shai was pretty good at ignoring things she didn't want to deal with and she utilized that talent now. She strung her bow to keep watch while Edana patched up the survivor. "Are you sure you can make it back on your own?" She asked him again.

The man stumbled to his feet with surprising quickness. "You won't see nothing but footprints!" He said as he limped off, back toward the camp.

Jory stood, shaking his head at the slaughter around them. "A troupe of trained men, all but slaughtered!"

Shai twitched, inexplicably irritated by his voice. Edana was much more vocal. "Aren't we here to fight the things? Our sole purpose?"

Alistair interjected soothingly. ""There is a reason I am with you - all Grey Wardens can sense darkspawn." His voice was much easier on Shai's ears. That irritated her too.

"See good ser knight? At least if we're going to die, we'll have a bit of warning before they get us."

Shai snorted. "Even in this swamp, we should be able to smell them coming."

"Can we get moving?" Edana piped up, looking around with a disgusted expression. "We can all agree that slogging through a swamp hunting darkspawn isn't exactly anybody's idea of a good time, so let's get everything we came for and get it over with."

It took until mid-afternoon to travel through the swamps. They faced more darkspawn, more wolves, and a local legend that turned out to be... not quite as described. All fell before the group of would-be Wardens. A few wrong turns and some Chasind trail signs even lead them to a bit of decent gear, including a better bow for Shai.

Finally Alistair perked up. "That must be it!" he said, indicating a fallen tumble of stonework. "I can't imagine anything else of that description out here."

Shai looked around warily. "Why don't Alistair and I go ahead with you lot guarding our backs," she suggested. "Me to persuade any potential locks and him to read the damned things." She wasn't bitter, not at all.

The blonde pair approached the ruins cautiously, eyes out for any more darkspawn, wolves, or unruly demons. Shai spotted the chest first and knelt beside it.

"It's busted," she said.

"Well, well, what have we here? Are you a vulture , I wonder? A scavenger poking amidst a corpse whose bones have been long since cleaned? Or merely an intruder, come into these darkspawn filled wilds of mine in search of... easy prey?" A new voice, a woman's, cut into anything Alistair might have said.

Everyone spun to watch a woman saunter down an ancient slope of stone toward them. Her hair was short and dark, her eyes golden, and her skin pale.

"What say you, hmm? Scavenger or intruder?" she taunted.

Edana tried to subtly step in front of Shai with her shield. "We haven't got any intention of being either," she said. "We're here representing the Gray Wardens, who owned this tower once."

"'Tis a tower no longer," the woman said, sounding coy. "The Wilds have obviously claimed this desiccated corpse. I have watched your progress for some time. 'Where do they go?' I wondered 'Why are they here?' And now you disturb ashes no one has touched for iso/i long. Why is that?"

"Don't answer her," Alistair warned, low-voiced. "She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby."

"Oooh, you fear barbarians will swoop down upon you!" she mocked.

"Yes," Alistair said, dry as dust. "Swooping is bad."

"She's a witch of the Wilds she is!" Daveth said. "She'll turn us into toads!"

"Witch of the Wilds..." the woman mused. "Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own? You there," she said to Shai and Edana. "Women do not frighten like little boys. Tell me your names and I shall tell you mine."

Oh, Shai iliked/i her. "Magic-witch or bitch-witch?" she asked curiously, though at this stage it didn't seem to matter.

"I beg your pardon?" the woman said with what sounded like the beginnings of affront. Edana stepped forward hurriedly.

"I'm Edana, and this is Shai," she said. "I imagine the fellas here would rather not share their names, so I'll respect that. Pleasure to meet you."

"Now that is a proper civil greeting, even here in the Wilds," came the somewhat surprised reply. "You may call me Morrigan. Shall I guess your purpose?"

Edana looked at Shai with her eyebrows raised. Morrigan, hm? That could be a... portentious name.

"You sought something in that chest?" Morrigan continued. "Something that is here no longer?"

"Here no longer?" Alistair said, indignant. "You stole them, didn't you? You're... some kind of... sneaky..." he fumbled for words. "...Witch-thief!"

"How very eloquent," Morrigan said. "How does one steal from dead men?"

"Quite easily, it seems," Alistair said, regaining some of his composure, and some semblance of authority. "Those documents are Gray Warden property, and I suggest you return them."

"I will not," Morrigan said, her face twisting a bit in a sneer. "For t'was not I who removed them. Invoke a name that means nothing if you wish. I am not threatened."

"Then who removed them?" Edana asked. "You seem to know a lot about it."

"T'was my mother, in fact."

Shai eyed the crumbling remains of the chest. "Quite some time ago, then?" she asked. "Wait, your imother/i?"

"What?" The dark-haired woman raised a perfect eyebrow. "You think I was hatched from an egg?"

Shai discarded her first reply, as alienating the woman didn't seem very productive and she was just being a smart-ass anyhow. "Is your mother receiving visitors?" she asked politely instead.

"Hmm, there is a sensible request." Morrigan laughed. "I like you."

Alistair looked scandalized. "I'd be careful. First it's "I like you," then ZAP, frog time."

Daveth wasn't nearly so conservative in his fear. "She'll put us all in the pot she will. Just you wach."

"If it's warmer than this forest, it'll be a nice change." Ah, Jory, either practical or dumb as an ox. Shai couldn't decide.

Morrigan blew her bangs out of her face. "Follow me, then, if it pleases you." She turned away, headed toward the woods.